A REWARD IN HAND

An anonymous mishnah at Avot 5:17 assesses and contrasts four categories of individual who have (or lack) pretentions to be engaged in Torah learning. It runs like this:

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. Someone who goes but does nothing has gained the rewards of going. Someone who does [study] but does not go to the study hall has gained the rewards of doing. One who goes and does is a chasid. One who neither goes nor does is wicked.

This is not one of the red-hot mishnayot that make Avot so exciting; it looks almost like a rote exercise in patting people on the head for going out to learn Torah in public, whether they can be seen and can share their learning with others, rather than sit with their books before them at home—where for all we know they might be playing Minecraft on their iPads.

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezrich gives this teaching a Chasidic make-over in his inimitable manner by focusing on the second of the four stereotypes described in our mishnah, the הוֹלֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה (oseh ve’eino holech, who “does but doesn’t go”). This person earns a reward for the learning he does, but he fails to “go”, to progress from the level he has already attained to a higher level as a result of his learning.  His reward is therefore בְּיָדוֹ (beyado, literally “in his hand”), meaning “from the action of his hand” rather than being a reward for the internalization of his thoughts and his understanding of what has been learned—and for his growth in Torah.

This is a neat and elegant way to convey the message that the value of learning is in what understands rather than in the time spent sitting in a shiur, a lecture theatre or a library, going through the motions but emerging quite unchanged by that exercise. However, this meaning of לֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה and בְּיָדוֹ cannot be what the author of our mishnah intended. If it were, it would be impossible to comprehend the first part of the mishnah which speaks of the opposite case, the הוֹלֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה (holech ve’eino oseh, the one who “goes but does not do” any learning). By Reb Dov Ber’s reckoning this would be the person who rises in his level of learning and still receives a reward even though he has done nothing.

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