Just published: Foundation of Faith

According to a recent OU press release, there's yet another book on Pirkei Avot. Intriguingly, its title is Foundations of Faith -- even though very little of the content of Avot can be said to address directly the issue of faith.

The press release, in relevant part, reads as follows:

Foundation of Faith, a commentary on Pirkei Avot based on the teachings of Rabbi Norman Lamm and edited by Rabbi Mark Dratch. Inspiring and profound, the commentary is a scintillating demonstration of Rabbi Lamm’s invaluable message for contemporary Jewry.

A gifted orator, teacher, scholar, and rabbinic leader, Rabbi Norman Lamm was renowned for a distinguished career that included the presidency of Yeshiva University, authorship of numerous books and articles on Jewish philosophy and other aspects of Jewish thought and studies, and a leadership role in the Jewish community which has left a lasting impact. As the spiritual leader of The Jewish Center in New York City for decades, Rabbi Lamm mesmerized his congregants with sermons legendary for their profound intellectual substance and soaring eloquence. With a rare combination of penetrating scholarship and eloquence of expression, he successfully presented a Torah view of contemporary Jewish life that still speaks movingly to all.

Published posthumously in memory of Rabbi Lamm and his wife Mindella, who passed away last year, as well as in memory of the untimely passing of their late daughter Sara, it was edited with care by Rabbi Mark Dratch. Love of Torah, veneration of tradition, positive engagement with the modern world and contemporary culture, and the importance of a life built on overarching Jewish values are just a few of the themes that animate this volume, all expressed with Rabbi Lamm’s characteristic mastery.

Rabbi Mark Dratch is the Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America. He served as a pulpit rabbi, founder of JSafe: The Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse Free Environment, and Instructor of Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Yeshiva University.

This work will undoubtedly be warmly welcomed as a classic of Jewish thought and exegesis by the ever-growing number of people who appreciate Rabbi Lamm’s unique voice.

Only a couple of weeks ago I had a chance to hear Rabbi Mark Dratch speaking on Avot, when he gave a Shabbat afternoon Avot shiur at Beit Knesset Hanassi that focused on two mishnayot that aren't part of Avot at all but bookend its content whenever a perek is recited: Sanhedrin 10:1 and Makkot 3:16. He is clearly an Avot devotee so I for one shall be looking forward to seeing his treatment of Rabbi Lamm's understanding of this tractate.

"How to handle a woman" -- or oneself?

Last Sunday Beit Knesset Hanassi hosted the second of its three “meet and greet” sessions at which one of the triumvirate of candidates for a rabbinical vacancy had the chance to field questions from the synagogue’s members. In the course of this informative and entertaining session one questioner asked the candidate for his opinion on the presence of women on synagogue management boards and committees.

The answer started off, as expected, with the candidate explaining that there were female representatives on the board of his synagogue and that he had never found any difficulty in working with them. He then added something quite unexpected: “But I never call or message women board members after 10 pm”. In his view the initiation of late-night conversations with women other than his own wife was inappropriate and that it was proper to draw an arbitrary time-line beyond which he would not contact them.

This rabbi’s best practice reflects an application of two maxims of Pirkei Avot working in tandem. First, there is the principle of al tirbeh sichah im ha’ishah… (“don’t chat excessively with a woman…”: Avot 1:5 per Yose ben Yochanan Ish Yerushalayim). At its best, this guidance governs a married man’s relationships with his wife (i.e. don’t insult her intelligence by confining conversation to mere trivia) and with other people’s wives (i.e. avoid suggestive chat-up lines and inappropriate expressions of interest).

The second principle comes at the very beginning of the tractate at Avot 1:1, where the Men of the Great Assembly teach that one should build a fence around the Torah. There is no rule in the written or oral Torah that prohibits calling or texting a woman who is not one’s wife after 10 pm.

By the very nature of their role, communal rabbis deal with women far more frequently than those rabbis who learn and teach Torah within the environment of the yeshivah or Kollel. These dealings can be quite intense, may go on for a long time and, in the case of counselling, they may involve matters of a personal and emotionally powerful nature.  Bearing this in mind, an arbitrary cut-off point for communication between male rabbis and female congregants has much to commend it.

Rabbis are neither more nor less human than the rest of us, but they are different in that we expect them to behave in accordance with halachah and propriety at all times. Fortunately they generally do. However, from my own time as a senior administrator of the Court of the Chief Rabbi in the early days of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ tenure, I recall with sadness a small number of cases in which there was no self-imposed barrier, where an initially sincere and well-meaning relationship between rabbi and congregant resulted both in the termination of a marriage and in damage to a career.

