Do good, feel bad?

For the practising Jew it is axiomatic that one should serve God and do His will with simchah, happiness. Sometimes, though, it is hard to reconcile the reality with this ideal.

The commandment of tzedakah, the making of charitable gifts and donations, is a case in point. Throughout both the written Torah and its oral counterpart we learn of the importance of tzedakah. Pirkei Avot is no exception. Rabbi Elazar Ish Bartota (Avot 3:8) reminds us to give with a good conscience since everything we have in the first place belongs to God In the fifth chapter (Avot 5:16) we learn of the four different types of (non-)donors:

There are four types of givers of charity: (i) one who wants to give but does not want others to give is mean-spirited towards others [since he wants to retain all the glory for himself]; (ii) one who wants others to give but does not want to give himself is mean-spirited towards himself; (iii) one who wants both to give and that others should give is a chasid [essentially someone who is magnanimous]; (iv) one who wants neither himself nor others to give is wicked.

The sixth chapter (Avot 6:6) adds that love of tzedakot is one of the 48 means through which a mastery of Torah is acquired.

So what is the problem? It is one of ends and means.

At base, tzedakah means giving to the needy. In theory we can eliminate all poverty (Devarim 15:4) but in reality (Devarim 15:11) the poor are always with us. With most other commandments, once the action in question is performed the task is complete. However, with tzedakah—unless we are able to make lifestyle-changing donations—the poor remain poor, the hungry hungry and the destitute destitute even after we have done our bit to help them.

Going back to Avot 6:6, another of the 48 steps to acquiring mastery of the Torah is that of not ascribing credit to oneself for the good things one does. This precept is more or less self-fulfilling in the case of tzedakah since it is difficult to pat oneself on the back and congratulate oneself on giving a poor person a good meal today when you know he or she will be foraging for food tomorrow.

On a personal note, I have been trying to help the Abayudaya community in Uganda. This community is struggling to recover from the devastating effects of recent floods. At every step of the way I am reminded of the needs that remain unmet, both at community and individual level, and of the personal suffering and anxieties that will remain even after the flurry of pre-Yom Kippur charitable donations abates.

Of the four types of donor mentioned at Avot 5:16, I am firmly in the camp of those who both give and want others to give. I give with reluctance since it is always hard to part with one’s money, and with a mind full of conflict since there are several other charities that I support and that are closer to heart and home than the Abayudaya, however great may be their suffering. Still, if anyone wishes to make a contribution, here are a couple of causes they may wish to consider:

Abayudaya Emergency Aid Fund: https://tinyurl.com/2p9393p5

Shalom Children’ Care Centre for Orphans: https://tinyurl.com/4eps48xf

A vanishing hatred

Ben Azzai teaches an important pair of principles at Avot 4:3:

אַל תְּהִי בָז לְכָל אָדָם וְאַל תְּהִי מַפְלִיג לְכָל דָּבָר, שֶׁאֵין לָךְ אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ שָׁעָה, וְאֵין לָךְ דָּבָר שֶׁאֵין לוֹ מָקוֹם

In English: “Do not scorn any man, and do not be disdainful of any thing, for there is no man who does not have his hour, and no thing that does not have its place”.

This post discusses the first of these principles.

According to Rambam and Rabbenu Yonah, the point Ben Azzai makes is that, if you do not underestimate another person, even someone of no account, he will have no reason to hate you. Who might this person be? It could be someone who currently has no feelings towards you or (according to Me’iri) someone who hates you already. Either way, even if this person is utterly insignificant, don’t take his potential for hatred lightly since it may be in his power to harm you. Indeed, as all three of these eminent commentators accept, if you do take this person seriously, you may find that it is also in his power to benefit you.

Though there are some outliers (Maharal’s Derech Chaim, for example, links this teaching to the unique mazal of each individual), this understanding, shared by Bartenura and the commentary attributed to Rashi, appears to have shaped the consensus view of the meaning of Ben Azzai’s teaching from the days of the Rishonim until relatively recently, when it has been more extensively explored and the focus on the notion of personal animosity abandoned.

