DO WE HAVE A TRULY PERCEPTIVE EYE?

One of the teachings that open the second perek of Avot deals with the idea that we are under constant observation:

הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַֽעְלָה מִמָּךְ, עַֽיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹֽזֶן שׁוֹמַֽעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּסֵֽפֶר נִכְתָּבִים

Contemplate three things, and you will not come to the grip of transgression: Know what is above from you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds are inscribed in a book.

This teaching, by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, may be the subject of more blogposts on Avot Today than any other mishnah in Avot. Yet there is always more to be said about it.

I recently found myself reading a profound comment by Rabbi Norman Lamm, quoted in Foundation of Faith, a compendium of Avot-related thoughts by Rabbi Lamm compiled by his son-in-law Rabbi Mark Dratch. The quote opens by framing the mishnah within humankind’s quest to restore itself to the state of blissful spiritual innocence that existed before we tasted sin and the knowledge that flowed from it:

“When our first ancestors sinned, they lost their spiritual vision and instead were confined to their material views. If we are to live lives that are decent and blameless and genuinely Jewish, then we must reverse the process”.

This is a magnificent ideal for which to strive—but the question remains: how to achieve this? Rabbi Lamm answers this by listing the three means of surveillance spelled out in our mishnah. Focusing on the seeking eye, he continues:

“Perhaps what [the Rabbis of the Mishnah] referred to is not, as is the usual interpretation, a heavenly, angelic or divine eye, but a higher human eye They perhaps meant to tell us that there is something lema’alah, something higher and nobler mimkha [literally ‘from you’], which issues from the deepest recesses of our selfhood, and that it: an ayin ro’ah, a seeing eye, a spiritual vision, a new way of looking at the world”.

The idea that the “seeing eye” that watches and assesses our every word and deed is actually our own heightened perception of ourselves is profound. But is it valid?

People who act badly, commit crimes and fail to confirm to basic standards of morality do not normally regard themselves as being bad in themselves, and it is a common human reaction for a person, when faced with his or her wrongful act, to seek to excuse or justify it. This suggests that the heightened perception of ourselves which Rabbi Lamm describes is something that we can all switch off when we wish to do so.

Another challenge to the heightened perception hypothesis is that it assumes that we are fully aware of what we do any why we do it. This denies scope to the operation of the human subconscious. Can we meaningfully perceive and respond to our own assessment of elements of our actions and thoughts of which we are unaware?

Having said all this, there remains something deeply appealing about Rabbi Lamm’s idea with respect to our own rational thought processes regarding acts as yet uncommitted and words as yet unsaid. The thought of how we might view them objectively, and measure them against higher standards than those imposed by our own desires and preferences, might well deter us from committing a wrong—which after all is what the mishnah is about.

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THE PRICE OF PEACE, OR JUST THE COST?

No, this is nothing to do with the Iranian War and its possible outcomes. This is all about three people who were leading figures in their respective generations—Aharon HaKohen, Hillel and Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, the Chafetz Chaim.

Peace, we know from Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel at Avot 1:18, is one of the three values that keep the world going, along with truth and justice. Although there is relatively little express support in the Tanach for the proposition that Moshe Rabbenu’s elder brother Aharon was a man dedicated to the establishment of peace, midrash is replete with stories of his selfless commitment to this value. Aharon is taken as the epitome of peace; he is the role-model whose example we are encouraged to follow. This is beyond dispute.

Another icon of interpersonal peace was Hillel the Elder, who is portrayed in the Babylonian Talmud as a man who was averse to conflict and practised the skills of friction-free interaction with his fellows. A kindred spirit to Aharon, Hillel picks up on this topic at Avot 1:12 where he teaches:

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

Be of the disciples of Aharon—a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves people and draws them close to the Torah.

The principle is clear. If you are truly committed to peace, you should be proactive and seek to establish it. But how? Hillel does not offer practical tips. As for Aharon, the examples given in midrashim reflect noble aspirations that sadly are often impossible to implement in practice. If you have ever tried making peace between two people who are really angry with each other, or between yourself and someone with whom you are on bad terms, you will not need any further explanation of this.

Now what does the Chafetz Chaim have to add? Here we turn to Ruchi Koval’s Soul Purpose, where she credits him with the following idea:

“[A] person should create a ‘Shalom Fund’, a peace fund. This is a set amount of money that’s designated per year, allocated for the sake of peace.

