Mind what you wear!

There’s not much in Pirkei Avot about clothing. In fact, clothes don’t get a mention at all—unless you count crowns, that is. But we do learn about being clothed. In the first baraita of the sixth perek, immediately after the prolegomenon, we learn the following in the name of Rabbi Meir:

כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה לִשְׁמָהּ זוֹכֶה לִדְבָרִים הַרְבֵּה, וְלֹא עוֹד, אֶלָּא שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ כְּדַאי הוּא לוֹ. נִקְרָא רֵֽעַ, אָהוּב, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמַלְבַּשְׁתּוֹ עֲנָוָה וְיִרְאָה

Whoever studies Torah for Torah's sake merits many things; not only that, but [the creation of] the entire world is worthwhile for him alone. He is called a friend, beloved, a lover of God, a lover of humanity, a person who makes God happy, someone who makes humans happy. And the Torah enclothes him with humility and awe …

This is obviously a metaphor, since any talmid chacham who walks the streets clad in nothing but his humility and awe would soon attract quite the wrong sort of attention—but what is the significance of this metaphor?

Rabbenu Yonah surprisingly states that being wrapped in the garb of humility and awe is comparable to being immersed in water—which itself is a metaphor for water. Midrash Shmuel sticks closer to the concept of clothing when he comments that, just as chochmah, wisdom, is at the head of a person, humility is, as it were, his pair of sandals since, like humility itself, there is nothing lower.  But what does chochmah, rather than yirah, fear, have to do with this teaching? Explains Midrash Shmuel, reshit chochmah yirat Hashem (Tehillim 111:10): the first step towards wisdom is fear itself, fear of God.

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) picks up the metaphor and runs with it: humility is a garment which must be removed when necessary, since there are times when a person must show himself to be firm and decisive. Misguided humility can be destructive, and a true Torah scholar knows when to be humble and when not to be.

I can offer another plausible explanation. We recognise many people by their uniforms: the police, fire fighters, nurses, for example. On this basis we can identify them easily and feel confident that they have the skills and training that have earned them the right to wear their uniforms. So too, if we see a person who is, as it were, clothed in humility and deep respect, we are entitled to assume that the person who “wears” these characteristics actually possesses them. If not, then the clothes are a deceit, a false description of the person beneath them.

Is there any support for this? Possibly. The Chasid Yavetz utilises much the same idea, pointing out that a true tzaddik does not alternate between righteousness and unrighteousness but “wears” his finer qualities all the time (we might add, “like a uniform”). The garments of humility and awe are not undergarments, says the Chasid Yavetz: they are the visible over-garments that advertise a person’s true nature and qualities.

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Beware of the government -- or Beware, government?

If we were editing the mishnah in place of Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah NaNasi), would we have made the same decisions as to what to include and what to leave out? Though this is an entirely academic question, there is a point to it.  Following the well-established methodology of the Tannaic sages, Rebbi was careful to minimise the use of words but to demand in turn that each word and each teaching was given its fullest meaning. No word spoken by a Tanna could be presumed superfluous, and no teaching should be deemed redundant on account of its apparent duplication of another one.

Would we then have admitted the mishnah at Avot 2:3 into our canon. There, Rebbi’s son Rabban Gamliel teaches:

הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, שֶׁאֵין מְקָרְבִין לוֹ לְאָדָם אֶלָּא לְצֹֽרֶךְ עַצְמָן, נִרְאִין כְּאוֹהֲבִין בְּשַֽׁעַת הַנָּאָתָן, וְאֵין עוֹמְדִין לוֹ לְאָדָם בְּשַֽׁעַת דָּחֳקוֹ

Be careful with the government, for they befriend a person only for their own needs. They appear to be friends when it is beneficial to them, but they do not stand by a person at the time of his distress.

We might wonder if this teaching is just a verbose extravaganza, amplifying the theme of other, more succinct teachings. Shemayah (at Avot 1:10) has already taught:

אַל תִּתְוַדַּע לָרָשׁוּת

Don’t [even] make yourself known to the government.

Quite apart from that, suspicion and distrust of governments and politicians is a natural phenomenon that is almost as old as mankind itself. We might feel that, just as the common housefly needs no lessons in avoiding the hand that seeks to swat it, so too do most ordinary people instinctively shrink from embracing an institution that demands their support, expects their loyalty, taxes their income and sends them into battle.

Rabbi Yaakov Hillel suggests the importation into Rabban Gamliel’s words of an additional meaning that takes them well beyond their plain meaning while still placing them firmly within the realm of mussar.  He does this by casting the opening words, הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, as being addressed to politicians and those who wield power and authority.  This means translating them not as “Be careful with the government” but as “Be careful in government”.

