Goodwill to all men

A frequently quoted teaching in Avot is that of Shammai, that one should greet everyone with a cheerful face (Avot 1:15). Does this apply truly to everyone, or does it only apply to one’s fellow Jews?

The Hebrew term for “everyone” is אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם (literally “all the man”). The use of the word הָאָדָם (“the man”) rather than simply אָדָם (“man”) has generated considerable discussion as to the significance of the distinction.  In particular, if one term means “all men”, is the other limited only to Jews? And, if so, which is which? I discuss some of the sources on this discussion in Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual, vol 2 at pp 177-179.

In the context of this mishnah there is a serious justification for speculation as to whether Shammai intended his advice to apply to all humans or only to Jews. This is because there is a passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 31b) that portrays Shammai as speaking to potential converts to Judaism—who are by definition non-Jews—in a brusque, irascible and less-than-friendly manner.

In his Tiferet Tzion commentary on this mishnah, Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler circumvents the need to resolve this issue. He takes note of the famous proposition (Yoma 28b) that Abraham fulfilled every commandment, including even the rabbinical laws relating to eruv tavshilin (the correct manner of preparing food before the onset of a Jewish festival on which one intended to cook food for the Shabbat that immediately followed it). We can learn from this proposition that Abraham must himself have greeted non-Jews with a happy, smiling face since in his generation there were no Jews to greet.

Comparisons with Balaam: why Abraham, not Moses?

Yesterday I posted a piece on Avot 5:22, which contrasted the qualities exemplified by Abraham and Balaam and, by extension, by those who follow them.

Why does this Mishnah pick Abraham as the gold standard by which to evaluate Balaam and find him lacking? Would not Moses have been a better measure of comparison? There is nowhere any suggestion that Moses was deficient in the three areas of excellence associated here with Abraham: he too had a generous outlook (Shemot 32:30-32), a meek spirit (Chullin 89a) and a humble soul (Bemidbar 12:3). He was an exact contemporary of Balaam, while Abraham lived six generations earlier. Both Moses and Balaam had top-class prophetic talents (Bemidbar Rabbah 14:20; Berachot 7a). Further, the placing of this mishnah within the fifth perek almost invites comparison with Moses rather than Abraham: whereas the other mishnayot dealing with Abraham and his exceptional qualities come right at the beginning of this perek, the only other mishnah in it which deals with Moses is found immediately preceding this one.

Because this mishnah is dealing with middot (character traits and qualities) rather than mitzvot and averot (positive and negative commands), we may have an answer. There is a qualitative difference between those who lived before the Giving of the Torah at Sinai and those who lived subsequently.

Before Sinai, there were two measures of a man’s worth: one was in the way he developed and acted in accordance with his personal qualities, the other being his adherence to the seven Noahide Laws to which all of mankind is universally subject. After the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people could also be measured in terms of their service to God through the performance of mitzvot and the avoidance of averot that were revealed at Sinai. By comparing Abraham with Balaam, this mishnah compares like with like, contrasting two personalities who were ostensibly playing by the same Noahide rules.

There is another possible answer. Balaam is quite conscious of the role played by the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in securing a permanent relationship between God and the Children of Israel. He makes a great show of setting himself up as being their equal. The Patriarchs between them built seven altars on which to make offerings before God, so Balaam instructs Balak to do likewise on the assumption that he must exceed or at least equal the performance of the Patriarchs if he is to obtain a chance to break the bond they had forged with God. Since Balaam is seeking to undermine the covenant first made with Abraham and only later confirmed with his descendants, it is with Abraham and not Moses that Balaam is to be compared.

The appropriate nature of the Abraham-Balaam comparison is suggested by two further considerations. The first, which appeals to scholarship, is the intertextuality of the stories of the Akedah, where Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac, and the engagement of Balaam to destroy the Jewish people. Both Abraham and Balaam saddle their asses early in the morning and take two lads with them; both are stopped by an angel before killing their companion. In both episodes they climb mountains and there is a burnt offering. Finally, both episodes end with a blessing for the Jewish people.

The second consideration appeals to our affection for symmetry and balance: Abraham is the righteous person who appeals to God in order to save a wicked people from destruction, while Balaam is the wicked person who appeals to God in order to achieve the destruction of a righteous people. Further, while Balaam seeks a generous reward for cursing the Children even though he fails in this mission, Abraham spurns a generous reward that is his for the taking after he secures the defeat of the Five Kings.

