Flesh, worms and fashion

In Avot 2:8 Hillel lists five excesses in human appetite that lead to adverse consequences. The list opens with the following words:

מַרְבֶּה בָשָׂר מַרְבֶּה רִמָּה

The more the flesh, the more the worms.

The natural implication here is that gluttonous gourmandising is a bad thing. Eat too much and you become obese. In doing so, you are simply providing more nutrition for the worms who will consume your corpulent vastness when you die.

At one level this teaching seems obvious and needs no explanation. Neither of the two compendiums of largely Chasidic commentaries, the popular Hebrew collection in Mima’ayanei Netzach, and R’ Tal Moshe Zwecker’s English-language Ma’asei Avos, offers even a single word on it; nor do the Rambam,  the Sefat Emet, R’ Chaim Volozhiner (Ruach Chaim) or R’ Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos). Those commentators who do discuss it usually content themselves with homilies about the dangers of obesity and self-indulgence or with speculation as to whether the dead feel pain when their earthly remains are consumed by worms.

Is there any more to this teaching? Apparently so, in the view of R’ Shlomo Toperoff (Lev Avot). After stating that we eat too much food and that dieting has been prescribed by many doctors, Rabbi Toperoff surprisingly adds:

“Some connect ‘more flesh’ with immodesty in dress”.

This comment is all the more surprising when one considers that Rabbi Toperoff was writing back in the 1980s, when fat-shaming was normal practice and women who were overweight were more likely to be embarrassed and therefore avoid wearing clothes that would expose or draw attention to their figure.

I have yet to discover who the “some” are, even with the assistance of the internet, and I wonder whether this explanation was just Rabbi Toperoff’s way of taking a dig at women who wear scanty clothing—an issue which is not raised explicitly anywhere else in Avot. It may be that this mishnah has been cited to that end in writings on the subject of tzni’ut, modesty in one’s manner, speech and attire. I do not however recall any citation of it in Bracha Poliakoff and R’ Anthony Manning’s Reclaiming Dignity, the largest and most compendious text on the subject in recent times.

Can Hillel’s words be taken to include immodest exposure of the flesh—or, more strictly, of the skin that covers it? Not according to R’ Asher Weiss (Rav Asher Weiss on Avos) and the many others who learn this mishnah as warning against the pursuit of worldly pleasures: exposure in this context is often if not mainly for the purpose of giving pleasure to others and, in doing so, in order to attract their attention. The same cannot be said for over-eating, the pursuit of wealth or the amassing of a large household of wives and servants of each gender—the other excesses Hillel lists in this mishnah.

Thoughts, anyone?

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"Peace": it all depends what you mean

The midrashic propensity of Aaron to make peace—and to pursue it even at the expense of literal truth—is well recorded in commentaries on Avot and has been frequently discussed in Avot Today. The commentaries attach themselves to Hillel’s teaching at Avot 1:12:

הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה

Be among the disciples of Aaron—love peace, pursue peace, love creatures and draw them close to Torah.

But here’s a story that, while cited in support of this great man’s pursuit of peace, may not strike the right note to modern eyes. I found this passage in When a Jew seeks wisdom: The Sayings of the Fathers, by Seymour Rossel:

“If Aaron learned that a husband and his wife were about to divorce, he would hurry to the husband and say ‘I come because I hear that you and your wife are not getting along, and that you wish to divorce. But think of this: if you should divorce your present wife and marry another, you cannot be sure that your marriage would be better. For at the first quarrel that you have with your second wife, she will remind you that you are quarrelsome and no good, otherwise your first marriage would not have ended in divorce. Let me be a pledge that you and your present wife can be happy if you will both try”.

The source given for this is given as “Legends 3:329”, but the book gives no clue as to which legends these are, and I certainly don’t know. There is however a highly similar passage in one of the minor tractates of the Talmud Bavli, Kallah Rabbati 3, that reads (in translation) like this:

When [Aaron] heard of a husband and wife who had quarrelled, he would go to the husband and say to him, ‘[I have come] because I heard that you have quarrelled with your wife; if you should divorce her it is doubtful whether you will find another like her or not; and further, should you find another and quarrel with her, the first thing she will say to you will be, “You must have behaved in a like manner towards your first wife” ’. In consequence of this all Israel, men and women, loved him.

