Not such a saint

We are only human and, try as we will to be clinically objective in our analysis of mishnayot in Avot, our opinions, biases, preferences and prejudices inevitably leak out.

At Avot 5:17 an anonymous mishnah teaches:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בְּהוֹלְכֵי בֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ: הוֹלֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה, שְׂכַר הֲלִיכָה בְּיָדוֹ. עוֹשֶׂה וְאֵינוֹ הוֹלֵךְ, שְׂכַר מַעֲשֶׂה בְּיָדוֹ. הוֹלֵךְ וְעוֹשֶׂה, חָסִיד. לֹא הוֹלֵךְ וְלֹא עוֹשֶׂה, רָשָׁע

There are four types among those who attend the study hall. One who goes but does nothing—he has gained the rewards of going. One who does [study] but does not go to the study hall—he has gained the rewards of doing. One who goes and does, he is a chasid. One who neither goes nor does, he is wicked.

It is difficult to retain the flavour of the Mishnaic-era term chasid when translating it into modern English. “One who is pious” is clumsy and misses the mark because words like “pious” and “piety” have attracted in today’s English an aura of sanctimony rather than sincerity.  Left untranslated, the word chasid conjures up images of ultra-religious followers of a rebbe, garbed in black hats and long black coats and sporting sidelocks and beards.

Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) designates the chasid as a saint. In doing so he has a precedent from the world of philosemitic scholarship: the Reverend Travers Herford employs it in his The Ethics of the Talmud.

The word ‘saint’ carries baggage: it may be deployed as a term of approbation of someone’s righteous and selfless behaviour, often in the face of temptation or with the prospect of suffering an enduring loss; it is also frequently used in a highly sarcastic comment on a person’s far-from-righteous behaviour.  Rabbi Toperoff was a pulpit rabbi in a town which then had two synagogues—one frequented by serious Torah scholars, the other (the “Englische shul”, which was his) being attended by more of the town’s rank-and-file population. The Englische shul was looked down on by some of the members of the frum synagogue who would likely not wish to hear his English sermons, and maybe it was this that was his motivation for writing the following:

“Hasid, saint. The hasid is one who attends and practises. Some authorities question the advisability of referring to the Hasid as a saint: he is performing the normal duties incumbent upon every Jew. However, …[t]here are those who consider themselves intellectually and morally superior to their co-religionists and consequently refrain from mixing freely with the multitude and do not attend the Beth Hamidrash. They do not hear the sermons and lectures of the Rabbis and therefore create divisiveness. More praiseworthy and meritorious is the conduct of the scholar who, in spite of his knowledge presents himself at the House of Study and listens to the discourse of the Rabbi. Such understanding bespeaks humility and meekness, and such a person is worthy of the title Hasid, saint”.

I personally doubt that any of the people who avoided going to Rabbi Toperoff’s synagogue and hearing his sermons would have read these words, but he does raise an interesting point: is there any real value in attending a sermon when you doubt that you will learn anything new from it and are confident that time spent engaged in other forms of learning would reap a greater benefit? Gila Ross (Living Beautifully) may think so. As she observes:

“Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk points out that the very act of pulling himself out of his comfort zone and going to a place of learning is going to help that person focus on his spirituality”.

Pulling oneself out of one’s comfort zone is the key point here. The very act is itself part of an ongoing process of character development. Gila Ross does not quote Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai on this, but in the second perek of Avot we see how, not once but twice, he orders his best talmidim to leave the Beit Midrash and go out and see for themselves how people live, to enable them to learn what best to do and what best to avoid.

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