Abraham versus Balaam: how judgemental should we be?

Mishnah 5:22 of Avot highlights the character of one of the most intriguing personalities in the Torah: Balaam, of whom we read a great deal in this week’s Torah portion. The Mishnah reads, in translation, like this:

Whoever possesses the following three traits is among the disciples of our father Abraham, but whoever possesses three other traits is among the disciples of the wicked Balaam. The disciples of our father Abraham have a generous outlook, a meek spirit and a humble soul. The disciples of the wicked Balaam have a malevolent outlook, a haughty spirit and an avaricious gross soul.

The Mishnah then goes on to contrast their respective fates:

What is the difference between the disciples of our father Abraham and the disciples of the wicked Balaam? The disciples of our father Abraham benefit in this world and inherit the World To Come [proof texts omitted].

There is more to this teaching than meets the eye, since it meshes in well with two earlier mishnayot and in a way highlights the difference between them.

Many commentators have pointed to the significance of the explicit mention in this mishnah of the number three, among them Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky in his Netivot Shalom. Since we can all see that the Mishnah lists three positive character traits and their opposites, we don’t need a Tanna to teach us how to count. But we must understand what the Mishnah is telling us: “three” means “three and no more than three”. Why is this point so important?

As Rabbi Berezovsky indicates, all three of these signs by which one can distinguish a follower of Abraham from an adherent of Balaam are attitudes and therefore invisible to the naked eye. A person can look pious, dress modestly and go about the business of behaving him- or herself in a perfectly respectful manner and yet be rotten to the core.

Yehoshua ben Perachyah (Avot 1:6) tells us to judge our fellow humans on the basis of their merits. Rabbi Meir however (Avot 4:27) reminds us that we should look at the wine rather than the bottle, in other words that we should look to a person’s inner nature rather than to the outward signs of his or her character. Where we contrast the followers of Abraham with those of Balaam, we are therefore encouraged to give people the benefit of the doubt with regard to their motivation regarding any deed that may be either right or wrong—but neither are we to assume that a person is righteous simply on account of a failure to do anything that appears to be wrong.

Getting someone else's reward

Avot 5:3 is a sort of sequel to the mishnah preceding it (discussed on Avot Today here). Both describe God as being slow to anger, waiting for ten generations before responding to the continuing decline in human behaviour:

There were ten generations from Noah to Abraham, to let it be known how slow God is to anger—because all these generations increasingly angered Him until Abraham came and received the reward of them all.

This mishnah raises many questions, of which one of the most obvious is that of How could Abraham -- or anyone else, for that matter -- receive someone else’s reward?

If we accept that God is good and just and that He would not withhold a reward from anyone who has earned it, we should be able to assume that everyone who lived between the time of the Flood and the death of Abraham did indeed receive a reward or recompense from God for their good deeds, and that Abraham did not receive anything to which he was not personally entitled. Can we accept this is is so and still explain Abraham’s apparently undeserved good fortune in receiving "the reward of them all"? Here are some possible answers:

• Abraham did so many good deeds that he accomplished what it would have been appropriate for all ten generations to have done. It was on this basis that they were all saved in his merit, since he took upon himself the yoke of all the mitzvot in this World. That is why he received a commensurate reward in the World to Come (per Rabbi Ovadyah MiBartenura).
• Since Abraham taught members of his generation to serve God and to keep away from bad deeds, he is associated with their reward “as if he had received it,” and he also received the reward that was appropriate for his own deeds (per Rabbi Menachem Meiri). This explanation distinguishes Abraham from Noah, who was neither a teacher nor a role model: his good qualities did not spread beyond his wife Na’amah and his sons Shem and Japheth.
• The reward Abraham received was one which anyone in any of the earlier generations could have secured for themselves—the reward of being named as the leading Forefather, the Patriarch of what was to become God’s Chosen People. Shem/Malchitzedek nearly secured the same reward several generations before Abraham, but lost the opportunity after he gave a blessing to Abraham before blessing God (Nedarim 32b).
• The names “Noah” and “Abraham” do not refer to Noah and Abraham but are shorthand terms for the generations in which they lived. Thus when we learn that “Abraham” received the rewards of “them all,” we can take it that the generation of Abraham—in which several righteous people lived in addition to Abraham himself—received the aggregate of all the generational bonus rewards that had yet to be conferred (I have yet to find any authoritative source for this explanation).

