עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד: עַל הַתּוֹרָה,
וְעַל הָעֲבוֹדָה, וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים
The world stands on three things: the Torah,
the service [of God], and acts of kindness.
This post
does not propose to review all the existing explanations or to discuss the surprising
variety that Torah, service and acts of kindness are intended to mean or symbolize.
All it seeks to do is to comment on a very recent one, a response to the
unfolding of events in Israel and on her borders in the wake of the war that
broke out on 7 October 2023.
One of the most popular explanations of this mishnah is that of the Maharal (Derech Chaim), that the three things the world stands on represent the three relationships a person must cultivate in this world: a relationship to oneself (Torah), God (service) and other people (acts of kindness). The following concentrates on just one of those things.
In “Answering
the call to serve” (Torah-To-Go, January 2024/Shevat 5784), R’ Meir Goldwicht
writes:
Our nation finds itself in a period of “miluim”.
Miluim in modern Hebrew means reserve duty (especially in a military
context). In lashon hakodesh, it has a different meaning. We use miluim
(from the word malei, to fill) to refer to situations where one person fulfills
the needs of another, and in doing so, the giver’s needs are fulfilled more
than the recipient’s.
The mishnah
of Shimon HaTzaddik is offered as an example. How does this work?
Torah: Anyone who progresses in Torah
learning does so through the benefits received from Torah influencers, teachers
and chavrutot (learning partners). This in turn enables such a person to
benefit others in the same manner—and those who have benefited with benefit
their benefactor in return.
Service: Following the destruction of the
Second Temple and the cessation of Temple services, the Hebrew word avodah, “service”,
has been firmly linked to the concept of “service of the heart”, in other words
prayer. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Kama 92a) teaches that, where one prays for
one’s friend who has the same needs, the person praying will be answered first.
Acts of
kindness: It is
axiomatic that, by furnishing charity to others, we can actually become wealthy
as a result (Taanit 9a). On this basis the desire to fulfill someone else’s
needs will eventually benefit the giver.
This idea of reciprocity—helping others learn in order to learn from them, praying for others and benefiting from one’s prayers for them, and also reaping the material rewards of assisting others materially—is not inherent in the words of Shimon HaTzaddik who, living in Temple times, would surely have the (non-reciprocal) notion of Temple sacrifices foremost in his mind when delivering this teaching. Nor, so far as I am aware, is this notion found in the words of any earlier commentator on Avot. Nonetheless, it fits the bill here and shows how the words of Avot have yet to reach the stage at which we cannot derive new messages from them. What’s more, it makes all three pillars relevant to human-on-human interaction, which is very much the ethos of Avot.
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