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.
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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