An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Ki Teitze)
This week’s pre-Shabbat post returns to Perek 2.
There is no piece of advice that is given—or ignored—more
frequently than the injunction: “Take care!”
From our earliest days as children, we hear these words from our parents
and elders. When we grow up, the refrain is taken up by our partners and peers,
and when we grow old we receive them from our children. It doesn’t matter what
we are doing: going out in the rain, playing in the park, climbing a ladder, lifting
a suitcase or descending the stairs. We are always told: “Be careful! Take
care!” The most annoying thing about this instruction is that it usually comes
without the information we really need to know about what care needs to be taken
and how we should take it.
Given the prevalence of this unwanted advice, it is almost a
disappointment to read Avot 2:18, where Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel teaches three
lessons. The first two of them are clearly connected, since both address prayer,
and they are at first sight no more than the usual caution to take care:
הֱוֵי זָהִיר בִּקְרִיאַת שְׁמַע וּבִתְפִלָּה.
וּכְשֶׁאַתָּה מִתְפַּלֵּל, אַל תַּֽעַשׂ תְּפִלָּתְךָ קְבַע, אֶלָּא רַחֲמִים וְתַחֲנוּנִים
לִפְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: כִּי חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם הוּא, אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם וְרַב
חֶֽסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל הָרָעָה
Be zahir (careful) in
reciting the Shema and in tefillah (prayer). When you do pray, do not
make your prayers routine, but [pleas for] mercy and supplication before the
Almighty, as it says: “For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant
in lovingkindness, and He has a gentle touch with the bad…”
Why does Rabbi Shimon take the trouble to tell us to be
careful when we say Shema and when we pray? Is it not obvious that we should do
so? And why should we take the trouble to study and internalise this message?
If we are seriously committed to our religious practice, aren’t we doing it
anyway? And, if we are not, this advice is hardly going to change us.
The Shema and prayer aren’t by any means the only things our
Sages tell us to take care over. For example, in the fourth perek Rabbi Yehudah
tells us (Avot 4:16) to be zahir in our learning. There’s also another
we find for being careful: in Avot 1:1 the Men of the Great Assembly warn us to
be matunim badin (painstakingly careful in judgement). Again, I would
have assumed that it was a no-brainer that judges should take care in deciding
the cases before them, so why should there be any need for a warning?
I sometimes wonder if there isn’t some connection between
these two mishnayot. Judges are told to be matunim, while people
reciting Shema or praying are told to be zahir. Why aren’t judges told
to be zehirim and why aren’t we supposed to be matunim?
With judges there is an extra element of taking care. This ideally
involves hearing and discussing a case and then taking a break, sleeping on
one’s reason for reaching a conclusion and then reassessing it afresh. That is
the highest form of taking care since it not only demands a careful rethink but
also allows a judge’s subconscious thoughts and perspectives to come to the
forefront of his mind. We want our
judges to be matunim, to leave that space for mature reflection, rather
than for them to be merely zehirim.
But when we recite Shema or pray, our care-taking is of a
different order. Yes, we must be zehirim, we must say the words
correctly, at the due time and with the necessary degree of thought and
intention—but we may not be matunim and take a break in order to
consider our performance of these commandments in greater depth. We must complete the task of recitation or
prayer in a single session,
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