"Please don't let me be misunderstood"

“Oh, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood”.

Readers of this post with an interest in music may recognise these words as the chorus of a much-recorded 1964 song, ‘Please don’t let me be misunderstood’. As humans who communicate with one another through actions and words, there are two prime means of failing to understand others. One is through our actions; the other is by our speech.

Avot encourages us to judge others favourably (Avot 1:6), but this is not a foolproof way of avoiding misunderstanding. In effect, it demands of us that we impose a favourable construction on what we see or hear—but it only comes into play once we regard what we see or hear as wrongful, unethical or illegal conduct. It is also hard to do in many situations, for example where a physician prescribes the wrong dosage of a medication on the basis of an inadequate understanding of the condition he is treating.

The ideal resolution of misunderstandings is for everyone to speak and write with perfect clarity and to act in a manner that is entirely unambiguous. This isn’t going to happen, particularly at a time when time is precious, soundbites are king and patience is short. We also live in an era in which we are apt to neglect the art of attentive listening and accurate reading.

Be that as it may, we can all do better if we try.  And try we should, because the stake are high and the cost of failure in the joined-up age of the social media can be devastating. This is the point made by Rabbi Elchanan Poupko in a recent Times of Israel blogpost (“Pirkei Avot: Words Tested by Time”, here) There he quotes the warning given by Avtalyon that opens Avot 1:11: “Sages, be careful with your words”. Avtalyon continues by dramatically depicting a scenario in which words erroneously spoken by a person with influence are picked up by followers who take them to heart, with potentially fatal consequences.

R; Poupko develops this theme and takes it further:

“… Even when saying the right thing, someone in a position of authority must be extra careful about what will be done with those words. True, you can always clarify and answer questions about what it is that you meant when you are at the place where you are making your statements, but you may not always be there. You will not always be able to clarify your words. If this was something we needed to elaborate on decades and centuries ago, the advances of the internet and social media make it clearer than ever. Statements that are made as part of a conversation and developing a thought can be screenshotted and immortalized into iron-clad statements.

What is said to one group with a certain sensitivity and understanding can then be lifted and posted to another group that will not share the same understanding. What is said privately to one person who needs to hear one thing can be easily made public to others, and the most intimate of exchanges are just a screenshot away from potentially being presented to billions of people who will use it against a person who innocently wrote it for an audience of one. This is why sages, rabbis, and people in public positions must be extra careful about what they say. Even if something is right, true, and appropriate for one audience, the speaker must consider the possibility that they will one day not be there to explain the words that were spoken and now might be misunderstood and misused”.  

It’s hard even for the most literate among us to escape having our words misconstrued, since their comprehension depends on how others read or hear them. But we can still make the effort. Avtalyon’s advice is none the less correct on account of the challenge we face in following it

Many of us will have little difficulty in recalling politicians, teachers, entertainers, sports personalities and family members whose words have been either inaccurately quoted or accurately quoted out of context, to devastating effect. Each time this happens, there is a personal misfortune or even tragedy at the end of it. Before we too play our part in this cycle of misunderstanding we should ask ourselves: is this what God wants of us? And are we being the sort of person we really want to be?

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Me, judgemental? No way!

The principle that we should judge others favourably is enshrined in one of the most cited mishnayot in Avot, where Yehoshua ben Perachyah teaches:

הֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

Judge every man on the scale of merit (Avot 1:6).

This maxim gets bandied about so often that we can easily be blinded to it by that most troublesome of ailments, Mishnah Fatigue. This post urges us to refresh our view of it and to recalibrate our responses in two common situations that require our judgement.

First, a preliminary point. While much of the first chapter of Avot appears to be addressed specifically to judges, lawyers and the legal process, from the earliest commentators onwards this maxim has been taken to refer to the judgements we all make in our daily lives. Jewish judicial proceedings are mainly concerned with matters of evidence and proof, not with the moral standing of the litigants. However, we cannot avoid making moral judgements if we are to live our lives in accordance with the standards laid out in Avot. Thus when Nittai Ha’Arbeli (1:7) advises us to distance ourselves from a bad neighbour and to refrain from teaming up with a wicked person, it is assumed that we must take a plainly judgemental view as to who such people are if we are to act upon this guidance.

The two following scenarios indicate typical situations in which we may find ourselves, where we indulge in judgement without perhaps even realising that we are doing do. 

1.        Why isn’t s/he married, then?

Marriage—and nowadays many a permanent partnership that may not technically qualify as marriage—forms an important part of Jewish life. Throughout the ages it has been a popular activity within all sectors of Jewish society to help friends and acquaintances find an ideal match. Once upon a time this activity, though open to all, was largely the prerogative of the shadchan or shadchanit, the matchmaker. In recent times this activity, like so many others, is assisted by computer dating services.

At any given time, there are a good many Jews who are single. They may only just have reached a stage in their lives in which they are old and/or mature enough to marry. They may have yet to meet a person to whom they are confident to commit the rest of their lives. They may be widowed or divorced. They may be driven by career considerations that are so fulfilling that cannot look beyond them. Tragically, they may through no fault of their own be mamzerim.  And there are other reasons too.

When Yehoshua ben Perachyah teaches us to judge others favourably, this warning extends into the habits of thought that we can easily slip into when it comes to matchmaking. If a person has reached a relatively advanced stage in life without finding a partner, there is a temptation to think “why hasn’t s/he married? There must be something wrong with that person”, or “why is s/he so picky, rejecting so many eligible partners? What’s that person’s problem?”  This is a realm in which we should resist the tendency to form opinions when we don’t know what lies inside the hearts and minds of our fellow humans. 

