11:
Thus we have established that Rabban Gamli'el is strongly recommending that study of Torah be concomitant with earning an honest living (and perhaps in our age we should reverse the order and claim that Rabban Gamli'el is strongly recommending that earning a living be concomitant with study of Torah). For when someone honestly labours at both disciplines he will have little time or inclination for major sins.
12:
The second clause of the teaching of Rabban Gamli'el goes one stage further: not only is it strongly recommended that study of Torah should be accompanied by earning a living; but any study of Torah that is not accompanied by gainful employment is ultimately useless; worse, it will bring sin in its wake instead of the virtue that the student of Torah presumably had hoped to achieve. This is an amazing teaching, particularly in light of the fact that a large proportion of modern ultra-orthodoxy lives in contradiction to this teaching, and demands support and sustenance from the public purse in order to facilitate absolute devotion to Torah study alone. It is so important to emphasize this teaching that I quote once again the words of Rambam that I presented at the end of our last shiur. He writes [Hilkhot Talmud Torah 3:10] quite explicitly about this:
To be continued.
In Avot 092 we discussed the philosophy of observance of the mitzvot for their own sake, for no ulterior motive.
Yehudah Wiesen writes:
The idea that observing a mitza for its sake raises us from the mundane to the holy has to compete with the sometimes conflicting idea, do I agree with the intent of this mitzva? For example, should we pray musaf if we do not want the restoration of the sacrificial service? Do we treat Jews and non-Jews, or men and women, differently in connection with a Jewish court of law when we think that today all are equally honest and reliable and moral, on average? I guess it comes down to this: What is the role of our personal sense of morality and justice in following the mitzvot?
I respond:
Yehuda poses the question "do I agree with the intent of this mitzvah?" I would go further and ask whether we can be certain of the divine intent of any mitzvah. We can only know what we think is the divine intent – and in several cases even our greatest sages have had to raise their hands in resignation, as it were, and admit that such and such a mitzvah is a divine requirement and we cannot fathom the intention behind it. In Mishneh Torah [Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:4] Rambam admits that nowhere does the Torah explain why we should sound the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah; but that does not stop him from giving his own suggestion as to why we sound the shofar! Now, if Yehuda disagrees with Rambam's explanation of the mitzva this would not justify non-observance because the real reason may be quite different from that propounded by Rambam.
My own contention was that if someone convinces themselves that they are doing this that or the other because it is a mitzvah they will be adding "kedushah" [sanctity] to their lives – a sense of spiritual uplift.
Yehuda's example of Musaf (the Additional Service recited on sabbaths and festivals) is, in my view, a non-starter. One should not confuse the mitzvah (in this case the duty to offer prayer) with the content, which is sometimes subject to change. For example, the prayer-book published by the Masorti Movement in Israel, Va'ani Tefillati offers two alternatives for those who decline to pray for the restoration of sacrificial worship.
But the crux of Yehuda's message is in his last sentence: "what is the role of our personal sense of morality and justice in following the mitzvot?". I will not equivocate here by discussing from where we get "our personal sense of morality and justice" – for we were not born with it! I think that what Yehuda means is that often the teachings of modern western ethics concerning democracy, equality and equity seem to clash with the received teachings of Judaism on this point or that. The deliberate trend in Conservative Judaism is to seek a new interpretation or a new understanding of this or that mitzvah so that we can continue to observe it in good conscience. Witness the revolution in the standing of women in Torah that has been wrought by our rabbis over the past thirty years. (My own modest contribution to this tendency – concerning the status of religious homosexuals – may be accessed here .)
The very last mishnah of Tractate Avot contains two teachings which are, I feel, relevant to this issue. Here they are in my own rendition: "Search Torah and search it again for everything is in it" and "What you get out of it is dependent on what you put into it".