Is this drift away from the traditional explanation justified? Let us first see how it works. Examples of later, non-traditional approaches that violate neither the meaning of the words of the mishnah nor the ethos of Pirkei Avot include the following:

• 
  “The only way to earn esteem and respect for yourself is to esteem and respect other people, for in that way you are showing respect to your Creator.  … [A] man who is a criminal or a fool is a human being just like you and, if you cannot find anything to say in his praise, then rather say nothing, but you have no right to despise him…” (The Lehmann-Prins Pirkei Avoth);
  
  
• “Everything in life has its purpose, every person has a potential meaning (sic) possibility, however distant and remote it might seem from the superficial view. It is obligatory upon each individual to see the good and the potential of other individuals” (Rabbi Reuven P. Bulka, Chapters of the Sages);
  
  
• “[I]f everyone and everything that exists has time and space by Divine decree, in a universe governed by His will, each person, creature, and object is automatically due a certain respect and reverence” (Irving M. Bunim (Ethics from Sinai);
  
  
• “Each person and each object has value, even if that value is not always manifest. Each person, at some point in life, may rise to greatness…” (Rabbi Marc D.Angel, The Koren Pirkei Avot).

What then has happened to the notion of taking account of the hatred of others and the possibility of being harmed by them? Has this idea become old-fashioned and in need of replacement by a more relevant explanation of Ben Azzai’s words? Or do we now live within a society in which the need to avoid being dismissive of others and to underestimate their potential for hatred has become so deeply self-understood that it no longer requires to be taught?

Maybe the real reason is that, being uncomfortable at the thought that our attitude towards others might cause them to hate us, we prefer to read a more congenial message into Ben Azzai’s admonition.

Goodwill to all men

A frequently quoted teaching in Avot is that of Shammai, that one should greet everyone with a cheerful face (Avot 1:15). Does this apply truly to everyone, or does it only apply to one’s fellow Jews?

The Hebrew term for “everyone” is אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם (literally “all the man”). The use of the word הָאָדָם (“the man”) rather than simply אָדָם (“man”) has generated considerable discussion as to the significance of the distinction.  In particular, if one term means “all men”, is the other limited only to Jews? And, if so, which is which? I discuss some of the sources on this discussion in Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual, vol 2 at pp 177-179.

In the context of this mishnah there is a serious justification for speculation as to whether Shammai intended his advice to apply to all humans or only to Jews. This is because there is a passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 31b) that portrays Shammai as speaking to potential converts to Judaism—who are by definition non-Jews—in a brusque, irascible and less-than-friendly manner.

In his Tiferet Tzion commentary on this mishnah, Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler circumvents the need to resolve this issue. He takes note of the famous proposition (Yoma 28b) that Abraham fulfilled every commandment, including even the rabbinical laws relating to eruv tavshilin (the correct manner of preparing food before the onset of a Jewish festival on which one intended to cook food for the Shabbat that immediately followed it). We can learn from this proposition that Abraham must himself have greeted non-Jews with a happy, smiling face since in his generation there were no Jews to greet.

Avot, Elul and repentance: It's not too late

Many years ago I worked with a major law firm which prided itself on the enthusiasm with which it dedicated itself to its clients’ welfare. The lawyers worked long hours and rarely used their generous holiday allowance. Only on 1 January did they all desert their desks and return to their families to celebrate the new year. During my first year with the firm I told the partners that, for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, I would be unavailable for work for two consecutive days. “Wow”, said one of my colleagues, “two days? You must have one enormous hangover after that!”

But the new Jewish year is not like that. It opens with Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgement. We face God, as it were, and give an account of ourselves. This is an awesome prospect, but we do not stand before Him unprepared. The month of Elul is our time for reflection on what we have (or have not) done and how we plan to address the challenges of the year ahead.