I suspect that many readers have thought about this themselves and may have reached their own conclusions as to what this mishnah means. Anyone who wishes to share their thoughts on this issue is very welcome to do so.

In Search of Abraham's Ten Tests

Let's return to Avot 5:4 (see earlier blogposts here and here), which teaches that Abraham was set ten tests by God and passed them all, to demonstrate the strength of Abraham's love of God. 

Since the Mishnah does not spell out which are Abraham's ten tests, I have been trying to compile a list of them. The table below features 28 "possibles", of which no fewer than 19 are counted as one of the ten tests by at least one reputable Torah scholar.

Number	Test	Source (Torah or Midrash	Endorsement
1	Exile from family and homeland	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
2	Famine in Canaan	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
3	Abduction of Sarah in Egypt	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
4	War of the Four Kings against the Five Kings	Torah	Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
5	Marriage to Hagar since Sarah was barren	Torah	Rambam, Abarbanel
6	Circumcision	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
7	Abduction of Sarah by Abimelech	Torah	Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
8	Expulsion of Hagar after birth of Yishmael	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Abarbanel
9	Expulsion of Yishmael	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
10	The binding of Isaac	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
11	Hiding underground for 13 years to avoid Nimrod	Midrash	Rashi
12	Being thrown into a fiery furnace by Nimrod	Midrash	Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez
13	Capture of his nephew Lot	Torah	Rashi
14	Being told that his offspring would suffer under four alien regimes (Persia, Medea, Greece, Rome)	Midrash	Rashi
15	Being told that his offspring would be “strangers in a strange land”	Torah	Bartenura
16	Angering his father by destroying his stock of idols	Midrash	---
17	Having to argue with God in order to try to save the inhabitants of Sodom and Gemorrah	Torah	---
18	Being made to choose whether his descendants went into exile or to Gehinnom	Midrash	---
19	Having to pay an extortionate price for a burial-place for Sarah even though all the land had been promised to him by God	Torah	Rabbenu Yonah
20	Being told that his offspring would suffer both exile and purgatory	Torah/midrash	Me’am Lo’ez
21	Having to seek out visitors after circumcision so as to perform the mitzvah of welcoming travelers	Midrash	---
22	Being prepared to turn his back on the Shechinah in order to attend to his visitors	Midrash	---
23	Sending away his sons by Keturah	Torah	---
24	Having to seek out the exiled Yishmael in order to make peace with him	Midrash	---
25	Promising Abraham a son to inherit from him but then withholding one	Torah	---
26	Taking away from Abraham the mitzvah of sacrificing Isaac	Torah	Netivot Shalom
27	Whether to accept the spoils of war following the War  of the Five Kings against the Four.	Torah	---
28	Complying with God’s request to sacrifice Isaac even though it was not actually a commandment	Torah	Rabbenu Nissim

Can anyone add to this list, either by supplying more possible tests drawn from the Torah or midrash, or by supplying the names of rabbis who have endorsed any of the tests in the table above which have not (yet) to my knowledge been counted among the ten?

Does the person who is being tested know what he is being tested on?

In the fifth chapter of Avot (5:4) a mishnah mentions that Abraham was tested by God with ten tests (all of which the Patriarch passed) in order to make a show of how dearly Abraham regarded Him. Much has inevitably been written on this topic. Questions such as (i) which are the ten tests, (ii) why any number from one to nine wouldn't have done just as well and (iii) which was the greatest test continue to be debated. This blogpost focuses on one small issue: the fact that the person being tested may not at the time know what the test actually is.  This little episode, drawn from the lower strata of the world of finance, illustrates the point well.

Back in the 1980s a friend of mine was a trainee bank manager with the then National Westminster Bank in London. Part of the way through the training program the trainees were given a test. They were ushered into a room full of desks, on each of which was a test paper that was several pages in length and which opened with the following rubric: “Please read this test paper carefully. Do not attempt to answer any of the questions before you have finished reading this test paper”.

 My friend obediently read through the questions without writing anything, even though he knew some of the answers without the need to consider the questions deeply. He could so easily have completed those questions as he went along. At the very end of the test paper he read the following rubric: “Do not write any of the answers to the questions on this paper”.

It transpired that the real purpose of the test was not to see what the trainee bank managers knew but to see whether they could carry out the simple instruction of not writing anything until they had finished reading the test paper. My friend was the only person who passed that test. The salutary lesson of this exercise—we may know that we are being tested but we may not recognize what we are being tested on—is even more applicable when it is God and not a bank that sets the tests.