Setting free the menagerie: wild beasts and chillul Hashem

For the unwary student of mussar and middot, Pirkei Avot is full of surprises. One such surprise comes when the reader, reaching the fifth perek, suddenly finds that the constant stream of earnest Tannaic guidance on how to behave appears to have been dammed up, replaced by a sequence of apparently misplaced messages about God’s role as Creator, His remarkable patience with His annoyingly disobedient people and some salutary information as to what happens when that patience expires. Where did the mussar and middot go?

The answer is that the stream of behavioural advice is not dammed up but continues underground, as it were, hidden from sight but none the less influential.

By way of example, take this verse from parashat Emor (Vayikra 22:32):

וְלֹא תְחַלְּלוּ, אֶת-שֵׁם קָדְשִׁי, וְנִקְדַּשְׁתִּי, בְּתוֹךְ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:  אֲנִי יְהוָה, מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם

In translation: “And you shall not profane My holy name; but I will be made holy among the children of Israel: I am the Lord who makes you holy”.

This verse lies in the middle of a lengthy sequence of instructions regarding sacrificial offerings, falling between a review of animals that may or may not be sacrificed and a list of offerings required for each Jewish festival. It accounts for two of the 613 Torah mitzvot: chillul Hashem and kiddush Hashem (respectively, desecration and sanctification of God’s name). The context suggests that these obligations relate solely to the right and wrong ways of offering up animals and other items, but both are of very much wider practical application and effectively govern speech and action that either enhances or diminishes the sanctity of God’s name.

Chillul Hashem also features in Pirkei Avot on several occasions, one of which is quite puzzling. At the beginning of Avot 5:11, a mishnah describes the consequence of dragging God’s name down:

חַיָּה רָעָה בָּאָה לְעוֹלָם עַל שְׁבוּעַת שָׁוְא וְעַל חִלּוּל הַשֵּׁם

In translation: “Wild beasts [chayah ra’ah, literally “a wicked beast”] come[s] to the world for false oaths and the desecration of God's name”.

The prohibition of chillul Hashem in parashat Emor is expressed in the plural; the mishnah in Avot balances this by specifying a collective punishment, but the match is not exact: chillul Hashem can be committed by an individual, but both the wording and the context of the mishnah suggest that the punishment occurs only where the offence is spread through Jewish society at large. In both cases chillul Hashem is paired with something else: in Emor it is tied to its opposite, kiddush Hashem, while in Avot it is bound in with the making of a false oath, an offence that is similar to chillul Hashem in that it also involves an abuse of God’s name and reputation.

What is the function of this reference to chillul Hashem in Avot 5:11? Why is it there at all? Is it simply to remind the reader of the severity of the offence? Is it there to specify a punishment where the Torah was silent? And what is the mention of chayah ra’ah doing there in the absence of any accompanying mussar or middot material?

Do these questions even need to be answered at all? Some commentators have nothing to say on this aspect of Avot 5:11, among them Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah, the Bartenura, the Alshich, Tosafot Yom Tov, Rabbi Ya’akov Emden and Rabbi Chaim Volozhin. But others are intrigued by the chayah ra’ah and some find mussar in the mention of them.

While “chayah ra’ah” traditionally conjures up images of large, wild creatures. Rabbi Eliezer Liepmann Prins observes that this Hebrew term specifies no size. A virus or bacterium is as much a chayah ra’ah as is an elephant. By setting minute, invisible life forms against those who profane His name, God demonstrates that, wherever one finds His greatness, that is where one also finds His humility” (per Rabbi Yochanan, Megillah 31a). Rabbi Prins adds that “wild beasts” need not be construed as a punishment at all. He ingeniously explains how, when humans degrade themselves to a state of bestiality by profaning sacred things on Earth, it is they who become like wild beasts. This view accounts for the fact that regular wild beasts—lions, tigers and the like--are already in the world even before people break their oaths or desecrate God’s name so they cannot be said to “come to the world” when people do such things.

The Me’iri’s Bet HaBechirah sees the mishnah’s teaching as an exercise in middah keneged middah (“measure for measure”). In the great scheme of things, God’s superiority to man is paralleled by the man’s superiority to the animal. If man plays the animal by desecrating God’s name, God provokes man by attacking him with animals. The Midrash Shmuel frames the same principle differently: if humans lose their fear of God, He will remove from animals the fear of them which He promised Noah and his descendants (Bereshit 9:2). Rabbis Avraham Azulai (Ahavah BeTa’anugim) and S. R. Hirsch share this view.

The Sforno’s take on middah keneged middah is founded on awareness and knowledge. Both false oath-taking and chillul Hashem are the result of a person’s diminished state of understanding and awareness of God’s greatness. The corresponding punishment is visitation by wild beasts, creatures who lack any degree of understanding. Likewise, the Chida’s Chasdei Avot points out that humans are created in God’s image. When they desecrate God’s name, they shed this image and appear like animals. For the Maharam Shik, the issue is that mankind is created with the ability to speak, while animals are not. When a false oath of chillul Hashem are committed through speech, it is through the medium of creatures that do not speak that man is punished.

