Not such a saint

We are only human and, try as we will to be clinically objective in our analysis of mishnayot in Avot, our opinions, biases, preferences and prejudices inevitably leak out.

At Avot 5:17 an anonymous mishnah teaches:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בְּהוֹלְכֵי בֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ: הוֹלֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה, שְׂכַר הֲלִיכָה בְּיָדוֹ. עוֹשֶׂה וְאֵינוֹ הוֹלֵךְ, שְׂכַר מַעֲשֶׂה בְּיָדוֹ. הוֹלֵךְ וְעוֹשֶׂה, חָסִיד. לֹא הוֹלֵךְ וְלֹא עוֹשֶׂה, רָשָׁע

There are four types among those who attend the study hall. One who goes but does nothing—he has gained the rewards of going. One who does [study] but does not go to the study hall—he has gained the rewards of doing. One who goes and does, he is a chasid. One who neither goes nor does, he is wicked.

It is difficult to retain the flavour of the Mishnaic-era term chasid when translating it into modern English. “One who is pious” is clumsy and misses the mark because words like “pious” and “piety” have attracted in today’s English an aura of sanctimony rather than sincerity.  Left untranslated, the word chasid conjures up images of ultra-religious followers of a rebbe, garbed in black hats and long black coats and sporting sidelocks and beards.

Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) designates the chasid as a saint. In doing so he has a precedent from the world of philosemitic scholarship: the Reverend Travers Herford employs it in his The Ethics of the Talmud.

The word ‘saint’ carries baggage: it may be deployed as a term of approbation of someone’s righteous and selfless behaviour, often in the face of temptation or with the prospect of suffering an enduring loss; it is also frequently used in a highly sarcastic comment on a person’s far-from-righteous behaviour.  Rabbi Toperoff was a pulpit rabbi in a town which then had two synagogues—one frequented by serious Torah scholars, the other (the “Englische shul”, which was his) being attended by more of the town’s rank-and-file population. The Englische shul was looked down on by some of the members of the frum synagogue who would likely not wish to hear his English sermons, and maybe it was this that was his motivation for writing the following:

“Hasid, saint. The hasid is one who attends and practises. Some authorities question the advisability of referring to the Hasid as a saint: he is performing the normal duties incumbent upon every Jew. However, …[t]here are those who consider themselves intellectually and morally superior to their co-religionists and consequently refrain from mixing freely with the multitude and do not attend the Beth Hamidrash. They do not hear the sermons and lectures of the Rabbis and therefore create divisiveness. More praiseworthy and meritorious is the conduct of the scholar who, in spite of his knowledge presents himself at the House of Study and listens to the discourse of the Rabbi. Such understanding bespeaks humility and meekness, and such a person is worthy of the title Hasid, saint”.

I personally doubt that any of the people who avoided going to Rabbi Toperoff’s synagogue and hearing his sermons would have read these words, but he does raise an interesting point: is there any real value in attending a sermon when you doubt that you will learn anything new from it and are confident that time spent engaged in other forms of learning would reap a greater benefit? Gila Ross (Living Beautifully) may think so. As she observes:

“Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk points out that the very act of pulling himself out of his comfort zone and going to a place of learning is going to help that person focus on his spirituality”.

Pulling oneself out of one’s comfort zone is the key point here. The very act is itself part of an ongoing process of character development. Gila Ross does not quote Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai on this, but in the second perek of Avot we see how, not once but twice, he orders his best talmidim to leave the Beit Midrash and go out and see for themselves how people live, to enable them to learn what best to do and what best to avoid.

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"What's yours is yours", or Is Esau a Chasid after all?

A pleasingly symmetrical anonymous mishnah (Avot 5:13) reviews attitudes towards the distribution of personal wealth in the following manner:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בָּאָדָם: הָאוֹמֵר שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלָּךְ, זוֹ מִדָּה בֵינוֹנִית, וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים זוֹ מִדַּת סְדוֹם. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלָּךְ וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלִּי, עַם הָאָֽרֶץ. שֶׁלִּי שֶׁלָּךְ וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלָּךְ, חָסִיד. שֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלִּי וְשֶׁלִּי שֶׁלִּי, רָשָׁע

There are four types of people: One who says: "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" — this is an average sort of person; others say that this is the character of a Sodomite. One who says: "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is an am ha’aretz [impossible to translate, but essentially someone who doesn’t know better and doesn’t really care]. One who says: "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chasid (literally , “pious person”). And one who says: "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked.

