What does it mean to take care?

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Ki Teitze)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post returns to Perek 2.

There is no piece of advice that is given—or ignored—more frequently than the injunction: “Take care!”   From our earliest days as children, we hear these words from our parents and elders. When we grow up, the refrain is taken up by our partners and peers, and when we grow old we receive them from our children. It doesn’t matter what we are doing: going out in the rain, playing in the park, climbing a ladder, lifting a suitcase or descending the stairs. We are always told: “Be careful! Take care!” The most annoying thing about this instruction is that it usually comes without the information we really need to know about what care needs to be taken and how we should take it.

Given the prevalence of this unwanted advice, it is almost a disappointment to read Avot 2:18, where Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel teaches three lessons. The first two of them are clearly connected, since both address prayer, and they are at first sight no more than the usual caution to take care:

הֱוֵי זָהִיר בִּקְרִיאַת שְׁמַע וּבִתְפִלָּה. וּכְשֶׁאַתָּה מִתְפַּלֵּל, אַל תַּֽעַשׂ תְּפִלָּתְךָ קְבַע, אֶלָּא רַחֲמִים וְתַחֲנוּנִים לִפְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: כִּי חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם הוּא, אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם וְרַב חֶֽסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל הָרָעָה

Be zahir (careful) in reciting the Shema and in tefillah (prayer). When you do pray, do not make your prayers routine, but [pleas for] mercy and supplication before the Almighty, as it says: “For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in lovingkindness, and He has a gentle touch with the bad…”

Why does Rabbi Shimon take the trouble to tell us to be careful when we say Shema and when we pray? Is it not obvious that we should do so? And why should we take the trouble to study and internalise this message? If we are seriously committed to our religious practice, aren’t we doing it anyway? And, if we are not, this advice is hardly going to change us.

Rabbenu Yonah, the Bartenura and the commentary ascribed to Rashi explain that this mishnah addresses the need to say Shema at the right time. But since this is in any event a matter of halachah, Jewish law, we might wonder why it might be necessary to add a Mishnaic warning to take care. Perhaps sensing this, the Me’iri posits that the reason for taking care in reciting Shema and prayer is that it enhances one’s recognition of one’s Creator and one’s ability to become close to Him. The Chida (Ahavah beTa’anugim) sees it as being literally a wake-up call, since Shema and tefillah are the first two big events we have to deal with after we have dragged ourselves sluggishly out of bed. Another possibililty is that this mishnah is a corrective, since a person might be tempted to cut corners in saying Shema and tefillah in order to leave more time to learn Torah (R’ Chaim Pelagi, Einei Kol Chai; R’ Dovid Pardo, Shoshanim LeDavid).

The Shema and prayer aren’t by any means the only things our Sages tell us to take care over. For example, in the fourth perek Rabbi Yehudah tells us (Avot 4:16) to be zahir in our learning. There’s also another we find for being careful: in Avot 1:1 the Men of the Great Assembly warn us to be matunim badin (painstakingly careful in judgement). Again, I would have assumed that it was a no-brainer that judges should take care in deciding the cases before them, so why should there be any need for a warning?

I sometimes wonder if there isn’t some connection between these two mishnayot. Judges are told to be matunim, while people reciting Shema or praying are told to be zahir. Why aren’t judges told to be zehirim and why aren’t we supposed to be matunim?

With judges there is an extra element of taking care. This ideally involves hearing and discussing a case and then taking a break, sleeping on one’s reason for reaching a conclusion and then reassessing it afresh. That is the highest form of taking care since it not only demands a careful rethink but also allows a judge’s subconscious thoughts and perspectives to come to the forefront of his mind.  We want our judges to be matunim, to leave that space for mature reflection, rather than for them to be merely zehirim.

But when we recite Shema or pray, our care-taking is of a different order. Yes, we must be zehirim, we must say the words correctly, at the due time and with the necessary degree of thought and intention—but we may not be matunim and take a break in order to consider our performance of these commandments in greater depth.  We must complete the task of recitation or prayer in a single session,

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Truth, Science and Metaphor: where mishnah meets midrash

We live in an age in which truth has, for many people, ceased to be an absolute quality but the product of individual choice. You have your truth, I have mine. This choice between competing truths is often based on an earlier choice as to which of a number of competing narratives one accepts. The concept of the relative truth needs no further explanation here, but there is one truth-related issue that affects some of the mishnayot in Avot: the use of metaphor and parable in establishing the meaning of a teaching.

An obvious candidate for explanation via non-literal devices is Avot 5:23, where Yehudah ben Teyma says:

הֱוֵי עַז כַּנָּמֵר, וְקַל כַּנֶּֽשֶׁר, רָץ כַּצְּבִי, וְגִבּוֹר כָּאֲרִי, לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹן אָבִֽיךָ שֶׁבַּשָּׁמָֽיִם

Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and mighty as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven.

The basic idea is that someone who wants to serve God should do so in the optimum manner, doing His will with speed, efficiency and good grace, even if it involves a good deal of effort. But, rabbis being what they are, many have mined aggadic material in order to bring out further meanings.

R’ Shlomo Toperoff does this in Lev Avot in a manner which, though traditional and well precedented by many commentators from earlier eras, may make uncomfortable reading for the modern reader who might mistake aggadic traditions for scientific truths. Here are a couple of examples:

“[A] characteristic of the eagle is that it flies with its young on its back, and this serves a dual purpose. The eagle teaches its young to fly at a tender age, but it also shows gentleness and concern for its young by protecting it from the arrows of missiles … The eagle carries its young above its wings so that no harm befall it…”

and

“The Rabbis add, ‘As the gazelle, when it sleeps, has one eye open and one eye closed, so when Israel fulfils the will of God He looks on them with two eyes, but when they do not fulfil the will of God He looks at them with one eye’…”.

As for eagles’ wings, we have a reference point in the Torah itself where, at Shemot 19:4 and Devarim 32:11 we read of being carried on eagles’ wings as being the epitome of safe, protected travel; we also understand the contrast between the eagle’s fierce and predatory attitude towards its prey and the care it expends on its young. But, unless there has been a dramatic change in nature or in the behaviour of birds, we can see that eagles do not actually carry their young on their backs as they fly through the air. If the egrets could even mount the parent bird’s back, they would fall off in the course of its flight. This would have been known to the Tannaim too, since eagles were far more common in earlier times when humans occupied less of the planet and the environment was more favourable to their lifestyle.

