Doubt, no doubt

Avot 5:8 which lists the ten things—or is it 13, or even 14—that God is said to have created just before the onset of the first Shabbat in history. This anonymous teaching runs as follows:

עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶֽרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵֽלּוּ הֵן: פִּי הָאָֽרֶץ, פִּי הַבְּאֵר, פִּי הָאָתוֹן, הַקֶּֽשֶׁת, וְהַמָּן, וְהַמַּטֶּה, וְהַשָּׁמִיר, הַכְּתָב, וְהַמִּכְתָּב, וְהַלֻּחוֹת. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: אַף אַף הַמַּזִּיקִין, וקִבְרוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּֽנוּ, וְאֵילוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: וְאַף צְבַת בִּצְבַת עֲשׂוּיָה

Ten things were created at twilight of Shabbat eve. These are the mouth of the earth [that swallowed Korach]; the mouth of [Miriam's] well; the mouth of [Balaam's] donkey; the rainbow; the manna; [Moses'] staff; the shamir; writing, the inscription and the tablets [of the Ten Commandments]. Some say also the mazikim [spirits of destruction] as well as the burial place of Moses and the ram of our father Abraham. And some say also tongs made with tongs.

Ostensibly Pirkei Avot is a tractate that focuses on mussar and middot—moral chastisement and the cultivation of good behavioural characteristics. So how does R’ Ovadyah Bartenura, who asserts at Avot 1:1 that this entire tractate is mussar and middot, handle our mishnah here? In short, he doesn’t address the potential mussar and middot content at all. Instead, he confines himself to discussing the items that the mishnah lists. In this, he is not alone—and he is in good company. A similar approach is taken in the commentary ascribed to Rashi. Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah and the Meiri see this teaching as reflecting upon the relationship between creation, nature and the potential for change, the Meiri adding that the first ten allude to the principles of Jewish faith. In contrast R’ Chaim Volozhin, in his mussar-rich Ruach Chaim, offers no thoughts on the topic.

Some commentators do address the mishnah’s moral content, but in markedly different ways. The Alshich (Yarim Moshe), in a lengthy analysis of all the listed items, offers no overall moral instruction but does allude to separate moral messages that can be extracted from the inclusion of some of them. R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says that the items enumerated in it “have the function of training man for his moral destiny”—but he gives no clue as to the means by which this is to be achieved. R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) goes further. All these items, he states, were created only because Adam sinned; had he not done so, they would not have been needed. If Adam had only repented before the first Shabbat, it would have been as though he had not sinned, and the mishnah shows that God waits for the last moment for us to do teshuvah. This explanation has good Chasidic pedigree: it seemingly originates in the Beit Aharon of R’ Aharon Perlow of Karlin.

R' Shlomo Toperoff makes an attempt to extract some sort of moral from this Mishnah. Focusing on the fact that the listed creations are all made at twilight at the point at which Shabbat comes in, he writes in Lev Avot:

“[Twilight] is the doubtful period which is neither day nor night. This teaches us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest. When we reach the age of reason and are assailed by doubts and vacillation, we should buttress our faith with an implicit belief in Divine Providence which manifests itself in the constant interplay of the miraculous workings of God throughout life”.

Fine words, but does this Mishnah truly “teach us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest”? I have problems with this conclusion.

First, we learn here what God did, not what we do. It is frankly inconceivable that God had any doubt when creating the listed items. An omniscient God who creates night and day and distinguishes between, and who desists from work on the seventh day, will by definition have done this work before the onset of the Shabbat without having to face the challenge of doubt which assails us humans.

Secondly, the Tannaim are notoriously sparing with their words. If the need for resolution of doubts is the point of this mishnah, why is it necessary to list so many things? A single example would suffice.

Thirdly, there is already a Mishnah in the first chapter of Avot, where Rabban Gamliel teaches (at 1:16):

הִסְתַּלֵּק מִן הַסָּפֵק

Stay away from doubt.

What purpose is served by teaching here that one should resolve doubts before Shabbat when we are already advised to avoid doubts whether we have them before Shabbat or at any other time?

Fourthly, it is possible that R’ Toperoff is referring not solely to doubts in general but also, as may be the case from his concluding comments, to doubts concerning “Divine Providence and God’s miraculous workings throughout life”, If this is so, it is hard to see how the mishnah’s choice of listed phenomena is an appropriate means of removing the doubts of anyone who harbours uncertainties about God.

Is there an ideal one-size-fits-all answer to the question “what’s the moral message of this mishnah?” Possibly not, but we should commend those rabbis who at least make the effort to find one.

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Creation, kindness, and an apparently irrelevant detail

Avot 5:8 teaches that 10 things were created on the eve of the first Shabbat, though it ultimately raises the total to 14 (listed below). So what?

