Pirkei Avot: Acquiring the Torah Before Shavuot

Good evening, my friends. We are one week away from Shavuot. We have made a journey from Pesach up to this day of Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah. Yet the festival of Shavuot is not designated in the Torah as the day of Matan Torah, of the giving of the Torah. The Maharal of Prague explains: since the Torah was imposed on the people at Mount Sinai, there was a certain coercion in the people of Israel’s acceptance of the Torah; and so it is not mentioned as the day of G-d’s revelation, but rather as the day of the first fruits — the day of the bikkurim. The day of the first fruits: that is, the day on which a person is able to give the very best of himself to another, without calculation, without expecting anything whatsoever in return.

For the first principle of the Torah is not so much to live oneself as to give life. Not lichyot, to live, but lehachayot, to give life to another — that is what, in truth, makes us acquirers of the Torah. And what it means to be an acquirer of the Torah is taught by the very first time we encounter the word kinyan. The word kinyan, which means acquisition, is said in connection with the first birth, that of the child Kayin: kaniti ish et Hashem, “I have acquired a man with G-d.” This means that the first child born of the union of the first couple is considered a gift of G-d, in which man takes part through a prayer from below. And this acquisition is not entirely man’s doing: it lies in man’s acceptance of this blessing and in his returning it to G-d, who is its source. Unfortunately, Kayin did not understand the message. It is Hevel who will interpret it this way, because he is only the younger brother. He considers that there is someone above him whom he will have to serve, and that there is someone else with whom he must share this brotherhood. That is why his sacrifice was accepted, and not Kayin’s.

Now we are told that Hevel offered to G-d mi-bekhorot tzono u-mechelvehen — of the firstborn of his flock and of the choicest of them. This implies that the acceptance of the Torah lies in the effort one makes to discover it through study. That is why this sixth chapter — for in reality Pirkei Avot has only five chapters — this sixth chapter is a distillation of mishnayot concerning the virtues of the Torah, the way to acquire the Torah and the way to transmit it; and of course it is on the Shabbat before Shavuot, before the festival of Shavuot, that we read this sixth chapter. Now, we will not be able to develop all the virtues needed to discover the Torah, to acquire the Torah — because, when all is said and done, what is the identity of a Jew? Today we have the possibility of translating it into a national identity, through the Land of Israel. But in fact the primary and essential identity of the Jew — the thing that kept him Jewish in his soul and in his heart even when he had lost his land — is the Torah. Consequently, not to recognize oneself in the Torah, not to try to reveal one’s own share in the Torah, amounts to a denial of oneself, a denial of one’s identity. At that point one becomes an am ha’aretz. Am ha’aretz means “a people of the land”: a people defined solely by its life on earth. That is a very limited life, a life that does not extend beyond its own time, and a life that the following generations are not truly bound to respect. We have seen this throughout the exiles — there is no need to elaborate. What, on the other hand, kept us attached through the exiles, at all costs, to our… — it is the fact that we preserved a bond with the Torah — or at the very least with those Ten Commandments which, paradoxically, all of humanity has never denied.

Who ever dared to cast doubt on this revelation of G-d at Mount Sinai? Entire nations bowed before it, even if they did not adopt it. And if they did not adopt it, it also happened that the Jewish people did not adopt it. Let us not forget that it was at Purim that the Jewish people truly embraced the charter of the Torah of its own free will. And that is why Purim is the counterpart of Shavuot among the festivals instituted by our sages — festivals which, in the end, are a response to all the miracles performed for us in our first steps in history. And now it is up to us to define them anew. That is the reason our sages taught this chapter “in the language of the mishnah.” What does it mean, to be taught in the language of the mishnah? It simply means that everything is to be rediscovered by ourselves. Something we have received as a gift — asher natan lanu et Torato, “who gave us His Torah” — something we received as a gift, we do not manage to give it as much importance. But when we ourselves have forged this study, and have passed from the inheritance of the fathers to the revelation of our own share — because, as I have said before and will never stop repeating, each of us is a letter, or a portion of letters, or a portion of words in the Torah, and consequently it is we who make up, or rather reconstitute, the whole of the Torah. And ve-ten chelkenu be-Toratekha, “grant us our share in Your Torah”: the dearest wish a Jew expresses is to have a share in the Torah, and for that share to be revealed. Yet it can be revealed only through study — hence this blessing: barukh she-bachar bahem u-ve-mishnatam, “Blessed is He who chose them and their teaching” — blessed is He who chose the Jewish people, them and their teaching, that is, through their teaching. For the Torah could have been given to Yaakov.

