Seeking out the hidden talent

Writing in his Eternal Ethics From Sinai, R’ Yaakov Hillel speaks out on every issue that troubles him. Since he pulls no punches, this makes for reading that is always entertaining, generally stimulating and sometimes extremely discomforting. It also highlights points of conflict and inconsistency within our own thinking.

A case in point is Avot 1:13, where Hillel teaches נְגַד שְׁמָא אֲבַד שְׁמֵהּ. R’ Hillel, who renders this as “One who seeks a big name for himself will lose his own name”, makes no secret of his scorn for people who are only in the world of Torah for the fame, the glory and the self-seeking adulation that accompanies, in particular, the use of the electronic media as a means of promoting the word of God—be this the radio or the social media. In principle I do not think that this position can be faulted. The only problem, as usual, as with the practice. The use of the electronic media to promote Torah attracts attention, praise and celebrity whether the rabbis concerned seek it or not. Even before the era of the internet, rabbis who wrote sefarim, books of profound Torah wisdom, were adulated by readers whom they had never met, the Chafetz Chaim being an obvious example of a man whose scholarship and devotion to Torah brought him celebrity status which he had never desired and for which he had never sought.

But then R’ Hillel writes this:

“Until recently, our people were guided by the daat Torah of distinguished Torah luminaries. The elder Torah scholars of past generations recognized the caliber and potential of their younger peers. … Times have changed, and not for the better. Now, it is the billboards, magazines, leaflets, and direct mailings [note: R’ Hillel does not mention the internet, which is probably the most effective means of promulgating information on the planet] that brought their successors to the notice of the public, giving them the stamp of authority and reliability. For a fairly modest sum, these forums are readily available even to the most unreasonable and unreliable individuals. …

As a result, scholars who are fluent in Talmud and the writings of the halachic authorities are disregarded without a qualm, while a charismatic ignoramus [no name is mentioned] wheedles his way into broadcasting a daily mix of halachic rulings and personal opinion. What do these speakers know of halachah, and what are their opinions worth? Precious little. But the masses are not monitoring out-of-the-way batei midrash to see who is learning Torah through the night—they follow the newspapers and street placards. May G-d spare us, but this is how influence is established nowadays: advertising is everything”.

Strong words indeed. But there is plenty to say in mitigation of this position. Let us consider the following:

•          There is an unprecedented explosion of Torah scholarship both in Israel and the diaspora, as the number of people who dedicate their lives to Torah study increases. As this continues, the number of Torah scholars with impeccable credentials is bound to increase. This makes it increasingly difficult to achieve any sort of consensus as to who are the gedolim baTorah, the great Torah scholars, of our generation.
  
  
•          More and more people seek to learn Torah through means such as the social media, which were not available to previous generations. These new avenues for the promulgation of Jewish scholarship and values cannot be ignored.
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•          R’ Hillel rightly praises those who learn in out-of-the-way places and dedicate their lives to sincere and committed Torah study. But how are we to find them when they do so? We can hardly be blamed for ignoring them when we have no means of even discovering their existence, R’ Hillel praises those exceptional individuals whose modesty leads them to hide their learning and their piety from the light of day (he cited R’ Tzvi Michel Shapira as an example of a tzaddik who strove never to be caught performing a mitzvah)—but how are we to learn from tzaddikim and scholars who do this?
  
  
•          In any event, with so many people far removed from Torah observance, there is much to be said in favour of even the popular ignoramus. In absolute terms, a scholar who knows 100 things is far superior to one who knows only five. But in practical terms, we benefit from a man who knows five things and teaches all five of them than from one who knows 100 but shares only three.

So, while R’ Hillel is right to condemn those who seek self-glorification and to mourn our inability to home in on the genuinely best and most sincerely committed Torah scholars, I do not believe that it is possible to go back to the old days or to pretend that the social media do not exist. In any event, the problem is not new. The cases of Boethus, Tzadok and Shabbetai Tzvi demonstrate that rabbis of lesser quality or with their own misleading agendas were fully capable of causing havoc, and sometimes irrevocable damage, without any printed or electronic media to promote them. At least now the social media can be put to good use in correcting errors, unmasking charlatans and providing links to correct and authoritative Torah sources.

What do you think?

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When knowing stuff is not enough

Pirkei Avot is full of references to the chacham, the person who is wise. We even have a couple of working definitions to help us identify someone who is one. At Avot 4:1 Ben Zoma teaches that the chacham is the person who learns from everyone, while at 5:9 an anonymous Mishnah gives us a check-list to help us distinguish a chacham from a boorish clod.  But is that enough? It is quite possible to learn from everyone but not learn anything of value, and whether a person is a chacham or a boorish clod turns out to be as much a matter of having good manners as anything else.

In his Avot leBanim R' Chaim Druckman, drawing on R’ Naftali Hertz Wiesel’s Gan Na’ul and the Malbim’s commentary on 2 Samuel, argues that there is a further requirement for a chacham: such a person must deploy wisdom for the purposes of good, not evil. On this basis, by keeping the company of such people—and ideally inviting them into one’s home (Avot 1:4)—their good deeds and careful speech can influence people, little by little, to develop the right attitude to life, and the behaviour to go with it, even if they never learned or even heard a word of Torah from them.

