He [also] used to say: a name made great is a name destroyed; he who does not add subtracts; he who does not study is condemned to death; he who makes use of the crown is ephemeral.
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
13: He who makes use of the crown is ephemeral. We can be quite sure that this last clause of our mishnah is also still within the context of Torah study.
14:
The crown of which Hillel speaks here is, of course, the Torah itself. When we reach Chapter 4 we shall see that much later on a great sage speaks of
Three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the crown monarchy.
This seems to be a reference to three possible national aspirations. One could hope to reach the pinnacle of political or administrative power; one could hope to reach the acme of liturgical involvement, and one could strive for excellence in study of Torah.
In a rather beautiful passage Rabbi Natan [41:1] emphasizes the universality of the crown of Torah:
Even if one were to offer all the silver and gold in the world he could not be given the crown of the priesthood [for the Torah [Numbers 25:13] promises this as an eternal prerogative of Aaron and his descendents]: "It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time". Even if one were to offer all the silver and gold in the world he could not be given the crown of monarchy [for scripture [Ezekiel 37:24-25] vests this crown eternally in the descendents of David]: "My servant David shall be king over them … with My servant David as their prince for all time." But this is not true of the crown of Torah: anyone who wishes to put in the effort may come and claim [this crown], for the prophet [Isaiah 55:1] says: "Ho, all who are thirsty, come for water, even if you have no money; come, buy food and eat: buy food without money, wine and milk without cost."
And it is a commonplace of rabbinic exposition to be found in dozens of places that "water signifies Torah".
15:
We have already alluded to the real meaning of Hillel's warning not to use the crown. In Avot 046 I wrote:
In Talmudic times the sages taught Torah with no thought of reward or compensation; indeed such a thing was forbidden, as we shall see later in this tractate. This means that a rabbi had to support himself by his own efforts and not receive compensation for teaching and administering Torah. In his magnum opus, Mishneh Torah, Rambam writes [Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:9] that
the some of the greatest of Israel's sages were woodchoppers, water-carriers … but nevertheless they occupied themselves [also] with Torah Study by day and by night…
This was true not only in the time of Shemayah and Avtalyon but for long after: Rabbi Yehoshu'a was a charcoal maker, Rabbi Akiva was a shepherd, Rabbi Eli'ezer was a merchant and so forth. Of course, some of the sages were very rich: Rabbi Akiva became very comfortably off; Rabbi, the editor of the Mishnah, was fabulously wealthy; Rabbi El'azar ben-Azaryah was rich, and so forth.
But to all of them the idea of making one's knowledge of Torah a source of secular profit or advantage was anathema. In Avot 048 I quoted Rambam [Talmud Torah 3:10]:
Anyone who decides to study Torah [exclusively] – not to engage in a trade but to live off charity – is desecrating God's name, bringing the Torah into disrepute, quenching the brightness of the faith, doing himself a disservice and denying himself the life to come. [This is] because it is forbidden to derive any material benefit from the Torah in this world… Any Torah[-study] which is not accompanied by earning a living in the end will be void and simply encourage sin. Ultimately such a person will be robbing the public.
And there I made a promise which, God willing, I shall keep:
We shall expatiate on this when we reach Avot 4:5.
16:
It remains for us to relate to the rather enigmatic term 'ephemeral'. The original Aramaic term bears the connotation of change, passing away. The meaning in our present context clearly is that anyone who makes profane use, for personal profit, of their knowledge of Torah is endangering their spiritual existence. When this clause of our present mishnah is quoted in the post-canonical Tractate Kallah [chapter 1] it is rendered thus:
Anyone who makes [profane] use of the crown of Torah forfeits his share in the world to come.
DISCUSSION:
In Avot 060 I tried to answer a question posed by Jacob Chinitz. Jacob now writes to me again:
Thank you for relating to the matter that I raised. However, the problem stills remains: how can we reconcile the idea of the superior authority of the earlier sages with general rule that "halakhah follows the latest authority"? We can't have it both ways: if we are as donkeys compared with them why is halakhah decided according to our opinion? And if we are more expert than they why is their opinion more worthy than ours?
I respond:
Perhaps my original response was not clear enough, so let me try to encapsulate my view of the issue. Chronologically speaking, the nearer to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai a particular sage may be so is his halakhic authority that much greater. However, the latest authorities in any given generation are heirs to the cumulative knowledge of aeons of Torah learning. It's not that the authority of our individual sages is greater than that of the sages of bygone days; it is, just like the dwarf sitting on the shoulders of a giant, we have a wider perspective. We may not 'see' as well as those earlier giants, but we do see farther.
