THE CURTIOUS CASE OF THE ELEPHANT’S CHILD

Like, I suspect, many readers of my vintage and even some younger ones, I was exposed at a tender age to the Just So Stories of Rudyard Kipling. They fascinated me: the urgent, repetitive rhythm of the prose, the apparently educational function of the fictional stories—they were magic to my ears. How the Camel Got its Hump, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, How the Leopard Got Its Spots, all of these were delightful tales that were liberally spiced with what I now know to be mussar—moral chastisement. From the moment I heard that wonderful line from The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo (“He was grey and he was woolly and his pride was inordinate”) I knew that something bad was going to befall the kangaroo, even though I had not a clue as to the meaning of “inordinate”.

But my real favourite, as a little boy who asked a lot of questions, was always The Elephant’s Child. This story opens as follows:

There was one Elephant- a new Elephant – an Elephant’s child- who was full of ‘satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he filled all Africa with his ‘satiable curtiosities.

He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why his tail feathers grew so, and his tall aunt spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus why her eyes were red and his broad aunt spanked him with her broad, broad hoof. And he asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted just so, and his hair uncle spanked him with his hairy, hairy paw. He asked questions about everything he saw, or heard, or smelt, or touched and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was full of ‘satiable curtiosity!

One fine morning this Elephant’s Child asked a new question that he had never asked before: “What does a Crocodile have for dinner?” Everybody said, “Hush!” in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him for a long time.

Plot spoiler: the Kolokolo Bird directs him to the river where he unknowingly encounters the Crocodile, having never seen one before. The Crocodile nearly lures him to his death, seeking to pull him into the river by his nose. The Elephant’s Child, saved by the intervention of a local snake, is devastated to discover that his little nose, which is now very sore, has grown unrecognisably long. He has become the first elephant in possession of a trunk, which he soon puts to a variety of gratifying uses.

The Elephant’s Child is classic Pirkei Avot territory. Hillel, at Avot 2:6, teaches (among other things):

לֹא הַבַּיְּשָׁן לָמֵד, וְלֹא הַקַּפְּדָן מְלַמֵּד

Someone who is timid cannot learn, and someone who is short-tempered cannot teach.

Our sages practically unanimously explain that the reason why a timid person cannot learn is that he will be too scared to open his mouth and ask a question—either because his teacher will tell him off for asking a stupid one (Rashi) or because he is afraid to be put to shame in front of his classmates (per the Bartenura).

But plucking up the courage to ask a question that might get you into trouble with an irritable teacher is no guarantee of an answer. The Elephant’s Child gets none, despite his questioning, so he learns from the Kolokolo Bird where he must go: to the great, grey-green greasy banks of the Limpopo, where he will ultimately pose his question to the Crocodile itself.  By taking the Kolokolo Bird’s advice, he is living the maxim of Ben Zoma at Avot 4:1 (“Who is wise? The person who learns from everyone”).

The importance of asking questions is fortified later in Avot, at 5:9 (where asking questions that are relevant marks out the chacham, or wise person, from the golem) and 6:6 (where the process of question-and-answer is listed among the 48 ways to acquire Torah).

In the context of Torah learning, asking questions is more than a way of securing an answer. It is part of an ongoing process of strengthening a relationship between the teacher and the taught. A teacher who is sensitive to the needs, interests and intellectual resources of a pupil can fine-tune that process. How often do we hear in a shiur or chavruta words such as “the question you are really asking is …” or “you could have asked a better question …”?

First the internet browser and now artificial intelligence are means by which a curious talmid can access information. If he is diligent, he can track down and verify its sources and be much the wiser for using these powerful tools. But they do not add up to the relationship between rabbi and talmid that has been the basis of the passing of our laws and our traditions across the continents and through the millennia. For the Elephant’s Child, who only wanted to find a fact—what the Crocodile ate for dinner—an online search would have provided the answer swiftly and without danger to his life and limb. But without a deeper personal and often emotional involvement in the learning process, he would literally not have grown into the elephant we have today.

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Not in God's name -- but still worth the effort?

Down in the sixth perek of Avot, the place where mishnayot give way to baraitot and the normal order of things seems, well, a little different, there’s an anonymous baraita that begs to be discussed:

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

Thus is the way of Torah: Bread with salt you shall eat, water in small measure you shall drink, and upon the ground you shall sleep; live a life of deprivation and toil in Torah. If so you do, "fortunate are you, and it’s good for you" (Psalms 128:2): you are fortunate in this world, and it is good for you in the World to Come.