This leads to an interesting point to ponder. Can a person be a chacham in terms of possessing an abundance of common sense and emotional intelligence even if that person has no Torah learning? One can certainly learn from such people and can improve oneself by keeping their company. However, if we take it as axiomatic that it is only through the study and practice of the Torah that a Jew can properly acquire and cultivate the perfection of his or her character, it appears that more is required.

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As a footnote, not everyone is familiar with the term “emotional intelligence” and, among those people who know it, not everyone understands it in quite the same way. A good starting point is the handy definition offered on Wikipedia:

… the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they're telling you, and realize how your emotions affect other people. There are five elements that define emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills.

Does this have anything to do with Torah Judaism? Arguably, yes. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks discusses its place when contrasting the roles of priest and prophet. Citing Rav Soloveitchik, Rabbi Sacks writes:

The priest thinks in terms of universal rules that are eternally valid. The prophet is attuned to the particularities of a given situation and the relationships between those involved. The prophet has emotional intelligence. He or she … reads the mood of the moment and how it relates to longstanding relationships. The prophet hears the silent cry of the oppressed, and the incipient anger of Heaven. Without the law of the priest, Judaism would have no structure or continuity. But without the emotional intelligence of the prophet, it would become, as Rav Soloveitchik said, soulless, dry and insensitive [quote taken from “Emotional Intelligence” in Rabbi Sacks’ Covenant and Conversation series, here].

More recently, R' Dr Mordechai Schiffman ("What Makes Excellence -- Character or Intelligence?", here) has this to say:

Throughout the 20th century, the predominant view in psychology was that the most essential factor for success in school was intellectual abilities. Starting in the 1990s, this idea was challenged, with many arguing that other factors, such as emotional intelligence, personality traits, and motivation, play a predominant role in school achievement. This is a fairly contentious issue and the field is far from reaching a consensus on which is more important..., but it is safe to say that everyone agrees that all of these factors can contribute to success.

Is this sort of intelligence something that can be communicated to others so that they may learn from it? If the answer is “yes”, we may with justification describe someone who possesses it as a chacham.

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Worth looking into...

If you are seriously committed to Pirkei Avot, here are four random items that may be of interest.

Avot in the social media 1: The larger the audience, the greater the responsibility. Though I try to keep up with the Dee Pirkei Avot Project, I’m sometimes a week or two behind. It’s a little while since the Project covered Avot 1:11, where Avtalyon teaches:

“Sages, be careful with your words, lest you incur the penalty of exile and be dispatched to a place of evil waters and the disciples who follow you drink and die, so the name of Heaven becomes profaned”.

The Project, based on an idea by Rebbetzin Chana Hughes, comments as follows:

“If you have more wisdom or knowledge, then by definition you have more responsibility; the power that you hold to influence others’ lives can be significant. Even if you have increased expertise in one area, people are likely to ask for your advice and ideas. The message [of Avtalyon] is particularly valuable today when social media enable more people than ever before to influence others. Although influencers may enjoy the rush of success and feeling of having an impact, it is also crucial to keep in mind the weight of responsibility that comes alongside it. The larger the audience, the more potential there is for misunderstanding and the clearer the communication needs to be”.

Avot Today will be revisiting the subject of the social media again soon, with a post on getting the right balance between learning Torah and spreading it—so watch this space!

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Avot in the social media 2. Spreading the word. So far, 2023 has been a good year for citations of Pirkei Avot on the electronic media. By the end of June last year, Google Alerts picked up 106 references to Pirkei Avot on blogs, websites and articles in the popular press and journals. This year, over the same period and using the same search terms, the number of citations had shot up to 169, an increase of nearly 60 per cent. The most frequently-quoted Mishnah is from R’ Tarfon (Avot 2:21): “It’s not for you to finish the work, but neither are you free to leave off doing it”, an aphorism that is as likely to be found in the mouths of a politician or business as being repeated by a Torah teacher. Next most-heavily cited is Hillel’s injunction to be like Aaron (Avot 1:12), loving peace and pursuing it. Hillel, with seven mishnayot in Avot, remains the Tanna whose teachings get the most citations (17), followed by R’ Tarfon (8) and Ben Zoma (5). Surprisingly, given its popularity last year, Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s advice to judge others favourably has hardly been cited at all in 2023. Does this reflect a change in social attitudes, or is there some other explanation?

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Be afraid—or at least respectful! At 4:15, R’ Elazar ben Shammua says:

יְהִי כְבוֹד תַּלְמִידְךָ חָבִיב עָלֶֽיךָ כְּשֶׁלָּךְ, וּכְבוֹד חֲבֵרְךָ כְּמוֹרָא רַבָּךְ, וּמוֹרָא רַבָּךְ כְּמוֹרָא שָׁמָֽיִם

 "Respect for your student should be as precious to you as your own; respect for your friend should be like your awe for your teacher—and you should be as much in awe of your teacher as you are in awe of Heaven”.

This Mishnah has been rendered into a song, Moireh Rabbach, by simcha singers and brothers Shea and Avrumi Berko, who add:

These inspiring words … portray the love and dedication that Rebbeim and Mechanchim have for their precious Talmidim day in day out, which leads to the awesome respect and admiration that parents and Talmidim alike, give in return to their beloved Rebbeim and Mechanchim.

You can access this song on this link (duration 4 minutes 22 seconds).

