An Avot baraita for Shabbat (Parashat Balak)
Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek
of the week, we return to Perek 6.
Readers of a certain age may recall a soul number popularised in the late 1960s by Diana Ross and the Supremes, together with the Temptations. Its title was also a catchy refrain, “I’m gonna make you love me”. While the precise means by which this objective might be achieved lie somewhere beyond the parameters of discussion on Avot Today, the need to be loved occupies an important position in Pirkei Avot.
The first Baraita in Perek 6 opens with the words
כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה לִשְׁמָהּ זוֹכֶה לִדְבָרִים
הַרְבֵּה, וְלֹא עוֹד, אֶלָּא שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ כְּדַאי הוּא לוֹ. נִקְרָא
רֵֽעַ, אָהוּב,
Whoever studies Torah for its own
sake merits many things; not only that, but the entire world is worthwhile for
him. He is called “friend”, “beloved”...
Avot 6:6 goes even further, listing being loved as one of
the 48 things through which a person acquires Torah.
There’s an obvious problem here. While we can love
others—whether they love us back or not—there is no mechanism that can be
guaranteed to trigger love for us in someone else’s heart. Love is an emotion;
it is not subject to rational analysis. How often do we see the heartbreak of
lovely souls whose love for another is not reciprocated. So how do we
understand these baraitot?
Rabbis Nachman and Natan of Breslov suggest that ahuv
here means “loved by oneself”. Strange as this may seem, there is good reason
to adopt this view. We are commanded to love others as we love ourselves—and
until we love ourselves properly we cannot demonstrate the right level of love
for others. However, this still requires us to explain what connection, if any,
exists between self-love and (i) learning Torah for its own sake and (ii) the
acquisition of Torah per se. Stretching the word ahuv well beyond its
normal meaning, R’ Mordechai Frankel-Te’omim (Be’er HaAvot) suggests
that it embraces all types of love that a person has for mitzvot between
him and God and other people: someone who lacks this quality is by definition
lacking in the degree of interest and commitment one needs in one’s learning in
order to make it effective. Ultimately, though, it seems to me that we are left
with questions we cannot convincingly answer.
Incidentally, these baraitot in Avot are not the only
occasions on which being loved is mysteriously and apparently linked with learning
Torah. Twice a day, in the paragraph that immediately precedes the recitation
of the Shema, we are required to recite a blessing that is a sort of “love
sandwich”: it opens with a declaration that we are loved by God and closes with
a declaration that we are loved by God. The “filling” in the sandwich is a
prayer that God in His mercy should help us to learn His Torah. This invites us
to speculate as to why our desire to learn Torah, with God’s assistance if and
when it is available, should come wrapped in His love for us. R’ Chaim
Friedlander (Siftei Chaim, Rinat Chaim: Bi’urei Tefillah) offers a
possible explanation: the greatest act of love that God has shown to us is His
gift to us of the Torah: we should seek to reciprocate this demonstration of love
by loving Him in return, as the first paragraph of the Shema requires of us.
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