Miracles without a message -- or something more meaningful?

As noted in our previous post, not every mishnah in Avot carries an obvious message for our daily lives. Indeed, some teachings seem quite out of place in a guide to Jewish ethics and moral behaviour.

A good example is Avot 5:7, which lists ten miracles that God performed for us in Temple times. Eight of them are clearly the consequence of divine intervention, so they teach us about God’s behaviour rather than ours. The other two—reproduced in bold below—do address aspects of human behaviour and are thus more relevant to mussar and middot. But how much do they really teach us?

The mishnah goes like this:

עֲשָׂרָה נִסִּים נַעֲשׂוּ לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ בְּבֵית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ: לֹא הִפִּֽילָה אִשָּׁה מֵרֵֽיחַ בְּשַׂר הַקֹּֽדֶשׁ, וְלֹא הִסְרִֽיחַ בְּשַׂר הַקֹּֽדֶשׁ מֵעוֹלָם, וְלֹא נִרְאָה זְבוּב בְּבֵית הַמִּטְבָּחַֽיִם, וְלֹא אִירַע קֶֽרִי לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל בְּיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים, וְלֹא כִבּוּ הַגְּשָׁמִים אֵשׁ שֶׁל עֲצֵי הַמַּעֲרָכָה, וְלֹא נִצְּחָה הָרֽוּחַ אֶת עַמּוּד הֶעָשָׁן, וְלֹא נִמְצָא פִסּוּל בָּעֽוֹמֶר וּבִשְׁתֵּי הַלֶּֽחֶם וּבְלֶֽחֶם הַפָּנִים, עוֹמְדִים צְפוּפִים וּמִשְׁתַּחֲוִים רְוָחִים, וְלֹא הִזִּיק נָחָשׁ וְעַקְרָב בִּירוּשָׁלַֽיִם, וְלֹא אָמַר אָדָם לַחֲבֵרוֹ: צַר לִי הַמָּקוֹם שֶׁאָלִין בִּירוּשָׁלָֽיִם

Ten miracles were performed for our forefathers in the Holy Temple: No woman ever miscarried because of the smell of the holy meat. The holy meat never spoiled. Never was a fly seen in the slaughterhouse. Never did the High Priest have an accidental seminal discharge on Yom Kippur. The rains did not extinguish the wood-fire burning upon the altar. The wind did not prevail over the column of smoke [rising from the altar]. No disqualifying problem was ever discovered in the Omer offering, the Two Loaves or the Showbread. They stood crowded but had ample space in which to prostrate themselves. Never did a snake or scorpion cause injury in Jerusalem. And no man ever said to his fellow "It’s too hard for me to find a place to stay when I come up to Jerusalem" [emphases added].

Is this the stuff of which the Bartenura (on Avot 1:1) says “All of it is mussar (moral chastisement) and middot (behavioural standards)”? The fact that a crowd of people found they had enough space to prostrate themselves appears to be the result of an act of God, in which case once again it is miraculous, beyond human understanding and therefore beyond all comment ad criticism. We can praise God for it but there’s no mussar message to take home. In contrast, the fact that people did not complain when they might have been expected to do so can be seen as a description of how a group of humans chose to respond to a particular situation, which is not really a miracle at all. But of course there is more to this teaching than meets the eye.

R’ Ovadyah Hedaya (Seh leBet Avot) puts a different spin on this mishnah in his commentary on one of the teachings at the other end of the tractate, at Avot 1:5, where Yose ben Yochanan ish Yerushalayim opens his teaching with the following instruction:

יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָּתֽוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתְךָ  

Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household.

On this earlier mishnah R’ Hedaya comments that the host who opens his home to all and welcomes the poor is emulating God’s middah of gemilut chasadim (performing acts of kindness). He then alludes to Avot 5:7:  in emulating God the good host should take care to make sure that his guests have room to spread and that they should not have grounds to complain that his place is too uncongenial for them to stay there. The importance of following God’s example and practising acts of kindness is driven home by reference to Avot 1:2, where Shimon HaTzaddik lists gemilut chasadim as one of the three pillars upon which the world stands.

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Do you ever get that fuzzy psycho-spiritual feeling?

I don't.

