Pirkei Avot, Part 2 — All Israel Has a Share in the World to Come

Good evening, everyone. I will begin with a brief reminder of the ideas we explored last week, namely: Hai man de-ba’i lemehevei chasida — “one who wishes to be a chasid, a pious man”… [Voices: “We can’t hear anymore.” “Manu, there’s a sound problem.” “There’s no sound.” “No, there’s no sound.”] I’ll come back over here. Ah, there we are. So I’ll start again: the ideas we brought to light last week are the following, aren’t they? The title of chasid belongs to the one who does no harm to his neighbor — that is a first definition. The second is the one who remains faithful to the teaching of the fathers — and let us be clear, going back to the most distant generations. And the third, milei di-verakhot — “matters of blessings”: the one who has fulfilled everything that pertains to blessings, that is, the one who maintains a relationship with the absolute, or who is in search of the absolute, whatever form he recognizes it in.

So these three paths necessarily converge, since man bears a divine spark, and for that reason he must give himself dignity and recognize the dignity of his neighbor. And he can do so only if there is a view from below upward — that of Yaakov’s ladder, which allows man to keep climbing rung after rung toward the heavenly sphere. But we also pointed out that this teaching of morality exists even without the revelation of the Torah, because of the first generations — those who lived until G-d revealed Himself to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after the Exodus from Egypt. That revelation was made to an entire people which, in the image of man, was kneaded from earth, and into which the Holy One, blessed be He, breathed His spirit.

That is what happened to the whole people at the Exodus from Egypt: the people was kneaded from the soil of Egypt, and the spirit was breathed into it at Mount Sinai; in this way the people of Israel is bound. But the people of Israel — its conception was already inscribed in the creation, in Genesis, because without the commitment of the people of Israel to be the shepherd of the nations — let us put that in quotation marks; I have not yet said “the light” — it is not possible to sustain the world. And we have had proof of this through the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Tower of Babel. The generation of the Flood corrupted its relations with the neighbor.

The generation of the Tower of Babel corrupted its relations with G-d. And one had to wait for Avraham. But on the basis of what morality were they judged? Because man is acknowledged to have the power to distinguish by himself between good and evil, according to the following reasoning: what you hate to have done to you, do not do to your neighbor. And when man is confronted day after day with the crises that reality imposes on him — and we said that we are always in a duality, whether we like it or not — it is at that moment that the problem of morality indeed emerges. And man refrains from harming his neighbor solely out of his own interest, because he also wants to keep enjoying the benefits of the morality he himself practices. That is what led Nietzsche to say, did it not, that morality is simply the lot of the weak.

But what the Torah did was give morality another dimension. Another dimension, because it took up the moral laws — for example lo tirtzach, lo tin’af: you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery; lo tignov, you shall not steal — everything that is admitted, generally or commonly admitted, as belonging to pure morality. What the Torah did was give it an absolute character, so that it is no longer reduced to the immediate, raw application of the commandment lo tirtzach. First of all, one notices that in the laws governing the relationship between man and G-d there are justifications, there is reasoning; whereas lo tirtzach, lo tin’af is a command in the absolute. In no way whatsoever may one make an attempt on the life of one’s neighbor — not even, sometimes, through evil speech. One must not discredit him gratuitously in the eyes of society.

In this way morality gained in substance, because it extended its ramifications beyond the basic moral precepts — if we may put it that way — since that is what existed at the beginning. And indeed, were that not the case, one could hardly imagine G-d giving the Torah to a people that had not integrated the foundations of morality. That is why we say derekh eretz kadmah la-Torah: the laws of morality preceded the revelation of the Torah. And the Rambam — we cited him — in his introduction to the Eight Chapters, the Shemonah Perakim of the Rambam, and in his introduction to the Mishnah, explains how the soul and the man function according to the influences he receives from his surroundings, from the hardships of his life, and so on. And he says that the lessons one draws do not belong only to the surroundings of the beit midrash: one can also gather them from non-Jewish philosophers, and one can gather them from the common man, because every human being has access, at whatever level, to a foundation, whether we like it or not: either through the simple fact of allowing one’s neighbor to flourish, or through holding to one’s dignity as a human being, or through weaving that dignity into one’s belief, or basing it on that belief — be it belief in G-d, belief in an ideal, or in an idol. “Idol” and “ideal” share more or less the same roots, the same etymology […].