As for deer, the few mammals that sleep with an eye (or two) open include dolphins, whales, and fruit bats. Giraffes enter a state of semi-somnolence in which their eyes remain half open and their ears twitch. The deer family, however, do not. No matter, the midrash on Shir HaShirim (‘Song of Songs’) is not teaching us nature studies: it contains a different, more profound message. The notion of God’s oversight of our lives being proportionate to our attention to His will is important and it does not depend on the literal truth of the midrash.

We face a dilemma when dealing with metaphors that apparently contradict science. Do we teach them as they stand, as countless generations of our forebears have done, do we explain the moral they encapsulate but make excuses for their factual accuracy—or do we take them as literal truths?

I ask this question because I have had some troubling conversations on this topic. One was with a friend who became angry and disaffected with his Judaism when it was pressed upon him by a friendly and respected rabbi that the gestation period for snakes was seven years (Bechorot 8a; sadly, the object of this aggadah was not to teach anything about snakes but to illustrate the wisdom of our sages). The other was with a contemporary rabbi who insisted—and still insists—that birds can fly on a single wing, notwithstanding all practical and theoretical considerations to the contrary (see Tosafot to Shabbat 49a on the tale of Elisha ba’al kanofayim).

My feeling is that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater and discard a colourful if sometimes literally inexact body of aggadic scholarship that has served us so well throughout our history. We should however be on our guard and make it plain, when teaching it, that what we are concerned about is the message, not the factual scenario through which the message is transmitted.

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Balancing priorities

Two mishnayot in Avot discuss the relative importance of the many commandments  that govern the life of the practising Jew. At 2:1 Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says:

וֶהֱוֵי זָהִיר בְּמִצְוָה קַלָּה כְּבַחֲמוּרָה, שֶׁאֵין אַתָּה יוֹדֵֽעַ מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל מִצְוֹת, וֶהֱוֵי מְחַשֵּׁב הֶפְסֵד מִצְוָה כְּנֶֽגֶד שְׂכָרָהּ, וּשְׂכַר עֲבֵרָה כְּנֶֽגֶד הֶפְסֵדָהּ

Be as careful with a minor mitzvah as with a major one, for you do not know the rewards of the mitzvot. Consider the cost of a mitzvah against its reward, and the reward of a transgression against its cost.

Then, at 4:2 Ben Azzai adds:

הֱוֵי רָץ לְמִצְוָה קַלָּה, וּבוֹרֵֽחַ מִן הָעֲבֵרָה, שֶׁמִּצְוָה גוֹרֶֽרֶת מִצְוָה, וַעֲבֵרָה גוֹרֶֽרֶת עֲבֵרָה, שֶׁשְּׂכַר מִצְוָה מִצְוָה, וּשְׂכַר עֲבֵרָה עֲבֵרָה

Run to pursue a minor mitzvah but flee from a transgression, because a mitzvah brings another mitzvah, and a transgression brings another transgression since the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the reward of transgression is transgression.

The commentators concede that terms such as “minor mitzvah” and “major mitzvah” demand explanation since God in His wisdom chose not to do so. A stock explanation for this omission is that, if we knew which mitzvot carried the big rewards and which the small rewards, we would naturally focus on the big ones only and neglect the rest.

On the subject of rewards, many commentators make reference to the Jerusalem Talmud (Pe’ah 1:1), which points out that the same reward—a long life—is received for performing two mitzvot that  are polar opposites, as it were: honouring one’s father and one’s mother (Shemot 20:12), which is reckoned to be one of the very hardest mitzvot to perform, and shooing away the mother bird before taking her eggs (Devarim 22:7), regarded as one of the very easiest. The conclusions we are invited to draw are that, as Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi says, we do not (and indeed cannot) know how God chooses to reward those who carry out His orders, and the reward cannot on the available evidence be related to the ease or hardship that attends their performance.

Honouring one’s parents and shooing away the mother bird are often stated to be the only two mitzvot in the Torah that offer a long life in return. But this is not so. There is a third and it is found in Devarim 25:13-15: the commandment to have weights and scales for measuring one’s merchandise.

Now, if honouring one’s parents is a major mitzvah and shooing away the mother bird is a minor one, where does that leave the mitzvah of having just weighing apparatus? I have yet to find a commentator on Avot who asks this question. It might be suggested that this mitzvah is sometimes hard and sometimes easy to perform and that, therefore, the reward depends on the level of effort or difficulty faced by the person keeping it. This answer has the attraction that it invokes another mishnah in Avot, at the very end of the fifth perek (5:26), where Ben He He teaches: לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא (“According to the effort is the reward” or “where there is no pain there is no gain”).   However, this mishnah can also be applied to honouring one’s parents and shooing away mother birds.

Maybe the solution lies in an explanation I heard Rabbi Yehoshua Hartman give many years ago in a talk on the Maharal. It runs like this. Every mitzvah attracts two rewards: there is a standard reward for the tick-the-box act of completing the mitzvah, and there is a second reward which is attached to a variable scale, depending on difficulty in completing it and on other external factors. This would mean that “long life” (in the next world, I believe) would be the standard rate for both honouring one’s parents and shooing away the mother bird, while a further reward awaits those who struggled to do so.

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Care in teaching: the need for quality control

 An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Shofetim)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post returns to Perek 1.

At Avot 1:11 Avtalyon gives us the first of only three teachings in Avot that are couched in the form of a narrative:

חֲכָמִים, הִזָּהֲרוּ בְדִבְרֵיכֶם, שֶׁמָּא תָחֽוֹבוּ חוֹבַת גָּלוּת וְתִגְלוּ לִמְקוֹם מַֽיִם הָרָעִים, וְיִשְׁתּוּ הַתַּלְמִידִים הַבָּאִים אַחֲרֵיכֶם וְיָמֽוּתוּ, וְנִמְצָא שֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם מִתְחַלֵּל

Scholars, be careful with your words. For perhaps you will be exiled to a place of bad water. The students who follow you might drink the bad water and die, and the Name of Heaven will be desecrated.

Once it is appreciated that ‘water’ is a metaphor for Torah and that ‘bad water’ is bad Torah teaching, the meaning of this parable is plain: if you, the chacham, are careless in the way you impart Torah to your students, they may misconstrue or misunderstand God’s message. They will then damage the Torah further when in turn they teach it erroneously to students of their own. Having done so, they are liable to be punished—and this will be a chillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name.

