RABBI YOHANAN B. ZAKKAI’S PRAISES AND CHALLENGE

After recording RYBZ’s prime principle (see last week’s discussion), the Mishnah mentions that he had five students, odd in itself both because presumably he had more than five students and also because we do not generally (in Avot, at least) take inventory of a person’s students. After mentioning the students, the Mishnah notes that RYBZ used to list their praises, with a specific praise for each one. Thus, R. Eliezer b. Hurqanos was a "well-lined pit that does not lose a drop," R. Yehoshua b. Hanania "happy is the one who gave birth to him," R. Yose haCohen-- "hasid," R. Shim`on b. Netanel " yerei het, has true fear of sin", and R. Elazar (not Eliezer—it’s important to keep track of the two) b. Arakh was an "ever-flowing spring."

The Mishnah then records an incident in RYBZ’s interactions with his students. RYBZ challenged his students to "go out and see the good trait for a person to adhere to." Each of the students came back with an answer, as follows: R. Eliezer—a good eye; R. Yehoshua—a good friend, R. Yose—a good neighbor, R. Shim’on—understanding the future (or, at least, the general course of events), and R. El`azar—a good heart. RYBZ then ratifies R. El`azar’s view, saying "for his view encompasses all of the others’."

He then asks the reverse question, the evil path from which one should distance oneself. All of the students give the exact reverse answer (an evil eye, a bad friend, etc.), with RYBZ giving the same conclusion (that R. El`azar’s answer is best, since it includes the others). The only exception here is R. Shim`on b. Netanel who, instead of saying "not paying attention to the likely course of future events" says " one who borrows money and does not repay."

MAHARAL’S FIRST VERSION—GROWTH IN PUTTING ONESELF OUT FOR OTHERS

Maharal is going to offer two explanations of the five students’ suggestions for the best characteristic to adopt. In the first explanation, Maharal sees the various qualities as in an ascending order of putting oneself out for others. That is, if we are searching for a central character trait from which to grow and foster one’s personal development, each of the tannaim chooses a trait that involves the person with others’ good to some extent.

A Torah uMadda moment. I recently read a book called The Wisdom of theEgo, by a psychiatrist named George Vaillant, in which he views life as a series of tasks our egos are supposed to accomplish. Working off other psychologists’ ideas, Vaillant sees the tasks of adulthood as focusing on an ever-widening sphere of relationships. Thus, in his view, people generally need to master the tasks of intimacy (in marriage or its equivalent), career, and then can become truly generative, where they give to others.

Without endorsing the book—there are certainly other ways to view the process of adult growth—it is interesting that Maharal also focuses on how far to extend oneself as the question of the central character trait to foster one’s personal growth. Each tanna in Maharal’s reading believes our starting point must be at a broader level of awareness of others than the one before. By the way, I believe I can now deduct the cost of that book as a legitimate business expense.

Maharal takes R. Eliezer’s ayin tova to mean that a person looks well on others, wishes them well, is happy in their successes, and so on. In his view, a person who becomes accustomed to wishing others well will grow from there. R. Yehoshua chooses a trait that even initially involves putting oneself out a bit more, in that you act as a good friend to others, which generally means providing them with good advice. R. Yose chooses being a good neighbor in that neighbors actually do favors for each other, lending each other various items. Lending, however, is not a full kindness, since the object comes back to you, meaning that the situation is one of zeh neheneh ve-zeh lo haser, the person receiving the favor benefits, but the one doing the favor is not put out in any way.

Recognizing that this is a somewhat limited version of kindness, R. Shim`on expands it to haroeh et hanolad, being able to recognize the future course of events. Maharal, in keeping with his picture of each student as further expanding the previous horizons of kindness, sees this as a reference to more general kindness, which actually costs the person doing the kindness. Nevertheless, since we all will need such favors in the future (hence the characterization of this as ‘seeing the future’), we should perform those kindnesses for others. Finally, R. El`azar suggests a good heart, a characteristic which leads to all the other forms of kindness.

NOVELTY AND PROBLEMS IN MAHARAL’S VIEW

As presented, there is not anything particularly new in Maharal’s presentation, and indeed he finishes this part of his interpretation by saying that this is the way one would interpret the Mishnah in the manner of umdena, meaning using one’s intellect without considering the deeper structures of Nature. I do think it’s worth noting, though, that Maharal assumes each of the students is improving on the one who preceded him. Other commentators, I believe, think that a good eye, being a good friend, etc. are simply competing versions of the best place to start on the road to perfection, with R. El`azar b. Arakh being the exception, in that his version encompasses all the rest.

