Would you know a golem if you saw one?

The anonymous mishnah at Avot 5:9 lists seven distinguishing features that enable us to spot who is a chacham -- a wise person -- and who is a golem. Among other things the chacham lets others who are older or wiser speak before he does. He doesn't interrupt others in the middle of a sentence. He doesn't ask questions that are stupid or irrelevant but, when he faces a question, he answers it properly -- and he concedes the truth rather than obstinately arguing that black is white. This chacham is clearly something of a role model whom we should emulate. Not so, the golem. But who or what is a golem and would we recognise one if we saw him in the street?

The golem is a well-known character in popular literature, but that genre was not in vogue 1800 years ago. In short, the golem is an animated anthropomorphic being who is created entirely from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The word in Mishnaic times meant a shapeless mass or something that was in an unfinished state. In Modern Hebrew the word means “idiot” or “dummy"; it is not a compliment.

Rabbi Eliezer Prins (The Lehmann-Prins Pirkei Avoth, translated by C. H. Moore) renders "golem" as “an immature person” and on balance I feel that this is the word that best fits the meaning of the Mishnah.

The golem may be contrasted with two other characters encountered in Avot who are spoken of in pejorative terms: the bur (often translated "boor") and the am ha’aretz (someone with low aspirations regarding Torah and education). Our golem may simply lack good manners and not be very clever, or he may be quite bright and knowledgeable but nonetheless quite unable to behave in an appropriate manner. Of all the suggested meanings and explanations of the golem, the one I like best comes from the Lehmann-Prins Pirkei Avoth.:

[T]he term גלם [Hebrew for 'golem'] does not mean an ignorant man or, what is the same thing for many, an uncultured person. A golem is, however, a person who may even master Torah learning, but it does not master him; that is, he does not show it in his actions. …He is still immature and his practice falls short of his theory. One can imagine a golem who has more theoretical knowledge than a chacham; he may be a “walking encyclopedia,” able to expound on any subject, but his knowledge does not inspire his actions and he will remain a golem despite all his knowledge.

The Mishnah may convey to some readers the impression that everyone in the world is either a golem or a chacham. This is clearly not what it means. If we make a candid assessment of our friends and family we are likely to conclude that most people are somewhere in between. The mishnah however has a particular objective in identifying the behavioral characteristics that mark a person out as being one or other of these polar opposites, and that is to give those of us in the middle a chance to think about ourselves.

The message here for those of us who occupy the middle ground is this: we have the potential to move in one of two directions. We can either tighten up on our self-discipline, reduce our propensity to show off and speak with greater honesty in the hope of qualifying as a chacham, or we can let ourselves slip, slough off the unwanted dead skin of good manners, please ourselves as we wish, and be viewed as a golem. We have the free will and the choice is ours.

When books speak volumes: another perspective on rebuke

I recently posted a piece ("A Good Telling-Off?, here) on the importance of loving a rebuke. Let me return briefly to the same topic now.

This morning I found an article on Newsday, all the way from Zimbabwe. Titled "One Jewish secret to success: The Talmud". The author, Alexander Maune, is a Research Fellow at UNISA, Pretoria, which I once had the pleasure of visiting in my days as an academic. After opening with Ben Bag Bag's mishnah at Avot 5:26 about learning Torah ("turn it over, turn it over, for everything is in it..."), Maune brings a quote I'd never seen before, from Israel Gollancz -- not a rabbi but Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London for 27 years until his death in 1930. Gollancz writes:

“How safely, we lay bare the poverty of human ignorance to books, without feeling any shame".

Gollancz goes on to describe books as those silent teachers who

“... instruct us without rods or stripes, without taunts or anger, without gifts or money; who are not asleep when we approach them, and do not deny us when we question them, who do not chide us when we err, or laugh at us if we are ignorant.”

I do not know the source from which this quote comes, but it intrigues me. More to the point, I have always assumed that the references to rebuke in Avot mean a telling-off of the interpersonal variety. But there is no reason why a book should not be the medium through which a good telling-off -- or at least some sharp conscience-pricking -- can be effectively administered. If nothing else, a person can read and re-read the same passage of moral guidance and think about it in his own time and his own way. In contrast, a face-to-face rebuke can be confrontational and cause the person being reprimanded instinctively to put up the defensive drawbridge and seek to deflect the force of the rebuker's attack.

