When Aaron didn't intervene

An Avot mishnah for Shabbat: Perek 5 (parashat Bechukotai)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to Perek 5.

We all know how long an argument can last—particularly when both sides are determined to have the last word.  Our rabbis of old knew a lot about arguing too, since their quest for truth and their unquenchable desire to discover the fullest and deepest meanings of the Torah often involved lengthy verbal conflict.  A mishnah in Avot (5:20) deals with this very topic:

כָּל מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, אֵין סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת הִלֵּל וְשַׁמַּאי. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת קֹֽרַח וְכָל עֲדָתוֹ

Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven will ultimately endure; one that is not for the sake of Heaven will not ultimately endure. Which dispute is for the sake of Heaven? The dispute between Hillel and Shammai. Which dispute is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company.

Taken literally, this mishnah can be read in one of two ways. First, we can learn from the examples it gives. Hillel and Shammai disputed points of Jewish law in order to serve God better by doing exactly want He wants: their arguments are closely studied even today, two thousand years later, by students of the Talmud all over the world. Korach’s dispute with Moses and Aaron, in contrast, was a power struggle disguised as a Torah dispute: it had no merit then and is now only viewed as a historical curiosity.

A second, more cynical meaning is that a dispute in which the disputants cling to the belief that they are arguing God’s cause is one that will last forever because they will never agree to resolve it. As Rabbi Israel Salanter is quoted as saying:

“In any controversy, people may come to some mutual understanding and solve the matter. However, when the participants mistakenly convince themselves that they are fighting God’s battle, then instead of coming to a common understanding through give and take they will insist that they are absolutely right, that they are upholding God’s view. In such a case they will never yield. As a result, the controversy will endure and continue on and on” (from Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Sage Advice).

The upshot of this teaching is that, however important it is to work out what a Torah verse means, or how a particular law applies, there is a higher value: the value of peace, which is achieved when any disagreement is resolved. Respect for this higher value may mean seeking a compromise that finds some merit in both sides of an argument, for example by agreeing that each of two opposing views applies to a different set of facts.

The need to respect the higher value of peace may be even greater than that. The Torah itself hints at this (Shemot 32). When confronted with demands from the Children of Israel that he make them a god to replace Moses and lead them on their journey to the Promised Land, Aaron could have chosen to argue with them that this demand was illegal, unfounded and in any event unnecessary. But realising the gravity of the situation Aaron—the very epitome of peace—did not even seek to reason with them and talk them out of it. He knew that any argument with the masses would not be a dispute for the sake of Heaven: he was facing a cry for leadership from people raised in a land of idolatry and who were expressing an irresistible  urge to return to their former habits and practice.

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So who is the real thief -- and why?

At Avot 2:8 Hillel reels off a list of things that either hurt or help us. It starts like this:

מַרְבֶּה בָשָׂר מַרְבֶּה רִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה נְכָסִים מַרְבֶּה דְאָגָה, מַרְבֶּה נָשִׁים מַרְבֶּה כְשָׁפִים, מַרְבֶּה שְׁפָחוֹת מַרְבֶּה זִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה עֲבָדִים מַרְבֶּה גָזֵל. מַרְבֶּה תוֹרָה מַרְבֶּה חַיִּים, מַרְבֶּה יְשִׁיבָה מַרְבֶּה חָכְמָה, מַרְבֶּה עֵצָה מַרְבֶּה תְבוּנָה, מַרְבֶּה צְדָקָה מַרְבֶּה שָׁלוֹם

The more the flesh, the more the worms; the more the possessions, the more the worry; the more the wives, the more the witchcraft; the more the maidservants, the more the sexual immorality; the more the manservants, the more the thievery; the more the Torah, the more the life; the more the study, the more the wisdom; the more the counsel, the more the understanding; the more the charity, the more the peace…

I only want to discuss one of these items: the more the manservants, the more the thievery. For the sake of framing it within its context, I have reproduced the relevant words with bold type.

The other items listed in this mishnah provide a context that suggests that we are talking about a man’s personal situation. In particular it addresses a man who is obese, rich, possessed of a plurality of wives and domestic servants. Slaves and servants were the norm in Biblical times; the Tanach and the Oral Torah make frequent references to them and lay down rules regarding them: the same word, עֶבֶד(eved), is used for both. The association of servants with theft must have been so obvious that Rambam, the Bartenura and the commentary ascribed to Rashi make no comment on this part of the mishnah at all, while Rabbenu Yonah characterises theft as the eved’s response to being beaten by his master.

Most of us don’t have manservants any more, or indeed any servants, so Hillel’s teaching really needs a spin if it is to speak to us directly.

R’ Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) discreetly omits any comment on the entire Mishnah, possibly on account of the references to witchcraft and sexual immorality, R’ Yitz Greenberg (Sage Advice) does tackle the worms and the sexual immorality—but has nothing to say specifically about menservants. R’ Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) suggests that there is little difference between maidservants and manservants, other than that the former are more inclined towards sexual immorality while the latter tend more towards offences of dishonesty.

Commentators with a background in psychology fly their own flags. R’ Reuven P. Bulka (Chapters of the Sages) discusses menservants as status symbols belonging to empire builders who wish to impress others, who are probably not your average Pirkei Avot reader, but he does allude to the boredom and emptiness felt by unnecessary household staff who may be driven to theft by the sheer vacuity of their existence. The same idea, of apparent status symbols masking a sordid reality, is echoed by Irving M. Bunim (Ethics from Sinai) who addresses all the negative excesses in global terms. R. Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) writes generally about the problems generated by excesses of every kind, also offering his personal view—which many of us may share on the basis of our own experience—that it can be far more gratifying to do things for oneself than have others doing them for you,

Most recently Gila Ross (Living Beautifully) neatly cites an early source so as to frame this mishnah within a modern context with which many of us are familiar—that of regular rather than domestic employment:

“An excess of staff or servants can lead to more thievery—and not just because they may steal from [the person who has many of them]. According to Rabbi Yosef ibn Nachmias, if someone employs staff above what he can afford, he may bring himself to questionable business practices to maintain a lifestyle that’s above and beyond what he can really handle”.

 This scenario is unlikely to have been at the forefront of Hillel’s mind 2,000 years ago, but his words provide a convenient peg on which to hang a useful piece of practical advice.

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Tracing one's steps back to Avot

At the beginning of May I posted “Taking steps, or taking a path”. This piece reviewed Rabbi Avigdor Miller’s ‘Ten Steps to Greatness’, pointed out how they reflected earlier teachings in Pirkei Avot and invited readers to submit their own suggestions for acquiring greatness—which sadly none of them did.

