Avot268

10:
In Avot 266 I wrote:It is not quite clear what exactly … caused his [Elisha ben-Avuyah] deviation from strict Pharisaism. According to one source it was his delving into esoteric studies that caused his defection. Another source says that his defection was politically (or ideologically) motivated. Yet another source suggests that it was unresolved philosophical and theological issues that led him to stray from the path. In the previous shiur we investigated the first of the three possibilities; we must now turn our attention to the second: the political or ideological issues that may have caused his defection.

11:
We have already alluded to political motivations that may have prompted Elisha's disillusion with Judaism. In Avot 267 we noted that when the bar-Kokhba revolt broke out he sided with the Romans. When the revolt ended in a complete fiasco for the Jews and the Hadrianic persecution followed he saw no point in continuing the study of Judaism.

12:
However, his ideological motives may have come from a deeper layer of his being. At a certain stage in his career he became very hellenophile. By that we mean that he developed a great interest in the Greek language, Greek philosophy and Greek culture. The Gemara [Ĥagigah 15b] tells us that he was always reciting Greek poetry and that even while he was still a member of the Sanhedrin sometimes, when he rose to leave, "heretical books" fell from the folds of his clothes. These obviously must have been scrolls which he was reading so avidly at that time that even when he attended the sessions of the Sanhedrin he took with him "something interesting to read". It must have been very difficult for him to reconcile the philosophy and culture of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus and the physics and the ethics of Plato and Aristotle with the teachings of the sages of whom, at that time, he was one. Clearly a point arrived at which he was no longer able to sustain the tension that this cultural and intellectual bifurcation had created in him and he had to settle on one path or the other. The lure of Hellas was too great to withstand any longer.

To be continued.

So many items have piled up in my inbox that I despair of ever being able to bring all of them to your attention. Sadly, therefore, I refrain from presenting even those very interesting communications which do not have a direct bearing on the material we have been studying. My sincere apologies.

In Avot 264 I mentioned that 'Little Shemu'el' was the sage who reworded the twelfth of the eighteen benedictions of the Amidah. Lawrence Charap writes:

I had thought that the traditional account is that this was understood to be a new, or nineteenth, benediction, formulated specially after the first eighteen had already been fixed. Is that not accurate?

I respond:

Lawrence is right that this is not accurate. The additional benediction was one that was introduced in Babylon and was never part of the Amidah of Eretz-Israel, which always had only eighteen benedictions. The Babylonian addition was the fifteenth benediction [et tzemaĥ David] which calls down God's blessing on the Exilarch, the direct descendent of King David, the lay leader of Babylonian Jewry.

Also in Avot 264 I wrote that I find it strange that no one has ever suggested that he was called "Little Shemu'el" because he was very short in physical stature. Meir Stone writes:

Would this not be impossible because it would come close to a nickname that can be hurtful?

I respond:

That is certainly a serious consideration, but I am not certain that it would definitely preclude such a possibility. After all, the great founder of Babylonian learning after the completion of the Mishnah was Abba ben-Aivo. But no one ever calls him that, even today. His familiar name (to his contemporaries) was Abba Arika, 'Long Abba', alluding to his height. (His honorific title was simply 'Rav'.)

In recent shiurim we have had occasion to mention 'esoteric studies'. Barak Rosenshine writes:

Could you explain a bit more what is meant by esoteric studies?

I respond:

The term 'esoteric' is defined in the dictionary as indicating something understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite; something of a philosophical doctrine or the like intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group. In our case it is meant to indicate studies in mysticism, which in Tannaïtic times included the geography of Heaven and its population and an understanding of the nature of God and His relationship to the world.