From our viewpoint as inhabitants of the 21^st century, it makes little practical difference to our daily lives whether the 14 things listed in this Mishnah were created just as the Six Days of Creation were drawing to their close, earlier in the week or even after the first Shabbat. In any event, our consumerist habits tend to direct our attention towards when things expire or pass their use-by date, not the precise moment in time in they were manufactured. The mishnah however teaches nothing in vain. So why do we need to know this detail? Rabbi Yehudah Assad, Chidushei Mahari’a al Pirkei Avot, explains that this apparently redundant piece of information teaches that all 14 of these creations reflect God’s chesed (kindness) towards His people.  How is this so?

A verse in the Book of Psalms records in part that “[In] kindness the World is created” (89:3), What is the significance of this? This verse hints that, when God created the World, he did so during the hours of daylight. Day is divided into 12 hours. Six days of 12 hours duration gives a total of 72 hours. The word for “kindness” in Hebrew is חֶסֶד (chesed). The numerical value of the Hebrew word חֶסֶד is also 72 and twilight on the Sixth Day of Creation represents the point at which the 72^nd and final hour of the working week literally shades off into night. The 14 creations in our Mishnah were therefore brought into existence as a matter of chesed. 

This message might seem a little cute and contrived, but it carries a powerful point: if all these things were created as an act or sign of God’s kindness, then the damaging forces called mazikim [discussed at length on 13 October 2020 here] must have been created as an act of kindness too. Bearing this in mind, it is worth considering afresh what they are and why God should have troubled Himself to create them.

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 The first 10 things are (i) the mouth of the Earth; (ii) the mouth of the well; (iii) the mouth of the ass; (iv) the rainbow; (v) manna; (vi) the staff; (vii) the shamir worm; (viii) writing; (ix) that which is written and (x) the tablets.

The four additional things are (xi) damaging entities (mazikim);  (xii) the burial place of Moses and (xiii) Abraham's ram -- and some say also (xiv) tongs that are made with tongs.

Mazikim pt 2: Refusal to admit responsibility for what happens in one's life

In the fifth perek of Avot (at 5:8) we learn of 10 things that were created at dusk on the eve of Shabbat and of a further four things that some people would add to this list. One of those things is "mazikim", evil and destructive demons. Some people believe that mazikim exist; others that they do not. 

Should the existence or non-existence of mazikim concern us? I think not. If they exist, it is axiomatic that God created them and that, since only man has free will, whatever mazikim do is mandated by God.  Furthermore, since God is the only authentic source of power that a Jew must acknowledge, it is absolutely wrong to treat mazikim as if they held any power in their own right, and therefore wrong to seek to propitiate them. If however they do not exist, then it is we who have created them in our minds. If we have done so, it is our own minds that we must turn in order to address their functional (or dysfunctional) utility within the World we inhabit and which God created.

 I believe the real question we face is not that of whether mazikim exist.  The real question is what we can learn from the undeniable fact that the author of this mishnah teaches us that there are those who say that they were created on the eve of the World’s first Sabbath.

 An argument can be made out that the inclusion of mazikim on this list is because it has a positive aspect, in common with the other 13. The argument runs as follows.  The idea behind the mazikim of our mishnah is that something adverse happens to an individual. That person has, at that moment, a choice. One option is to link that adverse consequence to his own conduct. This can be done in many ways and on different levels. For example he can accept that he was negligent (e.g. the car rolled down the hill because he didn’t check if the brake was on) or inadvertent (e.g. he switched the kettle on, forgetting that he already emptied it). On another level he can view the adverse consequence as a sort of retribution (e.g. why did he drop the bottle of Scotch in the street? Because he should have spent the money instead on a charity donation he was asked to give) or caution (e.g. he walked into an old lady while checking his phone and knocked her over, this being a warning to be more careful next time he goes out).

 What does all of this have to do with mazikim? In short, the idea that underwrites the usefulness of the mazik is that a person’s misfortune is unrelated to his own behavior: it is always the fault of others.  Let us return back to the examples above.  Why did the car roll down the hill? Because a mazik released the handbrake. Why did the kettle boil dry? Just his luck that a mazik must have distracted him.  If however a person is prepared to take responsibility for his actions, he recognizes that he is the mazik. Why did that bottle of Scotch fall from my hands? Maybe it was a lesson—annoying and expensive but at least it was painless—that I should think again about putting my own selfish interests ahead of the needs of others. Why did I knock that poor little old lady over? Because I was so preoccupied with my own affairs that I forgot I was sharing the sidewalk with my fellow humans. So, to summarize, "mazikim" is a sort of shorthand term for the potential of mankind to accept or reject responsibility for its own damaging actions.

 The significance of mazikim in this mishnah is that this concept was created just before Shabbat of the World’s first week.  The Torah is not a history book, but it does tell us in some detail about one event: the Fall of Man.  Our thoughts concerning the story of Adam and Eve tend to dwell on the sadly lost opportunity to do the one thing God asked: not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. This mishnah however addresses another part of the story: the abrogation of responsibility on the part of both Adam and Eve. Adam’s position regarding their wrongful acts. Adam states that it was not his fault: it was Eve who gave him the fruit. Eve states that it was not her fault: the serpent told her to eat it. Here, with Shabbat coming in for the first time in Jewish history, we see the potential for accepting or denying responsibility for a person’s own damaging actions being actualized.