2.        Would you give this man a donation?

The giving of tzedakah, charitable donations—like marriage—is an ancient and hallowed institution of Jewish life. Solicitations come in many forms: glossy brochures that vaunt the credentials of large institutional charities, mass online appeals and, at the bottom end of the market, individuals who go door-to-door or visit synagogues on weekday mornings. The credentials of major charitable institutions and foundations are easy to establish: accounts are prepared, audited and submitted for examination. But what of the individual who collects in person? How do we know who is a genuine charitable cause—and who is not?

Earlier this month the synagogue at which I was praying was visited one morning by a man who sought funds for major surgery for one of his children. At the end of the prayer service he made a speech in which he explained that this surgery could only be performed in the United States and at great expense; that the need to raise funds meant that he had to leave his job in order to do so; and that he could not support his family. The man’s speech was polished and had clearly been given on many occasions. It was supported by a well-presented flyer that reiterated his needs and gave details for the giving of donations, though it appeared to me that these details had been prepared separately and then scanned on to the document.  The man himself was smartly dressed and evidently well fed. He carried with him a portable credit card reader.

My first thought was that I should not trust this appeal; that the man was a professional and highly skilled beggar who was clearly successful at his job. But then I found myself wondering whether Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s teaching would let me reach that conclusion. After all, the need for surgery for the man’s daughter might be perfectly genuine and it might have been his desperation that led him to present his petition in a form that certainly troubled me (it did not seem to worry most of my fellows in the synagogue, who did not hesitate to donate). In the end, I too made a donation—a modest one, I admit—and made a mental note to myself that any reward for the performance of this mitzvah should go to Yehoshua ben Perachyah rather than to me.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

There are many other instances in which it is easy to slip into judgemental mode and to judge others harshly in one’s professional life and at home. School teachers, medical practitioners, sales assistants—no-one is totally immune. But if we do make critical or damning judgements of others, we should at least be aware that we are doing so and ask ourselves if we are justified in what we decide.

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Judging others favourably: a double-edged sword

 An Avot mishnah for Shabbat: perek 1 (parashat Acharei Mot)

It’s a longstanding tradition to learn one perek of Avot in the afternoon of each Shabbat between Pesach and Shavuot. Possibly because of the popularity of Avot, most communities that observe this custom have extended it from Shavuot to Rosh Hashanah—not just the beginning of the new year but the end of the long summer days in which our sages perceived an increased risk of sin which the study of Avot might reduce.

In recognition of this tradition, Avot Today will try to post a short thought on Avot each Friday, for use on Shabbat as a point to ponder or as a table-top discussion topic.

We start this morning with Perek 1.

Hillel teaches (Avot 1:12):

הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה

Be a disciple of Aaron—love peace, pursue peace, love people and draw them close to the Torah.

Aaron was a holy man, the first Kohen Gadol (High Priest) and, according to midrash, knowledgeable in Jewish law. Yet the way we are taught to emulate him has nothing to do with his holiness or his scholarship: it’s to do with the way we feel about other people and behave towards them. In particular, Aaron would act as a go-between in trying to resolve disputes between his fellow Jews.

R’ Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) brings the following story to illustrate how not to do it:

“A Jewish woman who was not mitzvah-observant was befriended by a kiruv-oriented couple who regularly invited her for Shabbos meals. She became close to them and greatly valued their friendship. One day she told them that, after thinking it over, she decided that Orthodoxy was not for her. The Shabbos invitations ceased, the couple drew away from her, and she told me that she felt cheated. The ‘friendship’ was like that of a used-car salesman pushing a product—nothing more”.

R' Miller rightly observes that we should not befriend someone in order to sell them Yiddishkeit. We should befriend them because we are students of Aaron, on the basis of our sincerity.

But Pirkei Avot has another side to it. At Avot 1:6 Yehoshua ben Perachyah teaches us to judge other people favourably where that is possible. Have we done so? We have heard only one side of the story and have not looked at it from the other side. What if the couple understood the woman’s statement as a brush-off? What if they had children who were upset at what she said? What if the couple felt that their hospitality was being cynically exploited? Maybe what was needed here was an ‘Aaron’ to go between them and heal the fractured friendship if that was a possible option.

This miniature case-study illustrates both the complexities of human relationships and the subtle interplay of guidelines by which we are taught to conduct them.

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In defence of King Saul

In the wake of the recent reading of the haftorah for Shabbat Zachor, where we retell the failure of Sha’ul HaMelech—King Saul—to exterminate the last of the Amalekites, it occurred to me that this unhappy episode raises issues for Pirkei Avot.

The principle that one should judge others favourably, if it is possible to do so, is enshrined in the third and final teaching of Yehoshua ben Perachyah at Avot 1:6:

עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person on a scale of merit.

This teaching applies to everyone, at all times, and it is incredibly difficult to get right. There are circumstances where it is practically impossible to judge a person favourably, for example when that person has committed a despicable and inexcusable crime for which there is unchallengeable evidence of guilt. But most of the time it is possible to find something positive to say about a person who has done wrong. This exercise is important for us. Why? Partly because it should help us to recognise that we too have good points and less-than-good points to our personalities and our behaviour: in judging ourselves by looking through the eyes of others, as it were, we can assess whether we too deserve to be judged favourably. Also, partly because when we judge others it is often without hearing another side to the argument that they have done wrong and should be condemned for doing so.

Let us look at this mishnah in the context of Saul, the first king of Israel, a man of courage and humility, a scholar and someone who was even capable of receiving prophecy. It seems quite inexplicable that he should have failed to carry out the prophet Samuel’s instruction to kill all the Amalekites together with their livestock, this being an order that came directly from the God to whom Saul prayed and in whom he fervently believed. How could he have done this, forfeiting his right to the crown in the process and triggering a downward spiral of depression and psychotic behaviour that ended only with his death and that of his beloved son Jonathan? Surely we would never have missed this unique opportunity to serve God and to rid the world of the scourge of Amalek!

