Quick greet, dead heat

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Va'Etchanan)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 4.

There’s something of a conundrum at Avot 4:20, where Rabbi Matya ben Charash opens his teaching with this short piece of advice:

הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם

Be first to greet everyone.

Usually we all benefit from the fulfilment of precepts in Avot that recommend a particular course of conduct. But here we have a zero sum game. If I greet you first when we meet, you cannot greet me first, and vice versa. Does this matter? Probably not. If we look at the major commentators on Avot, we do not find anyone who raises this point.

Some commentaries suggest that the thrust of this teaching lies in its tail: that it should apply even to a non-Jew (commentary ascribed to Rashi), an idolator (Bartenura) or an enemy (R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, Midrash Shmuel). Rabbenu Yonah says that these words are mussar but does not spell out what that mussar is, unlike R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, who pointedly observes that it’s not enough to deign to return someone else’s greeting if that person should greet him first.

Rabbi Matya is actually reminding us that greeting another human being should not be a mere mechanical act or conventional social reflex. As Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) notes, when a Jew greets another person, the word used is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”). To offer another person peace is to confer a blessing. By being first to greet others we express our peaceful intent—with one major caveat. There is no magic power in the word shalom: as important as it is for us to choose the right words when we greet others, it is equally important for us to greet them with a friendly disposition (Shammai at Avot 1:15; R’ Marc D. Angel, Koren Pirkei Avot). Growling “shalom” while you scowl is unlikely to produce the requisite effect.

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Goodwill to all men

A frequently quoted teaching in Avot is that of Shammai, that one should greet everyone with a cheerful face (Avot 1:15). Does this apply truly to everyone, or does it only apply to one’s fellow Jews?

The Hebrew term for “everyone” is אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם (literally “all the man”). The use of the word הָאָדָם (“the man”) rather than simply אָדָם (“man”) has generated considerable discussion as to the significance of the distinction.  In particular, if one term means “all men”, is the other limited only to Jews? And, if so, which is which? I discuss some of the sources on this discussion in Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual, vol 2 at pp 177-179.

In the context of this mishnah there is a serious justification for speculation as to whether Shammai intended his advice to apply to all humans or only to Jews. This is because there is a passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 31b) that portrays Shammai as speaking to potential converts to Judaism—who are by definition non-Jews—in a brusque, irascible and less-than-friendly manner.

In his Tiferet Tzion commentary on this mishnah, Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler circumvents the need to resolve this issue. He takes note of the famous proposition (Yoma 28b) that Abraham fulfilled every commandment, including even the rabbinical laws relating to eruv tavshilin (the correct manner of preparing food before the onset of a Jewish festival on which one intended to cook food for the Shabbat that immediately followed it). We can learn from this proposition that Abraham must himself have greeted non-Jews with a happy, smiling face since in his generation there were no Jews to greet.

Greeting others with genuine happiness: what is expected of us?

Rabbi Yishmael, at Avot 3:16, teaches a three-fold message. There is no consensus as to what the first two parts mean, but the third part is both simple to comprehend and hard to put into practice: a person should receive everyone besimchah, literally "in happiness". What did Rabbi Yishmael mean by this?

On one view, a person should be genuinely happy to meet others. After all, every human is created, as it were, in God's image and there is no-one on the planet who does not have the capacity to improve the lot of family, friends or the wider community.

Another view is that, however miserable or angry another person has made you, it is still incumbent on us all to grit our teeth and put on a show of good cheer, to demonstrate that we can rise above the behaviour of others and not let them dictate how we respond to others.

Classical commentators have no doubt that Rabbi Yishmael meant his words to be taken literally and applied across the board. Rambam sees them as an upgrade on Shammai's teaching at Avot 1:15 that we should greet others with a cheerful face: now we should genuinely feel the happiness we show. The commentary in Rashi's name adds that we must speak pleasantly to all comers. Me'am Lo'ez takes the mishnah's words literally, as does Midrash Shmuel, who holds that even people who come to hurt you are in one way or another emissaries of God. Rabbenu Yonah does not even explain the teaching but merely repeats it, presumably because he regards its meaning as being self-evident.

