Only one mishnah in the name of Rabbi Matya ben Chorosh (Avot 4:20) is included in the version of Avot we learn today:
הֱוֵי
מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם, וֶהֱוֵי זָנָב לָאֲרָיוֹת, וְאַל תְּהִי רֹאשׁ
לַשֻּׁעָלִים
Rabbi Matya the son of Charash would say: Be first to greet everyone. Be a
tail to lions, rather than a head to foxes.
Is this mishnah a pair of quite unrelated teachings, or are
they connected? Questions of this nature persist throughout the tractate and
they turn on the same meta-question: did Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, in redacting
Avot, group more than one teaching by the same rabbi because:
- it was easier to remember the two independent teachings by the same rabbi if they were bracketed together in the same mishnah,
- they constituted only a single teaching which was segmented, or
- they were two separate teachings but the meaning of the second part was conditioned by the first?
Commentators at different times have taken different approaches.
One rabbi who worked hard to establish a sequential link wherever possible in
Avot is Rabbi Ovadiyah Hedayah, whose commentary on Avot (Seh leBet Avot)
sometimes seems to push this methodology to its limits, if not beyond. But the Seh leBet Avot has its
surprises.
The quality of being
the first to greet people—the middah urged upon us by the Tanna—is praised
for many reasons. It is a display of friendship, a recognition of the essential
humanity shared by the greeter and the person greeted. It is also a sign of humility,
since no-one is deemed so unimportant as to be snubbed in the street. Examples
of great rabbis and personalities who do this are given. It is not a complex
matter for the student of Avot to grasp.
The Seh leBet Avot has to find some link between this
teaching and that which precedes it, an apparently harsh and fatalistic
statement of Rabbi Yannai (Avot 4:19):
אֵין
בְּיָדֵֽינוּ לֹא מִשַּׁלְוַת הָרְשָׁעִים, וְאַף לֹא מִיִּסּוֹרֵי הַצַּדִּיקִים
Neither the tranquillity of the
wicked, nor the suffering of the righteous, are within our grasp.
There is no obvious connection between the words of Rabbi
Yannai and those of Rabbi Matya ben Chorosh. Yet they are juxtaposed and, in
many editions of Avot that are not numbered in the same manner as the versions
found in modern siddurim, the two are even included in the same mishnah.
Rabbi Hedayah finds a link.
The teaching of Rabbi Yannai is about the inscrutability of divine
justice. This is contrasted with that of Rabbi Matya, who speaks of justice
made by man.
The words הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם can
and do mean “be first to greet”, but the word שְׁלוֹם
literally means “peace”. The teaching is therefore that one should be first to
make peace. This applies in the context of litigation, where the disputants are
facing off against other with anger and hostility. Our job is to get in first, ideally
by identifying a pesharah, a compromise solution that will make both
parties happy, or at minimise their sadness. The best form of peace is that
which arises from the resolution of a dispute—and if both parties agree to it,
the discomforts and frustrations of divine justice will simply not apply.
Yes, this explanation does seem somewhat contrived and is
very much at odds with the way most people read Rabbi Matya’s mishnah—but it
does remind us that we should be ever alert to new ways of reading the
mishnayot in Avot. We may reject the result of what we learn, but we may gain
from it too. I for one had forgotten that his mishnah might have anything to do
with peace, notwithstanding the presence of שְׁלוֹם at the very heart of it.
For comments and discussion of this post on Facebook, click here.
