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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