Rabbi Eliezer Papo (the 'Pele Yo'etz') would probably take the same view. He suggests that it is possible to carry on serving God even after you have died. His suggestion: write a book on rebuke and moral chastisement. If you write a learned tome on Talmud or Torah, the chances are that no-one will read it. But if you write something a bit lighter, that pertains to human behaviour,

Alexander Maune's article can be read here.

Eat, drink or repent -- for tomorrow we die!

In the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, repentance is in the air. Jews all around the world talk about it, write about it and sometimes even think about it -- but the object of the exercise is to do it.

Some people like to save up all their repentance for Yom Kippur and make it special. There's no need to do this, though. In Avot 2:15 Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus reminds us: "Repent one day before your death". His students are puzzled by this, for who knows when they will die? And that is precisely the point: every day is ripe for repentance, so why put it off till the Big Day? The standard Jewish Amidah prayer, ideally recited three times every weekday, has been drafted in order to facilitate exactly this objective.

Curiously, not knowing the day of one's forthcoming death is also the trigger for a spot of self-indulgence, hence the popular motto “Eat, drink, and be merry—for tomorrow we die!” The message of the motto is clear: you may as well enjoy yourself and live for the minute, since each minute might be your last and, once you die, the story of your life comes to an abrupt end: there’s nothing left but oblivion and the loss of any capacity for personal enjoyment.

This message is plainly at odds with the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer, a man who would certainly have shared with his fellow Sages a deep belief that there was a better life ahead in the World to Come, a life for which repentance provided an important element of preparation and was certainly more efficacious than a pre-mortem spree.

Some people assume that “Eat, drink, and be merry—for tomorrow we die!” is a Biblical verse. This is not the case, though it is unsurprising that the verse has a Biblical ring to it because it is a conflation of two genuine Biblical sayings. The first, from Ecclesiastes 8:15, is part of a soliloquy on the apparent futility of life when the righteous suffer and the evil are treated as being righteous:

Then I commended enjoyment, because a man has no better objective under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be merry ….

The second, from the prophecies of Isaiah, (at 22:13) puts words into the mouths of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who, when called upon to repent, failed to get the message, responding:

Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.

We don't know our future, but repentance is about relating our present to our past. Right now, while we are still alive and kicking, we can ask ourselves some pertinent questions about whether we are truly the sort of people we believe we should be, and how best we can step back from past failings, build on our experiences and make ourselves the best folk we can be, Meanwhile, bon appetit!

Taking positives from the am ha'aretz

According to the anonymous Mishnah at Avot 5:13 there are four types of people:

(i) The person who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours"—this is a middle-of-the-road type; but there are those who say that this is the character of someone from Sodom;

(ii) The person who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is an am ha’aretz;

(iii) [The person who says] "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chasid;

(iv) [And the person who says] "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked.

I prefer to leave the terms am ha'aretz and chasid untranslated since they carry so much baggage with them. For convenience, we can say that an am ha'aretz -- literally, "people of the land" -- has relatively low behavioural standards and intellectual aspirations, while a chasid is a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to meeting and even exceeding his commitments to God and man. To call someone an am ha'aretz is rather an insult; to call someone a chasid is usually praise.

The am ha’aretz can however be viewed in positive terms too, because this term can also apply to people who literally work the land. Before the era of mechanised agriculture it was the am ha'aretz who tilled the soil and brought in its harvests—and this sort of work could be done by one man on his own. Cooperative effort is demanded and this is what happens when each am ha’aretz helps his fellows. Only if every man contributes his skill, his strength and his equipment for the good of others, and receives the effort of others in return, can the good order of the world be established and maintained.

Like the motto of the Three Musketeers, "One for all and all for one", the mishnah's text of “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine” can be read in a positive light -- and it can almost be described as a sort of partnership (this view has been offered by Rabbi Yitzchak Magriso, Me’am Lo’ez, and Rabbi Menachem Mordechai Frankel-Teomim, Be’er HaAvot).

As the Jewish calendar creeps towards the New Year and the Yom HaDin -- the Day of Judgement -- it's worth reflecting that even the am ha'aretz can be viewed in a positive light. After all, we subscribe to the position that there is no-one who does not have his time (Avot 4:3) and that, where possible we should judge others favourably (Avot 2:6). That is the way we'd like to be judged too.

A good telling-off?

The sixth chapter of Pirkei Avot contains (at Avot 6:6) a list of 48 things that aid a person to acquire Torah. These include the need to love rebuke -- a topic that is worth looking at a little more closely.

