Avot333

נושא: Avot

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

Any dispute which is for the sake of heaven will, in the end, survive but any dispute which is not for the sake of heaven will not survive. What is [an example of] a dispute that is for the sake of heaven? – this would be the dispute between Hillel and Shammai. And one that is not for the sake of heaven? – this would be the dispute of Koraĥ and all his congregation.

1:
Our present mishnah is quite straightforward. A dispute in the name of heaven means an altruistic dispute: this is where the disputants are not trying to score points off each other but their only purpose is to elucidate the truth. Obviously, the alternative is a dispute in which the disputants – or at least one of them – is seeking personal aggrandizement: he or she has a personal agenda, and therefore the dispute is hardly altruistic.

2:
Our mishnah brings the dispute between Hillel and Shammai as an example of an altruistic dispute. It is true that here and there our sources do preserve a difference of opinion between these two sages: for example Shabbat 17a and Niddah 3b (the subjects are not at all relevant to our present discussion). However, I do not think that the intention of our mishnah is to indicate personal dispute between Hillel and Shammai, but to the ongoing halakhic disputes between the two schools of which these two sages were the eponymous founders.

3:
The best example of the altruism of the disputes between these two schools is recorded in the Gemara [Eruvin 13b]:

For three years the schools of Shammai and Hillel disputed, each claiming that halakhah followed their opinion. A heavenly voice declared that both were the words of the living God but that halakhah must follow the opinion of the School of Hillel. Now why did the School of Hillel deserve to have halakhah decided according to their opinion? – because they were easy going and humble and they would learn both their own views and those of the School of Shammai; furthermore [when quoting] they would always quote the opinion of the School of Shammai first.

4:
But the picture was not always so rosy, and in the interests of intellectual honesty we must direct your intention to the truly horrific incident described in Berakhot 139.

5:
The example given of a dispute which is not altruistic is the rebellion of Koraĥ and his supporters against Moses and Aaron. The rebellion and its causes are described in the Torah [Numbers 16]:

They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and God is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above God's congregation?" [Numbers 16:3]

Moses responds:

Moses said further to Koraĥ, "Hear me, sons of Levi. Is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has set you apart from the community of Israel and given you access to Him, to perform the duties of God's Tabernacle and to minister to the community and serve them? Now that He has advanced you and all your fellow Levites with you, do you seek the priesthood too? Truly, it is against God that you and all your company have banded together. For who is Aaron that you should rail against him?" [Numbers 16:8-11]

The upshot is well known:

And Moses said, "By this you shall know that it was God who sent me to do all these things; that they are not of my own devising: if these men die as all men do, if their lot be the common fate of all mankind, it was not God who sent me. But if God brings about something unheard-of, so that the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into She'ol, you shall know that these men have spurned God." Scarcely had he finished speaking all these words when the ground under them burst asunder, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, all Koraĥ's people and all their possessions. They went down alive into She'ol, with all that belonged to them; the earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the congregation. [Numbers 16:28-33]

To be continued.

Before I answer the last of the three questions posed by Nehama Barbiru concerning tzedakah I must interpolate a subsidiary question she has asked:

I should have phrased my [second] question differently: in view of Rambam's uncompromising stance must we give charity to a person who knocks on doors for a family the head of which is devoting himself to Torah study or for a Bet Midrash in which they all are devoting themselves to Torah. Are we not thereby perpetuating the system that Rambam opposes with all his might?

I respond:

If these people are doing wrong (according to Rambam) that does not give us the right to do wrong as well. If these people are in need halakhah requires of us that we help them. Perhaps one might indicate one's disapproval in principle by the amount of the donation one gives, as I have already suggested in my response in Avot 331.

The next shiur in this series is scheduled for Tuesday 11th March 2008.

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