R' Ovadyah Hedayah (Seh LaBet Avot) points out the irony that is buried within this tale. Here we have talmidim of a rabbi who follow him and, who despite their learning from him in good faith, are guilty of a chillul Hashem. If one of those talmidim should through his inadvertence or negligence unwittingly bring about the death of another person, in Torah times he would have had been exiled to one of the orei miklat (“cities of refuge”) and—because his Torah education was understood to be a priority—his rabbi had to go into exile with him.

Our tradition of Pirkei Avot learning is never so narrow as to admit only one meaning per mishnah, and sometimes we find explanations that are quite surprising. According to the Chida (Chasdei Avot) the chillul Hashem is not the fault of the chacham but of his talmidim: it is they who cause death and destruction through their impaired capacity to absorb Torah. The moral of the mishnah would thus be that the chacham should be ultra-cautious in choosing his words and, it seems to me, in conducting regular quality control tests by examining his talmidim regularly to seek out signs of error or deviation from true Torah teaching. This process should ideally start at the moment that talmidim are selected, to weed out those who lack the ability to understand what is being taught and the maturity to handle it (per R’ Eliezer Papo, Ya’alzu Chasidim).

Like the words of the written Torah, the guidance of tractate Avot is intended to speak to us at all times and in every generation. We can thus take away from Avtalyon’s teaching a message that applies to parents, medical practitioners, accountants, lawyers and indeed anyone whose words will be given the weight of authority and which may cause havoc if distorted or taken out of context.

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From Gay to Garber: will Harvard be singing a new tune?

Few of us will have had time to forget the circumstances leading to the resignation of Claudine Gay as Harvard’s University President, or the immense shock and pain felt by the Jewish community over her official stance on statements concerning genocide of the Jews. Ms Gay has since been replaced by Alan Garber (“born … in a Jewish household”, per Wikipedia), who is seeking to reduce the level of tension and anxiety in what was, until recently, one of the world’s most revered and respected institutions.

The Harvard Gazette reported yesterday as follows:

University President Alan Garber urged the campus community to seek opportunities for unity in a time of divisiveness on Tuesday at the first Morning Prayers ceremony of the new academic year at Memorial Church’s Appleton Chapel.

Garber opened his address with words of advice from the Talmudic compendium Pirkei Avot, or “Ethics of the Fathers,” traditionally read on the Sabbath. “Find yourself a teacher,” he said. “Win yourself a friend, and be one who judges everyone by giving them the benefit of the doubt.”

Garber, who took the helm of the University at a time of unrest over the war in Gaza, echoed themes he touched on during Monday’s Convocation, urging members of the community to seek common ground, treat one another with empathy and respect, and learn from the rich diversity of views on campus.

He explained that finding a teacher means seeking out people “whose experiences, skills and perspectives are different from your own, and whose knowledge and wisdom often exceed yours,” and “winning yourself a friend” requires offering “companionship, empathy, concern, support, and trustworthiness.”

“We’re all too adept at recognizing the flaws of our antagonists and even of our friends,” Garber said. “It’s tempting to interpret the actions of others in the worst possible light. It is better for all of us to do the opposite.”

Garber shook his head at recent headlines saying the nation’s colleges and universities have no choice but to brace for continuing disruption and unrest. He called it a “dismal notion” at an institution like Harvard, which is “pushing the limits of understanding, pursuing genuine excellence in every domain, and making ourselves, our University, and the world better.” 

These impediments can be avoided. “This is not a time to brace ourselves,” he said. “This is a time to embrace once another. We can do so by always keeping that third precept in mind. Be one who judges everyone by giving them the benefit of the doubt. By reserving judgment, we make it possible for others to know that they are part of this community and that this community cares for them.”

Garber said the key was “to bring to day-to-day interactions the same commitment to inquiry and discovery that we bring to our intellectual pursuits. If and when tensions among us rise, I hope that we will approach each other not only as fellow human beings, but as potential teachers and friends”…

Professor Garber’s mention of Pirkei Avot—in this case the teaching of Yehoshua ben Perachyah at Avot 1:6—is the latest example of the citation of mishnayot in order to make a political point (see also the speeches of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro here and here).  

In this instance one can see why this mishnah is chosen: it reminds its audience that Harvard is about teaching; it sends out a positive message of friendship and it arguably also encourages people not to judge each other as individuals and not collectively.  The message has a Jewish origin but is of universal application.

I wonder whether any other message from Avot was considered and then rejected. At Avot 4:1 Ben Zoma teaches: “Who is honoured/respected? The person who honours/respects others”. But perhaps asking the Harvard faculty and student body to honour or respect one another is demanding too much.  At Avot 3:18 Rabbi Akiva reminds us that we are all created in God’s image—but this would scarcely impress those who do not believe in God. And Hillel at Avot 1:12 urges us to love peace and pursue it. Maybe, given the chasm that separates different definitions of “peace” in Israel, in Gaza and on the Harvard campus itself, this would not be a consensus teaching after all.

I’d be curious to discover what readers think of Professor Garber’s statement and the appropriateness of his choice of Avot citation.

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A spade to dig with

Like many confirmed bloggers and Facebook post-creators, I spend more time writing my own material than I do in reading what others have to say. I do however try to allocate some time each day to reading the posts and comments of my Facebook friends, most of whom I have never met in person.

I recently read a Facebook post (see link below) that greatly moved me. The author is Eliezer Diamond and it leads with the words “This is a tough one to write”.  The reason why this post was difficult to write is apparent from the opening paragraph, which reads:

I had an appointment with my prostate cancer oncologist this past Wednesday. My children have stressed to me the importance of one of them being present at my appointments going forward, and so one of my daughters, who is a medical professional, was part of the virtual meeting. The doctor in question was the one with whom I have had a difficult relationship, but in this appointment she was a model of clarity and patience – due, in part, to my having asked in a recent message that she address me as Rabbi Diamond. I hated making that request – our rabbis tell us not to use a rabbinic title as “a shovel with which to dig,” in other words as a means of receiving preferential treatment, but playing the rabbi card was the only means I could think of to get her to treat me respectfully. I thanked her at the end of the appointment for her having explained my situation so clearly.

According to the World Cancer Research Fund, prostate cancer is the fourth most commonly suffered form of the disease. The American Cancer Society adds that it affects one man in every 12. Rabbi Diamond writes about his condition in a way that is both matter-of-fact and sensitive. I wish him a refuah shelemah, as I’m sure other readers will do too.

