Sunday, 19 May 2024

No flour, no Torah

R’ Elazar ben Azariah is known to most Jews who have attended a few Pesach sedarim as the rabbi whose beard turned white overnight to make him look older, and therefore wiser, than his youthful age suggested. Probably less well known is the pleasingly symmetrical Mishnah he teaches at Avot 3:17:

אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה אֵין דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, אִם אֵין דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ אֵין תּוֹרָה, אִם אֵין חָכְמָה אֵין יִרְאָה, אִם אֵין יִרְאָה אֵין חָכְמָה, אִם אֵין דַּֽעַת אֵין בִּינָה, אִם אֵין בִּינָה אֵין דַּֽעַת, אִם אֵין קֶֽמַח אֵין תּוֹרָה, אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה אֵין קֶֽמַח

If there is no Torah, there is no derech eretz; if there is no derech eretz, there is no Torah. If there is no wisdom, there is no fear [of God]; if there is no fear [of God], there is no wisdom. If there is no knowledge, there is no understanding; if there is no understanding, there is no knowledge. If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour.

This note leaves the term derech eretz untranslated. While in this context it quite likely means “good behaviour”, it does have other meanings and, in any event, we are not focusing on it here. Instead, we examine the fourth part of the Mishnah: if there is no flour, there is no Torah—and vice versa. Why does R’ Elazar say this? What is this all about?

The obvious meaning is that “flour” is a metonymy: it is simply shorthand for “food” or “money”, this being the means of acquiring food. A Torah scholar who lacks food will not learn but starve (Bartenura, commentary ascribed to Rashi). But why should the absence of Torah entail an absence of food? After all, most of the world consists of people who do not learn Torah but for whom food is at least theoretically available.

R’ Baruch HaLevi Epstein (Baruch She’emar) scorns the “going hungry” explanation as teaching nothing we do not already know. Instead, he hypothesises that “Torah” is the basic material that one must learn, while “flour” is the refined product derived by analysing and developing it. If there is no Torah, there is nothing to refine and develop—and if there is to be no further development in our understanding, there is no great meaning in a Torah that is only taken at face value.

Other answers have been offered. One is that food only exists in the merit of Torah study: if Torah study is reduced, its influence diminishes too, and it is in the merit of this influence that our food is provided (Alshich); accordingly we should provide the poor Torah scholar with food, or we will find that, since he has not the wherewithal to learn Torah, ultimately even the wealthy will be without food (R’ Yechezkel Landau, the Noda BeYehudah). If people do not study Torah, they may as well be dead (Bartenura). And if people do not trouble themselves to learn Torah—an activity that distinguishes man from beast—they are no better than animals and do not deserve flour, or indeed any other food (see discussions in R’ Yisrael Meir Lau, Yachel Yisrael and R’ Yisroel Miller, The Wisdom of Avos).

One of the shortest and neatest explanations is that of the Kli Yakar, R’ Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz (Al 13 Middot, 3, Miketz), followed by Gila Ross (Living Beautifully): “flour” and “Torah” are, respectively, “body” and “soul”. The human condition requires each to be responsible for the wellbeing of the other. Is this what R’ Elazar ben Azariah means? I don’t know, but it does seem to me that, if the first three pairs of concepts in this mishnah can also be explained in comparably simple terms, this explanation will fit in well.

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As an aside, I don’t usually go for cute explanations of mishnayot that are based on mnemonics such as roshei tevot (acronyms). That doesn’t mean I disapprove of them; rather, much as I enjoy them, I often don’t feel that they convey a message with any particular relevance to the modern student of Avot.

Here’s one that tickled my interest, though. The Ketav Sofer points out that there are three periods when a Torah scholar must eat: on Shabbat and on the Festivals he is obliged not only to eat but to do so with simchah (happiness) and oneg (enjoyment), and on days that are neither Shabbat nor Yomim Tovim he is obliged to eat in order to survive and carry on learning Torah. The Hebrew word for flour, קמח (kemach), alludes to this. The ק is for Shabbat kodesh, the מ is for mo’ed (festival) and the ח is for chol—the regular days of the year.

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