Modern commentators, acknowledging the realities of contemporary society, are more nuanced in their advice to readers. Thus Rabbi Marc D. Angel (The Koren Pirkei Avot) prefers to apply this mishnah to 'the whole person' rather than 'every person'. He writes:

"...[Rabbi Yishmael] surely knew that it was unrealistic to expect people to cheerfully receive all human beings. Perhaps his statement should be understood as advising the maintenance of an optimistic overall view of humanity..." Receive the 'whole person' optimistically -- knowing that the good and evil will be judged by God".

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch also qualifies the mishnah, but by reference to time, not the person being encountered:

"Do not reject anyone from the outset; instead, receive everyone gladly, and then consider whether or not he is suitable for you and your endeavours".

In the wake of the Holocaust and the many dreadful sufferings faced by Jews in both hospitable and inhospitable lands, one can appreciate the temptation to qualify Rabbi Yishmael's words. One contemporary rabbi has however held out against this temptation and his words are all the more poignant for his being a survivor of the Buchenwald death camp. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael, ArtScroll translation) writes:

"We must gladly greet 'everyone': each human being... Although not everyone possesses this natural ability to empathize with others, it can be acquired, 'until gladness becomes part of one's nature' [citing Rabbeinu Yitzchak ben R' Shlomo]"".

In a world in which it is so much easier to hate than to love, and to distance oneself from one's fellow humans, but where we have come to accept that there are limitations on the extent to which we can live out the ideals of earlier generations, we should think carefully before imposing limits on any encouragement to do or to be good, so those limitations do not become norms in their own right.

How to greet (or not greet) others: a handy guide

I've put together a handy little table from which you can see that Avot provides an extensive framework for the onset of any interpersonal social encounter. The framework looks like this:

Mishnah	Guidance	Significance
1:15	Greet others with a smiling face	External appearance is important since one’s face bestows respect and appreciation to one’s fellow humans
3:16	Greet others with joy/happiness	Internal feeling is important as a recognition of the fact that every person one meets is made in the image of God
4:20	Be first to greet others	Take the initiative in establishing amicable relations with others
4:23	Avoid greeting or even seeing a person who does not wish to be greeted	Give respect for or empathy with another’s need for personal time and space
6:9	Greetings should be given and returned with an expression of peace	Non-threatening opening to encounter between strangers

 From this we can appreciate how important in the eyes of our Sages is the impact of an initial encounter. We should bear this in mind when greeting others, responding to them -- or avoiding a meeting with them entirely.

Responding to a friendly greeting

I recently witnessed the following brief dialogue:

Person A to Person B: "Gut Shabbes!" [this being a traditional Sabbath greeting which originated among Yiddish-speaking members of the Eastern European Jewish diaspora and which is still used by many people today, even if they speak little or no other Yiddish].

Person B to Person A: "Can't you rid yourself of your galut attitudes and say 'Shabbat shalom'?" [the Sabbath greeting predominantly used by Hebrew speakers in Israel today].

Pirkei Avot advises us to greet other people with a friendly, smiling face (Avot 1:15) and also to greet them with joy (Avot 3:16).  If someone wishes to challenge another person's use of a friendly and harmless greeting, there is surely a better time to do so than at the moment he is receiving a friendly greeting.

Smiling through the mask

The current Coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives in many ways, some quite subtle and others highly noticeable.  One of the most obvious changes is that many of us have had to learn a new skill -- recognising people who are wearing face-masks. Along with this comes the challenge of assessing their mood: are they happy or sad, puckish or pensive?  Fortunately, the mouth is not the only part of the face that communicates a person's inner thoughts; the eyes -- assuming that they remain visible -- also express a person's mood.

The issue of smiling and face masks is discussed in this recent piece in the Jewish Journal that reminds us of Shammai's injunction (Avot 1:15) to greet everyone with a happy, smiling face.  This applies just as much to people who wear a face-mask, just as it should do to people one encounters in the dark. This is not just because a smile makes a favourable impact on the person greeted -- it also affects the mood of the person doing the greeting (the 'smilor' rather than the 'smilee'). So do remember to smile and greet others warmly: it's good for your health too!