At Avot 4:17 Rabbi Shimon (this being the Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai) teaches:
שְׁלֹשָׁה
כְתָרִים הֵן: כֶּֽתֶר תּוֹרָה, וְכֶֽתֶר כְּהֻנָּה, וְכֶֽתֶר מַלְכוּת, וְכֶֽתֶר
שֵׁם טוֹב עוֹלֶה עַל גַּבֵּיהֶן
There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the
crown of sovereignty—but the crown of a good name rises above them all.
On this, Rabbi Asher
Weiss (Rav Asher Weiss on Avos, vol.2) points to the fact that the first
three crowns are based in the Torah because Hashem has commanded us to honour
them. He then comments.
“By contrast, the crown of a good name has no source in the Torah. Nor is
there any commandment to honor one crowned with this title. Nevertheless, it
rises above them all”.
The שֵׁם טוֹב (shem tov, “good name”) is a
proposition of quite a different order. Rav Weiss expresses its meaning quite
briefly:
“…{T]he crown of a good name is
achieved by a person through good deeds. A person is only judged according to
his actions, so when he performs good deeds, he acquires a good name”.
He adds, citing Rabbeinu Nissim, that the crown of good
deeds is superior because the function of Torah learning is to bring one to
good deeds (Avot 1:17). Perhaps, adds Rav Weiss, this is why our mishnah affirms
that the crown of good deeds is higher than the other crowns. We can add that
this fourth crown is far more accessible than the others: it is open to women,
children, the unlearned—indeed anyone at all.
Curiously, another mishnah is sometimes taken to hold that
the shem tov is not such a great thing after all. At Avot 2:8 we learn
in the name of Hillel himself:
קָנָה שֵׁם
טוֹב קָנָה לְעַצְמוֹ, קָנָה לוֹ דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה קָנָה לוֹ חַיֵּי הָעוֹלָם
הַבָּא
One who acquired a good name
acquired it for himself; one who acquired the words of Torah acquired life in
the World to Come.
This teaching actually consists of two separate propositions
and there is no word to link them. We subconsciously do this linking ourselves
by silently inserting either an “but” or “and” between them.
For one modern commentator at least, the term “good name” is
not to be taken literally but in a qualified sense. Rabbi Yaakov Hillel (Eternal
Ethics from Sinai) writes:
“It is not a mitzvah per se to
acquire a good name. and acquiring it will not gain us entry to the World to
Come or any other spiritual reward. But a good name is acquired by dint of
Torah and mitzvot, and these deeds most certainly will earn us the
reward of the World to Come”.
In other words, one’s good deeds must be allied to learning
Torah or performing mitzvot or they are of no value at all. This seems harsher
than it is in practice, since it is hard to think of any way of acquiring a
good name that does not involve some form of commitment to one mitzvah or
another, even if it is as broad and non-specific a piece of guidance as loving one’s
fellow as one loves oneself.
I leave the final word to Hillel. At Avot 1:13 he teaches נְגַד שְׁמָא
אֲבַד שְׁמֵהּ,
often idiomatically translated as “A name made great is a name destroyed”. This
is a reminder of the ephemeral and vulnerable nature of a shem tov. The crown of kingship, kehunah and
Torah scholarship, once vested, remains for life. Not so, the crown of a good
name: it can be lost or damaged. The moral of this mishnah is that, if you have
acquired a good reputation and are known for it, you have acquired an asset
which is laudable and should be treasured, but which can be lost in a moment,
never to be retrieved.
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