Avot109

נושא: Avot

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

Today's shiur is dedicated in gratitude to the memory of all those who gave their lives that the State of Israel might come into being and flourish. It is their memory that we recall this day.

He [also] used to say: An ignoramus cannot be sin-fearing, a fool cannot be pious, a shy person cannot learn nor can an irascible person teach; not everyone who amassed riches is wise; where there are no men strive to be a man. He once espied a skull floating on the water, He addressed it thus: "Because you drowned [others] they have drowned you, and in the end they will drown those that drowned you."

12:
Traditionally, Jewish religious learning is different from other modes of learning. The typical layout of a modern university lecture hall would have the lecturer teaching from a dais in front and the students sitting in rows facing the lecturer. The traditional layout of the study room of a typical yeshivah would have students and teachers seated together around tables. While in the typical western classroom there is one who teaches and the others who learn, in the typical Jewish study room the 'teacher' and the 'student' study together. Typically the invitation is "Let's learn." Perhaps we might say that the real teacher in the traditional Jewish framework is God; those present are studying together the words of The Teacher. I once had a colleague who said that what he loved most about the study of Torah texts (Torah in the widest sense of the word) is that he was afforded a glimpse into the mind of God!

13:
But even when we study together sometimes one must lead, so let us call such a person the teacher, and the one who is studying with the teacher we can call the learner. Hillel now states something so simple that it is almost amazing: when learning Torah is a mutual effort of understanding and elucidation between teacher and learner. The learner must be ready to pose his or her questions without hesitation and to raise possible objections to what others may have said. Modesty – true or false – will not benefit the learning process here; bashfulness must be overcome in order to fully contribute to the learning process. A very meaningful "glimpse into the mind of God" might be missed as the learner with the intuition is too shy to give voice to his comment, his query or his objection.

14:
It should now be clear that the opposite is equally true. If the 'teacher' is too short-tempered (or too self-centered) to accept the comments, queries and objections of his or her students, he or she is impeding the learning process instead of promoting it. Traditionally, rabbinic teachers have adopted the Socratic method of learning: posing questions to stimulate the thought and elicit the opinions of the students.

To be continued.

In our last shiur I gave my response to objections made that Hillel was condescending (and worse!) in his teaching. In conclusion I wrote that Our modern problem with what Hillel has to say lies not in what he says but in his original premise. The moment we remove the certainty of a divine origin for the mitzvot we have introduced an ethical relativism which vitiates Hillel's dictum. That is not his fault. Bayla Singer will have none of it! She writes:

I must respectfully take issue with your conclusion. My "modern problem" with the mishnah is the all-or-nothing nature of the characterization. Even granting "the certainty of a divine origin for the mitzvot," it does not follow that someone who rejects part of the mitzvot is thereby rejecting piety as a whole. I personally have great difficulty accepting the superstructure built with what appears to be only the slightest connection to the Five Books, and I resent the common easy equation of 'religious' and 'observant' particularly when it is the visible parts of observance which form the basis for the characterization. For Hillel, perhaps, total observance is a prerequisite for the label 'pious,' – but since there is no-one who can possibly perform all the mitzvot in the halachically-approved and most meticulous manner, there is no-one who can be called pious by that definition. We are all partly pious, partly impious. I'm afraid I still stand with Jim Feldman on this, no matter whether it is Hillel, Rambam, or Rabbi Ovadiah whose teaching is under fire.

I respond:

We have a semantic problem here: Bayla and Hillel are giving different interpretations to the concept of piety. For Bayla piety is an inner wish to enrich one's life by observance of mitzvot; for Hillel piety is a constant striving to fulfill the divine will as completely as possible. Certainly, we moderns are not really capable of appreciating the ideal of the sages in this matter: we are too sophisticated! The price of sophistication is doubt. Therefore we express our 'piety' in trying to achieve Kedushah (a feeling of sanctity), something that will raise our lives, even if only temporarily, from the mundane into incipient transcendence. Bayla is quite right that no one can ever attain the ideal: it is the striving which is all. However, her last sentence is incorrect! See below.

Jim Feldman writes:

Good answer, particularly the paragraph [which I quoted as the preface to Bayla's comment – SR.] To understand why Hillel said what he did, one must understand his unstated (obvious?) premise. Since I do not accept the premise, I do not arrive at the same conclusion, but I do have to accept how he got there. Furthermore, his premise would have been a "given" in his time. The other issue of this section that is difficult to deal is hot words. You have worked hard to explore the meaning of the originals, but the English still comes across as very mean spirited. One cannot use words such as "ignoramus" and "fool" without pejorative meaning. "Shy" has a very different meaning to a modern reader, but again, in an environment where all learning and testing was done verbally, being shy would have been a considerable impediment. As anyone who has ever administered an oral exam must attest, what you get out of such an exam is far too dependent on the environment of the exam and the interpersonal relationships than it is on what the subject really knows. Even "pious" carries with it several connotations, not necessarily positive. I translate "dati" as "observant", trying to avoid the value judgements. Translation is a tough racket, just slightly ahead of predicting the weather. Thanks for your response. As a retired professor, I take pleasure in watching a pro at work.

I respond:

Thank you, Jim for those words. But teachers don't retire: they just carry on doing their thing in a different milieu! Before retirement they do it for peanuts and after retirement they do it for nothing!

Ĥag Atzma'ut Samé'aĥ to everybody!