But maybe we would see things differently if we looked the Saul’s eyes.

First, from the moment Moses became leader of the Jewish people until the time Samuel instructed Saul to kill all the Amalekites, I don’t think we find any examples of the leaders of Israel receiving messages from prophets, telling them what God wants them to do. Between Moses and Saul comes the era of the Judges—leaders of Israel who were also the links in the chain of Torah tradition (Avot 1:1) and who would be expected to make their leadership decisions on the basis of their own understanding, not on what others ordered them to do. Samuel’s instruction to Saul was therefore unprecedented, and this itself may have left the king uncertain as to what he had to do.

Secondly, the Oral Law teaches that we should seek to emulate God’s ways: just as He is gracious and merciful, so too should we be gracious and merciful (Shabbat 133b). Saul may have speculated that a kind and merciful God would surely not seriously contemplate the complete extermination of a nation He had created, or of innocent animals that could be brought to His altar as sacrifices in His honour?

Thirdly, the Zohar (2:154a) teaches that Saul himself was a prophet and, though prophecy was removed from him when he became king, he retained ruach hakodesh—a measure of divine inspiration.  It is possible that his decision to spare Agag and the animals was based on a moment of misplaced inspiration.

Admittedly, even if they are aggregated these hypotheses are not entirely convincing, but they do go some way to seeking an explanation for Saul’s disobedience to the word of God that does not cast him as a wholly wilful rebel against God’s word.

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Middot at War 1: Judging others

Our previous post touched on the importance of practising what you preach. It’s not always easy, as I hope to show in this piece and the one which will follow it.

Israel is at war and a very large number of young men and women have been called to action. Though news is scarce, most of us have been led to expect that a ground invasion of Gaza is imminent.

In the streets of Jerusalem it is not unusual to see youngsters chatting with friends or sitting round a table in one of the city’s innumerable cafes and enjoying a drink together. When these youngsters are in uniform, I find myself gazing benignly at them, feeling happy that they are there to protect me and hoping that they will make the most of their leave before they return to the front.

Yet when I see youngsters who are not in uniform doing the same thing, my first thoughts are unkind ones: why are they not involved in the country’s welfare at this time of great need? Are they shirking their duty? Do they not care?

Under normal circumstances it would never have occurred to me to draw any distinction between those young people who were wearing uniform and those who were not. So is it right for me to do so now?

In reality there are a large number of reasons why people whom I view as potential soldiers might not be serving at the front. Some people suffer from physical or mental conditions that render them ineligible or unsuitable for combat; these conditions are often invisible to the casual onlooker. There are other people who hold government jobs that require them to be here in Jerusalem, or who work in healthcare and other sectors where staff cannot be spared. Others again may be volunteers who have taken a short break from sorting equipment and clothes that are sent to the front or provided for the many families and individuals who have been displaced.

This group has frequently discussed Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s teaching at Avot 1:6 that one should judge others on the basis that what they do has some merit. We should give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s easy to say this and even easier to tell other people that it’s what they should be doing—as I have often done. But now, when it is I who am challenged to live up to my Avot ideals, I still find it an effort to conquer my initial, irrational conclusion.

The moral: I must in future be less judgmental towards other people who have found it difficult to judge others meritoriously themselves.

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When God copies us

On Shabbat afternoon I attended the Shabbat Shuvah derashah given by Rabbi Berel Wein at the Beit Knesset Hanassi. One might imagine that there are two Rabbis Wein. One is the author of highly attractive and infinitely readable English-language coffee-table books on Jewish history and tradition. The other is a stone hewn from the uncompromising rock-face of Lithuanian mussar, ethics and Torah-driven character development.  Just two days before Yom Kippur, the most awesome day in the Jewish calendar, there was no doubt which Rabbi Wein would be addressing us.

The atmosphere was tense as this frail old man of nearly 90, perched on a stool and clutching a lectern for support, began to speak. The Beit Knesset, packed to the rafters and beyond, listened in rapt attention, necks craned so as not to miss his words. We all wondered, what was his message for the coming days—and for the year ahead?

The main theme of Rabbi Wein’s derashah was that of attitude. It is our attitudes that shape our thoughts, guide our feelings and steer our actions. Without the right attitudes towards God and our fellow humans, we cannot begin to change ourselves to be the sort of person we would in theory want to be. But we cannot even begin to identify our own attitudes without great and patient effort. Who we are and what we are, as humans, may be apparent to others who view us from the outside, but we are generally blinded to the truth because we cannot objectively construe our own psyche.

Our inability to recognise our attitudes with pinpoint accuracy from the inside does not however mean that we cannot shape them from the outside. Here Rabbi Wein turned to Pirkei Avot. This is not a book of commandments, he argued, but a book designed to shape one’s attitudes. By way of example he discussed the character-improving effect of being don lekaf zechut (judging others in a favourable light: see Avot 1:6).

Having related the famous tale of the worker from the South, believed to have been Rabbi Akiva, who gave his employer the benefit of the doubt even after receiving no pay for three years’ labour (Shabbat 127b), Rabbi Wein sought to show that, if we give others the benefit of the doubt, God will copy our example, as it were.  Here he cited an aggadic episode in which the Heavenly yeshivah spent its time discussing the teachings of all the Tannaim except Rabbi Meir: this was because Rabbi Meir learned Torah from Elisha ben Avuyah, who turned away from Torah, and Rabbi Meir was referred to as acherim (“other people”). But it was explained that Rabbi Meir accepted only the Torah from his teacher, not his heretical beliefs (“he ate the fruit of the pomegranate but threw away the peel”: Chagigah 15a). When this explanation was accepted and real-world rabbis cited Rabbi Meir’s teachings by name, the Heavenly yeshivah followed their lead with God himself giving Rabbi Meir a name-check.

