A grounding in Torah

An Avot Baraita for Shabbat (Parashat Re’eh)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 6.

The Baraita at Avot 6:4 makes uncomfortable reading for those of us who appreciate a good night’s sleep tucked up in a warm and comfortable bed:

כַּךְ הִיא דַּרְכָּהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה: פַּת בְּמֶֽלַח תֹּאכֵל, וּמַֽיִם בִּמְשׂוּרָה תִּשְׁתֶּה, וְעַל הָאָֽרֶץ תִּישָׁן, וְחַיֵּי צַֽעַר תִּחְיֶה, וּבַתּוֹרָה אַתָּה עָמֵל, אִם אַתָּה עֽוֹשֶׂה כֵּן, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

This is the way of Torah: bread with salt you shall eat; water in small measure you shall drink, and on the ground you shall sleep. Live a life of hardship and in Torah shall you toil. If you do so, "you are fortunate, and it is good for you" (Tehillim 128:2): you are fortunate—in this world, and it is good for you—in the World to Come.

Why should sleeping on the ground make any difference whatsoever in terms of one’s pursuit of a Torah-based way of life? And do we humans not learn better when we have had a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed than if we spend the night writhing around on the ground in the forlorn hope of finding a position conducive to at least some sort of sleep?

Even among the Tannaim there were reservations about the wisdom of this advice. Indeed, Ben Azzai (Berachot 62b) advised that one should sleep anywhere but on the ground, though admittedly his prime concern was to avoid danger from snakes.

My preferred take on this teaching is that it focuses on a worst-case scenario. What it means is that EVEN if we live on a subsistence diet and EVEN if we have to sleep on the ground and struggle to make ends meet, so long as we can keep learning Torah and feel its buzz we will find it a rewarding and enjoyable experience. We might make a comparison with the sort of discomfort we are prepared to tolerate when undertaking a potentially lucrative business trip: fatigue, jet-lag, problems accessing kosher food—all of which we willingly accept as part and parcel of our acquisition of earthly material wealth. How much more so should we be prepared to put up with discomfort and inconvenience when passing through this temporary, ephemeral world on the way to our spiritual World to Come [based on R’ Simcha Bunim of Pesischa, in MiMa’ayanot HaNetzach].

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Why is this sponge different from all other sponges?

Pirkei Avot is a pretty serious tractate, but every so often a little gentle humour filters through. One such example is Avot 5:18, which likens aspiring Torah scholars to various utensils that are more often found in the kitchen than in the study halls:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בְּיוֹשְׁבִים לִפְנֵי חֲכָמִים: סְפוֹג, וּמַשְׁפֵּךְ, מְשַׁמֶּֽרֶת, וְנָפָה. סְפוֹג, שֶׁהוּא סוֹפֵג אֶת הַכֹּל. וּמַשְׁפֵּךְ, שֶׁמַּכְנִיס בְּזוֹ וּמוֹצִיא בְזוֹ. מְשַׁמֶּֽרֶת, שֶׁמּוֹצִיאָה אֶת הַיַּֽיִן וְקוֹלֶֽטֶת אֶת הַשְּׁמָרִים. וְנָפָה, שֶׁמּוֹצִיאָה אֶת הַקֶּֽמַח וְקוֹלֶֽטֶת אֶת הַסּֽוֹלֶת

There are four types among those who sit before the sages: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer and the sieve. The sponge absorbs everything. The funnel takes in at one end and lets it out the other. The strainer lets the wine pass through and retains the sediment. The sieve lets the coarse flour pass through and retains the fine flour.

What do the sages themselves think of this? Most agree that, while it is a very fine thing to be a sieve, there is less praise for the sponge, the funnel and the strainer. The funnel retains nothing: it represents the talmid whose learning goes “in one ear and out the other”. The strainer is even worse, retaining just the dregs of each class—the witticisms, the asides, the rabbi’s diversions—while keeping nothing of its subject matter. As for the sponge, typical of scholarship ancient and modern is this appraisal by R’ Shlomo Toperoff in his Lev Avot:

“[The sponge] is porous and easily absorbs all kinds of liquid, clean and unclean. Similarly the first type of disciple absorbs all things indiscriminately, the good and the bad; he does not distinguish between the essential and inessential”.

There is however plenty of scope for reappraisal of our four household items. Maybe they are all good, at least in potential. This seems to be the view of Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda, who in his Midrash Shmuel explains the apparently superfluous words in this mishnah as a call for all four utensils to be explained twice over, once as praise and once as criticism. We discussed his approach, which is followed by Rabbi Avraham Azulai in his Ahavah BeTa’anugim, back in 2022 (see blogpost here, Facebook post with discussion here).

Here's another account of the four kitchen items from Rabbi Chaim Palagi, in his Einei Kol Chai, which I can’t resist bringing even though we still have most of a year till we get to Pesach.

The Passover Haggadah contains a passage that resonates with every child who is old enough to stay up for the Pesach Seder service. It speaks of four children—the wise, the wicked, the simple and the child who doesn’t even know how to ask what is happening around him. Can it be that these children correspond to the four types of student in our mishnah? It is speculated that the sponge represents the simple child, in that it absorbs but does not analyse. The funnel lets everything pass through without even asking why. The strainer, which retains only that which is of no value, is the wicked son. This leaves the sieve as the chacham, the wise and discerning son. Neat, isn’t it?

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In praise of thieves and infants?

Ben Zoma controversially teaches (Avot 4:1):

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise? One who learns from every man.

“Can this be right?” Our sages and commentators on Avot have long affirmed the principle but many have questioned the practice. Is it right to learn from non-Jews, idolators, apostates, criminals, animals—or even women? The answer, essentially, is yes. Wherever something of value can be learned, we should take the opportunity to learn it. Rambam is a leading exponent of this principle, even to the extent that he refuses to comply with the requirement in Avot 6:6 of citing his sources by name. As he writes in his introduction to the Shemonah Perakim:

“It is important to know … that I did not originate the ideas expressed or the explanations offered in these chapters or in my commentary [to Pirkei Avot]; rather, they have been collected from the words of the Sages in midrashim, the Talmud, and in their other works, as well as from the words of earlier and later philosophers [Jewish and non-Jewish], and from the works of many others. Accept the truth from whoever utters it. … I will .. not say, "So-and-so said this" or "So-and-so said that" because that would be unnecessarily wordy. Furthermore, it might make a reader who does not accept the author think that what he said is harmful or has a sinister intent that he is unaware of. Therefore I decided to leave out the author's name, for my aim is to help the reader and explain what is hidden away in this tractate”.