There is indeed a midrash which says that the Torah could have been given, could have been revealed in its entirety, to Yaakov, but the time was not right. A certain maturity is required. And that maturity is not only the maturity of an elite discovering itself on its own. All of humanity must be able to recognize itself, at least to some degree, in this Torah. Because if the rest of humanity is separated or cut off from the very nature of the Torah — if the Torah remains morashah kehillat Yaakov, solely the heritage of the congregation of Yaakov — it will suffer a rupture on the human level, for it will not allow those who heard it without embracing it to take it in. Yet it is not our aim to guard this teaching of the Torah jealously; our aim is to make it shine outward.

That, moreover, is why even the teachings of the seven Noahide laws were included in the Keter Torah, the crown of the Torah. Keter: there are 613 commandments in the Torah, plus the seven Noahide laws — that is what crowns all of humanity. We cannot wear the crown of the Torah without associating with it the other nations, who for their part have kept only the seven teachings. There is a machloket, a dispute, between Rav Saadia Gaon and the Rambam on this subject. Rav Saadia Gaon says that the seven Noahide laws were indeed revealed to Noach and his descendants, and that they have been observed ever since. Whereas the Rambam says no: they were in force up until the revelation of G-d at Mount Sinai, but from the revelation of G-d at Mount Sinai onward, a new covenant was made, binding all the other nations.

This idea of associating the other nations is contained in shanu chakhamim, “the sages taught.” We have said that the chakham is not merely someone who studies the Torah; the chakham of the Torah is the talmid chakham, the disciple of the sage. But the chakham — we once defined his three attributes in time. In the past tense, he is the makir et mekomo, the one who knows his place: the one who situates himself in relation to his surroundings, to his era, and who knows his limits. Yes, not everyone was born in the same era, not everyone was born in the same land, and not everyone was born with the same advantages within a family; and so each person is a chakham in his own way, and one ought to respect this individual chokhmah, this wisdom that binds him to his background. But there is also a wisdom of the future: that of the one who projects himself toward what is to come and does not want to remain confined in a past that was imposed on him and that he did not choose. And how does he do this? Ha-lomed mi-kol adam — in the present, by learning from every person, by seeking indeed to gather the elements of his life, of his being, of his identity, through all the people who make up his time. You see, there is here, in the chakham, an idea, a universal attitude, but one that is not specifically that of the Torah. That of the Torah comes to be added to this dimension of derekh eretz. Derekh eretz is what we are accustomed to: the manner, the minimum of moral conduct, the common decency and know-how shared by everyone. But the Torah comes to crown all this with its dimension of the absolute. For all chokhmah remains subjective and relative, and when it reaches the level of Torah, then every element takes on another dimension. And that is why, with regard to the Torah itself, we are gerim ve-toshavim, strangers and residents: at once strangers, and at once steeped in, possessed by the elements of the Torah. In what way — that we shall now see.

Rabbi Meir says: “Whoever devotes himself to the study of the Torah for its own sake merits many things; and not only that, but the whole world is worthwhile for his sake alone. He is called friend, beloved; he loves G-d, he loves the creatures; he gladdens G-d, he gladdens the creatures. And it — the Torah — clothes him in humility and awe, and fits him to be righteous, pious, upright and faithful; it distances him from sin and draws him near to merit; and others benefit from him in counsel and wisdom, understanding and strength, as it is said: ‘Mine are counsel and wisdom; I am understanding, mine is strength.’ And it — the Torah — gives him sovereignty and dominion and discerning judgment; the secrets of the Torah are revealed to him, and he becomes like an ever-flowing spring and like a river whose current never ceases. He becomes modest and patient, and forgives the insult done to him. And it — the Torah — makes him great and exalts him above all things.” We will stop there. There is much material to develop here — namely, “whoever devotes himself to the study of the Torah for its own sake.” I always like to point out that “devotes himself to the study of the Torah” is not the exact translation.

