Knowledge or wisdom?

At Avot 2:6 Hillel teaches:

אֵין בּוּר יְרֵא חֵטְא, וְלֹא עַם הָאָֽרֶץ חָסִיד, וְלֹא הַבַּיְּשָׁן לָמֵד, וְלֹא הַקַּפְּדָן מְלַמֵּד, וְלֹא כָל הַמַּרְבֶּה בִסְחוֹרָה מַחְכִּים, וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ

 

[Translation] “A boor cannot be sin-fearing; an ignoramus cannot be pious; a meek one cannot learn; a short-tempered person cannot teach; nor does anyone who does much business grow wise—and, in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man”.

The part of this Mishnah I’d like to discuss is Hillel’s statement וְלֹא כָל הַמַּרְבֶּה בִסְחוֹרָה מַחְכִּים. Translated here as “nor does anyone who does much business grow wise” (per chabad.com; the ArtScroll Avot is quite similar), it can also mean “nor does anyone who does much business make others wise” (see eg Tiferet Yisrael, Yachin; Lehmann-Prins Avoth). Of the two meanings I personally prefer the second since the word מַחְכִּים, where it appears in Avot 6:6, is understood to mean making someone else wise, rather than oneself.

Whichever meaning you prefer, you may want to think about an explanation of it which appeared a little while ago in the weekly Dee Project on Pirkei Avot:

“Although pursuing a livelihood is important, involvement with business can sometimes detract from a person’s wisdom. It’s important that a person’s mind is focused and one must be aware of the potential of business matters to distract from the important pursuit of wisdom”.

As a child, I had it drummed into my head—both by my father and by my teachers—that there was all the world of difference between wisdom and knowledge. 

You can be wise without being knowledgeable, which is why very clever people make rational but erroneous deductions in the absence of useful data. 

You can also be knowledgeable without being wise, like one of my friends at university whose phenomenal recall of facts was not matched by his wisdom: he knew far more law than I did, but was twice unable to pass his first-year examinations and left college with nothing to show for his two years there.

Somewhere in this classification there is also the butt of many Jewish jokes: the Phudnik ( = a Nudnik with a PhD).

In a best-case scenario a person will acquire both enough data to make his wisdom work for him and enough wisdom to apply his data to good effect. Involvement in business is potentially an avenue through which one can achieve both those goals. And it is not the time spent engaging in business that is relevant here, but the quality of one’s thoughts while so engaging.

I’d like to qualify this part of Hillel’s Mishnah by tying it in with the message of two other teaching from Avot.

The first is Ben Zoma’s reminder at Avot 4:1 that a person is wise when he can learn something from everyone, be it his rabbi, his math teacher, his children or the people who comprise his business environment.

The second is Rabban Gamliel ben Rebbi’s advice at Avot 2:2 in praise of combining Torah study with a worldly occupation because the blend of the two of them causes sin to be forgotten. Which sin? One might humbly suggest that it’s the sin of failing to recognise the difference between wisdom and knowledge. 

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And now for something a little different

Recent developments in Israel and the diaspora have generated a host of sombre social media posts and opinion pieces, as well as an impressive array of positive and inspirational material. Just for a change, here are three short items that are neither.

The bread and salt diet

From Claude Tusk comes what we can fairly describe as “food for thought”.

In Avos 6:4 it is taught: “Thus is the way of Torah: eat bread with salt…”. But in Kiddushin 62a, when expounding the words חֶרֶב תְּאֻכְּלוּ (“You shall be fed with the sword”: Isaiah 1:20), we learn: “Stale bread baked in a large oven with salt and onions is as harmful to the body as swords”.

Does that mean, Claude asks, that a Torah-true diet should not include onions, or is the quality of the bread the issue?

Top of the pops

As regular readers will recall, Avot Today keeps track of all the citations of mishnayot and baraitot in Avot that it can find on the social media, using Google Alerts. In the third quarter of 2023 (July to September) we counted 68 all told, July being the peak month with 28 cites.  The most popular Mishnah, with 5 ‘hits’ for this quarter and 17 for the year to date, was Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching at 2:21: “It’s not for you to finish the task, but neither are you free to withdraw from it”.  Next, on 4, is Ben Zoma at 4:1: “Who is strong? The person who can control himself”.  The biggest surprise was the decline in popularity of Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s teaching at 1:6 that we should judge others favourably. Last year it was on everyone’s lips, as it were, but it has only notched up 3 citations for the first nine months of 2023.

 

Fresh opportunity to go astray?

Rabban Gamliel, son of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, promotes the virtues of combining the study of Torah with a worldly occupation (a.k.a. a job) on the basis that the combination of the two causes sin to be forgotten (Avot 2:2). On this the Maharam Shik raises a point worth pondering. Ideally a person who learns Torah 24/7 shouldn’t be thinking of sinning at all. But if he is the sort of person who does contemplate sin, would it not be the case that splitting his time between learning and work will not stop him sinning at all, but will simply provide him with extra opportunities to sin in the workplace? Before you dismiss this as a facetious suggestion, ask if you have never come home with pens, stationery, customer samples or other items that did not belong to you. According to Incorp.com, employee theft and fraud cost US businesses between $20-50 billion annually—and then there is the temptation to stray beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour towards one’s colleagues. If you want to stay on the straight and narrow, it might be safer to stay in the Bet Midrash…

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Repentance: never too early?