Not all accounts of “wild beasts” are tied to middah keneged middah and some commentators read this mishnah in socio-political terms. Thus, in his Derech Chaim, the Maharal takes the term to be an allusion to the oppression we experience at the hands of other nations, an explanation that Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, himself a Holocaust survivor, favours in his Yachel Yisrael. While both the force of this explanation and the reason for it can be appreciated, if we accept it we must then ask what practical lesson we can extract from it—and that is not so easy.

Numerous allusions to verses from Tanach, as well as entire pasukim, appear in the latter part of Pirkei Avot, and they are not there for mere padding or decoration. Like the reference to chillul Hashem here, they invite serious investigation of a mussar message, since that is the reason for Pirkei Avot’s existence.

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When anger is all the rage...

One of the shortest and most succinct mishnayot in Avot is credited to Rabbi Elazar HaKappar:

הַקִּנְאָה וְהַתַּאֲוָה וְהַכָּבוֹד מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם

In translation: “Jealousy, lust and [the quest for] honour remove a person from the world”.

The harmful consequences of jealousy, lust and the quest for kavod (loosely speaking, “honour” or “respect”) are well known and well attested, both in real life and in literature. But they are surely not the only personal qualities that have the effect of causing self-destruction as well as wreaking terrible harm on those who are the objects of such unwanted attention. Indeed, there is something missing. The mishnah’s shortlist list does not feature anger, even though Jewish sages over the centuries have not only condemned it but have likened it to idolatry. Why then does Rabbi Elazar HaKappar omit it?

A possible answer is that anger does not flare up in a vacuum: it is usually caused by something. And, if one considers carefully the deepest and most powerful forms of anger that one experiences, it is possible to allocate them to one of three causes: jealousy, lust or the thirst for honour.

This analytical process works fairly well for most types of anger.  Road rage, for example, can be traced back to the acute disrespect shown by a fellow road user. So too can the anger not just felt but all too frequently inappropriately expressed by parents when their children are disobedient. Jealousy and lust can be seen to work in tandem, where a person’s unrequited physical passion for another is compounded by jealousy that the object of one’s desire prefers the attentions of someone else.

The bottom line: perhaps, if we look carefully at the reasons for our anger and seek to understand them better, we will be better equipped to curb our anger or, better still, find a positive and constructive means of channeling it.

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Based on an idea of Rabbi Reuven Melamed (Melitz Yosher al Pirkei Avot).

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Real Wealth? Sophie Tucker v Abba and The Beatles

Much of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin’s classic commentary on Avot, Ruach Chaim, has a distant and detached feel to it. Written by a major Torah scholar for a generation where the pursuit of Torah and commitment to its precepts required neither excuse nor apology, it sometimes seems that many of his explanations of the practical impact of Avot’s mishnayot lie beyond the grasp of contemporary readers who do indeed value Torah but still must struggle to accommodate it within their busy, compartmentalised lives.

If we can overcome our feeling of distance between ourselves and Ruach Chaim, there is much in it that speaks directly to us. A good example is the author’s position on that most unfashionable of concepts, that of the need to be satisfied with what one has, to be truly appreciative of it rather than focus on what one does not possess. This principle is stated overtly in Avot 4:1 (“Who is the person who is wealthy? The person who rejoices in his portion”) and echoed in a baraita at Avot 6:6. But Reb Chaim finds further support for it elsewhere.

In Avot 4:11 Rabbi Yonatan says:

“Anyone who fulfils the Torah in poverty will ultimately fulfil it in wealth, while anyone who neglects the Torah in wealth will ultimately neglect it in poverty”.

As Reb Chaim points out, these words cannot be taken literally. As he puts it,

“We witness that many righteous people live their entire lives in grinding poverty, while wicked people enjoy a lifetime of prosperity”.

So what does the mishnah mean? He explains:

“This mishnah needs to be understood on a different level. Me’oni (“in poverty”) literally means “from poverty” or “due to poverty”. If someone realizes that his lack of wealth is a blessing, an opportunity to focus on service of Hashem without the distractions that accompany wealth, then he will be able to fulfil the Torah in wealth”.

He then references Ben Azzai (Avot 4:1, above). A person who is satisfied with his lot will not regard himself as being poor, even though he may be objectively regarded as such in purely material terms. Further comments then follow, regarding the dangers of wealth and the pursuit of it.

Today we are culturally attuned to be poverty-averse and this is quite understandable. Reb Chaim himself speaks of “grinding poverty” and we are only too aware of its impact on lives of ourselves and others. But we must still ask if, when we have the chance, we go too far and continue to flee poverty long after it has ceased to pursue us. Much of what we today label poverty would not be viewed us such in previous generations, when expectations were far lower and provision for relief was far less.

In past generations, singers could allude to poverty and strike a note with their audiences. Thus in our grandparents' time Sophie Tucker (My Yiddishe Mamma) could sing lyrics like this:

"How few were her pleasures, she never cared for fashion's styles
Her jewels and treasures she found them in her baby's smiles
Oh I know that I owe what I am today
To that dear little lady so old and gray
To that wonderful yiddishe momme of mine".