The steamship, not the cemetery: Fighting fascism with Avot

1945 was a grim year for mankind, as the end of the Second World War brought with it the discovery of the extent of the destruction and devastation that came in its wake. The same year marked the publication of a most unusual edition of Pirkei Avot: Sayings of the Fathers, with translation and commentary by the then Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Dr Joseph H. Hertz. As is so often the case, I knew nothing of this work till I came across it in a second-hand book shop. Printed under wartime austerity conditions, this slim volume has already begun to fall apart.

Although this work was published by a commercial publisher, Behrman House Inc., New York, it was published under the auspices of the American Chapter of the Religious Emergency Council of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Chief Rabbi Hertz's royalties were donated to the American Chapter with a view to their being utilized in England for the purpose of continuing its provision of "religious ministrations" to refugees, evacuees and Allied fighting men. I do not know how much money these royalties came to, but the book has been reprinted many times, in standard and illustrated gift editions, and is still available from the publisher's website.

My edition opens with a Foreword by Moses Schonfeld, Honorary Secretary of the American Chapter and co-author of The Mark of the Swastika: Extracts from the British War Blue Book Together with the White Paper on the Treatment of Germans in Germany. He writes:

It is at a turning point in history that this volume makes its appearance. All over the world, the oppressed in bondage so long are at last shattering their bonds. The armies of fascism are being defeated. Yet the war against their insidious ideas must continue if we are to banish evil and intolerance from the face of the earth. And in this war the reaffirmation of the ethical and moral values of the Pirke Aboth can be a powerful weapon against the enemy.

In the wisdom of these ethical sayings we can find an excellent source for evolving the basic philosophy of a decent civilization. Couched in simple, stimulating phrases, many of the Hebrew teachings of the Pirke Aboth have long since become part of the structure of democratic society. Not only is it now fitting to emphasize the origin of these principles to the world at large, but Jews themselves, in relearning the tenets of their fathers, will be armed with the oldest and strongest ammunition...

Chief Rabbi Hertz's commentary on Avot reflects his propensity for citing sources that reflect the width of his general knowledge and cultural awareness rather than the depth of his Torah knowledge. This practice earned him some criticism in his commentary on the Torah -- the Hertz Chumash -- because it gave a platform to some of the Higher Critics whom he sought to take to task, but it makes this little book more interesting for the modern reader who is willing to make the effort to penetrate the formal and somewhat archaic English which was favoured by rabbis long after most of their gentile counterparts had jettisoned it (I doubt that words like "almsgiving" and "chaplet" were part of day-to-day English in 1945, and most readers today are not so squeamish about seminal emissions that they would need to be treated to the euphemistic "unclean accident").

Since this edition was published at the outbreak of peace, I thought it useful to see what Chief Rabbi Hertz had to say on that topic. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel (Avot 1:18) teaches that the world stands on three things -- by truth, by justice and by peace. On this he adds:

The symbol of peace is not the cemetery, but the steamship -- the harmonization of conflicting forces towards one goal".

While the choice of metaphor might not immediately commend itself to a contemporary student of Avot, the message is clear.

Recommended reading? Not so easy

Last week a member of the Ask the Beit Midrash Facebook group asked its 4,500 members to recommend a good commentary on Pirkei Avot for him to study over the coming months. Readers offered a number of suggestions, each of which had something to commend it. This is what I posted:

Hold on there! You want a recommendation but haven't given a clue as to your general preferences. Pretty well ALL commentaries on Pirkei Avot are unique and interesting, so it would be good to know

(i) what language/s you can handle,

(ii) are you looking for mussar, history, textual analysis, chasidut or a pot-pourri,

(iii) do you prefer ancient or modern? For what it's worth, I can offer some suggestions:

1. Maharal, Derech Chaim: long, detailed and somewhat repetitive but with a wide range of different approaches and quite a few barbs and bombshells besides.

2. Maharam Shik: highly original and stimulating perspectives.

3. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau: Yachel Yisrael (in Hebrew), Rav Lau on Pirkei Avos (in English): wide-ranging and informative compendium of old and new perushim plus comments from the author.

4. Rabbi Menachem Mordechai Frankel-Teumim, Be'er Ha'avot: modern but traditional, elegantly written and intelligent, this work has gone to at least three editions.

5. Chasdei Avot and Birkat Avot of the Ben Ish Chai: colourful, entertaining and with some punchy mussar and cunning gematriot too.