For many people, being rebuked by others can be a painful experience. The fact that the person who administers the rebuke loves the person who receives it and cares greatly for their welfare makes no difference. This is perfectly natural. A child will frequently cry when told off by a parent, even in gentle tones, and a teenager may explode with anger: these reactions are innate and remain with us in later life, though we ideally learn to control them as we become more mature.

Not all rebukes are received in the same way. A person learning to drive may receive a stern admonition from the driving instructor along the lines of “What on earth do you think you were doing just then? Do that again and you could do yourself serious harm and even kill yourself!” The response to such a rebuke is usually one of gratitude which is genuinely felt and sincerely expressed. However, when we are seeking to perform a mitzvah and a stranger rebukes us even quite gently for doing it incorrectly, our response is often quite different. A whole range of possible responses flashes through our minds. For example:

(i) “this is what I’ve always done in the past and no-one has ever told me before that it’s wrong;”

(ii) “this is how my rabbi/teacher/friend said I should do it, so it’s not my fault;”

(iii) “what makes you think you are right and I am wrong anyway?” or

(iv) “it’s none of your business what I do or how I do it.”

It is only when all the other options have been considered and rejected that we might concede that we were in need of rebuke and then try to summon up some begrudging gratitude.

If we are honest with ourselves, this contrast between our reactions to the rebuke of the driving instructor and that of the stranger in the examples given above pinpoints a failure in our own priorities. The avoidance of errors when we drive, however commendable, is a matter that concerns our physical integrity in this world. However, our ability to perform a mitzvah or escape from transgressing an averah may have repercussions for the eternal status of a Jewish soul in the World to Come.

On this basis we should welcome the rebuke from the stranger with at least as much warmth as we welcome the guidance of our driving instructor. We should feel happy to be rebuked, love those who rebuke us and take each reproof as a reminder that we should not rely entirely on our own intellectual resources. And if a person can truly say that he loves the Torah, it is reasonable to assume that this love will rub off on to someone who points him back on to any path of Torah learning from which he has wandered.

Everyone makes mistakes—even the greatest and wisest of people—and this has been the lot of mankind since the Creation. However, anyone who truly values the greatness of his Torah learning will welcome being put right. Acting positively in response to a rebuke that one has received may also constitute the mitzvah of repentance.

Jewish sages throughout the ages have added their own perspectives to the issue of rebuke. For example, If there is no one else around to do the job for him, a person should love to rebuke himself, and also love to administer rebukes to others and not worry that this requirement is in conflict with an earlier item on the list of 48 items, that one must be loved by others. It is easy to make oneself unpopular by telling others that they are making mistakes; it is far simpler to smile winningly at them, retaining their friendship and thinking to oneself “I’m all right, even if they aren’t. Why should I risk incurring their wrath by telling them?” This is not the way to behave if you love another person, and this is why a good parent is prepared to risk a flood of tears from an infant rather than condone the eating of sugar-laden confectionery at bedtime and after the child’s teeth have been thoroughly brushed for the night ahead.

Finally, we should note that it is not “rebuke” that one should love, but “rebukes.” If the use of the plural indicates some sort of inclusivity, maybe this is because it embraces both rebukes that are justified and those that are not. The person who issues a rebuke may not be in full possession of the mitigating facts that justify an action that is superficially worthy of reprimand—but the recipient of his words should love the rebuke regardless since it is a sign that the person who administers it cares enough about him to say what he says. After all, anyone who is seriously trying to get things right when rebuking another cannot do so before he overcomes other two obstacles that Avot itself places in his path: he has first to judge another without being in that person’s shoes and must then make an effort to judge that person’s words or actions favourably if he can.

A closing thought is that, from time to time, people err in the opposite direction by giving credit where it is not due or praise where it has not been deserved. Some people are quite content to be on the receiving end of these mistakes. Should they not then be consistent and be equally happy to accept unwarranted criticism?

The pursuit of peace: a personal recollection

In the first chapter of Pirkei Avot, Hillel teaches that we should be like the talmidim (pupils) of Aaron: "love peace, pursue peace; love people and bring them close to the Torah" (Avot 1:12). The oral tradition gives examples of how this can be done, examples that look simple enough in theory but which in practice are very difficult, if not almost impossible, for us to achieve (e.g. shuttling between two enemies and telling each how much the other wants to be friends).

I have only once seen anyone successfully put this precept into practice and genuinely succeed. This is what happened.

