Four ways to tackle a mishnah

Gila Fine (The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic, Maggid, published earlier this year) describes four ways in which we can respond to a Talmudic text. It seems to me that what she writes is equally valid with regard to any Mishnaic text that relates to middot (guidance on best behavioural practice) and therefore especially to Pirkei Avot.

When faced with a mishnah that appears inimical to our views or hostile to our values, the application of Gila Fine’s analytical framework gives us a choice of four options:

Rejection: the distance between the mishnah’s teaching and the reader is so great that it ceases to be a source of religious authority for the reader, who simply walks away.

Accommodation: the reader is so determined to relate to the mishnah that he or she will accept its values in their totality, sacrificing one’s own personal opinions and identity in the process.

Subjection: the reader is enabled to relate to the mishnah as a result of interpreting or misinterpreting it in a way that is compatible with personal values and contemporary thought. In this way, “the text loses its integrity so that the readers may maintain theirs”.

Negotiation: the reader retains his or her opinions but does not discard those expressed in the mishnah. We must accept ourselves for what we are—but must also accept our ancient teachings for what they are too. Having done so, we must engage in dialogue with the text and negotiate a living and meaningful relationship.

Prima facie, this fourfold categorisation of approaches to the teachings of the Tannaim and Amoraim should be extremely helpful. It ideally enables us to understand more fully the positions of commentators on Pirkei Avot. When we read any of the commentaries, and particularly those written in English since the end of the Second World War, we should soon be able recognise the writer’s attitude towards not just mishnayot but on social, political and religious matters too. The only problems, it seems to me, lie in the fact that so many commentators hedge their bets, as it were, either by offering explanations from more than one viewpoint or by appearing to take a position that does not clearly belong to a single category. Of the four, rejection and accommodation are easy to identify, but subjection and negotiation may appear to blend into each other and subjection may arguably be the fruit of negotiation.

Here's a practical exercise that you can apply to yourselves.

I have listed three teachings from Avot below and invite you to monitor your own reaction to them. Ask yourselves in all honesty how you treat them. Do you (i) reject them entirely, (ii) buy into them unquestioningly, (iii) recast the text in a way that you feel comfortable with or (iv) accept your discomfort with the text but try to accommodate yourself to it?

As alternative, you can check these teachings out in your favourite commentary and categorise the author’s comments. Do they reflect the same approach throughout or is the author’s technique eclectic?

Example 1: Most regular Avot readers have such strong opinions about the third part of Yose ben Yochanan Ish Yerushalayim’s teaching at Avot 1:5 (the notorious bit about not speaking too much with married women) that I’ve decided to pass it over in favour of the less heavily debated first and second parts of it:

יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָּתֽוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתְךָ

Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household. 

How do you respond? Reject? Submit? Accommodate? Negotiate?

Example 2: At Avot 3:17 Rabbi Akiva opens his mishnah with the following:

שְׂחוֹק וְקַלּוּת רֹאשׁ, מַרְגִּילִין אֶת הָאָדָם לְעֶרְוָה

Jesting and frivolity accustom a person to sexual promiscuity.

This is expressed as a statement of fact rather than as an injunction, which gives much scope for all four of the approaches Gila Fine outlines.

Example 3: At Avot 4:11 Rabbi Yonatan says:

כָּל הַמְקַיֵּם אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מֵעֹֽנִי, סוֹפוֹ לְקַיְּמָהּ מֵעֹֽשֶׁר, וְכָל הַמְבַטֵּל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מֵעֹֽשֶׁר, סוֹפוֹ לְבַטְּלָהּ מֵעֹֽנִי

Whoever fulfils the Torah in poverty will ultimately fulfil it in wealth; and whoever neglects the Torah in wealth will ultimately neglect it in poverty.

Like Example 2, this is also a statement. But is it a statement of fact or a statement of probability? Does it require compliance? What is it doing here?

I accept that Gila Fine’s fourfold categorisation was not designed for the purpose of this exercise, but I do hope that it can help us achieve a greater and deeper understanding—not of the mishnayot of Avot but of our own responses to these ancient teachings.

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