Tying this all together, Rabbi Wein urged us to improve our attitude towards others and judge them favourably—even if we don’t agree with them. If we do this, God will follow our example and judge us favourably too.

May we all be judged favourably for the coming year. Judging others favourably is a small price to pay for this privilege.

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Good things, good people, same headache?

The previous post, “Bad things, good people: a debate to avoid?”, discussed various problems arising from Rabbi Yannai’s teaching at Avot 4: 19 that it lies outside our power to understand either the tranquillity of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous. This post generated a lot of comments and also made me think further about Rabbi Yannai’s teaching.

It seems to me that, if we are unable to understand why it is that God can let good things happen to bad people, and vice versa, we have exactly the same problem trying to understand why good things happen even to good people. In order to do so, we have to juggle with the following propositions:

• .       We do not receive any rewards from God in this world, i.e. in our own lifetimes.
  
  
• .       There is however a list of mitzvot for which God gives a reward in both this world and the next.
  
  
• .       A person’s suffering in this world may be yissurin shel onesh (afflictions of punishment) or yissurin shel ahavah (afflictions based on God’s love) in order to improve the quality of that person’s enjoyment of the world to come (Berachot 5a).
  
  
• .       God always pays His debts and therefore rewards even the wicked for any good deeds that they have done in their lifetime in order to deprive them of an eternal reward in the world to come.

Adding this all together, since we are required to give others the benefit of the doubt when we judge them (Avot 1:6), it seems that we should be careful not to draw any negative conclusions from the fact that good things keep happening to someone in their lifetime. The moral is therefore clear: we should take care not to judge others at all, and should be even more careful not to judge God.

Judging the Chofetz Chaim favourably

The name of Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the ‘Chofetz Chaim’) has cropped up frequently in Avot Today, since so much of his writing is directly or indirectly relevant to Pirkei Avot. Although he never wrote a formal commentary on the tractate, several compilations of Avot-relevant comments and explanations which appeared in his other works were published after his death* and it is obvious from his focus on correct behaviour and good middot that Avot played an important part in his life.

One of the most frequently-cited principles in Avot is the teaching of Yehoshua ben Perachya (Avot 1:6) that we should judge other people meritoriously. This is widely understood as meaning that, where it is possible to judge a person’s actions favourably or otherwise, we should give them the benefit of any doubt.

In his book Shemirot HaLashon, the Chofetz Chaim (at the beginning of Sha’ar HaTevunah, ch.4) cites and then discusses the significance of the principle that one should judge others in relation to the need to guard carefully against improper speech. Remarkably, for anyone familiar with Pirkei Avot, he makes no reference at all to the mishnah of Yehoshua ben Perachya. Rather, he bases the principle on a gemara (Shevuot 30a) which cites a Torah mitzvah: “In justice you shall judge your fellow” (Leviticus 19:15), commenting that this is one of the mitzvot for which a person is rewarded in this world but for which the ‘capital’ of his reward remains intact in the World to Come (Shabbat 127a).

In the following chapter, the Chofetz Chaim explains that the commandment to judge others justly is itself a subset of a wider mitzvah: “love your fellow like yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). But in this chapter too there is no mention of the mishnah in Avot.

At first glance it seems astonishing that the Chofetz Chaim should overlook this mishnah and fail to name-check the Tanna in whose name it is taught. Surely he must have known of it! How could he have relegated it from his masterly compendium of speech-related laws and best practices?

I believe that there is an answer to this question that both explains and vindicates the decision of the Chofetz Chaim to omit this mishnah. When writing in his eponymous sefer about the principles that govern permitted speech, he modestly mentions that his is not the first work to address the evils of lashon hara.  Much the same ground, he recognises, was covered by Rabbenu Yonah in his Sha’are Teshuvah. There is however a difference between these works. The account of the need to guard one’s speech in Sha’are Teshuvah was couched in terms of middot—good and proper standards of behaviour—while the objective of the Chofetz Chaim was to frame the same principles as mitzvot. Bearing in mind the comment of the Bartenura on Avot 1:1 that the entire tractate, unlike the rest of the Mishnah, consists of middot and mussar, it is easy to dismiss Avot as merely guidance, devoid of the force of law, the decision of the Chofetz Chaim to describe judging others favourably as a Torah mitzvah is perfectly reasonable.

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·         See eg Shmuel Charlap,  Chofetz Chaim al Masechet Avot, Jerusalem 1962; Rabbi David Zaretzky, Masechet Avot im Pirushei HaChofetz Chaim, Jerusalem 1974 (translated into English as The Hafetz Hayyim on Pirkey Avoth, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem 1975).

Gratitude versus jealousy: keeping it in the family

At Avot 4:28 Rabbi Elazar HaKappar issues a stern warning: “Jealousy, desire and honour remove a person from the world”. Most traditional commentators on Avot add little to this warning since it largely speaks for itself, but the more recent trend is to frame it within the context of modern life. An example of this trend which I recently came upon is found in Rabbi Dan Roth’s Relevance: Pirkei Avos for the Twenty-First Century, a book on which I shall have more to say in a later post. Referring to this teaching, Rabbi Roth opens with the following passage:

A number of years ago, a woman in my shul was diagnosed with leukemia. She was pregnant at the time, and in order to increase her chances of survival, she was forced to undergo an abortion. Even after the abortion, she remained in critical condition.

After she had recovered, her husband went to share the good news with Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, who had been involved with the family throughout the illness. He mentioned to Reb Chaim that he and his wife intended to make a seudas hoda’a [a thanksgiving meal]. Reb Chaim advised them against it.

