22:
In some codices of the Mishnah the last item in our present mishnah is presented as a separate mishnah.
23:
Clearly, here Hillel is concerned with violence: because someone committed the violent act of drowning someone else he himself was drowned; and in their turn, those who drowned him will be drowned as well. He is here presenting an infinite chain of violence. It seems that he is hinting that violence breeds violence.
24:
Is it too much to read in this hint something further? – that the only way to end the violence is to refrain from reacting to it. If such a thought is permitted we will find it very similar to the teaching of Hillel's younger contemporary: Jesus of Nazareth also taught that violence should be met by turning "the other cheek". Of course, they lived in a very violent society. The opposition to the Roman occupation grew extremely violent during the 1st century CE. There was one faction among the zealots – the Roman's called them sicarii, 'dagger men' – whose ideology was that the only good Roman is a dead Roman. They went around with little daggers secreted in their clothes, and when they encountered in a dense crowd a Roman or a Jewish Romanophile they would stab him covertly: when the crowd melted away the victim of the violence would drop dead. (I bring the sicarii only as an example: during the age of Hillel violence was almost a way of life.)
25:
The classical commentators take an almost opposite view. They see Hillel as teaching that every sin is visited and punished. They quote the well-known teaching of the sages [Sanhedrin 90a] that God punishes "measure for measure". In our next shiur I shall explain why I think this view is incorrect.
To be continued.
The backlog of your questions and comments is so great that I beg your indulgence and over the next few shiurim I shall give our discussion more space. But when you write, please keep your questions and comments as succinct as possible: it is very difficult to present a very long message, and I feel uncomfortable in editing what others have written.
Todd Stone has three questions concerning Shabbat – matters that were discussed in Avot 106 and 107.
I wrote about the permission given fifty years ago by North American rabbis for people to use an automobile to go to synagogue on Shabbat. Todd asks: Did they also allow driving in order to visit the sick?
I respond:
I have never seen this suggested. Visiting the sick on Shabbat is a great mitzvah, but it cannot justify desecration of Shabbat. And even those rabbis who sanctioned driving on Shabbat did so for the sole purpose of getting to the synagogue service: any other use of the automobile on Shabbat, even according to them, is Sabbath desecration.
Todd has another question in connection with "my strong disapproval of the permission to drive on Shabbat." He writes:
In the Mishnah the discussion of Shabbat starts with a person giving charity on Shabbat yet he may be committing a sin. Do you think this is to teach us not to find things more important than the Sabbath?
I respond:
The first mishnah of Tractate Shabbat poses a situation in which there is someone inside a building who is passing something to a poor person outside the building. There is no explicit mention of charity, and since the situation is described as occurring on Shabbat it could hardly have been money that the sages are seeing here. Again, acting charitably is a great mitzvah, but it cannot override Sabbath desecration. There is only one mitzvah that is universally seen as warranting Sabbath desecration. In Mishneh Torah [Shabbat 2:1] Rambam writes:
Todd's third question:
If one is allow to drive on the Sabbath what is the law for changing a flat tire? Which happens even if one only drive to Shul to Pray and study. Is it permitted to change a tire in a public domain?
I respond:
Changing a flat tire on Shabbat would be forbidden under all usual circumstances. But since I strongly disapprove of driving on Shabbat I find the question only to be indicative of why we should not use an automobile on Shabbat.