6. Pirkei Avot im Biurim ve'amorot kodesh, extracted from the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. You don't have to be Chabad to appreciate this book, which has a huge amount to commend it, with many points to ponder.

Finally, it's worth keeping an eye on the Avot Today Facebook Group and its easy-to-search blog at avot-today.com. Both feature book notices on new (and occasionally not-so-new) titles on Avot.

There are many other titles that spring to mind. Some are personal favourites but not necessarily what I’d recommend a stranger, such as the one found in Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein’s Baruch She’amar al HaSiddur. Others are of particular historical interest, such as the Abarbanel’s Nachalot Avot—which sheds light on his views of government—and Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch’s commentary which was published at a time of rampant assimilation. Some of the best reading on Avot does not even come from formal commentaries at all: the Ramchal’s Mesillat Yesharim and Rabbi Eliezer Papo’s Pele Yo’etz make numerous telling references to Avot and would both be the poorer without them.

I’m curious to know which commentaries (or other works that refer to Avot) have commended themselves to members of this weblog. Please feel free to share your recommendations, comments and reflections by posting them on the Avot Today Facebook Group.

Thinking fast and slow: the case of the charitable promotions

 Although it is not a canonical book of the Tanach ,Daniel Kahneman's seminal book Thinking, Fast and Slow is cited so often by rabbis and Jewish scholars that one might wonder whether it has achieved a special status as a book of unarguable truths about ourselves, the world within which we live and our decision-making processes. 

Happily for students of Pirkei Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers), Kahneman's work is firmly rooted in it. His thesis is that human decision-making is based on the interplay of two very different types of thought, each of which has a vital part to play when we live our daily lives, act out our routines or face problems and issues that lie beyond the realm of the ordinary. 

The first, "system 1", is the means by which we navigate the myriad minor issues that face us each day and it is this system that accounts for the vast majority of our choices. Activities such as putting on a sock, avoiding an oncoming pedestrian on the pavement, unlocking our front door, making a cup of coffee or responding to a greeting do not require us to stop dead in our tracks and carefully map out what we do. We respond swiftly and often instinctively--and these responses will generally be correct. System 2, in contrast, is engaged when system 1 simply will not work. If I forget my front door key, I must stop and think how best I can gain access to my home. Likewise, I must do a little careful calculation before deciding if I have enough time to drink a cup of hot coffee before leaving to catch a train. 

What does this have to do with Pirkei Avot? The very first piece of guidance in the first mishnah of the first perek teaches: "Be deliberate in judgement" and many commentators go to great lengths to explain that this means what Kahneman would call switching from System 1 to System 2 thinking when resolving a legal dispute. The danger against which this guidance is given is that a judge may jump to the wrong conclusion where he intuits that he has dealt with many cases of the same nature, or involving the same "type" of litigant, in the past. Later in the same perek, at Avot 1:6, Yehoshua ben Perachya counsels us to judge others favourably even where at first glance they are guilty or unworthy of the benefit of the doubt. Again, the impetus of System 1 reasoning is acknowledged, as is the need to curb it. An anonymous mishnah in the fifth perek cautions us not to interrupt others when they are speaking -- a classical System 1 social response -- since it is better to hear them out and then decide whether your words need be said at all. 

A couple of weeks ago I was going through my post and came across two charity appeals. One was from World Jewish Relief's Ukraine Crisis Fund; the other was for the University Jewish Chaplaincy. Glancing at the promotional material for each, I was horrified by the contrast before my eyes of an image of desperate refugees from a war-torn battle zone juxtaposed with one of students eating and indeed partying together. How could I even contemplate supporting the chaplaincy in the face of an appeal on behalf of those who were so obviously in need? I instantly put the chaplaincy appeal in the pile of papers for recycling.

That was my System 1 decision. I then recalled Avot 1:1 and the maxim that one should not be hasty in one's judgement. I also bore in mind the teaching of Rabbi Meir that one should not judge anything by its external superficialities (Avot 4:27). Having done so, I took the trouble to reassess my decision and read the promotional material of the two charities carefully. 

As expected, System 2 delivered a more measured result. For a start, I discovered that the University Jewish Chaplaincy had sent 30 students and three chaplains to work with Ukrainian refugees in Poland. For another, I was reminded of the need to support students who face the ongoing antisemitism on campus which seems to have become endemic, as well as the mental health issues that many students have experienced. On mature reflection it seemed that both charities were deserving causes and that I had been over-hasty in deciding to deprive one of support on the sole basis of entitlement through the contrast between two sets of visuals.