For the text says ha-osek: the one who busies himself with the Torah. One who busies himself with the Torah is different from one who studies the Torah. Today we speak of people who have chosen to devote themselves to the study of the Torah, and we define them as Torato umanuto, “his Torah is his profession.” We say that his profession is indeed the study of Torah. But there is another translation of Torato umanuto. Torato umanuto means that his art of living conforms to the Torah — or that his Torah is reflected in his activities, in the way he lives. That is why our sages said: gedolah shimushah shel Torah yoter mi-limudah. Serving the Torah, serving the talmidei chakhamim and living in their company, is greater than the learning of the Torah itself.

One does not study the Torah as one studies a science; one discovers it in its application, in the ways of doing. And there are two Torot. Only yesterday we read: eleh ha-chukkim ve-ha-mishpatim ve-ha-Torot, “these are the statutes and the ordinances and the Torot.” Why “Torot,” in the plural, when we only ever speak of one Torah? In reality, there are two Torot. The Torah given by G-d is indeed the expression of an abstract thought that has nothing to do with the reality of this world, and must be understood as totally detached from this world. And this one was in fact not taken in by the Jewish people, since afterward came the sin of the golden calf; Moshe threw it down, it fell, it shattered, it broke — the tablets of the Law broke, and the letters flew away. But these tablets — where do they come from?

We are told that these tablets of the Law were already planned on the eve of the first Shabbat of creation. Among the things created then: when G-d had finished creating His universe, a few small things were still lacking — ten things, which He created in that moment which is neither Shabbat nor chol, neither sacred day nor weekday, where chol and kodesh, the profane and the sacred, intersect. It was then that G-d created the tablets of the Law. These tablets of the Law have a reality of their own; one might have spoken of a luach, a tablet in the singular. For ten commandments, one could have provided a single tablet. Why, then, this notion of luchot, of two — since the minimum of the plural is two? Quite simply to tell us that there are the tablets of the Law that G-d gives, and there is the tablet of the Law that Moshe fashions. These are the two tablets: G-d fashioned His tablets, and Moshe fashioned his. And upon them the commandments were written — and that is what gives these tablets their substance, what makes these tablets of the Law perceptible, what allows them to matter to the present world, the world here below, and to be understood as concerning the am ha’aretz, the people of the land. Now, you know, the “people of the land” is the common run of mortals. For example, when our sages speak of all of humanity, they say umot ha-olam, “the nations of the world” — those attached to the world, those driven in life by the conquest of the world. Whereas for us, the conquest of this world is not our primary objective. Our primary objective is to be in the olam ha-ba, the World to Come — that is, to reach that world in which thought is what directs and governs the future of the generations to come, toward a better world.

That is the fundamental idea behind the talmidei chakhamim, of whom it is said that they have no rest — ein lahem menuchah — no respite, not even in the World to Come. In the World to Come they are still studying Torah, but this time it is a Torah that belongs to the higher spheres and reflects its teaching onto the lower world. That is what is called Torah min ha-shamayim, the Torah that comes from Heaven. Whereas the Torah of the earth is the one in which I take part here below — emet me-eretz titzmach, “truth springs from the earth”: truth is what springs from the earth, from the trials I live through here below and from the conclusions I draw from them. That is the mishnah. That is study in the true sense. That is the Torah she-be’al peh, the Oral Torah. That is the plural of luchot.

