Too busy to learn? Where Pirkei Avot meets reality

This is my first post for nearly three weeks, and it’s not because I’ve given up on Avot Today. Rather, it is a consequence of my intense involvement in the running of my synagogue, of which I am currently the president and, it seems, a good deal more.

The precise circumstances in which I became president need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that there was no one else was willing and able to do so. My decision to accept the post was based on the dictum of Hillel at Avot 2:6:

וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ

 In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.

I very soon discovered that, before I could be of any service to the synagogue, I had a great deal to learn about its membership and its governance. In this I was greatly assisted by long-time members and Board members both past and present. I also received a large number of suggestions and pieces of incidental information from the membership at large—many of which appeared irrelevant at the time but have since found a place in the jigsaw that comprises the community which the synagogue serves. Here I was guided by the maxim of Ben Zoma at Avot 4:1:

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise? One who learns from every person.

I soon found myself swamped by shul business and struggled to juggle my many commitments within the time available. It was apparent at that juncture that, since I could not function without food or sleep, and synagogal responsibilities were so many and so pressing, the easiest commitment to push aside was my Torah learning—but it seemed to me that, the less learning I did, the more shul administration there was for me to tackle. Nechunyah ben Hakanah at Avot 3:6 had already noted this possibility when he taught:

כָּל הַמְקַבֵּל עָלָיו עוֹל תּוֹרָה, מַעֲבִירִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, וְכָל הַפּוֹרֵק מִמֶּֽנוּ עוֹל תּוֹרָה, נוֹתְנִין עָלָיו עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ

One who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah is exempted from the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares; but one who casts off the yoke of Torah is saddled with the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares.

I had initially hoped against hope that, if I learned a bit less now, I could step up my learning again when I had mastered my presidential duties. But this has not happened. Again, Hillel warns, at Avot 2:5:

וְאַל תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפְנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה, שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה

 And do not say "When I free myself of my concerns, I will study,'' for perhaps you will never free yourself.

Potentially comforting is the assurance of Rabban Gamliel the son of Rebbi at Avot 2:2:

וְכָל הָעוֹסְקִים עִם הַצִּבּוּר יִהְיוּ עוֹסְקִים עִמָּהֶם לְשֵׁם שָׁמָֽיִם, שֶׁזְּכוּת אֲבוֹתָם מְסַיַּעְתָּם, וְצִדְקָתָם עוֹמֶֽדֶת לָעַד

Those who work for the community should do so for the sake of Heaven, for then the merit of their fathers shall aid them, and their righteousness shall endure forever. 

It’s difficult to know what to make of this, since I’m still swamped with duties and responsibilities and don’t feel that I’m receiving any aid.  Does this mean that I’m not acting for the sake of Heaven, or that those from whom I am descended have no merit to aid me—or that I am already receiving aid from Heaven on account of the merit of my forebears, but that I ungratefully do not appreciate how much more I would be struggling in its absence? I doubt that I shall never know.

But not all hope is lost. One of the 48 ways of acquiring Torah (Avot 6:6) is to be

נוֹשֵׂא בְעוֹל עִם חֲבֵרוֹ

One who bears the burden along with one's fellow.

The solution is clear. What I must continue to do is to find others to help me and to share the strain of carrying out tasks that are currently left to me alone. Where there are no obvious candidates for helping me to take the strain, I shall have to train them myself. Many commentators on the baraita at Avot 6:6 have expanded its application beyond sharing the burden of learning, to embrace financial and moral support and even an element of counselling since it is only when a person’s mind is free of anxiety and stress that he or she is free to learn Torah to the full extent. Why should not this principle apply also to freeing up another’s time?

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Drinking with thirst

In one of the earliest mishnayot of Avot (1:4), we have a vividly-expressed piece lf advice from Yose ben Yo’ezer Ish Tzereidah:

יְהִי בֵיתְךָ בֵּית וַֽעַד לַחֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי מִתְאַבֵּק בַּעֲפַר רַגְלֵיהֶם, וֶהֱוֵי שׁוֹתֶה בַצָּמָא אֶת דִּבְרֵיהֶם

Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; sit in the dust of their feet, and drink thirstily of their words.

Much of the attention that this teaching receives relates to the “dust of their feet” bit, since it is understood by the traditional commentators in so many different ways. There is no consensus among translators either. I’ve used the ArtScroll translation here, but variations include “dust yourself in the soil of their feet” (Chabad.com) or my own preferred translation, “be wrestling in the dust of their feet”

In contrast, one might expect far greater consensus regarding the final part of the mishnah. There are no problems of vocabulary or idiom and the metaphor of drinking someone’s words thirstily is easily understood, whether used in a Torah context or in everyday speech. But here too the commentators have something to add to the plain meaning of the words.

A possible trigger for elaboration of this mishnah is the implication that “drinking” suggests water. Even though Yose ben Yo’ezer makes no mention of water here, the association of water with Torah, and of thirsting for Torah, is deeply rooted in the psyche of our commentators.  

