Avot332

1:
With our present mishnah we commence a sub-series of four mishnayot whose only rather flimsy connection is the fact that they all begin with the Hebrew word kol. We have used the term tanna on many occasions to designate the author of a mishnah or a baraita. (A baraita is a mishnah that was not included in the final redaction of the Mishnah by Rabbi Yehudah, the President of the Sanhedrin.) But the term tanna also had another meaning. It could also refer to people with prodigious memory who learned by heart all or part of the Oral Tradition so that they could declaim the material when needed. Of course, these tannaïm used all kinds of "tricks" to facilitate their task. One such "trick" was to group mishnayot together because of some aspect that they have in common – usually linguistic rather than thematic. This phenomenon has been reproduced in these four mishnayot which all begin with the Hebrew word kol. The word kol in this context bears the meaning "everything which", "anything which", "everyone who", "anyone who" etc.

2:
Our mishnah brings two examples to illustrate its teaching. The rape of David's daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon is described in the bible [2 Samuel 13] in graphic detail. Briefly, Amnon lusts so much for his sister that he arranges to be alone with the unsuspecting Tamar. She, of course, is distracted and pleads with him.

Amnon's "love" was dependent on Tamar's "inaccessibility". Now that she had proven to be "accessible" he felt nothing for her.

3:
As an example of love that is not dependent on something our mishnah offers the relationship between David and Jonathan. We are told [1 Samuel 18:1] that they became such fast friends that

Even though David became a definite threat to his – Jonathan's – succession to his father's throne he never abandoned his great friendship for David and endangered his own life to save David from his – Jonathan's – father's rage. He promised David that he would not prevent his – David's – accession to the throne:

4:
One asks oneself what can be the relevance of this mishnah to the ethico-religious purpose of the tractate. It seems to me that the underlying message is concerned with man's love of God. If a person's love of God and obedience to God's commands derives from some hope or expectation of benefit the frustration of that hope (or even its fulfillment) will bring about the end of that person's religious observance. Such a person has been 'religious' because they hoped to 'get something out of it'. This is illustrated by Amnon's 'love' becoming hate because he no longer had any use for Tamar. True love of God is obedience to God's commands for no other reason than that one chooses to observe them. This is illustrated by Jonathan's steadfast defence of David even though he would gain nothing from that friendship and, indeed, could lose almost everything.

You will recall that Nehama Barbiru has posed a series of questions concerning Mishnah thirteen of this chapter, which was concerned with the giving of tzedakah, charity. I shall try to answer now the second of her questions:

A person declares that they devote their whole life to Torah study and then goes begging on behalf of a needy family / a Yeshivah / etc.

I respond:

On several occasions we have already discussed the issue of those who devote themselves to Torah study and are then dependent on the charity of others. For example, in Avot 048, in answer to a similar question I wrote:

See also Avot 230.