Here’s a thought for Shabbat Bereshit.

Some mishnayot in Avot are discussed only on account of what they say. Others offer an extra dimension for discussion on account of the way they say it. One such mishnah is this teaching by Rabbi Eliezer (Avot 2:15):

יְהִי כְבוֹד חֲבֵרָךְ חָבִיב עָלֶֽיךָ כְּשֶׁלָּךְ, וְאַל תְּהִי נֽוֹחַ לִכְעוֹס. וְשׁוּב יוֹם אֶחָד לִפְנֵי מִיתָתָךְ. וֶהֱוֵי מִתְחַמֵּם כְּנֶֽגֶד אוֹרָן שֶׁל חֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי זָהִיר בְּגַחֲלָתָן שֶׁלֹּא תִכָּוֶה, שֶׁנְּשִׁיכָתָן נְשִׁיכַת שׁוּעָל, וַעֲקִיצָתָן עֲקִיצַת עַקְרָב, וּלְחִישָׁתָן לְחִישַׁת שָׂרָף, וְכָל דִּבְרֵיהֶם כְּגַחֲלֵי אֵשׁ

[Translation] Let the honour of your friend be as precious to you as your own, and don’t be easy to anger. Repent one day before your death. Warm yourself by the fire of the sages, but beware in case you get burned by its embers; for their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting is the sting of a scorpion, their hiss is the hiss a serpent, and all their words are like fiery coals.

This mishnah is introduced by a statement that Rabbi Eliezer and the four rabbis whose mishnayot come after his own each taught three things. However, if you count them, you will see that there appear to be not three things but four. Leaving aside the frivolous suggestion that the Tannaim couldn’t count and the unprovable hypothesis that an extra teaching was added to the other three after the original mishnah was composed, the statement that R’ Eliezer teaches just three things screams out for a plausible explanation.

Many rabbis have solved this problem by linking two of the four together as a single item of guidance. Perhaps the most popular combination is that which binds “Let the honour of your friend be as precious to you as your own” to “Don’t be easy to anger”. This is quite reasonable. The two axioms are next to each other and they fit in terms of content: if you are quick to get angry with someone, you are not exactly treating their kavod, their honour and sense of self-respect, as you would your own.

The Maggid of Kozhnitz, in his Avot Yisrael, offers another possibility. He yokes “Don’t be easy to anger” with “Repent one day before your death”. In doing so he invokes a teaching of R’ Levi of Berditchev that, if a person wants to lose his temper with someone else, he should do his repentance first because the day one loses one’s temper with another is like the day of one’s death. Comparison of an angry person with a dead one is made explicitly in the Zohar: as with death, so with anger, one’s soul departs as it were from one’s body.

In practical terms, the Avot Yisrael advises us to stop, think, do perform a vidui (“confession”) and then repent before whipping oneself up into a rage. The promise is that, if you seriously follow this procedure, you won’t get angry at all. Though Avot Yisrael does not add this, we note that he is advocating a practical regime for suppressing his inclination to get angry which is compliant with Ben Zoma’s apothegm at Avot 4:1 that we call a person “strong” not because he conquers cities but because he can curb his own yetzer, his inclination to do wrong.

What does this discussion connect with Parashat Bereshit, the biblical account of the Creation and of God’s subsequent evaluation of the creation of humankind?

We learn that teshuvah, repentance, is no mere afterthought.  According to Pirkei d ’R’ Eliezer, teshuvah was created even before the Seven Days of Creation. One can take this literally, of course, but it is more meaningful to take it as a warning to us all that we should stop for a moment before we act, and take stock of our intended actions. Are we about to do something that we might (or certainly will) regret and come to repent, or are we doing something that our consciences can comfortably live with?

When we read parashat Bereshit we see various aspects of teshuvah. Adam and Chava sin but do not repent. They are punished severely. Cain sins and, while he does not formally repent, when he says that his punishment is more than he can bear, there is arguably a sign of charatah, regret, in the implication that, had Cain known the severity of his punishment, he would not have killed his brother.  Later it is God who repents, as it were, for having created humankind: though on one level He in his omniscience would have known that we found fail to exercise properly the gift of bechirah (free will) He gave us, by expressing both His disappointment of us and His preparedness to tolerate us despite our faults, He teaches us that, along with teshuvah, the world we live in is sustained by forgiveness and forbearance. We would do well to emulate His example.

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Don't look now -- or ever

Horrendous material has been released by Hamas, featuring footage of violent, barbaric and inhuman treatment of Jews captured and kidnapped in last Shabbat’s invasion of Southern Israel. Many institutions and individuals are urging that children, in particular, should not see these images since they are likely to disturb anyone viewing them and may inflict deep psychological scars. This toxic, hate-filled material is being publicized through TikTok, a social media app that is popular among teenagers, a vulnerable and impressionable audience.

For me, the question is not one of whether children and young adults should be shielded from these vile materials, but of whether anyone of any age should choose to see them at all.

Pirkei Avot offers guidance here, at Avot 4:23, where R’ Shimon ben Elazar says, at the end of a four-part teaching on respecting other people’s wishes and personal space:

אַל תִּשְׁתַּדֵּל לִרְאוֹתוֹ בְּשַֽׁעַת קַלְקָלָתוֹ

[Translation] “Do not endeavor to see [your friend] at the time of his degradation”.