Neighbor ran over your grass? Pay the gardener to repair it out of your Shalom Fund instead of creating discord. A classmate borrowed your kid’s sweatshirt and never returned it, and now it’s lost? Buy a new one out of your Shalom Fund. We have budget items for food, shelter, vacations, education, and entertainment. Let’s be proactive pursuers of peace and budget for harmonious relationships, too”

It’s a great idea—even if it is somewhat limited in that its main sphere of application is in preventing disputes that the owner of the Shalom Fund might otherwise be initiating. But does it really come from the Chafetz Chaim?

Rabbi  Yisrael Meir Kagan did not write a pirush on Pirkei Avot, but there are several cut-and-paste collections of “Chafetz Chaim on Avot” in circulation, including Rabbi David Zaretsky’s The Hafetz Hayyim on Pirkey Avoth (1975) and Shmuel Charlap, Chafetz Chaim al Masechet Avot (1962). None of these works mention anything about a “Shalom Fund” in the commentaries on our mishnah. Have they missed something?

The origin of the “Shalom Fund” is a sentence in the Chafetz Chaim’s book Ahavat Chesed, where he writes:

וְיֵשׁ לִקְבּוֹעַ קֻפָּה מְיֻחֶדֶת לְשָׁלוֹם בַּיִת, לְסַיֵּעַ לַאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר נִתְרַעֲעוּ יַחְסֵיהֶם מִפְּנֵי דֹּחַק וְחֶסְרוֹן, כִּי עַל־יְדֵי זֶה יִתְיַשְּׁבוּ הַדְּבָרִים וְיָבוֹא הַשָּׁלוֹם

“One should establish a designated fund for peace in the home, to assist people whose relationships have deteriorated because of pressure and lack (of means) for, through this, things will be settled and peace will come”.

The author explicitly references marital discord as the sort of situation he has in mind, where the peace that is so bady needed is shalom bayit—domestic peace. It is most improbable that Hillel had this in mind when citing Aharon as the epitome of a peace-seeker, but it cannot be denied that the concept of the “Shalom Fund”, appropriately expanded, fits in neatly with the thrust of Hillel’s mishnah and it is surprising that other Chafetz Chaim devotees did not make the connection earlier.

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GET IT RIGHT—OR ELSE!

Jewish law is a complex body of rules that have different qualities: some are written and can be found in the canon of books that constitute the Jewish bible. Others, initially handed down orally, were later set down in writing. Each of these sets of law is interpreted, and extrapolations derived from it, through different rules of logic and inference. It goes without saying that expounding and developing rules of Jewish law, applying them in situations for which there is no precedent, is a highly skilled task best suited to the well-trained and rigorously educated mind of a suitably qualified rabbi.

Having said that, it is unusual to find a Jew familiar with the Torah who does not privately nurse his or her own opinion on what the law really is, or indeed what the law really should be. One is always entitled to one’s own opinions, but we are not encouraged to share them in any situation in which a listener might believe and accept as law a “ruling” that is plausible, reasonable—but wrong.

Pirkei Avot addresses the all-too-human urge to apply and interpret laws the way we want to. Thus in Avot we find two somewhat veiled warnings against coming up with one’s own rulings that, however sane and sensible they seem, are not in accord with the consensus position reached by halachic jurists. The first, in Avot 3:15, is a mishnah in which Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i lists five types, including

הַמְגַלֶּה פָנִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה

The one who reveals aspects of the Torah that are contrary to halachah.

whose fate is spelled out in no uncertain terms:

אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ תּוֹרָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, אֵין לוֹ חֵֽלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

… although he may possess Torah knowledge and good deeds, he has no share in the World to Come.

Then there is an anonymous mishnah at Avot 5:11 which focuses on the wider consequences of making up one’s own version of the law which reads like this:

חֶֽרֶב בָּאָה לְעוֹלָם, עַל עִנּוּי הַדִּין, וְעַל עִוּוּת הַדִּין, וְעַל הַמּוֹרִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה

The sword comes to the world on account of justice delayed, justice denied, and because of those who reveal aspects of the Torah that are contrary to halachah.

So the consequences of informal and literally unorthodox interpretation of Torah laws are serious not just for the individual but for the wider community.

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 99a-b) quotes the mishnah at Avot 3:15 but does not drill down deeply into its possible meanings. There it seems to be understood as a general admonition not to be impudent towards Torah scholars. Rabbis Shimshon Raphael Hirsch and Shlomo P. Toperoff (in his Lev Avot) adopt this meaning of the mishnah.