But in his introduction to the Mishnah he does not say that morality is the lot of all the inhabitants of the universe; he says that morality is concerned above all with enlightening the man who has integrated the law and needs to apply it. Yet he must not apply it in the crude way in which he understands it; he must humanize it. And the humanization of the law, the humanization of the Torah, is a beyond-the-law — and that is love. So you understand that we are introducing Pirkei Avot, the study of the tractate of principles, and that we have called it Avot because it is, so to speak, our umbilical cord. Not everyone shares the Torah with us.

But everyone can understand the cord that ties us to the fathers of humanity, the patriarchs of humanity. We count only three, but every people has its sages, its philosophers. We must not forget that Greek philosophy was born when the prophetic voice fell silent, in the Second Temple era: with Malachi. Socrates appeared on the stage of history, and he, in effect, sought to put back into circulation the revealed word that had disappeared. That is why — given that his mother was a midwife (today we would say a gynecologist, though she was not one) — he said: my mother delivers children; I deliver ideas. And from this came the notion of maieutics in transmission, in education: it is not a matter, as I am doing now, of delivering a lecture just like that, but of doing it interactively, so as to lead one’s partner in the dialogue to give birth by himself. It is the same idea; it is what we call maieutics, is it not?

So what do we do when we approach the study of Pirkei Avot — since Pirkei Avot, after all, makes use of maieutics? This is what we do with a boy until he reaches the age of maturity, when he can understand things by himself and integrate them, and go beyond the foundations we have given him. For us, that age, that stage, is the bar mitzvah. During those twelve years, it is morality, rather than the binding law of the Torah, that we have passed on to the child. So we introduce the teaching of Pirkei Avot with a mishnah from Sanhedrin — the one you have in front of you. It is a mishnah that opens the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin, and it comes after the death sentences pronounced by the court, the extreme cases in which a death sentence is handed down. And then, instead of saying Ve-elu she-ein lahem chelek la-olam ha-ba — “these are the ones who have no share in the World to Come” — the text says, on the contrary, Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek la-olam ha-ba.

All Israel has a share in the World to Come. So if all Israel has a share in the World to Come, let us not forget that our masters have said that, since all human beings are creatures of G-d, there is a divine spark that animates every created being. [Voices: “There’s a sound problem again.” “We can’t hear?” “No, no more sound.” “Your microphone is off, Mr. Benizri.” “From what point did you stop hearing?” “Good question.” “Yes?” “Is it all right — can you hear now?” “Yes.”] So, Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu says the following: “I call heaven and earth to witness” — bein ish bein ishah, whether man or woman; bein goy bein Yisrael, whether non-Jew or Israelite;

bein eved bein shifchah, whether manservant or maidservant — ha-kol lefi ma’asav ru’ach ha-kodesh shoreh alav: all according to their deeds, the holy spirit rests upon them. They benefit from it, they enjoy the holy spirit. And this is proven, because among the list of those who have no right to the World to Come, Bilam is named — you know, the one who, at the UN, at the United Nations headquarters of his day, took it upon himself to condemn Israel, to curse it, to blame it as the source of all the destabilization of the entire universe. So he was named as having no share in the World to Come, which means that the chasidei umot ha-olam — the righteous of the nations — and the other members of the nations could also enjoy a share in the World to Come. They are not excluded.