Early commentators on Avot have little or nothing to say on this topic since, for them, its meaning and its import are self-evident. But we now live in a technological environment in which the person viewing events may be distant in both time and space from what the mishnah calls the “time of degradation”; he may replay offensive and degrading material as often as he wants and can also forward it to any number of friends and followers.

While the underlying reason for R’ Shimon ben Elazar’s axiom is not hard to discern, we can add to it. In the first place, the act of watching the Hamas video clips may have an adverse impact on the voyeur. If any reader with the appropriate qualifications in psychology can supply us with some useful reference material on this issue, I should be most grateful.

Further, it is not hard to imagine the discomfort and embarrassment of a person to whom you are talking if someone comes to realise that you have watched them taking part in humiliating acts that were designed to break their spirit and dehumanise them. Having already suffered once, these tragic victims may (according to Midrash Shmuel) worry that you have enjoyed the spectacle and have even obtained some gratification from it. A further dimension is the distress of the humiliated person’s family, when they know you have been watching things that should never have been done to a loved one, let alone made public for the world’s entertainment (see R’ Abraham J. Twerski, Visions of the Fathers).

However tempting it may be to watch real-life scenes that correspond to the horrific descriptions which previously existed only in the form of the podcast or the written word, do please resist that temptation. I believe that you will be the better, and the stronger, for doing so.

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Dealing with conspiracy theorists

Most problems I have with my fellow humans these days can easily be dealt with by a clear and direct application of one or more maxims drawn from Pirkei Avot. But this is not a magic formula and there are times when my normally successful policy of using Avot as my moral compass is clouded with uncertainty. Here is a case in point.

I have among my friends a very sweet gentleman of relatively advanced years. He is an honest and upright citizen. He makes charitable donations, attends synagogue regularly, greets others with a warm smile and likes to help people when he can. But—and for me this is a major but—he is an ardent believer in a number of so-called conspiracy theories. Even harder for me, even though he does not say so in as many words, he assumes that his friends and acquaintances share his beliefs and seems a little hurt when he discovers that they don’t.

 I’m reluctant to argue with my friend about the validity or veracity of the theories to which he subscribes. This is not just because I don’t like to upset him but also because a key feature of every good conspiracy is that it is impossible to disprove. Avot charges us to accept the truth when we encounter it (Avot 5:9); it is, after all, one of the three means through which the world endures (Avot 1:18). It is also one of means through which one acquires mastery of the Torah (Avot 6:6). But how does one establish the truth in the first place, when every fact that one offers up as a challenge to a fanciful theory is dismissed as being part of a cover-up by the conspiratorial authorities in order to bar us from access to the ‘real’ truth.

Elsewhere Avot tells us to learn how we should answer an apostate (Avot 2:19), but my friend is not a heretic. We are also charged with distancing ourselves from a bad neighbour and with taking care not to link up with someone who is wicked (Avot 1:7) —but my friend is neither of these things.  On the other hand I don’t want to leave him with the last word in any conversation with me because, if I do not contradict him, he will assume that I agree with him.

My problem appears to be echoed by the words of the wise king Solomon (Proverbs 26:4-5). He first says אַל-תַּעַן כְּסִיל כְּאִוַּלְתּוֹ פֶּן-תִּשְׁוֶה-לּוֹ גַם-אָתָּה (“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, in case you act like him”) but then offers the opposite advice too: עֲנֵה כְסִיל כְּאִוַּלְתּוֹ פֶּן-יִהְיֶה חָכָם בְּעֵינָיו (“Do answer a fool according to his folly, in case he becomes a wise man in his own eyes”). 

So how should I respond when my friend buys into his conspiracy theories and expects me to agree with him? Suggestions, anyone?

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When war breaks out

We have all been shocked and distressed by the sudden turn of events that transformed the tranquil spiritual haven of Shabbat and the festival of Shemini Atzeret in Israel into a bloodbath of terror, chaos, violence and death. At the time of writing this piece, how this could have happened is beyond comprehension. We can only mourn the dead, console the living, take care to safeguard our own lives, pray that no more innocent human life should be lost on either side -- and remember to place our trust in God.

What does Pirkei Avot have to offer in a situation such as this? The Ethics of the Fathers is not a soldiers’ manual. One of its overarching themes is that of peace. We are taught to love and pursue it (Avot 1:12) since it is one of the three bases upon which the world endures (Avot 1:18) and one of the 48 qualities that enable a person to acquire Torah (Avot 6:6). Anger and violence are not condoned, and the praise accorded to strength is not that of the warrior but of the person who exercises self-control (Avot 4:1). Beyond that, the maxims and principles articulated in Avot are not suited to military conflict. Is it meaningful to expect a soldier to judge favourably the sniper who his aiming to shoot him, or to greet his enemy with a happy, smiling face?

But Avot will have an important place in the unfolding of the story of this tragic conflict. Eventually the events leading up to the Hamas invasion will be subjected to the close scrutiny of an official inquiry. This is where Avot is particularly relevant, since another of its overarching themes is that of justice—another of the bases upon which the world endures. The tractate contains substantially more references to the judicial process than it does to peace, and there is good reason for this. Peace is an end that we seek to achieve, while justice is both an end in itself and a means of achieving it.