Some early commentators did not need to offer detailed explanations of this principle since its thrust was clear to them, but their understanding was not one that we would find obvious: for them the word הֲלָכָה (halachah) in these mishnayot did not just mean “law” but also the way that an aggadic passage might be learned. So for Rashi and Bartenura this was a warning not to give the Torah’s narrative passages strange meanings by casting its words as metaphors when they were not, or by interpreting them literally when they are not to be taken as such. The Meiri applied this principle much more widely. For him, in the extensive explanation of Avot 3:15 in his Beit HaBechirah,

Also in this category is one [who] portrays himself as one who knows the secrets of the Torah which he “reveals” to contradict the halachah. He does this by completely denying the revealed part of the Torah, saying that this was “not God’s intention but was an allegory to something else, and the revealed part is not at all true”. This is one of the toots of heresy, for though some mitzvot do contain esoteric aspects, the actual commandment of each mitzvah is undoubtedly its revealed aspect.

The Meiri continues in this vein for page after page, giving many examples.

Since the earliest days of the Reform movement, this mishnah has been seen as the appropriate attitude to take towards those who would modernize not merely Jewish lifestyles but fundamental principles of Jewish law for the sake of conformity with contemporary society or in the intellectual conviction that laws without an apparently rational basis could be discarded. Thus Rabbi Dr Marcus Lehmann invoked it when he thundered against “so-called Mendelsohnians” who used their knowledge to fight, and then distort and ridicule traditional Judaism. This sentiment was echoed by Rabbi Eliezer Liepman Prins who, commenting on Avot 5:11, added:

The nations believe that law is a variable, a social factor which can be determined by the views of any given society at any given time, based on what they see as their needs. That is why the law and social order of other nations are constantly changing and have no enduring basis.

But the need to change, and to adapt to change, has always been accepted by Jewish law—so long as it is done within the bounds of Jewish law itself. Flexibility within limits is axiomatic. As Nechama Leibowitz put it: there are 70 faces to the Torah—not 71. I shall leave the last word to Ruchi Koval (Soul Purpose), who comments (at Avot 1:11):

The Torah is a document that transmits the will and values of God, so tread carefully here. The Torah is here by means of unbroken transmission from one generation to the next from Sinai. Those who transmit it must check and double check that they are sharing correctly.

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HOW TO HATE OTHERS: JUST TICK THE BOX?

I recently came across a fascinating passage in one of Reb Elya Lopian’s commentaries in Lev Eliyahu on Parashat Vayigash that has both nothing and everything to do with Pirkei Avot.

In the Book of Proverbs (Mishlei 8:13) we are taught יִרְאַת יְהוָה שְׂנֹאת-רָע (“Fear of the Lord is the hatred of Evil”), which Reb Elya takes to mean that we should hate the wicked. But the Torah (Vayikra 19:17) commands us לֹא-תִשְׂנָא אֶת-אָחִיךָ, בִּלְבָבֶךָ (“Do not hate your fellow human in your heart”). This looks like a mixed message. Do we hate a wicked person or do we not?

Reb Elya supplies an answer drawn from an idea of Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer: hating a wicked person is not a continuous mitzvah: it’s a one-off thought process. Once you have identified a person as being wicked and therefore hate him, you have fulfilled the requirement of hatred. There is no requirement to continue to hate or to increase the intensity of that hate. Effectively, you can move on in life and not let your hatred persist.

This notion may of application to Pirkei Avot, for example at 1:7 where Nittai HaArbeli teaches this:

הַרְחֵק מִשָּׁכֵן רָע, וְאַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע, וְאַל תִּתְיָאֵשׁ מִן הַפּוּרְעָנוּת

Distance yourself from a wicked neighbour, do not join up with a wicked person, and do not abandon belief in retribution.

Does this mean that one should only keep one’s distance from a wicked person initially, but then remain his neighbour—or join up with him, secure in the knowledge that you have deemed him evil and will therefore presumably take whatever precautions are necessary? This conclusion might seem doctrinally unsound, but it probably accords more closely with what we do in our own lives: how many of us have either relocated our homes or leaving a good position at work because of the present threat of remaining in proximity with someone who is bad?

