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Moses received Torah from Sinai and passed it on to Joshua; Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets and the prophets passed it on to the Members of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be moderate in judgement, Create many students, and Make a fence around the Torah.
32:
We can now, at last, consider the statements attributed to the Members of the Great Assembly. Of course, it is quite ingenuous to assume that all the members of that assembly said the same thing! We must assume that the intention of our mishnah is to indicate the general tenor of the activities of the Great Assembly. Furthermore, it is not clear from the wording of our mishnah whether its intention is to suggest three discrete exhortations which were encouraged by the Members of the Great Assembly, or whether our mishnah intends us to perceive a thematic connection between its three elements. We should perhaps note here that there seems to be a general attempt in this first chapter to attribute to all the sages mentioned sayings that are a kind of triplet. However, this attempt is not always entirely successful.
33:
Rambam, in his commentary on our present mishnah, sees the first element as being a recommendation directed towards those who sit in judgement, judges:
They should wait before concluding a case; they should not pronounce judgement immediately [but they should wait] until they [fully] understand. Because they might discover matters that they did not perceive when they started their consideration.
When we studied Tractate Sanhedrin we noted that there were three stages in any trial at law according to rabbinic jurisprudence: first there was the examination of the witnesses and lastly the pronouncement of judgment according to the verdict of the majority of the members of the tribunal. In between these two stages the judges discussed the evidence they had heard and their evaluation of it. It is this discussion ['diyyun'] that lies at the heart of the Hebrew term for judgement ['din']. Rambam sees our mishnah as requiring a leisurely 'discussion' among the justices, that they should not 'rush to justice'.
34:
Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro, in his commentary on our mishnah, seems to understand the term 'moderate', as used by our mishnah, as referring to patience rather than 'leisureliness'. He says:
If a case comes before you a second and a third time, do not say [to yourself] "I have [already] heard this case twice and three times!" Rather, wait patiently before pronouncing judgement.
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A very important work in connection with Tractate Avot is 'Avot of Rabbi Natan'. In our very first shiur on this tractate I wrote that
an amplification of Avot has indeed come down to us: the work known as "Avot de-Rabbi Natan" ("Rabbi Natan's Avot") is related to our tractate in much the same way as most of the tractates of the Tosefta are related to the various companion tractates of the Mishnah. (The definitive edition of Avot de-Rabbi Natan was created and published in 1887 by Solomon Schechter, who was in many senses the founder of Conservative Judaism in the new world; but, of course, that work was published in Europe before he arrived in the United States.)
For the sake of convenience let us refer to this work henceforth as 'Rabbi Natan'. Rabbi Natan understands our mishnah in a much more general sense:
What does it mean to be moderate in judgement? – A person should act moderately in his affairs and not be pedantic, for everyone who is pedantic makes himself forget things.
To be continued.
In our discussion in Avot005 Ed Frankel made some comments about history and historiographers. Jacob Chinitz disagrees:
The distinction made by [Ed Frankel] between modern, accurate and systematic history and that of Avot, is valid only in part. I would suggest that academic history, as academic science, is not as objective and value free as is pretended by historians and scientists. Just as I find the claim of objectivity in journalism to be riddled with fallacies.
- The choice of what facts to include in history is not objective.
- The relative stress upon the parts of history that are included, is not objective. Since history books, like the Bible, cannot include everything, and cannot treat with laboratory precision all subjects equally, historians will be influenced by non-objective factors in producing their works.
- Scientists do not count the number of molecules in a ceiling (although I hear they do count the total number of molecules in the Universe). The choice of areas to study, the amount of time allocated to these areas, will be determined by the preference of the scientist, or the amount of financial support his government or university grant affords him.
I do not deny the importance of measuring the degree of accuracy in the listing of names in the chain of tradition. And I also agree that Agadic freedom should not run wild. But what is stated in Mishnah or Gemara about the past, should not be examined for accuracy as much as for relevance to the Halakhic and moral process in Judaism. |