I was particularly struck by Rabbi Diamond’s sensitivity to the rights and wrongs of asking to be addressed as “Rabbi”. Hillel touches on this issue at Avot 1:13 where he teaches that one who exploits the crown of the Torah will fade away, but the metaphor of using the Torah and, by implication, one’s status as a Torah scholar as a “spade to dig with” comes from Rabbi Tzadok at Avot 4:7 where he builds on Hillel’s apothegm and says:

אַל תַּעֲשֶֽׂהָ עֲטָרָה לְהִתְגַּדֶּל בָּהּ, וְלֹא קַרְדּוּם לַחְתָּךְ בָּהּ, וְכַךְ הָיָה הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר: וּדְאִשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ בְּתַגָּא חֲלָף, הָא לָמַֽדְתָּ, כָּל הַנֶּהֱנֶה מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה, נוֹטֵל חַיָּיו מִן הָעוֹלָם

Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, or a spade with which to dig. So Hillel used to say: one who make personal use of the crown of Torah will fade away. Accordingly anyone who benefits from the words of Torah removes his life from the world.

Should one make use of one’s Torah status for personal benefit? Our sages were clearly anxious not to do so. In one famous episode (Yerushalmi, Shevi’it 4:2, 35b) R’ Tarfon, caught by guards when eating what turned out to be his own figs, saved himself from a beating by crying out “Prepare shrouds for Tarfon”.  Even though he didn’t invoke his rabbinical status, the fact that his unusual name, linked with his massive repute as a Torah scholar, led to his being spared was something that troubled him for the rest of his life.

This respect that Rabbi Tarfon had for the principle of not using Torah as a spade to dig with is all the more remarkable when one considers that what is at stake here is only a middah, a character refinement, and not a mitzvah, a commandment. In the case of almost every commandment, when one’s life is in danger one is not merely permitted but required to transgress it. However, where all that was at stake here was a recognition that it is best practice not to take advantage of the Torah or one’s Torah status, there is somehow less leeway.

In our daily lives, living within society at large, taking advantage of one’s name and status is not seen as a harmful practice per se. Indeed, it is often regarded as one’s entitlement or as a necessity—even if there is arguably an element of deception at play. I can cite an example drawn from my own experience.

Back in 1977 my wife and I moved into a house on a new estate at the edge of Dublin. When we moved in, the public telephone network had not yet been extended to our area. Eventually, telephone services became available but it was difficult to get a phone line. After we had been on the waiting list for well over a year, it became apparent that a small number of our neighbours had been given phone lines. These fortunate souls, by some strange curious coincidence, were all connected by bonds of family or friendship to the Fianna Fáil party, which was then in office. At this point my wife decided to take the initiative. She called the telephone company and insisted that it was imperative for “Doctor Phillips” to be given a telephone at the earliest possible opportunity. The person at the other end of this call did not ask what sort of doctor I was, and therefore never knew that I was not a doctor of medicine but a doctor of philosophy. Even now, nearly 50 years after the event, my feelings are split between guilt at leaping up the queue for installation of our phone and delight at having secured a positive result in the absence of local protetzia.

To conclude, my admiration for Rabbi Diamond’s sensitivity to this issue and I’m sure that, had I been a rabbi, I would have done exactly the same thing.

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A grounding in Torah

An Avot Baraita for Shabbat (Parashat Re’eh)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 6.

The Baraita at Avot 6:4 makes uncomfortable reading for those of us who appreciate a good night’s sleep tucked up in a warm and comfortable bed:

כַּךְ הִיא דַּרְכָּהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה: פַּת בְּמֶֽלַח תֹּאכֵל, וּמַֽיִם בִּמְשׂוּרָה תִּשְׁתֶּה, וְעַל הָאָֽרֶץ תִּישָׁן, וְחַיֵּי צַֽעַר תִּחְיֶה, וּבַתּוֹרָה אַתָּה עָמֵל, אִם אַתָּה עֽוֹשֶׂה כֵּן, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

This is the way of Torah: bread with salt you shall eat; water in small measure you shall drink, and on the ground you shall sleep. Live a life of hardship and in Torah shall you toil. If you do so, "you are fortunate, and it is good for you" (Tehillim 128:2): you are fortunate—in this world, and it is good for you—in the World to Come.

Why should sleeping on the ground make any difference whatsoever in terms of one’s pursuit of a Torah-based way of life? And do we humans not learn better when we have had a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed than if we spend the night writhing around on the ground in the forlorn hope of finding a position conducive to at least some sort of sleep?

Even among the Tannaim there were reservations about the wisdom of this advice. Indeed, Ben Azzai (Berachot 62b) advised that one should sleep anywhere but on the ground, though admittedly his prime concern was to avoid danger from snakes.

My preferred take on this teaching is that it focuses on a worst-case scenario. What it means is that EVEN if we live on a subsistence diet and EVEN if we have to sleep on the ground and struggle to make ends meet, so long as we can keep learning Torah and feel its buzz we will find it a rewarding and enjoyable experience. We might make a comparison with the sort of discomfort we are prepared to tolerate when undertaking a potentially lucrative business trip: fatigue, jet-lag, problems accessing kosher food—all of which we willingly accept as part and parcel of our acquisition of earthly material wealth. How much more so should we be prepared to put up with discomfort and inconvenience when passing through this temporary, ephemeral world on the way to our spiritual World to Come [based on R’ Simcha Bunim of Pesischa, in MiMa’ayanot HaNetzach].

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Why is this sponge different from all other sponges?

Pirkei Avot is a pretty serious tractate, but every so often a little gentle humour filters through. One such example is Avot 5:18, which likens aspiring Torah scholars to various utensils that are more often found in the kitchen than in the study halls:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בְּיוֹשְׁבִים לִפְנֵי חֲכָמִים: סְפוֹג, וּמַשְׁפֵּךְ, מְשַׁמֶּֽרֶת, וְנָפָה. סְפוֹג, שֶׁהוּא סוֹפֵג אֶת הַכֹּל. וּמַשְׁפֵּךְ, שֶׁמַּכְנִיס בְּזוֹ וּמוֹצִיא בְזוֹ. מְשַׁמֶּֽרֶת, שֶׁמּוֹצִיאָה אֶת הַיַּֽיִן וְקוֹלֶֽטֶת אֶת הַשְּׁמָרִים. וְנָפָה, שֶׁמּוֹצִיאָה אֶת הַקֶּֽמַח וְקוֹלֶֽטֶת אֶת הַסּֽוֹלֶת

There are four types among those who sit before the sages: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer and the sieve. The sponge absorbs everything. The funnel takes in at one end and lets it out the other. The strainer lets the wine pass through and retains the sediment. The sieve lets the coarse flour pass through and retains the fine flour.