“Take the money you were going to use for the seuda”, said Reb Chaim, “and distribute it amongst the needy.  And then, instead of making a large seuda for many people, make one only for your children. People today find it hard to rejoice in other people’s good fortune, and by making a large commotion you will just be bringing an ayin hara [evil eye] upon yourselves”.

Reb Chaim’s comment is a sad reflection on our generation, underscoring our inability to share in other people’s joy and truly revel in their happiness. This inability is the root cause of jealousy. If it is difficult for people to wholeheartedly celebrate with a woman who has just recovered from a potentially fatal illness, how much more so are people hard-pressed to feel genuinely happy when they see neighbors building an addition onto their homes or driving a new car. Unfortunately, far too often we resent them and the good things in their lives.

I wonder if I am alone in finding this passage difficult.

The first thing that struck me was that anyone might be jealous of the husband in the first place. While he was plainly both grateful and relieved that his wife recovered from her leukaemia, the fact remains that they had both tragically lost their unborn child. Where a person is threatened with the loss of two precious assets but in the event loses only one of them, would this really generate jealousy in others? On the other hand, the real source of any jealousy may not be the wife’s recovery but the fact that the family might be viewed as having received a greater degree of divine attention than that enjoyed by others.

Secondly, while I should never wish to comment critically on the words of a great contemporary Torah sage without first seeking to understand the wider context in which those words were spoken, I find it hard to accept that Rabbi Kanievsky should make a broad generalisation to the effect that people today find it hard to rejoice in other people’s good fortune.  On a personal level, that has not been my experience of the normal reaction of my fellow Jews who have been invited to share the celebration of another’s good fortune. More to the point, Avot also teaches the importance of judging others in a favourable light (Avot 1:6). That teaching is phrased in the singular, suggesting that it is primarily addressed to the way we view fellow humans as individuals, but I do not believe that it precludes us from taking the same non-judgemental stance with regard to pluralities such as communities as a whole.

It may be that the proposed seudas hoda’a was likely to be on a scale of ostentation that would have been offensive or inappropriate. If this were so, the suggestion that it be restricted to close family members might be constructive and indeed desirable, but the rabbi would surely have been able to make it without casting the credentials of other potential invitees in a pejorative light.

I am therefore hesitant to take this story at face value and invite readers’ comments in the hope of enlightenment.

Portrait of a prophet: another reason for not judging by appearances

Rabbi Yisrael Lifschitz’s Tiferet Yisrael commentary on tractate Kiddushin (at 4:14) tells a story that deserves our attention at a time when Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment, is fast approaching. This story, as told by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski in Visions of the Fathers, runs as follows:

A desert king heard of the greatness of Moses, and sent his finest artists to bring back a portrait of him. He then submitted the portrait to his physiognomists to study it and describe Moses’ character. They reported that the portrait revealed a man who was vain, arrogant, lustful, greedy, and degenerate. Inasmuch as this was in sharp contrast to what he had heard of Moses, the king went to the Israelite encampment to see for himself.

Upon meeting Moses, the king saw that his artists had indeed captured every minute detail, and he could not understand how his physiognomists could be so far off course. Moses explained to him, “Your physiognomists can interpret only the innate characteristics with which a person was born. All they said of me was true insofar as those were the traits that I was born with. However, I struggled to overcome them and to transform my character”.

In terms of Pirkei Avot, the story illustrates the following:

• The association of power with self-discipline and control of one’s yetzer hara (evil inclination) rather than physical prowess (4:1);
  
  
• The danger of judging by appearances (4:27);
  
  
• The importance of admitting the truth rather than denying it (5:9).

The story additionally reflects the notion that self-control goes further than making sure one does the right thing and forbears from doing the wrong thing. True self-control goes further because its proper exercise can help a person to change even his or her inclinations and inherent middot, personal qualities.

We generally assess people by reference to the way they behave. This can be misleading since humans tend to do their good deeds in public and commit their bad ones when they are out of the public eye (sadly the media have reported a string of examples in recent years of public benefactors who were also private predators). We never however see a person’s private desires and inclinations. These are the province of God alone, and it is He alone who judges us as the sort of individuals we aspire to be.

Well-worn mishnah, well-worded explanation

Last week I had some kind words for the Tiferet Tzion, a gentle and user-friendly but sadly forgotten commentary on Avot by Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler. But praise is of no value unless there is some evidence that it is deserved. I shall now make up that omission by relating Rabbi Yadler’s short explanation of one of the best-known teachings in Avot.

In the first perek, Yehoshua ben Perachya teaches:

עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

“Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every man meritoriously”. (Avot 1:6).

Most commentators explain this Mishnah in a similar fashion. They discuss the importance of having a teacher and the steps one should take to procure one, as well as reviewing the course of action to pursue if one knows more than any available teacher or where one has two or more teachers. As for the acquisition of a friend, this has repercussions both for learning Torah—where a chavruta (learning partner) can be a valuable foil—and for serving as a sounding-board against which to bounce one’s ideas, ambitions and worries. Judging others meritoriously affects not only one’s relationship with other humans but also the quality of our own characters when we stand before God: we cannot expect God to be lenient in judging us if we have not taken the same line when judging our fellows.

 The Tiferet Tzion treats this mishnah quite differently, as a way of relating to other people. Essentially, there are three classes of people in everyone’s life: those who are ahead of us in knowledge and experience, those who are our peers and those over whom we have the edge—maybe because we are older, cleverer or just happen to know more. Yehoshua ben Perachya’s teaching focuses on this tripartite scheme.