For if these tablets can fall and shatter, it is because there is a share of mine in them that is not very solid, or that has not taken in, has not enveloped, the divine teaching. And unfortunately it is like a being who comes to waste away because, without the Torah within him, he can no longer carry the soul that G-d gave him. That is why we should rather speak of the person who busies himself with the Torah — the one who lives it, not only from within, but through everyday life: that is Torah. So we are preparing for the harvest of what awaits us from these middot, these character traits, on which we have worked throughout all these past weeks of the Omer, in order to free ourselves a little from our conditioning by nature. That is why we went through these weeks. Every time we find ourselves within the seven, it is because we are conditioned by the world around us; and reaching the fiftieth day — that is the culmination of the Exodus from Egypt, the culmination of physical liberation. It is when a person begins to taste this elevation of the spirit, starting from the day of Shavuot. But this must be done selflessly — selflessly. Because although the Torah speaks of sakhar va-onesh, although it speaks of reward and punishment, these are simply the repercussions of a lack of harmony between the Asarah Ma’amarot and the Aseret ha-Dibrot — between the ten utterances of creation and the ten utterances of revelation. There is a crossing-over, an interlocking of the ten utterances of creation within the revelation, which produces a harmony like that of a couple — just like a human couple — in which the Asarah Ma’amarot remain the Asarah Ma’amarot, and yet in their union there is a harmony capable of engendering, of begetting, of developing something new. And when this unfolds perfectly, our children are the reflection of this perfect love, of this perfect meeting between the Asarah Ma’amarot and the Aseret ha-Dibrot. But when there is a rupture, a failure in one of these elements, when there is in effect a separation, what is engendered is harmful — not only for the family, but for the whole world.

That is why, as in love, there is only the desire to answer the expectation of the other — not my own expectation, but the expectation of the other. And everyone knows that it is in this spirit that such love lives. That is how we must, first of all, regard this approach to the study of the Torah; otherwise, the Torah remains foreign to us. For the Torah is not a science that one studies, masters once, and is done with. The Torah is to be rediscovered each day through our lived experience. And that is why the one who studies it selflessly “merits many things, and the whole world is worthwhile for his sake.” That translation, too, is open to question. It means rather: the whole world — kol ha-olam kulo kedai hu lo — the whole world; the application of the Torah is not limited to the family, to my people.

But the Holy One, blessed be He, ohev ger — He loves the stranger. The study of the Torah commits me to the whole of creation. My contribution is not limited, and my thought is confined neither to the family nor to my people, but embraces all of humanity — because I consider that if humanity itself progresses in the right direction, then this will contribute to the well-being of everyone. That is why we are companions. I know what the word means in the language of Freemasonry; but here, the companion — let us not forget that re’a, companion, has the same root as ra, evil. It is what I regard as evil. And why do I regard it as evil? Because it is foreign to me, because I cannot master it, because it is my competitor in life, it is my hell. We are not speaking here of those three things which, in a way, give no access whatsoever to the Torah: shefikhut damim, bloodshed; gilui arayot, forbidden unions; and avodah zarah, idolatry.

These make the Torah foreign to my person, and that is why, for these three things, I would indeed have to sacrifice my life according to the order of the Torah. I would have to sacrifice my own life, because no accommodation is possible. But as for the rest — take note — it is simply a matter of being able to orient it, to shape it. And that is why the Torah does not seek to convert all the other nations; those who cannot embrace the Torah will make do with the seven Noahide laws, and that is sufficient for them. As for the Jewish people, since it is the guarantor of a higher moral order, the Torah gives it the key to all things.

But for that very reason, I must first regard myself as a brother, as a companion — the companion of G-d, the companion of other human beings, the companion of all creatures. He is called re’a; this has been translated as “friend,” but it is a companion. Ahuv, beloved — as I said a moment ago, we can glimpse our relationship with the Torah only through love. And “he loves G-d.” Look how this comes in third position — loving G-d in third position! One might have expected ohev et ha-Makom, “he loves G-d,” to come first. No. The Ten Commandments are built in the same way. “I am the L-rd your G-d who brought you out of Egypt” — that is not a commandment, it is a fact. The commandments number nine: three commandments that relate to our obligations toward G-d, three commandments that relate to our obligations toward our fellow, and three that relate to our obligations toward ourselves.

What are the obligations toward Hashem? “You shall have no other god” — that concerns G-d. “You shall not take the name of G-d in vain” — that concerns your relationship with your fellow. And then zakhor et yom ha-Shabbat le-kadsho, the fourth: “Remember the Shabbat day to keep it holy” — that concerns yourself. You observe the Shabbat first of all for your personal elevation. Next, kabed et avikha ve-et imekha, “honor your father and your mother”: this is respect for one’s fellow, but it relates to G-d, since respecting one’s parents is like respecting G-d — because G-d too is present in this couple, as Kudsha Berikh Hu u-Shekhinteh, the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Presence: the One who is holy in Himself, and His manifestation as masculine and feminine — father and mother. Second: lo tirtzach, do not shed your fellow’s blood. There is a way of shedding one’s fellow’s blood — sometimes there are words that kill, it is true — and that concerns your duty toward your fellow. And lo tin’af, do not engage in forbidden unions — that concerns yourself, yourself, and it also has a bearing on your relationship with your fellow.