Lyrics such as this once helped to affirm social values, but they sound embarrassingly mawkish and sentimental today. In contrast, the past half-century has resounded to the compelling chorus of Abba:

Lyrics such as this once helped to affirm social values, but they sound embarrassingly mawkish and sentimental today. In contrast, the past half-century has resounded to the compelling chorus of Abba:

“Money, money, money

Must be funny

In the rich man's world

Money, money, money

Always sunny

In the rich man's world

Aha

All the things I could do

If I had a little money

It's a rich man's world

It's a rich man's world”.

Let's not forget The Beatles. Back in 1964 they expressed a similar ideal in Can't Buy Me Love:

"Say you don't need no diamond rings

And I'll be satisfied

Tell me that you want the kind of things

That money just can't buy

I don't care too much for money

Money can't buy me love."

However, by the time they released their Revolver album only two years later, in 1966, they had quite literally changed their tune and were singing, in Money (That's What I Want):

“Now give me money (That's what I want)

That's what I want (That's what I want)

That's what I want, (That's what I want), oh, yeah (That's what I want)

Money don't get everything, it's true

What it don't get, I can't use

Now give me money, (That's what I want)

That's what I want”.

These lyrics lead one to revisit the age-old question: is it better to remain an active participant in wider society and learn to resist the insistent messages we absorb effortlessly through the media, or to retreat into a smaller, safer society in which we hear only the messages coined by our sages?

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

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted to the Avot Today Facebook Group in APRIL 2023: 

Friday 28 April 2023: Building a Career in Holiness: In this guest post from Shmuel Gorenstein, the influence of parents is matched with the impressionability of children (Avot 4:25) in the formation of one's character and qualities.

Thursday 23 April 2023: Acts of Kindness: How the Torah Records an Upgrade: Why is Pirkei Avot called Pirkei Avot ("Ethics of the Fathers")? Rav Druckman's book on Avot offers many explanations. Here's one of them.

Sunday 23 April 2023: Good Names, Bad Names: The value of a good name, i.e. a good reputation, is promoted in Avot -- but even good names might be problematic, it seems.

Thursday 20 April 2023: Humility, Heep and a Pile of Baggage: The word "humility" -- so often mentioned in Avot -- has a dreadfully old-fashioned flavour to it these days. Is there a more palatable way to express the concept?

Tuesday 18 April 2023: Now is the Time: A reminder that now is the ideal time to renew one's pursuit of Pirkei Avot studies and to buy a new book -- whether mine or anyone else's.

Sunday 16 April 2023: Making a Fence: Do We Really Need 5,000 commandments? Avot 1:1 teaches the need to build a fence around the Torah. But do more commandments keep more people in or out of Jewish life?

Wednesday 5 April 2023: Progressing from Pesach: it's the Torah that counts: There are 48 ways to acquire the Torah (Avot 6:6) but 49 days from Pesach to Shavuot. What can we learn from this numerical discrepancy?

Monday 3 April 2023: Trump, Netanyahu and Political Credibility: a Message for Pesach: How far, if at all, does Pirkei Avot condone the placing of trust in our political leaders?

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Avot Today blogposts for March 2023
Avot Today blogposts for February 2023
Avot Today blogposts for January 2023
Avot Today blogposts for December 2022
Avot Today blogposts for November 2022
Avot Today blogposts for October 2022

Building a career in holiness

The following post has been provided by a member of the Avot Today Facebook group, Shmuel Gorenstein. All group members are reminded that they are welcome to participate actively in Avot Today, both by submitting items to share on the group and by posting comments and thoughts on other people’s posts. Don’t be shy – just participate!

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איש אמו ואביו תיראו

(קדושים יט:ג)

“(Each) man shall fear his mother and his father” (Kedoshim 19:3)

 It is significant that, after the admonition "You shall be holy", the first commandment to be mentioned is to fear one’s parents. It is thus apparent that the first step toward the realization of the ideal of holiness is the necessity of fearing one’s parents, which is the first rung of the ladder of fear of Hashem.

•  The fear of parents causes their teachings to be more effective, especially in the original plan to teach the Torah in the home (as set forth in Devarim 6:7 and 11:19).
  
  
•  The attitudes of awe and obedience towards parents are essential for the eventual awe and obedience toward Hashem.

The fact that the Shabbos follows, as the second step toward the goal of holiness, is actually because of the first step. The influence of parents upon the children is most abundantly exercised on the Shabbos day, when the family are together all day. In addition, the lessons of the Shabbos are the foundations for all of our thoughts concerning Hashem.

But, most important of all, is the effect of the above factors on the young mind, when the parents begin teaching him: "He that learns when a child... is like ink written on new paper" (Elisha ben Avuyah, at Avot 4:25), and "the youthful learning" (Shabbos 21B) is the most effective.

This is the foundation for a career of Kedusha.

[Rav Avigdor Miller]

Acts of kindness: how the Torah records an upgrade

I am currently perusing the first volume of Avot Lebanim: Shiurim beMasechet Avot, compiled from the teachings of the late and much-loved Rabbi Chaim Druckman. This volume, published by Or Etzion in 2019, is a pleasure to behold: the print is clear and spaced out well on the page; the Hebrew is accessible to the non-scholar and the content is of a warm, conciliatory nature rather than in-your-face confrontational mussar.