To illustrate how widely the net of prospective and potentially objectionable sources can be spread, Reb Zusha of Anipoli is said to have taught his followers that he learned seven things from a thief and a further three from an infant—all of which being lessons that could be put into practice in the service of God.

The seven lessons learned from the thief are as follows (as listed in R’ Tal Moshe Zwicker, Ma’asei Avos: Pirkei Avos through the eyes of the Baal Shem Tov and their disciples):

·       He works at night when he can see but not be seen;

·       If he fails today, he is not discouraged and tries again tomorrow;

·       He loves his fellows and would never harm them;

·       He is willing to sacrifice and even place himself in danger for any job, large or small;

·       He will sell his wares even for a small profit so long as he covers his tracks;

·       He does not reveal his past and he does not tell what he will do in the future;

·       He loves his job and would never switch to another profession.

The three things learned from the infant run like this:

·       He is always busy and never idle for a moment;

·       If he lacks anything he asks for it, crying and begging, shedding tears;

·       If he does not lack anything, he is joyful and happy, full of glee, peace and contentment.

The lists may seem a little contrived and one is entitled to ask whether they are the result of an exercise in reverse engineering. To me as a teacher I can’t help wondering whether Reb Zusha started with the message to be learned and then cast around for a surprising source from which one might learn it. This pedagogic device, in the guise of shooting the arrow first and then painting the target around the place it reaches, is a highly successful didactic technique, as described by the R’ Yaakov Krantz, the Dubno Maggid. Reb Zusha and the Dubno Maggid were almost exact contemporaries and, while there is no record of their having met, the measure of their fame and the popularity of their stories suggests that they would quite likely have known about each other.

Having said this, I have some disquiet over the content of Reb Zusha’s thief list. Are these all things even true? And are they things that are useful in our service to God?  If it was ever true that a thief “loves his fellows and would never harm them”, I doubt that many of us would be able to extract that message from the thieves of today, and it is hard to see how the fact that a person “does not reveal his past and he does not tell what he will do in the future” aids in serving an omniscient God who exists beyond time. The infant list, though much shorter, seems far more appropriate.

I’m curious to know what readers of Avot Today think about this. Do please share your views—and do offer some original suggestions as to what we might learn from other occupations.

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Here lies the truth

There’s a Jewish catechism that runs along the following lines:

Do I have to tell the truth?

Yes.

Why do I have to tell the truth?

Because there is a Torah commandment to avoid falsehood (Shemot 23:7: “midvar sheker tirchak”).

Are we taught a reason for this?

Yes.

What is that reason?

According to the oral Torah (Avot 1:18, per Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel), truth is one of the three things that keeps the world running smoothly.

What are the other things that keep the world running smoothly?

Peace and justice.

Are truth, peace and justice equally important?

No. Peace is most important because both truth and justice must be sacrificed if peace is to prevail.

So I don’t have to tell the truth when it is conflict with peace or justice?

Yes—or is it no?

A good summary of the position can be found in Seymour Rossel’s book on Avot for children, When a Jew Seeks Wisdom: the Sayings of the Fathers:

“Sometimes, the Rabbis said, even when we think that we are right in an argument, we should give in. As long as the argument is not an important one, peace is more important than being right. And very often hatred grows because we are too stubborn. It is better for us to bend a little than to cause disunity and separation”.

This is reflected in various ways: the untruths uttered by Aharon in aggadic literature which led to the making of peace between enemies (see commentaries on Avot 1:12); permitting the telling of a lie in order to save a life, and complimenting a bride on her wedding day.

Truth also gives way to justice. How so? The procedural rules governing the hearing of a din Torah prevent a witness from giving evidence, however true it may be, in the event that he is ineligible to testify or his evidence is not corroborated by another witness.

So truth is capped by the need to make peace and by the need to demonstrate that justice is both done and seen to be done. But not everyone agrees that truth should be suppressed. There is a respectable school of opinion that maintains that every lie increases the damaging values of falsehood in the world. This position has far-reaching consequences: it means, for example, that a true narrative should not be embellished by the addition of extra material in order to enhance its educational or aesthetic value.

According to R’ David Segal (the Taz), in his commentary on the Torah (quoted in MiMa’ayonot Netzach on Avot), falsehoods should not emanate from a person’s mouth even for the sake of peace. He cites the episode in the Torah in which Yaakov leads his father Yitzchak to believe that he, Yaakov, is in fact Eisav by speaking (at Bereshit 27:19) words that were ambiguous, knowing which way Yitzchak would understand them: אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ (ani Eisav bechorecha, which can be taken as either “I am Eisav your firstborn” or “It’s me. Eisav is your firstborn”). So, says, the Taz, if you can’t tell the whole truth, speak words that can be construed as the truth.

This is a lofty and principled ideal, though it may require great presence of mind to live up to it. When an enraged axeman comes running after your friend, points ahead and asks: “did he go that way?” one’s natural instinct is to say “yes” if he didn’t or “no” if he did—and it’s not easy to buy time in which to think up an ambiguous answer that will satisfy the demands of truth while achieving the results of a falsehood. The masters—or should it be mistresses—of this art were the priestesses who ran the Delphic Oracle in Pythia and whose ambiguous responses to vital questions form a significant and highly entertaining role in Ancient Greek history and mythology.

In secular society we find an endorsement of the Taz in the notion of being “economical with the truth”, i.e. just telling as much of the truth without giving the whole picture. My favourite example, which may well be apocryphal, is the story told of King Edward VII who, when still only Prince of Wales, was presented with a crate of Welsh whisky by his loyal and admiring subjects. On sampling the beverage, His Royal Highness was unimpressed and determined not to let another drop pass his lips. However, he thanked the gift-givers and assured them of his gratitude, adding: “I shall always keep a crate of Welsh whisky in my cellar”.

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Through the eyes of a child

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Eikev)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 5.