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Eternal wisdom. There’s a new ArtScroll title on Pirkei Avot, published this spring: R’ Yechiel Spero’s The Eternal Wisdom of Pirkei Avot. According to the publisher’s website:

In The Eternal Wisdom of Pirkei Avos master teacher and storyteller Rabbi Yechiel Spero shares with us an insight, a story, and a takeaway for every mishnah in Pirkei Avos. By combining the brilliant understanding of the Tannaim with stories as contemporary as today, Rabbi Spero offers us a powerful way to bring the messages of Pirkei Avos into our daily challenges and experiences, enhancing our relationships and bringing new, joyful meaning to our lives.

I’ve not yet had a chance to see it for myself but I’m all in favour of bringing the messages of Avot into our daily challenges, whether through stories of our sages or by seeking out novel interpretations of the messages themselves.

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Peace and Pinchas -- again

In my previous post, Picking the Right Fight, I discussed why Hillel (Avot 1:12) urged us to emulate Aharon—and not Moshe or Pinchas—when loving peace and seeking it. After citing episodes from the Torah that suggest that Moshe, for all his greatness, was not particularly successful at pursuing peace, I wrote:

If Hillel’s citation of Aharon in this mishnah invites us to draw comparison with Moshe, it can also be said to do so with regard to his grandson, Pinchas. It is with Pinchas that God establishes His covenant of peace (Bemidbar 25:12) after he restored order and halted a plague through his decisive action (Bemidbar 25:6-8). However, while the name of Pinchas is eternally bound in with peace, this is a form of peace-making that, we are taught, is not for us to emulate. So, taking their track records into account, it would hardly have been appropriate for Hillel to urge us to be talmidim of either Moshe or Pinchas if peace was our objective.

Today, in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, I read the following:

During the Three Weeks (17 Tamuz – 9 Av) we remember the destruction of both Holy Temples in Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the Romans. This is an appropriate time to recall and to follow the examples of Aaron and Pinchas. When we do so, we will avoid the errors that led to destruction, and can we learn the lessons that can bring true peace to our world [my italics].

I cannot believe that any of us today is entitled to follow the example of Pinchas. According to the Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 9:7):

תני שלא ברצון חכמים ופינחס שלא ברצון חכמים אמר ר יודה בר פזי בקשו לנדותו אלולי שקפצה עליו רוח הקודש ואמרה וְהָיְתָה לּוֹ וּלְזַרְעוֹ אַֽחֲרָיו בְּרִית כְּהֻנַּת עוֹלָם וגו

It is taught: This was not met with the approval of the Sages. But could Pinchas have acted against the approval of the Sages? Rabbi Yudah bar Pazi said: “They sought to excommunicate him, if the Holy Spirit had not alighted upon him and said “And he and his seed after him will possess a covenant of eternal priesthood etc…’”

With respect to the author of the piece in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, I think that Pinchas’ killing of Cozbi and Zimri raises two separate issues here. The first is whether he acted correctly. The second is whether we should emulate him and/or follow his example.

Pinchas’ action goes plainly against the norms of conduct by which we are told to act. It is an extrajudicial execution that complies with none of the procedures stipulated by the Written and Oral Torah and by which we are bound. This same action is however not only sanctioned but rewarded at the highest possible level, by God Himself and lies above both human understanding and criticism. Pinchas therefore acted correctly.

Our generation today is not gifted with the sort of direct divine inspiration that guided the hand of not only Pinchas but other worthy personalities of his generation (for example Betzalel). While extrajudicial action is permitted in order to save a life and kill a rodef, an attacker, the circumstances in which we may do so are strictly limited, and if you or I were to act like Pinchas and claim that we were infused by the ruach hakodesh, I doubt if anyone would accept our plea. This, in short, is why I feel that, while we should study and seek to understand the actions of Pinchas, we should not seek to emulate them. 

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Picking the right fight

The second most frequently cited teaching online over the first half of 2023 comes from Hillel, who says (Avot 1:12):

הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה

“Be among the disciples of Aharon—love peace, pursue peace, love people and draw them close to the Torah”.

Like every other Tanna, Hillel is careful with his choice of words, using only enough of them to convey his meaning. This can be frustrating at times. For example, when Hillel asks (at Avot 1:14) “If not now, when?”, Torah scholars have offered many quite different explanations. Careful selection of words however offers a chance for us to ask questions that offer the prospect of discovering a fuller, richer meaning.

Why, we can ask, does Hillel tell us both to be among the disciples of Aharon, a man whose people-friendly commitment to peace and Torah is legendary, and to pursue the same ends as he did? If he had only said, “Be among the disciples of Aharon”, it would be difficult to think of any other ways we could all learn from him, given the stellar peacemaking profile that midrash paints of him. And if Hillel had only said, “love peace, pursue peace, love people and draw them close to the Torah”, what in addition might the Aharon name-check add to our understanding of how we should comply?

One possibility is that Hillel, by mentioning the name of Aharon, is inviting us to make a discreet comparison between him and his elder brother Moshe. Both were at the helm of the nascent Jewish nation in the long march from slavery to the borders of the Promised Land; both were also masters of the newly-given Torah, Moshe being pre-eminent. Their aims and objectives were identical. However, their record in peace-making was not.

