The Three Pillars: a fresh perspective

Shimon HaTzaddik’s teaching at Avot 1:2 is so short and simple that it would be strange for so many explanations to exist for it—were it not that this mishnah stands proof that Avot is for all times and that each generation can extract some further level of meaning from it. The mishnah reads:

עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד: עַל הַתּוֹרָה, וְעַל הָעֲבוֹדָה, וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים

The world stands on three things: the Torah, the service [of God], and acts of kindness.

This post does not propose to review all the existing explanations or to discuss the surprising variety that Torah, service and acts of kindness are intended to mean or symbolize. All it seeks to do is to comment on a very recent one, a response to the unfolding of events in Israel and on her borders in the wake of the war that broke out on 7 October 2023. 

One of the most popular explanations of this mishnah is that of the Maharal (Derech Chaim), that the three things the world stands on represent the three relationships a person must cultivate in this world: a relationship to oneself (Torah), God (service) and other people (acts of kindness). The following concentrates on just one of those things. 

In “Answering the call to serve” (Torah-To-Go, January 2024/Shevat 5784), R’ Meir Goldwicht writes:

Our nation finds itself in a period of “miluim”. Miluim in modern Hebrew means reserve duty (especially in a military context). In lashon hakodesh, it has a different meaning. We use miluim (from the word malei, to fill) to refer to situations where one person fulfills the needs of another, and in doing so, the giver’s needs are fulfilled more than the recipient’s.

The mishnah of Shimon HaTzaddik is offered as an example. How does this work?

Torah: Anyone who progresses in Torah learning does so through the benefits received from Torah influencers, teachers and chavrutot (learning partners). This in turn enables such a person to benefit others in the same manner—and those who have benefited with benefit their benefactor in return.

Service: Following the destruction of the Second Temple and the cessation of Temple services, the Hebrew word avodah, “service”, has been firmly linked to the concept of “service of the heart”, in other words prayer. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Kama 92a) teaches that, where one prays for one’s friend who has the same needs, the person praying will be answered first.

Acts of kindness: It is axiomatic that, by furnishing charity to others, we can actually become wealthy as a result (Taanit 9a). On this basis the desire to fulfill someone else’s needs will eventually benefit the giver.

This idea of reciprocity—helping others learn in order to learn from them, praying for others and benefiting from one’s prayers for them, and also reaping the material rewards of assisting others materially—is not inherent in the words of Shimon HaTzaddik who, living in Temple times, would surely have the (non-reciprocal) notion of Temple sacrifices foremost in his mind when delivering this teaching. Nor, so far as I am aware, is this notion found in the words of any earlier commentator on Avot. Nonetheless, it fits the bill here and shows how the words of Avot have yet to reach the stage at which we cannot derive new messages from them. What’s more, it makes all three pillars relevant to human-on-human interaction, which is very much the ethos of Avot.

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Not pillars but a conveyor belt

The first teaching in Avot that we learn in the name of any individual rabbi is the fundamental principle that the world stands on three things: Torah, service to God and acts of gemilut chasadim (human kindness). These three things are frequently described as “pillars”, since anything that stands on three pillars—or legs—is automatically stable, irrespective of the length of the legs. But Shimon HaTzaddik (Avot 1:2) does not specify what precisely it is that the world stands upon. This opens the mishnah up to other interpretations.

 I recently found another commentary on Avot abandoned in the streets of Jerusalem. It’s Etz HaSedah, a compilation of divrei Torah on Avot put together by one Tzvi Yehudah Gottlieb, published in Bnei Brak in 1988. This is a modest little book which does not purport to be an earth-shattering collection of chiddushim, novellae—but that should not detract from its utility.

Referencing the Vilna Gaon’s observation that Torah and gemilut chasadim are dearer to God than service to Him, Gottlieb contrasts the different qualities of the three items cited in the mishnah.

Torah, which emanates directly from God and expresses the Divine will, is holy and represents Heaven. Gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness done by humans to humans, can only be performed on Earth. This leaves serving God. What is its unique significance?

While Heaven and Earth are literally worlds apart, serving God is a means of linking heavenly with the earthly. By learning Torah, man is drawn upwards. By performing its precepts, man is bound to the material world. But serving God is the means of bringing Torah down to Earth while also taking the earthly and elevating it in holiness. As the agent of this service, humankind is improved and ideally perfected.

If service to God can be seen as a sort of two-way conveyor belt, bringing the holy and the spiritual down to Earth while at the same time elevating humankind towards greater closeness with God, we are still left with a question. Why should Torah and gemilut chasadim be preferred over serving God? The Etz HaSadeh does not offer an answer, but one can be suggested: Torah and gemilut chasadim are both ends in themselves, while serving God is a means by which these ends can be achieved.

Can anyone offer another, ideally more convincing, explanation?

