RABBI ELAZAR B. ARAKH AND A SUMMARY OF ALL FIVE STUDENTS

Maharal does two things in this week’s Mishnah. First, he explains R. Elazar b. Arakh’s three statements—heve shaqud lilmod Torah, ve-da mah she-tashiv le-epiqoros, ve-da lifnei mi atah amel, ve-ne’eman who ba`al melakhtekha she-ye-shalem lekha sekhar pe`ulatekha; learn Torah assiduously (the phrase actually means something like "be ever-prepared and ever-assiduous in learning Torah," but that’s not English), know what to answer a heretic, and know before Whom you toil, and your Employer is reliable in repayment of the reward for your labors.

After explaining this particular Mishnah—and we’ll review his explanation in a moment, Maharal goes back to the other four students and re-explains their views, showing how each one provided advice for the guf, nefesh, and the person as a whole. Even before we see some of those (I don’t think it’s worth belaboring each of the tannaim, who we’ve already seen—I’ll just mention the one I find the most interesting.

RABBI ELAZAR BEN ARAKH—AN INTRODUCTION

I was doing some research for my doctorate this week (the one I keep telling Elizabeth I’m finishing this year), and I came across a discussion of when commentators on Avot began to include an introduction of each of the tannaim quoted before explaining what that particular tanna said. (It was actually R. Shim`on b. Zemah Duran in the late 1300’s or early 1400’s). I haven’t made a general practice of that, but I find R. El`azar b. Arakh so interesting a figure that I will allow myself a moment of introduction.

As we’ve seen, the simplest reading of the text is that RYBZ thought of R. El`azar as the greatest of his students (at the very least, one version reports that this was his view—for a claim that R. El`azar and R. Eli`ezer were each greatest in a different aspect of Torah, see R. Yonah). Yet we find very few citations of R. El`azar b. Arakh in halakhic literature (in a CD-Rom check, I found 25 citations in Mishnaic and Talmudic literature, over half of which were from Avot or Avot de-Rabi Natan).

In Avot de-Rabi Natan (and elsewhere) , a story is told to explain why—according to the story, when RYBZ passed away, most of his students migrated to Yavneh, a place of Torah. R. El`azar decided to go instead to a beautiful place (the gemara doesn’t actually say Hawaii, but it’s that kind of place that was meant—a place of great physical beauty, but little Torah presence). After a while there, R. El`azar forgot his Torah so much, that when he was called to read the Torah, he read the words HA-HODESH HA-ZEH LAKHEM as HA-HERESH HAYAH LIBAM (making a mistake in one letter in each of the three words). In the gemara’s version, his friends prayed for him, his wisdom was restored, and he became known as R. Nehorai, because his eyes were re-enlightened in Torah. It is in reaction to that incident, in fact, that the gemara thinks R. Nehorai said (also in Avot) hevei goleh limqom Torah, which most simply means pick a place of Torah in which to live (for a different view, see Rashi).

I mention the incident because I find the whole concept of this brilliant student—and other stories make it clear that R. El`azar b. Arakh was brilliant, in a way that frequently astonished RYBZ, who was no mean intellect himself—losing all of his Torah knowledge (and even if that’s an exaggeration, losing his place of pre-eminence among the Sages of his generation) by virtue of choosing to live in a backwater in Torah terms.

ON TO R. EL`AZAR’S SAYINGS

In his first run-through, Maharal explains the need for sheqidah, assiduousness, as a function of the way Torah works—if you just learn when you happen to have free time, you will not accomplish greatly in Torah. This is not to discourage free-time learning—it’s still a mitsvah to learn whatever chance you get; Keriat Shema still speaks about be-shivtekha be-veitekha, u-ve-lekhtekha ba-derekh, sitting at home or walking along the road, whenever there’s an opportunity. Rather, it’s saying that in terms of making great strides in Torah study, consistency and quantities of time are vital. The second clause, responding to heretics, is to stop the spread of falsehoods in the world, and the third clause (knowing before Whom, etc.) is to help stimulate our efforts in Torah study and performance.