Moshe’s first attempt to resolve conflict was a unilateral intervention on behalf of the underdogs, causing the death of an Egyptian (Shemot 2:11-12). His second attempt, this time in a fight between two fellow Jews, resulted in one of them turning on him (Shemot 2:13-15) and his subsequent flight to Midian. Once there, he rescued the daughters of Yitro by driving away the shepherds who were preventing them watering their sheep (Shemot 2:16-19)—once again, the term “driving away” suggests the use of actual physical force or at least the threat of it. After the crossing of the Reed Sea and the Giving of the Torah, Moshe still struggles with situations in which there is a breach of the peace: these include the rebellion of Korach and his followers (Bemidbar 16:29), where he prays for them to suffer an unusual death, as well as the public outrage over the flagrant coupling of Cozbi and Zimri, where Moshe was not able to act decisively.  Aharon in contrast seems to have fared better. Though his response to the people’s demand for a physical replacement for the absent Moshe compromised the Torah and led to the sin of the Golden Calf, he was able to hold the nation together, and when Korach challenged both him and Moshe in the episode mentioned above, he held his peace and did not inflame the already volatile situation by saying anything.

If Hillel’s citation of Aharon in this mishnah invites us to draw comparison with Moshe, it can also be said to do so with regard to his grandson, Pinchas. It is with Pinchas that God establishes His covenant of peace (Bemidbar 25:12) after he restored order and halted a plague through his decisive action (Bemidbar 25:6-8). However, while the name of Pinchas is eternally bound in with peace, this is a form of peace-making that, we are taught, is not for us to emulate. So, taking their track records into account, it would hardly have been appropriate for Hillel to urge us to be talmidim of either Moshe or Pinchas if peace was our objective.

The Divrei Yoel of Satmar Rebbe R’ Yoel Teitelbaum offers a further perspective. Loving peace and pursuing it are not absolutes, he explains: they are means to a greater end because they must themselves be compatible with the Torah. Where a dispute is between righteous, God-fearing people, there is an imperative to make peace that is lacking where the disputants are not. No example is given but it is easy to think of one: a fight between thieves over the allocation of their spoil. Not only may one not love such nefarious people; one may even be required to hate them (the mitzvah of hating the wicked is complex and nuanced: for a useful and accessible source-based discussion of this topic see R’ Dovid Rosenfeld, “Should We Hate the Wicked?”, here).

According to the Divrei Yoel, Aharon had the ability to discern whom he should draw close and from whom he should keep his distance—and this is no easy matter. This is because the yetzer hara, human inclination, tempts us to misidentify disputants and their motives. In short, we should emulate Aharon and learn, from his experiences, to pick the right disputes to settle and the right battles to fight.

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A hang-out for sages or a cause for jealousy?

We recently discussed the curious proposition of Yose ben Yo’ezer Ish Tzeredah (Avot 1:4) that we should wrestle in the dust of wise men’s feet. This time we take a look at the same rabbi’s teaching which precedes it: “Let your home be a meeting place for the wise”. 

This proposition is not at first sight a delphic utterance or enigma: its meaning is plain and does not demand any complex or profound explanation. Thus the Bartenura, endorsing the position of the Rambam, leans that one should make one’s home the natural go-to place for any chachamim to gather together. The benefit for the host is obvious: it is impossible for him or her not to absorb some words of wisdom from them. For Rabbenu Yonah the mishnah contains the subtle implication that, in order to make your home a natural habitat for the wise, you must first attend to your own reputation: if you are not well regarded, they will be unwilling to step inside.

The thing that caught my attention is the fact that so many later commentators, while not negating this standard explanation, are so determined to look beyond it, even to the point of straining the literal meaning of Yose ben Yo’ezer’s words. Rabbi S. R. Hirsch appears to consider the mishnah as referring to a modest meeting between just the host and his wise guest, whom he should welcome warmly and from whom he should gain the maximum benefit from the latter’s Torah knowledge. R’ Meir Lehmann’s take is that, in the (likely) event that one cannot make one’s home a bet midrash, one should make the local bet midrash one’s home. In his Ruach Chaim, R’ Chaim Volozhiner advises us to fill our homes with the sages’ books, so that we can ‘meet’ them head-on by reading and digesting their words. R’ Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) adds that welcoming a Torah scholar into one’s home brings not merely spiritual but also material blessing.

Why do so many later scholars look beyond the plain meaning of the Mishnah? While endorsing it as an ideal, might they also be thinking of the its possible real-world repercussions?

The issue is this. Most of the mishnayot in Avot offer guidance that is ideally directed at us all. Judging others favourably (1:6), greeting others with a smile (1:15), being pleasantly respectful to one’s seniors and one’s juniors (3:16), not gloating over the misfortunes of your foes (4:24) and not influencing the masses to sin (5:21) are typical examples of such advice: the more people follow it, the better it is for everyone. But can the same be said for letting one’s home be a meeting place for the wise?

The literal words of the mishnah carry the seeds of a problem because they appear to be most efficacious in a small community (such as Tzeredah) in which only one such home is opened up as a hang-out for sages. While hosting the wise and making one’s home a meeting place for them is not exactly a zero-sum proposition, the more people open their homes to such meetings, the fewer will be the number of available wise folk and people for the host to welcome in so that they can hear the words of the wise—and the more difficult it will be for any individual to establish his or her home as the place for such praiseworthy get-togethers.