Here’s another ten-point list to consider. This time the author is the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and it was published in The Times newspaper on 5 January 2008 under the title ‘Resolutions’. For a Jewish readership the same piece was hosted on his own website under a different title: “Count your blessings and begin to change your life”. R’ Miller’s list was aimed at making people great, while that of R’ Sacks had the less ambitious aim of changing people only to the extent of making them happier with their portion in life. As with R’ Miller, so too with R’ Sacks, the question arises: is there any connection between the listed items and Pirkei Avot?

R’ Sacks’ list runs like this [but with Avot allusions added in bold text]:

1. Give thanks. Once a day take quiet time to feel gratitude for what you have, not impatience for what you don’t have [gratitude for what one has is covered by Avot 4:1 and 6:6]. This alone will bring you halfway to happiness. We already have most of the ingredients of a happy life. It’s just that we tend to take these for granted and focus on unmet wants, unfulfilled desires. Giving thanks is better than shopping – and cheaper too [on the potentially detrimental metaphorical effect of shopping see Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:20].

2. Praise. Catch someone doing something right and say so. Most people, most of the time, are unappreciated. Being recognised, thanked and congratulated by someone else is one of the most empowering things that can happen to us [Recognising the good in other people and giving them credit for it feature in Avot 6:6]. So don’t wait for someone to do it for you: do it for someone else. You will make their day, and that will help to make yours.

3. Spend time with your family. Make sure that there is at least one time a week when you sit down to have a meal together with no distractions – no television, no phone, no email, just being together and celebrating one another’s company. Happy marriages and healthy families need dedicated time [this course of action is arguably the easiest way to achieve the objectives of ‘being loved’ and ‘loving other people’ as articulated in Avot 6:1 and 6:6].

4. Discover meaning. Take time out, once in a while, to ask: “Why am I here? What do I hope to achieve? How best can I use my gifts? What would I wish to be said about me when I am no longer here?” [Introspection of this nature resonates with Hillel’s teaching at 1:14]. Finding meaning is essential to a fulfilled life – and how can you find it if you never look? If you don’t know where you want to be, you will never get there, however fast you run.

5. Live your values. Most of us believe in high ideals, but we act on them only sporadically. The best thing to do is to establish habits that get us to enact those ideals daily. This is called ritual, and it is what religions remember but ethicists often forget [Living one’s values requires a person to exercise constant judgement in making sure that his deeds are not merely good but that they are consistent with what he is as a person, hence Avot 1:1: be deliberate in (self)-judgement].

6. Forgive. This is the emotional equivalent of losing excess weight. Life is too short to bear a grudge or seek revenge. Forgiving someone is good for them but even better for you. The bad has happened. It won’t be made better by your dwelling on it. Let it go. Move on [Forgiveness as such doesn’t get a mention in Avot, but giving others the benefit of the doubt is often a prelude to the act of forgiveness. Avot 1:6].

7. Keep learning. I learnt this from Florence in Newcastle, whom I last met the day she celebrated her 105th birthday. She was still full of energy and fun. “What’s the secret?” I asked her. “Never be afraid to learn something new,” she said. Then I realised that if you are willing to learn, you can be 105 and still young. If you are not, you can be 25 and already old [by citing what he learned from Florence, R’ Sacks provides a great example of Ben Zoma’s teaching at Avot 4:1: “Who is wise? The person who learns from everyone”].

8. Learn to listen. Often in conversation we spend half our time thinking of what we want to say next instead of paying attention to what the other person is saying [attentive listening comes in Avot 6:6]. Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to someone else. It means that we are open to them, that we take them seriously and that we accept graciously their gift of words.

9. Create moments of silence in the soul. Liberate yourself, if only five minutes daily, from the tyranny of technology, the mobile phone, the laptop and all the other electronic intruders, and just inhale the heady air of existence, the joy of being [as Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says at Avot 1:17: “I have found nothing better for oneself than silence”].

10. Transform suffering. When bad things happen, use them to sensitise you to the pain of others. The greatest people I know – people who survived tragedy and became stronger as a result – did not ask “Who did this to me?” Instead, they asked “What does this allow me to do that I could not have done before?” They refused to become victims of circumstance. They became, instead, agents of hope [kabbalat yisurim—a positive acceptance of suffering—is mentioned at Avot 6:6].

Thoughts, anyone?

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Snap judgements

An Avot mishnah for Shabbat: Perek 4 (parashat Behar)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to Perek 4.

Judging by appearances—it’s something we all do. But should we? Rabbi Meir forces us to consider if we should, at Avot 4:27:

אַל תִּסְתַּכֵּל בְּקַנְקַן, אֶלָּא בְּמַה שֶּׁיֶּשׁ בּוֹ, יֵשׁ קַנְקַן חָדָשׁ מָלֵא יָשָׁן, וְיָשָׁן שֶׁאֲפִילוּ חָדָשׁ אֵין בּוֹ

Don’t look at the vessel, but at what’s inside it. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that don’t contain even new wine.

Rabbi Meir is not merely talking about wine. He is referring to every occasion on which we let ourselves be guided by superficial impressions. But is he being realistic?

We live in a world where appearances are important. If a person wears a police uniform or a soldier, we immediately determine that person’s role and, often, their rank or status. We assume that charedi garb or hippie get-up are measures of their wearer’s religious or cultural preferences. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) argues that reliance on these snap assessments is the only way to navigate life in a world such as ours which is laden with messages and constantly changing situations.

But Rabbi Meir enjoys support too. The popular rock number by Bo Diddley, “You can’t judge a book by the cover”, has been performed or recorded on countless occasions by artistes as distinguished as The Rolling Stones since its release in 1962. Another song, “The cover is not the book”, is known to a new generation of children following the release of the “Mary Poppins” movie in 2018. Going back to earlier times, Rambam summarises (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot 5:9) the way a Torah scholar should appear in public, raising the implication that anyone who confirms to these norms will be judged as one.

Taking things at face value is an impressively powerful marketing tool. Toothpastes, for example, never seem to deliver the same set of sparkling white teeth as the model who appears on the promotional material. But that is only a fraction of the reality with which we live. Who has not purchased a large packet of breakfast cereal or a bloated bag of so-called artisan chips/crisps, only to find that much of it is empty? Or, in the world of pascal gastronomy, bought a manufactured product bearing a label that proclaims kasher lePesach in large print and the words le’ochlei kitniyot in print so small you need a microscope to read it. We do judge the container, but the product can so easily let us down.