Like many Avot commentaries, this one opens by asking why this tractate is named Avot (“Fathers”) in the first place. Out of the many answers given over the centuries Rabbi Druckman highlights six, one of which is that the chapters deal with Avot leshmirat haTorah (loosely translatable as “main headings for keeping the Torah”). By way of an example he picks a teaching of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah (Avot 3:21), “Im en Torah en derech eretz, ve’im derech eretz en Torah” (meaning here “If there is no Torah, there is no basic standard of good behaviour there is no Torah, but if there is no basic level of good behaviour, there is no Torah”—though this can be translated and understood in several other ways).  

According to Rabbi Druckman, the significance of this maxim can be illustrated by reference to three of the greatest and most righteous personalities in the Bible: Noah, Abraham and Moses.

Noah, described in the Torah as being “righteous in his generations” and therefore as being worthy to be saved when almost all other forms of life were to be wiped out, carried out God’s instructions to the letter. He did exactly what God told him; not more and not less. This is itself an extraordinary achievement and should not be denigrated. But Noah could have done more. He saved his wife, his three sons and their wives but made no attempt to dissuade God from His destructive intent or to save anyone else.

Abraham, the first person in the Torah to establish an ongoing relationship with God and to partner with Him in bringing awareness of the deity to an idol-worshipping world, was also confronted with God’s destructive intentions when he was informed of God’s plan to wipe out Sodom, Gomorrah and the other cities nearby where the level of interpersonal evil and immorality had reached an intolerable level. There, daring to argue with God, Abraham seeks to avert this dire decree if 50, 45, 40, 30, 20 or even 10 good folk can be found in the destruction zone. But Abraham could have done more. He could have pressed God to spare all the inhabitants of the condemned plain, but he only argued that God should not kill the righteous together with the wicked.

Moses, who led the Children of Israel through good times and bad for some four decades, was also faced with an angry God who stated His intent to wipe out the backsliding nation of newly-emancipated slaves and start the Jewish people afresh with Moses himself. Moses did not hesitate to press God to spare the entire nation despite the episode of the golden calf, thus seeking to save both the righteous and those who manifestly were not.

Noah, Abraham, Moses—all three were remarkable men, whose standards greatly exceeded the behavioural norms of their day and whose influence we still feel even millennia after their deaths. Abraham, in particular, we respect for the level of chesed, kindness towards his fellow humans, which became his trademark. But it was Moses who set the highest standard for kindness towards others when he called for forgiveness of a people who were scarcely in a position to seek it for themselves and who were hardly deserving of it. And, of these three outstanding personalities, it was Moses alone who had the benefit of learning Torah. It was this that lifted his level of chesed to such a lofty level.

To return to our mishnah in Avot, derech eretz—the way we behave towards and with regard to others—may have considerable value even when it is without Torah. But it is the addition of the values of the Torah that enables its practitioners to maximise their performance of chesed and achieve the highest attainable level of kindness towards their fellow humans.

Good names, bad names

The concept of a shem tov (literally “good name”) features twice in Pirkei Avot. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai praises the value of a good reputation at Avot 4:17 where he teaches:

“There are three crowns—the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the crown of sovereignty—but the crown of a good name surpasses them all”.

Hillel agrees that a good reputation is a valuable asset, but points at Avot 2:8 to its limitations:

“One who acquires a good name acquires it for himself; but one who acquires words of Torah acquires life in the World to Come”.

So is a good name, a good reputation, a sort of formal recognition of one’s personal qualities and achievements, or is it merely a non-transferable label that ultimately adds up to nothing of substance?  Avot does not resolve this issue. There are however two further teachings on which we should reflect before drawing any conclusions.

The first is another teaching in the name of Hillel, at Avot 1:13: negid shema, avad shemei. There is some disagreement as to the precise meaning of this neat Aramaic soundbite, but it is generally rendered along the lines of “a name made great is a name destroyed”, suggesting that the cultivation of fame and a good reputation will be in vain if it is not done for the sake of Heaven. The second is a baraita at Avot 6:9, taught in the name of Rabbi Yose ben Kisma:

Once I was walking along the road and a man came across me. He greeted me and I returned his greeting. He said to me: "Rabbi, what place do you come from?” I said to him: "I’m from a great city of sages and scholars”. He said to me: "Rabbi, would you like to live with us in our place? I will give you a million dinars of gold, precious stones and pearls". I said to him: "If you were to give me all the silver, gold, precious stones and pearls in the world, I wouldn’t live anywhere but in a place of Torah”….

The baraita continues by affirming the point made by Hillel above, that it is through the acquisition of Torah that one acquires one’s World to Come. The curious thing about this baraita is that the stranger who encounters Rabbi Yose ben Kisma asks where he comes from but does not ask his name. This would suggest that the Rabbi’s worth has been assessed by reference to (possibly) his appearance, (more likely) his behaviour and demeanour but not by reference to his name and reputation.

