THE DANGER OF WORDS, THE PROBLEM OF EXILE

Few areas of Jewish law and practice are as extensively addressed—and, it seems, as frequently breached—as those that relate to the abuse of words, whether written or spoken. In addition to the Torah’s many prohibitions against false, damaging and inappropriate speech, Pirkei Avot carries many warnings concerning the misuse of words, and indeed praises the quality of silence. One of the lengthier warnings in Avot concerns the teacher’s use of careless words and the risk that they will lead one’s talmidim (pupils) astray.  At Avot 1:11 Avtalyon says:

חֲכָמִים, הִזָּהֲרוּ בְדִבְרֵיכֶם, שֶׁמָּא תָחֽוֹבוּ חוֹבַת גָּלוּת וְתִגְלוּ לִמְקוֹם מַֽיִם הָרָעִים, וְיִשְׁתּוּ הַתַּלְמִידִים הַבָּאִים אַחֲרֵיכֶם וְיָמֽוּתוּ, וְנִמְצָא שֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם מִתְחַלֵּל

Scholars, be careful with your words since you may liable to be exiled and be exiled to a place of bad water. The disciples who come after you will then drink of these bad waters and be killed, and the Name of Heaven will be desecrated.

Most traditional commentators link these words to the sad episode in which Zadok and Boethus, the talmidim of Antigonus of Socho, either misunderstood or deliberately misapplied his words and eventually led schismatic sects of their own. But, while this explanation is sound, it does not assist us in tackling the key question: how do we know that the words of any given sage are “bad water”, doctrinally unsound and dangerous to Judaism as we understand it, and not a brilliant, possibly counterintuitive innovation or insight?

Rabbis must have asked themselves this question ever since they resolved that Torah was not in Heaven and took upon themselves the task of applying, developing and elucidating the laws contained in the written Torah. How could they discern, for example, whether Hillel’s introduction of the prozbul as a means of circumventing the cancellation of loan debts in the Sabbatical year was a stroke of rabbinical genius and not a barefaced evasion of an explicit Torah law?

Rabbi Yisrael Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) recognizes this problem. He writes:

“Among great Torah thinkers and teachers, there are always some who are outside the mainstream (this is not a criticism). Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rav Yisrael Salanter, the Satmar Rebbe Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, and the Rambam in an earlier generation, all held and taught certain views that differed from those of the majority of their contemporaries, and their teachings are important contributions to Torah thought. But when a teacher is outside the mainstream, a student’s misunderstanding will likely not be corrected by what we might call ‘peer review’”.

In other words, the real danger alluded to in our mishnah is not that a teacher endorses doctrine that is erroneous—something that is likely to be spotted and challenged pretty swiftly by his peers—but that a talmid will fail to grasp the proper meaning of an apparently unorthodox teaching and will not be pulled back into the fold by his peers. But, while trying to find the right words with which to avoid giving offence, Rabbi Miller gets to his point:

“…[I]f the rebbi and his yeshiva are considered ‘different’ (by others) or ‘unique’ (by his own talmidim, then the opinions and arguments of ‘outsiders’ carry little weight. We see this among Breslover and Lubavitcher Chassidim, and also in some non-Chassidic yeshivas, especially in some smaller ones where there is only one rebbi whose talmidim are devoted to him). In such cases a talmid who misunderstands will not revise his thinking based on what ‘outsiders’ might say, and may remain with a serious error in hashkafah or practical halachah”.

Rav Miller does concede that to study under giants like Rabbi Yisrael Salander or the Satmar Rebbe would be “a ben Torah’s dream”. But the point has been made. Rav Miller concludes:

“Based on this, the ‘exile’ means to end up alone (“exiled”) from the mainstream. ‘Harmful waters’ are teachings that are dangerous if misunderstood (which of course pose no danger to the teacher who ’drinks’, because he knows what he means). But such Sages must choose their words with extra care, lest the students make a serious error that cannot be corrected, and the name of Heaven desecrated”.

The teacher whose words enable talmidim to go astray is clearly not about to do so himself. Avtalyon addresses this mishnah to “Chachamim”, a title that he would surely not confer upon peddlers of false truths and fake Torah.

Rabbi Miller’s explanation does not address the literal meaning of Avtalyon’s mishnah in one respect, since he offers no meaning for the part of the mishnah that stipulates that the teacher is liable to be exiled.  What does “exile” have to do with his message? Here another mishnah from Avot comes into play. At Avot 4:18  Rabbi Nehorai addresses exile full-on:

הֱוֵי גוֹלֶה לִמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה, וְאַל תֹּאמַר שֶׁהִיא תָבוֹא אַחֲרֶֽיךָ, שֶׁחֲבֵרֶֽיךָ יְקַיְּמֽוּהָ בְיָדֶֽךָ, וְאֶל בִּינָתְךָ אַל תִּשָּׁעֵן

Exile yourself to a place of Torah; do not say that it will come after you, that your colleagues will help you retain it—and don’t rely on your own understanding.

There is discussion in the Gemara as to the identity of Rabbi Nehorai. One opinion is that he is really Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, a talmid of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai who is speaking here from experience. He followed his wife to Diomsis (aka Emmaus), a place known for its waters. His colleagues did not follow him and he forgot his Torah. Although Rabbi Elazar ben Arach lived generations after Avtalyon, we might speculate that the idea of deserting the Beit Midrash for a spa resort was one that appealed to Chachamim of other generations too.

For comments and discussion on this post on Facebook, click here.