There is another aspect to judging by appearance, a rather more sinister one. At many junctures in the long, hard history of Jewish life in the Diaspora, we have been required to wear distinctive and sometimes deliberately degrading clothes or badges so that non-Jews can instantly and without inquiry ascertain our religious status. Can we learn anything from this? Perhaps we can say that, just as we can’t judge wine by looking at the vessel (or, in modern parlance, by reading the label on the bottle), we should not impose external appearances on others where the effect is to humiliate them or to deny their individuality.

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In praise of a good dispute

In principle, we try to avoid conflicts and disputes with our fellow humans wherever possible. They cause friction, ill-feeling and anger, from which neither the victor nor the vanquished is immune. Pirkei Avot allows for disputes—but only in a very narrow context. At Avot 5:20 we learn:

כָּל מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם, וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, אֵין סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת הִלֵּל וְשַׁמַּאי. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם, זוֹ מַחֲלֽוֹקֶת קֹֽרַח וְכָל עֲדָתוֹ

Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven will have a lasting value; one that is not for the sake of Heaven will not have a lasting value. Which is a dispute that is for the sake of Heaven? The dispute(s) between Hillel and Shammai. Which is a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company.

Maharam Shik comments that there are times when it is hard to avoid entering a dispute. He cites a situation in which someone pronounces a piece of treif meat to be kasher. One cannot just walk away, contenting oneself with the thought that perhaps the meat really is kasher, cherishing the notion that peace has such a high value that it would be wrong to break it. Rather, one should challenge the other person. If indeed the meat is treif, there is a useful lesson to be learned from the dispute and its outcome will have been positive.

There is however a danger, warns Maharam Shik. This lies in the temptation to pick an argument—even one based on Torah issues—in order to show off how clever or knowledgeable one is. Quoting from Zechariah 8:19, וְהָאֱמֶת וְהַשָּׁלוֹם אֱהָבוּ, “And love truth and peace”, he notes that “truth” comes before “peace”. When the value of truth is greater than that of peace, one should make an effort to pursue it.

There is another reason to favour truth over peace. A dispute will be destined to have a lasting value, לְהִתְקַיֵּם, if it is for the sake of truth. This is because truth is a quality of the Torah itself. According to Avot 1:2, Torah is one of the three pillars upon which the world stands, while peace, along with truth is listed at Avot 1:18 are two of the three things that keep the world going and give it its קיום (kiyum, its sustaining quality).

The disputes between Hillel and Shammai were exclusively addressed to questions of the Torah and its true meaning, and these are disputes which we study, and from which we learn, even today.

Though not all our own disputes may appear to relate to the Torah, we can at least make the effort to see whether there is any real point, any lasting benefit, to be achieved by engaging in arguments. Do we do so in order to enrich our understanding of the world we live in and our place within it, or are we doing it in order to flex our intellectual muscles or wield power? The choice is ours.

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Raisi is dead: glee or gratitude?

The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in yesterday’s helicopter crash has generated a large quantity of celebratory material online. Memes, tweets, blogposts and the like are being happily shared among his enemies and opponents. This is not surprising since he was an implacable foe of the State of Israel, a Holocaust denier and no lover of the Jewish people.

But is it right to rejoice?. At Avot 4:24 Shmuel HaKatan says,

“Don’t be happy at the downfall of your enemy and don’t let your heart rejoice when he stumbles, in case God sees you [literally “him”] and it’s bad in His eyes, and He turns His anger away from him [i.e. your enemy].”

These words are a direct quote from Proverbs (Mishlei 24:17-18) and they make us stop in our tracks and ask ourselves if our gleeful celebrations are in order or not.

To feel joy is both normal and natural. When King David wrote, “I will exalt you, God, since you have raised me up and did not let my enemies rejoice over me” (Psalms 30:2) he must have understood what such joy felt like since he was able to project that feeling on to the feelings which he expected his enemies to have.

Purim is not a precedent for rejoicing over our enemies’ downfall, since it does not focus on the death of Haman. Rather, we are supposed to direct our joy to the issue of a royal decree that the Jewish inhabitants of Ahasuerus’ empire were empowered to take up arms and defend themselves against the wider population.

So what should we do? Here’s a clue. If we cannot channel our joy from the downfall of our enemies to some other source of happiness, it is still open to us to translate it into gratitude. Rather than celebrate the death of President Raisi, we can offer our thanks to God that He has removed one of the many threats that face the Jewish nation and its homeland. Sadly, many such threats remain—but each represents the potential for future thanks to our one and true Protector.

In the Book of Psalms (Tehillim 27) we find an example of how a person who is acutely aware of God’s presence and of His intervention in events responds to the downfall of his enemies. The psalm in question uses the same Hebrew words as this mishnah for ‘downfall’ and ‘stumbling, and it is hardly likely that King Solomon, compiling the Book of Proverbs, would not have been familiar with the text of a psalm penned by his own father.

Psalm 27 can be seen as a paradigm for an ideal response to the fall of one’s foes. In it, King David acknowledges the facts on the ground—his enemies have been beaten and their malevolent intent foiled—and then does the following things:

• He affirms his continued trust in God;

• He requests further protection and sanctuary from evil;

• He proposes to offer joy-sacrifices to God and to sing His praises;

• He calls on God to lead him along the path of integrity, since his foes are ever-watchful;

• He calls on others to strengthen themselves by placing their hope in God.

There is no triumphalism here, no personal judgement of the wicked by King David, no wagging of fingers or naming of names and no suggestion that God has only eliminated his enemies because he has asked him to do so. This response is dignified, restrained and responsible: there is a strong case for arguing that we should work hard on our own feelings in order to channel our own responses to triumph over our enemies in an equivalent manner.

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No flour, no Torah

R’ Elazar ben Azariah is known to most Jews who have attended a few Pesach sedarim as the rabbi whose beard turned white overnight to make him look older, and therefore wiser, than his youthful age suggested. Probably less well known is the pleasingly symmetrical Mishnah he teaches at Avot 3:17:

אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה אֵין דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, אִם אֵין דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ אֵין תּוֹרָה, אִם אֵין חָכְמָה אֵין יִרְאָה, אִם אֵין יִרְאָה אֵין חָכְמָה, אִם אֵין דַּֽעַת אֵין בִּינָה, אִם אֵין בִּינָה אֵין דַּֽעַת, אִם אֵין קֶֽמַח אֵין תּוֹרָה, אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה אֵין קֶֽמַח

If there is no Torah, there is no derech eretz; if there is no derech eretz, there is no Torah. If there is no wisdom, there is no fear [of God]; if there is no fear [of God], there is no wisdom. If there is no knowledge, there is no understanding; if there is no understanding, there is no knowledge. If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour.