There is another sense in which a name is taken to be “good” or “bad”, where it is not so much the reputation as the name itself that is at stake. This theme is developed by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel in volume 1 of his Eternal Ethics from Sinai, where at Avot 1:3 he introduces a teaching by Antigonos Ish Socho with a discussion of the name Antigonos and of the propriety or otherwise of giving a child a non-Jewish name. He writes:

“If Antigonos of Socho, the saintly Tanna who received the Oral Tradition from Shimon HaTzaddik, were alive today, he would no doubt be encouraged to have his name changed, a practice that has gained considerable popularity in our times. Antigonos is no more a Biblical name that Hurkenos, Sumchus or Tarfon. These names, all from non-Jewish sources, were given long ago to children who developed into some of our people’s greatest Torah sages. When parents select a name for a child, the best choice is clearly a Jewish name, because the name of a righteous, pious, and scholarly Jew will have a positive influence on the child. But let us say that, for whatever reasons, a parent chooses to name a daughter Zlata or Altun rather than Rivka or Rahel. That has become this particular child’s name and it should not be tampered with”.

Following further discussion of the correct spelling of names, divine inspiration in choosing them and the mechanism for changing a name, Rabbi Hillel continues:

“…[C]urrent trends in name-changing have it that Rahel is a ‘very bad name’, and absolutely no one should be named Rahel. … Our forefather Yaakov, a very great Mekubal, was surely privy to whatever inside information today’s practitioners would like to claim. If Rahel is a ‘bad name’, why did he not feel impelled to change the name of his beloved wife? The same could be said of Rabbi Akiva and countless other great Torah scholars throughout our history whose wives bore the name of the Matriarch Rahel”.

I had no idea that Rahel/Rachel was a ‘very bad name’ and wonder if any of my more kabbalistically inclined readers might enlighten me. Be that as it may, my personal feeling, for what it is worth, is that if the reputation that attaches to a person’s name is indeed personal—as Hillel suggests at Avot 2:8—we should not assume that the attributes associated with that person’s name are in any sense transferable. Each person should be known by their name but valued in accordance with their individual attributes. It also seems to me that giving a child an auspicious name from Tanach or traditional Jewish sources may also be a laudable practice. But it offers no guarantee that children will absorb or display the qualities of the person after whom they are named, as the roll-call of Jewish prisoners in Israel and the diaspora sadly indicates.

Humility, Heep and a pile of baggage

The words “humble” and “humility” carry so much baggage in English that it can be uncomfortable to see them repeatedly appearing in translations of Pirkei Avot. The false, unctuous humility of Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield makes him one of the most vividly and instantly unlikeable characters to emerge from English literature, while association with the words “humiliate” and “eat humble pie” suggests that humility is not an inherent human quality but rather something that is inflicted painfully on others.

Some words in Hebrew can be reasonably stretched to bear more than one English meaning. Thus kavod (“honour”) and yirah (“fear”) can both be rendered as shades of “respect”, but shefal ru’ach and anav—the two Hebrew terms usually rendered as “humble”—offer little in the way of variation. Shefal ru’ach literally means “low-spirited”, but that conveys to the English ear a state of gloomy depression rather than humility.   

Our sages have in the past emphasised the link between humility and the need for each of us to believe—to convince ourselves—that we as humans are of no worth whatsoever and that it is only through the grace of God that we have any apparent merits at all. This position is rooted in midrashic and aggadic tradition. But the same tradition also points in other directions. Thus the sages also teach that we are to regard the world as if it was created specifically for ourselves and that we are the children of princes—and even the humblest of Torah scholars is entitled to “an eighth of an eighth” of pride. Pirkei Avot advocates a maximised form of humility (see e.g. Avot 4:4, 4:12) but also that we concede the truth (Avot 5:9), and the false modesty of scholars who repeatedly boast that they know nothing does nothing to promote the cause of humility among those who need to acquire it for themselves.

One way forward with humility is to explain it in terms that make it sound more accessible to ordinary people. Chanoch Levi’s English translation of Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner’s Ru’ach Chaim does that rather well in the course of the long, discursive essay in which Reb Chaim reviews the deeper significance of Avot 4:1. There he writes:

“It is important to realize that humility involves more than simply absorbing taunts and insults without exacting retribution. Humility is a state of mind, the recognition that one’s worth is no greater than that of any other man” (italics added).

This definition of humility is not only something that lies within the grasp of everyone; it is also compatible with the popular contemporary notion that all humans are equal. The statement that “I am no better than anyone else” is far easier to internalise than “I am of no worth when compared to anyone else”. However, “equal” is not the same as “identical”. We are all different and Reb Chaim acknowledges that too:

“For although a person may achieve great success, he may also suspect that perhaps he has failed to realize his true potential. Others might accomplish less, but may have maximized their potential; they are considered to be on a higher level”.

If we are honest with ourselves, we all recognise episodes in our lives in which we know that we could have done better, even if others do not see it. From my own years as a law teacher I can recall classes I gave which the students really enjoyed and thought were particularly good, though the high degree of enjoyment they derived and their consequently high rating of the class were as much attributable to the facts that they had insufficiently prepared for the class and that I, knowing that this would be the case, took less care in my own preparation for it than I could have done. In instances such as this, one has to resist the temptation to feel pride in a job less well done.

