Two mishnayot are at the heart of this lecture: that of Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach on the way to judge, and that of Shemaya and Avtalion on the love of one’s craft and a wariness of power. The first raises an immediate difficulty: why would a treatise of principles pause to give instructions on courtroom procedure? Rav Raphaël Benizri shows that the text, beneath its judicial vocabulary, is not addressed first of all to judges but to every person, and that it asks him to turn against himself the rigor he applies to others. The second mishnah warns against the lure of positions and honors.
The Rav first recalls the context: the return to Zion after the exile, a people crossed by many currents, and the previous week’s reminder not to classify or exclude. He then works through the Hebrew vocabulary of the text — orkhei ha-dayanin, resha’im, zakka’in, zahir — to show that the accepted translations do not convey what the mishnah actually says, and rereads the two parties to the trial as the two witnesses, heaven and earth.
A historical episode sheds light on the teaching: Yehudah ben Tabbai ruled against the rule of two witnesses in order to prove a point to the Sadducees, was rebuked by his colleague, and withdrew from the presidency of the court. The lecture then turns to Shemaya and Avtalion, descendants of converts, to their praise of the craft and their distrust of those in authority. It closes on a question from the audience that leads to a reading of the word mitzvah as bond and communication.
What this lecture teaches
The two currents that divided us were born from within us. We are in the period when the Jewish people, returned to Zion after the exile, is crossed by many currents; today’s phenomenon is nothing new. We gave birth to Karaism — that is, word-for-word literalism in reading the Torah — and we gave birth to Christianity — that is, the spirit of the Torah abstracted from the text itself. Both paths exist within us, and we are their components. That is precisely why we were asked not to rush to judge people, to classify them, to exclude them.
Saving solidarity comes before exactness. One must seek to see the good side of everyone, even at the risk of verging on untruth: if it is to secure peace, one may sometimes bend the reality of things, since what matters most is to live in a harmony of minds. What tears the people apart is that each one stays shut up in his own thinking, his own domain, his own way of seeing, without opening a window onto the other. We are not required to go so far as to seek out the other’s friendship; but it is not for you to judge, for there is a Master of the world who judges all things and who is patient. One may then ask what this discussion of how to judge is doing here, when we are dealing with the transmission of the Oral Law. In fact it answers a political concern of the time and, at the same time, a spiritual one. Both dimensions must be held together to understand the text.
The word translated as “advocate” is not the mishnah’s word. The phrase is rendered “do not make yourself an advocate,” but an advocate is an orekh din, and the text reads orkhei ha-dayanin — those engaged in the procedure of justice. The meaning is different: you lean on precedents, you consider yourself an accomplished judge, you know everything, you understand everything — please, do not give in to that tendency, do not set yourself up as judge. The term “advocate,” moreover, does not exist in the language of the Mishnah, and the figure of a defense counsel is foreign to the jurisprudence of the court. One may help the accused find arguments in his own defense, of course. But one may in no way distort justice to spare him his penalty. It is therefore not the role of defender that is meant, and one must look elsewhere for what the mishnah is saying.
The decisive word is “yourself.” The mishnah insists on this word: do not judge yourself with the leniency you are asked to show toward others. You are asked to look, within the whole of a person, for the most positive side, for there is a positive aspect in everyone. For yourself, it is the reverse: try to call yourself into question, do not settle into your judgments or your way of thinking, be more demanding of your own person. That is how this text must be read in a treatise of principles.
To regard both parties as resha’im does not mean regarding them as guilty. After all, we hold the presumption that every person is innocent until convicted; how then could you judge him? The point is that the word has many shades of meaning. Our Sages said that one trait of the rasha is to say: I will not give, and let others not give either — in other words, let us remain in a situation where each keeps what he has for himself, and let no one come calling on us to contribute. That makes him neither a heretic nor liable to punishment: it is his way of seeing things. What the mishnah has in mind are those who refuse to reach a compromise.
Rendering justice is itself an act of charity. It is said of David that he practiced justice and charity, and the Talmud asks how the two can go together: if there is charity there is no justice, and if there is justice there is no charity, since there is no mercy in judgment. Before and after the trial one may show understanding toward a person and compensate him in some way; but justice must be done. And the conclusion is that the very act of rendering it is tzedakah: to bring someone to return stolen property or to repair a wrong he has done is a way of relieving him.