What does this mean in practice? While competition among sages and talmidei chachamim is encouraged because it improves our overall level of Torah knowledge, the same cannot be said about competition between householders. Given the known quality of human nature, it is quite possible to imagine a situation in which a home owner, jealous that a neighbour’s home has attracted gatherings of sages, endeavours to attract better sages and bigger audiences by offering more lavish refreshments. This works to the advantage of those with bigger entertainment budgets rather than those with better personal reputations. One can also imagine the almost tangible buzz of kavod that a person may experience if it is his or her house that becomes the venue of choice for such meetings.

Might it be these concerns that drive more recent commentators to look for non-literal interpretations?

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

If you were away or busy during June, you may have missed all or any of the posts listed below. Do please take the opportunity to enjoy them at your leisure now.

Thursday 29 June: Can It Ever  Be Uplifting to Lower One's Sights? Yose ben Yo'ezer Ish Tzeredah urges us to "wrestle in the dust" of wise visitors to our homes. Can we bring this advice up-to-date for you in your own home?

Tuesday 27 June 2023: When Your Working Lunch Brings Its Own Reward: At Avot 5:22, disciples of Abraham are described as "eating" in this world while inheriting the world to come. Does this mishnah really refer to eating food?

Sunday 25 June 2023: Good Things, Good People, Same Headache: Building on the previous post (below), we ask whether the "ban" on discussing matters beyond our capacity goes further than we may first have imagined.

Thursday 22 June 2023: Bad Things, Good People: A Debate to Avoid? Rabbi Yannai (Avot 4:19) warns us that the classic argument over why had things happen to good people should be avoided.

Tuesday 20 June 2023: Speaking Stones: One Story, Three Views: Love midrash or hate it, Avot can give it deeper meaning. Here's a popular children's tale that isn't for kids at all.

Sunday 18 June 2023: Rambam on Humility: Has This Message Timed Out? A remarkable commentary by Rambam on Avot 4:4 calls into question the applicability of ancient wisdom in modern times.

Thursday 15 June 2023: Love Work -- Seriously? Shemayah teaches us to love work. What on earth can he have had in mind? 

Monday 12 June 2023: The Problem of the Prodigiously-Praised Professor: Avot is full of cautions about cultivating humility and avoiding pride -- but pride feels so good and is dreadfully difficult to shrug off.

Friday 9 June 2023: What Shall We do with the Noxious Neighbour? Distancing oneself from a troublesome neighbour is easy -- in theory -- but compliance with the guidance of Nittai HaArbeli at Avot 1:7 is no easy matter today.

Tuesday 6 June 2023: The Case of the Pious Prankster: What does Avot have to say about a nice guy, friendly and religious, who has a penchant for playing little practical jokes?

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Avot Today blogposts for May 2023
Avot Today blogposts for April 2023
Avot Today blogposts for March 2023
Avot Today blogposts for February 2023
Avot Today blogposts for January 2023
Avot Today blogposts for December 2022

Can it be uplifting to lower one's sights?

At Avot 1:4 Yose ben Yo’ezer Ish Tzeredah offers advice that most of us are unlikely these days to follow literally:

“Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; wrestle in the afar raglehem (“dust of their feet”), and drink their words in thirstily”.

With so many conveniently-located synagogues and batei midrash in almost every Jewish community that a talmid chacham is likely to visit, we only infrequently have the chance to host meetings of the sort of wise person that the mishnah contemplates. And even if we do, the likelihood is that any dust at floor level will be cleaned up well ahead of the event. So if we are to look for practical advice in this teaching, we must look further than a literal meaning for it.

For those of us who regularly hang out in their synagogue or bet midrash, whether to pray, to attend shiurim or just to be sociable and catch up on the latest local news, the place is a sort of home-from-home—and it is almost by definition a meeting place for the wise (or at least for the presumptively wise). But what about wrestling in the dust? How do we manage that?

R’ Yisrael Hopstein (the Kozhnitz maggid, author of the Avodat Yisrael on, inter alia, Pirkei Avot) offers an ingenious suggestion. The “feet” to which R’ Yose refers are not literally feet at all, but a metaphor for those aspects of a wise person’s conduct that are at the bottom of the holiness spectrum: earthly matters that are no less important than one’s lofty spiritual aspirations because we serve our Creator through our material physicality too. We should get to grips with the way a wise person deals with these apparent trivia since even the casual conversations and apparently insignificant actions of such a person can teach one a great deal.

I rather like this approach because I have on many occasions found myself either promoting or relegating a rabbi in my personal hierarchy on account of throwaway lines or small gestures that have either impressed or disappointed me. Is it pettiness on my part that I rate a rabbi more highly when I see him returning a book to its proper place on the shul bookshelf after he has finished his shiur, or that I find it hard to respect a rabbi who carries on speaking for several minutes after his shiur should have ended, while people who turn up for prayers are kept waiting? Should my response to his teachings be affected by my delight that he helps an old man on with his overcoat, or my horror when I find him checking his smartphone while using a urinal?

These things are the afar raglehem and they are important to me. Are they important to you too?