Maharam Shik is troubled by a question. This baraita prescribes a thoroughly Torah-orientated and ascetic life as the means of qualifying to be fortunate in this world and deriving some form of good—whatever form that might take—in the World to Come. Eating bread with salt, drinking water in moderation, sleeping on the ground and living a life of physical hardship are all criteria that can be ascertained through checking objectively identifiable markers. We know if we have eaten bread or cake, and so do others around us. We know if we are drinking water in moderation or beer in excess, and so on. But toiling in Torah is quite another matter. We may be sincerely putting in a high level of effort, or we may be going through the motions—and sometimes we can’t even be sure for ourselves of what our motives are. Are we really learning lishmah, for the sake of Torah itself, or for some laudable or dubious ulterior motive? And does it matter?

In his understanding of this baraita, Maharam Shik acknowledges that there is all the difference in the world between learning for the sake of Torah and learning for other reasons. One might be trying to impress one’s friends and family or to achieve high status in the eyes of one’s community. Alternatively, one’s learning might be motivated by curiosity, by one’s interest in linguistic phenomena found in ancient languages, or by the thrill of the intellectual chase—the sort of buzz that might be generated by solving a tough chess problem or completing a killer sudoku. Though we do recognize that there is some value in learning even if it is not lishmah, that value is specifically directed towards its propensity to lead the learner to the preferred and approved mind-frame of one who learns lishmah.

So what of our ascetic who adheres relentlessly to his life of personal discipline and hardship? Is he wasting his time?  Not at all. Such a person, Maharam Shik explains, is practising the art of self-control—and this is precisely the quality demanded of anyone who is to rein in his yetzer hara, his drive to give in and yield to his baser instincts. The man who submits to the hardships listed in our baraita—even if he is only studying Torah to amuse himself—is the sort of man who can be trusted not to eat that second piece of chocolate gateau when there’s no-one watching him. Here is a man who at least merits the rewards that come from practising the technique for conquering the will to do wrong.

Our problem of the person who learns lo lishmah has an interesting twist to it when we consider the concept of the Issachar-Zevulun partnership. There, one party (the ‘Zevulun’) sacrifices his learning opportunities in order go out and ply a trade or profession in order to support the other party (the ‘Issachar’) in learning. Issachar reaps the benefit of Zevulun’s material support, in return for which Zevulun receives a share of the reward or benefit derived from Issachar’s learning. If Issachar is learning lo lishmah, for his own amusement or curiosity, is Zevulun automatically deprived of any benefit in recompense for his personal spiritual sacrifice? This question was raised, I think, by the Sefat Emet, but I am not aware of any answer. However, if we maintain that the development of one’s self-discipline to the point that one can resist the yetzer hara, and this in itself is a meritorious act, one can at least argue that there is some form of zechut from which Zevulun is entitled to benefit too.

Another question we can ask is this: does our mishnah concern Jews only, or does a reward for conquering one’s baser instincts apply to non-Jews too? We must conclude that it does. Earlier in Avot, at 4:1, the Tanna Ben Zoma asks four questions: who is wise, who is strong, who is fortunate and who receives honour. To each of these questions he supplies an answer. A person is wise who learns from everyone; he is strong if he conquers his yetzer (the subject of our baraita at 6:4); he is fortunate if he is happy with his lot and he receives honour when he gives honour to others.  This mishnah is notably universalist: there is nothing to tie the answers to these four questions to issues such as Jewish status, religious practice or even belief in God. 

My final thought on this topic is that the content of Pirkei Avot is mainly directed to how we should behave towards others, and much of it is addressed specifically to the practising Jew. But, while mitzvot govern the life of the Jew, manners are at the heart of all civilized human activity. Significantly, while we are expected to learn Torah and perform mitzvot lishmah, there is nothing to say that our middot, the way we behave towards others, must be lishmah too. And if the guidance of a mishnah or baraita is clearly applicable to Jew and non-Jew alike, I think that it is particularly important for us Jews to make sure we follow it.

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Coldplayed

Many readers of Avot Today may never before have heard of US tech company Astronomy or its former chief executive Andy Byron, whose life has just been turned upside down after he was caught on a giant screen at a Coldplay concert, first embracing a female co-worker and then abruptly ducking and seeking to flee the camera once the pair were spotted. The video clip of this incident went viral.  Byron, a married man, has since tendered his resignation and Astronomy issued a statement that said, among other things:

“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met."