This note leaves the term derech eretz untranslated. While in this context it quite likely means “good behaviour”, it does have other meanings and, in any event, we are not focusing on it here. Instead, we examine the fourth part of the Mishnah: if there is no flour, there is no Torah—and vice versa. Why does R’ Elazar say this? What is this all about?

The obvious meaning is that “flour” is a metonymy: it is simply shorthand for “food” or “money”, this being the means of acquiring food. A Torah scholar who lacks food will not learn but starve (Bartenura, commentary ascribed to Rashi). But why should the absence of Torah entail an absence of food? After all, most of the world consists of people who do not learn Torah but for whom food is at least theoretically available.

R’ Baruch HaLevi Epstein (Baruch She’emar) scorns the “going hungry” explanation as teaching nothing we do not already know. Instead, he hypothesises that “Torah” is the basic material that one must learn, while “flour” is the refined product derived by analysing and developing it. If there is no Torah, there is nothing to refine and develop—and if there is to be no further development in our understanding, there is no great meaning in a Torah that is only taken at face value.

Other answers have been offered. One is that food only exists in the merit of Torah study: if Torah study is reduced, its influence diminishes too, and it is in the merit of this influence that our food is provided (Alshich); accordingly we should provide the poor Torah scholar with food, or we will find that, since he has not the wherewithal to learn Torah, ultimately even the wealthy will be without food (R’ Yechezkel Landau, the Noda BeYehudah). If people do not study Torah, they may as well be dead (Bartenura). And if people do not trouble themselves to learn Torah—an activity that distinguishes man from beast—they are no better than animals and do not deserve flour, or indeed any other food (see discussions in R’ Yisrael Meir Lau, Yachel Yisrael and R’ Yisroel Miller, The Wisdom of Avos).

One of the shortest and neatest explanations is that of the Kli Yakar, R’ Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz (Al 13 Middot, 3, Miketz), followed by Gila Ross (Living Beautifully): “flour” and “Torah” are, respectively, “body” and “soul”. The human condition requires each to be responsible for the wellbeing of the other. Is this what R’ Elazar ben Azariah means? I don’t know, but it does seem to me that, if the first three pairs of concepts in this mishnah can also be explained in comparably simple terms, this explanation will fit in well.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

As an aside, I don’t usually go for cute explanations of mishnayot that are based on mnemonics such as roshei tevot (acronyms). That doesn’t mean I disapprove of them; rather, much as I enjoy them, I often don’t feel that they convey a message with any particular relevance to the modern student of Avot.

Here’s one that tickled my interest, though. The Ketav Sofer points out that there are three periods when a Torah scholar must eat: on Shabbat and on the Festivals he is obliged not only to eat but to do so with simchah (happiness) and oneg (enjoyment), and on days that are neither Shabbat nor Yomim Tovim he is obliged to eat in order to survive and carry on learning Torah. The Hebrew word for flour, קמח (kemach), alludes to this. The ק is for Shabbat kodesh, the מ is for mo’ed (festival) and the ח is for chol—the regular days of the year.

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Playing out our role as humans

An Avot mishnah for Shabbat: Perek 3 (parashat Emor)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to Perek 3.

Rabbi Akiva is universally acknowledged in the Jewish world as one of our greatest and most influential scholars. He is also the most prominent contributor to this week’s Perek, providing four of its 23 mishnayot. We are fortunate that so much of his learning has been preserved for us in the Mishnah and Talmud—but unfortunate in that we no longer have a full understanding and appreciation of his teachings.

An example of this is the three-part mishnah of Avot 3:19:

הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה, וּבְטוֹב הָעוֹלָם נִדּוֹן, וְהַכֹּל לְפִי רוֹב הַמַּעֲשֶׂה

Everything is foreseen, but freedom of choice is granted. The world is judged in goodness, and everything is in accordance with the majority of the action.

The first part of this teaching is a conundrum, but at least we can see that it is so: the notion that we have absolute freedom to do what we want cannot be conveniently reconciled with God’s knowing in advance that this is exactly what we are going to do; Rambam tells us—as if we could not see for ourselves—that the way this works is beyond human comprehension. The second part can be comprehended as a proposition, but we have no indication as to what it means in cosmic terms or in our daily lives. The third part demands some sort of explanation because its meaning lies beyond us. Knowing Rabbi Akiva as we do, we appreciate that deep meaning lies locked away within his words—but we have lost the key.

The first thing we must understand is that Rabbi Akiva was not an ordinary thinker and it is difficult for us to put ourselves into his mind-frame or into his historical context as a Jewish scholar and revolutionary at a time of Roman oppression. The second thing we have to understand is that, when he says something we cannot immediately understand, it is our task to work at it and try to give it some meaning. If you or I were to declare “The world is like an apricot”, no-one would take us seriously and we would be accounted fools or comedians. However, if a sage like Rabbi Akiva were to say the same thing, our respect for him would demand that we seek a meaning in his words even if it is not immediately apparent.

 This week’s mishnah has generated volumes of learned commentary, much of which Rabbi Akiva might have found quite surprising. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi chose to include this teaching in Avot even though Rabbi Akiva said many things that are apparently more relevant (for example that “love your neighbour like yourself” is the great general principle of the Torah). From this we may infer that this mishnah says something about our role as humans. Even so, many explanations seemingly turn on global considerations and do not appear to address the individual at all. Be that as it may, each generation looks carefully at Rabbi Akiva’s words and we too engage in this task. If we cannot pull his meaning out of it, we can at least attempt to breathe meaning into it.

So this Shabbat let us ask ourselves: “What does this mishnah say with regard to our role as individuals in a social context? How can it improve us or aid us in the various roles we are required to fulfil?”

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Ethics of Our Fighters: a review

Ethics of Our Fighters, by Rabbi Shlomo M. Brody, was published by Koren at the very end of 2023.  Apart from being a rabbi, the author is a teacher, scholar and researcher who holds a doctorate in law and a journalist. His writings  on contemporary moral dilemmas have been cited by the Israeli Supreme Court—a body that is no stranger to moral dilemmas, having over the years created more than one of their own.