Two mishnayot in Avot deal with giving God an account of our actions, but in contrasting ways: one addresses our past, the other our future. Rabbi Elazar HaKappar (Avot 4:29) reminds us that there is no escape. In our ordinary lives we can dodge court appearances, fail to submit tax returns, and take evasive action when our fellow humans call us to account. But from God there is no escape. Just as a life is created, is born, lives and dies, so too will we have to answer to God for everything we have done, said, thought and been. That’s a tall order—and when we make all our excuses, God quite literally has all the time in the world to listen and judge accordingly.

Akavya ben Mahahalel (Avot 3:1) takes a different line. The time to think about what you are going to tell God is actually before you contemplate doing anything wrong. That way, you will avoid wrongdoing, your conscience will be clean and you won’t be punished. No-one needs to make excuses to explain away something they didn’t do wrong after all.

Looking at the Jewish calendar, we see that Elul is a festival-free space in which we can practise justifying our wrongs and if—as is most likely—this proves impossible, it’s a time to practise repentance too. Rabbi Eliezer (Avot 2:15) kindly tells us we only need to repent the day before we die; but, since that could be tomorrow, we effectively repent each day. Elul is also prime time for turning the exercise of stocktaking of good deeds and not-so-good ones into a golden chance to improve our performance for the year to come.

Roughly two-thirds of Elul has passed and, for many people, Rosh Hashanah still seems a long way away. Some of us have not long returned from our summer vacation or have been busily settling in children for the new school year. There are bills to be paid and so many terrestrial priorities to see to. But there’s still time to pause, to reflect and ponder, to ask what sort of person we are and what sort of person would we like to be, if we were only prepared to make the effort to do so. Let’s invest in Elul ahead of the Day of Judgment that lies ahead.

Does God accept bribes? A further comment

On 18 August I posted a piece called “Does God accept bribes?” (weblog here; Facebook here). This piece considered, among other things, whether a person might “pay” God for the performance of wrongful actions, offsetting their punishment through the performance of good deeds; it also took note of the early Christian practice of purchasing indulgences.

Rabbi Akiva teaches, at Avot 3:22:

הַכֹּל נָתוּן בָּעֵרָבוֹן, וּמְצוּדָה פְרוּסָה עַל כָּל הַחַיִּים, הֶחָנוּת פְּתוּחָה, וְהַחֶנְוָנִי מַקִּיף, וְהַפִּנְקָס פָּתֽוּחַ, וְהַיָּד כּוֹתֶֽבֶת, וְכָל הָרוֹצֶה לִלְווֹת יָבֹא וְיִלְוֶה, וְהַגַּבָּאִין מַחֲזִירִין תָּדִיר בְּכָל יוֹם, וְנִפְרָעִין מִן הָאָדָם מִדַּעְתּוֹ וְשֶׁלֹּא מִדַּעְתּוֹ, וְיֵשׁ לָהֶם עַל מַה שֶּׁיִּסְמֽוֹכוּ, וְהַדִּין דִּין אֱמֶת, וְהַכֹּל מְתֻקָּן לִסְעוּדָה

In English: “Everything is given on collateral, and a net is spread over all the living. The shop is open, the shopkeeper extends credit; the account-book lies open, the hand writes, and all who wish to borrow may come and borrow. The [debt] collectors make their rounds every day and exact payment from man, with his knowledge and without his knowledge. They have that upon which they rely, the judgement is a judgement of truth, and everything is prepared for the banquet”.

I now quote from Rabbi Yehudah Bulman’s excellent translation of the Meiri’s commentary on Avot in his Bet HaBechirah on the bold text above:

“Even if the person has long wallowed in his evil ways, nevertheless he has support to lean on in the form of repentance. [The Tanna] promises him that repentance is never precluded, even if he has sinned excessively. It is possible to lighten his punishments or even purge them altogether if his repentance is extensive enough. This is ‘counsel after the fact’”.

Rav Bulman, citing the Mishnat Reuven, notes that Meiri’s explanation diverges from that of other early commentators, who take the word “they” to refer to the debt collectors rather than, as Meiri does, to the sinners from whose assets the cost of sin is to be paid. He therefore points to the use of those resources for the purpose of lightening punishments or even purging sins completely.