Maharal notes that by explaining the third clause as a means to stimulate oneself, he has resolved a contradiction with the statement of Antignos we saw in the first pereq. Antignos said that we should worship God she-lo al menat le-qabbel peras, without thought of reward, yet this Mishnah reminds us of reward. Maharal, however, points out that he believes this Mishnah is just to help us psychologically, to strengthen our inclination to worship God and help us overcome our laziness, etc. In this way, the reward is not the point of our service, but just an aid to insuring that we actually act on our best intentions. (Abravanel actually noted that the first Mishnah in the 2nd pereq does too, and it was there that he gave an answer very similar to Maharal’s).

THE TRUTH OF THESE STATEMENTS OF HAZAL

I would make two points about Maharal’s presentation thus far. First, he stresses (and he’s done so several times before in this series of Mishnayot, from where RYBZ asked his students to find the good path in life) that this is not umdena u-sevara, guesses or estimations but established truth. I point that out because it was important enough to Maharal to repeat several times, I thought we should spend a moment considering why. I have no proof, but I suspect that Maharal was bothered by the notion (certainly dominant in our times, it sounds like it was around in his as well) that understanding of human nature and how to focus that nature on the worship of God, was a question of guesswork. To use modern analogies, if someone wanted to know about human nature, specifically in the context of how to worship God best, I suspect that many people would assume that rabbis make comments about the topic based on minimal "scientific" knowledge of the essence of humanity. If I take a psychology course, then, I may come to realize that humans don’t work at all the way Hazal thought, and therefore ignore their advice.

It is in this kind of atmosphere that I imagine Maharal repeating his stress that these are truth. Whatever we will ever find about the psyche (and a hundred years of psychology has only strengthened this contention, it seems to me) those insights—some quite productive, enlightening, and useful—will not affect the relevance of these tannaim’s recommendations about how to conduct a religiously productive life. We may understand why those ideas work well more deeply in one age than in another—or we may emphasize different aspects of those commands in different ages—but their truth., their essential truth, means that they are impervious to the vicissitudes of human knowledge; whatever we find out about ourselves, these statements will still hold true in some sense. So I thought that was interesting and worth noting (you can let me know what you think, if the mood strikes you).

FITTING THEM ALL INTO NEFESH AND GUF—WHY?

The other point I would make is how ordinary this reading of R. El`azar is—it takes each of the three clauses at face value and explains them. Immediately after that, however, Maharal goes back to show how each of the tannaim was providing advice, one directed at the soul, one at the body, and one at the person as a whole. I don’t wish to review each—I’ll take up a few interesting points in a moment—but let’s notice what Maharal is doing and think about why.

Maharal is assuming that each Mishnah represents a complete whole, and that whole revolves around the same central themes, the different parts to a persona (a physical part, a spiritual part, and the person as a whole), which is two different (questionable) assumptions. First, it’s not necessarily true that every thinker, even who has digested his worldview into three ideas, has unified those ideas in the way Maharal envisions (just having three good rules of thumb in life seems like an accomplishment to me). Second, if they are unified, they don’t have to share the same system (meaning R. Eli`ezer could have had his 3 talk about something different from R. Yose, etc.), so Maharal is assuming that they all do.

I think the two points might be connected—Maharal’s certainty that Hazal are articulating objective human truths is strengthened if those truths are referring to the three parts of a person he (and Judaism generally) takes for granted.

POINTS TO PONDER FROM MAHARAL’S PRESENTATION

A couple of points from his review—first, he sees R. Yose’s urging that we should care for someone else’s money as adding to R. Eli`ezer’s order that we care about others’ honor; as Maharal says, R. Yose is saying we have to even care about their money. I notice this because in other contexts, I think Judaism assumes that money is more important to people than their honor. Second, Maharal (in discussing R. Yehoshu`a’s rules that an evil eye, evil inclination, and hating others remove a person from the world) suggests that evil eye shows an excessive leaning towards the soul and an evil inclination (generally in areas of sexuality, according to Maharal) leans too much to the physical. The problem with these two, he adds, is that balance is what’s necessary for life and extremes leads to death.

All of that is fine, but he mentions that the number 6 is the paragon of balance, and quotes Ibn Ezra’s explanation , that 6 is the first sum of all its factors (1+2+3=6 and 2x3=6 and 1x6=6; I think, actually, that in mathematics generally these are known as perfect numbers). Maharal then says that it was because of this characteristic of 6 that the world was created on the Sixth Day. I love ideas like that (regardless of whether I think they’re objectively true) because they show such a creative approach to the world—it’s all supposed to hang together, so there must be a reason and an explanation for everything.