Why does the text say Kol Yisrael, “all Israel has a share in the World to Come”? First, we should define a little what the World to Come is, because it has several connotations. The first: the World to Come is the world of tomorrow. The World to Come is the one that brings about transformations from generation to generation. For people always speak of messianism, but there is what is called ketz ha-ge’ulah, the complete redemption — the one we long for at the end of the seder: al ge’ulatenu ve-al pedut nafshenu, “for our redemption and for the deliverance of our soul” — when there will be the liberation of the body and the liberation of the soul for all who will come out of Egypt. For the Exodus from Egypt, even if it has been reserved for now to the people of Israel, must become the lot of all humanity; and as long as humanity has not come out of Egypt, we will have to suffer the harmful effects of its remaining in its respective conditionings. And this redemption to which we aspire comes about through successive transformations, and that is why there are different exiles, each called acharit ha-yamim. There is the exile of Egypt: the exile of Egypt is an acharit ha-yamim, an end of times, the end of an era. That of Babylon has its end as well: it marks an era that is over, and a new one is set in motion — that of Media. After Media comes Yavan, Greece. After Greece comes the exile of Rome, the one in which we live to this day, and we know very well that we share this exile chiefly with Esav.

Paradoxically, not with Yishmael, but with Esav, because here we issue from one and the same womb. There is a certain rivalry between these two beings already in the embryonic state, that is, still in germ, and they contend with each other — over what? Some commentaries say that one wants to invest himself in this world, and the other only in the world of the spirit. But in reality both want both worlds: they want at once the world here below and the world above. And we see it; it is a fact that each one says: it is with me that the truth dwells. This is how things stand with Esav. That is to say, messianism itself will reach its final phase only when Esav, too, acknowledges that he is the brother of Yaakov — but the brother of a living Yaakov, not the brother of a dead Yaakov, not the brother of an Israel that has been wiped off the map, as when, through persecutions and pogroms, they came to extinguish him, to extinguish his voice. The voice of Yaakov must go on resounding. And paradoxically, you see it in the blessing that Yitzchak gives his two children: even though he does not recognize them, he gives the blessing — he blesses Esav as he blesses Yaakov. The blessing is not of the same nature, because there is still Esav’s garment to be worn; and there, in a certain way, he restored to that garment of Esav its original nature, its transparency. For that is how the garment must be seen: a garment is a covering.

It is a covering, but this covering should be able to reach a state of transparency — so that it does not conceal our being, but lets its light shine forth. Yaakov wore Esav’s garment, so that it could radiate even the light of Nimrod, since it was Nimrod who inherited that garment and passed it on, and it later ended up with Esav. And it was with this garment that she — Rivkah — dressed her son before the blessing. In other words, there is no olam ha-ba (World to Come) without olam ha-zeh (this world). The laboratory of the World to Come, of tomorrow, is first of all our investment in this world. It is here that we build our World to Come.

The World to Come is not built with ideas, with theories, with laws that we are busy, let us say, sharpening every day in the beit midrash. The World to Come demands an immediate, practical commitment. Indeed, that is what we are: we recognize one another, we are one. Our unity passes through the deed, through the application of the law. We apply the law, and it matters little with what intention we do so; what counts is the act one performs. And when everyone performs that act, he performs it in the same way, in the same manner — perhaps at different levels, but charity is an act of charity, whatever the intention behind it. Kavanah (intention) is secondary to the act itself, and it is in the act that we are — that we are all united, and that we recognize one another.

On the level of ideas, we of course remain fundamentally different, and this has given rise to different spirits, different nuances, different colors, and each has his own mission. We do not, in a sense, have to prefer one over another. The chakham (sage) holds a place of honor, but it is granted to him only when it is invested within the people, within education, within transmission. That is how his learning is recognized, together with the place he occupies: chakham adif mi-navi, the sage is greater than a prophet. Greater than a prophet — why? Because the prophet only recites, only repeats what he has been told. He is a repeater. The chakham, on the contrary, will bring about this delivery of the divine word, and he will give it a real meaning in life.