At Genesis 33:9 Esau, who has been offered some generous gifts by Jacob, responds with the following words:

יֶשׁ לִי רָב אָחִי יְהִי לְךָ אֲשֶׁר לָךְ

“I have enough; my brother, let that which you have be yours”.

These words, spoken more a millennium before the compilation of the Mishnah, appear to resonate with our definition here of a chasid and this leads us to ask: does Esau, who receives a bad press from the Bible and an even worse press from most aggadic commentaries, actually qualify as a chasid under Avot 5:13?

In his words to his junior twin, Esau acknowledges that Jacob is entitled to his own property. We also know that two things that by right are originally Esau’s—his birthright and his blessing from their father Isaac—do indeed now belong to Jacob. Midrash corroborates this by teachings that Esau was here confirming Jacob’s formerly shaky entitlement to those two contentious items (Bereshit Rabbah 78:11; also Yalkut Shimoni).

This is where readers of Avot Today can help me.

I have not yet spotted any commentators on the Torah who have referred to this mishnah on Avot in their commentaries on Genesis 33:9. Nor have I yet laid my hands on any commentaries on Avot that make reference to Esau’s words in their discussions of Avot 5:13. I’m surprised, given the similarity of Esau’s words to those chosen by the author of our mishnah, that more has not been made of this point.

Have I missed anything obvious?

I should add that I’m not suggesting that Esau is an out-and-out five-star chasid. But maybe there is a hidden clue here that adds to the merits which led to his head being midrashically buried in the Cave of Machpelah. It also occurred to me that, in Chasidic writings, notably those of the Noam Elimelech, it seems to be understood that tzaddikim—the righteous—exist at various levels, ranging from near saints at the top of the scale, down to those who are barely over 50% righteous. Perhaps the same can be said of the chasid. 

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In pursuit of piety

A big thank-you to Claude Tusk for reminding us how highly Pirkei Avot was valued by the Amoraim. He writes:

From yesterday's Daf Yomi (Bava Kamma 30a):

אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: הַאי מַאן דְּבָעֵי לְמֶהֱוֵי חֲסִידָא – לְקַיֵּים מִילֵּי דִּנְזִיקִין. רָבָא אָמַר: מִילֵּי דְאָבוֹת. וְאָמְרִי לַהּ: מִילֵּי דִּבְרָכוֹת.

[Translation] Rav Yehudah said: “That person who wishes to be a chasid [literally “pious person”] must comply with the laws of damages”.  Rava said: “[That person must comply with] the content of Avot”; still others said: “That person must comply with the content of [the tractate of] Berachot [“Blessings”]”. 

So Avot is in the top three for encouraging piety!

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

This passage from Bava Kamma is often quoted by commentators in their introductions to the tractate, either simply to remind readers of the value of implementing Avot in practice rather than just sitting and learning it or, less often, in order to find a link between the laws on damages, Jewish ethical guidance and the many diverse rules relating to blessings.

Avot itself offers different advice on how to be a chasid: at Avot 6:1 Rabbi Meir lists “being equipped to be a chasid” as a consequence of learning Torah for its own sake – with the proviso that an am ha’aretz cannot become a chasid (Avot 2:2). Avot also provides a few benchmarks against which to establish if a person is a chasid or not: such a person makes his possessions available to others (Avot 5:13), is hard to anger but easy to placate (5:14), happy that both he and others should give to charity (5:16) and who both goes to a house of study and actually studies (5:17).

Here’s a point to ponder. When Rava says that someone who aspires to be a chasid should comply with Avot, does he mean literally the whole of Avot or only the bits that reference who is or is not a chasid? Thoughts, anyone?

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