Is this the same as bribery? Arguably it is not. A bribe is usually offered ahead of time, so that the person offering it will be confident that he has calculated the cost of the sin that he is about to commit and that his repentance for it will certainly be accepted. But there is more.

While both the lightening of punishment and the purging of sin are clearly objectives that a sinner desires, they cannot be bought by repentance since discretion to accept repentance remains in God’s hands alone and it is for Him to determine its adequacy, its sincerity and its acceptability.  The more egregious the sin, the greater the sinner’s enjoyment of it and the more premeditated its execution, the more intensive and heartfelt the repentance is likely to be before it reaches the level of acceptability—and even if it does, there is no guarantee that it will satisfy an all-wise and omniscient deity who understands us better than we understand ourselves.

Escape from captivity

Last month I came across some information concerning yet another commentary on Avot that I had not previously encountered. Its source is Israel Mizrachi (Jewish Press, Features on the Jewish World, here):

Rabbi David Hazan (d. 1748) was a noted rabbi and kabbalist, author of several books and founder of a prominent Hebrew printing press in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey. ... I was able to obtain one of the books he authored, titled David Bametzudah (translated as “David in the Fortress”), being a commentary on Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) and printed in Salonica, Greece in 1748. The title page tells of the interesting background to the writing of this work and the travails of the author that led to it.

In translation, this background praises the grace of God and continues as follows:

“While I was visiting the city of Vienna, being that it is their custom to require passports of every visitor, I had in my possession an authentic passport. An evil man spoke slander about someone with the name David and said before the government that he was a spy. Despite our father’s names being different they accused me of being a spy and locked me in a prison on the holiday of Pesach. Since I was of ill health, the Jewish community sent a doctor to request that I be sent to a hospital under surveillance. May God repay them for their kindness. They instructed the doctor to care for me and paid for all the expenses. I was there from Pesach until Shavuot. I requested from the community leaders to send me the Midrash Shmuel on Pirkei Avot and Ein Yaakov (on the Aggadic portions of the Talmud), and within a short time I had written this commentary on Pirkei Avot. The very day that I completed the writing of this work, I received a pardon and was released…”

According to the online entry in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, the author's full name is David ben Chaim ben Joseph Ḥazan. He lived in Jerusalem about the middle of the eighteenth century. In addition to this commentary on Avot he wrote Ḥozeh David (commentary on the Psalms, Amsterdam 1724), Ḳohelet ben David (on Ecclesiastes, Salonica, also apparently 1748); and Agan haSahar (on Proverbs, Salonica 1749).

I have not seen this work and have never even come across any reference to it in the works of others. I'm curious to know whether it is a yalkut upon a yalkut, taking extracts from Midrash Shmuel and refreshing them for contemporary readers, and whether it has a kabbalistic flavour. If any reader can enlighten me, I shall be grateful. 

Meanwhile, noting that Rabbi Hazan was pardoned and released from prison on the day he completed his work, I wonder whether it ever occurred to him that, had he written a shorter commentary, he might have been released sooner.

Are you a man or a chameleon?

The other day I came across a paragraph that stopped me dead in my tracks. It read as follows:

“In order for a person to have a meaningful, constructive identity, it should be one which he gives to himself. If a person has no other identity than that given to him by others, he really has no identity at all. He must change like a chameleon, being one thing to his wife, another to his parents, another to his children, another to his employer, another to this friend, and yet another to a different friend”.

What was it about this paragraph that so gripped my attention? First, it struck me as being so completely wrong that it could not withstand any serious analysis. Secondly, it was written by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski and appears in his commentary on Pirkei Avot, Visions of the Fathers, a work that I enjoy reading and from which I have learned a great deal.

Why do I find Rabbi Twerski’s words here so unacceptable? Perhaps it is because I am a chameleon at heart. I believe strongly that one has to be different things to different people and that this does indeed shape one’s identity. Let us start with our parents—the first and most influential relationships in most people’s lives—and then go on to our teachers, friends, colleagues, partners and children. Anyone who lives in a society that is comprised of other people will immediately recognise that they are bound to be shaped by them. It is simply impossible to be the same person to each of them in every situation and live a fulfilled and meaningful existence, as the Torah’s narrative of Moses’ personal relationships seems to suggest.