However, since Maharal sees the five as espousing ever-more-selfless central traits seems to be seeing each as building on the one that came before. The problem with that view, as I see it, is that the Mishnah does not indicate that rising order—in fact, RYBZ’s statements (which we’ll get to next week, be-ezrat Hashem) that R. Eliezer outweighs all the others presents a problem for Maharal, since he saw R. Eliezer as presenting the most minimal starting point—if R. Eliezer was really the greatest of them, why didn’t he choose a better central characteristic?

When presenting this view, also, Maharal doesn’t mention RYBZ’s praises of his students or the connection between those praises and the characteristic each student chose. He then goes back, however, to suggest a deeper meaning to this whole incident, based not only on umdena, but on an understanding of the Rabbinic view of the interplay of the physical and spiritual within a person (a topic we know from other occasions that Maharal cared about greatly).

THE SECOND VERSION—THE STUDENTS AS REFLECTING PARTS OF HUMANINTY

In Maharal’s view, there are five (an important number, as we’ll see) fundamental aspects to the human being--- the material side, and the powers of the material side, the spiritual and the powers of the spiritual side, and the separate human aspect that brings all those together. (Maharal differentiates the guf, the body, and the kohot haguf, the powers of the body; he does the same for the nefesh and the kohot hanefesh. I believe he means that there is the entity of the body and the soul, and then there are the powers, or capabilities, that extend from each. He somewhat recognizes that the distinction isn’t ironclad, since he claims his categories are identical to the traditional threesome of ruah, nefesh, and neshama, which for him apparently mean the physical, the spiritual, and the central coordinating aspect—if the five can be the same as the three, though, the distinction between nefesh and kohot hanefesh cannot be particularly sharp).

The praises of each of RYBZ’s students match one of those powers—for example, R. Eliezer’s memory indicates an intellectual power that works particularly well. The praise of the woman who gave birth to R. Yehoshu`a indicates for Maharal a physical perfection (since, as we’ve seen before, Maharal sees women as more physically oriented than men), a hasid is one who uses the physical powers well to do kindnesses for others, a yerei het has a well-honed intellect, and R. El`azar’s ever-flowing spring means that that central aspect, the one that combines the other four, is particularly perfect.

Two interesting points in Maharal’s interpretation: first, in assuming that R. Shim`on b. Netanel’s characteristic of fear of sin indicates an intellectual capacity, Maharal seems to assume that being a yerei het requires a greater intellect than being a hasid I find this interesting, because usually it’s the other way—fear of sin is seen as an easier level to reach than hasidut. In Maharal’s version, though, fear of sin stems from one’s intellectual side, whereas hasidut comes from the physical—in controlling one’s physical self appropriately, one achieves the status of hasid.

Second, once Maharal has defined R. Shim`on as intellectually excellent, he needs to explain the difference between R. Eliezer, who had a perfect memory, R. Shim`on, and R. El`azar, the ever-flowing spring. Maharal does not clearly distinguish them, but simply claims that they are three differing aspects of the intellect. It strikes me that, based on RYBZ’s praises, we could distinguish between memory (comprehension/retention), intellect (clarity of understanding, perhaps sharpness of insight), and creativity.

SYMBOLISMS OF THE NUMBER FIVE

Maharal’s envisioning human capabilities as divisible into five parts—physical and its powers, spiritual and its powers and a central coordinating aspect—allows him to explain the relevance of at two puzzling numbers in different sources. First, the Talmud relates a debate between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai as to whether or not it would have been better for people never to be created. Regardless of the outcome of that discussion, the Talmud mentions that they argued about it for 2 ½ years, an odd tidbit of information to include in its recounting of the story.

For Maharal, the number 2 ½ exactly splits the person’s capabilities in half—2 ½ of our capabilities are spiritual, so that it’s good for us to have been created, whereas the other 2 ½ are physical, drawing us to sin, making it worse for us that we were created. In Maharal’s reading, then, 2 ½ doesn’t really refer to years, but to the aspects of the humans that they were weighing in their debate.

In an unrelated topic, the Torah assigns objective monetary values to humans for the case in which they say "I promise to donate my erekh to the Beit haMiqdash." Erekh is a technical term; had the person promised their value (shovi) , we would have evaluated each person according to their marketplace worth. In discussing erekh, however, the Torah assigns a value, based on age and gender.

Maharal notes that two of the male values, 5 and 50, revolve around the number 5. He suggests that that is because of the five controlling aspects of human beings—when young, those aspects are undeveloped, so they are each assigned a value of one; as the person reaches adulthood, they are ten times as valuable (as we’ll see, the number 10 for Maharal indicates completess). What I find interesting about this piece is Maharal’s attempt to explain numbers and values that might arbitrary.