Yehudah ben Tabbai teaches (Avot 1:8):

כְשֶׁיִּהְיוּ בַּעֲלֵי הַדִּין עוֹמְדִים לְפָנֶֽיךָ, יִהְיוּ בְעֵינֶֽיךָ כִּרְשָׁעִים, וּכְשֶׁנִּפְטָרִים מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ יִהְיוּ בְעֵינֶֽיךָ כְּזַכָּאִין, כְּשֶׁקִּבְּלוּ עֲלֵיהֶם אֶת הַדִּין

When disputants stand before you, consider them as being guilty; and when they leave your presence, regard them as innocent because they have accepted your ruling.

This mishnah does not overtly mention commissions of inquiry, but the principles it incorporates are highly relevant. In his Avot leVanim, R’ Chaim Druckman links it to the tail-end of a verse from Leviticus:

בְּצֶדֶק, תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ

“In righteousness you shall judge your fellow” (Vayikra 19:15).

Citing explanations of this Torah snippet by Rambam and Rashi, R’ Druckman builds on his theme that the “righteousness” referred to here covers the procedural aspects of a hearing as well as its decision. It is imperative to treat everyone who comes before a tribunal in a fair, open and impartial manner.

What does this entail? For one thing it means letting everyone have their say, not pressing some parties and witnesses to say more while seeking to stifle or curtail what others have to say. For another thing it means disregarding rank, status, fame or notoriety of those who come under scrutiny.

All of this is in practice more difficult than one might at first think. The public will, quite understandably, looking for people to blame. These may be politicians or those with military and intelligence expertise. They may be senior or junior, and either possessing military or government experience or lacking it. Both the public and the investigators will have been exposed, inevitably, to a large quantity of information promulgated by the media, some of which may be factual but which may also have been designed to shape public opinion.

The responsibility of those who examine the lead-up to this war, its conduct and possibly its consequences is immense, and the pressure to which they will be subjected may be close to overwhelming. Nonetheless, Avot urges them to take strength and conduct their duties in a manner that is absolutely transparent and impartial, so that there can be no accusations of cover-ups, no allegations of favouritism—and so that, with the truth at its disposal, Israel will be in a position to dispense true justice.

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Avot in retrospect -- and a holiday break!

Chag same'ach lekulam!

Avot Today is taking a break but looks forward to returning to action after the holiday of Sukkot. Meanwhile, since many readers were so busy with the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur that they didn't have much spare time for reading our Pirkei Avot pieces, here's a summary of our September posts. Do feel free to browse them at your leisure -- and don't hesitate to comment on them if the moment inspires you. 

The Facebook group for Avot Today is where you will find comments already posted by other readers. All the September posts on this blog are replicated on Facebook, so you can conveniently share them with friends.

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September posts

Wednesday 27 September 2023: Sukkot and a methodology for teaching. Traditional Jewish learning techniques may at first seem random and disjointed -- but have Pirkei Avot and other ancient texts already anticipated later didactic notions?

Tuesday 26 September 2023: Not pillars but a conveyor belt? At Avot 1:2 Shimon HaTzaddik teaches that the world stands on three "things", which many people analogise to pillars. But is there a better analogy?

Sunday 24 September 2023: When God copies us. The concept of imitatio dei -- of us seeking to emulate God-- is so frequently cited that we may lose sight of the possibility that it works the other way round, particularly when it comes to giving others the benefit of the doubt (Avot 1:6).

Friday 22 September 2023: Do not stand alone. An awkward phraseology in R' Shimon ben Netanel's teaching (Avot 2:18) that one should not be wicked "before oneself" invites a creative interpretation. 

Thursday 21 September 2023: Finding our way in the dark. Taking a look at Avot 2:1, the Kozhnitz Maggid asks where we might get a fix for our moral compass when neither prophecy nor Heavenly voices are part of our daily routine.

Tuesday 19 September 2023: Getting a second opinion. Pirkei Avot has much to say about relying on the opinions of our sages -- but is there a presumption that one attaches oneself to just one of them at a time?

Thursday 14 September 2023: Rosh Hashanah in just two minutes. If the long religious services and sometimes puzzling prayers are too much for you, Avot 4:29 succinctly summarises the main points of the day.

Tuesday 12 September 2023: Keeping the line open. Looking at Avot 6:2, we note that you won't get the message -- whatever it may be -- if you are not ready and prepared to receive it. 

Sunday 10 September 2023: "Where do you come from, where do you go?" Akavya ben Mahalalel's famous mishnah at Avot 3:1 is not all about a sperm-to-worm life-cycle: it also admits of an historical perspective.

Wednesday 6 September 2023: Having a good shout. Avot is clear when it comes to controlling one's temper -- but what about displaying anger when one is not actually angry at all? 

Friday 1 September 2023: Absolute consciousness: are we aware of it? A question posed on one of the Dee Project Pirkei Avot sheets invites speculation as to whether we can even function as humans if we are totally aware of everything we do.

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Avot Today blogposts for August 2023 
Avot Today blogposts for July 2023
Avot Today blogposts for June 2023
Avot Today blogposts for May 2023
Avot Today blogposts for April 2023
Avot Today blogposts for March 2023

Sukkot and a methodology for teaching

For my pleasure and curiosity I’m currently reading the Analytical Didactic of Comenius, this being an English translation of the tenth chapter of Johann Amos Komensky’s Linguarum methodus novissima. This fascinating work is a 17^th century treatise on pedagogy. Much of it seems laboured and obvious to us today but, in its time, it was quite revolutionary. We take it for granted today that children benefit from learning from books with illustrations that relate to the text, but this was a radical innovation when he proposed it.