For those who are ahead of us, we can make them our teachers since we are sure to be able to learn something from them. As for those who are our peers and equals, we should embrace them in friendship: we do not know-tow obsequiously to them, but neither do we strive to laud it over them. Then there are those who are less fortunate than ourselves when it comes to knowledge or intellectual capacity. We should not scorn or disrespect them but judge them favourably, bearing in mind the educational opportunities or natural abilities that they may not have possessed.

Rabbi Yadler does not claim this explanation as a chiddush, a work of his own intellectual creation, and it may well be that others have learned this mishnah the same way. All I can say is that I had not seen it before and thought that it was expressed in an economical, understated way that did not obscure the words of the Tanna.

Be careful what you believe -- and how you believe it

We Jews enjoy conversation as much as anyone—and many of us virtually treat it as an art form. However, everything comes at a price. The laws of lashon hara (impermissible speech about other people) are many and wide-ranging; if you transgress them, you may fall foul of a possible maximum of 4 biblical curses, 17 prohibitions and 14 positive commandments, which the Chafetz Chaim lists with convenient references and explanations.

Many of these laws affect the person who listens to lashon hara, whether intentionally or quite by chance. This is because one is not supposed to give credence to it. This poses some obvious problems for the listener who is a keen student of Pirkei Avot and who is sensitive to its own issues. Thus we should always concede the truth of a statement that is true (Avot 5:9); however, the principle that we should judge other people favourably (Avot 1:6) governs information heard from a friend just as much as it governs things we can see for ourselves. Since we can’t unhear the things a friend tells us, what should we do when we are told things about someone we know, things that may well be true?

The Chafetz Chaim explains that, in practical terms, we must create a sort of halfway house between believing a statement and disbelieving it. For example, if we are considering going into business with Reuven we may hear by chance from Shimon, a former business associate of Reuven, that Reuven is dishonest and can’t be trusted. This statement may be true, in which case we should want to believe it and act upon it. It is however lashon hara and was not spoken in the context of a legitimate response to a request for a business reference.

In a situation such as this, the listener should neither believe nor disbelieve the information about Reuven. Rather, he should merely bear it in mind as one of a number of possible factors to balance when deciding whether to advance his proposed partnership with Reuven. How might we do this? One way forward for us would be to do an internet search for Reuven: Is there evidence of public knowledge that he has been convicted of a crime of dishonesty? Does he have a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn or elsewhere that may give rise to concern? It may also be worth doing the same for Shimon, who may be bad-mouthing Reuven to distract us from his own wrongdoings. We might also proceed to do business with Reuven but be more circumspect about matters such as record-keeping and transparency of accounts. Ultimately it is a question of how accurately we can predict the outcome of the proposed business relationship, in accordance of the advice we receive from Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel at Avot 2:13.

The interface between Pirkei Avot and the laws of lashon hara is vast and complex. This short piece can hardly do more than to scrape the surface of this topic and, in doing so, invite further thoughts, comments and suggestions from its readers.

Thinking better of politicians: can it be done?

My survey of frequency of citation of mishnayot from Avot on the electronic media shows that the second most frequently cited mishnah online is the teaching of Yehoshua ben Perachyah at Avot 1:6 that one should judge people favourably (this is often understood to mean that one should give others the benefit of the doubt if there is any uncertainty as to their motivation for doing something that might be either good or bad).

With the next round of elections coming up in Israel, the thought occurs to me that the injunction to judge others favourably is expressed in general terms. It applies to judging everyone. There is an exception in respect of people whose conduct is wrongful and whose motives can be established beyond doubt. There is however no exception in respect of politicians.

History can supply a long list of politicians who are corrupt, dishonest and "on the make" -- many of whom have been tried and convicted of criminal offences or who have been forced out of office for that reason. However, it seems to me that this does not give us a carte blanche to label all politicians as such, or to presume an improper motive in respect of those who enter the public political arena.

Pirkei Avot warns us to be wary of government and to avoid being involved with it if possible -- but it also urges to pray for the government to succeed in the establishment of peace and good order. We must also recognise that, much as we may harbour personal dislikes or suspicions of specific politicians, the running of any country is a task that necessarily has to be done by someone.

If this election is anything like its predecessor, the coming months in Israel will doubtless witness a great deal of abuse and insult hurled both at political aspirants and between them. This does no credit to the politicians or the electorate. It would be a great thing if we could refrain from attributing base motives to the politicians on all sides of the spectrum, concentrating instead on the merit -- if any -- of the arguments they propound and the policies they present.

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I shall shortly be posting my quarterly review of citations from Avot on the internet. The previous review, covering Avot citations from 1 January to 31 March, can be accessed at tinyurl.com/2p8erspy

Diapers on the doorstep

A couple of days ago I was surprised to find a neat bundle on my doorstep: a small white bag containing some used diapers. It was not difficult to trace their origin: we have close neighbours with a small child who is as yet not house-trained.

The immediate question I faced was that of what to do.

Had this happened to me in my pre-Pirkei Avot days, I know how would have responded. My first feelings would be those of anger bordering on outrage, fuelled by the fire of righteous indignation. How could anyone dare to do this at all, let alone to a close neighbour! I would have contemplated a number of vigorous responses. These would have included (i) ringing at the neighbours’ door and demanding an explanation while dangling the offending bag in front of whoever had the misfortune to answer the doorbell, and (ii) posting the bag into their letterbox. These initial feelings would have been suppressed only with some difficulty and in the knowledge that, if I utilised the letterbox option, I might be spotted by another resident of the building and branded a trouble-maker.

Now, as a Pirkei Avot man, I find the situation much easier to resolve.

Placing a bag of used diapers on a neighbour’s doorstep is not a usual form of behaviour. Indeed, during the three years in which we have lived in such proximity, this has never happened before. Our relationship with our neighbours, though never close, has always been polite and respectful. Neither they nor we are noisy folk and, to the best of my knowledge, none of us have done anything that might give rise to offence.