Avot Today noted this book when it first appeared (see our initial observations at avot-today.com/2023/12/hitting-mark-missing-point.html). I have now had a chance to read it carefully and here are my thoughts.

Despite the resonance between the title with the English name by which Avot is best known—Ethics of the Fathers—and despite the reference to Avot in the book’s publicity, this is emphatically not a book about Avot and there are very few points of even possible contact between them. One is Avot 3:18, where Rabbi Akiva reminds us that all humans are dear to God, being created in His likeness—a mishnah based on a Torah verse that, taken literally, would hold fighting forces to moral standards that most would regard as quite unreasonably too high.

Rabbi Brody’s book provides a detailed and well researched discussion of the Jewish response to the legitimacy of various issues. These include national security, human rights, conduct in regular battle, pre-emptive action, dealing with non-combatants, collective punishment, responses to terrorism, reprisals and deterrents. The most fascinating feature of many of these debates is the nature of the debaters themselves: orthodox and non-orthodox rabbis and religious scholars, secular Jews, Zionists, nationalists, military leaders, politicians and philosophers. Given the extreme importance of the subject matter and the extent to which influential opinions are liable to lead to action, these are debates in which no party and no argument can be safely ignored, and where no opinion can be discarded on the basis of the status of the person who expresses it.

This is not a casual read for the curious, since it demands one’s full attention. However, it will repay the effort involved in studying it seriously and in following the various analyses and discussions as they travel through time and space. For me, the best bit of this book is one of the shortest: it’s chapter 8 (‘The Jewish Multivalue Framework for Military Ethics’). This is because it highlights for military ethics, in like manner to Pirkei Avot, the impossibility of finding a single answer or of establishing a hierarchy of norms to situations that inevitably depend on their own unique facts. It is helpful to bear this in mind when reading, for example, chapter 23 (‘Once the War Starts: Shifting Moral Responsibilities in Urban Warfare’), where it is moral responsibilities that come into conflict.

We readers are not all the same and no publisher can cater equally for every taste. However, my personal preference for a work of this nature is that it should present references to source material and other useful or relevant notes at the bottom of each page, rather than in an appendix of nearly 70 pages where these items are listed chapter by chapter.  I do not believe that the sort of people who are likely to read this book in any sort of depth will be deterred by the appearance of footnotes, and they will be greatly assisted if they do not have to keep turning to the back of the book for the information they seek.

With that one small proviso, I very much enjoyed reading Rabbi Brody’s work and believe that it is not only a useful contribution to discussion on the ethics of war but, in effect, an agenda that will be enormously helpful to those seeking to understand the topic, to teach it or to take it to the next level.

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Wives, women and witchcraft: part 2

The more the maidservants, the more the sexual immorality

In Wives, Women and Witchcraft: Part 1 we discussed a difficult and arguably obsolete component of Hillel’s teaching in the first part of Avot 2:8 regarding wives. We now turn to the second point he makes about women—that an increase of maidservants means an increase of sexual immorality. For convenience the relevant part of the text is reproduced here in bold print):

מַרְבֶּה בָשָׂר מַרְבֶּה רִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה נְכָסִים מַרְבֶּה דְאָגָה, מַרְבֶּה נָשִׁים מַרְבֶּה כְשָׁפִים, מַרְבֶּה שְׁפָחוֹת מַרְבֶּה זִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה עֲבָדִים מַרְבֶּה גָזֵל. מַרְבֶּה תוֹרָה מַרְבֶּה חַיִּים, מַרְבֶּה יְשִׁיבָה מַרְבֶּה חָכְמָה, מַרְבֶּה עֵצָה מַרְבֶּה תְבוּנָה, מַרְבֶּה צְדָקָה מַרְבֶּה שָׁלוֹם...

One who increases flesh increases worms; one who increases possessions increases worry; one who increases wives increases witchcraft; one who increases maidservants increases sexual immorality; one who increases manservants increases theft; one who increases Torah increases life; one who increases study increases wisdom; one who increases counsel increases understanding; one who increases charity increases peace…

Maidservants were clearly part of normal life in the large familial households of Tannaic times and, in English society, remained so until the early years of the twentieth century. Today, however, the maidservant is an archaic job title for a role that is now rarely met outside the context of the television costume drama. In order to appreciate this part of the mishnah, one must either cast oneself back into the days when maidservants flourished or make it relevant to contemporary students of Avot by drawing on some appropriate modern analogy. One such analogy might be made with the cinematic industry, where dominant males have been found to have abused the power and influence that they were able to exert over a continuous stream of attractive and nubile young women who were dependent on their favours.

As in the case of wives and witches above, some major commentators on Avot leave this part of the mishnah with little or no comment (Part 1 mentions rabbis who have let this mishnah pass in its entirety without comment). The Rashbatz (R’ Shimon ben Tzemach, Magen Avot) appears to consider that the shefachot (“maidservants,” from the verb shafach, “pour”) are inherently immoral, forming part of an underclass, as it were, that also comprises menservants. R’ Yisrael Meir Lau (Rav Lau on Avos) follows this view which, I must admit, troubles me. The rampant immorality of the leisured classes in most cultures at most times seems to be an inevitable corollary of power and privilege. Rulers, nobles and even the celibate Catholic clergy kept mistresses and had far better opportunities to indulge themselves than did the household staff who cooked their food, cleaned their homes, repaired their clothes and kept their fires lit. That immorality is the prerogative of those with even limited power is a theme which is movingly depicted in two celebrated masterpieces of nineteenth-century French literature: Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and Emile Zola’s Germinal.

So what is the source of the immorality which Hillel mentions here?  Is it inherent in maidservants as a class, or only among maidservants of loose morals (as per Gila Ross, Living Beautifully)? Or does it lie in the minds of the men of the household? While there is no basis in fact for the popular myth that men think about sex an average of once every seven seconds, a household to which low-status serving women are tied is inevitably a fertile territory for both predatory male interest and a less sinister process which, starting with mere speculation, may result in activity that goes beyond both moral and legally acceptable boundaries.  Complaints by female au pairs of sexual abuse and harassment are part of the same pattern, as R’ Yaakov Hillel, Eternal Ethics from Sinai, notes.

Let us conclude with a thought-provoking observation by R’ Naftali Herz Wessely, Yayn Levanon. Noting that it is paired with witchcraft not just here but in the Talmud (“sexual immorality and witchcraft consume everything”: Sotah 48a), he contrasts the position of wives with that of maidservants: men are attracted to their wives because the latter are sexually permitted to him, while maidservants are attractive to him precisely because they are not.