Zakkai does not mean “innocent” but “one who has earned merit.” Were we to translate zakkai as “innocent,” the same root would become incomprehensible elsewhere, where it expresses grace bestowed. The notion is closer to that of merit: they have earned their justice. So regard them both as deserving, because they wished to hear the voice of justice, did not evade it, and stood before you to accept their judgment. That is also why there is no criminal record: if one of them returns for a second trial, no one will say that he has already had a dispute and is therefore the man to bring down.
The two parties before you are heaven and earth. We are not in a code of law; we are in Pirkei Avot, which deals with principles. Every judgment goes through two witnesses, and there is a heavenly witness and an earthly witness: “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth” (Deuteronomy 32:1). These are the two parties standing in your presence, and they are the ones who will answer for your commitment. Yet one must know that wonder before them can lead one astray. Kierkegaard said that two things carried away his soul without his being able to comprehend them: the starry expanse and the conscience in the depths of his being. Every morning we praise the wonders of creation, and it is said that the heavenly bodies were apportioned to the other nations so that they might realize there is a Creator. But one must not reduce one’s faith to these wonders, for then one falls into the snare of idolatry, either by attributing power to them or by drowning in the effects of nature. You may lift your eyes to the heavens and rightly appreciate the expanse of the seas; only know that there is a possible drift here. But once you have subjected them to the supreme authority and they take leave of you, they complete your way of praising.
Yehudah ben Tabbai lived through what he teaches. We are about a century before the common era, in a fractured community. He wanted to prove to the Sadducean current, which took things literally, that a false witness who had sought to have an innocent man condemned could himself be sentenced to death, even if his scheme had failed. But the Torah required that every trial rest on two witnesses: without two witnesses nothing is judged, and there was only one. Shimon ben Shetach rebuked him for it, and Yehudah ben Tabbai reproached himself. His teaching comes from this wound: do not make yourself supreme judge. He left the presidency of the rabbinical court and put Shimon ben Shetach in his place, declaring that henceforth he would only render judgment at his side; that is why he appears sometimes as nasi and sometimes as head of the judges. Shimon ben Shetach was an avowed Pharisee: he escaped the persecution of King Yannai thanks to his sister the queen, and it was he who restored the Oral Law. This spirit of openness and rigor together earned him the merit of many generations, whereas Yehudah ben Tabbai became something of an adoptive father to the Karaites — not that he was one himself, but it came very close.
“Be careful with your words” also means: let your words give light. The second master teaches to examine the witnesses thoroughly and to be careful with one’s words, lest they teach them to lie. The immediate sense is not to lay oneself open, through one’s questions, to false testimony. But the word used has two meanings: to take care, and luster, radiance. See to it that your language is clear and radiates light around you, so that there is no room for false interpretations. For that is how things have gone throughout history: we left areas unclear, we also sinned through contempt for the other, and it turned against us.
These two mishnayot extend that of Yehoshua ben Perachya. Make yourself a master, acquire a companion, and judge every person favorably. Make yourself a master — but become one yourself; and strive to share your knowledge with the other, for a master content with what he learns alone, a self-taught man, risks making faulty interpretations. So be a master of thought, but let that mastery not lead you to classify people and exclude some of them. We cannot, as a people, withdraw into our solitude, neither collectively nor individually.
The transmission was entrusted to descendants of converts. Shemaya and Avtalion were, according to some, descendants of Sisera, an enemy of Israel. This is surprising: we are here among those charged with transmitting Judaism in its entirety across the generations, in times of crisis. But had Yitro not existed, the Torah would not have been given: Yitro came before the Ten Commandments, before the revelation, and G-d Himself offered the law to all of humanity; as it turned out, Israel took it whole while the others wished to make reforms in it. The Torah remains open to all. Onkelos, himself a convert, translated and interpreted the law, and his interpretation still stands alongside the written text.
There is, however, a restriction — and it makes the fact all the more remarkable. Converts newly entered into the people cannot be entrusted with positions of command or with responsibility for the community, because they are not yet firmly rooted, and there is a fear of a hasty return to former beliefs or of a distorted interpretation along the way. So we take our precautions. And yet here it is descendants of converts who carry the transmission — proof that they have their place, and a place of honor.
“Love the craft” does not say “love work.” There is a difference between melakhah and avodah. Avodah is labor, and the word belongs to the family of eved, slave: it enslaves, and the verb is conjugated in every tense. Melakhah has no derived verb; it is a noun, and it very nearly is the feminine of malakh, angel. Now an angel carries out only one mission; every person, too, has his own. So it is not merely a matter of bringing money home — that has an enslaving side, for one often does such work without conviction and without creativity, and it becomes a burden. It is a matter of being creative in one’s work, of doing what one feels drawn to.