What do the sages themselves think of this? Most agree that, while it is a very fine thing to be a sieve, there is less praise for the sponge, the funnel and the strainer. The funnel retains nothing: it represents the talmid whose learning goes “in one ear and out the other”. The strainer is even worse, retaining just the dregs of each class—the witticisms, the asides, the rabbi’s diversions—while keeping nothing of its subject matter. As for the sponge, typical of scholarship ancient and modern is this appraisal by R’ Shlomo Toperoff in his Lev Avot:

“[The sponge] is porous and easily absorbs all kinds of liquid, clean and unclean. Similarly the first type of disciple absorbs all things indiscriminately, the good and the bad; he does not distinguish between the essential and inessential”.

There is however plenty of scope for reappraisal of our four household items. Maybe they are all good, at least in potential. This seems to be the view of Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda, who in his Midrash Shmuel explains the apparently superfluous words in this mishnah as a call for all four utensils to be explained twice over, once as praise and once as criticism. We discussed his approach, which is followed by Rabbi Avraham Azulai in his Ahavah BeTa’anugim, back in 2022 (see blogpost here, Facebook post with discussion here).

Here's another account of the four kitchen items from Rabbi Chaim Palagi, in his Einei Kol Chai, which I can’t resist bringing even though we still have most of a year till we get to Pesach.

The Passover Haggadah contains a passage that resonates with every child who is old enough to stay up for the Pesach Seder service. It speaks of four children—the wise, the wicked, the simple and the child who doesn’t even know how to ask what is happening around him. Can it be that these children correspond to the four types of student in our mishnah? It is speculated that the sponge represents the simple child, in that it absorbs but does not analyse. The funnel lets everything pass through without even asking why. The strainer, which retains only that which is of no value, is the wicked son. This leaves the sieve as the chacham, the wise and discerning son. Neat, isn’t it?

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In praise of thieves and infants?

Ben Zoma controversially teaches (Avot 4:1):

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise? One who learns from every man.

“Can this be right?” Our sages and commentators on Avot have long affirmed the principle but many have questioned the practice. Is it right to learn from non-Jews, idolators, apostates, criminals, animals—or even women? The answer, essentially, is yes. Wherever something of value can be learned, we should take the opportunity to learn it. Rambam is a leading exponent of this principle, even to the extent that he refuses to comply with the requirement in Avot 6:6 of citing his sources by name. As he writes in his introduction to the Shemonah Perakim:

“It is important to know … that I did not originate the ideas expressed or the explanations offered in these chapters or in my commentary [to Pirkei Avot]; rather, they have been collected from the words of the Sages in midrashim, the Talmud, and in their other works, as well as from the words of earlier and later philosophers [Jewish and non-Jewish], and from the works of many others. Accept the truth from whoever utters it. … I will .. not say, "So-and-so said this" or "So-and-so said that" because that would be unnecessarily wordy. Furthermore, it might make a reader who does not accept the author think that what he said is harmful or has a sinister intent that he is unaware of. Therefore I decided to leave out the author's name, for my aim is to help the reader and explain what is hidden away in this tractate”.

To illustrate how widely the net of prospective and potentially objectionable sources can be spread, Reb Zusha of Anipoli is said to have taught his followers that he learned seven things from a thief and a further three from an infant—all of which being lessons that could be put into practice in the service of God.

The seven lessons learned from the thief are as follows (as listed in R’ Tal Moshe Zwicker, Ma’asei Avos: Pirkei Avos through the eyes of the Baal Shem Tov and their disciples):

·       He works at night when he can see but not be seen;

·       If he fails today, he is not discouraged and tries again tomorrow;

·       He loves his fellows and would never harm them;

·       He is willing to sacrifice and even place himself in danger for any job, large or small;

·       He will sell his wares even for a small profit so long as he covers his tracks;

·       He does not reveal his past and he does not tell what he will do in the future;

·       He loves his job and would never switch to another profession.

The three things learned from the infant run like this:

·       He is always busy and never idle for a moment;

·       If he lacks anything he asks for it, crying and begging, shedding tears;

·       If he does not lack anything, he is joyful and happy, full of glee, peace and contentment.

The lists may seem a little contrived and one is entitled to ask whether they are the result of an exercise in reverse engineering. To me as a teacher I can’t help wondering whether Reb Zusha started with the message to be learned and then cast around for a surprising source from which one might learn it. This pedagogic device, in the guise of shooting the arrow first and then painting the target around the place it reaches, is a highly successful didactic technique, as described by the R’ Yaakov Krantz, the Dubno Maggid. Reb Zusha and the Dubno Maggid were almost exact contemporaries and, while there is no record of their having met, the measure of their fame and the popularity of their stories suggests that they would quite likely have known about each other.

Having said this, I have some disquiet over the content of Reb Zusha’s thief list. Are these all things even true? And are they things that are useful in our service to God?  If it was ever true that a thief “loves his fellows and would never harm them”, I doubt that many of us would be able to extract that message from the thieves of today, and it is hard to see how the fact that a person “does not reveal his past and he does not tell what he will do in the future” aids in serving an omniscient God who exists beyond time. The infant list, though much shorter, seems far more appropriate.

I’m curious to know what readers of Avot Today think about this. Do please share your views—and do offer some original suggestions as to what we might learn from other occupations.

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Here lies the truth

There’s a Jewish catechism that runs along the following lines:

Do I have to tell the truth?

Yes.

Why do I have to tell the truth?

Because there is a Torah commandment to avoid falsehood (Shemot 23:7: “midvar sheker tirchak”).

Are we taught a reason for this?

Yes.

What is that reason?

According to the oral Torah (Avot 1:18, per Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel), truth is one of the three things that keeps the world running smoothly.

What are the other things that keep the world running smoothly?

Peace and justice.

Are truth, peace and justice equally important?

No. Peace is most important because both truth and justice must be sacrificed if peace is to prevail.

So I don’t have to tell the truth when it is conflict with peace or justice?

Yes—or is it no?