 

 

Now is the time!

The summer is here, Pesach is past and the traditional season for learning Pirkei Avot has arrived.

Regular readers of Avot Today will know that, just under a year ago, Targum published my book, Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual. I exercise great self-restraint in not continually plugging it on the Avot Today blog and Facebook group, since I believe that it would be counterproductive to do so and would alienate rather than influence potential purchasers. Having said that, I do believe that the book is worth a read. It is addressed to contemporary readers, it asks lots of questions—some quite provocative—and is even occasionally fun.  Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual does not browbeat readers with heavy it seeks to get the reader to love Pirkei Avot and to adopt it as a moral compass.

If you would like to buy the book, it’s available on Amazon and, if you are in Jerusalem, you can pick up a copy from Pomeranz Booksellers. Given its size (it spans three volumes) and weight, it makes a most imposing barmitzvah or batmitzvah present. If you don’t want to buy the book, no problem—you are welcome to keep reading Avot Today for as long as you feel you are getting something out of it.

Making a fence: do we really need 5,000 commandments?

For those readers who like to ponder a point and reflect on the perhapses and possibilities of life, Eternal Ethics from Sinai by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel can make quite scary reading. Rabbi Hillel’s detailed and forthright account of Pirkei Avot is not for spineless speculators or doubting Thomases. He writes for those who want confident, no-nonsense and reliably authentic orthodox pronouncements on the meanings of the mishnayot of Avot, for those who are troubled by questions but comforted by answers.

An example of what I mean can be seen in Rabbi Hillel’s approach to Avot 1:1, in which the Men of the Great Assembly advise us to “build a fence round the Torah”. Citing the Shelah HaKadosh he writes:

“Moshe Rabbenu gave our people the basic 613 commandments as he received them at Sinai, among them 365 negative commandments. He added a few precautionary decrees as necessary. In succeeding generations the Prophets, and later the Tannaim, instituted additional enactments and decrees in keeping with the needs of their times, a process that has continued throughout the centuries. An increasing number of humrot have become part of our accepted practice.

Why is this so? Surely we are not more pious than our saintly ancestors.

The imposition of additional strictures was essential precisely because of the ongoing deterioration in our nation’s spiritual level. A variety of decrees and restrictions were introduced not because we of the later generations are more meticulous in our religious observance, but because we face challenges more difficult than our ancestors ever knew. As we said, the closer we come to the era of Mashiach, the more virulent the attack of the Forces of Impurity.

At the time of the Giving of the Torah, 613 commandments were enough to keep the evil inclination at bay. Today we would need at least 5,000. Our only defense against the onslaught is humrot: the numerous stringent pious practices, customs, and observances that safeguard our fulfiillment of Hashem’s commandments. These stringent practices all attain the status of Torah-ordained commandments”.

On one level this trenchant summary of our position and of the utility of additional stringencies is unassailable. Almost every word of Rabbi Hillel can be sourced and supported by sound and respected rabbinical authority (I don’t know where the figure of 5,000 commandments comes from. Can anyone let me know?) But this should not preclude us from encouraging debate.

For one thing, the Torah itself cautions against adding anything to it. This does not mean that the rabbis have not been given a fair measure of discretion but, rather, that the rabbis themselves should be careful to do so only where and when a positive outcome can be predicted. We know that this has not always been the case: the Talmud itself records rabbinical decrees that were not accepted by the very people they were supposed to benefit.

For another thing, it is not only the rank and file corpus of the Jewish people that has declined. The same has happened to the rabbis. We no longer have a Knesset Gedolah (Great Assembly) or an authoritative religious court in the form of a Sanhedrin. In its place we have many individual rabbis who, though some are extraordinarily learned and exemplary in their piety, would never themselves claim to be a par with the Tannaim, Amoraim, Rishonim or even the Acharonim of earlier generations. Even the best and greatest of our rabbis, given their humility and their increasing distance from the sort of world in which most non-rabbis face their greatest challenges, lack the authority to make decrees that bind the entire body of the Jewish people. Where such attempts have been made, their acceptance has been patchy at best and may be said to have fostered division and dissent rather than a greater degree of piety or probity. If examples are needed, just look at the different customs and practices adopted even within the most committed communities towards smartphones, the internet and the pursuit of professional qualifications in secular institutions.

There is a final point to ponder. While an increase in humrot and restrictions may indeed achieve the desired result of keeping Jews within the flock, as it were, it also means that those who leave the flock are infringing an increasing number of rules of conduct that have achieved the status of Jewish law. Apart from the obvious impact that this will have on such judgement as they may face when their lives reach their end, there is also the worrying possibility that the increased quantity of laws and stringencies may serve as a bar to repentance and return to Jewish practice.

Rabbi Hillel is right. Fences round the Torah have an important part to play in preserving Jewish observance, culture and identity. But they must be the right fences, and they must not serve as a barrier to re-entry for those who have strayed “off the derech”.