A craft is worth more than the fear of Heaven. Idleness was condemned by our Sages, and man was placed in the garden to work it and to guard it. Rabbi Meir, who was also called Rabbi Nehorai because he gave light to the eyes of Israel, vowed to teach his son nothing but Torah — because he saw an aptitude for it in him — yet it was also he who said that a man should teach his son a clean trade. Our Sages praised those who, while making study their main pursuit, also had an occupation. And if they said that a craft is greater than the fear of Heaven, it is because it is written of one who enjoys the labor of his hands that he is happy in this world and well off in the world to come, without depending on others. Rich you may not be; but the year of famine does not knock at the door of one who has a trade in hand.
Do not make the Torah a commodity. The mishnah says to hate rabbanut, and the word here refers to making it a source of income: “just as I taught it for free, you must teach it for free.” One may ask compensation for the time one devotes to it, but one must not live at the Torah’s expense. The French translation preferred to speak of “authority” so as not to offend the rabbis who do their work with devotion and self-sacrifice, and the meaning then becomes: hate the work of ruling over others, of imposing a law, of exploiting the knowledge and labor of others.
Do not seek to make yourself known to power, for it will drop you. The word has several meanings — the private domain, free will, and finally authority, which seduces you as much as it attracts you. Those in power recognize a person only insofar as he can serve them, and abandon him to his fate as soon as they have nothing more to gain from him. Shemaya experienced this: he had a brilliant disciple who was drawn by Herod into his service, and he lost him. Our Sages nonetheless distinguish two cases: if you are truly called and there is no one to do things in your place, you must answer; but if it is an artificial post, where you are merely a pawn on the chessboard of some internal problem, do not enter into that politics. An exegete who was himself a court Jew wrote that he had served kings all his life, and he advised serving not kings, but the King of kings.
The mitzvah is a bond, and the silence between people also cuts the bond with Above. Asked about intention in performing the mitzvot, the Rav recalls that the literal translation of the word is a bond: a bond with others and a bond with G-d. He offers a reading of it through its letters, in which the hidden part of the word points to the unrevealed divine presence, while its visible part is made of the hook that catches hold and draws close, and of the breath of communication. It is obvious that if we do not speak to one another and each walls himself up in his silence, nothing happens and we ignore one another. From the moment we begin to communicate, what is hidden within us can be revealed. And the Rav adds that this presence always speaks to him, but that he stifles it and gives it no time to express itself: just as he falls silent before his fellow, he falls silent before it — the absence of communication with others deprives one of communication with what lies beyond.
Full transcript of the lecture
So, we have reached “Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach received from them.” Your page is not up to date. There. Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach received the Oral Law from their predecessors, and they said — as the translation has it: Do not make yourself an advocate when you are called to judge; when the parties stand before you, regard them both as guilty; and when they take leave of you after accepting the verdict, regard them both as innocent. And his colleague, who is the av beit din (head of the court), continues along the same line: examine the witnesses thoroughly and be careful with your words, for they might prompt the witnesses or the parties to lie. Let me remind you that we are in that period when the Jewish people, on its return to Zion after the exile, is crossed by many currents.
Today’s phenomenon is not new; it has existed before. In fact, we gave birth to Karaism — that is, word-for-word literalism in reading the Torah — and we gave birth to Christianity — that is, the spirit in the Torah, abstracted from the text itself. The two paths, the two currents, exist within us. We are the components of these many currents, and that is why we were asked last week not to rush to judge people, to classify them, to exclude them. And we should try to save the solidarity within the people, while nonetheless striving to be melamed zekhut — that is, to see the good side of everyone, even though that then verges on untruth.
If it is to secure peace, we said that one may sometimes distort the truth, the reality of things — so long as we live, above all, in a harmony of minds. What tears the people down is that each of us stays shut up in his own thinking, his own domain, his own way of seeing things, and does not open the window onto the other. Now, going so far as to seek out the other’s company, the other’s friendship — that is not asked of us. But it is not for you to judge: there is indeed a Master of the world who judges everything, […] and He is erekh appayim, slow to anger, long-suffering. So Yehudah ben Tabbai here, and Shimon ben Shetach, bring us in Pirkei Avot a chapter, let us say, on the way to judge. One wonders what this chapter is doing here when we are dealing with the Oral Law; but we are told that it answers a political concern of the time and, at the same time, a spiritual one.