What does this all have to do with Pirkei Avot?

We do not have a Mishnaic teaching manual as such; nor have the rabbis of old sat down and compiled a lengthy treatise on teaching methods. That does not mean that the subject has been ignored. As early as the reign of King Solomon it was accepted that one had to teach a child al pi darko (“in accordance with his derech [the direction that he needs]”: Mishlei 22:6). There is of course much more. Avot contains many pieces of advice and guidance for teachers and their talmidim. Thus we learn of the importance of, for example, expressing oneself in terms that can be clearly understood on a first hearing (2:5), asking questions that are relevant and giving answers that are appropriate (5:9), not being an irascible teacher (2:6), taking care to retain one’s learning (3:9), citing one’s sources (6:6) and so on.

Comenius sets out (at para.46) the following fundamentals of teaching. He writes:

Let us teach and learn:

The few before the many;
The brief before the long;
The simple before the complex;
The general before the particular;
The nearer before the more remote;
The regular before the irregular (or the analogous before the anomalous).

With the festival of Sukkot soon to be upon us, if we open the Babylonian Talmud at the very beginning of masechet Sukkah we will find that it commences with a discussion of teaching methodology. Both the covering of a sukkah and the cross-beam at the top of the entrance to an alley are invalid if more than 20 amot high, yet in the case of a sukkah the gemara teaches “it is invalid” while in the case of the cross-beam the gemara teaches “lower it”.

Why? The text offers two plausible reasons, each of which teaches something different in its own right.  One is that the mishnah teaches “invalid” when there are many reasons why the sukkah might be validated, but “lower it” when remedies for the excessive height are so few. We can see from this that the compilers of the Talmud, without stating general theories of education, were quite au fait with the techniques of teaching “the few before the many”, “the brief before the long”, and so on.

Later in the same chapter (Sukkah 11a) we find Comenius’s principles turned on their heads, for maximum teaching effect. Thus a klal gadol, a general principle, may appear at the end of a list of examples rather than at their head: this technique has great didactic efficacy when students are pushed to find cases that fall within the klal but which are not already specified.

Taken as a whole, it seems to me that, while Comenius’s Didactic neatly summarises a number of significant principles of teaching, they can be found in one form or another in the Talmud, in mishnayot—and in particular in Pirkei Avot. 

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Not pillars but a conveyor belt

The first teaching in Avot that we learn in the name of any individual rabbi is the fundamental principle that the world stands on three things: Torah, service to God and acts of gemilut chasadim (human kindness). These three things are frequently described as “pillars”, since anything that stands on three pillars—or legs—is automatically stable, irrespective of the length of the legs. But Shimon HaTzaddik (Avot 1:2) does not specify what precisely it is that the world stands upon. This opens the mishnah up to other interpretations.

 I recently found another commentary on Avot abandoned in the streets of Jerusalem. It’s Etz HaSedah, a compilation of divrei Torah on Avot put together by one Tzvi Yehudah Gottlieb, published in Bnei Brak in 1988. This is a modest little book which does not purport to be an earth-shattering collection of chiddushim, novellae—but that should not detract from its utility.

Referencing the Vilna Gaon’s observation that Torah and gemilut chasadim are dearer to God than service to Him, Gottlieb contrasts the different qualities of the three items cited in the mishnah.

Torah, which emanates directly from God and expresses the Divine will, is holy and represents Heaven. Gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness done by humans to humans, can only be performed on Earth. This leaves serving God. What is its unique significance?

While Heaven and Earth are literally worlds apart, serving God is a means of linking heavenly with the earthly. By learning Torah, man is drawn upwards. By performing its precepts, man is bound to the material world. But serving God is the means of bringing Torah down to Earth while also taking the earthly and elevating it in holiness. As the agent of this service, humankind is improved and ideally perfected.

If service to God can be seen as a sort of two-way conveyor belt, bringing the holy and the spiritual down to Earth while at the same time elevating humankind towards greater closeness with God, we are still left with a question. Why should Torah and gemilut chasadim be preferred over serving God? The Etz HaSadeh does not offer an answer, but one can be suggested: Torah and gemilut chasadim are both ends in themselves, while serving God is a means by which these ends can be achieved.

Can anyone offer another, ideally more convincing, explanation?

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When God copies us

On Shabbat afternoon I attended the Shabbat Shuvah derashah given by Rabbi Berel Wein at the Beit Knesset Hanassi. One might imagine that there are two Rabbis Wein. One is the author of highly attractive and infinitely readable English-language coffee-table books on Jewish history and tradition. The other is a stone hewn from the uncompromising rock-face of Lithuanian mussar, ethics and Torah-driven character development.  Just two days before Yom Kippur, the most awesome day in the Jewish calendar, there was no doubt which Rabbi Wein would be addressing us.

The atmosphere was tense as this frail old man of nearly 90, perched on a stool and clutching a lectern for support, began to speak. The Beit Knesset, packed to the rafters and beyond, listened in rapt attention, necks craned so as not to miss his words. We all wondered, what was his message for the coming days—and for the year ahead?