What is the significance of this switch? Effectively it turns Rabban Gamliel’s mishnah into a message that goes like this: “Be careful when you are in government. This because you will be perceived as only befriending people when you need something from them. For this reason, don’t provide any basis for this perception to take root. In particular, make sure that you do stand by others at a time of their distress”.

Is this what Rabban Gamliel meant? And is this why Rebbi included this teaching in Avot? We can only guess, and the answer will most likely be “no”—but it’s a great lesson nonetheless.

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Mordechai: loved by not quite all?

The hero of Purim, Mordechai, slips quietly into the end of the long baraita at Avot 6:6 that enumerates the 48 qualities that facilitate kinyan haTorah—acquisition of Torah learning. Although in our tradition Mordechai was a Talmid Chacham of sufficient status to be counted as a member of the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (“The Men of the Great Assembly”: see Bartenura at Avot 1:1), we don’t actually learn anything from him in his cameo appearance in Avot—he appears in a proof verse that praises Esther for telling Achashverosh, in Mordechai’s name, of the regicidal plot hatched by Bigtan and Teresh (see Esther 2:22). But Mordechai has a handy didactic role in helping us understand a curious mishnah in Avot

In Avot 3:13 Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa teaches:

כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ, רֽוּחַ הַמָּקוֹם נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ. וְכֹל שֶׁאֵין רֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ, אֵין רֽוּחַ הַמָּקוֹם נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ

Everyone who is pleasing to his fellow humans is pleasing to God. But everyone who does not please his fellow men does not please God.

Rabbi Chaim Druckman (Avot leBanim) quotes the 14^th century Spanish scholar Rabbi Yosef Even Nachmias, whose explanation of this mishnah—which he heard from the mouth of Rabbi Yitzchak Melamed—has been preserved for us in Midrash Shmuel.

Rabbi Nachmias points to the famous verse in Megillat Esther (Esther 10:3) that bemoans the fact that even Mordechai—who saved the Jews of Persia from genocide—was unable to achieve total popularity:

כִּ֣י  מׇרְדֳּכַ֣י הַיְּהוּדִ֗י מִשְׁנֶה֙ לַמֶּ֣לֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵר֔וֹשׁ וְגָדוֹל֙ לַיְּהוּדִ֔ים וְרָצ֖וּי לְרֹ֣ב אֶחָ֑יו דֹּרֵ֥שׁ טוֹב֙ לְעַמּ֔וֹ וְדֹבֵ֥ר שָׁל֖וֹם לְכׇל־זַרְעֽוֹ

For Mordechai the Jew was second to King Achashverosh, and great among the Jews and in favour with many of his brothers, for he worked for the good of his people and spoke for the peace of his whole nation.

Says Rabbi Nachmias, look closely at the words of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. He talks of כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּו (“Everyone who is pleasing to his fellow humans”). What he does not say is כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ כֹּל הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּו (“Everyone who is pleasing to all his fellow humans”). In other words, however popular you are, there will always be someone whose feelings will run to contrary effect. This is human nature. You do your best but, as secular wisdom succinctly expresses it:

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

God knows the truth of this aphorism and Mordechai experiences it.

If you don’t believe this, try an experiment. Go to your browser and search “most popular people in the world”. Your results will include the following:

• Barack Obama
• Elon Musk
• Justin Bieber
• Taylor Swift
• Jennifer Lopez
• Jeff Bezos
• Dwayne Johnson
• Beyoncé

Even allowing for the eccentricities of Google Chrome, how many of these people can you honestly say is pleasing to you? If your score is lower than 8, you’ve proved the mishnah’s point.

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Life with the lions

One of the shortest and most memorable mishnayot in the fifth perek is Yehudah ben Teyma’s one at Avot 5:23:

הֱוֵי עַז כַּנָּמֵר, וְקַל כַּנֶּֽשֶׁר, רָץ כַּצְּבִי, וְגִבּוֹר כָּאֲרִי, לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹן אָבִֽיךָ שֶׁבַּשָּׁמָֽיִם

Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven.

We can all get the gist of this teaching, even without the assistance of learned scholars and commentators: when doing God’s will, we should do our best and measure our performance against those who excel, in whichever field of activity we seek to do His will.

Some commentaries go further. They discuss, for example, the choice of these four creatures and the quality of their assigned attributes. Some look at other verses from Tanach and the Gemara that enrich this mishnah by developing its animal-based theme.

But can one go too far when offering an explanation of that which, superficially at least, we can understand without one?  Arguably, yes.