Back in the 1980s, the once-distinguished Jewish community in Sunderland had already began its terminal decline. The town's two synagogues had started to struggle with their minyanim and it was apparent that the community was no longer large and strong enough to support both.

The problem was that the two synagogues were very much in competition with one another and there was a great deal of antagonism, much of it long-standing, between them. One had a larger membership, the other a smaller but more religiously committed one. To make things more difficult, several members of each had left their respective shul following a bitter disagreement and had joined the other. The senior members of each synagogue accepted that Sunderland was now able to support just one place of worship, but the only other thing they agreed on was that it was the other shul, and not theirs, that should close.

This was the point at which Rabbi Shammai Zahn, who headed the Sunderland Yeshivah (now in Gateshead) stepped in. He was at first sight an unlikely peacemaker. Many members of the larger synagogue's board of management distrusted him since he was plainly Haredi and their membership consisted mainly of "middle-of-the-road" Jews. One said openly at a board meeting, "I'm not having that Ayatollah coming here to tell us what to do". The smaller shul with the more committed membership was however elated, convinced that R' Zahn -- who had long been sympathetic to their cause -- would somehow make sure that the other shul would close.

What happened next was quite remarkable. For getting on for half a year, R' Zahn shuttled back and forth between representatives of the warring factions. He gave his support to no-one and told no-one what to do. His principal tactic was to act as a sympathetic and patient listener to all of the concerns, real and imagined, that were articulated by the protagonists in both camps. He treated them with dignity and respect, asking them to forget the past for a while and explain what sort of future they envisaged. Eventually, it dawned on both sides that some sort of compromise would have to be reached, and at this point R' Zahn simply offered to help, in any way he could, to facilitate and implement whatever the two sides could contemplate living with.

The longed-for compromise was finally achieved. The shul with the smaller, more committed membership would be the one to go, but its members would play a highly active part in the running of the other shul. Honour was satisfied on both sides and the town was assured of a reliable minyan for several more years. R' Zahn sought no credit for his involvement but it was good to hear some very magnanimous things being said about him, behind his back, by those who a year previously would have regarded him as a hostile meddler -- including the gentleman who had previously insultingly labelled him an "Ayatollah".

I was particularly impressed with the outcome given that, when a shul disappears, its honorary officers and functionaries are left without title and status -- and that, on both sides, people with a substantial sense of their own self-importance were dangerously close to slipping into "over my dead body" mode.

Repentance and good deeds: you can't have one without the other

Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov says (Avot 4:13), “A person who performs a single mitzvah (positive commandment) acquires for himself a single advocate, and a person who transgresses a single averah (negative precept) acquires for himself a single accuser. Repentance and good deeds are like a shield against retribution.” 

Teshuvah (repentance) and ma’asim tovim (good deeds) are demanded together in this Mishnah on the basis that they are effective only in combination with one another. Repentance is all very well, but only God knows what truly lies in a person’s heart and mind. In the absence of some visible, physical activity, there is no evidence that any teshuvah has occurred. Likewise, good deeds are always welcome, but they may do not by themselves constitute a sign of penitence. 

What is meant by good deeds in the absence of repentance? Consider the possibly familiar scenario in which a child, having kicked a ball through a window-pane while his parents were out, seeks to do some helpful deed around the house like tidying his room or cleaning his shoes. The child does not repent of playing ball indoors, even if his parents strictly prohibited him from doing so, since the chances are that he will do so again (though a little more carefully). He is however in fear of what his parents might say or do when they return home and see the shards of shattered glass, so—unrepentant as he may be—he still seeks to ameliorate the nature of their response. 

Half-way between a person’s thoughts, known only to God, and his actions, visible to all, is a space that is occupied by speech. Words spoken by a person can offer a window on to his thoughts, but not a guarantee that what is said is an accurate reflection of what is felt. Thus the words “I’m sorry …” indicates a speaker’s regret, but not in a clear and unambiguous manner. They may mean “I’m sorry for what I did, irrespective of whether it hurt anyone or not,” “I’m sorry that what did I hurt you” or “I’m sorry I didn’t hurt you more.” A full apology or statement of regret, spoken as if it is sincerely meant, is always a good start, but no more than that. That is why good deeds are needed as well as repentance; they are evidence of sincerity.

They're the same -- more or less

Connoisseurs of Pirkei Avot may have spotted that the late, great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks -- whose command of the English language is unparalleled -- provided translations of this tractate for two different books. One is the Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Synagogue, the other being the Koren Pirkei Avot with commentary by Rabbi Marc D. Angel. 