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Wives, women and witchcraft: part 1

The more the women, the more the witchcraft

The place of women in Pirkei Avot, and therefore within the framework of best practice in daily Jewish life, has featured before in Avot Today, when we discussed the extent to which a man might talk to his own, or another’s, wife. We return to this topic with a review of two statements Hillel makes in the first part of Avot 2:8 regarding women (I’ve put the relevant part of the text in bold print):

מַרְבֶּה בָשָׂר מַרְבֶּה רִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה נְכָסִים מַרְבֶּה דְאָגָה, מַרְבֶּה נָשִׁים מַרְבֶּה כְשָׁפִים, מַרְבֶּה שְׁפָחוֹת מַרְבֶּה זִמָּה, מַרְבֶּה עֲבָדִים מַרְבֶּה גָזֵל. מַרְבֶּה תוֹרָה מַרְבֶּה חַיִּים, מַרְבֶּה יְשִׁיבָה מַרְבֶּה חָכְמָה, מַרְבֶּה עֵצָה מַרְבֶּה תְבוּנָה, מַרְבֶּה צְדָקָה מַרְבֶּה שָׁלוֹם...

One who increases flesh increases worms; one who increases possessions increases worry; one who increases wives increases witchcraft; one who increases maidservants increases sexual immorality; one who increases manservants increases theft; one who increases Torah increases life; one who increases study increases wisdom; one who increases counsel increases understanding; one who increases charity increases peace…

In this, the first of two parts of our review of this Mishnah, we deal with wives and witchcraft. The post that follows it deals with maidservants and sexual immorality.

While witchcraft was a matter of serious concern to the Tannaim (see e.g. Sanhedrin 45b, where Shimon HaTzaddik arranging for the death of 80 witches in Ashkelon), this part of the mishnah may seem irrelevant to the contemporary reader, especially since it is directly related to polygamy, a practice that is very much in abeyance in Jewish society (polygamy is technically permitted by the Torah but was banned via a decree of Rabbenu Gershom c. 1000 CE).

Leaving the issue of polygamy aside, and accepting that the practice of witchcraft is not exclusively the prerogative of the female, we have to recognize that in contemporary society the word “witch” is associated principally with women. It is generally deployed as a derogatory term, often suggesting someone who is ugly or deformed, bad tempered, more than averagely assertive or able to get their own way. Additionally, witchcraft is not a concept that greatly affects people’s lives in the twenty-first century.

Apart from that, there are more serious issues of interpretation to contend with. Taken literally, the proportionality expressed in this part of the mishnah appears to imply that there will always be some witchcraft, irrespective of the number of wives. Further, the assessment of “the more the wives, the more the witchcraft” does not appear to depend on the personal qualities of the women concerned, who may be possessed of the highest degree of integrity, morality and respect for God. Finally the Torah (Shemot 22:18) states categorically that a witch should not be allowed to live, but the mishnah does not appear to endorse this requirement.

Some commentators leave us to form our own opinions since they offer no comment about women and witchcraft at all (e.g. Rabbi Chaim Volozhin (Ruach Chaim), the Chida (Chasdei Avot), the Alshich (Yarim Moshe), Rambam and the commentary ascribed to Rashi. Others consider that Hillel was speaking metaphorically. The most popular commentator on Avot, Rabbi Ovadyah MiBartenura, treats the increased number of wives here as the pivotal point in a sort of Rake’s Progress in which a man, over-indulging in food, drink and the good things in life which affluence makes available to him, secures many wives; each in turn needs a maidservant and they collectively require a retinue of manservants to supply their needs. His explanation of the mishnah, under the heading “one who increases wives increases witchcraft,” makes no mention of witches and their craft at all. It is notable that the Tosafot Yom Tov—who comments extensively and often critically on the Bartenura—lets this parable-based explanation go unchallenged.

Another metaphorical and unflattering approach is to understand “witchcraft” as the simple-mindedness of women who foolishly exceed their domestic budget and fail to see the consequences when they pester their husbands for unnecessary purchases (Be’ur Halachah to Mishnah Berurah 529 at ‘Ve’al yetzamtzem behotza’at Yom Tov’, cited in Rabbis Baruch and Amos Shulem, Avot uVanim al Pirkei Avot). If this was ever the case—which may be doubted outside the realms of popular non-Jewish fiction of bygone times—there is no evidence that the 21^st century Jewish working wife who shoulders her share of domestic responsibility even comes close to resembling this insulting and offensive stereotype.

A further approach is to vest this mishnah with the meaning that, from the point of view of a husband, the experience of amassing wives feels like an accumulation of witches. A man with many wives may absolutely fail to understand the nature of their communications with one another, their shared interests and their rivalries, their adoption of a scale of priorities at odds with his own and their preoccupation with matters in which he had neither interest nor expertise. Out of his depth in the social milieu of his harem and unable to control collectively those over whom he wields dominance one-to-one, he might well consider himself the victim of powers that lay beyond his understanding—this being in effect a sort of witchcraft.

Variations on the theme of this explanation can be found in the notion that wives, competing for the attention and the affection of the same husband, would resort to the services of witches in order to promote their cause (Machzor Vitry; Rabbenu Yonah) or to make themselves more appealing (Rabbi Avraham Azulai), or that the husband, broken in mind and exhausted in body by a surfeit of sex (Tiferet Yisrael (Yachin); Rabbi David Sperber, Michtam leDavid), would in his desperation seek relief by consulting the occult and illicit forces of the Ov or the Yidoni (Devarim 18:11. Rashi explains there that the Ov is a sort of ventriloquist who projects his voice through his armpit, while the Yidoni speaks through a bone that he places in his mouth. Both are sorcerers, whom it is prohibited to consult).

This approach can be adopted prospectively by the man who has yet to take on extra wives. Thus Rabbi Yechezkel Sarno (Daliyot Yechezkel, cited in Mishel Avot) sees this Mishnah as a sort of checklist for a man who is advancing through various stages in his life. At the point at which he considers whether to increase the number of his wives, that is the moment for him to imagine himself increasing not wives but witches, this being a prophylactic against subjecting himself to the force of their irresistibly seductive powers.

On a historical note, the Tanach has not shirked from showing the consequences of taking more than one wife, even where the husband concerned is a man of the highest integrity and commitment to serving God. The domestic relationships that are a consequence of Jacob marrying sororal co-wives Rachel and Leah is clearly strained, and King Solomon’s failure to observe the injunction placed upon a king to limit the number of his wives led ultimately to the royal family practicing idol worship and to national disaster.