Students of Pirkei Avot may be reminded that, if we think we may behave in an inappropriate manner, it is worth considering both the risk that we will be outed by our fellow humans and the certainty that there will be a Divine audience of One. Thus we learn:

“Whoever commits a clandestine chillul Hashem [desecration of God’s name] is punished in public. When it comes to chillul Hashem it’s one and the same whether it’s deliberate or unintentional” (Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka, 4:5)

“Contemplate three things, and you will not fall into the grip of transgression: Know what is above from you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book” (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, 2:1)

All the world’s a stage, observed one of Shakespeare’s characters in As You Like It, and the men and women it—that’s us—are merely players. Unlike actors on stage, though, are parts are for the most part unscripted and we make them up as we go along. That’s what free will is all about. We are judged too: not on the quality of our acting, but on the role we choose to play. If we look to the consequences of our choice, as Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel advises at Avot 2:13, we may win plaudits for the quality of our choice even if we are none too impressive in the way we play our part, since our good intentions are factored into our assessment even as we struggle to match up to our own ideals.

Pirkei Avot throws up another question that the Coldplay scenario frames. If we know what Andy Byron and his colleague were doing, should we even watch the viral clip? Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar teaches at 4:23, among other things:

אַל תִּשְׁתַּדֵּל לִרְאוֹתוֹ בְּשַֽׁעַת קַלְקָלָתוֹ

Do not endeavour to see a person at the time of his degradation.

This teaching was articulated in an age in which there were no media technologies. The only way one should see a person who had been shamed or humiliated was by being there with him and looking at him. But is it still relevant now? It may be.

In a person-to-person situation, the person who has experienced degradation may be uncomfortably aware of others staring at him. This is not the case with the Coldplay concert clips, where Andy Byron is unlikely to meet even a small fraction of its viewers. However, we should ask whether watching another’s degradation has an adverse effect on ourselves. Arguably it does. The Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 2a) notes that the Torah portion dealing with the nazir, who takes it upon himself to refrain from drinking wine, immediately follows the portion dealing the sotah, the suspected adulteress. This is because, shocked or moved by the sight of the woman in her degradation, a man may wish to take an oath from distancing himself from one of the possible causes of sexual immorality.

All in all, this episode is a fascinating example of the interplay of modern technology and ancient ethics, showing how the latter can shed some highly relevant light on the impact of the former.

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Minding our own business

At Avot 4:12 Rabbi Meir offers the following advice:

הֱוֵי מְמַעֵט בְּעֵֽסֶק וַעֲסוֹק בַּתּוֹרָה, וֶהֱוֵי שְׁפַל רֽוּחַ בִּפְנֵי כָל אָדָם, וְאִם בָּטַֽלְתָּ מִן הַתּוֹרָה, יֶשׁ לָךְ בְּטֵלִים הַרְבֵּה כְּנֶגְדָּךְ, וְאִם עָמַֽלְתָּ בַּתּוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, יֶשׁ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה לִתֶּן לָךְ

Minimise your business activity, but do occupy yourself with Torah. Be humble before everyone. If you neglect the Torah, there will be many excuses that you can give yourself; but if you toil greatly in Torah, there is much reward to give to you.

Doing less business and learning more Torah—the maxim opens this teaching—is a leitmotiv that runs through the Oral Torah, and particularly through Pirkei Avot: for example, Hillel (at 2:6) cautions that a person who is too heavily steeped in business activities will never be a chacham and an anonymous baraita (6:6) lists reduction of business activity as one of the 48 steps towards the acquisition of Torah. The need to work for one’s living is accepted, but one is obliged to strike a balance between work and one’s obligation to learn Torah because you can’t have one without the other (3:21). In any event, it is a blend of the two that causes sin to be forgotten (2:2).

Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) emphasises the specifically Oral Law aspect of this teaching, which was something that had not occurred to me before. He writes:

“The word asak used here for business is also common in modern Hebrew, but it is not found in the Bible. Originally we were an agricultural people; we came from the village, not from the city. In the Hebrew language there are ten words, all synonyms for rain, whereas we have no word which precisely expresses business or commerce. The Bible is a history of a shepherd people…. There are a number of words in the Bible which are connected with trading and merchants, but they do not specifically deal with business”

This does not mean that the Torah does not apply to traders and business transactions. As the Lev Avot explains, what it means is that the Torah addresses modes of behaviour: they must be honest and honourable. This is the case whether that behaviour is termed, “business”, “trade” or anything else.

This observation illustrates the argument powerfully made by Rabbi Aubrey Hersh in his History for the Curious podcasts on the Oral Law, that it is only through the necessary medium of the Oral Law and its rules for interpreting and applying the Written Law that the latter is enabled to remain relevant today. The Torah may not use the label ‘business’, or even recognise the concept, but the Oral Law provides the means of elucidating its principles and making them relevant to every aspect of human endeavour to develop after the giving of the law at Sinai.