With the aid of one of my grandchildren I pulled out sample mishnayot and baraitot which we checked against one another. On the basis of our research it appears that the two translations are the same, though in the United Synagogue's version the names of the rabbis have been anglicised. This is no doubt a disappointment for anyone who was hoping, as I was, that perhaps Lord Sacks had prepared two quite different but equally elegant and persuasive translations -- something that was quite within his power to do.

The Best of Men

A discussion I've often had with friends turns on the relevance of ancient Jewish learning to modern life. In short, after two millennia can the mishnah still offer anything worth knowing? This discussion inevitably heads towards Pirkei Avot, where I can point to the fact that, while every generation has its own customs, fashions and conventions, the broader characteristics of human nature do not change.#

With this in mind, I found myself thinking about Ben Azzai's teaching (Avot 4:3) that we should not be scornful of any person, since there is no-one who does not have his hour. The trigger for my thoughts was the approach of the 16th Summer Paralympics in Tokyo later this month.

The Paralympics are a massively evolved version of the Stoke Mandeville Games, a set of sports events for paraplegic competitors which by 1952 had attracted as many as 130 participants from overseas (Stoke Mandeville being the name of a British hospital that specialises in treating spinal injuries). The origin of the Games is depicted in a movie, The Best of Men, that portrays the horrors of paraplegic injuries and the struggles of patients to overcome physical, emotional and other problems.

At the heart of the movie is an ongoing battle between German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann (a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany) and his protagonist, Dr Cowan, as to how best to treat paraplegic patients. Dr Cowan's position is that they should be allowed to die in comfort and dignity since they are of no further use to society or to themselves; Dr Guttmann's view, in keeping with Avot 4:3, is that no man should be written off; everyone has a potential that he should have the chance to realise -- even if it is hard and painful for him to do so. It is this view that prevails.

Dr Guttmann's position is not however an absolute one. If a person is to be valued and assisted by others, he must take the first step by being willing to take responsibility for his own life and to value himself. This position chimes in with Rabbi Akiva's enigmatic statement (Avot 3:19) that, while everything is foreseen, free will is given. Framed in terms of Stoke Mandeville's patients, this can be understood as meaning that, while a person's permanent loss of his ability to walk is foreseen, he still has choices to make about how he reacts to his loss and moves on from there.

Much of the movie makes uncomfortable viewing, particularly the bits involving bedsores, but it provides much food for serious thought regarding the way we regard and behave towards our fellow humans.

A sad reflection on human nature

 As we enter the Hebrew month of Elul, with the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur in our sights, we find ourselves in the time-zone for serious reflection ahead of the Days of Awe. What sort of people are we? Are we the best we can be? How can we improve ourselves for the coming year -- and how can Pirkei Avot help? This, the first of a series of Elul posts on the subject of teshuvah (repentance) and self-improvement, is based on Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus' advice (Avot 2:15) to repent one day before one's death.

Over the years I have often asked friends and acquaintances what they would choose to do with their time if they knew for certain that they were embarking on the final day of their lives. The people I asked were drawn from different nationalities, cultures and backgrounds; some were at least nominally religious, while others were not. Their answers however were on the whole quite similar. Typical responses involved eating one or more favorite meal in the company of friends or loved ones, getting drunk to the point of oblivion, visiting a specific beauty spot or (in the case of males only) engaging in as much sexual activity as could be crammed into the closing hours of one’s life on Earth.

To my recollection, none of those asked made any mention of repentance, asking forgiveness of those whom they had upset or wronged, or doing any good deeds for the benefit of others. Why was this so? Probably because their preoccupation with their imminent departure from this World quite overshadowed their thoughts of what might be required in order to expedite their entry to the next one. Quite possibly, if it had been a Heavenly Voice that had asked the same question and not a relative stranger, the answers might be been otherwise. Notwithstanding this, one can see the wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer’s call to repent: while clearing one’s conscience and making peace with one’s Creator is of critical importance to anyone who possesses a religious soul, it’s not the first thing one thinks of when it comes to the crunch.

Praying for the welfare of a bad government

Rabbi Chanina, Deputy of the Kohanim, says: “Pray for the welfare (literally 'peace') of the government since, if it were not for fear of it, a man would swallow his neighbour alive" (Avot 3:2). In principle this sounds perfectly sensible. A government that cannot govern is a recipe for a failed state. Its rule generates anarchy, chaos and the often devastating consequences when individuals and communities have to fend for themselves, taking the law -- or more properly the absence of law -- into their own hands.