Where then does this leave us? Among modern commentators there is some reluctance to get tackle this issue.  R’ Dan Roth (Relevance: Pirkei Avos for the Twenty-First Century), Samson Krupnick and Morris Mandel (Torah Dynamics) and R’ Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) omit this mishnah in its entirety. R’ Irving Greenberg (Sage Advice) does mention the Mishnah but says nothing about wives and witches.

Others do discuss it but tread warily. R’ Reuven Bulka (Chapters of the Sages), having mentioned the risk of internecine strife between multiple wives, comments: “The quality of one true love relationship is more meaningful and lasting than ten superficial relationships”. Gila Ross discusses all the situations Hillel cites, using the present tense, while mentioning wives-and-witches in the past tense—a gentle suggestion that the Tanna’s words are of purely historical interest.

R’ Yaakov Hillel (Eternal Ethics from Sinai), seizes the opportunity this mishnah offers him to embark in a lengthy discussion of some key issues. He writes of the need for moderation in all things, the priority of the spiritual over the physical and the dangers of excessive wealth and the need to regard life as more than merely a vehicle for physical pleasure: he also cautions that a man who cannot satisfy his lusts will be buried by them. Ultimately, however, he endorses the 500-year old metaphor of the Bartenura since, taken as a whole, it comes closest to addressing the need of our times.

I’d be curious to know what readers think. Please share your thoughts with us.

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Getting paid: the going rate

An Avot mishnah for Shabbat: perek 2 (parashat Kedoshim)

Continuing our series of erev Shabbat posts on the perek of the week, we now turn to Perek 2.

The mishnah in Avot that was most frequently cited online last year is taught by Rabbi Tarfon (Avot 2:21):

לֹא עָלֶֽיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמוֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לְהִבָּטֵל מִמֶּֽנָּה, אִם לָמַֽדְתָּ תּוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, נוֹתְנִין לָךְ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה, וְנֶאֱמָן הוּא בַּֽעַל מְלַאכְתֶּֽךָ שֶׁיְּשַׁלֶּם לָךְ שְׂכַר פְּעֻלָּתֶֽךָ, וְדַע שֶׁמַּתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא

It is not up to you to finish the task, but neither are you free to quit it. If you have learned much Torah you will be well paid—and your employer can be trusted to pay the price for your work. And know that the righteous get paid in the World to Come.

To be frank, it’s only the first part that gets cited, about not being able to finish the job or to abandon it—and that’s often by politicians, civic dignitaries, communal leaders and captains of industry. But the mishnah taken in its entirety paints a comforting picture for us:  we keep on toiling in Torah and God picks up our labour costs, settling up with us in a better world than this: a world where there is lots of leisure and no household chores, no taxes, plenty of opportunities to learn a bit more Torah, and so on. In other words, a great incentive.

But in last week’s perek, Antigonus Ish Socho teaches (Avot 1:3) a mishnah that begins:

אַל תִּהְיוּ כַּעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַּעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס

 Do not be like workers who serve their master on condition that they will receive payment. Rather, be like masters who serve their master without the condition that they will receive payment.

So while Rabbi Tarfon reassures us that we will get paid even if we don’t finish the job, Antigonus cautions us not to work in the expectation of being paid at all. Are these rabbis arguing with one another. And, if they are, can they both be right?

One answer is that even though you know for sure that you will be rewarded (as Rabbi Tarfon says), you have to put that prospect out of your head and just get on with the task of learning Torah. But if it completely slips your mind that you are going to receive a reward, you can’t truly be doing it only for the pay-off (as Antigonus suggests). There is an analogy here with top footballers, tennis players and other athletes who receive vast sums of money for their work. When they are involved in their sport in mind and body, the only thing that matters is the game or competition in which they are engaged. All thoughts of pay disappear.

Another answer is based in the Hebrew words themselves. Rabbi Tarfon’s word for payment is שְׂכַר (sechar). This is typically the going rate for the job. Antigonus however uses the word פְּרָס (peras), which is more like a tip, a gratuity that the worker receives in addition to any regular pay. On this basis it is reasonable to work for one’s ordinary pay, but one should not work in the expectation of picking up unearned bonuses.

The Torah being what it is, there are many other commentaries and explanations based on the theme of reward versus altruism in the service of God. The words of Torah are always open to us and there is no end to the way we read and understand them.

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Forensic sudoku

During the Corona pandemic we were forced to amuse ourselves in order to retain our individual and collective sanity during a seemingly interminable sequence d of lockdowns and quarantines. My way was to try and learn new skills. One was to be able to peel a pomelo to professional standards. The other was to master the art of the killer sudoku (the ones that confront you with an empty grid and require completion without the aid of numerical clues).

At first I struggled a great deal but eventually I got the hang of them and was able to solve them more often than not. Initially I enjoyed the intellectual challenge of completing them. Later I realised that, however much pleasure this gave me, I was deriving more of a brain buzz from what I call ‘forensic sudoku’—picking apart a sudoku which I could not finish because I had made a mistake somewhere along the line, to see where I had gone wrong. This turned out to be a greater challenge. When faced with a blank grid, all you have to do is work out which number goes in which square. But when a sudoku has gone wrong, one has to address a grid that has many numbers on it, some of which are correct and others of which are not, and then work out which is which.

So it is too in our lives. It is usually easier to make a decision than to engage in an ex post facto analysis of what we have done, to see which elements of our ideas, acts and decisions were right and which were not. Just as a sudoku has rules, so too do our own lives—and we can’t cheat the system. A sudoku grid that contains errors is always wrong. The same applies to a life that is strewn with mistakes. Forensic sudoku shows us where we have gone wrong; so too does our detailed assessment of our past conduct. There is however a big difference. Crossings-out on a sudoku are not only unsightly but show anyone who sees them a snail-trail of errors. But for our own lives, sincere repentance can wipe out our errors in their entirety, leaving behind no trace on our personal record.

Pirkei Avot recognises the importance of looking back to see where we have gone wrong. At Avot 3:1 (per Akavyah ben Mahalalel) and 4:29  (per R’ Elazar haKappar) we are reminded that we will be called to account before God for everything we do and everything we say, and Avot 3:20 R’ Akiva notes that we are literally made to pay for it. But the beneficial effect of repentance is recorded there too: see Avot 4:13 (per R’ Eliezer ben Yaakov), 4:22 (per R’ Yaakov) and the anonymous teaching at Avot 5:21.