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When your working lunch brings its own reward

Towards the end of the fifth chapter of Avot we find a lengthy Mishnah (Avot 5:22) that contrasts both the qualities of the disciples of Abraham and Balaam and the fate that awaits them:

Whoever possesses these three traits is of the disciples of our father Abraham, but whoever possesses three different traits is of the disciples of the wicked Balaam. The disciples of our father Abraham are magnanimous, having a meek spirit and a humble soul. The disciples of the wicked Balaam are mean, having a haughty spirit and a greedy soul. What is the difference between the disciples of our father Abraham and the disciples of the wicked Balaam? The disciples of our father Abraham eat [ochelin] in this world and inherit [nochalin] the world to come... The disciples of the wicked Balaam inherit purgatory and descent into the pit of destruction… [citations omitted].

There is a pleasing resonance between the Hebrew words for eat and inherit—ochelin and nochalin. However, ochelin is a word that is not generally translated or explained literally. Rather, it is taken as a metaphor. ArtScroll and the Sacks and Birnbaum siddur translations render the word as “enjoy”, while Chabad.org prefers “benefit”. Those commentators who do render the word literally as “eat” usually feel obliged to explain that it is a metaphor for enjoying a benefit. The idea of ochelin meaning “enjoying” or “benefiting” is not unique to this mishnah; it is paralleled by a mishnah at Pe’ah 1:1, which lists mitzvot which one is ochel in this world while the keren kayemet (the capital remains intact) in the world to come.

In his Tiferet Tzion al Masechet Avot R’ Yitzchak Ze'ev Yadler focuses on the idea of eating in its literal sense rather than on the metaphor for benefit or enjoyment. It is a commonplace that the Jew who is committed to Torah study and observance can clock up credit in the world to come for every bit of learning he engages and every mitzvah he does. But nobody can spend all their time learning and performing mitzvot. Even a talmid chacham has to take time off to eat, and many people spend a significant proportion of their productive day in working for a living in order to put food on their table for themselves and their families. The point of this mishnah, R’ Yadler says, is that, when one’s eating, drinking and going out to work is done leshem Shamayim (“for the sake of Heaven”), even those activities will clock up credit in the world to come.

This perspective is important for us in terms of our attitude towards what we and others do. Whether we are drawn away from Torah learning, from performing mitzvot and from generally doing good deeds in order to work for a living, we should not consider this to be Torah time that has been lost forever but rather as time that has been invested in a different portfolio and which is also meritorious—if it is done in the right frame of mind and with the right intentions. And those of us who have time to sit and learn Torah should be aware that this is not the only route to serving God.

Good things, good people, same headache?

The previous post, “Bad things, good people: a debate to avoid?”, discussed various problems arising from Rabbi Yannai’s teaching at Avot 4: 19 that it lies outside our power to understand either the tranquillity of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous. This post generated a lot of comments and also made me think further about Rabbi Yannai’s teaching.

It seems to me that, if we are unable to understand why it is that God can let good things happen to bad people, and vice versa, we have exactly the same problem trying to understand why good things happen even to good people. In order to do so, we have to juggle with the following propositions:

• .       We do not receive any rewards from God in this world, i.e. in our own lifetimes.
  
  
• .       There is however a list of mitzvot for which God gives a reward in both this world and the next.
  
  
• .       A person’s suffering in this world may be yissurin shel onesh (afflictions of punishment) or yissurin shel ahavah (afflictions based on God’s love) in order to improve the quality of that person’s enjoyment of the world to come (Berachot 5a).
  
  
• .       God always pays His debts and therefore rewards even the wicked for any good deeds that they have done in their lifetime in order to deprive them of an eternal reward in the world to come.

Adding this all together, since we are required to give others the benefit of the doubt when we judge them (Avot 1:6), it seems that we should be careful not to draw any negative conclusions from the fact that good things keep happening to someone in their lifetime. The moral is therefore clear: we should take care not to judge others at all, and should be even more careful not to judge God.

Bad things, good people: a debate to avoid?

Most of the content of Pirkei Avot consists of advice as to how a conscientious Jew should behave. Some of that advice is couched in positive terms, when the rabbis of the mishnah explicitly tell us what to do (e.g. acquire for yourself a friend, pursue peace, judge others favourably, don’t stare at people in their moment of disgrace). Other advice is implicit. For example, by describing four permutations of people who are either swift or slow to anger and either swift or slow to calm down again, the mishnah makes it plain which sort of person we should seek to be.

A small number of mishnayot do neither of these things. One such mishnah is the teaching of Rabbi Yannai (Avot 4:19):

 אֵין בְּיָדֵֽינוּ לֹא מִשַּׁלְוַת הָרְשָׁעִים, וְאַף לֹא מִיִּסּוֹרֵי הַצַּדִּיקִים

This is taken to mean that it lies outside our power to understand either the tranquillity of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous. If this mishnah is not telling us what to do, or at least alluding to the path we should do best to take, what is it doing in this tractate, surrounded as it is by quantities of powerful moral instruction?

When we read this teaching, our minds are immediately drawn to the age-old debate over why good things happen to bad people and vice versa. This debate features in the Babylonian Talmud (Berachot 7a) and it was certainly known in Mishnaic times. Commentators on Avot have a tendency to be drawn into this discussion too. The bottom line is that God, being omniscient and all-just, possesses both the information and the understanding that are necessary for the implementation of His plan, a plan which cannot be known to us and which involves a settling of accounts in a future world to which we are not privy.