In the absence of any evidence that our neighbours were evil or motivated by malicious intent, this seemed the ideal opportunity to judge them favourably in accordance with the precept of Yehoshua ben Perachya (Avot 1:16).

But what reason might they have which could exculpate them? Hillel teaches (Avot 2:5) that one should not judge another person unless one is standing in his or her place. Our neighbours look to me as though they are in their early 30s.  Truth to tell, I can hardly remember anything of being in my 30s at all: the decade was a constant round of broken nights, stressful days and of dashing from one crisis to another as I tried to build a career while bearing my share of responsibility for babies and small children whose demands were many but who lacked the vocabulary to express them. Perhaps our neighbours were struggling, just as I had done, with similar burdens and had inadvertently dropped the diapers on our doorstep when they were interrupted by an emergent crisis and later forgot that they had not taken them all the way down to the refuse bins.

This was all very well in terms of exculpating my neighbours, but I was still left with the unwanted bundle. What should I do with it? When Rabbi Yose HaCohen is asked (Avot 2:13) to identify the good path that a person should choose for himself, he answers that it is the path of being a good neighbour. Now what would a good neighbour do here? I would forgive my neighbours, make sure not to say anything about this incident at all unless it became a regular event, and take the bag down to the refuse bin myself. End of story.

The best part of this little episode is that, by saying nothing to our neighbours, I avoided the risk of falling out with them—and that I avoided both getting angry and wallowing in those feelings of righteous indignation that feel so good at the time but can be so destructive.

Miriam's complaint: Drawing the wrong conclusion?

One of the most tantalising passages in the Torah's Book of Bemidbar tells of the punishment of Miriam for speaking about her younger brother Moses. The Torah narrative consists of 16 verses: Miriam and Aaron both observe that not merely Moses but they too are prophets; God hears, reprimands them, displays His anger with them, praises Moses’ qualities, explains why Moses’ prophecy is of a different order from theirs, then punishes Miriam with tzora’at, for which she must be quarantined for a week. Aaron is not explicitly punished.

Commentators on the Torah raise and discuss many questions, and there is much to ask. For example, why does the narrative twice mention that Moses married a Cushite woman, a detail that neither Miriam nor God appear to address? What indeed is a “Cushite woman”? Why is Miriam punished for speaking words that are true, and why does Aaron escape punishment? What has the statement that Moses was exceedingly humble have to do with the dialogue between God and his siblings and with the nature of his prophetic ability? And are Miriam and Aaron, who are themselves among the most righteous members of the generation leaving Egypt, not entitled to pass comment on their younger brother, given that they are his loyal supporters and are hardly seeking to overthrow him or challenge his authority?

Midrash picks up on this incident and fleshes it out with details not found in the Torah. Thus the description of Moses’ wife Zipporah as a “Cushite” was an allusion to her beauty. Moses was however no longer engaging in marital relations; his level of prophecy and intimacy with God was so high that he had to be constantly on-call, always ready to receive a divine message. Miriam and Aaron also received prophecy, but with neither the urgency nor the clarity with which Moses did so. Their prophecy therefore came only while they were asleep or in a trance. Being a humble and modest man, Moses did not tell his siblings that he received his prophecy at a higher level than they did; nor did he broadcast the fact that he had suspended marital relations with Zipporah, a state of affairs that Miriam deduced from Zipporah’s failure to wear ornaments or from overhearing Zipporah’s expression of sympathy for the wives of the 70 auxiliary prophets whom God asked Moses to select earlier in the same parashah. Miriam and Aaron spoke of the fact that they too were prophets on the assumption that, if they could still receive divine messages while conducting a normal marriage, it should have been possible for Moses to do likewise. This constituted lashon hara—inadmissible speech concerning another person—for which Miriam was punished, tzora’at being the punishment traditionally linked with lashon hara. Aaron escaped tzora’at, either because he was wearing priestly garments at the time or because, seeing Miriam in her afflicted state, he immediately applied the lesson to himself and repented.

There are numerous variations on the theme sketched out above, but it does represent a sort of midrashic consensus as to what the Torah narrative is about. What’s more, these midrashim seem to have cohered into a sort of Torah fact supplement. Ultimately, though, midrashim remain midrashim. If this was indeed what happened in factual terms, we might be asking why God chose to omit from His holy narrative so many facts that vest this episode with meaning.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his Ma’amar al Ha’Aggadot, reminds students of midrashic and aggadic literature that it is capable of being understood on more than one level. At the simplest level it may be read as plain fact, and some aggadic material is so sober and credible when read in conjunction with the Torah that it can be hard to view it any other way. Other such material is so fantastic, or so greatly contradicted by other midrashic writing, that one struggles to view it as having any literal narrative content at all.  Where midrash is capable of being learned on more than one level, a person should be slow to say that one approach is “right” while another is “wrong”, particularly when we recall that the authors of midrash did not tell us how to read their teachings. In some cases we have to concede that we cannot learn from them at all: they are effectively written in code and we have lost the key.

Is there then a different way to extract a teaching from this story of Amram and Yocheved’s stellar offspring?  

In his pirush on the Torah, Malbim takes a fresh view of this episode. Yes, Moses has a beautiful wife but has separated from her—and, yes, while all three siblings are prophets only Moses has taken this serious and controversial step. Malbim however suggests that Miriam and Aaron were under a misapprehension.  They had no doubt as to Moses’ humility or his greater quality as a prophet and a servant of God. Where they went wrong is that they thought too highly of their brother. They believed that Moses’ prophecy was at such a supernal level that, to all intents and purposes, the word of God entered directly into his nefesh, his soul, and that his nefesh was so pure that it was quite unaffected by any tumah, ritual impurity, that might affect his body. On that basis he could continue to have a physical relationship with Zipporah without in any sense affecting his ability to receive communications from God on an ongoing basis, at any time of the day and night and regardless of what he was doing.