Pirkei Avot itself seems to require us to be different people in different circumstances. Thus Rabbi Yishmael (Avot 3:16) encourages us to play different roles depending on whether we are dealing with our superiors or those junior to us. The principle of al tifrosh min hatzibur (“don’t separate yourself from the community”: Avot 2:5, 4:7) reflects the notion that we should commit ourselves to a shared position rather than stand out alone). Also, we are supposed to make ourselves loved (Avot 6:1, 6:6), which is certainly easier when one adjusts to the circumstances of each relationship in our lives rather than stick to our chosen identity and wait for others to adjust to us.

Moving from morality to metaphor, is it even such a bad thing to be a chameleon? While these creatures change colour to match their immediate environment, they do so for the sake of their safety and survival. This is the same survival technique that many of our fellow Jews employ when mixing outside their comfort zone: hats are exchanged for caps; tzitzit are tucked in, and so on. But in the real world, despite their camouflage, chameleons still recognise one another—just as Jews tend to do in business centres, airport terminals and shopping malls around the world.

Ultimately, since I have no wish to quarrel with the words of Rabbi Twerski, I shall endeavour to read them as applying to the starting point in a person’s life, before the question of familial and social interaction becomes a problem. We should all have a default position, something that defines our essential individuality, before we find ourselves engaged in the lifelong task of compromising it when we encounter other people. After all, an identity remains an identity even when it is compromised. 

Left dangling: limits to free will revisited

In an earlier post (Freedom of choice and lined writing paper) I opened a discussion on Rabbi Akiva’s apothegm that “everything is foreseen, but free will is given” (Avot 3:19). My point was that, while this teaching is usually taken to allude to God’s foresight and supervision of the world, it can also be understood to refer to the way our freedom to exercise our choice is limited by human considerations as well as by divine ones. This line of thought would not be inappropriate, given the era in which Rabbi Akiva lived and the cause of his death.

It is often assumed that the free will versus determinism debate hinges on whether a man is a puppet who, dangling from the puppeteer’s string, has no real choice in what he does. Those who take this extreme view often press the point that God controls absolutely everything: if a person exercises choice in performing any act, it is only because the circumstances leading to that choice and the means of resolving it are both predetermined by God. Free choice is therefore an illusion. We are however bound to believe that we exercise free will, since it is this that gives any sort of personal meaning to our lives.

Others take the view that God’s control over human thoughts and actions is more nuanced in that, while setting the parameters within which we act out our daily existence, He has the freedom to choose the extent to which we exercise a genuine freedom of choice.

I can give an example, by way of analogy. Many years ago, two of my grandsons were fighting one another. Initially a play fight, the game became a little too rough and I decided to intervene. I lifted the lighter boy off the ground and held him firmly so that he could neither kick nor punch his cousin, though he made strenuous attempts to do so.

At one level my intervention curtailed the physical motion of the wriggling child. He could neither escape my grasp nor approach his foe. This was clearly a constraint upon his freedom to choose where to move. On another level, however, I contemplated the full range of options that remained available to him:

• Continue to resist my grip (in which case I would simply strengthen it as necessary);
  
  
• Stop squirming and relax (in which case I would have put him down, at a safe distance from his protagonist);
  
  
• Say he was sorry (in which case I would have put him down near his erstwhile rival, having first extracted an undertaking from the latter that hostilities would cease);
  
  
• Scream (in which case I would have ignored him till he stopped screaming);
  
  
• Call for his mother to intervene (which is what he actually did).

I like to think that this scenario reflected in human terms the sort of thing that Rabbi Akiva had in mind in this mishnah. Do you agree?

Orphaned, unloved

I’m sad to say that I’ve just picked up another abandoned commentary on Pirkei Avot from the streets of Jerusalem. This time it’s Melitz Yosher al Pirkei Avot, by Rabbi Reuven Melamed, rosh mesivta at Ponevezh Yeshivah and a talmid muvchak of the celebrated mashgiach of Ponevezh, Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein ztz”l.