A good summary of the position can be found in Seymour Rossel’s book on Avot for children, When a Jew Seeks Wisdom: the Sayings of the Fathers:

“Sometimes, the Rabbis said, even when we think that we are right in an argument, we should give in. As long as the argument is not an important one, peace is more important than being right. And very often hatred grows because we are too stubborn. It is better for us to bend a little than to cause disunity and separation”.

This is reflected in various ways: the untruths uttered by Aharon in aggadic literature which led to the making of peace between enemies (see commentaries on Avot 1:12); permitting the telling of a lie in order to save a life, and complimenting a bride on her wedding day.

Truth also gives way to justice. How so? The procedural rules governing the hearing of a din Torah prevent a witness from giving evidence, however true it may be, in the event that he is ineligible to testify or his evidence is not corroborated by another witness.

So truth is capped by the need to make peace and by the need to demonstrate that justice is both done and seen to be done. But not everyone agrees that truth should be suppressed. There is a respectable school of opinion that maintains that every lie increases the damaging values of falsehood in the world. This position has far-reaching consequences: it means, for example, that a true narrative should not be embellished by the addition of extra material in order to enhance its educational or aesthetic value.

According to R’ David Segal (the Taz), in his commentary on the Torah (quoted in MiMa’ayonot Netzach on Avot), falsehoods should not emanate from a person’s mouth even for the sake of peace. He cites the episode in the Torah in which Yaakov leads his father Yitzchak to believe that he, Yaakov, is in fact Eisav by speaking (at Bereshit 27:19) words that were ambiguous, knowing which way Yitzchak would understand them: אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ (ani Eisav bechorecha, which can be taken as either “I am Eisav your firstborn” or “It’s me. Eisav is your firstborn”). So, says, the Taz, if you can’t tell the whole truth, speak words that can be construed as the truth.

This is a lofty and principled ideal, though it may require great presence of mind to live up to it. When an enraged axeman comes running after your friend, points ahead and asks: “did he go that way?” one’s natural instinct is to say “yes” if he didn’t or “no” if he did—and it’s not easy to buy time in which to think up an ambiguous answer that will satisfy the demands of truth while achieving the results of a falsehood. The masters—or should it be mistresses—of this art were the priestesses who ran the Delphic Oracle in Pythia and whose ambiguous responses to vital questions form a significant and highly entertaining role in Ancient Greek history and mythology.

In secular society we find an endorsement of the Taz in the notion of being “economical with the truth”, i.e. just telling as much of the truth without giving the whole picture. My favourite example, which may well be apocryphal, is the story told of King Edward VII who, when still only Prince of Wales, was presented with a crate of Welsh whisky by his loyal and admiring subjects. On sampling the beverage, His Royal Highness was unimpressed and determined not to let another drop pass his lips. However, he thanked the gift-givers and assured them of his gratitude, adding: “I shall always keep a crate of Welsh whisky in my cellar”.

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Through the eyes of a child

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Eikev)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 5.

There’s a highly problematic mishnah at Avot 5:25. Some editions omit it entirely; others place it out of its usual sequence, and there’s no consensus as to who teaches it—is it Yehudah ben Teyma or Shmuel HaKatan? Setting this matters aside, this is what it says:

בֶּן חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים לְמִקְרָא, בֶּן עֶֽשֶׂר שָׁנִים לְמִשְׁנָה, בֶּן שְׁלֹשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לְמִצְוֹת, בֶּן חֲמֵשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה לִגְמָרָא, בֶּן שְׁמוֹנֶה עֶשְׂרֵה לְחֻפָּה, בֶּן עֶשְׂרִים לִרְדּוֹף, בֶּן שְׁלֹשִׁים לְכֹֽחַ, בֶּן אַרְבָּעִים לְבִינָה, בֶּן חֲמִשִּׁים לְעֵצָה, בֶּן שִׁשִּׁים לְזִקְנָה, בֶּן שִׁבְעִים לְשֵׂיבָה, בֶּן שְׁמוֹנִים לִגְבוּרָה, בֶּן תִּשְׁעִים לָשֽׁוּחַ, בֶּן מֵאָה כְּאִלּוּ מֵת וְעָבַר וּבָטֵל מִן הָעוֹלָם

Five years is the age for the study of the Written Torah; ten, for the study of Mishnah; thirteen, for being bound by mitzvot; fifteen, to learn Talmud; eighteen, for marriage; twenty, to pursue a livelihood; thirty, for strength; forty, for understanding; fifty, for giving advice; sixty, for sagacity; seventy, for elderliness; eighty, for power; ninety, for being bent over. A hundred-year-old is as one who has died and passed away and no longer counts for anything in the world.

Since the age at which to commence the various stages of a child’s education is a matter that spans both religious and secular concerns, it is unsurprising that there is a vast literature on the topic. But I’m looking at just one question: since the tractate of Avot is not a textbook on educational methodology, what is our takeaway message from a teaching which, prima facie, addresses the way we as Jews should conduct ourselves?

It is immediately apparent that there is no uniform consensus about what “Torah at five” means. Some scholars, including Rambam, the Sforno and R’ Chaim Volozhiner (Ruach Chaim), make no comment at all. Those who do comment tend to have little to say on it in terms of mussar and middot, focusing instead on issues of functional efficacy. Thus the commentary ascribed to Rashi cautions that “five” really means “five and not before” since the study of Torah weakens those who attempt it, the implication being that we should not impose upon a child a greater burden than it can handle. For Rabbenu Yonah, citing the Gemara (Rabbi Shmuel ben Shilat at Ketubot 50a), it’s the age at which a child has the necessary intellectual capacity—though for the Me’iri it’s fine to teach a child the alphabet from the age of three. 

I prefer to look at the instruction of “Written Torah at five” in quite a different way, even though I must concede that this view has neither support nor pedigree. These words are not addressed at five year-old children. Nor are they addressed specifically to their parents. They are spoken to us all. To me they say: “When you open any of the works contained in the canon of Jewish tradition—whether Torah, prophecy, psalms or anything else—look at its words afresh. Read them through the eyes of a five year-old child who has never read them before. Cast aside all your assumptions and your half-remembered opinions that linger on from your previous reading and start again from scratch. That way, having rid yourself of the baggage of your old habits of thought, you can give yourself a chance to see, through the eyes of youthful innocence, those things that were previously hidden in full sight in the too-familiar words of a text you’ve grown too comfortable with”.

Does anyone agree?

