Avot013

1:
We have already discussed at some length the historical role of Simon the Righteous [see Avot008]. In his commentary on our mishnah Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro says that "he was High Priest after Ezra". Well, this is correct provided that we interpret 'after' to indicate some 250 years 'after', and provided that we do not understand Rabbi Ovadya to be implying that Ezra was a High Priest (which he wasn't). Simon must have died close to the year 200 BCE, maybe a little earlier; Ezra and Nehemiah had convened their Great Assembly in the year 444 BCE. The obvious implication of Simon being described as "one of the last members of the Great Assembly" is that he carried the torch of the Oral Torah according to the tradition that he had received from the other 'Members of the Great Assembly', who, as outlined in the previous mishnah, had received this tradition in a chain going back to Moses at Sinai.

2:
The classical commentators on our present mishnah interpret 'the world' as indicating the physical world in which we live. But to me it seems much more likely that the world referred to is the world of the Pharisaic Movement, or, if you prefer, our Jewish world. In his short statement Simon unites the disparate elements that associated together in his Great Assembly: those Sadducees (like himself) who had forsaken their own movement and joined forces with the Pharisees in order to stem the tide of encroaching hellenism. The Torah he refers to is the Unwritten Torah, the oral tradition that the Pharisees so cherished and which he now admits must be one of the pillars of the Jewish world. The Ritual to which he refers is the ritual of the Bet Mikdash, the whole panoply of the sacrificial cult, which was the mainstay of Sadducean religiosity. But surely, he must be glorified for ever for teaching us that a Jew cannot be truly religious without the constant practise of Acts of Kindness.

To be continued.

In Avot009 I wrote, concerning Mishnah 1, that it is not clear from the wording of our mishnah whether its intention is to suggest three discrete exhortations which were encouraged by the Members of the Great Assembly, or whether our mishnah intends us to perceive a thematic connection between its three elements. Essentially, the explanation that I gave saw their statements as 'three discrete exhortations'. Richard Friedman offers the following, which highlights a 'thematic connection' between them.

Your comment on Avot 1:1 seems to accept the usual understanding that the "Oral Torah" consists of a body of substantive law traditionally deemed to have been dictated in all its details by God and transmitted orally. I wonder whether this understanding is the only reasonable one of the mishna. It seems to me that the mishna says that this "Oral Torah" is not a fixed body of material, but rather a recipe and mandate for a continuing jurisprudence. What's handed down is not a set of rules but an enterprise and an authority. Those entrusted with that authority are given three directives for how they should engage in that enterprise and how they should exercise that authority:

1. strict logic should be subservient to preserving traditional practice ("be cautious in din [usually translated as 'judgment'; here understood as 'the derivation of rules by strict logic, especially by the principle of a fortiori]");
2. promote the active engagement in the Torah enterprise ("raise up many disciples"); and, critically for instant purposes,
3. you should add rules of your own creation to the body of law that already exists ("make a fence about the Torah").

I think that's why this mishna speaks not about the transmission of "haTorah" – the Torah, a fixed body of rules – but "Torah" – an enterprise.

I respond:

I can't think why Richard should think that my intention was to suggest that "the Oral Torah consists of a body of substantive law traditionally deemed to have been dictated in all its details by God and transmitted orally". I would have hoped that my cumulative comments over the first few shiurim on this tractate would shown clearly that this was not my intention. I very much like Richard's interpretation of the Hebrew word din in the context of mishnah 1 as referring to 'logical deduction' rather than 'judgement'. Certainly what we call kal va-ĥomer [logical inference from minor to major] the sages were also wont to refer to as din [logical inference]. However, I am still unconvinced that there really is an intended thematic connection between the three elements taught in mishnah 1 in the name of the members of the Great Assembly.

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In Avot011 I wrote: If there is one definition that can distinguish between Orthodoxy and Conservatism it would be that the orthodox are expected to live their life according to the dictates of the Shulchan Arukh; the observant Conservative Jew should live his life according to the dictates of the oral tradition – all of it: as it was yesterday, as it is today and as it will be tomorrow. Keith Bierman writes:

Sephardim (in my experience) follow the Rambam, not the Schulchan Aruch.

I respond:

Here Keith is wrong. Sefaradi orthodox Jews follow the Shulĥan Arukh no less than their Ashkenazi brethren. I think that Keith may be confusing two things:

• that the Sefaradi Jews accept as binding upon them only the original text of the Shulĥan Arukh as written by Rabbi Yoséf Karo, and do not accept as binding the additions made to Karo's work by Rabbi Moshe Isserles so as to make it acceptable to the Ashkenazi world;
• that for many long centuries the Yemenite Jewish community accepted Rambam's Mishneh Torah as their definitive code of law. I think that their present attitude towards the Shulĥan Arukh is similar to that of Conservative Judaism: the Shulĥan Arukh is one valuable code of law, but it is not the code of law.

More of your questions and comments next time.

Several participants who joined this study group before we started Tractate Avot are today receiving a shiur for the first time. This is because their ISP blacklisted the server from which these shiurim reach you. The battle between these ISP's has now been resolved.