According to two commentators, the thirst to which our mishnah refers is no ordinary thirst: it is the thirst that is generated by drinking salty water. This activity itself generates further thirst, which is compounded when the person seeking to slake his thirst merely drinks more of it. That. It is suggested, is how consumption of the Torah should be: the more one tastes it, the more of it one wants of it (Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner, Ruach Chaim; Rabbi Yitzchak Volozhiner, Milei de’Avot). The opposite view is also however taken, that the water—because it is a metaphor for Torah—should always be sweet to one’s palate, to encourage its steady consumption (Rabbi Yosef Yavetz, quoting Rabbenu Yosef ben Shushan).

The Chida, quoted in MiMa’ayanot HaNetzach, focuses on the realities of the metaphor, taking a practical view of drinking in one’s Torah. If one drinks too much at a time, it can be harmful. A perfect case in point is that of the baby at the mother’s breast. The baby cannot sustain itself without the life-giving force of the mother’s milk, but will nonetheless stop drinking once the necessary quantity of milk has been consumed. The slowly-slowly approach, in preference to going for a sudden, massive intake is also endorsed by Maharam Shik in one of his later comments on Avot 6:6.

So far as imbibing the wisdom of Torah is concerned, both approaches can be justified. In general, our education is governed by the speed at which we can absorb what we learn. But if someone special walks into our lives, we should at least make an effort to maximise the amount we can learn from that person—even if we do not understand fully at the moment we imbibe it.

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The cost of Torah and the price of honour

An Avot baraita for Shabbat: Perek 6 (parashat Bemidbar)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we finally reach Perek 6, “Kinyan HaTorah” (“Acquisition of the Torah”), which we learn ahead of the festival of Shavuot which marks the giving of the Torah at Sinai.

Not all the teachings in Avot consist of rabbis telling people what to do. One of them, a baraita in the final perek (Avot 6:9), opens with a short story:

אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן קִסְמָא: פַּֽעַם אֶחָת הָיִֽיתִי מְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ, וּפָגַע בִּי אָדָם אֶחָד, וְנָתַן לִי שָׁלוֹם, וְהֶחֱזַֽרְתִּי לוֹ שָׁלוֹם, אָמַר לִי: רַבִּי, מֵאֵיזֶה מָקוֹם אָֽתָּה, אָמַֽרְתִּי לוֹ: מֵעִיר גְּדוֹלָה שֶׁל חֲכָמִים וְשֶׁל סוֹפְרִים אָֽנִי. אָמַר לִי: רַבִּי, רְצוֹנְךָ שֶׁתָּדוּר עִמָּֽנוּ בִּמְקוֹמֵֽנוּ, וַאֲנִי אֶתֵּן לָךְ אֶֽלֶף אֲלָפִים דִּנְרֵי זָהָב וַאֲבָנִים טוֹבוֹת וּמַרְגָּלִיּוֹת. אָמַֽרְתִּי לוֹ: אִם אַתָּה נוֹתֵן לִי כָּל כֶּֽסֶף וְזָהָב וַאֲבָנִים טוֹבוֹת וּמַרְגָּלִיּוֹת שֶׁבָּעוֹלָם, אֵינִי דָר אֶלָּא בִּמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה

Rabbi Yose ben Kisma said: Once I was going on my way and I encountered a man. He greeted me and I returned his greeting. He said to me: "Rabbi, where are you from?" I said to him: "I’m from a great city of sages and scholars". He said to me: "Rabbi, would you like to live with us in our place? I will give you a million gold dinars of gold, precious stones and pearls”. I said I to him: "If you were to give me all the silver, gold, precious stones and pearls in the world, I wouldn’t live anywhere but in a place of Torah”.

Is any further comment needed, or indeed desirable? Here, in narrative form, we read a simple story of a great and highly principled rabbi who refuses all inducements and blandishments for the sake of being able to learn Torah in the company of other like-minded scholars.

Those who discuss this stranger tend to do so in a pejorative sense. Thus R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) describes him as “lacking the basic underpinnings of spirituality” with his “superficial manners and his overvaluation of money”. The Chafetz Chaim says the man was not asking Rabbi Yose to teach Torah but only that people would honour him (Shmuel Charlap, Chafetz Chaim al Avot).  The Maharal of Prague, seeking to identify him by name, pointed to two candidates who could have scarcely been more different from one another: Elijah the Prophet and the Satan.

But perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye. For one thing, though we know very little about Rabbi Yose ben Kisma, we do know that he lived and taught in the Roman city of Caesarea—an affluent place but hardly a notable makom Torah after the Bar Kochka revolt of 132-136 CE.

Further, everyone reads this baraita from the standpoint of Rabbi Yose ben Kisma. But why do we not read it too from the perspective of the unknown man whom he meets? Here we find a man who is so desperate to secure a rabbi who will illuminate his town with Torah and enrich it with his knowledge that he is prepared to pay any price for it. Perhaps he is even greater in his dedication to Torah than is Rabbi Yose. After all, the rabbi articulates his concern for himself, while the man he meets is seeking a rabbi for an entire community.

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