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Doubt, no doubt

Avot 5:8 which lists the ten things—or is it 13, or even 14—that God is said to have created just before the onset of the first Shabbat in history. This anonymous teaching runs as follows:

עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶֽרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵֽלּוּ הֵן: פִּי הָאָֽרֶץ, פִּי הַבְּאֵר, פִּי הָאָתוֹן, הַקֶּֽשֶׁת, וְהַמָּן, וְהַמַּטֶּה, וְהַשָּׁמִיר, הַכְּתָב, וְהַמִּכְתָּב, וְהַלֻּחוֹת. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: אַף אַף הַמַּזִּיקִין, וקִבְרוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּֽנוּ, וְאֵילוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: וְאַף צְבַת בִּצְבַת עֲשׂוּיָה

Ten things were created at twilight of Shabbat eve. These are the mouth of the earth [that swallowed Korach]; the mouth of [Miriam's] well; the mouth of [Balaam's] donkey; the rainbow; the manna; [Moses'] staff; the shamir; writing, the inscription and the tablets [of the Ten Commandments]. Some say also the mazikim [spirits of destruction] as well as the burial place of Moses and the ram of our father Abraham. And some say also tongs made with tongs.

Ostensibly Pirkei Avot is a tractate that focuses on mussar and middot—moral chastisement and the cultivation of good behavioural characteristics. So how does R’ Ovadyah Bartenura, who asserts at Avot 1:1 that this entire tractate is mussar and middot, handle our mishnah here? In short, he doesn’t address the potential mussar and middot content at all. Instead, he confines himself to discussing the items that the mishnah lists. In this, he is not alone—and he is in good company. A similar approach is taken in the commentary ascribed to Rashi. Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah and the Meiri see this teaching as reflecting upon the relationship between creation, nature and the potential for change, the Meiri adding that the first ten allude to the principles of Jewish faith. In contrast R’ Chaim Volozhin, in his mussar-rich Ruach Chaim, offers no thoughts on the topic.

Some commentators do address the mishnah’s moral content, but in markedly different ways. The Alshich (Yarim Moshe), in a lengthy analysis of all the listed items, offers no overall moral instruction but does allude to separate moral messages that can be extracted from the inclusion of some of them. R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch says that the items enumerated in it “have the function of training man for his moral destiny”—but he gives no clue as to the means by which this is to be achieved. R’ Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) goes further. All these items, he states, were created only because Adam sinned; had he not done so, they would not have been needed. If Adam had only repented before the first Shabbat, it would have been as though he had not sinned, and the mishnah shows that God waits for the last moment for us to do teshuvah. This explanation has good Chasidic pedigree: it seemingly originates in the Beit Aharon of R’ Aharon Perlow of Karlin.

R' Shlomo Toperoff makes an attempt to extract some sort of moral from this Mishnah. Focusing on the fact that the listed creations are all made at twilight at the point at which Shabbat comes in, he writes in Lev Avot:

“[Twilight] is the doubtful period which is neither day nor night. This teaches us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest. When we reach the age of reason and are assailed by doubts and vacillation, we should buttress our faith with an implicit belief in Divine Providence which manifests itself in the constant interplay of the miraculous workings of God throughout life”.

Fine words, but does this Mishnah truly “teach us to resolve our doubts and difficulties prior to the Sabbath rest”? I have problems with this conclusion.

First, we learn here what God did, not what we do. It is frankly inconceivable that God had any doubt when creating the listed items. An omniscient God who creates night and day and distinguishes between, and who desists from work on the seventh day, will by definition have done this work before the onset of the Shabbat without having to face the challenge of doubt which assails us humans.

Secondly, the Tannaim are notoriously sparing with their words. If the need for resolution of doubts is the point of this mishnah, why is it necessary to list so many things? A single example would suffice.

Thirdly, there is already a Mishnah in the first chapter of Avot, where Rabban Gamliel teaches (at 1:16):

הִסְתַּלֵּק מִן הַסָּפֵק

Stay away from doubt.

What purpose is served by teaching here that one should resolve doubts before Shabbat when we are already advised to avoid doubts whether we have them before Shabbat or at any other time?

Fourthly, it is possible that R’ Toperoff is referring not solely to doubts in general but also, as may be the case from his concluding comments, to doubts concerning “Divine Providence and God’s miraculous workings throughout life”, If this is so, it is hard to see how the mishnah’s choice of listed phenomena is an appropriate means of removing the doubts of anyone who harbours uncertainties about God.

Is there an ideal one-size-fits-all answer to the question “what’s the moral message of this mishnah?” Possibly not, but we should commend those rabbis who at least make the effort to find one.

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Does unconditional love even exist?

Can someone really, truly and honestly love another person unconditionally—with no ifs and buts, no fundamental assumptions, no essential ingredient that binds one’s affections? An anonymous mishnah in Avot says “yes”. At Avot 5: 19 we learn:

כָּל אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, בָּטֵל דָּבָר בְּטֵלָה אַהֲבָה, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, אֵינָהּ בְּטֵלָה לְעוֹלָם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת אַמְנוֹן וְתָמָר, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת דָּוִד וִיהוֹנָתָן

Any love that depends on something—when that thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that does not depend on anything never ceases. What is [an example of] a love that depends on something? The love of Amnon for Tamar. And one that does not depend on anything? The love of David and Jonathan.

Most commentators explain this mishnah simply enough. The Me’iri simply adds that a condition is a sibah, a cause, while R’ Chaim Volozhiner’s Ru’ach Chaim offers no comment at all. In general terms, though, Amnon’s love for Tamar is understood to be conditional upon his urge to possess her. Once he had done so, that condition had been fulfilled and, there being no further basis for it, this love turned to hatred. David and Jonathan however shared a love that did not depend on the fulfilment of any condition.

Maharam Shik challenges the very basis of this mishnah and asks: “Does not every love depend on something?” Even the love of David and Jonathan, he hypothesizes, is firmly pinned on their mutual recognition of the qualities found in the other: they were men of action and their behaviour was in keeping with principles of good conduct. Would their love have persisted, he asks, if it later transpired that either one of them turned out to be evil? Would that not automatically eliminate the basis of their love? It’s a good question.

Maharam Shik does not appear to answer this question. He does however question the validity of the concept of conditional love. He cites the Akedat Yitzchak (R’ Yitzchak Arama) as proposing that everything depends on the factor that motivates the way one acts. If a person’s actions can be attributed a cause or motivation other than love for another person, there is no love. Amnon’s apparent love for Tamar may have felt to him like love for her at the time he desired her, but what he really felt was love for his own desires. This he categorises as desire itself, and not real love. And if it is not love, then it cannot be conditional love either.  In other words, if a feeling is conditional on some external factor, it is disqualified from even being love.

