SQUEEZING THE IN-BETWEEN TIME

Much of Pirkei Avot deals, directly or by inference, with the need to establish a good lifestyle balance between four key ingredients of a meaningful Jewish life:  learning Torah, performing mitzvot and good deeds, earning one’s keep and attending to one’s basic needs. While each of these four elements is vital, their relationship to one another is not constant. It is obvious that there must be times when one or other is in the ascendant.

In terms of being the priority element by default, Torah does well enough. It has its own dedicated perek, the sixth—and we learn that there is a direct proportionality between Torah and life itself (Hillel at 2:8). However, Torah does not have everything its own way. Thus it is not Torah but good deeds that are the main thing (Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel at 1:17); Torah is most efficacious only when blended with an occupation and, when undiluted, causes sin (Rabban Gamliel at 2:2). But if one forsakes Torah learning, the burdens of government and a worldly occupation are thrown upon him (Rabbi Nechunyah ben Hakanah, 3:6). Food, drink and sleep are essential, but only in small quantities if a person wishes to maximize his pleasure in learning Torah (6:4. There are many more examples.

Of particular note is Rabbi Meir’s call to minimize one’s business activities in order to engage more substantially in learning Torah at 4:12:

הֱוֵי מְמַעֵט בְּעֵֽסֶק וַעֲסוֹק בַּתּוֹרָה, וֶהֱוֵי שְׁפַל רֽוּחַ בִּפְנֵי כָל אָדָם, וְאִם בָּטַֽלְתָּ מִן הַתּוֹרָה, יֶשׁ לָךְ בְּטֵלִים הַרְבֵּה כְּנֶגְדָּךְ, וְאִם עָמַֽלְתָּ בַּתּוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, יֶשׁ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה לִתֶּן לָךְ

Minimize your business activity and engage in Torah. Be humble before every person. If you neglect the Torah, there will be many excuses for you; if you toil much in Torah, there is much reward to give to you.

The first and third segments of this mishnah point clearly to the relationship of Torah to other activities, and there are many commentators who explain this mishnah in a somewhat artificial manner by weaving humility into the balance of Torah learning versus the arguably lesser priorities.

As a personal observation, I’d like to comment on something that affects the balance of Torah study, good deeds, parnasah and personal wellbeing, and that is time.

It’s easy to imagine an ideal day in which, at any given time, a person is doing one of the four things. Here we have a sort of zero-sum game in which there is no moment in which one is not locked into one of the four. Do more of one and you do less of the others, but A + B + C + D always comes out to the same one, complete day. In practice I don’t think this is the case.

Our contemporary lifestyles should warn us to be sensitive to the many challenges we face if we do not wish to watch potentially productive time to fall through the cracks in our day.

One such challenge is posed by choice in a materialist society. Which shirt to wear; which items to select on a menu; which car to buy; which method to fund the purchase of a house or apartment; which school or group to send one’s children—these are just some of the choices that not only demand the consumption of time but, in at least some cases, invade the time spent in pursuit of one’s Torah learning or day job. Some choices are more important than others, but the time consumed by them is not necessarily proportional to their overall importance (picking the right wallpaper or fabric pattern, for example).

Even apart from choice, our good use of time is always subject to bitul, the cancellation of the moment because we do nothing with it. Standing at bus stops and railway platforms, wating for one’s turn at the barber or in the dentist’s reception room, watching advertisements while awaiting the beginning of a program one wishes to view: these are unproductive uses of time and, because of their frequency and inevitability, it is easy to acquiesce and write this time off as lost.

A challenge of a different kind is posed by our own reactions when faced with a decision-making process. Anyone who has worked in the financial sector or in business deadline, usually one that is inherently arbitrary and not imposed by the employees who seek to meet it, so often means skipping meals, working nights, missing regular shiurim and so on. But there is little or no reciprocity here. It is most unusual to hear of anyone who has consciously missed a deadline in order to attend a shiur, or who has taken time off work in order to finish learning a masechta. To the outside observer it might look as though work has gained ascendancy over Torah, though I am sure that we would all be quick to assert that this is not so.

So, to return to Rabbi Meir, we can say with him: “Minimize your business activity and engage in Torah”, while recognizing that there may be real and serious limits as to how this might be done and also accepting that, with the best will in the world, the time saved by minimizing business activity is unlikely to translate precisely into time gained for Torah learning.

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Too busy to learn? Where Pirkei Avot meets reality

This is my first post for nearly three weeks, and it’s not because I’ve given up on Avot Today. Rather, it is a consequence of my intense involvement in the running of my synagogue, of which I am currently the president and, it seems, a good deal more.