Self-published in Bnei Brak 1990, this book is in mint condition and shows signs of never having been opened. It is handsomely produced, with clear, vowelised Hebrew for the mishnayot and baraitot and well-spaced, unpointed text for the commentary itself.

I look forward to dipping into this little book and reporting on some of its more interesting content. Meanwhile, does any reader know anything of this book and its author?

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

Postscript

On the same topic, readers may remember that not long ago I found another unwanted edition of Avot that contained two commentaries—the Tiferet Tzion of Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler and the Kerem Chemed of his grandson Rabbi Yehudah Rabinowitz (see earlier post on Facebook and on the Avot Today blog)—which I picked up from a street sale for the princely sum of 10 shekel. I’ve been sampling the Tiferet Tzion daily over my breakfast and can testify to it being a gentle, traditional commentary that takes pleasure in delving into the Gemara in order to highlight or illustrate the teachings in Avot. Even though I’ve not yet finished the first perek, I’m delighted to say that I’ve got far more than 10 shekels-worth of value for my purchase.

Seniors and juniors

Still on the subject of teaching and learning, Ben Zoma famously asks (Avot 4:1) “Who is wise?”, then answers his own question: “The person who learns from everyone”. Some commentators take this literally, while others limit its scope of application. However, the principle is clear: we should keep an open mind that enables us to learn from every situation in which we find ourselves and should certainly not exclude the possibility that someone who is junior to us in terms of age, experience or knowledge might nonetheless be able to enrich our understanding.

For many years I acted as a consultant to a major London-based law firm.  My role was to provide a level of academic or theoretical understanding of my subject to supplement the highly practice-based expertise of my practising colleagues. During the course of my time there, I had a long conversation with one, a relatively senior lawyer with aspirations to become a partner. This lawyer was a bit of an enthusiast and enjoyed discussing developments in the law for its own sake and not necessarily because those developments affected any of the firm’s clients.

One might have assumed that the best people to go to, when asking deep and meaningful questions about the law, were the partners. They, after all, were the lawyers at the top of the tree and had got there by demonstrating their legal expertise. But this was not usually the case. While the partners were unquestionably the most skilled and seasoned lawyers in the department, they often had relatively little to say about recent developments and theoretical perspectives in their field. Why was this? Because they had usually studied the law quite a long time earlier and had found little time to keep up with subsequent changes in the law. Many followed developments only on a need-to-know basis. The most junior lawyers, in contrast, having most recently studied the law, were closer to it and a good deal more up-to-date. So, paradoxically, the lawyers with the greatest knowledge of the current law were generally those at the bottom of the tree, not their elders and betters. There should therefore be no shame or embarrassment in a senior lawyer seeking advice or information from a fresh-faced trainee.

Incidentally, it has been my experience that, in many law firms, trainee lawyers do not receive the respect they deserve. This is certainly contrary to the principle laid down by Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua (Avot 4:15) that a person should let the honour of his student be as dear to him as his own. Every senior lawyer was a junior lawyer once, and that alone should remind them what it feels like to be an apprentice who lives at the mercy of his master.

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 AUGUST 2022:

Tuesday 30 August 2022: Watch what you say -- and what you do: a new slant on Avtalyon: It's not just a teacher's words that can mislead pupils, as the Tiferet Tzion explains.

Sunday 28 August 2022: Teachers and students: As the new academic year approaches, it's time to review the teaching relationship and the need for integrity and trust.

Friday 26 August 2022: Well-worn mishnah, well-worded explanation. Tiferet Tzion offers a neat and practical way to look at Yehoshua ben Perachya's classic teaching.

Tuesday 23 August 2022: Ethics without Avot? A reading of the 1972 essay collection Modern Jewish Ethics: Theory and Practice raises questions as to the relevance of the Ethics of the Fathers to ethics of any description.

