1:
Our present mishnah is different from all those which have preceded it in this present chapter in two major ways. This is the first time that more than one 'saying' has been attributed to a sage; and this is the only saying in this chapter which is not in Hebrew (but in Aramaic). Perhaps I might be permitted to add from the personal point of view that it is fiendishly difficult to translate.
2:
In view of everything that we have said concerning Hillel in the previous mishnah it is perhaps understandable that the contribution of this sage was considered so impressive that his ethics could not be compressed into one saying, so a second has been added. (There are some modern scholars who are of the opinion that the saying quoted in the next mishnah has been misattributed and that it too comes from Hillel.) The fact that the saying has been handed down to us in Aramaic is indicative of its homely authenticity. We do not have here a carefully honed saying handed down for the general edification of posterity. Our present mishnah takes us right into the Bet Midrash to hear Hillel instructing his students in their everyday language.
3:
We mentioned above that Mishnah 13 is different from the others in this chapter that have come before in two major ways. Perhaps we can add a third difference, though this difference is admittedly much less essential. Most of the preceding 'sayings' have consisted of three clauses; our present mishnah consists of four clauses. Let us try to understand them seriatim.
4:
A name made great is a name destroyed. Possibly here Hillel is addressing a problem he sees in some of his students. They study assiduously, but not in order to become more knowledgeable in Torah but in order to achieve fame and renown. Hillel here is probably echoing the teaching of his own teacher, Shemayah, a teaching which we have already considered in mishnah 10: Love work and hate [being in a position of] authority. But here Hillel is adding a further consideration why the sincerely religiously motivated person will wish to eschew publicity as far as possible. The more a person is known publicly the more his or her name becomes the subject of talk and – inevitably – gossip. We, immersed as we are in modern western culture, can certainly understand this. Not a day passes when we do not hear of some piece or other of detrimental gossip concerning this or that politician, this or that film star, this or that tycoon and so on. Our media thrive on this kind of pernicious trash. Hillel warns his students that 'a name made great is a name destroyed'. Perhaps it is only because of his own innate sense of personal humility, because of his own cultivated mild temper, that his name has reached us unbesmirched down the ages.
To be continued.
In answer to a question, I mentioned that the application of the 'middah' Gezerah Shavah was limited to what one had heard by tradition. Here
Jacob Chinitz raises an important question:
Is Torah the Constitution of Judaism, and hence, all subsequent post-Torah material, including the Talmud, is an unravelling or revealing of the meaning of Torah, a process that continues through history, with no favoritism to any particular stage in that process? Or are there layers of authority, such as the use of the Gezera Shava, following the written Torah, which supercede the chain of legal interpretation and methodology, and assume superior authority, less than Torah but more than post-Talmudic learning, for example? So that as a result, we do not have the Constitution, the Torah, as the basic document of authority, to be applied in each generation, but, on the contrary, a layered or terraced system of relative authority, such as Mishnah, Gemara, Rambam, Shulchan Arukh? With particular application to Gezera Shava, or for that matter all the other twelve 'Midot She-hatorah Nidrashet Bahen', or the use of Takanah and Gezera, is there an arbitrary ascription of authority to these post-Torah levels, which are absent in our day, let us say?
I respond:
As I see it the very ethos of rabbinic Judaism is based on the assumption that the second of Jacob's propositions is the correct one. I have said on many occasions that we do not observe Torah: we observe Torah as taught us by the sages. Chronologically speaking, the nearer a sage is 'to Sinai', the greater his authority. This does not mean that changes cannot be made: they have been and they are made. But the essential methodology of instituting change is to first see whether the proposed change can be justified and approved from the methodology and thought processes of previous generations. We do not accord the right to every 'Tom, Dick or Harry' to give his personal interpretation of the biblical text, unfounded on the teachings of previous ages. We innovate with care and reverence. It is as said by the great English physicist Sir Isaac Newton [1643-1727]: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." We may see more clearly and we may see further than our rabbinic predecessors, but we must never forget that we are dwarves sitting on the shoulders of the giants of bygone ages. The sages of the Talmud [Shabbat 112b] expressed the same thought in an even more expressive manner: If the earlier sages were angels we are human; if the earlier sages were human we are like donkeys. Nevertheless, Hilkheta ke-batra'é – the law is decided according to the latest authority in the chain of tradition.