Incidentally, can anyone list the ten Hebrew words for “rain”?

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The Power of Three

Two is company, three is a crowd” (Old English proverb)

In practice, much of the art of good behaviour is not just a matter of doing the right thing. It is a matter of not doing the wrong thing when there are others watching you. For example, going round with a big smile on your face (Shammai, Avot 1:15) is only meritorious when there are others to smile at. Grinning into the mirror above your washbasin counts for nothing. It is thus the presence of others that defines the parameters of applicability of normative good manners.

At Avot 3:15 Rabbi Elazar haModa’i teaches, among other things, the following:

הַמַּלְבִּין פְּנֵי חֲבֵרוֹ בָּרַבִּים, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ תּוֹרָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, אֵין לוֹ חֵֽלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Someone who humiliates his friend in public (literally “among the many”), even if he has Torah and good deeds to his credit, has no portion in the World to Come.

The thrust of this teaching needs no explanation. It is an exhortation to us to have regard for the feelings of other people and not to put them to shame in front of others. The threat is that, if we do not take due regard for them, whatever benefit we may hope to obtain in one’s afterlife will be lost forever.

The Sefat Emet poses a question on this teaching: who or what is the public? It is possible, he observes, that just three people might satisfy this criterion.

Three is the public for a related issue: when one person speaks words that arguably transgress the laws of lashon hara (impermissible speech about another person), there is a leniency where those words have already been spoken in front of three people. There is a presumption that whatever a person says in front of three others may be repeated since the person who first says them, knowing that everyone has a friend who will repeat it back to the person spoken about, will have taken care to say nothing derogatory in the first place. But this, while vesting significance in the number three, has no obvious practical bearing on Rabbi Elazar haModa’i’s teaching.

The Sefat Emet, it seems, is out on a limb since what constitutes בָּרַבִּים (“in public”) is not a question that troubled our major commentators. Rambam, Rabbeinu Yonah, the Me’iri, Rashi, the Bartenura and the Ruach Chaim are among those for whom it appears to hold no interest or relevance at all. A swift survey of the literature ancient and modern shows that the main issue in this mishnah is the severity of the offence of embarrassing another person in public, whatever the means of embarrassment and whatever the circumstance.

Why then has the Sefat Emet asked this question?

I think we can assume that the Sefat Emet was fully aware of the severity of shaming others in public. But he may have been looking at this mishnah from the point of the person who has shamed or humiliated his friend. 

In his Notzer Chesed, Rabbi Yitzchak Isak Sufrin of Komarno comments that such is the severity of shaming one’s fellow that one is compelled to appease him בָּרַבִּים. This being so, it is of course important to know how many people are necessary as an audience for the act of contrition and appeasement.  Now we see why the comment of the Sefat Emet is not merely relevant but important. While words spoken wrongly and shamefully about another person may travel unceasingly around the planet, the Sefat Emet wants to know if we must have a measure of rachmanut, mercy, on the wrongdoer too. He need only find three people before whom to offer his apology.

This question has obvious implications for people who are shamed and humiliated on the social media, through TikTok, X or other channels where information goes viral with rapid intensity. The Sefat Emet does not answer this question, but it is presumably for poskim today to weigh it up. Three looks like a promising answer, since that is the minimum number of judges to constitute a Beit Din—but all we have at present is a “perhaps”.

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Put not your trust in princes

Tehillim 146:3 opens with a line that has become so much a part of colloquial English that many people have no idea of its origin in the book of Psalms:

אַל-תִּבְטְחוּ בִנְדִיבִים בְּבֶן-אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תְשׁוּעָה

Put not your trust in princes nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Ferber, in the first volume of Si’ach Tzvi—his commentary on the siddur—explains this verse by reference to the question posed by Hillel at Avot 1:14:

אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי

If I am only for myself, who am I?

For Rav Ferber the whole point of this verse in Tehillim is therefore to encourage us to seek to rely on our own efforts instead of trusting others since they can’t be expected to have our interests at heart. And it’s not just princes that one shouldn’t trust. Even בֶן-אָדָם, our own child, even if we have imbued him with our own ru’ach.

This explanation deserves comment. In the first place, Avot already cautions us explicitly not to rely on the powers that be, as Rabban Gamliel ben Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi cynically observes at Avot 2:2:

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.

Rav Ferber does not however cite this teaching.

