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.
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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