The Three Pillars: a fresh perspective

Shimon HaTzaddik’s teaching at Avot 1:2 is so short and simple that it would be strange for so many explanations to exist for it—were it not that this mishnah stands proof that Avot is for all times and that each generation can extract some further level of meaning from it. The mishnah reads:

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.