Rabbi says: which is an upright path for which a person should opt? – One which is honourable for those who do it and which [also] brings honour from mankind. Be as careful with a simple mitzvah as with a serious one, since you do not know the reward for each mitzvah. Calculate the loss of a mitzvah against its reward, and the reward of a sin against its loss. Watch for three things and you will not come to sin: know what is above you – a seeing eye, a listening ear and all your deeds written in the book.
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
31:
Thus it was that by the time Rabbi had established his authority and standing in the Sanhedrin and in Eretz-Israel at large the time was ripe for the great and decisive break with tradition. If the times had been less tolerant or his standing less awesome no doubt Rabbi would have been excoriated by the more conservative elements in the population; just as, no doubt, today he may have been branded as "Reform or worse" (as it were) – though, of course, he really was a bold reformer. If there were those among his contemporaries who thought that what Rabbi was doing was the death knell for traditional Judaism their thoughts were at the polar extreme of what history has proven. For what Rabbi did saved the oral tradition for future generations. Furthermore, it laid the foundations for later developments which were to escort halakhic Judaism further and further along the emergent path – but those developments are beyond the historical framework of Avot.
32:
Rabbi accepted the general format of Mishnah as developed by Rabbi Akiva and his successors. But Rabbi's great contribution was not just that he committed the whole corpus of Mishnah to writing; the fact is that he created one version of Mishnah from several that must have been going the rounds and his unique position made that version that he created the standard text of Mishnah.
33:
There are several indications that Rabbi's Mishnah is based on the mishnah of Rabbi Me'ir. If this really is the case (and we shall probably never know for sure) it is but one further indication of Rabbi's essential humility and intellectual honesty. This is because during the presidency of Rabbi's father, Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el, there had been a tremendous set-to in the Sanhedrin as a result of which Rabbi Me'ir left the Sanhedrin and exiled himself to somewhere in modern Turkey. Since the episode presents the workings of the Sanhedrin in a less than ideal light it would perhaps be useful to reproduce here the episode as recounted in the old Jewish Encyclopedia of 100 years ago (moderately edited):
The origin of this conflict was the change introduced by Shim'on in the ceremonial of the Sanhedrin. Custom required its members to rise when the President, the Av-Bet-Din, or the Chakham entered. Shim'on, having an exaggerated idea of his dignity, issued an order that the assembly should rise as a body only on his own entrance, while on the entrance of the Av-Bet-Din only the first row, and on that of the Chakham only the second row, should rise. Me'ir and Natan (the Av-Bet-Din) felt justly offended at this new arrangement and determined to show Shim'on's unfitness for his office by puzzling him with difficult halakhic questions which he would be unable to answer. Informed of this conspiracy, Shim'on expelled them from the Sanhedrin, but he could not prevent them from writing difficult questions and distributing them among its members. Compelled to readmit both Nathan and Me'ir, he contrived that their names should not be recorded in the ordinances enacted by him. Nathan submitted, but Me'ir continued to embarrass the President by addressing to him difficult questions. When, at last, the President threatened excommunication, he answered, "I do not care for your sentence unless you can prove to me on whom, on what grounds, and under what conditions excommunication may be imposed," and left the Sanhedrin. Me'ir died somewhere in Asia Minor. "Bury me," said he to his pupils, "by the shore, that the sea which washes the land of my fathers may touch also my bones".
The fact that Rabbi recognized (so it seems) the inherent superiority of the mishnah of Rabbi Me'ir, his father's great protagonist, and adopted it as the basis for his own recension redounds greatly to his credit.
To be continued.
DISCUSSION:
In Avot 087 we mentioned the differences between the exegetical methodologies of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishma'el. Jacob Chinitz writes:
While the idea of Dibra Torah Beleshon Bnei Adam["The Torah speaks in human terms – SR], on one level, involves only the question of grammar and the natural or superfluous nature of words like Et[see the shiur Avot 087 – SR], does not the same idea, especially in Rambam, include the broader area of the literal vs. the metaphoric? That is, R. Yishmael prefers the principle of Ein Mikra Yotzei Midei Peshuto[The Torah should always be understood as literally as possible – SR], while R. Akiba leans towards the many layered concept of Remez and Drash and Sod[various hermeneutic tools for wringing out of the text matters that Rabbi Yishma'el and his school would have said were never there in the first place – SR], producing levels of interpretation far beyond ordinary human speech. Yishmael appeals to our modern sense of human language, but Akiba can point to metaphor even in Leshon Bnei Adam[everyday language – SR], as in the expressions: the sun rises, or swift as an eagle, or Lechem Elohekho Hu Makriv[he offers the food of your God (Leviticus 21:8) – SR.]