Meiri on Avot: a new translation

Last week Beit Knesset Hanassi, Jerusalem, hosted a book launch both live and on Zoom. The book in question was Meiri on Pirkei Avos, an English translation of the relevant parts of Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo Meiri's Beit HaBechirah commentary on the Talmud. Hebrew editions preface this commentary with a long and detailed historical introduction which, for technical reasons, was not included in this new work. However, from comments made at the launch, it seems that there is a reasonable prospect of publishing an English version of this introduction in a follow-up volume.   

This work, dedicated to the memory of Max and Jenny Weil, has a long history of its own, taking nearly ten years from start to finish. A Feldheim title, it started out with ArtScroll who later dropped the project on the ground that it would require too large a team of scholars to complete the work to the required standard. As it turns out, it seems that a prodigious amount of effort was expended by Rabbi Yehudah Bulman in seeing the work to its successful conclusion.

Rabbi Berel Wein, Rav of Beit Knesset Hanassi, a great admirer of the Meiri and himself the author of a large and accessible tome on Pirkei Avot, welcomed this new work and gave it his blessing. 

The book itself is some 650 pages in length. The text of the Meiri's comment is printed in large, clear Hebrew text which is fully and accurately pointed and punctuated, making it far easier to read than the minuscule print that is found in many editions. 

Further information about this work can be accessed on the Feldheim website here and Jerusalemites in search of a purchase can pick up their own copy from Pomeranz Books here. If you want to know a bit more about the Meiri, look here.

It's only worms

The menagerie that is Pirkei Avot features no fewer than three different species of worm -- the rimah, the tole'ah and the shamir. One does not appear in Tanach at all. That is the shamir, which gets a name-check at Avot 5:8. This worm, whose natural habitat is the Talmud and midrash, is traditionally taken to have been employed in the construction of the First Temple, where the use of metal cutting tools was prohibited because of their affinity with weapons of war. Until recently the existence of this little rock-splitting worm was regarded as being far-fetched, the shamir being the stuff of myth and legend. However, discovery in the Philippines of the shipworm lithoredo abatanica has changed all that. Here is a tiny creature that actually burrows into stone and digests it, excreting it in the form of sand. Strictly speaking, while lithoredo (right) may look like a worm, it is actually a bivalve of the genus teredinidae. These species bore into wood and stone but not, it seems, into us.

Of more immediate concern to humans are the rimah (Avot 2:8, 3:1, 4:4) and the tole'ah (Avot 3:1). These are more conventional worms that dine upon corpses. The precise difference between them is unclear. It may be that the rimah burrows into the body from outside, while the tole'ah burrows out of the body from within (see Rabbi Yitzchak Zoller, cited in the compendium Mishnat Avot). The general function of the references to worms is essentially to remind us to be humble: however important we are (or, more usually, think we are) in our lifetimes, we all end up on the à la carte menu of miserable little creatures that are synonymous with lowliness and with being of little worth. 

It has been argued that worms play an additional role in Avot, this being to threaten that they will make a meal of the wicked, causing great pain in the process. There is a considerable body of rabbinic discussion on whether the dead feel anything after they have died, on the sharpness of worms’ teeth and on their ability to inflict pain (see e.g. Berachot 18b, Shabbat 13b and the discussion in Baruch She’amar al HaSiddur at Avot 2:7). Suffice it to say that, while these discussions are fascinating, they are something of a distraction. This is because there are no worms that possess teeth--a fact that would quite likely have been known to the sages of the Mishnah, who were no mean anatomists.

The reason why I felt it appropriate to mention this point now is that there have recently been a number of articles and news items concerning worms' teeth (see e.g. "Worm’s teeth conceal odd mineral material", here; "Bloodworms Make Their Teeth From Metal And Now We Know How", here; "Scientists discover how bloodworms make unique copper teeth", here). These headlines are misleading and do not disprove the rule that worms have no teeth. The bloodworm glycera (left), which is carnivorous, feeds by extending a large proboscis that bears four hollow jaws--and it is these jaws, mistakenly called "teeth", which contain copper. 

While the bite of the bloodworm is painful even to a human, because it injects venom when it clamps its jaws upon its victim, we humans can take comfort from the fact that they, in turn, are eaten by other worms.

Avot in retrospect: a summary of last month's blogposts

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted on Avot Today in April 2022:

Friday 29 April 2022: It's only words. A bank's promotional material promises "excitement" -- but there isn't any. Does Avot approve?

