Real learning and a stroll in the park

Many readers are uninspired by the standard explanations of Rabbi Yaakov’s (or, according to other texts, Rabbi Shimon’s) blistering attack on the Torah student who allows himself to be distracted from his learning. The mishnah in question, Avot 3:9, goes like this:

הַמְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ וְשׁוֹנֶה, וּמַפְסִיק מִמִּשְׁנָתוֹ וְאוֹמֵר: מַה נָּאֶה אִילָן זֶה, מַה נָּאֶה נִיר זֶה, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ מִתְחַיֵּב בְּנַפְשׁוֹ

One who walks along the way and studies, and interrupts his studying to say, "How beautiful is this tree!", "How beautiful is this ploughed field!"---the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life.

Commentators have poured scorn on the unfortunate talmid who interrupts study of the eternal, spiritual Torah for the fleeting pleasure gained by admiring the physical, material dimension while simultaneously squandering precious and irreplaceable time that could have been devoted to getting closer to God through the sole route available to His chosen people, that of learning Torah.  To be fair, this might very well have been precisely what the author of the mishnah intended—particularly if he were Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Torah genius with an uncompromising attitude towards the objective of learning. But if this is so, the meaning is plain and needs no commentator to explain it.

Here’s an admittedly fanciful reinterpretation of the mishnah which, I believe, readers will not find elsewhere. It runs like this.

We start this mishnah by noting the insertion of two words that rarely attract attention. It’s not just any old tree and field that we learn of here, but this tree and this field. So which tree and field are we talking about?  I suggest that the tree is the Torah itself: the etz chaim for those who grasp it and shelter forever within its all-embracing shade. The field is where one ploughs, sows one’s seeds and then gathers one’s grain, to sustain oneself when learning Torah.

So much for the tree and the field. What is the way? Avot tells us, at 2:13. There Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai instructs his five top talmidim to go out, to leave the portals of the Beit Midrash, and see what is the derech yesharah, the right way for a person to travel in life. His choice lies between the tree and the field. Remember, the tree represents a life of total and exclusive immersion in Torah, as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai advocates at Berachot 35b, while the field represents a life of Torah moderated by the need to reap God’s reward for keeping the mitzvot by harvesting one’s crops and addressing one’s physical needs, as advocated by Rabbi Yishmael.

“Walking along the way” in our mishnah is a challenge because it is a demand that Rabban Yochanan’s talmidim exercise their own judgement and educate themselves, free from the constraints of the Beit Midrash: let them look at a life of total Torah learning from the outside, as it were, and contrast it with a life of Torah im derech eretz—Torah combined with a livelihood.

The talmid in our mishnah takes this path. Along this path he sees the tree of Torah and the field of Torah im derech eretz. He praises them both, since both are worthy of praise. So why does he deserve to forfeit his life? Because he stops in the middle of his real-life learning exercise and says “Torah is beautiful, Torah im derech eretz is beautiful!” but he either does not or cannot choose one over the other and therefore chooses neither. He therefore has no path, no derech in life that he can follow.

Thoughts, anyone?

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