Is it normal to begrudge help for others?

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Nitzavim-Vayelech)

This week’s perakim are Perek 5 and Perek 6. The following piece is on a mishnah from Perek 5.

At Avot 5:13 we find an anonymously-authored Mishnah that reflects on human attitudes towards property—both theirs and that of others. It reads:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בָּאָדָם: הָאוֹמֵר שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלָּךְ וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלִּי, עַם הָאָֽרֶץ. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלָּךְ, זוֹ מִדָּה בֵינוֹנִית, וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים זוֹ מִדַּת סְדוֹם. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלָּךְ וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלָּךְ, חָסִיד. שֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי, רָשָׁע

There are four types of people:

(i) The one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" — this is a middle of the road characteristic; others say that this is the character trait of Sodom.

(ii) The one who says "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is an am ha’aretz [an uncultivated person].

(iii) The one who says "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chasid [a generous soul].

(iv) The one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked.

The first of these categories has generated much discussion. How can a person be both a middle-of-the-road person and someone who has the character of someone from Sodom?

Rabbenu Yonah clarifies that we are not talking here about someone who does not give charity or help others at all. Everyone agrees that such a person is evil. What we are discussing is the attitude of the giver. Some give begrudgingly, because they are afraid of the consequences in this life or the next if they do not do so. What the rabbis of the mishnah cannot agree on is whether this person’s attitude is perfectly normal or whether it is a character flaw.

Personally I like the account of Gila Ross (Living Beautifully) as to the ambiguity, or bifurcated nature if you prefer, of the “mine’s mine and yours is yours” attitude. She describes the first position of the Mishnah, that such a person as average, and contrasts it with the selfish attitude of the inhabitants of Sodom, then adds this:

“…the Mishnah calls it average for an individual, because an individual can be forgiven for their lack of sensitivity and lack of desire to give to others. However, it’s problematic when this attitude of ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours’ becomes the prevailing viewpoint in a society. Then it becomes cruelty. As long as it’s only an individual, there will be other individuals who will step up to help those in need. If it becomes a societal thing, it becomes cruel because the poor will be neglected”.

A similar explanation can be found in R' Shlomo Toperoff's Lev Avot.

On the whole, Avot is concerned with the conduct of the individual—whether dealing with other individual or with society at large—and not with collective conduct and attitudes. But this interpretation places this mishnah among the exceptions.

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Is a bur a boor, or something more?

This is the second of two posts with a common theme, based on the Tiferet Tzion commentary of Rabbi Yitzchak Ze'ev Yadler.

Hillel teaches (in the first part of Avot 2:6):

אֵין בּוּר יְרֵא חֵטְא

In English: “A boor cannot be a sin-fearing person”.

This apparently abrupt and dogmatic generalisation has invited much discussion over the years. This discussion can be conveniently divided into the consideration of three questions: (i) what actually is a “boor” in this context? (ii) what is meant by “a sin-fearing person” and (iii) why should the fact that a person is a boor deprive him of the ability to fear sin? These three questions are clearly related, inasmuch as the answer to question (iii) is contingent upon the way we understand that is meant by “boor” and how we view “sin-fearing”.

In Hillel’s mishnah the boor is one of five defective character-types, the other four being the am ha’aretz (variously understood as someone who, in Torah terms, is uneducated or uncultured), the bayashan (being timid, this person is afraid to ask questions and will not therefore learn well), the kapadan (irritable or irascible and therefore unsuited to teaching) and the marbeh vischorah (who is too greatly engaged in business and commerce to impart Torah to others). Since the boor and the am ha’aretz are adjacent and potentially overlapping concepts, discussion tends to focus on how the boor and the am ha’aretz differ and, if one reads all the commentaries on this issue, one could be forgiven for thinking that there is really very little difference between them at all.

Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler takes a different approach in his Tiferet Tzion. His starting point is an earlier mishnah in the same chapter (Avot 2:2) in which Rebbi’s son Rabban Gamliel teaches that it is a beautiful thing for a person to combine Torah study with a regular occupation since the exertion that is demanded of someone who combines Torah study with a day job will remove sin from that person’s consciousness.

The word בּוּר (bur) indicates something (or in this case, someone) that is empty. It is the capacity to pursue Torah and a worldly occupation that distinguishes humans from members of the animal kingdom. When engaged in both or possibly either of these activities there will be no room to contemplate sin. But if both are emptied out, a person becomes a bur and, like the animal, has no awareness of sin and therefore no capacity to fear it or its consequences.

It is possible that, while the mishnah refers specifically to learning Torah, it may be equally applicable to the learning of any system of morality that points to considerations of rewards for good behaviour and punishments for sins, thus embracing the moral basis of all three Abrahamic religions.