Wednesday27 April 2022: Seeing stars. Being an Uber passenger has major implications for anyone who follows the precepts of :Pirkei Avot.

Sunday 10 April 2022: Pirkei Avot for Goths: Here's an imaginative and original approach to the Ethics of the Fathers.

Friday 8 April 2022: Avot Online: a media round-up: Avot Today looks over the scale of citations of mishnayot and baraitot from Pirkei Avot online over the past quarter. What's hot and what is not?

Wednesday 6 April 2022: Two people but just one photo: Avot in the real world: Two people are requesting charity. One may be less than honest. Avot can provide some starting points for deciding what a donor should do, but it cannot give the whole answer.

Monday 4 April 2022: Arrogance and Humility: the dream team? The Pele Yo'etz depicts a scenario in which a man is strengthened to do the right thing by summoning up both sides of his character.

*********************************

Avot Today blogposts for March 2022 here
Avot Today blogposts for February 2022 here
Avot Today blogposts for January 2022 here
Avot Today blogposts for December 2021 here
Avot Today blogposts for November 2021 here
Avot Today blogposts for October 2021 here

It's only words

Pirkei Avot has much to say about words: essentially ,it's best to say nothing (1:17), one should minimise one's words (1:15) and keep them honest and truthful (). Idle chatter should be avoided (5:9, 6:6); questions should be to the point and answers to them should be relevant (ibid).

All of the guidance stated above was formulated within the context of personal relationships. These might be within the family, the community or in the course of commerce -- but the words of the Tannaim can and should be a yardstick against which promotional and material and advertisements are measured.

Last week I received an email from my bank which opened with the following news about my account:

Hello Jeremy,

Some exciting new changes are on the way. We’re switching all our customers over to Debit Mastercard and your shiny new card will be with you soon, so look out for it in the post.

The email did not list these exciting new changes but invited the reader to click through to a web page that provided further particulars. I clicked the link, sat back and prepared myself for the excitement that was sure to follow. What I read was this:

We’re switching to Debit Mastercard and all our customers will soon receive a shiny new replacement debit card. Nothing is changing with your account, and your card will work in just the same way.

So the "exciting new change" that the bank is offering me is that there will be no change.

The best one can say in favour of this sort of promotional pitch is that, in an era when so many changes are for the worse, a change that makes no change is quite exciting in its own right. While that might sound cynical, I recall a previous communication from the same bank informing me that, for my happiness and peace of mind, the spending limit of my credit card was to be reduced since it was not my practice to use it to the hilt when making my purchases. On this basis, the fact that I faced no obvious personal detriment from this change was definitely welcome, if not literally an excitement.

In reality this sort of promotional puff looks more like sichat hayeladim (Avot 3:14, per Rabbi Dosa ben Horkinas). That phrase, which literally means "the chatter of children", is understood by Midrash Shmuel to mean the childish, immature chatter of adults. Rabbis Avraham Azulai (Ahavah beTaanugim) and Yaakov Chagiz (Etz HaChaim) explain that this is vain or exaggerated speech, words that have no purpose or inherent worth.

Seeing stars

Like many good folk today, I occasionally engage the services of Uber when I need to be driven across London or ferried to or from one of its many airports. So far, my experiences have all been positive: the cars have been clean and comfortable, the drivers courteous. They have to be, since passengers are invited to rate them on a scale of one to five stars and to give them a tip if merited. The power to rate drivers is not without consequence: when selecting a driver, the prospective passenger can check how well he or she has scored with previous fares and choose the driver accordingly.

Drivers also score their passengers on the same scale and can avoid responding to a call from someone whose low rating indicates that they are not great to have on board. I had quite forgotten that the rating system was reciprocal and was therefore both surprised and delighted to get an email informing me that, over my first ten Uber rides, all my drivers had given me a five-star rating. For all I know, this is a regular occurrence for most Uber users, but it left me once again thinking about the part played by Pirkei Avot.

I have never sought to ingratiate myself with drivers of any sort of taxi service and I am not a generous tipper. However, I always greet them by name and with a smile; I say "please" and "thank you" wherever necessary, and wish them well when they drop me off at my destination. Greeting people warmly with a smile is recommended practice (Avot 1:15, 3:16); it is part and parcel of recognising that everyone -- hired drivers included -- is created in the image of God (3:18).

Two of my Uber rides were a little bit out of the ordinary.