We might also consider whether what applies to hatred also applies to love and, again, this is relevant to Avot. Twice in the sixth perek (Avot 6:1 and 6:6) mention is made of being אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת  (“a lover of other people”), both as a reward for learning Torah for its own sake and as a step towards acquiring Torah knowledge. How much love need one experience or demonstrate? The injunction to love other humans (Vayikra 19:18, ואהבת לרעך כמוך, “love other people as yourself”) is not qualified by any limitation in time or intensity, but in practice our love for others in general is a sort of entry-level love which in practice goes little further—if at all—than not acting injuriously towards them.

I’ve not come across any literature on this line of thought, but would be most grateful for any pointers that lead to a better understanding of it.

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A GOOD TELLING-OFF

The baraita at Avot 6:6, which lists the 48 things by which a scholar can acquire a full understanding of Torah, contains a subsidiary list of five things that such a person should love:

אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַצְּדָקוֹת, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמֵּישָׁרִים, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַתּוֹכָחוֹת

Love of God, love of fellow humans, love of charity, love of justice, love of rebukes.

Of these five, none is an obvious adjunct to the acquisition of scholarship in terms of Torah or any other field of study. However, the first four reflect a degree empathy on the part of the person embarking upon the pursuit of Torah. The student who recognizes that Torah is a precious gift will value it more when he considers the identity of its Giver. Likewise, since the Torah teaches love for others, the need to act charitably and the imperative to see that justice is done, the pleasure both given and taken from acting in accordance with these values provides both a reward for Torah already learned and an incentive to take one’s learning further.

Loving rebuke is different. If a rebuke is deserved, it can be painful to one’s feelings and one’s self-esteem. Every mature adult accepts that rebuke is sometimes necessary, but in terms of popularity it usually ranks about the same as a visit to the dental hygienist.

Perhaps the very fact that we don’t like being rebuked is the reason why it is in the list of Torah acquisition devices in our baraita. When we are properly told off for what we are doing wrong—or in the case of a serious Torah student what we are doing less well than we might—we should strive to appreciate the rebuker, to accept the rebuke and to love the fact that we have become somehow better people for it.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) makes an interesting observation. When the Baraita says אוֹהֵב אֶת הַתּוֹכָחוֹת the word הַתּוֹכָחוֹת (rebukes) is in the plural. Why is this? Ever practical, Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) says that, if the first rebuke doesn’t work, one should repeat the process. But there may be more to this curious plural.

There are actually three types of rebuke: (i) when someone rebukes me, (ii) when I rebuke myself, and (iii) when I rebuke someone else. Of these three, it is apparent that the first is usually quite uncomfortable and one seeks to avoid it. The second is uncomfortable too, since no-one likes to recognize that they are in need of correction—but this species of rebuke is quite rare since, as Rav Lau points out, it is often difficult to acknowledge one’s errors. Rav Lau does not add, as he might have done, that the third, administering a rebuke to someone else, can be extremely enjoyable since it can engender a feeling of moral or intellectual superiority over another. This is clearly not what the baraita means when it urges us to love rebukes.

How can one love administering a rebuke to a fellow human in the right sense? This means suppressing any gloating or feeling of personal gratification from giving it. More than that, it means focusing instead on the thought that, by preventing another doing wrong or helping that person to do something right, one is acting as a junior partner with God in improving the lot of humanity as a whole. Anyone who can do this is clearly capable of self-improvement on a grand scale and a fit recipient for Torah.

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JEALOUS OF WHAT’S ALREADY OURS

According to Rabbi Yose HaKohen (Avot 2:17):

יְהִי מָמוֹן חֲבֵרָךְ חָבִיב עָלֶֽיךָ כְּשֶׁלָּךְ. וְהַתְקֵן עַצְמָךְ לִלְמוֹד תּוֹרָה, שֶׁאֵינָהּ יְרֻשָּׁה לָךְ. וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ יִהְיוּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמָֽיִם

The property of your fellow should be as precious to you as your own. Perfect yourself for the study of Torah, for it is not an inheritance for you—and all your deeds should be for the sake of Heaven.

The bit of this compound mishnah that interests me is its opening, the instruction to hold the property of others as being as dear to us as our own. This looks at first sight like a mishnah that is not searching for any interpretation or amplification. Rambam’s commentary is silent on this issue, as are those of the Bartenura and Rashi, while Rabbenu Yonah adds somewhat cryptically that it means that one should treat the property of others as they would wish. Some Rishonim are more adventurous, though. Thus the Me’iri delves into the Avot deRabbi Natan and explains Rabbi Yose’s words within the context of competing businesses: we should not give a bad name to another trader’s goods in order to drive trade away from him. If his produce is of high quality, we should praise it; if it is not, we should stay silent—as we would wish others to do to our own merchandise. Machzor Vitry treats the mishnah quite differently by tying it to another’s lost property: you should help him look for it to the same extent that you would have looked for it if it had been yours.