In this domain each person has his share; its size is not specified. Each develops it in his own way. We […] have equal credit, and we must indeed give it to him, make it bear fruit, and give it much more substance and reality — Israel and the other nations. What the other nations do not have — that is the whole difference: the people of Israel, whether it likes it or not, is obliged, it is under constraint. Since Mount Sinai it has been mushba ve-omed, bound by oath: it was made to swear that this law would be its covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He. Consequently, however much it may want to reject the law, it would be rejecting its own identity. It will pass through gilgulim upon gilgulim — reincarnations — and that is what the Arizal says.

The Arizal says that in the end everyone has his share in the World to Come, but there are those who indeed pass through various trials, and it can last for years. I rely on the holy Shelah, the author of the Shenei Luchot ha-Berit, who [teaches that] in truth, even those who repudiated Judaism and gave birth to another religion — from the moment they were born a netzer, a shoot, a branch of the tree (since Israel has always been compared to a tree, to vertical growth) — well, that branch is fragile, it may not hold; but throughout history the root nourishes it; it will not let it go. It will pass through gilgulim, through metamorphoses, until the day when, from the ashes of its disappearance over the generations, the Jew it was, the Israel it was, will be restored. And that is Kol Yisrael yesh lahem chelek la-olam ha-ba.

We pass, of course, through various trials — the pangs of childbirth — until the day when this identity is purified and finds its planting ground. Ve-ammekh kullam tzaddikim… netzer mata’ai ma’aseh yadai le-hitpa’er — what does ve-ammekh kullam tzaddikim mean? “Your people are all righteous.” Some have translated it: “until the day when the whole people of Israel is made up only of tzaddikim.” But that is not yet for now; we know very well that in our evolution — and I said this last time — there are zones […] of all kinds.

So at different ages, at different stages in the evolution of our people, we will always, always have this problem. But what saves us, and what will save us, is that we are a people. We are the nation — the unity of the nation — which is not the case of the other nations. The other nations are called to eliminate their national borders, to dismantle them, and to become mishpachot, families. And indeed this is happening: we see these blocs forming and merging into one another; they are simply becoming families — families that will indeed seek, as [the prophets] foresee, to attach themselves, to cling to the root that gave them birth, that is, the law of Israel, the revelation of Israel.

However much they may want to suppress the nation that gave them birth, it will always be there, and they will say: Beit Yaakov lekhu ve-nelkhah be-or Hashem — “House of Yaakov, come, let us walk in the light of Hashem.” At the end of days they will invite the House of Yaakov — not the House of Israel, because Israel is a further stage. Indeed, let me point out to you that in the word Yisrael there are the names of the Avot and the Imahot, the fathers and the mothers: Yitzchak, Rivkah, Leah, Sarah, Yaakov, Avraham. So if you take the letters of Yisrael, they are the letters of the Avot and the Imahot. That is, in a sense, what they are — the roots; that is why it is called Pirkei Avot. The Imahot are included; they are comprised in this Pirkei Avot.

It is not — heaven forbid — that they are excluded; they are not excluded at all. But this is the embryo of the Jewish nation, and this embryo of the Jewish nation, you know, took shape first by passing through the stage of the family. In the stage of the family, you know, Yaakov sought, at the end of his days, to reveal what the destiny of Israel would be, and he did not succeed. He did not succeed. It is said: nistalkah mimenu Shekhinah — the Shekhinah departed from him. The holy spirit left him. He could not; he could not, and he turned it into acharit ha-yamim, the end of days — that is, into slices of history. He spoke to them of what happened at the Exodus from Egypt.

And those who study names, those who pay attention to letters, said: what happened? So he went over all the letters that make up the names of his children. He found the whole alphabet in his children’s names except the chet and the tet. Now how does one say “sin” in Hebrew? One says chet. That is to say, the family was not yet fully welded together: that sale of a brother had to be expiated through the slavery of Egypt, and only then could liberation, and the creation of a people, be earned. And that is Kol Yisrael: all Israel has a share in the World to Come. It is a word of consolation addressed to all the people who make up the people of Israel: each must regard himself as a netzer, a bud, a branch — ma’aseh yadai, “the work of My hands.”