There’s a highly problematic mishnah at Avot 5:25. Some editions omit it entirely; others place it out of its usual sequence, and there’s no consensus as to who teaches it—is it Yehudah ben Teyma or Shmuel HaKatan? Setting this matters aside, this is what it says:

בֶּן חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים לְמִקְרָא, בֶּן עֶֽשֶׂר שָׁנִים לְמִשְׁנָה, בֶּן שְׁלֹשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לְמִצְוֹת, בֶּן חֲמֵשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לִגְמָרָא, בֶּן שְׁמוֹנֶה עֶשְׂרֵה לְחֻפָּה, בֶּן עֶשְׂרִים לִרְדּוֹף, בֶּן שְׁלֹשִׁים לְכֹֽחַ, בֶּן אַרְבָּעִים לְבִינָה, בֶּן חֲמִשִּׁים לְעֵצָה, בֶּן שִׁשִּׁים לְזִקְנָה, בֶּן שִׁבְעִים לְשֵׂיבָה, בֶּן שְׁמוֹנִים לִגְבוּרָה, בֶּן תִּשְׁעִים לָשֽׁוּחַ, בֶּן מֵאָה כְּאִלּוּ מֵת וְעָבַר וּבָטֵל מִן הָעוֹלָם

Five years is the age for the study of the Written Torah; ten, for the study of Mishnah; thirteen, for being bound by mitzvot; fifteen, to learn Talmud; eighteen, for marriage; twenty, to pursue a livelihood; thirty, for strength; forty, for understanding; fifty, for giving advice; sixty, for sagacity; seventy, for elderliness; eighty, for power; ninety, for being bent over. A hundred-year-old is as one who has died and passed away and no longer counts for anything in the world.

Since the age at which to commence the various stages of a child’s education is a matter that spans both religious and secular concerns, it is unsurprising that there is a vast literature on the topic. But I’m looking at just one question: since the tractate of Avot is not a textbook on educational methodology, what is our takeaway message from a teaching which, prima facie, addresses the way we as Jews should conduct ourselves?

It is immediately apparent that there is no uniform consensus about what “Torah at five” means. Some scholars, including Rambam, the Sforno and R’ Chaim Volozhiner (Ruach Chaim), make no comment at all. Those who do comment tend to have little to say on it in terms of mussar and middot, focusing instead on issues of functional efficacy. Thus the commentary ascribed to Rashi cautions that “five” really means “five and not before” since the study of Torah weakens those who attempt it, the implication being that we should not impose upon a child a greater burden than it can handle. For Rabbenu Yonah, citing the Gemara (Rabbi Shmuel ben Shilat at Ketubot 50a), it’s the age at which a child has the necessary intellectual capacity—though for the Me’iri it’s fine to teach a child the alphabet from the age of three. 

I prefer to look at the instruction of “Written Torah at five” in quite a different way, even though I must concede that this view has neither support nor pedigree. These words are not addressed at five year-old children. Nor are they addressed specifically to their parents. They are spoken to us all. To me they say: “When you open any of the works contained in the canon of Jewish tradition—whether Torah, prophecy, psalms or anything else—look at its words afresh. Read them through the eyes of a five year-old child who has never read them before. Cast aside all your assumptions and your half-remembered opinions that linger on from your previous reading and start again from scratch. That way, having rid yourself of the baggage of your old habits of thought, you can give yourself a chance to see, through the eyes of youthful innocence, those things that were previously hidden in full sight in the too-familiar words of a text you’ve grown too comfortable with”.

Does anyone agree?

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Doubt, no doubt

Avot 5:8 which lists the ten things—or is it 13, or even 14—that God is said to have created just before the onset of the first Shabbat in history. This anonymous teaching runs as follows:

עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶֽרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵֽלּוּ הֵן: פִּי הָאָֽרֶץ, פִּי הַבְּאֵר, פִּי הָאָתוֹן, הַקֶּֽשֶׁת, וְהַמָּן, וְהַמַּטֶּה, וְהַשָּׁמִיר, הַכְּתָב, וְהַמִּכְתָּב, וְהַלֻּחוֹת. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: אַף אַף הַמַּזִּיקִין, וקִבְרוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּֽנוּ, וְאֵילוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: וְאַף צְבַת בִּצְבַת עֲשׂוּיָה

Ten things were created at twilight of Shabbat eve. These are the mouth of the earth [that swallowed Korach]; the mouth of [Miriam's] well; the mouth of [Balaam's] donkey; the rainbow; the manna; [Moses'] staff; the shamir; writing, the inscription and the tablets [of the Ten Commandments]. Some say also the mazikim [spirits of destruction] as well as the burial place of Moses and the ram of our father Abraham. And some say also tongs made with tongs.

Ostensibly Pirkei Avot is a tractate that focuses on mussar and middot—moral chastisement and the cultivation of good behavioural characteristics. So how does R’ Ovadyah Bartenura, who asserts at Avot 1:1 that this entire tractate is mussar and middot, handle our mishnah here? In short, he doesn’t address the potential mussar and middot content at all. Instead, he confines himself to discussing the items that the mishnah lists. In this, he is not alone—and he is in good company. A similar approach is taken in the commentary ascribed to Rashi. Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah and the Meiri see this teaching as reflecting upon the relationship between creation, nature and the potential for change, the Meiri adding that the first ten allude to the principles of Jewish faith. In contrast R’ Chaim Volozhin, in his mussar-rich Ruach Chaim, offers no thoughts on the topic.

Some commentators do address the mishnah’s moral content, but in markedly different ways. The Alshich (Yarim Moshe), in a lengthy analysis of all the listed items, offers no overall moral instruction but does allude to separate moral messages that can be extracted from the inclusion of some of them. R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says that the items enumerated in it “have the function of training man for his moral destiny”—but he gives no clue as to the means by which this is to be achieved. R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) goes further. All these items, he states, were created only because Adam sinned; had he not done so, they would not have been needed. If Adam had only repented before the first Shabbat, it would have been as though he had not sinned, and the mishnah shows that God waits for the last moment for us to do teshuvah. This explanation has good Chasidic pedigree: it seemingly originates in the Beit Aharon of R’ Aharon Perlow of Karlin.

R' Shlomo Toperoff makes an attempt to extract some sort of moral from this Mishnah. Focusing on the fact that the listed creations are all made at twilight at the point at which Shabbat comes in, he writes in Lev Avot:

“[Twilight] is the doubtful period which is neither day nor night. This teaches us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest. When we reach the age of reason and are assailed by doubts and vacillation, we should buttress our faith with an implicit belief in Divine Providence which manifests itself in the constant interplay of the miraculous workings of God throughout life”.

Fine words, but does this Mishnah truly “teach us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest”? I have problems with this conclusion.

First, we learn here what God did, not what we do. It is frankly inconceivable that God had any doubt when creating the listed items. An omniscient God who creates night and day and distinguishes between, and who desists from work on the seventh day, will by definition have done this work before the onset of the Shabbat without having to face the challenge of doubt which assails us humans.