In my very first attempt to engage a car without the assistance of my children, I summoned a car that was too small for our luggage. The driver reprimanded me and I thanked him for letting me know and for showing me how to avoid any repetition of this offence in the future. Loving acceptance of rebukes is one of the 48 elements of gaining the Torah (6:6).

On my next trip (Luton Airport to North West London) we were within sight of our destination when an over-enthusiastic Mercedes rammed into the back of our Uber while it was making a right turn. We were most surprised to receive an email from Uber, apologising for the incident, refunding our fare and stating that the driver would be reprimanded for his negligence. Our driver was very much the innocent party and we had taken our own photos to demonstrate that this was the case, but we had to go through two levels of authority within the Uber administration before the company conceded that their man was indeed the innocent party. Again, Avot emphasises the importance of agreeing to the truth (5:9) and sticking up for it (6:6). Truth and justice are two of the three values that keep the world going (1:18).

Ultimately we had made ten Uber drivers happy enough to give us five-star ratings, not by doing anything exceptional but just by behaving in accordance with the Jewish code of morality that is the Ethics of the Fathers. The last word however goes to Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa (3:13): if other people are pleased with you, then God is pleased with you too. It was good to reflect on the possibility that one can please God by making 10 Uber drivers happy.

Pirkei Avot for Goths

Last week I spotted a curious item in the Jewish News of North California that bore the striking title "Artist 'Maimonides Nutz' spins Talmud into social media gold". You can read it in full here.

This article tells of San Francisco artist Sophia Zohar and her decision to transfer the goth aesthetic to the sphere of Jewish interest. It writes about the reawakening of her interest in Judaism and her involvement in art and the social media, then says:

Zohar is about to go more public. Starting April 26, she’s teaching a class presented by the Torah Studio online learning platform. “Pirkei Avot for Goths,” which consists of six sessions between Passover and Shavuot — the traditional time to study the ancient text on ethics — is already full up. While Zohar teaches kids in Hebrew school, it’s her first time teaching adults.

She adds:

"I think with a lot of Pirkei Avot study, the impulse is to go very academic, so the subversive nature is really rooting it in emotion. But I could be wrong about that!"

Does Pirkei Avot have a "subversive nature" and, if so, what does it seek to subvert? These are refreshing and stimulating questions for the student of Avot and they are not as outlandish as one might at first imagine. Commentators such as the Maharal, Rabbi Moshe Almosnino and Maharam Shik have made some quite challenging statements about the teachings of Avot, a tractate that was not compiled for the sake of delivering a comfortable read to people who were at home with their own assumptions about life and their role in it.

If any readers have enrolled for this programme, Avot Today would be delighted to hear from them about what it's like and what they can learn from it. 

Avot online: a media review

Whenever I see a reference to Pirkei Avot in the media, my interest is always piqued. I want to know why it is being cited, by whom and for what purpose. I ask myself “can I learn something from this citation?” Accordingly, since the beginning of the calendar year 2022, I have been conducting a review of citations of Pirkei Avot in the English-language online media.

The material I have reviewed includes Jewish local and national papers, synagogue and organisational newsletters and the occasional weblog (naturally excluding the Avot Today blog). Quite a lot of this material has nothing to do with religion in general or Judaism in particular: sayings from Avot crop up in political analyses and sports reports too.

With the aid of Google Alerts for ‘Avot’, ‘Avos’ and ‘Ethics of the Fathers’ and other search terms, I have picked up data from which I have the following findings on the citation of teachings from Avot cited online in the First Quarter of 2022:

The total number of citations of Pirkei Avot from 1 January to 31 March was 46 (18 in January, 11 in February and 17 in March).

As between the six chapters of Avot, the distribution of citations was as follows:

Perek 1: 17    Perek 4: 10        

Perek 2: 12    Perek 5: 3

Perek 3: 2      Perek 6: 2  

Which were the most popular mishnayot? Leading the pack with six citations is Avot 1:6 (Yehoshua ben Perachya: “make for yourself a rav, acquire for yourself a friend and judge all people by their merit”). Second place is shared by three contenders with four citations apiece: Avot 1:14 (Hillel’s “If not now, when?”); Avot 2:21 (Rabbi Tarfon: “It’s not for you to finish the work, but nor are you free to desist from it..”) and 4:1 (Ben Zoma: “Who is wise/strong/rich/honoured...?”). In fifth place, with three citations, is Shimon HaTzaddik’s teaching at Avot 1:2 (“The world stands on three things: Torah, service to God and acts of kindness”).