Unlike the other Aaron-the-peacemaker tales, where the great man shuttles between hostile parties and reconciles them, in these passages we see him take a very one-sided view of the husband’s marital relationship. We have no idea of how the wife views the husband. Perhaps the feeling that the marriage should end is mutual, but Aaron does not ask about this possibility. More to the point, the extent to which Aaron’s intervention establishes peace in a meaningful manner is unclear. It seems that he is not so much mending bridges and bringing peace; rather, he is urging one party to a suboptimal relationship to remain within that relationship because there is a possibility that his second marriage might be equally suboptimal or even more so.

Finally, if was ever the case in bygone times that a man would be happy with his wife because another person had made a pledge to that effect, as the first version of this story states, my personal assessment of human nature in contemporary society suggests that it is not the case now. So, I believe, we are entitled to ask whether, in these stories, Aaron is really pursuing peace—or is he kicking a personal problem down the road, or maybe asking the parties to an unhappy relationship to pretend that their problems don't exist?

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Repent through love -- or love to repent?

Teshuvah—repentance—is a core objective of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and of Pirkei Avot itself, where the concept is mentioned on several occasions. We are told, for example, to repent one day before we die, in other words daily (Avot 2:15); we see the value of repentance as a means of warding off divine retribution (Avot 4:13) and of spending our time on Earth before we pass on to another world (Avot 4:22). We even discover that the avenue of repentance may be barred to us if we have led others astray (Avot 5:21).

Curiously, while the mishnayot promote the importance of teshuvah, they do not discuss what sort of repentance they have in mind.

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, one of the great Amoraim of the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 86b), identifies two types of repentance: teshuvah me’yirah (repentance based on fear) and teshuvah me’ahavah (repentance based on love). The passage reads like this:

אָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ: גְּדוֹלָה תְּשׁוּבָה שֶׁזְּדוֹנוֹת נַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ כִּשְׁגָגוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֹנֶךָ״, הָא ״עָוֹן״ — מֵזִיד הוּא, וְקָא קָרֵי לֵיהּ מִכְשׁוֹל. אִינִי?! וְהָאָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ: גְּדוֹלָה תְּשׁוּבָה שֶׁזְּדוֹנוֹת נַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ כִּזְכִיּוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּבְשׁוּב רָשָׁע מֵרִשְׁעָתוֹ וְעָשָׂה מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה עֲלֵיהֶם (חָיֹה) יִחְיֶה״! לָא קַשְׁיָא: כָּאן מֵאַהֲבָה, כָּאן מִיִּרְאָה.

Resh Lakish said: “Great is repentance since, on account of it, deliberate sins are accounted as inadvertent ones, as it is said: ‘Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity’”.  ‘Iniquity’ is deliberate, and yet the text calls it ‘stumbling’—but that is not so! For Resh Lakish said that repentance is so great that deliberate sins are accounted as though they were merits, as it is said: ‘And when the wicked person turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live on account of it’. That is no contradiction: one verse refers to a case [of repentance] derived from love, the other to one due to fear.

The mishnayot in Pirkei Avot do not overtly distinguish between these two species of repentance. However, repentance the day before one dies sounds like a fear-response: if you don’t do it now, tomorrow may be too late and you will have to face the eternal and negative consequences of not having done so. Repentance in order to ward off retribution is likewise fear-related. But what of the other two teachings?

On the assumption that prefaces every public recitation of Avot, that every Jew has a share in the World to Come, repenting doesn’t appear to be a condition precedent for gaining admission to this promised world; rather, the teaching suggests that time spent in repentance and performing good deeds is time well spent in enhancing the quality of that keenly anticipated future state. Accordingly, both teshuvah through fear and teshuvah through fear would fit the bill.  The same would appear to apply to leading others astray being a bar to repentance.

Now for a word about repentance on Yom Kippur.

Any assessment of the prayers that comprise the main content of the day’s five services would likely point to Yom Kippur being a day for repentance through fear. In particular, repenting in order to avert the dread decree dominates the early part of the mussaf service—and the aggadic image of the books of life and death being open in front of God the great judge is vivid in the minds of many, if not most, of us. But does that mean there is no scope for teshuvah me’ahavah?

Many years ago I was privy to a conversation involving Dayan Gershon Lopian, who had stepped back from the role of Dayan of the Beit Din of London’s Federation of Synagogues in order to take responsibility for a relatively small orthodox but not especially religious community in North West London. Someone asked him about the ‘Al Chet’ section of the vidui, the lengthy confession that followed each of the day’s main prayers. What did he think of the fact that many of his congregants were cheerfully singing along to the ‘Al Chets’ with great gusto, even though they probably had little understanding of what it was that they were supposed to be confessing.

