One of Hillel’s more oracular pronouncements can be found in Avot 1:13, where the second of four mysterious mini-maxims reads thus:
וּדְלָא מוֹסִיף יָסֵף
One who does not increase will
diminish.
Or does it mean something quite different? The word יָסֵף, which we translate as “diminish”, is
derived from the Hebrew root סוֹף,
which also means “comes to an end”. Indeed, the Bartenura explains, some texts
of Avot have a different word completely יאסף, “he will be gathered”, a euphemism for being
reunited after death with one’s family or people. This gives us a rather
different meaning:
One who does not increase will
come to an end.
But who is the person who increases and diminishes or comes
to an end? And what is thing that shrinks or dies if it does not grow?
Later commentators offer their own variations on the
learning theme. Thus Midrash Shmuel and the Etz Yosef (R’ Chanoch
Zundel ben Yosef) tie the mishnah both to learning mitzvot and to their
physical performance. R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson sees it as a warning that a
person’s ego and pride should not prevent him from generating chiddushim,
novel Torah explanations.
Other commentators depart radically from the theme of
learning Torah. Thus in the Birchat Avot, the second of his works on
Avot, R’ Yosef Chaim (the Ben Ish Chai) goes kabbalistic: what must be added is
God’s ado-nai name to his shem havayah or a person will not be able to
gather nitzotzot kedushah (sparks of holiness).
Some modern writers taken Hillel’s words as a general and
all-embracing statement of real-world existence: like it or not, we live in a
world that is founded upon perpetual change and we cannot remain static. As R’
Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) succinctly puts it:
“As many dieters discover,
maintaining one’s ideal weight can be harder than trying to lose another pound”.
For R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) Hillel
teaches about spiritual growth: out of all God’s creations, only humans have
the capacity for spiritual growth, adding ominously:
“The identifying characteristic
of man is upward progress. If he ceases to develop himself when he is at a
primitive stage or whether he is highly sophisticated and learned, it is all
the same”.
Another rabbi with an interest in psychology and human
growth (R’ Reuven P. Bulka, Chapters of the Sages) writes:
“The human being is involved in a
never-ending becoming process. The fulfilment of today is no excuse to relax:
it is an inspiration to greater fulfilment tomorrow. The missed opportunity to
improve can never be retrieved, for the time which passes is not open to
recall. Standing still, not increasing knowledge, is thus a regression, for it
kills the present potential. In human striving there is no neutral gear. It is
either forward or reverse”.
Then there is R; Marc D. Angel (The Koren Pirkei Avot)
who writes:
“Learning is a life-long process.
If one loses intellectual curiosity, one sinks into dullness and triteness. If
one is not constantly reviewing and replenishing knowledge, one comes to forget
what one has already learned”.
These last three explanations are expressed in such wide
terms that clearly do not limit Hillel’s teaching to the specifically Jewish
context of learning Torah or halachah. I don’t know what Hillel would
have made of them, but they speak with sincerity and clarity to the needs of
those of us who are living in the twenty-first century and striving to do our
best at a time when Torah must increasingly resist being sidelined by other
commitments, opportunities and expectations.
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