Secondly, the Tannaim are notoriously sparing with their words. If the need for resolution of doubts is the point of this mishnah, why is it necessary to list so many things? A single example would suffice.

Thirdly, there is already a Mishnah in the first chapter of Avot, where Rabban Gamliel teaches (at 1:16):

הִסְתַּלֵּק מִן הַסָּפֵק

Stay away from doubt.

What purpose is served by teaching here that one should resolve doubts before Shabbat when we are already advised to avoid doubts whether we have them before Shabbat or at any other time?

Fourthly, it is possible that R’ Toperoff is referring not solely to doubts in general but also, as may be the case from his concluding comments, to doubts concerning “Divine Providence and God’s miraculous workings throughout life”, If this is so, it is hard to see how the mishnah’s choice of listed phenomena is an appropriate means of removing the doubts of anyone who harbours uncertainties about God.

Is there an ideal one-size-fits-all answer to the question “what’s the moral message of this mishnah?” Possibly not, but we should commend those rabbis who at least make the effort to find one.

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Does unconditional love even exist?

Can someone really, truly and honestly love another person unconditionally—with no ifs and buts, no fundamental assumptions, no essential ingredient that binds one’s affections? An anonymous mishnah in Avot says “yes”. At Avot 5: 19 we learn:

כָּל אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, בָּטֵל דָּבָר בְּטֵלָה אַהֲבָה, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, אֵינָהּ בְּטֵלָה לְעוֹלָם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת אַמְנוֹן וְתָמָר, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת דָּוִד וִיהוֹנָתָן

Any love that depends on something—when that thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that does not depend on anything never ceases. What is [an example of] a love that depends on something? The love of Amnon for Tamar. And one that does not depend on anything? The love of David and Jonathan.

Most commentators explain this mishnah simply enough. The Me’iri simply adds that a condition is a sibah, a cause, while R’ Chaim Volozhiner’s Ru’ach Chaim offers no comment at all. In general terms, though, Amnon’s love for Tamar is understood to be conditional upon his urge to possess her. Once he had done so, that condition had been fulfilled and, there being no further basis for it, this love turned to hatred. David and Jonathan however shared a love that did not depend on the fulfilment of any condition.

Maharam Shik challenges the very basis of this mishnah and asks: “Does not every love depend on something?” Even the love of David and Jonathan, he hypothesizes, is firmly pinned on their mutual recognition of the qualities found in the other: they were men of action and their behaviour was in keeping with principles of good conduct. Would their love have persisted, he asks, if it later transpired that either one of them turned out to be evil? Would that not automatically eliminate the basis of their love? It’s a good question.

Maharam Shik does not appear to answer this question. He does however question the validity of the concept of conditional love. He cites the Akedat Yitzchak (R’ Yitzchak Arama) as proposing that everything depends on the factor that motivates the way one acts. If a person’s actions can be attributed a cause or motivation other than love for another person, there is no love. Amnon’s apparent love for Tamar may have felt to him like love for her at the time he desired her, but what he really felt was love for his own desires. This he categorises as desire itself, and not real love. And if it is not love, then it cannot be conditional love either.  In other words, if a feeling is conditional on some external factor, it is disqualified from even being love.

Incidentally, the concept of unconditional love is not only discussed in the context of this mishnah. It is also relevant to one of the very first mishnayot in Avot where (at 1:3) Antigonus Ish Socho teaches that one should serve God like a servant who does so with no expectation of receiving anything in return. On this teaching Rabbenu Yonah observes:

“What is perfect love among people? The desire to serve a loved one only because he has always loved him, even if he knows he will receive nothing in return. It is with this sort of love that man should serve God” [translation by R’ David Sedley].

This might better be termed altruistic love and it is certainly of a high order. Members of Klal Yisrael, the Jewish people, are commanded to love one another just as they love themselves (Vayikra 19:18, וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ, “You shall love your fellow human as you love yourself”) and there is no express stipulation that this love can be made subject to conditions.

Bearing in mind Maharam Shik’s concern about whether unconditional love can exist at all, we can ask why we cite the example of David and Jonathan and not God’s love for His people. We are told that this love is eternal, as we remind ourselves every time we recite the berachah that immediately precedes recitation of the Shema. This love persists even when we disobey God’s instructions and even when He is angry with us and punishes us. But maybe the point our mishnah makes is this: God’s love is divine and we are incapable of comprehending it, never mind emulating it. Our mishnah was however given for mortals. It is in our nature to place conditions on all our relationships—some explicit and some being merely understood. We have to learn that, while we are fully capable of placing conditions on the love we have for others, and of declaring that love to be at an end if those conditions are broken, we should not do so. We should be magnanimous in our relationships and love others the way we would like them to love us.

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Idolatry and Avot: a Tisha be'Av afterthought

The emotional intensity of Tisha Be’Av makes it difficult for me to keep track of what I fondly imagine to be my normally rational thought-processes. However, the intellective functions that drive my brain’s engines keep ticking away even when I’m not conscious of them. That, I suppose, is why so many ideas come to me as afterthoughts. Here, by way of example, is something that struck me only after several days had passed since the great fast.

On Tisha Be’Av we recited a kinah, Vayekonen Yirmeyahu al Yoshiyahu, which bewails the tragic and premature loss of Josiah (Yoshiyahu), the last and possibly the most righteous “good kings” of Israel. Basing its text on the midrash of Eicha Rabbah 1:18, the kinah recounts how Josiah searched the length and breadth of the land for idols, to root them out and destroy them. In this he was so very nearly successful. But

“[A] stubborn minority persisted in the pagan beliefs that had taken such firm root over the generations. They invented an ingenious method for concealing their idols. They split their doors in two and they split their idols in two, down the middle. They attached one half of the idol to each half door in such a way that when the doors were closed the two idol halves came together to be whole, but when the doors were opened the idol was split in half and each piece was concealed inside the open door. When Yoshiyahu’s detectives came to search for idols they opened the doors and found nothing”: ArtScroll Kinot).

So what does this have to do with Pirkei Avot?

There are two mishnayot in the first perek that address the way a householder should deal with strangers.

The first is 1:4:

יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹעֶֽזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָה אוֹמֵר: יְהִי בֵיתְךָ בֵּית וַֽעַד לַחֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי מִתְאַבֵּק בַּעֲפַר רַגְלֵיהֶם, וֶהֱוֵי שׁוֹתֶה בַצָּמָא אֶת דִּבְרֵיהֶם

Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah says: Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; wrestle in the soil of their feet, and drink their words thirstily.