I’ve been thinking a good deal recently about the following paragraph, which comes from Bracha Poliakoff and Rabbi Anthony Manning’s fascinating book on redefining tzniut, Reclaiming Dignity:

“The Gaon of Vilna stated that the main focus of a Jew’s life should be the perfection of the mitzvot bein adam l’chaveiro, the laws regulating interpersonal relationships. Although few would disagree with this sentiment in principle, in practice the interpersonal mitzvot normally receive a far less rigorous and structured halachic analysis and presentation to students. They are often pushed into the somewhat fuzzy psycho-spiritual category of ‘improving middot’, which, although (rightly) taken seriously by many, is still a convenient way of avoiding much of the tough intellectual or cognitive-behavioral work that is required in this area of our lives” (at p.255).

What exactly is meant by the words: “in practice the interpersonal mitzvot normally receive a far less rigorous and structured halachic analysis and presentation to students”? This looks like a criticism, the implication that the interpersonal mitzvot would somehow benefit from a rigorous and structured halachic analysis and presentation. But is this actually the case?

In their widest sense, some interpersonal mitzvot are quite suitable for a structured treatment. These include the laws that apply, for example, when we return our neighbour’s lost property, borrow his lawnmower or break his window when playing football. At the other end of the spectrum we find mitzvot that defy attempts to frame them within a structured halachic analysis. These include mitzvot such as loving others as one loves oneself (where the mitzvah is vague in itself), honouring one’s parents (where much depends upon the personalities of those concerned and on cultural considerations) and comforting the bereaved (where much depends upon minhag and on family tradition).

Pirkei Avot focuses principally on middot, not mitzvot, and on how one should behave rather than on what one is obliged to do or refrain from doing. Middot are the stuff of which human relationships are built: they deal with kindness, with empathy, with constantly making judgement calls as to how to respond to others in a wide range of situations.  A person can meticulously observe every interpersonal mitzvah and still fail to make a single friendship or relate to another human being. This is because it is middot, not mitzvot, that define who we are as social beings who share their world with other people.

I’m not sure what exactly is meant by “the somewhat fuzzy psycho-spiritual category of ‘improving middot’” but I find it hard to believe that improving the way one relates to other people within the context of Pirkei Avot can be described as a “convenient way of avoiding much of the tough intellectual or cognitive-behavioral work that is required in this area of our lives”. Even the simplest of middot require careful thought and hard work. How many of us can claim to greet others, as Shammai requires (Avot 1:15), with a happy, smiling face? How many of can genuinely say that we judge others (Yehoshua ben Perachyah, Avot 1:6) on the basis of their merit and give them the benefit of the doubt if it exists? And how many people who manage to do this would regard it as a soft option to learning halachah?

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Pirkei Avot and Pirates of the Caribbean

There’s a running gag in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). It concerns the Pirates’ Code. Is this Code a set of binding rules or does it merely offer guidelines? Much excitement and swashbuckling action turns on the answer to this question, since a pirate who considers the Code to offer no more than suggestions for correct conduct is free to decide whether to comply with it or not.

Much the same considerations apply to Pirkei Avot. Do its moral precepts form a binding code of conduct, to be honoured and respected by all? Or is it simply a list of preferences that any individual can respect or discard at his discretion? Rabbi Elazar Ezkari in his Sefer Charedim, regards much of the content of Avot as binding law, but most other scholars take a more flexible view.

Conceived for children’s entertainment, this Pirates of the Caribbean movie can actually be a valuable didactic tool in explaining how law and morality affects any self-regulating minority. At the top of the tree, as it were, it depicts norms that are universally binding, both on the population at large and on pirates. The obvious example are the laws that make piracy illegal and require the punishment of pirates. Then, by analogy to norms that are relevant only to Jews, there are norms that are applicable only to pirates. Thus the Pirates’ Code is addressed only to pirates and may only be invoked by them. And, similarly to Pirkei Avot, the Pirates’ Code is observed strictly by some but viewed by others as mere guidance.

The analogy between the Pirates’ Code and Pirkei Avot cannot however be stretched too far. It is plain from the movie that, when a pirate treats the Code as mere guidance, he does so in order to further his self-interest. With Avot, however, it is understood that the breach of any of its provisions should only be done with the objective of performing some greater good. An obvious example is the advice to greet everyone with a happy, smiling face (Avot 1:15) since we sadly encounter many situations in life in which a more solemn demeanour is more appropriate.

Incidentally, in Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, the position taken by the librettist is apparently that obligations entered into between pirates are regarded as being absolutely binding precisely because they are a matter of honour rather than legally enforceable commitments.