Not in my name

This morning a friend of mine forwarded me a WhatsApp that he thought might interest me. The text, which appears to have been forwarded many times, is said to be a speech by Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. I gave it my close attention.

The content of the speech certainly matched the Prime Minister’s views. It also struck an appropriately defiant note, being in places an almost Churchillian rallying cry along the lines of “it’s us against the world and against all the odds—and we will triumph”. There were however some puzzling aspects to this piece of rhetoric.

The preface to the speech suggested that it had been freshly delivered. It however mentioned Israel’s victory in the Six Day War of 1967 as having happened 35 years ago. That would suggest it was delivered in 2002 when the Prime Minister was actually Ariel Sharon. Elsewhere the reference to the State of Israel—which was founded in 1948—as being 60 years old would suggest that this piece was composed in 2008, when the same office was held by Ehud Olmert.  Also puzzling was the style. Whatever one thinks of Netanyahu’s politics or his leadership, there is general consensus that the one thing he is very good at doing is making speeches in the English language. This one just didn’t read like one of his and, in my opinion, almost certainly isn’t.

The sixth and final chapter of Avot, at 6:6, contains a list of some 48 features that either define a Torah scholar or enable him to become one. The last of these is this:

הָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ

One who says something in the name of the person who [first] says it.

Compliance with this rule not only marks a person out as someone who pursues and upholds the principles of the Torah. It even, as 6:6 continues, assists in bringing redemption to the world.

Now if indeed this speech was composed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, it would be incumbent on anyone forwarding it to credit him as its author. But does this also impose a correlative requirement of NOT crediting a person as the author of something that he or she did NOT compose?

I have checked out a number of commentaries on Avot but have yet to find any that discuss this issue within the context of 6:6. I do however recall that false attribution of authorship has sometimes been permitted where it has been felt necessary to do so in order to achieve a greater good—for example to persuade the Jewish population at large to accept an undoubtedly correct halachic ruling which, if they heard it in the name of the original author, would carry considerably less weight in their eyes and might lead to it being ignored or rejected. If my memory serves me well, I think that Marc B. Shapiro lists some instances where this happened and gives chapter and verse in his book, Changing the Immutable.

Thoughts, anyone?

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Teachers and students

With a new academic year shortly to commence in many countries, this is a good time to turn our thoughts to education. Of the 128 teachings in Pirkei Avot, a staggering proportion deal with this topic, a total of 58—that’s around 45 mishnayot and baraitot—give advice on teaching, studying or on the relationship between teacher and taught.

At its highest level, teaching can generate great personal tensions. This is not a solely Jewish phenomenon; it can be seen in kolel, in yeshivah and at university. This is because teachers who do their jobs well enough will often find that they have equipped their students to discuss their topic of study as equals; they may have empowered their students to take them on in argument, sometimes getting the better of them.

Pirkei Avot recognises (at 6:6) that teachers can learn from their students and also that a teacher is obliged to concede the truth when he knows he is wrong (5:9).  One should hold one’s students in as high a level of respect as one expects to receive oneself (4:15). There is no escape from the vital act of enriching another’s understanding: everyone, including a teacher, is supposed to have a teacher—and someone who can teach but doesn’t is regarded as being below contempt (1:13).

Having been a teacher and a student (often at the same time), I have often pondered on the complexities of the teacher-student relationship. Here’s a case in point.

Back in the 1980s I was teaching part of a postgraduate diploma course on intellectual property law. In the course of doing so, I often set written work. On one occasion I set an essay on patent law. One student, a lawyer from Pakistan, handed in a fairly mediocre effort, which I was obliged to read. The essay was quite week, apart from one perceptive and well-drafted paragraph in the middle which most impressed me. One reading it a second and then a third time, it gradually dawned on me that I had read it before. More than that, I had written it, this paragraph having been copied verbatim from my book, Introduction to Intellectual Property Law, that I had published a year or so before.

I called the student in to discuss the essay. I had no wish to hurt his feelings by labelling him a plagiarist or by challenging his honesty, but neither did I wish him to make a habit of doing such things since it was bound to get him into trouble eventually. Anyway, not wishing to embarrass him, I explained gently to him that in good legal circles it was considered wrong to pass the writings of another off as being one’s own, particularly without attributing that text to the author (see Avot 6:6). “I’m afraid you don’t understand”, I added, “but when I am marking an essay I want to know what you think so that I can see if you are right or wrong”.

The student looked a little surprised, then answered: “No, I’m afraid you don’t understand. I copied this paragraph to find out what you think, to see if you still agree with what you said when you wrote your book”.

How does this little scenario pan out in terms of Pirkei Avot? Suggestions, anyone?

Purim and Pirkei Avot 2: Citing a teaching in the name of its originator

This is the second of three short posts that link Pirkei Avot to the festival of Purim (this coming Thursday for most of the world, Friday for Jerusalem and any city that was walled at the time of Joshua).

A baraita at Avot 6:6 lists 48 things that are said to be ways of acquiring Torah. Of these, the 48th and final item is

"repeating a saying in the name of the one who says it".

The baraita concludes by making the only reference to the Book of Esther that can be found within Avot, adding:

"whoever says something in the name of the person who says it brings redemption to the world, as it is said: 'And Esther spoke to the king in the name of Mordechai'" (Esther 2:22).

What was it that Esther told the king? It was the information, overheard by Mordechai, that Bigtan and Teresh were plotting against him.

The idea of mentioning by name the person who originates an item of Torah learning is a conceptualisation of the same principle that opens the tractate of Avot, where the chain of tradition is charted from the Torah's Sinaitic revelation to the era of the Men of the Great Assembly and then down through the various rabbis whose words we find in the Mishnah and Talmud. It is important to know the name of the person who relates a teaching to others so that its authenticity can be verified -- or challenged.

Our baraita at Avot 6:6 presents us with a paradox: we learn that whoever cites the name of the originator of a piece of learning when he quotes it will bring redemption to the world – but it does not reveal the identity of its own author, of of the author of the statement about bringing redemption to the world.

Are there any clues as to its authorship? The name of Rabbi Yose is twice found in close proximity to citations of this maxim (at Chullin104b, Niddah 19b) but it is nowhere stated that he is its author. In Megillah 15b the same principle is taught in the name of later rabbis (where the Amora Rabbi Elazar teaches it in the name of an earlier Amora, Rabbi Chanina).

Regardless of its authorship and the reason, if any, for not citing it, the maxim retains its force: the correct citation of one’s sources can enhance both the transparency and the authority of one’s arguments, leading to their acceptance where they are correct and to their dismissal or refutation where they are not. The Babylonian Talmud does however preserve a number of examples where this principle is discarded in favour of false attribution, where the rabbis discern a greater good which only false attribution can achieve – this greater good frequently being framed as a means of persuading the Jewish population at large to accept an undoubtedly correct halachic ruling which, if learned in the name of its true author, would carry considerably less weight (see Marc B. Shapiro, Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History, in Chapter 8 (“Is the Truth Really That important?”).