The second is 1:5, which opens like this:

יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹחָנָן אִישׁ יְרוּשָׁלַֽיִם אוֹמֵר: יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָּתֽוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתְךָ

Yose ben Yochanan of Jerusalem says: Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household...

Now, who were these midrashic travelling detectives that Eicha Rabbah 1:18 mentions? It’s not unreasonable to suppose that they were learned men, well versed in the distinctions between idolatry and true Torah practice. If so, they should have been invited in, so that home-owners could learn from them, as Yose ben Yo’ezer suggests. If they had been invited in, it is unimaginable that their hosts would not have closed the front doors, with the result that the detectives would have seen the idols when they turned to face the front door at their point of departure. From this we can infer that these wise men were not invited in in accordance with Yose ben Yo’ezer’s guidance.

But maybe these unsolicited callers were not sages, or didn’t look like them. Perhaps they were garbed as weary travellers, hot and thirsty as they trekked across the kingdom in search of idolators. Here Yose ben Yochanan calls for us to open our doors to all comers and to give them space. Again, it is apparent that the idolatry detectives were not being invited in since, had they been, they would have seen the double doors from the inside and would have realised what was going on.

The moral of the story is that, if you are travelling the country and calling door-to-door on home-owners in search of illicit idol worship, if you are not invited in as a guest you should begin to wonder if your would-be host has something to hide.

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Quick greet, dead heat

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Va'Etchanan)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 4.

There’s something of a conundrum at Avot 4:20, where Rabbi Matya ben Charash opens his teaching with this short piece of advice:

הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם

Be first to greet everyone.

Usually we all benefit from the fulfilment of precepts in Avot that recommend a particular course of conduct. But here we have a zero sum game. If I greet you first when we meet, you cannot greet me first, and vice versa. Does this matter? Probably not. If we look at the major commentators on Avot, we do not find anyone who raises this point.

Some commentaries suggest that the thrust of this teaching lies in its tail: that it should apply even to a non-Jew (commentary ascribed to Rashi), an idolator (Bartenura) or an enemy (R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, Midrash Shmuel). Rabbenu Yonah says that these words are mussar but does not spell out what that mussar is, unlike R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, who pointedly observes that it’s not enough to deign to return someone else’s greeting if that person should greet him first.

Rabbi Matya is actually reminding us that greeting another human being should not be a mere mechanical act or conventional social reflex. As Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) notes, when a Jew greets another person, the word used is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”). To offer another person peace is to confer a blessing. By being first to greet others we express our peaceful intent—with one major caveat. There is no magic power in the word shalom: as important as it is for us to choose the right words when we greet others, it is equally important for us to greet them with a friendly disposition (Shammai at Avot 1:15; R’ Marc D. Angel, Koren Pirkei Avot). Growling “shalom” while you scowl is unlikely to produce the requisite effect.

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Going it alone, together

“Going it Alone, Together” is a Jewish Press blogpost from May of this year by Raphael Poch, Senior PR and Marketing Manager at Aish and a freelance journalist. Though I earmarked it for discussion when it was first posted, I've have only just rediscovered it. This post takes a look at Avot 3:7, one of the less frequently discussed mishnayot in the tractate. Avot 3:7 is a teaching by Rabbi Chalafta ben Dosa that reads like this:

עֲשָׂרָה שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְעוֹסְקִין בַּתּוֹרָה, שְׁכִינָה שְׁרוּיָה בֵינֵיהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֱלֹהִים נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת אֵל. וּמִנַּֽיִן אֲפִילוּ חֲמִשָּׁה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַאֲגֻדָּתוֹ עַל אֶֽרֶץ יְסָדָהּ. וּמִנַּֽיִן אֲפִילוּ שְׁלֹשָׁה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: בְּקֶֽרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט. וּמִנַּֽיִן אֲפִילוּ שְׁנַֽיִם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אָז נִדְבְּרוּ יִרְאֵי יְיָ אִישׁ אֶל רֵעֵֽהוּ, וַיַּקְשֵׁב יְיָ וַיִּשְׁמָע. וּמִנַּֽיִן אֲפִילוּ אֶחָד, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: בְּכָל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַזְכִּיר אֶת שְׁמִי, אָבֹא אֵלֶֽיךָ וּבֵרַכְתִּֽיךָ

When ten people sit together and occupy themselves with Torah, the Divine Presence rests amongst them, as it says: "The Almighty stands in the congregation of God" (Tehillim 82:1). And from where do we know that this is also the case with five? From the verse, "He established his band on earth" (Amos 9:6). And three? From the verse, "He renders judgement in the midst of the tribunal" (Tehillim 82:1). And two? From the verse, "Then those who feared God conversed with one another, and God listened and heard" (Malachi 3:16). And from where do we know that such is the case even with a single individual? From the verse, "In every place where I have My name mentioned, I shall come to you and bless you" (Shemot 20:21).

In its simplest understanding, this mishnah offers us comforting assurance that, so long as we are focused on the study of Torah, God’s Presence is with us—even if we can’t feel it at the time. This suggests that, by learning Torah, we are bringing a little bit of Godliness down into our simple human lives. From a mussar point of view there is the additional implication that we should learn Torah in a respectful manner, in the knowledge that He is, as it were, standing by us and looking over our shoulder while we study.

In his Jewish Press blogpost Raphael Poch gives us a fresh and highly topical application of this ancient text, though it does not claim to be a literal reading of it:

“The Mishna describes how Rabbi Chalafta ben Dosa expounded several passages from Tanach to teach us how God is with us when we study the Torah or even simply call out his name. The Mishna gives biblical support/exegesis from pasukim to prove Rabbi Chalafta’s points and state that God will be with us if we call out His name in groups of 10, 5, 3, 2, and yes, even if only one person who is standing alone and doing so. The pasuk brought to support God’s being with even an individual who calls upon His name comes from … Sefer Shemot, and reads: “In any place where I cause my name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.” (Shemot 20:21)….

The context of the pasuk is about the command to build an altar, upon which sacrifices will be offered and comes directly after the Ten Commandments were given. Sacrifices are not always easy to give, but if the effort is made, and God’s name is called upon, He promises to not only answer but to bless the person who made the effort, even if they have to do it on their own. What is more telling, is that the entire pasuk is said in the singular language, using words such as Ta’aseh instead of Ta’asu, lending more strength to this concept of God standing with us when we go it alone, as long as we put in the effort.

