For the observant practising Jew it is axiomatic that the Torah is eternal and unchanging. It is the blueprint for the creation of the universe (Bereishit Rabbah 1:1) and the words with which God’s will is expressed are eternally valid. Truth being a complex and multifaceted concept, we accept that the Torah has shivim ponim—“seventy faces”—meaning that, while it is an absolute value, the meaning it reveals to us may depend on the place from which we view it. This is the Torah’s strength: it offers both permanence and flexibility. The enduring relevance of the Torah also helps explain the high level of respect given to commentaries throughout the generations: we still study the Targum Onkelos and the explanations of Rashi, Ramban and others because the passage of time has not raised a barrier to their relevance.
Although Pirkei Avot is a major component of the Torah sheb’al
peh, the Oral Torah, our sages’ commentaries on this tractate do not
command the same level of appreciation or acceptance through the ages. This is
unsurprising. Avot addresses the social, political, spiritual and emotional
dimensions of our lives—and these in turn are conditioned by factors that are
constantly subject to change. But even apparently obsolete comments may have something
to teach us.
A good example of this is the commentary of Rabbenu Yonah on
Avot 2:3, where a mishnah of Rabban Gamliel the son of Rebbi reads:
הֱווּ
זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, שֶׁאֵין מְקָרְבִין לוֹ לְאָדָם אֶלָּא לְצֹֽרֶךְ עַצְמָן,
נִרְאִין כְּאוֹהֲבִין בְּשַֽׁעַת הַנָּאָתָן, וְאֵין עוֹמְדִין לוֹ לְאָדָם
בְּשַֽׁעַת דָּחֳקוֹ׃
Be careful with the government,
for they befriend a person only for their own needs. They appear to be friends
when it is beneficial to them, but they do not stand by a person at the time
of his distress.
On this Rabbenu Yonah comments:
“When you have no more money to
give them, even if it is because you are really financially pressed, they will
have no mercy on a poor man. They will impoverish you and forget the old
friendship, because that is all in the past. This is the simple meaning of the
mishnah.
However, if this is what it actually
meant, it would be a slur against kings, God forbid, and that cannot be. The
world continues to exist through sovereigns who dispense law and justice. No
one in the world can be as truthful as a king, as he has no need to flatter
others or to fear them. There is nothing to prevent a king following the path
of justice…” (tr. Rabbi David Sedley).
We do not live in an era of monarchs who wield absolute
power over their subjects, and the kings and queens we encounter today are in
the main constitutional rulers whose powers, if any, are token. What’s more,
the propositions Rabbenu Yonah articulates here seem preposterous. How is it
that the continued existence of the world depends on sovereigns? And surely it
is unimaginable that no one in the world can be as truthful as a king! So how could
Rabbenu Yonah have written what he did?
Rabbi Shimon ben Zemach Duran (the Rashbatz) suggests that
Rabbenu Yonah only wrote what he did because he was afraid of the kings of his
time. But can this be so? There’s a verse in Proverbs (Mishlei 21:1) that
reads:
פַּלְגֵי־מַ֣יִם
לֶב־מֶ֭לֶךְ בְּיַד־יְהֹוָ֑ה עַֽל־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֖ר יַחְפֹּ֣ץ יַטֶּֽנּוּ׃
The king's heart is a stream of
water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.
On this, Rabbenu Yonah comments:
“The goal of the hearts should be
to fear God and not to fear the anger of a king. A person should ask mercy of God
and hope and raise his eyes towards Him, for He tilts the heart to wherever he
wants”.
These do not read like the words of a man who quakes with
fear at the prospect of incurring a monarch’s anger. So what does his
extraordinary explanation of our mishnah in Avot really mean? I think that
there is more to it than meets the eye.
The second part of the comment is entirely tongue-in-cheek
and it is really a subtle and pointed piece of mussar (moral
chastisement) addressed to absolute rulers: Only if you dispense law and
justice does the continued existence of the world depend on you (see Avot 1:18).
So why do you not respect the truth (which
also features in Avot 1:18)? If your actions are just, you have nothing to fear
from it. And if there is nothing to prevent you, a king, from following the path
of justice, why don’t you? It is no accident that Rabbenu Yonah’s commentary on
our mishnah ends with the words:
“For even if a king has his own
ideas and has the ability to act as he sees fit, in truth he has no power to
harm or to help, except by the will of the Living God, the eternal king”.
We have no old-style kings today, but across the world there
are many regimes governed by the tyranny of an individual over a terrorised people.
For such rulers and those whom they govern, Rabbenu Yonah’s words remain highly
relevant.
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