MISHNAH 6

These Mishnayot are fairly brief, so I thought we could cover more ground than usual this week. Yehoshua b. Perahya and Nitai haArbeli are the next pair of leaders cited, and remember that Maharal has decided that the first of each pair will discuss issues of Ahavat Hashem, while the second focuses on Yirat Hashem. I say "Maharal has decided" because the text of Avot does not in any way force that conclusion. As we watch Maharal weave his web over Avot, then, we have to keep track of the choices he makes, and the consequences those choices carry. One such consequence will arise by the end of this week’s lesson.

Yehoshu`a says "aseh lekha rav, u-qeneh lekha haver, ve-hevei dan et kol ha’adam le-kaf zekhut, make for yourself a rabbi, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person meritoriously."

Maharal questions the change in verb for finding a teacher and a friend—a teacher is `aseh, while a friend is qeneh. He’s also bothered by how the three parts of the Mishnah connect—what does judging others have to do with teachers and friends. As usual, Maharal finds an overall construct for this Mishnah, and uses that to explain the specifics. He suggests that this Mishnah focuses on people’s relationships to society at large (as opposed to the household discussion we saw in previous weeks). In those terms, Yehoshu`a was suggesting that how you relate both to those closest to you and those who are more distant from you plays a role in developing one’s Ahavat Hashem.

THE CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

Fastening on the word `aseh, Maharal decides (as had others) that it means that even if the only available teacher isn’t fully qualified, we should make him the rav anyway. Why would Yehoshu`a b. Perahya tell us to appoint someone who’s not fully worthy, so that we are literally making him a rav? Because of the importance of having a spiritual leader to consult for continuing advice on one’s spiritual development.

The same applies to friends, that the importance of friends means we should not insist on their having absolutely perfect qualifications. Here, however, since the relationship will be much closer to that of peers, the verb qeneh is more appropriate. Maharal notes that the Mishnah doesn’t say "make for yourself a student," because it did not wish to imply that people should set themselves up as rabbis if they were not worthy, which Maharal adds actually happens—a comment on his view of the rabbinate in his time (as a rabbi, I suppose I am precluded from commenting on whether that situation still occurs today).

HOW TO TREAT OTHERS

If rav and haver define the people closest to you, you should nevertheless also not be aloof to other people, and the way to do this is to judge them benevolently, so that you won’t separate yourself from them. In addition, Maharal says, learning to judge others with a nice eye makes it easier to maintain relationships with rebbeim and friends.

How does all of this relate to Ahavat Hashem, the topic Maharal claimed that Yehoshu`a b. Perahya was addressing? According to Maharal, developing relationships with true ahavah teach us about how to develop such an experience of God as well. Maharal does not elaborate, and I assume that this works differently for each of us, but I would just stress that notion, that our relationships with others are not only inherently important, they also teach us traits of character that we can apply in our relationships to God.

A Torah-uMadda moment. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a practitioner of Zen meditation ( I would say Buddhism, but I don’t think it’s quite true—I think there are many people in America today who meditate with Zen notions in mind, but have separated the meditation and the personal lessons those teach from the religion in which it grew up. It would be akin to those who—and I know of such people—perform mitsvot because of their personal value, but with no attachment to the religion as a whole) says that child-raising can be a Zen teacher, as our reactions to our children can teach us about ourselves in the most profound way. Here, Maharal would be saying a similar thing about relationships in general, of course with the difference that for Maharal it’s not just a question of self-knowledge, it’s a question of developing ahavat Hashem.

MISHNAH 7

Yehoshu`a’s counterpart, Nitai haArbeli, warns people to distance themselves from a bad neighbor, not to develop a friendship with an evildoer, and not to despair (or forget about) punishment. Noting another difference in verbs-- we have to actually distance ourselves from a bad neighbor, but only avoid befriending an evildoer-- Maharal says that with a neighbor, it is our physical proximity that creates a connection, so we have to avoid that situation. With other people, however, it is not simply knowing an evil person that affects us negatively—it is only befriending such a person, developing a relationship with him/her, that will damage us spiritually.

Aside from the social connections we choose to cultivate, we need to also keep in mind the existence of punishment for our negative actions (sins), which is what al titya’esh, don’t despair of punishment, means. Even in the best social circumstances, there will be temptations to sin, and remembering future punishment will help stave off that sin. Maharal stresses that the Mishnah does not mean that we have to constantly fear punishment; it only means that we need to carry the knowledge of future punishment with us, so that we do not neglect our religious duties.