Everyone in Israel is putting in the effort. We may not agree on the exact methodology, but we all want the same things, for the war to end in victory with the remaining hostages being returned home safely and the dismantling of Hamas and terror infrastructure in Gaza so that the people living in the region can live in peace.

Of course, there is another understanding of why the passage in Shemot was given in the singular because the Jewish people at the time were unified after receiving the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Throughout history, whenever oppressors have attacked the Jewish people, it has resulted in Jews regaining a sense of purpose, coming closer to one another, and a greater unity than was present before. The same held true after the October 7th attacks. The refrain has been repeated over and over again that ‘united we will win’. The more we fight and bicker amongst ourselves, the more we allow our enemies to break us down and have power over us. The lesson from Shemot and Pirkei Avot …was clear. We can go it alone, even if we are only one voice of reason in a world that has gone crazy. If we follow the ethics set down for us by God, declare what is correct and moral and thereby call upon God’s name, even if it is hard and we have to sacrifice things along the way, we can win. We can do that in a group with a multitude of voices, but if we do that in unison, and call out as one voice, then He will come down to us and bless us. What is greater in this world than to be blessed by God?”

While this application of Avot 3:7 is unlikely to have been within the contemplation of Rabbi Chalafta ben Dosa, its sentiments are pertinent to the situation in which we currently find ourselves in Israel and beyond—and I personally doubt that the great Tanna would have objected to them.

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Tisha be'Av 5784

This evening we mark Tisha be’Av, the date on which we remember the destruction of the First and Second Temples and mourn their loss. It is a day for feeling the pain and anguish of our ancestors and for recognising in ourselves the shortcomings in our own commitment to God and Jewish life that have ensured our failure to bring about the Temple’s restoration. It is a day of repentance, grief and contrition. We fast, we pray, we deprive ourselves of the comforts and pleasures that attend our daily life.

Pirkei Avot has no obvious point of contact with Tisha be’Av. On a day when Eicha, the Book of Lamentations, is twice recited in most synagogue services, we find reference to only one verse from that Book in Avot—and that is taken out of context. At Eicha 3:28 we read:

יֵשֵׁב בָּדָד וְיִדֹּם כִּי נָטַל עָלָיו

The Lamentations translation is:

“Let him sit in solitude and be submissive, for He [i.e. God] has laid it upon him”.

In other words, a person who has been beset by misfortune should sit as one who has been forsaken while he awaits an improvement in his condition. In contrast, the Avot ‘translation’ is taken as proof for the proposition that if even a solitary individual sits and learns, without sharing his words of Torah with anyone else, he will still be rewarded for it:

"He sits alone in meditative stillness; indeed, he receives [a reward] for it". 

On Tisha be’Av we do indeed sit by ourselves for much of the day, and most Torah learning (including Avot) is prohibited.  

It is ironical that we may not learn Avot on Tisha be’Av if we follow the extensive narrative in the Babylonian Talmud that seeks to attribute a chain of causation to the destruction of the Second Temple. In short we can deduce that, if our forefathers had taken the tractate of Avot to heart and applied it in their daily lives, the Second Temple would never have been destroyed. This narrative (Gittin 55b – 56a) opens with the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, where a guest mistakenly invited to a party was publicly humiliated (cf Avot 3:15, per Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i, on not shaming another person in public). The rabbis who were present made no apparent effort to make peace between the warring parties (Avot 1:12, per Hillel); nor did they take the initiative and intervene to calm the situation (cf Avot 2:6, also per Hillel). Had they done so, we may infer, disaster could have been averted. 

I hope and pray that this year’s Tisha be’Av solemnities will be the last, that I shall see the Temple rebuilt in my lifetime and that we, and the rest of the world, will experience the real peace that will prevail when that happens. In the meantime, I wish those readers who are marking the day in the traditional way an easy fast—and a meaningful one.

Don't despair!

With Tisha be’Av, our national day of mourning, fast approaching, it can be difficult for committed Jews to focus on the happier and more positive things in life. So here’s a post that is designed to break the unrelieved sadness that many of us are experiencing.

In the first chapter of Avot we learn three things from Nittai Ha’Arbeli:

הַרְחֵק מִשָּׁכֵן רָע, וְאַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע, וְאַל תִּתְיָאֵשׁ מִן הַפּוּרְעָנוּת

(i) Distance yourself from a bad neighbour, (ii) do not join up with a wicked person, and (iii) do not give up the expectation of retribution.

The first two teachings are easy to discuss together because they appear to be related: they share a common theme of avoiding bad company. The third, however, is generally taken to stand alone.

The need to discuss the third teaching on its own is not just a consequence of it appearing to address different subject matter. After all, it is possible to tie it in with its predecessors. It demands separate treatment because of its ambiguity. Who is being told not to abandon the belief in retribution—the bad person or his victim? And are we automatically talking here of retribution? The same word פּוּרְעָנוּת (puranut) can also mean ‘repayment’ or ‘reward’.

This being so, here’s a more upbeat message on Nittai’s teaching. The source is Rabbi Norman Lamm’s Foundations of Faith, a 2021 publication on the late Yeshiva University President’s thoughts on Avot, edited by his son-in-law Rabbi Mark Dratch. He writes that not despairing of punishment can be interpreted in two different ways:

“One is, that when things are going well, when good fortune smiles upon you and you bask in affluence and good health, do not imagine that it will always remain thus. Do not distract yourself from the underlying misery and sadness and insecurity of life Do not ‘give up’ on the possibility that adversity may strike, cruelly and suddenly. But there is another way to interpret the same Mishnah: never despair because of adversity! When misfortune strikes, when life seems to crowd you in, when you are caught in narrow straits, when the sun has set and life seems to have darkened—nevertheless, do not give up, do not yield to despair, do not imagine that help will never come!”

[After citing, the Tzava’at HaRivash on Tehillim 16:8 R’ Lamm continues]

That is why we break a glass at a wedding, the time of supreme joy, in memory of the destruction of the Temple. And that is why on Tisha B’Av, the day of national calamity, we do not say the tachanun prayer, because this very day is called mo’ed, a holiday! We introduce a note of sadness during the wedding, and a note of joy during Tisha B’Av. Yet—we do weep on Tisha B’Av and we do dance at weddings! …To be sad does not mean to interpret all of existence as an unmitigated evil, and to be happy does not mean to ignore the tragic dimension of life…”

R' Lamm is not saying “cheer up, things could always be worse”. What he is saying is that the world is not comprised entirely of those things that seem to be worse and that we should acknowledge that this is so. Ideally, our Sages teach, we should be thankful for the bad as well as for the good since we have no means of discerning the objective value of anything that happens in the world God has created. For most people this is hard, if not impossible to do, but we can still do something. We can remember that good exists, whether we experience it or not, and we can be grateful for what we do have.

