Avot113

נושא: Avot

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

Today's shiur is dedicated by Irit Zemora on the thirtieth day after the death of her mother-in-law, Havva Zemora z"l.

He [also] used to say: An ignoramus cannot be sin-fearing, a fool cannot be pious, a shy person cannot learn nor can an irascible person teach; not everyone who amassed riches is wise; where there are no men strive to be a man. He once espied a skull floating on the water, He addressed it thus: "Because you drowned [others] they have drowned you, and in the end they will drown those that drowned you."

26:
Hillel paints a picture of a never-ending chain of violence. The classical commentators suggest that each one of the links in this chain were punished "measure for measure": the measure that they meted out to others was done to them. But, as Rabbi YomTov Lipmann Heller points out in his commentary, Tos^efot YomTov, this can never be the case: the first link in the chain must have been innocent! He brings the example of Abel, in the creation story, who was murdered by his brother Cain: even though Abel was completely innocent an act of violence was perpetrated on him.

27:
And, lest one think that this objection is true only of the first link in the chain, Tos^efot Yomtov makes the following comment on the last link ("in the end they will drown those that drowned you"):

Not necessarily. It is a daily occurrence that several murderers die naturally in their beds.

Rabbi Heller notes that the thinking of our mishnah is so spurious that "in some places they omit this paragraph". But then he brings cogent reasons for accepting the authenticity of the teaching. Rabbi Heller comes to the conclusion that what Hillel is saying is that despite the fact that there are exceptions, we may accept the general premise that there is justice in the order of things and that ultimately sinners get their recompense.

28:
His objection is cogent and his resolution painfully weak. The problem raised is much better answered by understanding the purpose of Hillel's teaching in a different manner, as I suggested in my first interpretation, given in the previous shiur [#23-24]: Hillel is recommending an end to the chain of violence by non reaction. But this, of course, raises the question of Divine justice: why did God let the innocent Abel die? Many answers have been offered to this theological conundrum over the millennia – and most of them stumble and fall in the wake of the Holocaust. I have tried to outline a theological approach to the problem of evil in the fifth essay on Masorti/Conservative theology which I publish today on our web site. If you care to read the essay you will find it here.

In Avot 108 we had occasion to mention yet again the status of the 'Am ha-Aretz' and the attitude of the sages to them. Naomi Graetz has sent me a very long message which quotes a passage from the Gemara [P^esaĥim 49b] which reveals a deep revulsion that at least some of the sages had for the Am ha-Aretz. After much deliberation I have decided to present most of Naomi's message with a minimum of editing, despite its inordinate length.

It is better to marry the daughter of another scholar because that will ensure that one's children become scholars. Under no circumstance should he marry the daughter of an am ha'aretz, for that is a repulsive and unacceptable thing.

The text goes on to proclaim in hyperbolic manner that the am ha'aretz is detestable, their wives are vermin, and of their daughters it is said, 'Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast' [Deut. 27:21]… It is permitted to stab him [even] on the Day of Atonement which falls on the Sabbath… One may tear an am ha'aretz like a fish.

It was taught, R. Meir used to say: Whoever marries his daughter to an am ha'aretz is as though he bound and laid her before a lion: just as a lion tears [his prey] and devours it and has no shame, so an am ha-aretz strikes [hits/beats] and cohabits and has no shame.

Who is an am ha'aretz? The term am ha'aretz is used to refer to a common, uneducated person, and, in the Mishnah, it refers to a person who is not very careful about his observance of rabbinic law. In mishnaic times, there were restrictions governing relations between learned people and common people, but by Talmudic times they fell into disuse. The prejudice against the am ha'aretz remained, however, and this is evidenced even today in colloquial usage… The intention … is to make clear that the am ha'aretz is not a human being, but rather a beast (like the lion) and an evil person. There is real animus here: how do you explain it away?

I respond:

There are sages and there are sages; there are amé ha-aretz and there are amé ha-aretz. In his commentary on the section of the Gemara quoted by Naomi, Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz writes as follows:

The commentators and the decisors [poskim] have much discussed the matters said here concerning the Am ha-Aretz, and some things seem to be agreed by all of them. Firstly, that Am ha-Aretz is a general appellation for different kinds of people and in varying degrees – from the meanest right up to those of whom it is said: "Who is an Am ha-Aretz? – someone who knows bible and mishnah but has not studied with the sages." Concerning the Am ha-Aretz mentioned here most commentators agree that it is about the lowliest degree of all; as the Gemara puts it: "Without bible, without mishnah and without manners." This is a person who is not only ignorant of Torah but neither does he have any occupation that will benefit the world, and he despises all the commandments. Such a person should be kept at a distance in every possible way because it may certainly be assumed that knowingly and deliberately he does not refrain from sinning… One suggested etymology of the term is that the word Am here derives from the Hebrew word for 'dark', and signifies that the Am ha-Aretz has a darksome and mean nature.

Let me add one other thing. One of the sages had himself once been an Am ha-Aretz! And Rabbi Akiva says of himself: "When I was an Am ha-Aretz I would say, 'If only I could lay my hands on a sage: I would bite him like an ass!' When his students suggested that 'dog' would have been more appropriate he responded that a dog bites but does not break the bones of his victim whereas an ass not only bites but also breaks the bones!