Reading Maharal’s explanation of Nitai shows how this complements what came before. While Yehoshu`a taught people how to set up a social circle that supported and promoted Ahavat Hashem, Nitai tells us of the pitfalls that will hurt our yir’at Hashem within our social interactions, and suggests ways to avoid them.

MISHNAH 8—YEHUDA B. TABAI

The next pair, Yehuda b. Tabai and Shim`on b. Shetah focus on insuring the proper functioning of the courts, which for Maharal’s scheme is one step further removed from the household (the last pair covered social relationships, this one covers more distant relationships, since it’s about court cases). Yehuda b. Tabai warns judges not to help people prepare their court cases; note that he assumes orekhei hadayannim cannot mean to serve as their lawyers, because people have to make their own claims, not have someone else lodge the claim for them.

[An aside about the Jewish version of justice—each claimant tells the judges their claim, which the judges then evaluate. The judges, conversant with the Law, ask the necessary questions to get at the truth, and the claimants and witnesses simply answer as truthfully as possible. The worry of preparation is that they will be taught how to tailor their assertions to the legal requirements of halakhah. In this system, in other words, the ignorance of the participants is a good thing, since it prevents them from attempting to misuse the Law for their own purposes. This contrasts markedly with the American adversarial system, where lawyers are essential to the process, since without educated work on either side, the judge will not elicit all the relevant information.]

The second piece of Yehuda b. Tabai’s instruction is to view the litigants as evildoers, to prevent judges from having the same benevolent attitude towards the litigants during a case that they ordinarily have towards people at large. Additionally, Maharal says, being a litigant in a court case already indicates a certain lack in a person (presumably, one should try to avoid carrying a litigation through to its bitter conclusion, finding a peshara, a compromise, instead). Accepting the judgement, though, is a very high quality, so that at that point the judge may then think well of the litigants who accept his judgement.

MISHNAH 9

Shim`on b. Shetah worries about full investigation of the witnesses, to make sure that all relevant facts are covered, but also worries that in the course of examining the witnesses, the judge will end up revealing to them what he wants to hear. He therefore warns a judge to ask many questions, but to be careful that those questions not reveal to the parties and/or witnesses the direction in which he wants the answer to go.

IS YEHUDA AHAVAT HASHEM AND SHIMON YIRAH?

Yehuda b. Tabai and Shim`on b. Shetah are not so clearly opposite to each other, but Maharal’s construct of the pairs is that one is talking about actions to create Ahavat Hashem, and the other about injunctions to avoid violating Yirat Hashem. Here, that would mean that one of these two is talking about how to create accurate, valid judgement, while the other is finding ways for us to avoid creating avel ba-Mishpat, miscarriages of justice. However, Yehuda is not offering positive steps, with Shim`on offering injunctions—for example, Yehuda warns against being among the orkhei hadayannim, which sounds like an injunction, and Shim`on demands that judges be marbeh lahqor, ask many questions of the witnesses, which sounds like an order.

Maharal offers two answers to the problem. First, he notes a debate in the gemara as to whether Yehuda was the Nasi or the Av Bet Din. Possibly, Avot follows the opinion that Yehuda was the Av Bet Din, which would mean that he was offering injunctions to help avoid miscarriages of justice, and Shim`on was providing the reverse, ways to insure achieving the highest and most perfect justice. Seeing this answer (when Yehuda is clearly listed first, which generally indicates that he was the Nasi) shows the strain that having a fixed pattern for the Mishnayot can create. Without judging Maharal’s claim that the Nasi addressed ways to achieve Ahavat Hashem and the Av Bet Din ways of avoiding violating Yirat Hashem, we can see how that framework forced him to ignore the simplest indication of the order of the text.

Alternatively—since there are two opinions in the Talmud—Yehuda was the Nasi, and does address questions of Ahavat Hashem, since acting in the ways he suggests (for all that it sounds like an injunction) will contribute to producing a more valid judgement. In this version, then, Maharal has been forced to concede that it is not always positive actions that promote Ahavah and injunctions that protect Yirah; sometimes it is an avoidance (of being an orekh hadayannim) that helps achieve a state of Ahavah (good justice) and a positive act (careful questioning of witnesses) that protects one’s Yirah. Here, he has conceded an assumption in the name of following the dictates of the text, although he has kept his larger assumption, that one of the pair would focus on Ahavah and the other on Yirah.