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Stiffening one's resolve

 An Avot mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Devarim)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we go back once again to Perek 3.

At Avot 3:17 Rabbi Akiva, having cautioned about the slippery slope leading from jest and frivolity down to sexual impropriety, promotes the efficacy of four “fences” in protecting higher values. He says:

מַסֹּֽרֶת סְיָג לַתּוֹרָה, מַעְשְׂרוֹת סְיָג לָעֹֽשֶׁר, נְדָרִים סְיָג לַפְּרִישׁוּת, סְיָג לַחָכְמָה שְׁתִיקָה

Tradition is a fence to Torah, tithing is a fence to wealth, vows are a fence for abstinence; a fence for wisdom is silence.

To the practising Jew of today’s world, the importance and practical utility of Torah, wealth and wisdom need neither explanation or justification. But what do we make of vows and abstinence? These are not part of our daily vocabulary. We no longer make the sort of vows that feature in the Torah, and abstinence is an unfashionable concept in any open society where self-indulgence, and indeed overindulgence, have become the norm. But if a teaching from Avot does not offer us an immediately relevant meaning, we do not jettison it or consign it to the museum of religious curiosities. We must look more closely at it and understand it more fully.

All of us make resolutions from time to time. These are not formal vows or oaths made in God’s name, and they usually relate to things that are either unregulated by the Torah or which are so prevalent that it is hard to avoid them. Typical examples might be resolving to limit one’s intake of alcohol at meals or parties, not to eat a second piece of cake at the shul’s kiddush, to get to bed by midnight or to try to avoid speaking about one’s friends behind their backs. If we mean these resolutions and take them seriously, we feel annoyed with ourselves if we break them—but it doesn’t cost us anything if we do and we do not incur any liability for which we would be obliged to offer a Temple sacrifice, a major deterrent to breaking one’s vows.

R' Yisroel Miller cites an idea expressed by R’ Yehoshua Heller in his Divrei Yehoshua that offers a simple way to apply our mishnah in the context of our own lives. He writes:

“Rather than vowing to keep to your resolution, vow that each time you break it you will give a certain amount of money to tzedakah (enough to hurt, but not enough to bankrupt you). A modified version of this is not to make an actual vow but merely a commitment to give the money each time you break your resolution. This sensitizes us and heightens our awareness of our actions, reinforcing our resolve”.

This creates a sort of win-win situation. If we keep our resolutions, we have money in our pockets and the satisfaction of demonstrating that we are strong because our self-discipline is in working order (see Avot 4:1). But if we fail, we are credited with the mitzvah of tzedakah and one or more charitable causes will be fortunate to benefit from it.

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A mishnah for victory, a mishnah for defeat

Big thank-yous to the ever-vigilant Claude Tusk, hotly pursued by Avi Metcalfe, for drawing our attention to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s latest citation of Pirkei Avot. Yesterday, following his failure to secure the slot of Kamala Harris’s running-mate for the US Presidency, he is reported as saying:

“Since I first ran for State Representative 20 years ago, I’ve been called to serve because I want to leave our community, our Commonwealth, and our country better off for our children—and because my faith teaches me that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it”.

This a reference to Rabbi Tarfon’s famous quote, “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it” (Avot 2:21). Ben Sales, writing for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explains that this apothegm is

“…generally taken as a reassurance to those facing monumental or seemingly unreachable goals. It has become a mainstay of Jewish activist circles across the political spectrum”.

Indeed, as Avot Today has previously noted, it seems to be quoted more frequently by politicians and public figures than by rabbis.

A week,observed one-time British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, is a long time in politics. Readers with long memories may recall, however, that Josh Shapiro cited the same mishnah from Avot nearly two years ago, on the occasion of his gubernatorial victory over Doug Mastriano (see Avot Today, here).

Avot Today is of course delighted at Governor Shapiro’s enthusiasm for this fascinating tractate—and we look forward to more of the same—but somehow we doubt that we shall hear him quoting two other great teachers from Avot. One is Shemaya (“Don’t make yourself known to the government”: Avot 1:10). The other is Rabban Gamliel ben Rebbi (“Beware of rulers, for they befriend a person only for their benefit; they act friendly when it befits them, but they do not stand by someone in their time of need”: Avot 2:3).

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"Please don't let me be misunderstood"

“Oh, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood”.

Readers of this post with an interest in music may recognise these words as the chorus of a much-recorded 1964 song, ‘Please don’t let me be misunderstood’. As humans who communicate with one another through actions and words, there are two prime means of failing to understand others. One is through our actions; the other is by our speech.

Avot encourages us to judge others favourably (Avot 1:6), but this is not a foolproof way of avoiding misunderstanding. In effect, it demands of us that we impose a favourable construction on what we see or hear—but it only comes into play once we regard what we see or hear as wrongful, unethical or illegal conduct. It is also hard to do in many situations, for example where a physician prescribes the wrong dosage of a medication on the basis of an inadequate understanding of the condition he is treating.

The ideal resolution of misunderstandings is for everyone to speak and write with perfect clarity and to act in a manner that is entirely unambiguous. This isn’t going to happen, particularly at a time when time is precious, soundbites are king and patience is short. We also live in an era in which we are apt to neglect the art of attentive listening and accurate reading.

Be that as it may, we can all do better if we try.  And try we should, because the stake are high and the cost of failure in the joined-up age of the social media can be devastating. This is the point made by Rabbi Elchanan Poupko in a recent Times of Israel blogpost (“Pirkei Avot: Words Tested by Time”, here) There he quotes the warning given by Avtalyon that opens Avot 1:11: “Sages, be careful with your words”. Avtalyon continues by dramatically depicting a scenario in which words erroneously spoken by a person with influence are picked up by followers who take them to heart, with potentially fatal consequences.

R; Poupko develops this theme and takes it further:

“… Even when saying the right thing, someone in a position of authority must be extra careful about what will be done with those words. True, you can always clarify and answer questions about what it is that you meant when you are at the place where you are making your statements, but you may not always be there. You will not always be able to clarify your words. If this was something we needed to elaborate on decades and centuries ago, the advances of the internet and social media make it clearer than ever. Statements that are made as part of a conversation and developing a thought can be screenshotted and immortalized into iron-clad statements.