AVOT TODAY miscellany

Is Pirkei Avot becoming more popular? My survey of online citations of mishnayot and baraitot from Avot over the first quarter of 2023 shows a big leap when compared with figures for 2022. Citations are up a whopping 32.6 per cent, from 46 to 61, with the same two favourites leading the pack: Hillel’s teaching at Avot 1:16 (“If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am only for me, what am I; and if not now, when?”) and Rabbi Tarfon’s caution at Avot 2:21 (“It’s not for you to finish the task, but nor are you free to desist from it”). Hillel and Rabbi Tarfon scored 5 cites apiece, with the next two most popular mishnayot earning 3 cites each: these are Yehoshua ben Perachyah (Avot 1:6: “Make a teacher for yourself, acquire a friend and judge people meritoriously”) and Ben Zoma (Avot 4:1: “Who is wise/strong/rich/respected?...”). With the summer Avot season just starting up, expect much more from the Ethics of the Fathers in your online reading material. We will report again in July on citations over the first half of the year.

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The Dee Pirkei Avot Project. In the wake of the tragic, horrific murder of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, the Dee Pirkei Avot Project has been set up, to enable families all over the world to learn Avot le'ilui nishmot the three Dee ladies. If you would like to join the Project and receive each week three mishnayot from Avot together with discussion points, follow this link.

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 Last month’s most popular post: In “Don’t Rush to Answer”, which we posted on 13 March, we revisited Avot 5:9, which lists seven ways in which you can tell whether someone is a chacham, a wise person, or a golem, an uncultivated clod. Why should the way one answers questions be one of the crucial indicators? This Facebook post received 158 views, which made it last month’s readers’ favourite. You can check it out here.  

Curiously, this topic was not so popular with readers of the Avot Today blog, which publishes exactly the same posts at virtually the same time. Blog readers were more inclined to read “Is the Devil Really in the Detail?”, which considered how Pirkei Avot views generalities and specifics. If that is more to your liking, you can find it here.

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Coming soon to a screen near you… If you have the good fortune to live in Jerusalem, this Sunday evening, 16 April 2023, you can watch the world premiere of “Abarbanel: A Man of Many Worlds”. This is the latest release by Rabbi Berel Wein and the Destiny Foundation. The performance commences at 8.00pm at the Pelech Girls’ School, Baka, and if you can’t get there you can watch it on Zoom. I’m embarrassed to say that, when I first saw the promotional material, I read it as “A Man of Many Words”, since the Abarbanel’s commentary on the Torah is extremely long. So is his Nachalot Avot, an excellent if lengthy commentary on Avot which has recently been condensed into a shorter and more easily readable form (see details here). Further details of the movie launch can be found on the illustration that accompanies this post, since at the time of writing there was no information on the Destiny Foundation website.

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Progressing from Pesach: it's the Torah that counts

For many of us, the lead-up to Pesach is one of the busiest and most intense periods of our year. Culminating in the retold narrative of the exodus from Egypt, the rich symbolism of the seder and often bringing family and friends together, it can make great demands on our physical, spiritual and emotional resources. Once we get through the first night, it is tempting to heave a sigh of relief and think to ourselves “Phew! We got there in the end!”

In truth we must resist this temptation. There is still a mountain to climb. Exactly seven weeks after we reach Pesach, we celebrate Shavuot, the festival that marks the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Linking Pesach to Shavuot is the mitzvah of sefirat ha’omer, when we nightly count the 49 days from our redemption to our acceptance of the Torah.

The Torah tells us the story of our emancipation from the slavery and our ascent to a level at which God deemed us fit to be His chosen people and keep His laws. But there is also a baraita in Pirkei Avot that tells us about receiving the Torah. Avot 6:6 lists no fewer than 48 things that enable us to acquire Torah. The Jewish Bible explains how we received the Torah as a nation. Pirkei Avot explains how we can receive it personally, as individuals.

There is almost a one-to-one correspondence between the 49 days of sefirat ha’omer and the 48 means of acquiring Torah. This means that we can focus each day between Pesach and Shavuot on another way to learn, internalize or deepen our understanding of Torah. But what can we do when we reach erev Shavuot, when we still have one day to count but there is no corresponding device for enhancing our Torah knowledge? 

Happily, there is an answer. There is something else we need to do if we are to acquire Torah thoroughly—but it’s not on the list of 48. This “missing” element is chazarah, revision. Whatever we learn in Torah, once is not enough. We should go over our learning again to make sure we truly understand it. So, when Shavuot is almost upon us, we know what we must do!

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Heard from Rabbi Eli Brunner, who heard it from Rabbi Elya Lopian.

 

 

 

Trump, Netanyahu and political credibility: a message for Pesach

Whatever one may think of Donald Trump and Binyamin Netanyahu, they both possess a valuable asset: they enjoy a personal following of supporters who both believe them and believe in them. They are by no means the first politicians to have this gift, which may be found on both sides of the political spectrum and is no respecter of race or gender (think Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, Huey P. Long, Martin Luther King Jr., Eva Peron, Mahatma Gandhi).  

Should we either believe them or believe in them? It can be difficult not to. Donald Trump’s air of assured confidence, Bibi Netanyahu’s mellifluous voice, John F. Kennedy’s energetic insistence—all have demanded our attention.