Sunday 21 August 2022: Freedom of choice and lined writing paper: There is more than one way of viewing the famous free will v determinism conundrum of Rabbi Akiva.

Thursday 18 August 2022: Does God accept bribes? Both the written Torah and its oral counterpart assert that God has no favourites and takes no bribes -- but that has not stopped humans seeking to gain influence with Him.

Wednesday 17 August 2022: Abarbanel in brief. We welcome a precis of the Abarbanel's mammoth commentary on Avot.

Monday 15 August 2022: Hedgehogs, foxes and the "one great thing": Sir Isaiah Berlin's classic essay sparks off some thoughts on what it takes to be a practising Jew, contrasting the position of the written Torah with that of Avot.

Friday 12 August 2022: Harry Potter and the Tractate of Truth. Is it appropriate to write an explanation of the teachings in Avot in light of the Harry Potter books, or is it disrespectful or downright harmful?

Thursday 11 August 2022: Kids' Stuff: We take note of a recent children's book that is designed as an entertaining introduction to Avot.

Monday 8 August 2022: Slipping into holiday mode: what would Shammai say? "Making one's Torah fixed" is not just a lesson for people learning Torah -- it applies to us when we go away on vacation too.

Friday 5 August 2022: Comforting us on Tisha be'Av: an application of Avot: On this saddest of days in the Jewish calendar, we recite the consolatory prayer of Nachem only in the afternoon prayers. A reading of Avot discloses why this may be so.

Wednesday 3 August 2022: Preparing to say goodbye: A recent program on planning for death opens a discussion here about how far Pirkei Avot addresses that delicate issue.

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

Avot Today blogposts for July 2022 
Avot Today blogposts for June 2022 
Avot Today blogposts for May 2022
Avot Today blogposts for April 2022
Avot Today blogposts for March 2022
Avot Today blogposts for February 2022

Watch what you say -- and what you do: a new slant on Avtalyon

With the new academic year in mind, it’s a good time to give some attention to teachers, students and the nature of their relationship. This is the second in a series of posts that reflect on the teachings in Avot on this topic.

The first chapter in Avot contains one mishnah that isn’t a bon mot or neat maxim, but really a narrative. It’s also unusual because it’s not being addressed to the public at large: it’s literally a “word to the wise”. I’m referring to the teaching at Avot 1:11 that runs like this:

Avtalyon used to say: “Wise men! Be careful with your words, in case you are exiled to a place where the water is bad. The disciples who follow after you will then drink this bad water and die, and the Name of Heaven will be desecrated.

This is one of a number of mishnayot in Avot that receives relatively little treatment from the commentators—not because it is undeserving of comment and discussion but because the parable is so clear in its meaning. Teach the Torah in a way that is wrong, and your students and followers will perpetuate your error. Fulfilment of the precepts of the Torah as a recipe for a Jew’s eternal life in the world to come; non-fulfilment is no guarantee of eternity.

The text of this Mishnah leaves it open to a wider interpretation. The parable opens with the Hebrew words

חֲכָמִים, הִזָּהֲרוּ בְדִבְרֵיכֶם, שֶׁמָּא תָחֽוֹבוּ חוֹבַת גָּלוּת

The Hebrew word rendered and generally understood as “your words” is דִבְרֵיכֶם. This same word, as Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler points out in his Tiferet Tzion, can also be taken to mean “things”—a general term that includes not just a person’s words but also one’s deeds, possessions, appearance and demeanour. Since humans learn from another not solely through verbal transmission but by emulating the conduct of others, a wise teacher should be aware of the extent to which not just classes and course materials but also personal habits, mannerisms, pet phrases and out-of-class conduct can impress themselves on disciples, talmidim and pupils of every kind.

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?

Well-worn mishnah, well-worded explanation

Last week I had some kind words for the Tiferet Tzion, a gentle and user-friendly but sadly forgotten commentary on Avot by Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler. But praise is of no value unless there is some evidence that it is deserved. I shall now make up that omission by relating Rabbi Yadler’s short explanation of one of the best-known teachings in Avot.