What is said to one group with a certain sensitivity and understanding can then be lifted and posted to another group that will not share the same understanding. What is said privately to one person who needs to hear one thing can be easily made public to others, and the most intimate of exchanges are just a screenshot away from potentially being presented to billions of people who will use it against a person who innocently wrote it for an audience of one. This is why sages, rabbis, and people in public positions must be extra careful about what they say. Even if something is right, true, and appropriate for one audience, the speaker must consider the possibility that they will one day not be there to explain the words that were spoken and now might be misunderstood and misused”.  

It’s hard even for the most literate among us to escape having our words misconstrued, since their comprehension depends on how others read or hear them. But we can still make the effort. Avtalyon’s advice is none the less correct on account of the challenge we face in following it

Many of us will have little difficulty in recalling politicians, teachers, entertainers, sports personalities and family members whose words have been either inaccurately quoted or accurately quoted out of context, to devastating effect. Each time this happens, there is a personal misfortune or even tragedy at the end of it. Before we too play our part in this cycle of misunderstanding we should ask ourselves: is this what God wants of us? And are we being the sort of person we really want to be?

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Now I know the answer

Regular readers of Avot Today will recall that I have written many times on the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus at Avot 2:15:

שׁוּב יוֹם אֶחָד לִפְנֵי מִיתָתָךְ

Repent one day before your death.

For the benefit of newcomers to this Group, or to Pirkei Avot itself, the point is that, since we don’t know the date of our death, we should make a point of repenting on a daily basis since tomorrow we might die.

I write these words in my apartment in Jerusalem where, like so many other residents of Israel, I am keeping an ear out for the sound of the sirens that will herald an expected, indeed promised, attack from Iran. If I am fortunate, I will run for the relative safety of the bomb shelter that services our building, and will later emerge alive. If I am not so fortunate—and we fear that there will be many fatalities when the rockets fall—then this will be my final post.

Today is not the easiest of days for repentance.  In the Hebrew calendar it is Rosh Chodesh Av—the first day of the new month and a day on which we allow ourselves a modicum of rejoicing, reciting the happy psalms of praise that make up Hallel in place of the usual pleas for forgiveness we know as Tachanun. But repentance is still perfectly possible even on days when Tachanun is not recited, and every day offers a chance to be at peace, or to make peace, with not just God but with those around us.

I have sometimes asked other people what they would do if they knew they would die the next day, and their answers were not always uplifting (see “A sad reflection on human nature”, here). But at least today I know how I would choose to spend my last day: I’m spending it the same way as I spend every other weekday. A bit of prayer, a bit of Torah learning, a bit of socialising with family and friends, a bit of writing—and a very great deal of being grateful for the fact these things are available to me.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

For some positive suggestions on this topic, see “What to do the day before you die”, here.

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If Plan A fails, there's always an alternative

The concept of a back-up plan is commonplace in modern culture—but did our ancient Sages understand it too? There is some evidence that they did. In Parashat Vayishlach (Bereishit 32:9, per Rashi) we learn how Jacob devised a threefold plan to counter the imminent threat of conflict with his alienated twin Esau: if gifts didn’t buy Esau’s favour and prayer didn’t secure Jacob’s safety, Plan C was to prepare for battle.

A recent post (“Mishnah, motive and mind-games: can you make the right decision?”, here) discusses the teaching of Akavyia ben Mahalalel at Avot 3:1:

עֲקַבְיָא בֶּן מַהֲלַלְאֵל אוֹמֵר: הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה. דַּע מֵאַֽיִן בָּֽאתָ, וּלְאָן אַתָּה הוֹלֵךְ, וְלִפְנֵי מִי אַתָּה עָתִיד לִתֵּן דִּין וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן. מֵאַֽיִן בָּֽאתָ: מִטִּפָּה סְרוּחָה. וּלְאָן אַתָּה הוֹלֵךְ: לִמְקוֹם עָפָר רִמָּה וְתוֹלֵעָה. וְלִפְנֵי מִי אַתָּה עָתִיד לִתֵּן דִּין וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן: לִפְנֵי מֶֽלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הו

Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of transgression. Know where you came from, where you are going, and before whom you will give an account of yourself. Where did you come from? A putrid drop. Where are you going? To a place of dust, worms and [other] worms. And before whom will you give an account of yourself? Before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

This is the second Mishnah in Avot to open with the words: “Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the hands of transgression”. We find them in the opening Mishnah to the second perek where Rebbi teaches:

הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַֽעְלָה מִמָּךְ, עַֽיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹֽזֶן שׁוֹמַֽעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּסֵֽפֶר נִכְתָּבִים

Reflect upon three things, and you will not come to the hands of transgression: Know what is above you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.

Many commentators have asked why Rebbi, who redacted the tractate, felt it necessary to include both his prescription for sin avoidance and that of his distinguished precursor, and there are many answers. I’ve just come across a fresh one, thanks to Rabbi Asher Weiss’s recently published two-volume set, Rav Asher Weiss on Avos. There he writes:

“It would seem that the method of Akavya ben Mahalalel does not apply at all times; it is only to be employed when a person’s yetzer hara seeks to overcome him. It is not recommended that a person constantly consider where he came from and where he is heading. Doing so will likely lead him to sadness. It is, moreover, only effective for a short period, while thinking about it constantly is likely to make it less effective. He should instead use this method only when his yetzer hara is about to overcome him and he cannot otherwise prevail against it.

By contrast, Rebbi’s advice offers a pathway upon which a person should treat constantly. He should remember that there is a ‘watchful eye, an attentive ear, and all your deeds are recorded in a book’—Hashem looks into his heart and soul at every moment…”

In other words, we are instructed to try Rebbi’s approach first. That’s Plan A and it’s for everyone. Plan B, Akavya ben Mahalalel’s prescription, is only applicable where the yetzer hara is particularly stubborn.

Pirkei Avot being full of mussar, it is unsurprising that it offers not only a Plan C but a Plan D, though they are not expressed in precisely the same terms. Plan C is to learn Torah for its own sake, which distances a person from sin (Avot 6:1, per Rabbi Meir). Then if that doesn’t work, Plan D is to carry on learning Torah but get stuck into one’s day job too. This should have the effect of making oneself so heavily engaged in one’s studies and discharging one’s work and family obligations that all thought of sinning is forgotten (Avot 2:2, per Rebbi’s son Rabban Gamliel).

Well, readers, which do YOU find the most efficacious—and why?

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