But Pirkei Avot counsels us to be cautious.

Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, warns us to be careful: politicians who seek our support do so for their sakes, not ours, and do not stand up for us when it is we who need help (Avot 2:3). This is problematic in a democratic society, where this maxim presumably applies to all politicians and political appointees to administrative functions and we therefore have to be equally wary of everyone. We are also urged to pray for the welfare of the state, no matter which politicians are in charge (per Rabbi Chanina segan HaKohanim at Avot 3:2). In this instance, while the prayed-for objective remains the same in each case, our thoughts and wishes will inevitably vary depending on whether the government is one which we solidly support or one which we fervently wish to be rid of.

Avot is not however the place to which we turn for guidance. In the Book of Psalms (Tehillim 146:3) we recite every morning the words אַל-תִּבְטְחוּ בִנְדִיבִים בְּבֶן-אָדָם, שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תְשׁוּעָה (“Put not your trust in princes, nor in any human being since they have no means of saving”). This is quite explicit. Much as we may legitimately listen to and accept the logic of our leaders if it convinces us, we should go no further. We should not place our trust in them (the Malbim goes further: we must not do so). If we find ourselves doing so, we should be asking ourselves some sharp questions about why this is so. One wonders how Rabbi Akiva, whose extraordinary wisdom and Torah learning was legendary, grappled with this question before identifying messianic qualities in the military leader Bar Kochba.

The most extraordinary thing about “Put not your trust in princes” is that these words were penned by a King, David, who would have known better than any sage what it feels like to be trusted and how difficult it is to live with the unfulfilled expectations of one’s subjects (see eg Berachot 3b). In this, David was displaying a remarkable degree of honesty and humility—two qualities that Avot fully advocates. But, while King David recognised the pressures of being believed and trusted, an earlier leader of Israel was concerned with the exact opposite.

The narrative of the Exodus of the Children of Israel, their redemption from slavery in Egypt and their entry into the Promised Land begins when Moses, attracted by the Burning Bush, encounters God. Moses, whom the Torah records as the epitome of humility, asks three questions: Why me? What do I have to say? What if no-one believes me? All three reflect the same thing: Moses’ awareness of his lack of charisma and the absence of anything that could be construed as a personal following. In any comparable setting, one may struggle to imagine God having the same conversation with Donald Trump or Benyamin Netanyahu.

So, this Pesach, when we sit down to the seder service and imagine that it is not our forebears but ourselves who are coming out of Egypt, let us consider for a moment that, while Moses was being tested with the trials of leadership, the rest of us may have felt equally tested by the requirement to buy into his leadership and believe in him. The magnitude of this test cannot be underestimated. It is not until after the Children of Israel have crossed the Reed Sea and seen the dead Egyptian charioteers with their own eyes that the Torah records our belief in Moses (Shemot 14:31). Midrash records that four-fifths of our number never made it out of Egypt at all. Was this a consequence of their failure to accept Moses and his message?

Happy Pesach, everyone, have a chag kasher vesame’ach!

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

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted to the Avot Today Facebook Group in MARCH 2023: 

Wednesday 29 March 2023: Patience! Pirkei Avot is full of encouragement to practise various virtues, but not all are immediately apparent. Where, for example, does it teach about patience?

Monday 27 March 2023: But learning isn't quite everything. The significance and correlative benefits of Torah study are well known. But Avot 6:1 offers the prospect of a wide interpretation of what engagement in Torah actually entails.

Wednesday 22 March 2023: A "fitting" application of a prudent mishnah. Taking a view of what's coming ahead isn't just the prerogative of the scholar. Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel's advice applies to shelf-fillers too.

Friday 17 March 2023: Is the devil really in the detail? How does Pirkei Avot strike a balance between viewing the big picture and narrowing one's perspective?

Wednesday 15 March 2023: Body, soul and a torn-up prayer? How "fixed" does a prayer need to be? Pirkei Avot shines a light on a well-known Talmud passage concerning the last two congregants left in a place of prayer at night.

Monday 13 March 2023: Don't rush to answer! We learn from Avot of the importance of taking one's time before answering a question. There's more than one reason why this is a good reason.

Friday 10 March 2023: For heaven's sake! Forget fun, let's just talk of doing things well. Rabbi Yose HaKohen (Avot 2:17) teaches that whatever we do should be for the sake of heaven. Here Rabbi Berel Wein offers an original explanation of what this means.

Tuesday 7 March 2023: Purim! Handle with care. Many people get quite drunk when celebrating the festival of Purim. This practice comes with responsibilities too.

Monday 6 March 2023: Judging the Chafetz Chaim favourably. In his great book on guarding one's speech, the Chafetz Chaim looks as though he has missed a trick and forgotten to quote a mishnah from Avot. But this need not be the case.

Friday 3 March 2023: What the Dickens! Let's treat our children with respect. Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua (Avot 4:15) sets the bar high for the way we should behave towards our schoolkids. 

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Avot Today blogposts for February 2023
Avot Today blogposts for January 2023
Avot Today blogposts for December 2022
Avot Today blogposts for November 2022
Avot Today blogposts for October 2022
Avot Today blogposts for September 2022