But things are never as simple as they seem. Does one pray for the peace of the realm when the government is oppressive, corrupt, selfish and immoral? Opinions are divided. Rabbi Marc D. Angel, for example, writes:

"...praying for the welfare of the government is relevant only if the government itself is just. If the government is immoral, one certainly should not pray for its welfare" (The Koren Pirkei Avot, 2015).

Against this, it is worth considering the background to this teaching. Rabbi Chanina lived, and died, at a time of chaos and anarchy, when the Romans occupied the whole of Israel and the Levant; they were therefore the ruling power in Israel itself. Nowhere in Israel was more anarchic than Jerusalem, where the power struggle between different religious and nationalist factions resulted in the great tragedy of Jew-on-Jew murders, these being deaths that the Roman governors had no great interest in preventing. The Jewish authorities too were powerless to stop this carnage. Indeed, it was a sorry reflection of those troubled times that the members of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court, absented themselves from the Lishkat HaGazit (the Chamber of Hewn Stone, from which place alone capital cases could be tried) so that they would not be able to pass the death sentence on Jewish murderers. This decision was arguably taken on the basis that, since so many Jewish lives were already being lost and the death penalty was no longer an effective deterrent, it was folly to address the escalating mortality rate among Rome’s Jewish subjects by killing even more of them. If one is to pray for the welfare of only a good government, we may well ask whether Rabbi Chanina was ever able to follow his own advice.

Rabbi Marcus Lehmann (The Lehmann-Prins Pirkei Avoth (Feldheim, 1992) takes the view that Rabbi Chanina's teaching does indeed apply to corrupt governments. One does not pray, of course, that their leaders and functionaries should succeed in their evil, but that they should mend their ways and govern justly. This is reflected in the classic formula of the prayer for the Queen found in the British Authorised Daily Prayer Book:

“May [God] in his mercy put a spirit of wisdom and understanding into her heart, and into the hearts of all her counsellors, that they may uphold the peace of the realm, advance the welfare of the nation, and deal kindly and justly with all the House of Israel.” 

This formulation does not endorse the errors and follies of the government. It does however invoke God's mercy -- and it also acknowledges that wisdom and understanding are gifts from God, gifts of which many governments throughout the world are sorely in need.

Eternal laws and academic appetizers

Rabbi Elazar Chisma says (Avot 3:23), “[The laws of] bird sacrifices and the onset of menstrual periods—these are at the heart of the law. Astronomy and mathematics are [just] the appetizers of wisdom.”

This mishnah attracts little enthusiasm or excitement when compared with its immediate predecessors and slow readers are lucky to get to it when the third chapter of Avot is recited at breakneck speed in synagogue on Shabbat afternoon. But what is it about?

Rabbi Elazar mentions four fields of study that were pursued by rabbinical scholars in Mishnaic times. The feature they have in common is that they each require arithmetical skills. That, however, is where the similarity between the first and second pair of subjects ends

The first two, as explained below, deal with matters of halachah (Jewish law), while the second two—astronomy and mathematics—may be classified as useful sciences that can help train the mind and may even have some bearing on the performance of commandments, but which are not in themselves the subject of halachah. Let's look at this contrast a little further

The first two items mentioned in this mishnah—the laws relating to bird sacrifices offered after a woman had given birth and to the calculation of days before a woman was regarded as ritually pure—required computations that had great potential relevance to the performance of mitzvot in Temple times. In the case of bird sacrifices, these computations relate, for example, to the number of birds that had to be offered when two or more women who had given birth brought their pair of birds as Temple offerings at the same time, but where one bird had become lost or their birds had intermingled and it was not known to which woman each bird belonged. In the case of ritual impurity, what was at stake was, for example, a woman’s ability to eat or prepare food that was derived from Temple offerings and had the special and elevated status of kadashim: here the Talmud makes provision for calculations that arise from the various situations that can arise if a woman experiences an unexpected flow of blood which may or may not be menstrual.

By the time the tractate of Avot was compiled, neither bird sacrifices nor the eating of kadashim were areas of active Jewish practice. Nonetheless the laws relating to them remain to this day as part of the living corpus of legislation that is the Torah, an expression of the will of God: they lie at the very heart of halachah.