“Do not make yourself an advocate when you are called to judge.” Let me go back to the Hebrew text, and the Hebrew text says: al ta’as atzmekha ke-orkhei ha-dayanin. What does that mean? Here he has translated it “do not make yourself an advocate,” but an advocate is an orekh din, not orekh dayan. The orekh din is the advocate, whereas orkhei ha-dayanin are those engaged in the procedure of justice. And you — you already have, you lean on precedents, you consider yourself some kind of arch-judge, since the translation we are given at the outset for orkhei ha-dayanin is really the supreme head of the judges. You know everything, you are acquainted with everything, you understand everything — please! Do not give in to that tendency, do not set yourself up as judge. The expression orekh din does not exist in the language of the Mishnah. On the other hand, in […] we find, twice, the expression arakhta mishpat — you have set out the case, you have set out the case: you have, in a sense, laid out the elements of the judgment. And in that sense we can justify the term.
The notion of the orekh din, the advocate busy defending the accused, is foreign to the whole of the court’s jurisprudence: one may indeed help the accused find arguments to defend himself, but one may in no way distort justice to save him from death. But here, when the word atzmekha, “yourself,” is stressed, the text is taken out of its courtroom setting: do not judge yourself with the same leniency with which you are asked to judge others. You were asked: look, in the whole of a person, in the totality of a person, for the most positive side — and, as we said, there is a positive aspect.
Well, for yourself it is the opposite: try to call yourself into question, do not settle into your judgments, into your way of thinking about things, try to be a little more demanding toward your own person. And when you are indeed judging people — and it is good that you do — what does it mean that they should both be regarded as guilty, when we have the chazakah, the presumption that every person, so long as he has not been convicted, is innocent and not guilty? What would it mean, then? If you already regard them as guilty, as wrongdoers — how can you judge him? The notion of rasha here — and I draw your attention to the fact that there are many shades in the rasha. Our Sages said that one characteristic of the rasha is to say: lo eten ve-lo yitnu acherim — I do not want to give, and let others not give either. That is: let us stay in a situation where each, when all is said and done, keeps what is in his possession for himself, and do not keep calling on us to contribute in one way or another. So: “I will not give and let others not give” — rasha.
Rasha here does not mean an unbeliever, does not mean guilty, does not mean liable to any penalty whatsoever, since we are not going to judge him. One who says “I will not give and let others not give” — that is his way of seeing things, but he is defined as a rasha. Well then: that is what they are when two people refuse to reach a compromise — for compromise is precisely mishpat and tzedakah. It was said of David that he practiced mishpat and tzedakah, justice and charity. How can one practice justice and charity? The Talmud asks: if it is charity, then there is no justice, and if there is justice, there is no charity, because there is a sentence; one does not deal in mercy within justice. Before the judgment and after the judgment one may show indulgence toward a person, understanding; one may compensate him in any way whatsoever — but justice must be done. And so the conclusion is that rendering justice is itself tzedakah, truly a charitable act. Why? Because bringing a person, in the end, to return a stolen object or to repair a wrong he has committed is a way of relieving him. And that is why, u-kh’she-nifterim mi-lefanekha — when they come to part from you after accepting the sentence — there is no criminal record.
No one checks whether he comes back for a second trial. No one will say: this one has already had a lawsuit, he was convicted, so it is quite possible that once again he is the man to bring down. No, not at all. Ke-she-kibbelu aleihem et ha-din — the very fact that they have come to terms with this judgment — then they are ke-zakka’in. Here too I read the translation: “regard them both as innocent.” Now, if I take the French translation of this zakkai, how will you translate the same word where it is used in connection with G-d — […] He is full of grace — […]? As “innocent”? Why would there be any question of guilt before G-d, such that one must be declared innocent? The notion of zakkai is close also to zekhut avot (the merit of the fathers), to zokheh — meaning: he has won his justice, he has earned his justice. So regard them both as deserving, because in the end they held firm: they wished to hear the voice of justice, they did not evade it, they did not look for ways to […], and from the moment they stood before you to accept their judgment — yihyu be-einekha ke-zakka’in.
Zakkai, here, is someone who has the merit of saying: I have done my duty. I have earned something, because I have brought clarity to a situation. That is yihyu be-einekha ke-zakka’in. Now, we said that we are not in the Shulchan Arukh here; we are in Pirkei Avot, and Pirkei Avot deals with principles. And we spoke of this way of calling oneself into question. So: do not make yourself your own advocate — that is how it should be read. But then, how are we to complete the text? Judge the parties before you, regard them both as guilty… Well — always — every judgment goes through two witnesses. There is a heavenly witness and an earthly witness.