Hillel is actually the most frequently-cited contributor to Avot, which is unsurprising given that he is attributed as the author of seven mishnayot in Avot, more than anyone else. He has been cited a total of seven times, followed by Yehoshua ben Perachya on six, Rabbi Tarfon on five and Ben Zoma on four.

The first quarter also saw two mis-citations. One was the maxim of “Talmud Torah keneged kulam” (“the study of Torah is equivalent to all of them”), which belongs to Shabbat 127a and Pe’ah 1:1. The other was that words, like arrows, once shot cannot be called back (Midrash Tehillim 120).

The data set for this quarter was bound to be relatively small since the weekly recitation of chapters from Avot had not yet commenced. The "season" for Avot traditionally runs from Pesach through to Rosh Hashanah, so figures for the next two quarters should reflect far more references to its teachings.

I shall continue to keep an eye on Avot citations over the year, at the end of which I shall see what generalisations can be made about the use to which Avot is put and its utility as a source of wisdom and/or soundbites for authors of material published online

Two people but a single photo: Avot in the real world

Like many Facebook users within Jewish circles, I have FB friends who belong to one of Africa’s Jewish communities. Many of them message me to share their interests and their concerns. Some seek support for communal institutions such as schools, orphanages and healthcare facilities. Others hope to pursue their education abroad. Others again are looking for funding for their business initiatives or to cover medical expenses. I am not a major philanthropist and in any event have my own lengthy list of charitable priorities, but I am always happy to give them moral support and to pray for their well-being.

What does this have to do with Pirkei Avot? Let me explain.

In the past week I have received two requests to cover medical expenses. Let’s say that they came from Albert and Basil. Each sent an accompanying photo of themselves in a state of apparent distress. The problem is that, while Albert and Basil are different people, the supporting photograph of each was identical to that of the other.

Rejecting the improbable scenario that Albert and Basil were identical twins, separated at birth, who had met with the same misfortune, been bandaged in the same manner and posed in the same way, in the same location, for coincidentally identical photos, it can be concluded that at least one of Albert and Basil had falsely depicted themselves to be the subject of their accompanying photo. It is also possible that the person represented in the photograph is neither Albert nor Basil and that the image has been lent to them by a mutual friend or downloaded via Google Image.

Yehoshua ben Perachya teaches (Avot 1:6) that one should judge other people according to their merit, and this is widely taken to mean that one should give them the benefit of the doubt. Does that teaching apply here and, if so, how?

In the first place there exists a mitzvah to give charity. This mitzvah can be fulfilled by giving even a small sum to the recipient. Ideally its parameters are governed by factors such as the means of the donor, the needs of the recipient, the claims to entitlement on the part of other potential recipients and the ability of the latter to secure help from elsewhere. Whether a potential recipient is acting in good faith is also a factor, but it is one that tends to come into consideration mainly when the sums involved are large. We tend to assume good faith in the case of small transactions. For example, when a woman carrying a baby is soliciting donations, people do not normally make inquiry as to whether the baby is hers or is borrowed for the occasion.

Secondly, if a potential recipient deliberately tells a lie or makes a false representation in order to obtain money that is genuinely needed, should that person be allowed to get away with this or should he or she be penalised? This is a big moral question that lies way beyond the content of Pirkei Avot. We learn that truth is one of the three things that keeps the world going (1:18) and that a failure to accept the truth is one of the seven signs of a golem (5:9). On the other hand, another of the three things that keeps the world going is peace—and the telling of lies in order to establish peace is one of the midrashic hallmarks of Aaron, a major figure from our history who remains an important role model in Avot (1:12).

Realistically, the number of possible outcomes is not large. The following are all outcomes that are grounded on one reason or another:

·         Give to Albert and to Basil, since at least one of them is a needy case and should not be penalised by the perfidy of the other;

·         Give to neither, on the ground that one should distance oneself from all forms of falsehood;

·         Give half to each even though the honest one will get less than you would have liked to give him and the liar will get more, since this may have been the outcome that they both contemplated in the unproved event that one of them had lent the photograph to the other;

·         Toss a coin and give the money to Albert if it comes up ‘heads’ and Basil if it comes up ‘tails’, thus acknowledging the power of hashgachah peratit and inviting God to ensure that the money goes to whichever petitioner truly deserves it.

All of the foregoing suggests that, while the teachings in Avot may provide helpful pointers and can assist in framing an analysis of a problem, they do not of themselves provide the answers. Ultimately we must consult a wider body of halachic and mussar material -- as well as our own consciences.

Readers’ responses to this issue are warmly welcome.

Arrogance and humility: the dream team?