As usual, modern commentators can be relied upon to have something fresh to say, whether by embellishing the words of the Tanna or by pointing to applications of them that might not immediately occur to us. Thus Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) reminds us that the chaver whose property should be precious to you as if it were your own is a wide enough concept to include your employer. This mishnah therefore teaches: “If I were the employer, how would I want my employees to act?”

Perhaps the most imaginative cadenza on the theme of respect for another’s property comes from Gila Ross (Living Beautifully), where she writes:

“Often we look at what other people have—whether it’s their pictures on social media that depict their perfect life, whether it’s the vacations they’re taking, their car or their house—and that can leave us feeling lacking. We want what they have. We have to be sensitive regarding what we share with others, and we also have to be mindful of how much time we spend looking at what other people have. Also, we should take as much joy in our own stuff as if it were our neighbor’s or our friend’s—whether it’s your health, your talents, your family, your house, whatever it is you have—and take as much joy in it as if it were someone else’s possessions”.

At base, Ross is telling us to address any natural tendency we have towards covetousness and envy and turn it into an emotional asset by making it work for us and training us to be happy with what we have, in compliance with Ben Zoma’s maxim in Avot 4:1 (“Who is fortunate? The one who is happy with his lot”). This is a powerful idea, but I wonder how many of us have the strength of character to discipline our acquisitional urges and be as “envious” of our own possessions as we are of those of others.

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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE

One of the most fascinating mishnayot in the fifth perek of Avot contrasts the disciples of the righteous Avraham with those of the wicked Bilaam. We read at Avot 5:22:

כָּל מִי שֶׁיֶּשׁ בּוֹ שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, הוּא מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ, וּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים אֲחֵרִים, הוּא מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע. תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ: עַֽיִן טוֹבָה, וְרֽוּחַ נְמוּכָה, וְנֶֽפֶשׁ שְׁפָלָה. תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע: עַֽיִן רָעָה, וְרֽוּחַ גְּבוֹהָה, וְנֶֽפֶשׁ רְחָבָה. מַה בֵּין תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ לְתַלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע, תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ אוֹכְלִין בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְנוֹחֲלִין הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: לְהַנְחִיל אֹהֲבַי יֵשׁ, וְאוֹצְרוֹתֵיהֶם אֲמַלֵּא. אֲבָל תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע יוֹרְשִׁין גֵּיהִנֹּם וְיוֹרְדִין לִבְאֵר שַֽׁחַת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאַתָּה אֱלֹהִים תּוֹרִידֵם לִבְאֵר שַֽׁחַת, אַנְשֵׁי דָמִים וּמִרְמָה לֹא יֶחֱצוּ יְמֵיהֶם, וַאֲנִי אֶבְטַח בָּךְ

Whoever possesses these three traits is of the talmidim of our father Avraham; and whoever possesses these three different traits is of the talmidim of the wicked Bilaam. The talmidim of our father Avraham have a good eye, a meek spirit and a humble soul. The talmidim of the wicked Bilaam have an evil eye, a haughty spirit and a gross soul. What is the difference between the talmidim of our father Avraham and the talmidim of the wicked Bilaam? The talmidim of our father Avraham benefit in this world and inherit the World to Come, as it states, "To bequeath to those who love Me there is, and their treasures I shall fill". The talmidim of the wicked Bilaam shall inherit Gehinnom and descent into the pit of destruction, as it states, "And You, God, shall cast them into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men, they shall not attain half their days. And I shall trust in you".

Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky (the Netivot Shalom) observes that, while the difference between the two sets is vast, it can be almost impossible at a glance to tell the one from the other since these three differences—though of monumental significance—are invisible. The two may dress alike, live identical lifestyles and be apparently indistinguishable. Only their attitudes distinguish them.

Rabbi Avraham Sabba (the Tzror HaMor, cited in MiMa’ayanot HaNetzach) takes a binary view of these disciples. Every person who comes into the world, he asserts, is either a talmid of Avraham or a talmid of Bilaam. There is nothing in between.