It seems to be that Rabbi Yannai, far from engaging in this debate, is actually calling on us not to become involved in it either. A later mishnah (Avot 5:20) points out that disputes that are “for the sake of Heaven”, such as those between Hillel and Shammai, will have a constructive outcome, while those not for that end will not. Can Rabbi Yannai be suggesting to us that, if a debate is doomed to have no constructive outcome, as is the case here where we are either judging God or second-guessing his decisions, it must by definition be one that is not for the sake of Heaven?

 

Speaking stones: one story, three views

The Torah relates how the patriarch Yaakov, in his first night away from home, finds himself alone on a mountain. He takes some stones and places them under his head (Bereshit 28:11); in the morning there is just one stone (ibid., 28:18) and he consecrates it to God. This is the inspiration for a tale that is familiar to most children who attend Jewish schools. An aggadic tale, which Rashi includes in his commentary on the Torah, it is of ancient provenance, being cited in the Babylonian Talmud (Chullin 91b; see also Bereshit Rabbah 68:11). As the Talmud succinctly puts it:

All the stones gathered themselves together into one place and each one said: “Upon me shall this righteous man rest his head”. Thereupon all [the stones], a Tanna taught, were merged into one.

A small child, hearing this tale in class, is likely to accept it as fact.  Yaakov was such a good person that each stone wanted to be the lucky one to have his head rest upon it—and there is nothing strange about stones arguing with one another and shouting “me, me!” since that’s what little children do too.

When that same child becomes a teenager, this tale may be measured against an increased degree of life experience and a hostile, if not cynical, stance towards the uncritical acceptance of teachings. By this view, surely this tale is a complete fabrication. Everybody knows that stones can’t talk, let alone argue; they are the very embodiment of speechlessness. Nor do they have feelings. And how would they have any clue as to who Jacob was anyway? Also, the merger of stones into a single unit would be a most striking and impressive miracle so why, if this event actually happened, would the Torah not spell it out for us instead of waiting for a rabbi to infer it from a small grammatical quirk over a thousand years later?

Later, as the child matures into a thinking and discerning adult, this tale might well be appreciated in quite a different light. Maybe the function of this tale is to describe a greater truth and to teach us something that is not only profound but of value in our own lives today. And perhaps more can be gained by reading some of our traditional wisdom into the Torah than in seeking only to squeeze meaning out of it.  The following explanation is drawn from an explanation by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv:

The stones taken by Jacob were three in number. These stones represented the three pillars upon which, according to Shimon HaTzaddik (Avot 1:2), the world stands: Torah (representing mankind’s means of self-improvement), avodah (serving God) and gemillut chasadim (acts of kindness towards others).  A case can be made for each of these pillars to be the foundational pillar, of greater importance than the others. Indeed, the Tanach supplies the textual ammunition that supports the claim of each of them. But God, by fusing the three into a single stone, teaches that, just as three legs are needed in order to support any chair or table, so too does a combination of Torah, service to God and cultivating good relations within mankind create the condition of stability necessary for society to exist.

This is not just a message for society. According to the Maharal it is a message for the individual too, since each of us is our own little world. We have to get the balance right. Without attending to all three facets of our lives, we are each diminished as individuals. 

Rambam on humility: has this message timed out?

My usual response to commentaries on Pirkei Avot is a warm and accepting one. When they span the ages I can usually both appreciate and empathise with the personal emotional responses of rabbis of centuries ago when they grappled with the same issues as face us now. That is why I am so disturbed when I come across something that jars deeply against my own cultural sensitivities. If the value of Avot is for all time, the explanations and comments of our sages should surely be of the same quality. But is it possible that our own lives and values, and our own function as human beings and servants of God in the world He created for us, are so different from theirs that their teachings no longer address us?

In this context I have been troubled by Rambam’s lengthy and at times impassioned commentary on Avot 4:4. This short mishnah is taught in the name of Rabbi Levitas Ish Yavneh:

מְאֹד מְאֹד הֱוֵי שְׁפַל רֽוּחַ, שֶׁתִּקְוַת אֱנוֹשׁ רִמָּה

In translation: “Be very, very humble, for the hope of mortal man is the worm”.

The mishnah itself is troublesome enough. Why is it even a mishnah, when it appears as a verse that has been cut-and-pasted from Ecclesiasticus—the book of Ben Sira that was not accorded canonical status by the Great Assembly. And no-one hopes for worms. Our sages have dealt with these issues, but Rambam’s commentary requires attention because it contains a most remarkable passage which, it seems to me, is quite unparalleled by commentaries anywhere else on Pirkei Avot:

והנה ראיתי בספר מספרי המדות שנשאל לא' מן החשובים החסידים ונאמר לו איזה יום הוא ששמחת בו יותר מכל ימיך אמר יום שהייתי הולך בספינה והיה מקומי בפחות שבמקומות הספינה בין חבילות הבגדים והיו בספינה סוחרים ובעלי ממון ואני הייתי שוכב במקומי ואחד מאנשי הספינה קם להשתין ואהי נקל בעיניו ונבזה שהייתי שפל בעיניו מאד עד שגלה ערותו והשתין עלי ותמהתי מהתחזק תכונת העזות בנפשו וחי השם לא כאבה נפשי למעשהו כלל ולא התעורר ממני כחי ושמחתי שמחה גדולה כשהגעתי לגבול שלא יכאיבני בזוי החסר ההוא ולא הרגישה נפשי אליו ואין ספק שזאת תכלית שפלות הרוח עד שיתרחק מן הגאוה:

In translation: And look, I saw in a book from the books on middot [i.e. personal qualities] that one of the important pious men was asked: "Which day is the one upon which you rejoiced more than any of your days?" He said: "The day that I was travelling on a ship and my place was in the lowest places of the ship, among bundles of clothing. There were also traders and men of means on the ship. I was lying in my place and one of the men on board the ship got up to urinate. I was insignificant in his eyes, lowly and of such insignificance in his eyes that he exposed himself and urinated on me. I was astonished by the sheer intensity of the brazenness in his soul. But, as God lives, my soul was not at all pained by his action and I did not bestir myself. I rejoiced with great joy that I reached the extreme in that the disgrace caused by this deficient person did not pain me and [that] my soul did not feel [anything] against him." There is no doubt that this is the very limit of lowliness of spirit, to the point of being distanced from arrogance.

 I do not know whether this episode actually happened or whether it was constructed for educational purposes. If readers can enlighten me as to its source, I shall be grateful. Be that as it may, I cannot help finding it unpleasant and objectionable and I find it hard to imagine that any sane and conscientious Jew today, finding himself or herself in the same situation, would react in similar fashion.

For one thing, Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:18 endorses the principle that mankind is beloved of God because it is created in His image. Failing to stop this brazen act or at least to take evasive action is a passive condonation of the desecration of God’s image, as it were, and the dignity of one’s fellow humans.

Avot 6:6 reminds us that one of the ways of acquiring Torah is through loving rebuke. This does not exclusively mean receiving rebukes in good heart but also embraces rebuking others in a spirit of love and friendship. Where is the rebuke here? Even if the offending party had refrained from urinating on this pious man, the very act of exposing himself should itself earn rebuke.

As many earlier posts on Avot Today have affirmed, the Ethics of the Fathers holds humility to be an important component of the make-up of a practising Jew.  But is the conduct of the pious man in the Rambam’s story even correctly construed as humility? By his own admission he held no feelings towards the offending fellow traveller at all. But what has this to do with humility? It looks as much like an abrogation of any feelings of care or responsibility towards a fellow human being. Can this form of humility—if it even be humility—be truly a means by which a person is better equipped to learn Torah, to serve God and to be a useful contributor to the society of which he is part?

Love work -- seriously?

Love, according to the famous lyric, is a many-splendored thing. We spend much of our waking time giving it, receiving it from others, seeking it and feeling miserable or even depressed when we can’t find it. Love is also a much over-used word. Objects of love, in colloquial terms, include sports teams, TV and movie stars, musicians, chocolate cake and a refreshing shower at the end of a long, hard day. For the committed Jew, one’s finest and most powerful love is reserved for God, wherever one might find or relate to Him.

In the first part of a three-part mishnah, Shemayah teaches us אֱהוֹב אֶת הַמְּלָאכָה, “Love work!” What does this mean? The more one thinks about this question, the less easy it is to answer. Many people gain enjoyment from their gainful occupation. Sometimes it is the work they do, sometimes the money they earn, or it may be the facilities or one’s the colleagues that provide the greatest degree of pleasure—but is this “love” in any meaningful sense of the word?

The classical commentators explain how important it is to work. According to Rabbenu Yonah and the Bartenura, one should work even if there is no compelling need to do so, since it keeps one occupied and staves off boredom. The commentary ascribed to Rashi adds that one should certainly work when one needs to do so, rather than sit on one’s hands and expect others to provide support on account of one’s feeling of self-importance.

Later commentators add further perspectives to these views. Thus Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner adds that it is better to earn one’s keep and be a follower than to be a communal leader who is funded by others, an explanation that links to the next part of the Mishnah that urges one to hate leadership. Maharam Shik focuses on the idea of the work being the study of Torah while Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski looks at the work performed by those who wield authority. Irving M. Bunim highlights the fact that the word Shemayah uses for “work” is melachah, indicating a craft or skill, rather than manual labour. But even so, it is not self-evident why one should love work, or even why Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi should include this teaching in Avot at all, when Ben Zoma’s teaching at Avot 4:1 cites a parallel verse from Tehillim 128:2 יְגִֽיעַ כַּפֶּֽיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ (“If you eat of toil of your hands, you are fortunate are you and it is good for you”).

This passage from Rabbi Yaakov Hillel, Eternal Ethics from Sinai, set me thinking. Citing Rabbi Shlomo Eliyahu’s Kerem Shlomo, he writes:

“A merchant buys flax in America, and ships it to China to be spun into threat. From there, it goes to Europe to be woven into fabric. The fabric is sent to Eretz Yisrael where it is cut and sewn into garments worn in honor of Shabbat. Its use for a mitzvah elevates the holy sparks invested in all of the many components of the finished product. This is the real reason why we should love work—because of the spiritual elevation of the nitzotzot [sparks] that it brings about”.

Regardless of one’s view of Kabbalah, what shines through here is the notion that the work one loves need not be one’s own work at all, but work that is done by others for positive purposes, whether related to a mitzvah or simply to the benefit of others. One’s love in such a situation is therefore a deep feeling of gratitude and appreciation of the work that is done for one’s benefit, whether one has any connection with those who do the work or not.