Secondly, in Higionei Avot, Rav Ferber’s commentary on Pirkei Avot, there is not even a smidgeon of reciprocity in his commentary on Hillel’s teaching at 1:14.  He makes no mention of not putting one’s trust in princes. Instead, he discusses ִ אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִיwithin the context of a person’s need to find the level that is right for him when he tries to balance within himself the competing middot of arrogance and humility. Likewise, he makes no reference to Tehillim in 146:3, where he discusses the “government” in Rabban Gamliel’s mishnah as government by one’s evil inclinations.

All of this leads me to ask whether, without noticing, we practise double standards when appraising the methodology of our rabbinical scholars. There seems to be a thriving cottage industry in trawling the words of Maimonides in search of contradictions and inconsistencies, which are then endlessly analysed for clues of his true position on philosophy or religion. Yet with relatively recent commentators such as Rav Ferber one might be justified in concluding that he is demonstrating the multifaced nature of our ancient teachings and canonical literature, which can be explained and illuminated in so many different ways.

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A concept decommissioned: fear of sin

At Avot 3:11 we find the first of three similar and arguably related teachings by Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa:

כֹּל שֶׁיִּרְאַת חֶטְאוֹ קוֹדֶֽמֶת לְחָכְמָתוֹ, חָכְמָתוֹ מִתְקַיֶּֽמֶת. וְכֹל שֶׁחָכְמָתוֹ קוֹדֶֽמֶת לְיִרְאַת חֶטְאוֹ, אֵין חָכְמָתוֹ מִתְקַיֶּֽמֶת

One whose fear of sin takes precedence over his wisdom—his wisdom endures. But one whose wisdom takes precedence over his fear of sin—his wisdom does not endure.

To the contemporary reader there is a sort of imbalance between the two halves of this equation. We all know what wisdom is. We value it, pursue it if we can, make great personal sacrifices in order to obtain it and are prepared to pay handsomely for the advice and guidance of those who have more of it than we do. Many of the most respected and highly-paid professions in the modern world are wisdom-based: physicians, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, economists provide obvious examples.

Fear of sin, in contrast, is a closed book to most people who live in the world today. The concept is incapable of bearing any meaning unless one first ascertains what is meant by “sin”, an idea that has faded from Western society along with the religion-based morality of what was once the domain of Christianity. While “fear of sin” still has some traction in those small pockets of society that practise Judaism, it cannot compete for popularity against the tide of moral relativism that promotes the notion that, if it feels right, do it because it’s right for you. For society at large, “fear of sin” is a concept that, to all intents and purposes, has been decommissioned and put out to graze in the Garden of Ideas that have Outlived Their Usefulness.

When this mishnah was first taught, its audience would have understood clearly that fear of sin meant fear of transgressing the laws and mores of the Torah. This could be viewed as fear of losing one’s Olam Haba (World to Come), fear of punishment or retribution, or fear of falling short of the expectations of a God who, though kind, merciful and forgiving of sin, was entitled to expect more of His people than that they throw His kindness back at him. But what is the connection between wisdom and fear of sin that demands that the former will not take root, as it were, in the absence of the latter?

Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) asks this question and offers an answer if, perhaps a little rhetorical, is also a little prophetic, given the way the world has evolved since he wrote these words in 1984:

“It is generally conceded that wisdom is pursued by many people today. We possess a plethora of schools, colleges and universities, but too often the wisdom acquired is divorced from the fear of sin, resulting in angry and rebellious students who are ready to overthrow the Establishment…

Wisdom built on the rock foundations of fear of sin will endure and save civilisation, but wisdom not preceded by fear of sin will eventually destroy the world”.

Like the mishnah, Rabbi Toperoff does not specify any particular sin. But in the quest for wisdom, one can hypothesize that no human understanding can pass the test of being regarded as wisdom unless it first confirms to the criteria of truth—and failure to respect and accept the truth is the sin that most effectively devalues anything that purports to be wisdom. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel (Avot 1:18) already classes truth as one of the three virtues that is a necessary condition for sustaining the world, and the mishnah at Avot 5:9 stigmatises one who fails to accept the truth as a golem, an unformed, incomplete being.

The events on campus that have unfolded since 7 October 2023, conspicuously in the United States but also in many other countries, have shown that objective, analytical scholarship and debate have too often given way to selective use of sources, confirmation bias, fake news that is taken to be genuine until the contrary is proven, and the pre-emptive adoption of partisan conclusions that are accepted as being self-evident and therefore in no need of verification. One wonders how much of the accepted wisdom of the day will ever stand up to scrutiny in the long run, when scholarship based on fear of falsehood is allowed to have its say. Or will it all be too late by then?

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