On our mishnah Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) writes:

“The lion possesses a number of features which make it conspicuous. The head and neck are covered with a thick, long and shaggy mane, considered by some as a crown. His great strength, thunderous roar and majestic appearance inspire his enemies with dread. The lion will devour when he is hungry but he is not naturally cruel. He will aid weaker animals and procure food for them, and is known to spare human beings. He will not chase his prey, but will wait patiently and time his attack”.

Taken at face value, this paragraph is frankly bizarre. Lions do not procure food for other animals. Nor do they aid weaker ones. When they hunt, they hunt in families and most certainly do chase their prey (her prey, not his—since the hunt is led by the female of the species. Lions in aggadic literature and in Greek mythology spare humans (think of Daniel in the lions’ den, and of Androcles), but in the real world they kill an average of five humans a week, making them the third most prolific human-killers after hippopotamuses and elephants. I could go on.

I very much doubt that the author of this paragraph intended it to be read literally. My feeling is that what he meant was that the lion is a symbol of nobility, a metaphor for all that is good in human behavioral norms. If you do the things which are ascribed here to this symbolic beast, one might say that you are a lion among mortals, a person who leads by example and by good conduct.

It would have been good, if that is what Rabbi Toperoff meant, if he had spelled it out too.

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The Mishnah, the Message and the Method

How do we learn? And how do we teach? These two related questions are not just matters of pedagogical curiosity. They address the fundamental issue of how any society—and particularly one that recognises the importance of learning for its own sake—pass its customs, its rules and its values from one generation to the next?

Many mishnayot in Avot touch on this issue and it would serve little purpose to list them here without detailed discussion. But since there is no mishnah in Avot that explicitly asks and answers these questions, commentators—many of whom have strong opinions on the topic—hang their comments on whatever Tannaic peg they can.

An example of this is Rav Yaakov Hillel’s treatment of Avot 2:2 in Eternal Ethics from Sinai, which opens with the following teaching of Rabban Gamliel ben Rebbi:

יָפֶה תַּלְמוּד תּוֹרָה עִם דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, שֶׁיְּגִיעַת שְׁנֵיהֶם מַשְׁכַּֽחַת עָוֹן, וְכָל תּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵין עִמָּהּ מְלָאכָה סוֹפָהּ בְּטֵלָה וְגוֹרֶֽרֶת עָוֹן

Beautiful is the study of Torah together with a worldly occupation, for the effort of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin.

This is the platform from which Rav Hillel launches his thoughts on the learning process. In the course of this review he emphasizes the paramount importance of learning Torah. He also discusses the balance to be struck between supporting oneself, accepting support from others and dedicating oneself to Torah study, before taking a close look at the methodology of learning itself.

Rav Hillel points out that learning is not a homogeneous concept. Essentially it embraces four activities: gaining information, understanding it, analysing it and ultimately creating it. The sequencing of these four elements may vary in time and space. Thus, in a society such as that which existed in Tannaic times, where the printed word had yet to exist and even written materials were scarce, great emphasis had to be placed upon memorising material before one could even begin to proceed to the next level. In later times (and particularly in our own, where computer-retrievable texts are available to anyone who uses a smartphone), relatively little emphasis is placed on learning by heart, though learning by rote still plays a role with small children who may learn verses and principles as songs before they are able to understand them fully.

But for Rav Hillel, citing the Ba’al HaTanya, the most important thing is to teach Torah students how to learn. Once they have mastered the methodology of study, they will have acquired a skill that will last them a lifetime. He adds that, now we have printed texts at our fingertips, gaining the tools of analytical study should be our priority.

The language of methodology may change over the generations, but the concept does not. At Avot 6:6 we have a baraita that lists no fewer than 48 ways to acquire the Torah. This list is incomplete, since it omits explicit reference to over thirty further ways that Chazal have identified (I’ve tabulated these in vol. 3 of my book, Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual). But it makes its point: teaching, classroom learning, practical learning, learning alone and with others, and many other aspects of Torah study are embraced. It is in effect a methodology checklist.

My own experiences in secular studies support Rav Hillel’s emphasis on methodology over content.  Almost entirely throughout my studies at school and in university I was a successful student and achieved excellent grades. The exception was my second year reading Law at university. During that year I decided not to use textbooks but to try to work out for myself how the principles relevant to my second-year courses evolved, using the raw materials of published statutes and reported legal decisions. My exam results were extremely poor, something that hurt me at the time, but I later discovered that I had developed a level of methodological skill that later served me well in my doctoral and post-doctoral research and in my career as an academic.

The problem with methodology is that it’s not really a suitable subject for small children at the start of their learning career, and it’s difficult to gauge when any individual is ripe from the transition from ‘what’ (“What berachah do you say when eat an apple?”) and ‘why’ (Classically “Why is this night different from all other nights?”) to the question that drives method: ‘how’.

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