Holding back and going forth: a visit to the Delphic Oracle

Our previous post here discussed Rabbi Akiva’s teaching in Avot 3:17 that “oaths are a fence against abstinence” and suggested that, despite the fact that neither oaths nor abstinence are topics of popular currency, this Mishnah still had something to teach us.

We briefly reviewed the concept of the oath or vow, which we analogised to the New Year Resolution in contemporary culture. Now it’s time to look at abstinence.

The Hebrew word, perishut, which is usually translated as “abstinence”, really means “separation”. It has come to mean “abstinence” on the basis that the things most people most frequently give up or separate themselves from are things of a pleasurable nature. People rarely want to detach themselves from these pleasures but they are often characterised as being harmful to the body (e.g. cigarettes, alcohol, confectionery) or to one’s spirit or emotions (e.g. gambling, pornography). To many English speakers the word “abstinence” conjures up notions of adopting a harsh, ascetic life, possibly involving isolation from human company and celibacy.

The concept of abstinence may not always have had such miserable connotations. Reviewing the ambit of perishut in his classic Chovot Halevavot, Rabbenu Bachye ibn Paquda depicts a wide spectrum of practices that he regards as falling within its scope. At one end is the complete rejection of what one wishes to give up for good. The other end is however described in relative terms, as edging away from an extreme indulgence and moving towards the Maimonidean mean of “not too little, not too much”. The notion of perishut as simply avoiding extremes was not unknown in the world of the Tannaim who composed the mishnayot of Avot: they may well have been aware of the Greek maxim μηδὲν ἄγαν (“nothing in excess”), which was displayed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, a place visited by travellers from across the Eastern Mediterranean region and Asia Minor.

The scope of perishut as a measure of how far a Jew engages with the pleasurable or dangerously attractive facets of secular life works in two directions. Rabbenu Bachye’s concern, which may also have been that of Rabbi Akiva, lay with the detachment of the Jew from non-Jewish culture. However, in Seeking His Presence, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein discusses with Rabbi Chaim Sabato the opposite phenomenon: the extent to which it is desirable for a Jew who lives within his own culture and religious norms to experience and participate in the culture of the secular world. In Rabbi Lichtenstein’s case the attractions of the non-Torah world included the reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost, a 10,000-odd word poem on the subject of repentance.  For others, the pleasures of the wider world may be of a less noble nature.

How far need a Jew abstain from that which may be harmful and alien in order to protect his essential Jewishness, and how far dare a committed Jew edge towards the values and prospects of the wider world without jeopardising his religious commitment and identity? Ultimately there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Much depends on the strength of an individual’s self-knowledge, his self-discipline, his understanding of what Jewish values represent and what they mean to him. How does one assess these factors?

A second Delphic maxim, balancing the first, looks pertinent here: γνῶθι σεαυτόν (“know yourself”). Putting the two maxims together, we see that the visitor to Delphi is advised to use his knowledge of himself as the yardstick against which to measure moderation and excess. But the truth is that we cannot know ourselves with the sort of clarity that would enable us to judge our actions, or indeed feel confident that we can actually be the people we want to be. Hillel understood this when he urged us not to trust ourselves till the day of our death (Avot 2:5), the point at which we can no longer exercise our free will. So, while both we Jews and the ancient Greeks share the ideal objective of taking the line of moderation, we need a better compass with which to steer ourselves towards it than self-knowledge alone.

Upon my oath! Making a personal commitment

This week’s Torah reading of parashat Matot opens with the topic of solemn vows and oaths, their binding nature and the extent to which they can be annulled. In modern society the making of such oaths plays only a tangential role, so we tend to give it little thought. That does not mean that we cannot learn something useful from our ancient laws. After all, keeping one’s word and doing what one promises are important parts of civilised life everywhere—and this is the issue that underpins the making and breaking of vows and oaths.

Not only the Mishnah but the Talmud give considerable space to oaths, dedicating no fewer than three tractates to them: Nedarim (defining a neder vow and its application to vows concerning food and daughters), Nazir (on the making of Nazirite vows and their consequences) and Shevuot (oaths made in the course of commerce and litigation). But that is not all. Pirkei Avot mentions oaths too, on three occasions:

·         “Oaths are a protective fence to abstinence” (Rabbi Akiva, Avot 3:17)

·         “Don’t question your fellow at the time he is making a vow” (Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar, Avot 4:23)

·         “Wild beasts come into the world on account of vain oaths and desecration of God’s name” (Anonymous, Avot 5:11).

From debate in the Talmud as to whether oaths are good, bad or both, we can see that much depends on the circumstances and the manner in which people make them. At one end of the spectrum we see how a person can strengthen his or her resolve to do the right thing by making an oath to do so; at the other extreme we learn of people taking God’s name in vain when making oaths that are without purpose or meaning. There’s not much point in making an oath that a muffin is a muffin, but at least that proposition is true. To utilise God’s name when swearing that a muffin is not a muffin is an insult to human intelligence, whether one is troubled by invoking God’s name in vain or not.

Of all Rabbi Akiva’s teachings in Avot, “Oaths are a protective fence to abstinence” is probably the one we encounter least frequently, since not only oaths but also abstinence are very much out of fashion. There is however more to Rabbi Akiva’s teaching here than meets the eye. Taking a positive view, his teaching suggests that binding oral commitments like oaths and vows are clearly of value if they help to strengthen the resolve of someone who is motivated to distance himself from the pleasures and sensual experiences of the world—whether permitted or otherwise—for the purpose of gaining greater proximity to his Maker.

In the world at large, many people practise the popular institution of the New Year Resolution—a pledge to undertake the making of (usually) one major change in their lifestyle in order to produce some sort of improving effect. These resolutions often cover abstinence from substances that are pleasurably harmful if consumed in quantity (e.g. chocolate, patisserie, alcoholic beverages). Or they may relate to acts and deeds (e.g. making a greater effort to visit elderly relatives, or regularly clearing their email in-trays). One thing they generally have in common is that much of their power to bind the person making them depends on that person telling others that he or she has done so. This means facing shame and embarrassment if, having publicised a resolution, a person then admits in public that he or she has broken it.

Like New Year Resolutions, the oaths and vows of Mishnaic times raised the expectation that the person making them would respect and stand by them. However, unlike secular resolutions, the oaths and vows that the Mishnah discusses were made by people who, by invoking God’s name, reminded themselves that both their binding commitment and any breach of it were made before their Creator, giving extra power to the notion that it is important to keep one’s word and honour one’s promises even if their subject, such as limiting their consumption of chocolate and booze, affects non-one but themselves.

A further note on abstinence and what it means should appear later this week.