Abraham and the three mysterious men

At the beginning of parashat Vayera the Torah tells of three men whose journey takes them past Abraham while he sits by the entrance to his tent. Who are these men? Are they Abraham’s righteous allies Aner, Eshkol and Mamre? Are they angels in disguise? Do they even exist outside Abraham’s consciousness, being no more than players in a profoundly important dream?

R’ Avraham Weinberg of Slonim, in his Bet Avraham, offers an unusual mussar-driven explanation, that the narrative is purely figurative. The three “men” are actually the three things a person should contemplate if he wishes to avoid falling into the grips of sin: the seeing eye, the hearing ear and the understanding that all his actions are stored on permanent record. These are the three things which Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi identifies at Avot 2:1.

How does Avraham react when he sees these “men”? He urges them “al no ta’avor me’al avodecha” (“Please don’t pass by your servant”). With God’s help we can keep these three ideas in the forefront of our minds; without that help we will fail.

Is this just a bit of airy-fairy chassidut? No. We should see it as a tactful reminder to us, when we learn Torah—and particularly Bereshit (Genesis)—that we should not just nod approvingly at the conduct of our forefathers but should make a positive effort to internalise the moral principles that underpinned their lives even before the Torah was given.

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Perek, Proverbs and Parallels

I’ve recently been re-reading Seeking His Presence, a set of conversations between Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and his interlocutor, Rabbi Haim Sabato that was published back in 2016. I’d meant to do this because I didn’t make much of it first time round: it was a poor choice of reading material for a rather uncomfortable and disrupted airline flight and I didn’t do it justice. Second time through, I came across the following thought of Rav Lichtenstein:

To speak anachronistically, one could say that Proverbs [Mishlei] is the “Tractate Avot” of the Bible. Other books in the Bible do not set out to take us by the hand and guide us through the complexities of life. The tone of Proverbs is reflective, tranquil… Sometimes the absolute tone of Proverbs makes it difficult for us to grasp its central message. In part, it is simply a list of good ideas. However, it is not right to view Proverbs merely as a collection of aphorisms for how to live one’s life, some of which parallel what we are taught in Pirkei Avot. The message of Proverbs is that one should live with a fear of Heaven and that sinners suffer grave consequences…

All of this must be taken into consideration as I construct my ethical world. I must ask myself to what extent I am capable of inculcating in my consciousness and my lifestyle that which is written in Proverbs and other books of the Bible and to strike the proper balance. Oftentimes the question is one of balance.

In conclusion…I understand that there are certain aspects of our ethical teachings that, in practice, are subject to change. But to be subservient to the worldview of the Bible and Hazal [our sages, of blessed memory] is the central touchstone of Torah ethics.

Several things caught my eye this time round.

One was the reference to the construction of an individual’s ethical world, an apparent acknowledgement of the fact that, while we do not have to construct our own halachic world and are not supposed to, the elasticity and subjective quality of ethics demands that we each construct our own ethical designer-world. Both Proverbs and Avot provide the raw materials for this act of personal construction and the general foundations on which the work may be done, but not the architect’s plans for the final product.

Another was Rav Lichtenstein’s commitment to internalising the ethical standards of Proverbs (and, by implication, Pirkei Avot) to the point that they govern one’s consciousness and lifestyle. I feel that there are two quite separate issues here and that the quotation above does not sufficiently distinguish them. One is the internalisation of the actual standards, which requires them to be identified, studied and absorbed. The other is the application of these standards in the course of one’s daily life. It is in that second task alone that the art of balancing these standards applies.

Incidentally, the association of Proverbs with Avot is no mere flight of fancy. In the five perakim of mishnayot in Avot, there are 31 citations of verses from the Tanach. Proverbs is over-represented here, claiming six of them, or around one-fifth. In the sixth perek, which consists entirely of baraitot, there are 34 citations of Tanach, of which 18, that is to say 53%, come from Proverbs.

Comments, anyone?