Then come the last three. Lo tignov: do not degrade your dignity by stealing what does not belong to you — and that indeed concerns the Holy One, blessed be He, because of everything we do here below in secret, as though no one could see us. Theft is what is done behind someone’s back; and there are also various ways of stealing and of destroying oneself, because it is not honestly acquired property. Next, lo ta’aneh ve-re’akha ed shaker: do not harm your fellow through false testimony. And the last is lo tachmod, which again concerns yourself: lo tachmod, do not covet.

Well then, that is “loving G-d.” One loves G-d once one has understood that it is our duty to be a re’a, a companion. Then one moves on to loving the creatures, one’s fellow — and that is loving G-d. As for gladdening: he gladdens G-d first, and he gladdens the creatures. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, rejoices in the way you live. In the end He is like a father who watches his child grow up and draws all his satisfaction from it. And he gladdens the creatures. Why? Because it becomes clear that what he does is not so much for himself: it is that he serves the creatures. There — I will stop here to leave you a few minutes for questions, if there are any, with pleasure.

[Question from the audience:] Rav Benizri, you said at the beginning that making the Torah one’s own is a means of projecting oneself into the future. In reality, although we all see that the Jewish people outlives its enemies, even the most terrible, the memory of the resha’im, the wicked, nevertheless also lives on into the future. Could you shed some light on this paradox? — [The Rav:] The rasha, the wicked man — what does he deny? In reality it is the avodah, the application of the Torah. He does not deny the wisdom there is in the Torah; he contests what embodies it, what represents it. The rasha will always stay with us, because we have not yet managed to gain an ascendancy over him — not only to impress him, but quite simply to prove to him that we are always attentive to him, whatever he does. A child who grows up in a family and has squandered everything — we are not going to abandon him. He remains, in spite of everything, our child, and we will try by every means to win him back. Do we do this enough toward others? Do we truly use this sense of re’a, of companionship, in the way we speak with the rasha? Our fault is to think only of our own salvation.

We practice the Torah as though it were a matter of our own salvation. No — we practice the Torah because it is a matter of everyone’s salvation, and it is through this search for everyone’s salvation that I myself achieve my own. For it is an accepted fact: if you take up a position of leadership, you will make enemies. Only when you come to see that what matters is not just your business but also the future of the employees you manage, and you take an interest in their fate as you take an interest in your business — only then will you be able to motivate all those people who circle around you. Otherwise there will always be conflict, a disparagement of your authority. That is what happens within the Jewish people, and that is what will continue to happen as long as the Jewish people has not radically corrected its way of seeing others, so as to stop regarding them as degenerate people.

A word of contempt toward others condemns us just as surely. It is up to us to correct somewhat our aim in the application of the Torah, in the lived experience of the Torah. This is what is called the tzaddik ha-dor, the righteous one of the generation, the good one of the generation: the one who is capable of acting like Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, who, coming to a river he could not cross, prayed — he commanded the river to part, to part its waters, to open a passage for him — and he crossed. I will not elaborate on the story, but when he reached the other bank, he saw an Arab, an Ishmaelite, running, who also wanted to take the opportunity to cross to the other side — and the river had already resumed its course. So he commanded the river to part its waters for this Arab as well, for this Ishmaelite as well. He did not think only of his own passage, of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the other, even though he was an Ishmaelite, even though he did not share his principles.

And that is how we ought to conceive our vision of the world through the Torah. Forgive me — this is not something that is accepted everywhere. But without it, we will always remain far from that messianic era which is not reserved for the Jewish people alone, but which will benefit the whole world. And if it is to benefit the whole world, why should we not be the builders of that messianism? There it is. — [From the audience:] Thank you; I, at any rate, subscribe to it. — Another question? Well then, have a happy festival.