At first sight, this teaching appears to be both false and unhelpful. How can anyone assert that everyone in the world is either righteous or wicked? Is there no-one in between? The Netivot Shalom himself points out, in relation to the correspondence of the Four Species on Sukkot with four different types of Jew, that the same individual may actually be several different types of person on the same day, which indicates the impossibility of categorizing anyone as good or bad, committed or apathetic in his attitude towards the Torah. I would guess that this is something we all experience quite regularly without even noticing it.

My feeling is that Rabbi Avraham Sabba is not stating a fact. He is giving advice. When we navigate each day and make decisions regarding ourselves and others, it often happens that we face a choice between a good act and a bad (or less good) one. At this point we should first ask ourselves: are we talmidim of Avraham, or of Bilaam? We have to identify as one or the other since this question cannot be escaped or bypassed. Once we have answered it, we can then explore the possibilities that lie in the grey area between these two poles.

One of the most fascinating mishnayot in the fifth perek of Avot contrasts the disciples of the righteous Avraham with those of the wicked Bilaam. We read at Avot 5:22:

כָּל מִי שֶׁיֶּשׁ בּוֹ שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, הוּא מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ, וּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים אֲחֵרִים, הוּא מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע. תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ: עַֽיִן טוֹבָה, וְרֽוּחַ נְמוּכָה, וְנֶֽפֶשׁ שְׁפָלָה. תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע: עַֽיִן רָעָה, וְרֽוּחַ גְּבוֹהָה, וְנֶֽפֶשׁ רְחָבָה. מַה בֵּין תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ לְתַלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע, תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ אוֹכְלִין בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְנוֹחֲלִין הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: לְהַנְחִיל אֹהֲבַי יֵשׁ, וְאוֹצְרוֹתֵיהֶם אֲמַלֵּא. אֲבָל תַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע יוֹרְשִׁין גֵּיהִנֹּם וְיוֹרְדִין לִבְאֵר שַֽׁחַת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְאַתָּה אֱלֹהִים תּוֹרִידֵם לִבְאֵר שַֽׁחַת, אַנְשֵׁי דָמִים וּמִרְמָה לֹא יֶחֱצוּ יְמֵיהֶם, וַאֲנִי אֶבְטַח בָּךְ

Whoever possesses these three traits is of the talmidim of our father Avraham; and whoever possesses these three different traits is of the talmidim of the wicked Bilaam. The talmidim of our father Avraham have a good eye, a meek spirit and a humble soul. The talmidim of the wicked Bilaam have an evil eye, a haughty spirit and a gross soul. What is the difference between the talmidim of our father Avraham and the talmidim of the wicked Bilaam? The talmidim of our father Avraham benefit in this world and inherit the World to Come, as it states, "To bequeath to those who love Me there is, and their treasures I shall fill". The talmidim of the wicked Bilaam shall inherit Gehinnom and descent into the pit of destruction, as it states, "And You, God, shall cast them into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men, they shall not attain half their days. And I shall trust in you".

Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky (the Netivot Shalom) observes that, while the difference between the two sets is vast, it can be almost impossible at a glance to tell the one from the other since these three differences—though of monumental significance—are invisible. The two may dress alike, live identical lifestyles and be apparently indistinguishable. Only their attitudes distinguish them.

Rabbi Avraham Sabba (the Tzror HaMor, cited in MiMa’ayanot HaNetzach) takes a binary view of these disciples. Every person who comes into the world, he asserts, is either a talmid of Avraham or a talmid of Bilaam. There is nothing in between.

At first sight, this teaching appears to be both false and unhelpful. How can anyone assert that everyone in the world is either righteous or wicked? Is there no-one in between? The Netivot Shalom himself points out, in relation to the correspondence of the Four Species on Sukkot with four different types of Jew, that the same individual may actually be several different types of person on the same day, which indicates the impossibility of categorizing anyone as good or bad, committed or apathetic in his attitude towards the Torah. I would guess that this is something we all experience quite regularly without even noticing it.

My feeling is that Rabbi Avraham Sabba is not stating a fact. He is giving advice. When we navigate each day and make decisions regarding ourselves and others, it often happens that we face a choice between a good act and a bad (or less good) one. At this point we should first ask ourselves: are we talmidim of Avraham, or of Bilaam? We have to identify as one or the other since this question cannot be escaped or bypassed. Once we have answered it, we can then explore the possibilities that lie in the grey area between these two poles.

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