Ha’azinu ha-shamayim va-adaberah, ve-tishma ha-aretz imrei fi (Deuteronomy 32:1): Give ear, O heavens, to what I say, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. And Rashi there explains that there is a testimony here […]. Excuse me, I must switch off my phone. I continue — forgive the interruption; I am always told to put the phone aside, and I forget. So, the two witnesses: heaven and earth. And what are heaven and earth? You know, Kierkegaard said: there are two things that carry my soul away, and I cannot, as it were, comprehend them — the starry expanse and the conscience in the depths of my being. The starry expanse does indeed call for that meditation of the human being on the wonders of creation.
We praise them every morning; we begin by praising them. And indeed the Holy One, blessed be He, said: the stars of the heavens, the sun, the moon — I apportioned them to the other nations so that they might realize that there is a Creator, that there is a Master of the world. But you — do not reduce your faith to these wonders of nature. Why? Because you can, in a sense, fall into the snare of idolatry: either by attributing power to them, or by drowning in the effects of nature. And in the end, these two witnesses, ha-shamayim ve-ha-aretz, heaven and earth, are the ones who will answer for your commitment — as we shall see later on. So these are the parties standing before you. Regard them both as guilty, since they could indeed be the source of your going astray.
You may indeed lift your eyes to the heavens and contemplate the wonders of the sky. You may indeed behold the expanse of the seas, the beauty of nature, and rightly appreciate it; but know that in this way of seeing, of marveling at what surpasses you, there is a possible drift. But when you have seen them take leave of you having accepted the verdict — as though you had, in a manner of speaking, subjected them to a supreme authority, to the Master of the law — then regard them both as innocent; we said ke-zakka’in, which is not “innocent”: as something that completes the way of admiring and praising the wonders of G-d. That is the teaching of Yehudah ben Tabbai, to whom, as it happens, an incident occurred.
Not a mere incident, but an unfortunate affair. We are about a century before the common era, and as I told you a moment ago, there are fractures within the Jewish community. And he wanted to prove, by his authority, to the Sadducean current — which, as I told you, took things literally: nefesh tachat nefesh, a life for a life, meaning one can sentence someone to death only if he has actually caused a death, dealt a fatal blow to another — we will not discuss capital punishment now, but what matters is that the Torah required every trial to be conducted with two witnesses at its basis.
Without witnesses, nothing can be judged. Now it happened that Yehudah ben Tabbai wanted to prove to the Sadducean current that even if the witness turned out to be false, having sought to put to death someone who until then had been declared innocent, he could be sentenced to death. But this was not admissible, because the Torah said: on the testimony of two witnesses shall the verdict be rendered. And there were no witnesses. But he wanted to prove this even where the person had not been put to death: the others had done everything to have him condemned, it had been established that they were plotting against him, and yet he himself had not had to suffer that fate. Yet there were no witnesses: there was only one witness. And Shimon ben Shetach rebuked him for it, and Yehudah ben Tabbai reproached himself. And we can also understand what he teaches us, because he lived it himself; it is something that touched him to the very depths. Indeed, he withdrew from the presidency of the rabbinical court and put Shimon ben Shetach in his place. And that is why Yehudah ben Tabbai appears sometimes as nasi, sometimes as av beit din: he was either the president of the rabbinical court or simply the head of the judges. Because he declared that from then on he would render justice only at the side of Shimon ben Shetach. And Shimon ben Shetach was an avowed Pharisee. He is the one who escaped the persecution of Yannai ha-melekh, King Yannai, Alexander Yannai, who was hunting down the Pharisee movement; thanks to his sister, Queen Shlomtzion, he escaped the persecution of his brother-in-law. And it was he who restored the entire Oral Law. This spirit of openness and rigor at once, which he displayed, earned Shimon ben Shetach the merit of many generations. Whereas Yehudah ben Tabbai was, to some extent, the adoptive father of the Karaites. I do not say that he was one himself, but it came very close. So, what does Shimon ben Shetach teach us?
Hevei marbeh lachkor et ha-edim, ve-hevei zahir bi-dvarekha, shema mi-tokham yilmedu le-shaker. Shimon ben Shetach says: “Examine the witnesses thoroughly and be careful with your words, for they might prompt the witnesses or the parties to lie.” We have already dealt with hevei marbeh lachkor et ha-edim: do not, through your questions, lay yourself open to possible answers, to false testimony. That is the immediate sense. But we have spoken — examine the witnesses thoroughly — and these witnesses are heaven and earth. For if we place the words of Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach in the context of Pirkei Avot, they are not speaking directly to judges but to the ordinary person, to everyone.