Incidentally, the concept of unconditional love is not only discussed in the context of this mishnah. It is also relevant to one of the very first mishnayot in Avot where (at 1:3) Antigonus Ish Socho teaches that one should serve God like a servant who does so with no expectation of receiving anything in return. On this teaching Rabbenu Yonah observes:

“What is perfect love among people? The desire to serve a loved one only because he has always loved him, even if he knows he will receive nothing in return. It is with this sort of love that man should serve God” [translation by R’ David Sedley].

This might better be termed altruistic love and it is certainly of a high order. Members of Klal Yisrael, the Jewish people, are commanded to love one another just as they love themselves (Vayikra 19:18, וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ, “You shall love your fellow human as you love yourself”) and there is no express stipulation that this love can be made subject to conditions.

Bearing in mind Maharam Shik’s concern about whether unconditional love can exist at all, we can ask why we cite the example of David and Jonathan and not God’s love for His people. We are told that this love is eternal, as we remind ourselves every time we recite the berachah that immediately precedes recitation of the Shema. This love persists even when we disobey God’s instructions and even when He is angry with us and punishes us. But maybe the point our mishnah makes is this: God’s love is divine and we are incapable of comprehending it, never mind emulating it. Our mishnah was however given for mortals. It is in our nature to place conditions on all our relationships—some explicit and some being merely understood. We have to learn that, while we are fully capable of placing conditions on the love we have for others, and of declaring that love to be at an end if those conditions are broken, we should not do so. We should be magnanimous in our relationships and love others the way we would like them to love us.

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Idolatry and Avot: a Tisha be'Av afterthought

The emotional intensity of Tisha Be’Av makes it difficult for me to keep track of what I fondly imagine to be my normally rational thought-processes. However, the intellective functions that drive my brain’s engines keep ticking away even when I’m not conscious of them. That, I suppose, is why so many ideas come to me as afterthoughts. Here, by way of example, is something that struck me only after several days had passed since the great fast.

On Tisha Be’Av we recited a kinah, Vayekonen Yirmeyahu al Yoshiyahu, which bewails the tragic and premature loss of Josiah (Yoshiyahu), the last and possibly the most righteous “good kings” of Israel. Basing its text on the midrash of Eicha Rabbah 1:18, the kinah recounts how Josiah searched the length and breadth of the land for idols, to root them out and destroy them. In this he was so very nearly successful. But

“[A] stubborn minority persisted in the pagan beliefs that had taken such firm root over the generations. They invented an ingenious method for concealing their idols. They split their doors in two and they split their idols in two, down the middle. They attached one half of the idol to each half door in such a way that when the doors were closed the two idol halves came together to be whole, but when the doors were opened the idol was split in half and each piece was concealed inside the open door. When Yoshiyahu’s detectives came to search for idols they opened the doors and found nothing”: ArtScroll Kinot).

So what does this have to do with Pirkei Avot?

There are two mishnayot in the first perek that address the way a householder should deal with strangers.

The first is 1:4:

יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹעֶֽזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָה אוֹמֵר: יְהִי בֵיתְךָ בֵּית וַֽעַד לַחֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי מִתְאַבֵּק בַּעֲפַר רַגְלֵיהֶם, וֶהֱוֵי שׁוֹתֶה בַצָּמָא אֶת דִּבְרֵיהֶם

Yose ben Yo’ezer of Tzeredah says: Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; wrestle in the soil of their feet, and drink their words thirstily.

The second is 1:5, which opens like this:

יוֹסֵי בֶּן יוֹחָנָן אִישׁ יְרוּשָׁלַֽיִם אוֹמֵר: יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָּתֽוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתְךָ

Yose ben Yochanan of Jerusalem says: Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household...

Now, who were these midrashic travelling detectives that Eicha Rabbah 1:18 mentions? It’s not unreasonable to suppose that they were learned men, well versed in the distinctions between idolatry and true Torah practice. If so, they should have been invited in, so that home-owners could learn from them, as Yose ben Yo’ezer suggests. If they had been invited in, it is unimaginable that their hosts would not have closed the front doors, with the result that the detectives would have seen the idols when they turned to face the front door at their point of departure. From this we can infer that these wise men were not invited in in accordance with Yose ben Yo’ezer’s guidance.

But maybe these unsolicited callers were not sages, or didn’t look like them. Perhaps they were garbed as weary travellers, hot and thirsty as they trekked across the kingdom in search of idolators. Here Yose ben Yochanan calls for us to open our doors to all comers and to give them space. Again, it is apparent that the idolatry detectives were not being invited in since, had they been, they would have seen the double doors from the inside and would have realised what was going on.

The moral of the story is that, if you are travelling the country and calling door-to-door on home-owners in search of illicit idol worship, if you are not invited in as a guest you should begin to wonder if your would-be host has something to hide.

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Quick greet, dead heat

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Va'Etchanan)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 4.

There’s something of a conundrum at Avot 4:20, where Rabbi Matya ben Charash opens his teaching with this short piece of advice:

הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם

Be first to greet everyone.

Usually we all benefit from the fulfilment of precepts in Avot that recommend a particular course of conduct. But here we have a zero sum game. If I greet you first when we meet, you cannot greet me first, and vice versa. Does this matter? Probably not. If we look at the major commentators on Avot, we do not find anyone who raises this point.

Some commentaries suggest that the thrust of this teaching lies in its tail: that it should apply even to a non-Jew (commentary ascribed to Rashi), an idolator (Bartenura) or an enemy (R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, Midrash Shmuel). Rabbenu Yonah says that these words are mussar but does not spell out what that mussar is, unlike R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, who pointedly observes that it’s not enough to deign to return someone else’s greeting if that person should greet him first.

Rabbi Matya is actually reminding us that greeting another human being should not be a mere mechanical act or conventional social reflex. As Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) notes, when a Jew greets another person, the word used is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”). To offer another person peace is to confer a blessing. By being first to greet others we express our peaceful intent—with one major caveat. There is no magic power in the word shalom: as important as it is for us to choose the right words when we greet others, it is equally important for us to greet them with a friendly disposition (Shammai at Avot 1:15; R’ Marc D. Angel, Koren Pirkei Avot). Growling “shalom” while you scowl is unlikely to produce the requisite effect.

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