The precise circumstances in which I became president need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that there was no one else was willing and able to do so. My decision to accept the post was based on the dictum of Hillel at Avot 2:6:

וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ

 In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.

I very soon discovered that, before I could be of any service to the synagogue, I had a great deal to learn about its membership and its governance. In this I was greatly assisted by long-time members and Board members both past and present. I also received a large number of suggestions and pieces of incidental information from the membership at large—many of which appeared irrelevant at the time but have since found a place in the jigsaw that comprises the community which the synagogue serves. Here I was guided by the maxim of Ben Zoma at Avot 4:1:

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise? One who learns from every person.

I soon found myself swamped by shul business and struggled to juggle my many commitments within the time available. It was apparent at that juncture that, since I could not function without food or sleep, and synagogal responsibilities were so many and so pressing, the easiest commitment to push aside was my Torah learning—but it seemed to me that, the less learning I did, the more shul administration there was for me to tackle. Nechunyah ben Hakanah at Avot 3:6 had already noted this possibility when he taught:

כָּל הַמְקַבֵּל עָלָיו עוֹל תּוֹרָה, מַעֲבִירִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, וְכָל הַפּוֹרֵק מִמֶּֽנוּ עוֹל תּוֹרָה, נוֹתְנִין עָלָיו עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ

One who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah is exempted from the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares; but one who casts off the yoke of Torah is saddled with the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares.

I had initially hoped against hope that, if I learned a bit less now, I could step up my learning again when I had mastered my presidential duties. But this has not happened. Again, Hillel warns, at Avot 2:5:

וְאַל תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפְנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה, שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה

 And do not say "When I free myself of my concerns, I will study,'' for perhaps you will never free yourself.

Potentially comforting is the assurance of Rabban Gamliel the son of Rebbi at Avot 2:2:

וְכָל הָעוֹסְקִים עִם הַצִּבּוּר יִהְיוּ עוֹסְקִים עִמָּהֶם לְשֵׁם שָׁמָֽיִם, שֶׁזְּכוּת אֲבוֹתָם מְסַיַּעְתָּם, וְצִדְקָתָם עוֹמֶֽדֶת לָעַד

Those who work for the community should do so for the sake of Heaven, for then the merit of their fathers shall aid them, and their righteousness shall endure forever. 

It’s difficult to know what to make of this, since I’m still swamped with duties and responsibilities and don’t feel that I’m receiving any aid.  Does this mean that I’m not acting for the sake of Heaven, or that those from whom I am descended have no merit to aid me—or that I am already receiving aid from Heaven on account of the merit of my forebears, but that I ungratefully do not appreciate how much more I would be struggling in its absence? I doubt that I shall never know.

But not all hope is lost. One of the 48 ways of acquiring Torah (Avot 6:6) is to be

נוֹשֵׂא בְעוֹל עִם חֲבֵרוֹ

One who bears the burden along with one's fellow.

The solution is clear. What I must continue to do is to find others to help me and to share the strain of carrying out tasks that are currently left to me alone. Where there are no obvious candidates for helping me to take the strain, I shall have to train them myself. Many commentators on the baraita at Avot 6:6 have expanded its application beyond sharing the burden of learning, to embrace financial and moral support and even an element of counselling since it is only when a person’s mind is free of anxiety and stress that he or she is free to learn Torah to the full extent. Why should not this principle apply also to freeing up another’s time?

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When I have the time ...

Still on Avot 2:5, Hillel's final teaching is "Don't say 'when I'm free I will learn, because perhaps you will never have the time". 

There are times in many people’s lives when their physical and mental resources are stretched to the point that meaningful Torah learning is impossible. The Torah sages are right to say that it should always be possible to make time to learn and that each moment that passes can never be reclaimed. However, in earlier generations and to a great extent in our own, those who teach this message have the privilege of being in full-time learning or Torah teaching themselves, with wives who were supportive to the point of unselfishly and unstintingly sacrificing their strength and any personal aspirations in order to enable their rabbinical husbands to fulfil their Torah commitments to the maximum possible. 

This level of commitment to learning is often impossible for a modern family man to attain, despite his wish to do so. Two or three daily visits to his synagogue to pray,  an hour’s commuting to work and the same again to return home, the best part of the day spent working for a living, taking children to school a couple of mornings a week, helping at home as a dutiful husband and father—all these things can leave a man with little time and peace of mind to address his duty to learn Torah. It is not unreasonable for such a person to say “when I’m free to learn, I shall do so.” The big problem for him, though, is to recognize the point at which he has to stop saying it. Otherwise, once he has settled into his no-learning routine in order to feed, clothe, educate and marry off his children, pay off his mortgage and put himself on a secure financial footing, he will simply start over and do the same thing for the next generation and will never get round to learning at all.