And these witnesses are the ones you question all the time to reassure yourself in your path of life, in your line of thought. So he says: careful, be careful with your words. “Be careful with your words” — the Hebrew text is ve-hevei zahir bi-dvarekha, ve-hevei zahir bi-dvarekha. There are two senses to zahir: either “take care,” or zohar, luster. Do you follow? And with regard to what is happening, try to make your language clear, make it radiate light around you, so that there is no possibility of false interpretations, of lies, built on your own interpretations.
So, if we bring these words of Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach back to ourselves, we can see them as a complement to what we studied last week — and here I take the book to tell you: “Yehoshua ben Perachya and Nittai of Arbel received from them. Yehoshua ben Perachya says: Make yourself a master, acquire a companion, and judge every person favorably.” Aseh lekha rav, make yourself a master — aseh me-atzmekha rav, make a master of yourself […] — and strive, in the end, to share your knowledge with the other, because a master who is content with what he learns by himself, a self-taught man, runs the risk of making faulty interpretations, and […]. Now see how these words of Yehoshua ben Perachya find their echo in what Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shetach teach us: […].
Be a master of thought, but let this mastery of thought not lead you to rank yourself among people, to exclude certain names. U-kneh lekha chaver — acquire a companion: try to rub your knowledge against that of others. […] I live in my own enclosure, and they in theirs? No. For us, the idea of sharing is required at every level. We cannot — we, the Jewish people — withdraw into ourselves in our solitude, neither the community nor the individual; and we must be very careful in what we put forward as the foundation of our reasoning, of our teaching, for if it is not clear enough, it is better not to give a foothold to falsehood. Because that is indeed how things went throughout history: we left murky areas, and we also sinned through contempt for the other, and it turned against us and confirmed people in their rejection of […]. With that I close these two mishnayot; if I have time left I will move on to the next — yes, I have time.
So, the next mishnah is that of Shemaya and Avtalion: “Shemaya and Avtalion received from them. Shemaya says: Love the craft, hate rabbanut, and do not make yourself known to the ruling power” […]. So, Shemaya and Avtalion received the Oral Law from their predecessors. Who were Shemaya and Avtalion? According to some, they were descendants of Sisera, an enemy of Israel. Others maintain they were descendants of […]. It is astonishing. We are among the Fathers — and I do mean the Fathers — those who take upon themselves the transmission of Judaism in its entirety across the generations in times of crisis. And here, descendants of converts are charged with the faithful transmission of this tradition across the generations. Which is to tell you: had Yitro not existed, the Torah would not have been given.
Yitro came before the Ten Commandments, before the revelation of G-d, and G-d Himself offered the law to all of humanity. It so happened that the people of Israel took it in its entirety, while the others wanted some reforms within it. The fact remains that the Torah is open to everyone: whoever truly wishes to enter it — not only will he find his place… But, you know, there are nonetheless restrictions laid down for converts newly entered into the people, namely that they may not be placed in positions of command. Any position of command whatsoever: they may not be entrusted with responsibilities for the community. Why? Because they are not yet well rooted within the community of Israel, and we fear a hasty return to their former beliefs, or a false interpretation along the way; so we take our precautions. But here we see very clearly that Shemaya and Avtalion are descendants of converts.
There are those who try to say that their mother was Jewish, or that they were already the second or third generation of converts — it makes no difference. Take Onkelos: he was a convert, and it was he who translated and interpreted the law, and he always appears alongside the Written Law, and it is a mitzvah to read every week Onkelos’s Aramaic rendering of the Torah. And here too is proof that converts have their place — and what a place: a place of honor, since they are charged with this complete transmission. There are only six, or four, I believe — and they are among them. Remarkable! And what do they teach us? “Shemaya and Avtalion received from them… Love the craft.”
Love the craft. Now, there is a difference between melakhah and avodah. Avodah is labor. Avodah gave rise to the word eved, slave. Avodah enslaves. Avodah is conjugated in every tense: the verb avad is conjugated in every tense. From the word melakhah no verb is derived. Melakhah is a noun, and it very nearly is the feminine of malakh, an angel. And you know that an angel cannot fulfill two missions, only one. Well, man — every person — has his mission to fulfill. Ehav et ha-melakhah — answer to your mission. Mind you, it is not only a question here of thinking about parnassah, bringing money home. For that has an enslaving side. An enslaving side — why? Because sometimes one does this work without conviction. There is no creativity in our work; it becomes servitude, it becomes a burden to us. So you are asked to be creative in your work, to do what you love, what you feel drawn to, what brings you fulfillment in life.