Pirkei Avot comes to Ruth

Left over from Shavuot

I was supposed to say a few words of Torah last week at the Beit Knesset Hanassi’s Shavuot Ne’ilat HaChag. I prepared a devar Torah that I’ve now written up for Avot Today and I’ve posted it below. In the event, I didn’t speak on this topic at all: I shelved it in favour of a dispute that broke out between two of our grandkids as to who owns ice cubes when one child pours water into an ice cube tray owned by the other. Anyway, without further ado, here’s …

 
PIRKEI AVOT COMES TO RUTH

Shavuot raises fascinating issues for Pirkei Avot enthusiasts such as myself, since there is no obvious interface between Pirkei Avot and Megillat Ruth. None of the 60 or so rabbis who are name-checked in Avot cite any verses from Megillat Ruth at all—and yet most of this short canonical book is about middot and mussar: the very stuff of which Pirkei Avot is made.

We don’t have to venture very far into Megillat Ruth before we find somewhere that Pirkei Avot comes into play. The very first verse is redolent with Avot-related issues:

וַיְהִי, בִּימֵי שְׁפֹט הַשֹּׁפְטִים, וַיְהִי רָעָב, בָּאָרֶץ; וַיֵּלֶךְ אִישׁ מִבֵּית לֶחֶם יְהוּדָה, לָגוּר בִּשְׂדֵי מוֹאָב--הוּא וְאִשְׁתּוֹ, וּשְׁנֵי בָנָיו

And it came to pass, in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem Yehudah went to live in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

We learn that Elimelech disappears off to Moab together with his wife Naomi and their two sons. Since Megillat Ruth doesn’t spell out why he does this, we could be don lekaf zechut and judge him favourably, saying that Elimelech may well have had honourable reasons for doing so (Avot 1:6), but Rashi—following a midrash in Ruth Rabba—points to him running away in order to avoid having a stream of poor and hungry people turning up on his doorstep. This is not a crime, but it’s definitely not regarded as best Pirkei Avot practice: indeed, Yose ben Yochanan Ish Yerushalayim (Avot 1:5) urges us to keep open house for the poor and let them be the children of your household. I’ll say more on that later.

The Malbim (Geza Yishai on Megillat Ruth) explains the departure of Elimelech in a way that is both more favourable to him, and less so. He is don lekaf zechut to the point that, in the Malbim’s eyes, Elimelech feared that the angry poor would descend on his home and loot it, adding that he only intended to stay away until their rage relented and that he established his home in the sedei Moav, the countryside, rather than in a settled area where bad influences abounded. According to the Biur Hagra though, this ploy failed since Elimelech’s sons Machlon and Chilion assimilated into the local culture.

Having initially pointed to a plausible ground for Elimelech’s flight, the Malbim identifies a downside to his actions: even if Elimelech was justified in leaving Bet Lechem, he was the only wealthy man there to do so: all the others stayed put. This causes two Pirkei Avot problems: (i) he is falling foul of Hillel’s precept of standing solidly together with one’s people, al tifrosh min hatzibbur (Avot 2:5) and, (ii) since he is apparently happy that others should give tzedakah to the poor while he doesn’t, he is deemed as being mean and stingy in terms of the Avot 5:16.

Should Elimelech have, remained in Bet Lechem Yehudah, opened his house to the poor and fed them? Yes, says PA and yes say many traditional commentaries—this is something we should all do. Perhaps unsurprisingly most modern commentators say “yes—but no”.   Thus R’ Yaakov Hillel—who usually takes a stricter line wherever he can—says that in our generation we must be extremely careful. Why? Because we live in affluent times and “most people cannot handle a lifestyle that deviates greatly from contemporary norms”. Other rabbis recommend limiting this hospitality in other ways: for example, it should not impose a burdensome workload on one’s wife, and the tzniut of the ladyfolk of one’s home should not be compromised by the presence of a ceaseless stream of hungry male visitors. 

A further question that the opening verse of Megillat Ruth invites is whether Moab was an acceptable place for a Torah scholar to move to in the first place. At Avot 4:18 Rabbi Nehorai teaches:

הֱוֵי גוֹלֶה לִמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה, וְאַל תֹּאמַר שֶׁהִיא תָבוֹא אַחֲרֶֽיךָ, שֶׁחֲבֵרֶֽיךָ יְקַיְּמֽוּהָ בְיָדֶֽךָ, וְאֶל בִּינָתְךָ אַל תִּשָּׁעֵן

Exile yourself to a place of Torah; do not say that it will come after you, because it’s your friends [who are learning partners] who sustain your Torah: so don’t rely on your own understanding.

There is no suggestion that Moab is a makom Torah and no hint from Megillat Ruth that Elimelech’s Torah learning might followed him there. Incidentally the Pele Yo’etz, in his sefer Elef Hamagen, lists various differences between the two most important things in a man’s life, which are his Torah and his wife. One such difference is that, when a man leaves town his wife will follow him—while the Torah won’t. We learn this from the sad case of R’ Elazar ben Arach (Shabbat 147b), who actually followed his own wife and relocated at the popular health spa of Diomsit, forgetting all his Torah in the process.

I shall conclude with a moral-driven message for the wealthy which we learn from the tale of R’ Yose ben Kisma at Avot 6:9: it’s better to be a poor man and live in an Ir gedolah shel chachamim and soferim, a citadel of Torah, than to have literally assets in the millions but live elsewhere. If Elimelech had only appreciated this, he would have stayed put and the course of Jewish history would have changed.

And that’s why we should all be grateful to be living in Rechavia now, a corner of Jerusalem that is literally sprouting chachamim and soferim and where the general level of security, health and affluence is relatively high.

May the Almighty in his wisdom confer upon all the rest of Israel the many blessings and chasadim that he has conferred on us here and now, and may we see this in our own lifetimes.

Check out comments and discussion of this post on its Facebook page here.