The main theme of Rabbi Wein’s derashah was that of attitude. It is our attitudes that shape our thoughts, guide our feelings and steer our actions. Without the right attitudes towards God and our fellow humans, we cannot begin to change ourselves to be the sort of person we would in theory want to be. But we cannot even begin to identify our own attitudes without great and patient effort. Who we are and what we are, as humans, may be apparent to others who view us from the outside, but we are generally blinded to the truth because we cannot objectively construe our own psyche.

Our inability to recognise our attitudes with pinpoint accuracy from the inside does not however mean that we cannot shape them from the outside. Here Rabbi Wein turned to Pirkei Avot. This is not a book of commandments, he argued, but a book designed to shape one’s attitudes. By way of example he discussed the character-improving effect of being don lekaf zechut (judging others in a favourable light: see Avot 1:6).

Having related the famous tale of the worker from the South, believed to have been Rabbi Akiva, who gave his employer the benefit of the doubt even after receiving no pay for three years’ labour (Shabbat 127b), Rabbi Wein sought to show that, if we give others the benefit of the doubt, God will copy our example, as it were.  Here he cited an aggadic episode in which the Heavenly yeshivah spent its time discussing the teachings of all the Tannaim except Rabbi Meir: this was because Rabbi Meir learned Torah from Elisha ben Avuyah, who turned away from Torah, and Rabbi Meir was referred to as acherim (“other people”). But it was explained that Rabbi Meir accepted only the Torah from his teacher, not his heretical beliefs (“he ate the fruit of the pomegranate but threw away the peel”: Chagigah 15a). When this explanation was accepted and real-world rabbis cited Rabbi Meir’s teachings by name, the Heavenly yeshivah followed their lead with God himself giving Rabbi Meir a name-check.

Tying this all together, Rabbi Wein urged us to improve our attitude towards others and judge them favourably—even if we don’t agree with them. If we do this, God will follow our example and judge us favourably too.

May we all be judged favourably for the coming year. Judging others favourably is a small price to pay for this privilege.

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Do not stand alone

The Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the Ten Days of Penitence) conclude this year in a penitential flurry.  This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuvah—the Sabbath of Repentance, so called because we read from the book of Hosea a passage that opens with the words שׁוּבָה, יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַד, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ:  כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶךָ (“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God; for you have stumbled in your iniquity.”:14:2). Then, on Sunday night, we commence the marathon fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On this day we pray to God for His forgiveness, using many different verbal formulae in which we seek to express our sincere sorrow for our misdeeds and our commitment to a better life in future.

The theme of repentance is dealt with both by the prophets and the rabbis of the Mishnah. They however tackle it quite differently. The prophets address Israel as a whole, a nation straying from the path of God, while the rabbis in Avot speak to us as individuals. Yom Kippur is a day when the collective fate of Israel and all humankind is at stake; our prayers and our confessions are in the plural because we speak, as it were, for others as well as ourselves.

Does this mean that there is no place for Avot in the Yom Kippur atonement process? No.

In his Avot Yisrael, the Kozhnitz Maggid cites a mishnah from the second perek, where Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel teaches (at 2:18) אַל תְּהִי רָשָׁע בִּפְנֵי עַצְמֶֽךָ. This is often translated along the lines of “Do not judge yourself to be a wicked person”, but the meaning of the Hebrew phrase בִּפְנֵי עַצְמֶֽךָ (literally “before yourself”) is imprecise and calls for interpretation.

According to the Maggid, this teaching supports the proposition that, when assessing where we stand in terms of good and bad, we should not stand only “before ourselves” but should seek to tie ourselves to those who are righteous, so that our prayers may be united with theirs and be viewed more favourably.  

May our prayers and our repentance over the coming days be accepted, both as individuals and as part of Klal Yisrael.

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Finding our way in the dark

The mishnah that opens the second perek of Avot concludes with a theme that we have often discussed: God’s ability to see and hear whatever we do and say, and then to keep a record of it. At Avot 2:1 Rebbi (R’ Yehudah HaNasi) teaches:

הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַֽעְלָה מִמָּךְ, עַֽיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹֽזֶן שׁוֹמַֽעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּסֵֽפֶר נִכְתָּבִים

[Translation] Contemplate three things, and you will not come into the grips of transgression. Know what is above you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.

This message is clear: God knows everything you do. If you want to keep on His good side, and literally in His good books, all you have to do is behave in accordance with His wishes.

There is another, quite different message. In his Avot Yisrael, the Kozhnitz Maggid gives this teaching a historical perspective.

From the days of Moshe Rabbenu till the beginning of the Second Temple era we had the benefit of prophetic guidance from above; our lives were permeated by the light of the Torah as refracted through the prism of prophecy. Our sages and seers could clearly discern God’s will and guide us accordingly. This is the mishnah’s seeing eye.

Later in the Second Temple period, when prophecy was removed from the world, we were metaphorically in the dark. Our sages however, through their ruach hakodesh—holy spirit—could still tune in to the sound of a bat kol, a Heavenly voice that steers us along the path God marks out for us. This is the mishnah’s listening ear.

Now, for our sins, we have the benefit of neither prophecy nor bat kol. But all is not lost. We still have something special to guide, strengthen and inspire us in our attempt to get closer to God. That is the written text of the Tanach, the 24 canonical books of the Jewish Bible, together with their commentaries. Here we find a reference to the final part of the mishnah. By implication, the deeds to which Rebbi refers are those we should be doing if we correctly discern the message.