In the first perek, Yehoshua ben Perachya teaches:

עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

“Make for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every man meritoriously”. (Avot 1:6).

Most commentators explain this Mishnah in a similar fashion. They discuss the importance of having a teacher and the steps one should take to procure one, as well as reviewing the course of action to pursue if one knows more than any available teacher or where one has two or more teachers. As for the acquisition of a friend, this has repercussions both for learning Torah—where a chavruta (learning partner) can be a valuable foil—and for serving as a sounding-board against which to bounce one’s ideas, ambitions and worries. Judging others meritoriously affects not only one’s relationship with other humans but also the quality of our own characters when we stand before God: we cannot expect God to be lenient in judging us if we have not taken the same line when judging our fellows.

 The Tiferet Tzion treats this mishnah quite differently, as a way of relating to other people. Essentially, there are three classes of people in everyone’s life: those who are ahead of us in knowledge and experience, those who are our peers and those over whom we have the edge—maybe because we are older, cleverer or just happen to know more. Yehoshua ben Perachya’s teaching focuses on this tripartite scheme.

For those who are ahead of us, we can make them our teachers since we are sure to be able to learn something from them. As for those who are our peers and equals, we should embrace them in friendship: we do not know-tow obsequiously to them, but neither do we strive to laud it over them. Then there are those who are less fortunate than ourselves when it comes to knowledge or intellectual capacity. We should not scorn or disrespect them but judge them favourably, bearing in mind the educational opportunities or natural abilities that they may not have possessed.

Rabbi Yadler does not claim this explanation as a chiddush, a work of his own intellectual creation, and it may well be that others have learned this mishnah the same way. All I can say is that I had not seen it before and thought that it was expressed in an economical, understated way that did not obscure the words of the Tanna.

Ethics without Avot?

I've recently been reading Modern Jewish Ethics: Theory and Practice (1972)-- a collection of essays edited by Marvin Fox and originally delivered at meetings of the Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought, this being an initiative from a group of professors at Bar-Ilan University. 

What is this book about? According to the Preface:

"The purpose of the institute is to explore in depth the ways in which classical Judaism and contemporary thought may illuminate and fructify each other". 

So who is doing the illuminating and fructifying?

"The participants ... represent a wide variety of Jewish positions and life-styles, ranging from orthodoxy to secularism and from total religious observance to very little or none at all".

What is the common ground on which this meeting of minds takes place?

"... the strong conviction  that Judaism is an intellectually alive and significant option for contemporary men, and the equally strong conviction that a living Judaism must be in touch with and responsible to the best in contemporary thought".

The roll-call of contributors is impressive. Apart from Marvin Fox, an eminent Maimonidean scholar, many readers will instantly recognise the names of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Nachum Rabinovitch. The others boast between them a wide and impressive spread of academic and other credentials. 

I must confess that, in my ignorance, I was attracted to this book by the assumption that any book on Jewish ethics was bound to contain some meaningful discussion of the contents of Avot, a tractate of the Mishnah that has been generally regarded by Jewish sages for the past two millennia as having had something to do with ethics. This book, which covers some 250 pages of fascinating discussion, contains only two small references to Avot, thrown in en passant. And it's not as if there was no place for Avot either. For example, Emmanuel Levinas' florid and at times almost unreadable piece on "Ideology and Idealism" gives ample space to 'The Other' and to 'The Other as the Other Man', but the notion of man's relationship to himself and to real or constructed others -- a major theme in Avot -- gets no mention at all. 

To be fair, part of the book addresses moral issues that do not fall comfortably within the scope of Avot. There is a fascinating discussion of the ethics of war and the conduct of the Israel Defence Force to which its mishnayot are not of obvious application.

One is nevertheless led to ask an important question: does Avot -- taken together with the written Torah -- provide any sort of content or structure for the building of a Jewish ethical system, or is it simply a slightly more than averagely meaning book of etiquette for the Jews who lived 2,000 years ago?

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

Postscript: does anyone know whatever happened to the Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought? It doesn't appear to be extant under that name today.