Malbim makes no reference to Pirkei Avot, but his explanation ties in wll with that tractate. What, in other words, was the mistake that Miriam and Aaron made? They believed that they had assessed Moses’ conduct appropriately and that they were entitled to do so. As prophets themselves they fulfilled Hillel’s condition of not judging another until one was in his particular position (Avot 2:5). On this basis they then assumed that Moses had unnecessarily separated from Zipporah when they should have realised that Moses had a good reason for doing so, a reason that it was not for him to disclose to them. They should have judged him lekaf zechut (Avot 1:6), giving him credit for a decision that they did not understand, rather than concluding that he had in any way done the wrong thing.

In taking this line, Malbim detaches from Miriam and Aaron the obloquy of facing divine displeasure and censure for exchanging words of lashon hara. Rather, they demonstrate both the importance of judging others favourably and the potentially serious consequences of failing to do so: when it comes to our attitudes towards our fellow humans, the wrongful thought can be as dangerous as the wrongful word.

Buying a book: the benefit of the doubt

Last week I bought a book from the second-hand shelf of my favourite local bookshop; it was a volume of ethical writings by Maimonides, replete with plenty of informative footnotes. 

When I got this tome home, I thumbed through it and spotted a printed label inside the front cover that had hitherto escaped my notice. This label proudly proclaimed that the book was the property of my local synagogue. This institution has quite a popular library of Jewish interest titles. A sign on the wall declares that these books are not to be removed from its premises.

Subsequent enquiry revealed that the synagogue was disposing of a quantity of books that were of little or no current interest to its members and functionaries and that it had passed them over to the bookshop for disposal. It did not however remove its ownership labels from these books before doing so.

My concern was this. If I had been hit by a truck on the way home from making my purchase, anyone who picked the book up off the floor would see the label and assume that I had stolen it. Though I assiduously keep all receipts and had one for this purchase too, the receipt testified only to the fact that payment had been made -- but not to what it was made for, since aged second-hand books such as mine have no barcode and are not identified by the shop's computer system at the point of sale.

Yehoshua ben Perachyah, in Avot 1:6, calls on us to judge our fellow humans favourably. However, commentators through the ages have acknowledged that there are limits. If for example I was a known book thief with a string of convictions for stealing second-hand items of Maimonidean interest, it would strain the average person's credulity to believe that I had not stolen it. Alternative scenarios can of course be scripted. I could perhaps have found the book in the street and was taking it home for safekeeping before returning it to its rightful owners, But would anyone have believed me?

The suspicion of theft does not disappear once the book is safely stored on my bookshelf. Once I have passed on to a better world than this one, my family and the executors of my estate will see the label and I will not be around to explain it away.

So what should I do? To be on the safe side I have decided to leave the label in the book, but to put a note of my own next to it, affirming that I purchased it from the local bookshop and that I have verified that it was put up for the sale by my synagogue, giving the contact details of the relevant synagogue officers who can confirm my story. After all, while I can look forward to being given the benefit of the doubt, others who have not (yet) learned Pirkei Avot may not be so swift to give it to me.

Judging others -- again

One of the most frequently-cited teachings in Pirkei Avot comes early on in the tractate, when Yehoshua ben Perachyah says:

"...judge everyone favourably" (Avot 1:6).

This, the standard ArtScroll Publications translation, is found in the same or highly similar form in many other translations (see eg Rabbis S. R. Hirsch and E. Prins, Irving M. Bunim)-- but is this the actual meaning? The Hebrew is a little longer and more nuanced, alluding to set of scales on which a person's merit is to be weighed:

וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

 Many English translations pick this up. Thus Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz (Rabbi of the Western Wall) rendered it in the Jerusalem Post last week as

"Judge all men with the scale weighted in their favor".

while Chabad.org opts for the rather less idiomatic

"... judge every man to the side of merit"

Some scholars have produced not so much a translation as an explanation. Thus we find Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offering

"...give everyone the benefit of the doubt".

There is a long and respectable tradition of taking this view of the mishnah -- and giving someone the benefit of the doubt is a noble sentiment. One wonders however if this is what the author of this mishnah really intended; he did after all speak of the "merit" of someone other than oneself, not "doubt", something we harbour in our own minds.

Commentators on this mishnah explain how important it is to see the good in others, how this is an essential part of learning how to see the good in oneself, how difficult it is to appreciate the motives that drive other people's actions, and so on. These explanations tend to be highly focused on Yehoshua ben Perachyah's teaching alone and sometimes fail to examine it within the context of other teachings in Avot.

The very next mishnah points to a problem in judging all others on a scale of merit. There (at 1:7), Nittai He'Arbeli urges people:

"Distance yourself from a bad neighbour and do not associate with a wicked person".

The very process of determining that someone is a bad neighbour or a wicked person involves not only having to judge them without first having been in their position (contrary to Avot 2:5) but also having to judge them unfavourably and in accordance with not their merits but their demerits. Additionally, the recognition and acceptance that a bad person is indeed bad is in line with the mishnah which teaches that one should concede that the truth is the truth (5:9).

Much of Pirkei Avot involves juggling conflicting ethical guidelines, and this is where the real challenge of humanity lies. There are times when it is right to judge favourably, to judge unfavourably -- and sometimes not to judge at all. There are also times when judging another person's state of mind is required in order to respond appropriately -- for example by being able to assess whether a person needs comfort and moral support, on the one hand, or solitude and personal space on the other (as in Avot 4:23). This is what makes the study of Avot so relevant today, as members of a society in which boundaries, attitudes and mores are constantly in motion.