WHO WILL LEAD THE FOXES?

At Avot 4:20 Rabbi Matya ben Charash teaches:

הֱוֵי זָנָב לָאֲרָיוֹת, וְאַל תְּהִי רֹאשׁ לַשֻּׁעָלִים

Be a tail to lions, rather than a head to foxes.

Both lions and foxes appear elsewhere in Avot and it is safe to say that, since both animals were far more commonly found in the Middle East at the time of the Tannaim than they are today, allusions to them would have been mor meaningful to the Mishnaic sages of 2,000 years ago and to their audience than they are to us today.

Be that as it may, in this mishnah it is probable that Rabbi Matya ben Charash had in mind not the real animal but the symbolic one, the creature of the proverb and the parable. That sort of lion represents strength, intelligence and dignity, coupled with an element of noble self-restraint, while his companion represents deviousness, cunning, sharp observation and a dash of the instinct for self-sufficiency and survival in a world of bigger, stronger animals.

 If this is so, the message of the mishnah is clear. We are advised to keep the company of our betters, whom we can trust and from whose superior qualities we can learn. We should also avoid the company of low-lives, even if we can demonstrate that we are better at being low-lives than they are. According to Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) this mishnah is actually a teaching on the topic of self-image. Those who associate with the foxes do so because they insufficiently value their capabilities and their potential to better themselves. I doubt that the earlier commentators would take issue with this.

But there is one issue raised in this mishnah that troubles me. We are told to be a tail to lions, not a head to foxes—but what does this mean for the foxes themselves? With no-one to lead them in the face of such explicit instruction not to do so, what will be their fate? It cannot be expected that the foxes will cease to be foxes just because they don’t have a leader or that, in the absence of a leader, they will all commit themselves to follow the (head of the) lions. So what is their fate?

I think the answer may be found within Avot itself. Hillel at Avot 1:14 teaches:

אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי, וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי, וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁו, אֵימָתָי

If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

This mishnah has been so overused in recent years, regardless of its context, that one can easily disregard that it might have had a context when Hillel first taught it. At any rate, the first two propositions—if I am not for myself and if I am only for myself—place it firmly within the category of Avot teachings that deal with interpersonal relationships and the need to strike a balance between one’s personal needs and the needs of others.

By identifying and criticizing the polar opposites of absolute selfishness and total altruism, Hillel foreshadows the Maimonidean golden mean that forms a central plank of Hilchot De’ot in the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. And as a pair of general maxims for life, Hillel’s guidance casts a clear light on our case of the foxes. We must not devote ourselves utterly to those who may live their lives at a lower standard than our own, and with lower expectations. But nor must we ignore them. We must take our inspiration from the lions and aspire to spread it among the foxes, even though both the lions and the foxes may ridicule our ethics and our efforts.

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Lions, foxes and a mysterious proof verse

Open any contemporary siddur or volume of mishnayot today and look for the teaching of Rabbi Matya ben Charash (Avot 4:20). There you will find the following text:

הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם, וֶהֱוֵי זָנָב לָאֲרָיוֹת, וְאַל תְּהִי רֹאשׁ לַשֻּׁעָלִים

In English: “Be the first to greet all people—and be a tail for lions, not a head for foxes”.

This does not appear to be the text that the Catalan scholar Rabbi Menachem Meiri (1249-1315) contemplated when he authored his commentary on Avot. The Mishnah in his text continues with a proof verse from Proverbs:

הלוך (הוֹלֵךְ) אֶת-חֲכָמִים וחכם (יֶחְכָּם); וְרֹעֶה כְסִילִים יֵרוֹעַ

In English: “He who walks with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer for it” (Mishlei 13:20).

Rabbi Samuel ben Isaac de Uçeda states explicitly that this was the text before Meiri in his compendious Midrash Shmuel (1579).

The link between this mishnah and the proof verse was clearly understood to exist in earlier times, even among scholars who probably did not have it in their copies of Avot. Rabbi Simchah ben Shmuel (died 1105) quotes the first half of the verse in the commentary on Avot found in the Machzor Vitry; rather later, Midrash Shmuel cites references to it by Rabbenu Yonah (1200-1263) and Rabbi Matityahu Hayitzhari. It continues to be cited even today.

This post addresses the extent to which the proof verse supports the mishnah.

It seems to me that the plain meaning of the verse from Proverbs is directed to the company one keeps. This proposition is supported by commentators on Tanach Essentially, the company of the wise enhances one’s wisdom, while the company of fools has the opposite effect. If we learn the verse in this manner, we can make the following observations:

• The proposition that one can learn wisdom from the wise is already implicit in the axiom in Avot 4:1 that the person who is wise is one who learns from others. It is unclear why we should need a repetition of this proposition;
• Our Mishnah here appears to emphasise the significance of a person being a “tail” or a “head”, that is to say a leader or a follower. The proof verse makes no express reference this issue;
• The lion in mishnayot and midrash is associated with many positive characteristics (see e.g. commentaries on Avot 5:23, “be as strong as a lion”), but wisdom is not one of them;
• Likewise, the fox in mishnayot and midrash is associated with cunning, guile and natural craftiness (see e.g. Rashi, Sanhedrin 39a)—but not with foolishness.[1]

Rabbenu Yonah sought to read the Hebrew as indicating that, while a person trails along behind the wise and is therefore metaphorically their tail, he finds that the fools follow him and he is therefore their head. While this explanation has been accepted and amplified by the Vilna Gaon and Rabbi Ovadyah Yosef, it does not read convincingly and Ralbag implicitly rejects it in his commentary on Proverbs: there he writes of the subject of the verse pursuing either the wise or the foolish—and thus being the “tail” in each case. Malbim however expressly follows the tails-and-heads approach.

We are left to contemplate the utility of verses that do not actually prove or clearly illustrate the point of a mishnah or baraita but which remains associated with them. There are many examples of such verses and the Judeophile Christian scholar R. Travers Herford points to several in his Ethics of the Talmud. While it would be quite wrong and thoroughly inappropriate to discard these verses, we are entitled to ask why they were chosen and what function they truly serve. It is improbable that their inclusion was solely for mnemonic reasons. Perhaps they are traces of earlier, deeper or more complex teachings that have been lost to us in the process of transmission through the generations. It would be good to know.

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[1] Even in Rabbi Akiva’s famous parable of the fox and the fish (Berachot 61b), where the fish call the fox “foolish”, they preface this jibe with a recitation that the fox is called pike’ach shebachayot (“the cleverest of creatures”).

Lion's tails and foxes' heads: a fresh perspective

In Avot 4:20 Rabbi Matya ben Charash teaches that one should be the "tail of lions" and not the "head of foxes". We all know that lions are supposed to be lordly and majestic, while foxes are menial and crafty. There are however many explanations of what this Rome-base rabbi meant.

One such perspective on this mishnah comes from Rabbi Yehoshua Heller's Toledot Yehoshua. It focuses on the relative status of Israel and the various lands into which its Jewish inhabitants were exiled. Israel is the natural home for Torah learning and for living one’s life in accordance with its precepts. By the time of the Roman occupation, “Israel” as a country was however only a geopolitical synonym for Judah, the southern kingdom based largely on the territory of Yehudah after the dispersal and loss of the Ten Tribes following the Assyrian conquest in 722 BCE. The symbol of Judah is the lion. Alluding to the tail of the lion, Rabbi Matya ben Charash is effectively teaching that it is better to serve the more exalted chachamim of Israel than to be regarded as a chacham among the less learned Jews who inhabit the lands of exile.