It is fair to say that, on the whole, arrogance gets a pretty bad press at the hands of Jewish sages. It's a shame that there's not much demand for arrogance, since it is usually in plentiful supply. Humility, in contrast, is highly praised for its efficacy both in our dealings with God and for how we relate to our fellow humans—but it would regrettably appear to be in short supply.

In his work Elef HaMagen, Rabbi Eliezer Papo (better known as the Pele Yo’etz) tells the story of a man who, when rudely insulted by another, refused to respond to this provocation. When asked how he managed what must have looked like a huge feat of self-restraint, he explained as follows:

When the man insulted me, I was not alone. On one side of me stood Arrogance, and he said to me ”how can you find it within yourself to pay any attention to this person? Surely it is well beneath your dignity to retaliate against a meaningless attack by a worthless individual! Treat him with disdain and just ignore him”. To the other side of me stood Humility, who said to me “is this not the time to demonstrate how meek and humble you are, bearing in mind the wise words of our sages who say that it is far preferable to be among the insulted than to be classed among those who do the insulting”.

The Pele Yo’etz ties this in with the first two teachings of Yehoshua ben Perachya (Avot 1:6):

“Aseh lecha rav, ukoneh lecha chaver”: עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר

These words are usually translated along the lines of “make for yourself a teacher (or master) and acquire for yourself a friend”. The word rav has the additional meaning of “great”, so the first part of this teaching can be taken at a pinch as meaning “make greatness for yourself”, i.e. “make yourself arrogant”. As for kaneh lecha chaver, the word kaneh—which means “acquire”—has the same three-letter root (קנה) as kanah, a reed. The reed is a symbol of humility since it bows and bends in the breeze. So the man who faces insult and abuse but follows the path to which this Mishnah alludes is able to summon up both arrogance and humility in order to reach the right behavioural conclusion.

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Illustration from Thesaurus.plus

Avot in retrospect: a summary of last month's blogposts

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted on Avot Today in March 2022:

Thursday 31 March 2022: Having a care for another's prayer: Do you get disturbed by other people when you are trying to pray? If so, Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel may have a message for them.

Sunday 27 March 2022: Finding a perfect match: What advice does Avot have for a young man who believes that the best way to find a wife is to secure a blessing from his rabbi?

Wednesday 23 March 2022: It doesn't take great brains...: mastery of the Torah takes a good memory, a massive capacity for comprehension and analysis, vast patience and total dedication -- but there are other things we ordinary mortals can achieve without so much talent, for example the art of humility.

Monday 21 March 2022: A home for all? Does Avot advocate opening one's home to Ukrainian refugees? The answer is a qualified "yes".

Wednesday 16 March 2022: Purim and Pirkei Avot 3: Drinking wine at midday: The Purim festivities invariably involve the consumption of alcohol, and in Jerusalem on a Friday that means drinking at noon. Avot warns against this. Why, and what does it mean?

Tuesday 15 March 2022: Purim and Pirkei Avot 2: Citing a teaching in the name of its originator: The only verse from the Book of Esther that is cited in Avot deals with the need to acknowledge one's sources. But there's a paradox here ...

Monday 14 March 2022: Purim and Pirkei Avot 1: rejoicing over the downfall of enemies: At 4:24, Shmuel HaKatan cautions against having the wrong motivation for one's celebration of Haman's demise -- so what should we really be celebrating?

Thursday 10 March 2022: A good telling off? No way!: What does learning from other people (Avot 4:1) have to do with reprimanding them?

Tuesday 8 March 2022: From the Garden of Unearthly Delights: Two Books: A recent visit to my local Jewish bookshop unearthed a couple of titles on Pirkei Avot that I hadn't seen before -- one brand new and one from 1983.

Sunday 6 March 2022: Pirkei Avot comes to Instagram: can memes be used effectively as a means of attracting attention to people -- particularly the young -- who don't know Pirkei Avot exists or what it teaches?

Friday 4 March 2022: Testing man, testing God. A pair of teachings in the fifth chapter of Avot focus on two aspects of tests. We ask the question: are all tests designed to establish the same thing?

Wednesday 2 March  2022: Rabbis: what do we really need them for? How do communal rabbinical appointments fit in with the scheme of "get yourself a rabbi"?

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Avot Today blogposts for February 2022 here
Avot Today blogposts for January 2022 here
Avot Today blogposts for December 2021 here
Avot Today blogposts for November 2021 here
Avot Today blogposts for October 2021 here
Avot Today blogposts for September 2021 here