The Dayan responded that that the cheerful singing of these congregants was a perfect example of teshuvah me’ahavah: they were not repenting because they loved God, but because they loved the ritual and the routine of repentance—the tunes, the occasion, the intensity of the moment. And that, said the Dayan, was good enough for him.

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Free for all -- or pay per bottom?

For the past six weeks I have been struggling to get to grips with my latest challenge. Through no fault on my part I find that I am now President of Beit Knesset Hanassi, a largely Anglo synagogue in Jerusalem’s lovely Rechavia.  One of my first tasks is that of serving as liaison officer, as it were, between our shul and our local Chabad chasidim.

Why, you may wonder, is there any need for liaison? The answer is this: during the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when attendance for prayer runs at higher-than-usual levels, Chabad set up a splendid white marquee in the parking lot adjacent to our premises. We set up a channel of communication, since careful neighbours make good neighbours and so that neighbourly issues could be speedily and amicably resolved. For example, would Chabad’s tent-dwellers need to use our already inadequate bathroom facilities, and would our late-comers be able to sneak beneath the canvas in order to catch the sounds of the shofar?

Well, I’m pleased to report that, after two days of neighbourly davening, we and they are still on cordial terms. Indeed, in theory is no reason why things should be different. We pray to the same God for much the same things. Yes, some of us do pray a little earlier in the day, some of us do so in rather louder voices and we are not entirely on the same page sartorially speaking, but essentially we have much in common and we subscribe to the same Torah.

Several people have however pointed out to me that there is a major difference—and it’s not a doctrinal one. Our shul charges everyone who prays with us on the Yamim Nara’im while Chabad, I have been given to understand, does not.  “How is it that they have free seats”, I have been asked several times, “but you don’t?”

I have thought about this question a great deal because it seems to me that Pirkei Avot points me to an answer.

There is actually no such thing as a free seat. When people chide me for charging people to pray in our shul, I should retort that when people say “free”, they mean “free for the person who sits in it” whereas in reality it is free to that person because its cost has been met by someone else. Whether the hire charge for the marquee and chairs is met by one or more charitable individuals, or by Chabad itself, someone paid. And even if all the hardware is lent, there is still a cost to the lender in terms of depreciation and a cost to the organisers in setting the marquee up in the first place: they pay for it with their effort, their energy and their emotional output.

Our synagogue covers most of its running costs through membership fees and through what is effectively a High Holy Day tax of 200 shekels per bottom per seat. Chabad covers its running costs by other means. Both we and they are conscious of the need to balance our books or, if we can’t, of the need to find a way of meeting any shortfall. We just do it differently.

In this context I am reminded of the teaching of Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:20:

הַכֹּל נָתוּן בָּעֵרָבוֹן, וּמְצוּדָה פְרוּסָה עַל כָּל הַחַיִּים, הֶחָנוּת פְּתוּחָה, וְהַחֶנְוָנִי מַקִּיף, וְהַפִּנְקָס פָּתֽוּחַ, וְהַיָּד כּוֹתֶֽבֶת, וְכָל הָרוֹצֶה לִלְווֹת יָבֹא וְיִלְוֶה, וְהַגַּבָּאִין מַחֲזִירִין תָּדִיר בְּכָל יוֹם, וְנִפְרָעִין מִן הָאָדָם מִדַּעְתּוֹ וְשֶׁלֹּא מִדַּעְתּוֹ, וְיֵשׁ לָהֶם עַל מַה שֶּׁיִּסְמֽוֹכוּ, וְהַדִּין דִּין אֱמֶת, וְהַכֹּל מְתֻקָּן לִסְעוּדָה

Everything is given on security, and a net is spread over all living things. The store is open, the storekeeper extends credit, the account-book lies open, the hand writes, and all who wish to borrow may come and borrow. The bailiffs make their rounds every day and exact payment from man, with his knowledge and without his knowledge. Their case is well founded, the judgement is a judgement of truth, and ultimately, all is prepared for the feast.

Granted, Rabbi Akiva was not thinking of tents in Rechavia—but the principle is similar. Everything gets paid for in the end, and everyone pays for what they consume. We should never allow ourselves to imagine that life is just a free ride at others’ expense.