And unfortunately, this notion of melakhah has been somewhat looked down upon, whereas the Torah tells that G-d had not yet brought rain upon the earth because ve-adam ayin la’avod et ha-adamah (Genesis 2:5) — man was not yet there to work the soil. And man, when he was placed in the Garden of Eden, was placed there le-ovdah u-le-shomrah, “to work it and to guard it” (Genesis 2:15). Idleness, you know, was condemned by our Sages. Now, we are not talking about that sort of work; we are talking about umanut — about art, about a craft, are we not? That is something else. And it is true that Rabbi Meir — his name was Rabbi Nehorai, for he had two names: Rabbi Nehorai is Rabbi Meir, but his name was interpreted this way because he gave light to the eyes of all Israel […] — he vowed that he would set aside all the trades in the world and teach his son nothing but Torah.
And Rabbi Nehorai did indeed say elsewhere: le-olam yelamed adam et beno umanut nekiyah — a man should always teach his son a clean trade. But then how could he say, “I will teach my son nothing but Torah”? Of course: he saw in his son a predisposition, an aptitude, for studying Torah — and good for him, if he indeed manages to do research and to let all of Israel benefit from his teachings; that too is a craft, that too is an art. But to make of it a kitchen recipe — that the Torah did not ask. On the contrary: our Sages never ceased to praise all those who, alongside the study of Torah which they made their main pursuit, had an occupation by which they lived. They said, “Greater is a craft than yirat shamayim” — great is the merit of a craft, more than yirat shamayim, the fear of Heaven.
Why? Because, as against what is said of the fear of Heaven, of one who enjoys his labor it is said: yegi’a kappekha ki tokhel, ashrekha ve-tov lakh (Psalms 128:2): when you enjoy the toil of your hands, ashrekha — you are happy, you will feel at ease; ashrekha ba-olam ha-zeh, happy are you in this world; ve-tov lakh — well, la-olam ha-ba, in the world to come as well. And you will not depend on others for your bread — on the contrary. Rich, perhaps, you will not be, for the trade you have chosen may not bring you enough to become rich; but you feel that you are fulfilling yourself in this work, and that too is a way of flourishing. And our Sages said: years of famine may pass, but a man who has a trade in hand — famine never knocks at his door. He always has enough to earn his bread — and the means to fulfill himself. So Shemaya’s teaching: ehav et ha-melakhah u-sna et ha-rabbanut — ha-rabbanut, which was not translated here as “the rabbinate.”
And the rabbinate — when you make it a source of income. For then you debase it, you debase it, since you are turning the Torah into a commodity. It concerns a teacher, a teacher of Torah: “Just as I taught for free, so you too must give My Torah for free.” And indeed, you must value the time you devote to it; for your time you may ask for compensation, but in any case you must not live at the Torah’s expense. And were I to take u-sna et ha-rabbanut literally — […] but as you see, “hate authority” — that is how he translated it; he did not want to translate it literally, so as not to offend all the rabbis who do their work with devotion and self-sacrifice. He says: hate authority — hate the work in which you set about ruling over others, merely imposing your law, seeking to exploit the knowledge of others, the labor of others. U-sna et ha-rabbanut — that is what it comes down to: do not set yourself up as a high official. U-sna et ha-rabbanut, ve-al titvada la-rashut — and there is no point seeking honors from those in authority. Rashut here […] means the rulers, because one day or another they will strip you of all you have. We shall see that those in authority recognize a person only insofar as he can serve them; they leave him to his fate, they abandon him to his fate, as soon as they have nothing more to get from him. Well, al titvada la-rashut — the one who brings us this teaching, ehav et ha-melakhah u-sna et ha-rabbanut ve-al titvada la-rashut, is Shemaya. We will complete it next week.
It is time now. I give you the floor. — You said earlier — I no longer remember in what connection — that the mitzvot are not there to be kitchen recipes. I quite agree with you. But beyond the theme you developed: if the mitzvot become kitchen recipes, or if one day someone finds himself with too little kavanah (inner intention) to perform one, is it not better not to do it? — Listen: the literal translation of mitzvah — tzav la-tzav — is a link. Nowadays you could send your text with “here is the mitzvah” — rather, “here is the link.” Well then, this link is the link with others, and it is the link with G-d.