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Speaking stones: one story, three views

The Torah relates how the patriarch Yaakov, in his first night away from home, finds himself alone on a mountain. He takes some stones and places them under his head (Bereshit 28:11); in the morning there is just one stone (ibid., 28:18) and he consecrates it to God. This is the inspiration for a tale that is familiar to most children who attend Jewish schools. An aggadic tale, which Rashi includes in his commentary on the Torah, it is of ancient provenance, being cited in the Babylonian Talmud (Chullin 91b; see also Bereshit Rabbah 68:11). As the Talmud succinctly puts it:

All the stones gathered themselves together into one place and each one said: “Upon me shall this righteous man rest his head”. Thereupon all [the stones], a Tanna taught, were merged into one.

A small child, hearing this tale in class, is likely to accept it as fact.  Yaakov was such a good person that each stone wanted to be the lucky one to have his head rest upon it—and there is nothing strange about stones arguing with one another and shouting “me, me!” since that’s what little children do too.

When that same child becomes a teenager, this tale may be measured against an increased degree of life experience and a hostile, if not cynical, stance towards the uncritical acceptance of teachings. By this view, surely this tale is a complete fabrication. Everybody knows that stones can’t talk, let alone argue; they are the very embodiment of speechlessness. Nor do they have feelings. And how would they have any clue as to who Jacob was anyway? Also, the merger of stones into a single unit would be a most striking and impressive miracle so why, if this event actually happened, would the Torah not spell it out for us instead of waiting for a rabbi to infer it from a small grammatical quirk over a thousand years later?

Later, as the child matures into a thinking and discerning adult, this tale might well be appreciated in quite a different light. Maybe the function of this tale is to describe a greater truth and to teach us something that is not only profound but of value in our own lives today. And perhaps more can be gained by reading some of our traditional wisdom into the Torah than in seeking only to squeeze meaning out of it.  The following explanation is drawn from an explanation by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv:

The stones taken by Jacob were three in number. These stones represented the three pillars upon which, according to Shimon HaTzaddik (Avot 1:2), the world stands: Torah (representing mankind’s means of self-improvement), avodah (serving God) and gemillut chasadim (acts of kindness towards others).  A case can be made for each of these pillars to be the foundational pillar, of greater importance than the others. Indeed, the Tanach supplies the textual ammunition that supports the claim of each of them. But God, by fusing the three into a single stone, teaches that, just as three legs are needed in order to support any chair or table, so too does a combination of Torah, service to God and cultivating good relations within mankind create the condition of stability necessary for society to exist.

This is not just a message for society. According to the Maharal it is a message for the individual too, since each of us is our own little world. We have to get the balance right. Without attending to all three facets of our lives, we are each diminished as individuals. 

All the world's a radio!

Pirkei Avot is built on metaphor, simile, analogy -- which is why it's such fun to come across short, sweet articles like this one ("Radios and Judaism" by Karen Kaplan, on Chabad.org). 

In Pirkei Avot Shimon HaTzaddik says that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, avodah (prayer) and gemilut chassadim (acts of kindness). Just as a radio is only a silent box until it’s turned on and receiving signals, so the world seems spiritually silent to us without these three pillars. The first pillar, our holy Torah, is the detailed instruction manual for building and operating our radio. When we study the Torah, we transform ourselves into human radios to receive G‑d’s wisdom. That wisdom is also expressed in the Torah. So the Torah is both the instruction manual and the broadcast!

Dialling in and turning up the volume correspond to gemilut chassadim and avodah. A nice, thought-provoking set of imagery -- though certainly not one that would have occurred to Shimon HaTzaddik!

Shammai and the three pillars on which the World stands

The only mishnah in Avot that is attributed to Shammai is found in the first perek, at Avot 1:15.  There, he teaches three things: (i) one should make one's Torah "fixed", which is usually taken to mean either that one should fix regular times for one's Torah learning or that one's fulfilment of its precepts should be constant rather than wavering in accordance with the company one keeps or other influentual variables; (ii) one should say a little but do a lot, and (iii) one should greet other people with a happy, smiling face.

It occurred to me that these three pieces of stand-alone advice somewhat mirror the content of another, earlier mishnah in Avot in which Shimon HaTzaddik lists the three things: (i) Torah, (ii) avodah (literally "service", meaning one's service to God) and (iii) the performance of acts of kindness (Avot 1:2). 

These two mishnayot actually complement each other quite neatly, though this is not a point that seems to have been picked up by earlier commentators [can readers please get in touch if they find anyone who has already made this point?]. "Torah" and "fixing" one's Torah are obviously on the same topic; acts of kindness and greeting people cheerfully both involve an element of respect and concern for other people. That leaves only "service" and saying little but doing a lot. If "service" in context is taken to mean serving God by performing his mitzvot, it makes sense to teach that service of this nature is rendered by doing, by real action, not by talking at length about what one plans to do. This forges a three-ply link between the two mishnayot.