So even without the light of prophecy or a Heavenly voice to guide us, we can’t just give up the task of doing God’s will in a changing world. It’s up to us to do the best we can—and it is for us to provide a seeing eye and listening ear of our own when seeking to trace God’s will through exposition of His literature.

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Getting a second opinion

While many people respect and even venerate their physicians, they do not always unquestioningly accept their word. When the prognosis is unfavourable or the treatment is unpleasant, they can seek a second opinion which, they hope, is more favourable or congenial to them. The second opinion may be better than the first, or it may not. It may even corroborate it. Until you receive it, you never know.

Jewish tradition has no objection to getting a second medical opinion. But it is different with questions we ask our rabbis. When a person is facing a religious or ethical problem that requires the input of a rabbi, “shopping around” for the desired answer is strongly frowned upon. You stick to your rabbi and take him as you find him: if you accept his lenient rulings, you accept his stringencies too. Pirkei Avot appears to buttress this position. Avot 1:6 (Yehoshua ben Perachyah) and 1:16 (Rabban Gamliel) both teach: “Take for yourself a rabbi”. One of the explanations of this teaching is that a person’s religious position should be consistent, and this degree of consistency is achieved by learning one’s Torah—and receiving personal advice—should be from the same source.

As the world has become increasingly complex, specialisation has become the norm. We never expect a single medical practitioner to be expert in every branch of medical science. Rabbis too frequently acquire halachic expertise in specialisms that were unrecognised in past generations. Advances in science and technology now demand a high level of detailed knowledge before a rabbi can give a ruling in many areas today. Food production, electronics, communications technologies, hydraulics and in vitro fertilisation are obvious examples. 

Just as a family doctor will refer complex issues up the line, sending it to a consultant who possesses the knowledge and experience to understand the true nature of a problem and ideally resolve it, so too do many communal rabbis increasingly refer questions to colleagues who have made a particular study of Jewish law in fields that are technologically advanced, obscure or recondite. But the situations of the family doctor and the communal rabbi are not entirely the same.

In most areas of medicine, what is treated is the condition itself and the applicability of the expert’s answer does not depend on the nature of the individual patient (though psychiatry is an obvious exception). When a rabbi sends a question up the line for an expert opinion, the expert may not have in front of him the person who seeks the answer—and this factor can be of critical importance where there is a spiritual or social dimension to the question itself. Is the person asking the advice someone who is moving towards religious observance or struggling with it? Does he or she have a strong or supportive family? Will a strict ruling strengthen that person’s Jewish commitment or drive them away from it? These are side issues when viewed in terms of pure halachah, but they are in practice vital.

Rabbi Yaakov Hillel (Eternal Ethics from Sinai) observes this problem from another angle, finding a novel interpretation of Hillel’s teaching at Avot 2:5: “אַל תָּדִין אֶת חֲבֵרָךְ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּֽיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ” (“Do not judge your fellow until you reach his place”). He writes:

If we always consult the same rabbi, we will eventually develop a personal connection, enabling him to better answer our questions. Because he knows us and is familiar with our circumstances, he knows if it is appropriate to rule leniently or strictly … We find allusion to this principle later in Avot: Do not judge your fellow man until you reach his place”. … I often explain these words differently: a man should not judge—or in other words, issue a halachic ruling—until he is aware of the questioner’s “place”—his spiritual standing. Only then can he know whether the questioner can handle a stricter ruling, or whether it is ultimately better to provide a more lenient, yet still halachically acceptable answer.

There are a couple of things we can extract from this. One is that a communal rabbi who passes a question on to a halachic expert should always take care to communicate not only the question itself but as much relevant information as may be relevant. The other is that, when we help ourselves to halachic rulings that we find online, we should remind ourselves that these rulings were not necessarily given with us in mind and we should exercise prudent caution before treating them as our “second opinions”.

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Rosh Hashanah, in just two minutes

For many people the traditional Rosh Hashanah prayers are a challenge that they accept with reluctance. The synagogue service is long and can easily last six or seven hours. In place of the usual prayers one finds many poetic and allusive texts that are sometimes hard to read or understand—even in translation. Some people attend services out of loyalty but still bring something to read for when the going gets too tough or when they simply can’t focus on what Rosh Hashanah is supposed to be about. Others again have no problems coping with the service but bring a little supplementary reading material with them into which they can dip whenever there is a pause in the proceedings or the chazan is shifting into operatic mode.

Even if you can’t make it to shul, or get there and wonder what to do next, don’t worry! You can capture much of the essence of Rosh Hashanah in just one mishnah from Avot. At 4:29 Rabbi Elazar HaKappar teaches this:

הַיִּלּוֹדִים לָמוּת, וְהַמֵּתִים לִחֳיוֹת, וְהַחַיִּים לִדּוֹן, לֵידַע וּלְהוֹדִֽיעַ וּלְהִוָּדַע שֶׁהוּא אֵל, הוּא הַיּוֹצֵר, הוּא הַבּוֹרֵא, הוּא הַמֵּבִין, הוּא הַדַּיָּן, הוּא הָעֵד, הוּא בַּֽעַל דִּין, הוּא עָתִיד לָדוֹן. בָּרוּךְ הוּא, שֶׁאֵין לְפָנָיו לֹא עַוְלָה, וְלֹא שִׁכְחָה, וְלֹא מַשּׂוֹא פָנִים, וְלֹא מַקַּח שֹֽׁחַד, וְדַע שֶׁהַכֹּל לְפִי הַחֶשְׁבּוֹן. וְאַל יַבְטִיחֲךָ יִצְרָךְ שֶׁהַשְּׁאוֹל בֵּית מָנוֹס לָךְ, שֶׁעַל כָּרְחָךְ אַתָּה נוֹצָר, וְעַל כָּרְחָךְ אַתָּה נוֹלָד, וְעַל כָּרְחָךְ אַתָּה חַי, וְעַל כָּרְחָךְ אַתָּה מֵת, וְעַל כָּרְחָךְ אַתָּה עָתִיד לִתֵּן דִּין וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן לִפְנֵי מֶֽלֶךְ מַלְכֵי הַמְּלָכִים, הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא

[Translation] Those who are born will die, and the dead are to live. The living will be judged—to learn, to teach and to understand that He is God, He is the maker, He is the creator, He is the One who understands, He is the judge, He is the witness, He is the prosecutor, and He will judge. He is blessed because before Him there is no unrighteousness, no forgetting, no favouritism, and no taking of bribes. Know that everything is strictly according to His reckoning. Don’t let your evil impulse convince you that the grave is your escape route for against your will you were created, against your will you were born, against your will you live, against your will you die, and against your will you will have to give an account and assessment of yourself before the King, the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

Rosh Hashanah marks our acknowledgement that God is the King of kings, that He has created us and that He is also the judge of all that, for better or worse, we do. Our mishnah echoes this sentiment.

Rosh Hashanah is also the Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgement, and this mishnah is all about facing the reality that lies behind the label. It is we who are being judged and it is God who is judging us. No-one escapes this process since we are all called to account for our actions, our words and even our unworthy thoughts.

Giving an account of ourselves demands that we can recall what we have done, why we have done it and whether our deeds, words and thoughts comply with the ancient covenant that God established with our ancestors. This requires memory, which is why Rosh Hashanah is Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance.

The judgement process takes place annually, when the old year ends and the new one begins. Rosh Hashanah being an annual calendar event, we understand that we are subjected to regular annual judgement. There is more to it than that, though. Each year we are examined during God’s interim assessment of our ongoing performance in life. Additionally, as our mishnah indicates, we face a final judgement, once our lives have run their course. Each year, as He chooses, He may grant us more life or decide that we have lived long enough. We cannot know why some people are allowed to continue their lives while others are not: God is our witness, He knows all the material facts; He calls us to answer for what we have done. Finally He makes His decision. This is in accordance with His plan, which He fully understands but we do not.

There is no way to beat the system and no way to cheat it. Escape justice by committing suicide? That doesn’t work. Why? Because it is only after death that the final judicial process takes place: far from evading trial, the act of taking one’s life in order to escape judgement simply brings forth the trial date. Bribing God won’t work either: there is nothing we can give Him that he needs except our love and fear of Him. Yet, if we love and fear God, we should not be feeling the need to escape His judgement since we will believe we have done our best. We should then be confident that, as a fair arbiter of our conduct who understands the failings and foibles of humankind, He will be kind in judgement, not harsh.

This teaching is not for Jewish eyes only. Everyone, Jew and gentile alike, must face the same routine of annual interim judgement followed by a final one. We are all created in God’s image and must do His bidding. Where we as Jews differ is that we are held to a higher standard than others. We are expected to behave properly and serve God to the best of our abilities in accordance with the extra rules which He has ordained for our service. Have we done so? We all have our own opinion of our performance, but it’s God’s opinion alone that counts.

So, if the long haul of Rosh Hashanah liturgy is not for you, do at least focus on this mishnah. It takes only a couple of minutes to read and think about—but a lifetime to appreciate.

AVOT TODAY WISHES ALL OUR READERS A KETIVAH VECHATIMAH TOVAH!

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Something to read when the going gets tough?

Many people struggle with the very long synagogue services that characterise our High Holy Days -- Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. One way to face this challenge is to bring in a book to read during parts of the service that are hard to understand, or when concentration slips and some appropriately Jewish distraction is sought.

If you are thinking of taking something to read, why not try a commentary on Pirkei Avot? The subject matter is serious enough, but accessible, and plenty of its teachings are directly relevant to seasonal topics such as God's judgement, reward and punishment. 

Here are some suggested commentaries you might want to try:

• The Koren Pirkei Avot, commentary by Rabbi Marc D. Angel, translation by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Commentary and translation are modern, idiomatic and to the point. Some of the comments are quite thought-provoking, relating to contemporary social and political conditions.
  
  
• Avoth, in the Me'am Lo'ez series. Commentary by R' Yitzchak Magriso, translation by David N. Barocas. An easy read with a midrashic flavour and plenty of homilies.
  
  
• Eternal Ethics From Sinai, by R' Yaakov Hillel. Not for the faint-hearted, this commentary pulls no punches: either you are on the right path or you are emphatically not. Lots of painful mussar. Vol.1 has much material on God's judgement and the values of truth, justice and integrity.
  
  
• Visions of the Fathers, by R' Abraham J. Twerski. This much-loved and highly readable ArtScroll work highlights the psychological dimensions of Avot. 

There are of course many other English-language works on Avot and we are always open to suggestions and recommendations. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us!