In contrast with the wisdom of the Torah that lies at the heart of halachah, as our Mishnah teaches here, we find the disciplines of astronomy and mathematics. These fields of intellectual pursuit—no matter how vital or exciting they may be in our lives today—do not of themselves constitute an expression of the will of God. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with the pursuit of astronomy and mathematics; rather, they are a sort of “supporting act” in the ongoing personal drama of man’s efforts to reach out to God. They sharpen a person’s mind just as a piquant hors d’oeuvres might sharpen a person’s appetite, but they never graduate to the status of the main course.

Knowledge of astronomy actually played an important part in establishing one of the most distinctive features of Judaism today—the perpetual self-correcting lunar calendar which, inserting an additional month into seven years within each 19-year cycle, skilfully avoids the problems that might occur if certain festivals fall on the wrong day of the week or, worse, the wrong time of the year. However, despite its importance, astronomy was never more than a sideline. Like most other natural sciences, and unlike mathematics, astronomy does not appear to be widely pursued by serious Torah scholars today.

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

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted on Avot Today in July 2021:

Wednesday 28 July 2021:

 Does God expect us to listen? The ten tests inflicted on God by the Children of Israel (Avot 5:6) do not appear to include not listening to Him. Why? 

Tuesday 27 July 2021: Here comes the judge: According to Avot 4:9, one should avoid becoming a judge -- but judges are needed. How do we resolve this conundrum?

Thursday 22 July  2021: Your wife might follow you -- but the Torah won't. Rabbi Nahorai's warning about being exiled only to a place of Torah (Avot 4:18) gets a neat twist from Rabbi Eliezer Papo.

Sunday 18 July 2021: Av, Avot and Anger. Some thoughts on the destructive force of anger, for Tisha be'Av -- one of the saddest days in the Jewish calendar.

Wednesday 14 July  2021: Torah learning and the Garden of Eden.  Avot 3:9 warns of the danger of stopping in the middle of one's learning in order to admire a beautiful tree. But is it to be taken literally?

Monday 12 July  2021: Hidden -- in full view. Where does one find a hidden tzaddik? And does Pirkei Avot give us any clues?

Friday 8 July 2021:  Self-trust and self-delusion: Hillel (Avot 2:5) says that no-one should trust themselves till the day they die. So why do we trust ourselves?

Tuesday 6 July 2021: The unexpected test: Tests feature a good deal in Avot and ideally a person should not know he's being tested. Sometimes he does know -- but he doesn't know what the test is seeking to prove.

Friday 2 July 2021: With great respect -- how we view our rabbis. In modern times, the sort of respect a rabbi gets may be quite contingent on the sort of community he leads.

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AvotToday blogposts for June 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for May 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for April 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for March 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for February 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for January 2021 here

Does God expect us to listen?

Do we need to listen to God at all? Does He even care if we don’t, so long as the message we receive is one that originated from Him in the first place? These questions may not be as frighteningly radical as they initially appear. Deuteronomy 7:12 states:

“And it shall come to pass, if only you listen to these laws—and keep and do them—that the Lord your God shall keep with you the covenant and the love which he swore to your fathers”.

 This is Moses speaking; his audience is the Children of Israel. But what are these laws to which they must listen? The previous verse explains: they are the laws that Moses is in the process of teaching them. Moses is not the author of these laws. They come from God and Moses has been the conduit through which they came down from their heavenly source. So why does Moses present them as “” the laws that I am teaching you today” and not as “the laws that God commanded you at Mount Sinai”?

We can answer this question by posing another: are the Children of Israel more likely to listen to Moses than to God? This is very likely so, because we have it on good authority that they do not listen to God.

A mishnah (Avot 5:6) teaches how the desert nation tested God 10 times in the desert, citing a Torah verse (Bemidbar 14:22) that refers to 

“… all those people who have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness; they have tested me now these ten times, and have not listened to My voice”.

 What are the 10 tests? The Babylonian Talmud (Arachin 15a-b) offers a quasi-official list. In short, the Children of Israel:

(i) asked Moses, before crossing the Reed Sea, whether he had taken them out to the desert to die because there were no graves in Egypt;

(ii) worried that, since they had crossed the Reed Sea safely, their Egyptian pursuers would cross safely too, so God displayed them, dead, on the sea shore;

(iii) complained that they could not drink the water at Marah because it was bitter;

(iv) complained that there was no water to drink when they camped at Rephidim;

(v) left manna for the following day, despite Moses telling them not to do so;

(vi) went out on the Sabbath to gather manna even though Moses told them not to do so since there wouldn’t be any to collect;

(vii) complained that they would rather have died in Egypt, where they had enjoyed plenty of food, in preference to dying of hunger in the desert;

(viii) complained about the manna, which was not as pleasurable to them as the fish, melons, leeks, garlic etc that they enjoyed in Egypt;

(ix) demanded a replacement for Moses, who had not yet rejoined them after the Giving of the Torah, and then accepted the Golden Calf;

(x) believed the false testimony of the Ten Spies who persuaded them that it would be impossible for them to capture the Promised Land.