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Spot the deliberate mistake?

Today I came across a short piece, “New Year, New Song”, 0n Jewish Link (“Linking Northern and Central NJ, Bronx, Manhattan, Westchester and CT”) by Shira Sedek. There she writes:

We make mistakes, but as it says in Pirkei Avot, a Tzadik (righteous person) falls seven times and he gets back up. We may continue to make mistakes, but are we going to think we can’t change, we aren’t worthy of getting closer to Hashem, or being forgiven? No! We all need to get back up and recognize we are human and sin, ask Hashem for forgiveness, and try our best to change.

No-one would wish to argue with the basic message, but there’s a little problem.  However carefully you read Pirkei Avot, you won’t anything in it about the righteous falling seven times. This is the territory of Proverbs (Mishlei 24:16), which reads:

כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם וּרְשָׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְרָעָה

For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again, but the wicked stumble into evil.

This left me with a conundrum. Did the author not know the source of this famous quote? Or did she deliberately mis-state her source in order to illustrate the very point she seeks to make? Since the article describes her as a “passionate educator … who loves teaching Torah and inspiring her students”, I would not be at all surprised if the reference to Avot was planted deliberately in order to provoke debate.

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Now's the time to act -- forget the fig leaf!

One of my favourite reads for the month of Elul and the onset of the New Year and Yom Kippur is Rabbi Shalom Schwadron’s Kol Dodi Dofek. It has everything a good book on a tough subject (preparing oneself to repent and be judged by God) could ask for: small pages, large print, lots of short paragraphs and a text that is written in simple straightforward Hebrew.

In this book, under the heading ‘Don’t vacillate about repenting’, Rabbi Schwadron brings a short devar Torah in the name of Reb Elya Lopian, who said it in the name of the Chafetz Chaim who cites the mishnah from Avot 2:5 where Hillel teaches:

אַל תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפְנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה, שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה

Don’t say: "When I have free time, I will study”, for perhaps you will never have any free time.

Says the Chafetz Chaim, Hillel is being kind to us when he inserts the word שֶׁמָּא (shema, “perhaps”) because the truth is that, when a person says “I’ll do it when I have the time”, he for sure isn’t going to get round to doing it. In this vein he invokes the support of Rambam (Mishneh Torah, hilchot Talmud Torah 3:7):

שֶׁמָּא תֹּאמַר עַד שֶׁאֲקַבֵּץ מָמוֹן אֶחֱזֹר וְאֶקְרָא. עַד שֶׁאֶקְנֶה מַה שֶּׁאֲנִי צָרִיךְ וְאֶפָּנֶה מֵעֲסָקַי וְאֶחֱזֹר וְאֶקְרָא. אִם תַּעֲלֶה מַחֲשָׁבָה זוֹ עַל לִבְּךָ אֵין אַתָּה זוֹכֶה לְכִתְרָהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה לְעוֹלָם. אֶלָּא עֲשֵׂה תּוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע וּמְלַאכְתְּךָ עַרְאַי (משנה אבות ב ד) "וְלֹא תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפָּנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִּפָּנֶה

Perhaps a person will say: "[I will interrupt my studies] until after I obtain funds, and then I will return and study, [I will interrupt my studies] until after I buy what I need and then, when I can divert my attention from my business, I will return and study." If you harbour such thoughts, you will never merit the crown of Torah. Rather, make your work secondary, and your Torah study a fixed matter. Do not say: "When I have free time, I will study," for perhaps you will never have free time.

The ”perhaps” in each case is not included because there is any uncertainty as to whether there will be time to study (or in our case, repent) or not. “Perhaps” is there as a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of the person who knows he is not really to do the thing in question but who is ashamed to admit it—whether to others or to himself.

The moral of the story is that we should not make our good deeds and our fulfilment of important tasks contingent on some external factor. Nor should we delay them if we can do them now.  “If not now, when?” asks Hillel (Avot 1:14). Regarding teshuvah, repentance, Rabbi Eliezer gives him an answer: “Repent one day before the day of your death” (Avot 2:15).

So let’s not delay. Repent today! And let me not delay any further in wishing all the readers of Avot Today and its contributors a ketivah vechatimah tovah: Happy New Year! May our names be inscribed and sealed in the book of life, happiness and fulfilment for the year to come—now and not at some unspecified later time!

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