The moral of this post is a simple one: if you keep a record—even a mental note—of what you have done and why, it’s much easier to work out where you might have gone wrong and, if need be, how to deal with it.

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You can look -- but can you like?

One of the teachings in Avot that seems particularly strange to contemporary readers is that of R’ Yaakov (or, according to some texts, R’ Shimon) at Avot 3:9:

הַמְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ וְשׁוֹנֶה, וּמַפְסִיק מִמִּשְׁנָתוֹ וְאוֹמֵר: מַה נָּאֶה אִילָן זֶה, מַה נָּאֶה נִיר זֶה, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ מִתְחַיֵּב בְּנַפְשׁוֹ

Someone who goes along the road and studies, but interrupts his study to say "How beautiful is this tree!", "How beautiful is this ploughed field!"—the Torah regards him as if he had sinned against his soul.

The message of this mishnah appears to be clear: if you voluntarily stop your learning for an activity of lesser value, you fundamentally damage your soul—this being a euphemism for forfeiting one’s life. It is an uncompromising message that is intended for Torah scholars, who are expected to take it to heart. This appears to be the view of the Bartenura, who adds that this teaching applies not just to praise of trees and fields but to any speech unrelated to one’s learning—and even to the person who pauses his learning in order to recite a blessing on a beautiful sight. The commentary ascribed to Rashi explains that a person is protected against accusations by the Satan for as long as he carries on learning, but this protection stops the moment he does. The Me’iri cautions against interrupting learning with any unnecessary speech, even if one is merely reviewing that he already knows. Rambam is however silent, presumably on the basis that R’ Yaakov’s words are self-explanatory.

Not all the commentators are quite so severe, but they are still highly critical of our traveller. R’ Moshe Almosnino (Pirkei Moshe) concedes that interruptions of one’s train of thought can be quite inadvertent: it is the uttering of subsequent unnecessary words that the mishnah condemns. Others see this teaching as a metaphor. For R’ Marcus Lehmann (Meir Netiv), “going along the road” alludes to one’s passage through life, his “study” is the result of the good influence of his family and teachers. The “tree” is however the forbidden “tree of knowledge”—secular philosophy and modern ideologies that claim his admiration, and that is the cause of his downfall.

Moving further away from the original mishnah and forging a fresh understanding that is more apposite for anyone who lives a Jewish life in an essentially non-Jewish world, R’ Yisroel Miller writes this:

“Perhaps R’ Yaakov is warning us: Someone who interrupts his learning for trivia knows he is wasting his time and will hopefully regret it and improve in the future. But someone who interrupts learning to admire beauty, who is engaged in an aesthetic activity, may mistakenly believe it is a spiritual experience, i.e. an elevation of soul comparable to talmud Torah”.

He then mitigates the force of this proposition, adding:

“People who truly appreciate great art, classical music, or beautiful sunsets can be deeply moved by the experience, and a person of what used to be called high culture was considered a superior human being. I believe there is much to be said in favor of high culture, but R’ Yaakov warns us not to confuse the aesthetic with ruchnius [spirituality], and certainly not to allow it to compete for our affection with Toras Hashem”.

Heading in the same direction as R’ Miller’s words but focusing more on the road travelled than the nature of the distraction, Gila Ross has this to say about our difficult mishnah:

“Mitzvos and Torah study are like the primary highway of connection to God. Getting closer to God through nature is a secondary road. A person must appreciate that Torah study means being involved with the crown of God and that his life depends on it. ‘’’[I]t’s not a time to interrupt with ‘small talk’”.

I’m not sure whether R’ Miller’s words are a concession or a confession, but in either case they show how far the meaning of a mishnah can travel from the blunt and uncompromising words of the Tanna who first spoke them. Gila Ross does the same, seeking to make this teaching more palatable. In a generation where religion, morality and a belief in God can no longer be taken for granted, it is difficult to see how this sort of approach can be avoided by any author on Avot who seriously wants to influence the thoughts and maybe even change the behaviour and lifestyle of the reader.

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For rabbinical consumption only?

Is Pirkei Avot just a bunch of stuff written by rabbis for other rabbis? Sometimes it might just feel that way.

We learn in Avot 5:17:

אַרְבַּע מִדּוֹת בְּהוֹלְכֵי בֵית הַמִּדְרָשׁ: הוֹלֵךְ וְאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה, שְׂכַר הֲלִיכָה בְּיָדוֹ. עוֹשֶׂה וְאֵינוֹ הוֹלֵךְ, שְׂכַר מַעֲשֶׂה בְּיָדוֹ. הוֹלֵךְ וְעוֹשֶׂה, חָסִיד. לֹא הוֹלֵךְ וְלֹא עוֹשֶׂה, רָשָׁע

There are four types among those who attend the study hall (Bet Midrash). One who goes but does nothing gets a reward for going. One who does [study] but does not go to the study hall gets a rewards for doing. One who goes and does is a chasid. One who neither goes nor does is wicked.

This teaching, at face value, has nothing to offer the ordinary man or woman in the street. Rather, it appears to have something only to those who have elected to spend their days in learning Torah and who manifestly have contrasting attitudes towards the nature of their commitment.

The Kozhnitzer Maggid offers an imaginative explanation that has nothing to do with Batei Midrash in the physical sense at all.

Torah learning, indeed all forms of learning and spiritual growth, take place inside a person’s heart and mind. That is the “study hall” of our mishnah. Now let’s look at the four types of person it describes.

The first has the necessary skill and ability to touch the heart of others, regardless of their level of knowledge or commitment. But he fails to capitalise on the opportunity to do so. Maybe he is just unsuccessful; maybe he never really tries.

The second doesn’t make the effort to plumb the depths of another person’s psyche or intellect. However, whether through his behaviour or his demeanour he manages to influence that person just the same.

The third has the ability to touch another’s heart and mind—and does so successfully, contributing to that other’s spiritual, emotional or intellectual growth. He is the chasid (for our purposes, chasid basically indicates a really good person).

Finally we find the person who has no empathy with others, does not understand them and has no real interest in doing so. He or she never even makes the effort. This is not the sort of person we should seek to be.

As can be seen, this breakdown of inspirational and non-inspirational characters works well not only for Torah educators but for parents, counsellors, role models and close friends. We can all learn from it and, in doing so, be of great assistance to those we have the power to encourage or inspire.

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