Rambam’s list, accepted by the Bartenura and Tosefot Yom Tov, is a little different (Rabbi Yaakov Emden questions why the Arachin list should need changing), but the substance is the same. One thing is missing from every version of this list. God Himself mentions this in this mishnah, where He says: “…and [they] did not listen to My voice.”

Why did God not include His people’s refusal to listen to Him as a test and give the number as eleven? Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda (Midrash Shmuel) considers that their failure to do so is indeed a test, but he does not go on to suggest why God does not apparently count it as a test along with the others.

A possible explanation is that the omission of this test from the list of tests is deliberate and that its absence is designed to teach us something important for our own lives. We all know that active disobedience, ingratitude and non-cooperation are negative traits that have a seriously damaging quality to them. Our own of experience of family and community life demonstrates this on a regular basis. In contrast, a mere refusal to listen may well cause annoyance but it is of quite a different order.

That may be why God is giving us a lesson in best practice to adopt when dealing with others. He is showing us that, when others do not listen to us, we should emulate His example. We should not treat other people’s refusal to listen to us as being a test or tribulation. Rather, we should be patient and understanding, if necessarily seeking out other, more effective, means of getting our message across to those who have demonstrated an initial resistance or refusal to accept what we are trying to tell them.

Here comes the judge...

One of the most trenchant statements in Avot comes from Rabbi Yishmael ben Yose, who says (at Avot 4:9):

“The person who separates himself from litigation removes himself from enmity, robbery and false oaths; but the person who relishes a ruling—he’s a wicked puffed up idiot.”

There is much that can be said about this statement for many reasons, since disputes do arise between even the best of people and the Torah makes extensive provision for their resolution. Judges and lawyers may not always (or ever) be loved for what they do, but we must accept that they are necessary and that even the exemplary figure of Moses was obliged to demonstrate the skills of advocacy and judgment in his long tenure as leader of the Children of Israel.

In his commentary on Avot, Rabbenu Yonah is sensitive to the notion of litigation as a necessary evil when he points to an apparent contradiction between the words of the Written Torah and Oral Law. The Torah explicitly provides that judges be appointed and that they should judge in accordance with justice. How then can Rabbi Yishmael urge people not to judge? Rabbenu Yonah's answer is that the instruction to judge only applies when there is no-one else to do the judging but that, where there are others who are available to judge, it may be better to leave it to them since, by doing so, a person can escape the perils of falling into doubt as to which way the case before him should be judged, presumably running the risk that he will reach the wrong decision.

On the face of things this answer may seem a little weak, but it looks better if one considers an analogy with the field of medicine. Just as there is a mitzvah ("commandment") to judge, and also a prohibition against misjudging, so too there is a mitzvah to save a life but a prohibition against wounding or killing another person. A person who has never delivered a baby by Caesarean section or learned how to resuscitate someone who has stopped breathing may possibly be expected to step into the breach and have a go when no-one else is available to tackle these tasks. But that same person would be strongly advised not to do so when qualified medical assistance is on hand.

There is another way of looking at the apparent contradiction between Written and Oral Law. The Torah requires that there be judges and that they judge. However, the teaching in Rabbi Yishmael's mishnah is not saying the opposite at all: it is addressing the judge’s state of mind. He should not detach himself from judging. Rather, he should judge with detachment. This means objectivity in not taking a personal interest in the outcome. Once a judge becomes emotionally involved in the parties and the outcome of their dispute, he no longer stands above it and the danger of losing the necessary quality of dispassionate objectivity is great.

The words of the Mishnah give some support to this reading of its meaning, since it does not contrast the position of someone who judges with someone who does not judge; rather, it contrasts someone who judges with the right attitude, one of distancing and detaching himself from personal considerations that may engender enmity, robbery and false oaths, with someone whose attitude is frankly unsuitable for the discharge of onerous judicial responsibilities.