Moreover, it is said that in the word mitzvah there are two readings. Mitz — mem and tzadi. There is an inverted reading, if you pair the first letter, alef, with the last — that is, in the Hebrew alphabet, atbash. If you take atbash in the Hebrew alphabet, the counterpart of mem is yud, and the counterpart of tzadi is heh. Divide your Hebrew alphabet down the middle — from alef, bet, up to kaf, and then from lamed to tav — and you will see the counterparts on either side. So mitz — what is not revealed through the link — is yud-heh: the presence of G-d.
The presence of G-d is not revealed. But what is evident in the mitzvah is the vav and the heh. What is the vav? The vav is a hook, a link; it is what catches hold of us, what draws us together. The vav, as its name indicates and as it functions, is coordination — the coordinating conjunction of the Hebrew language. And the heh is communication: it is breath, exhalation. The heh is the breath — if you like, the breath of communication that binds a person to his fellow: that is the vav-heh. And that part is evident. It is evident that if we do not speak to one another and each walls himself up in his silence, nothing happens.
We will ignore one another. From the moment we begin to communicate, we can reveal what is hidden within us — the mitz, the essence, that is, the yud-heh, the divine presence that has given life to the human being. That is the mitzvah. — Thank you very much. That is impressive. — Another question? Be bold, won’t you? We have remained very shy. Perhaps I should rather design an interactive class, where I am the one who asks the questions. According to the Torah, the shy do not learn. — Rav, I would like you to repeat the sentence about “the divine presence,” the last sentence you said. You said that if people do not speak to one another, they ignore one another. And the divine presence — I did not hear the last words you said, and they matter to me.
— I said that it always speaks to me, this divine presence; it speaks to me, only I stifle it — I do not manage to — I do not give it time to express itself. And just as I fall silent before my fellow, I fall silent before it. That is, the absence of communication between me and my fellow deprives me even of communication with what lies beyond. — That is very important. — I might have a question too. When you say that one should not seek to make oneself known to those in authority, is that not also a sign of authenticity — that is, of respect for one’s own authenticity? There is the fact that the authorities will use you and abandon you when they no longer need you. But is there not also something suspect in the interest that authorities may take in your person — an expression of the fact that you are aligning yourself more with them than with your own authenticity? — Here too there is an incident connected with Shemaya: he had a brilliant disciple, but one who was drawn by Herod into his service, and he lost him, and the disciple went astray. And that shook him somewhat. That is, if you like, the answer given through what Shemaya lived through. But this al titvada la-rashut — let us not forget that rashut has several meanings. Rashut is my domain, private property.
The second meaning of rashut is free will: ve-ha-rashut netunah, “and free will is granted.” The third meaning of rashut is the one we explained earlier: authority — because you are caught up by it, but you are also seduced by it; you would like positions of leadership, you aspire to that. You aspire to lead — yes, but careful: al titvada la-rashut. They will exploit your knowledge, and one day or another they will push you aside. Try — do not expect to enjoy that esteem forever. And one way of not falling into bitterness, depression, despair, is al titvada la-rashut: do not seek to occupy a position of leadership […]. But of course, our Sages say: careful.
One must distinguish between rashut and rashut. If you are truly called and there is no one to do things in your place, of course you must answer. But if it is an artificial post they give you, simply because they are settling some internal problem and you are there like a pawn on the chessboard — then al titvada la-rashut: do not enter into that politics. And unfortunately we are subjected to this all the time. — In truth, I was thinking of the court Jew. That is, you are speaking of authorities within a Jewish world; I was thinking of authorities within a non-Jewish world. — Well, […] — that is right — […] who was himself a court Jew, but who left a truly considerable body of biblical exegesis, and a body of thought as well — in one of his books he says: I have served kings all my life, and I tell you, and I tell you again, and I advise you: do not serve kings; serve the King of kings. — That is true. — There we are. Another question? Then I will leave you. Ah, Rabinovitch — good evening, good to see you, very good. Well then, until next week […].
— Good evening, Mr. Benizri. — Good evening. Thank you, thank you. — I can hear you. I can hear you. Goodbye. Thank you very much. — I can hear you, Mr. Benizri. I can hear you. — Tonight is […]. — Amen. — Yes, tonight. — Light up your home with a small light. — Amen. Ah, yes. — So we light a small candle. — Yes. Accompany it with a prayer for yourself and for your loved ones. — Good idea. — There. Well then, thank you very much, and goodbye.
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