Such a one is the work of G-d’s hands since the creation — le-hitpa’er. Now le-hitpa’er has two meanings: le-hitpa’er means to glorify; but there is also, in pe’er, the sense of an adornment. The adornment of a tree — its foliage, its fruit — all this makes the beauty of a tree. So le-hitpa’er: all Israel, in its ascent, displays this beauty of the tree in its full flourishing. And there, they were taken by force, as I said, at Mount Sinai — kafah aleihem har ke-gigit: He overturned the mountain above them like a tomb, a grave, and said to them: either you accept My Torah, or this will be your burial place. And for that reason they had no choice; they had to say na’aseh ve-nishma, “we will do and we will hear” — we commit ourselves first through the deed, which is counted to their credit. Whereas for the other nations, it is otherwise.

For them it is free will: they must choose whether they indeed want to invest themselves for their World to Come or not; the choice is left to them. They do not have that original constraint by which the patriarchs and the revelation came to bind the people. Now, this passage with which we customarily introduce Pirkei Avot — the study in general belongs to the Oral Law, which preceded the Written Law, that is, to the law that man can discover by himself. For the Torah came only to set it down in writing, and to give a law whose concision could ultimately, I would say, inspire other minds and give that law another dimension.

And that is why, when we close the reading of Pirkei Avot, we close it with: Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya omer: ratzah ha-Kadosh barukh Hu lezakot et Yisrael, lefikhakh hirbah lahem Torah u-mitzvot, she-ne’emar: Hashem chafetz lema’an tzidko yagdil Torah ve-ya’dir — “Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya says: the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to grant merit to Israel; therefore He gave them an abundance of Torah and commandments, as it is said: Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to make the Torah great and glorious.” The reading of Pirkei Avot — and, for everyone, throughout the whole Sephardic world, every study — concludes with another mishnah, this time the one from Makkot. It is the one from Makkot. Rabbi Chananya has a single statement in the entire Talmud — this one. But he merited that every day, at every moment, at every study session, we conclude with his saying. “The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to grant merit” — and a second sense: lezakot, from zakh, pure — He wished to purify all Israel. And He did not wish to give, as He had done for Adam ha-Rishon, the first man — who lost the enjoyment of the Garden of Eden all at once — a single positive law and a single negative law. “Of every tree of the garden you may eat”: that is the positive law.

And the restriction: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” So when he transgressed the single sample of law that had been given him, at that moment he lost the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is not the olam ha-ba, because it remains the world of ideas, where man does not work, does nothing; everything is given to him, he is provided with what he needs to live, and he is to devote all his time to study. The olam ha-ba, on the contrary, as I said earlier, is a world that one builds here below; each person builds his own olam ha-ba. So Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya says: lefikhakh hirbah lahem — “He multiplied” the merit of the people of Israel.

He divided the law into taryag mitzvot, into 613 commandments, so that someone who does not observe one law, does not practice it, still has a chance to make up for it elsewhere. They are mitzvot with multiple questions and multiple answers, so to speak […]. And for that reason, moreover, there is no one who does not accomplish some mitzvah in his life, who has no right to a share in the World to Come, who does not achieve something. As I said earlier, the Talmud gives a list of those who have no right to the World to Come; but be careful: those who have no right to the World to Come do, in the end, have a right to that World to Come — but at the price of many vicissitudes, at the price of many sufferings, at the price of many misfortunes.

And that is the olam ha-ba that is inherent in each person’s life, and the Torah is the hand held out. The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to grant merit to Israel, and divided the law into the 613 mitzvot of the Torah, to allow each person to justify his share in the World to Come. And that is why it is said of Israel: afilu reikanin she-bakh mele’im mitzvot ka-rimon — “even the empty ones among you are as full of mitzvot as a pomegranate.” Those who are empty among you, and who apparently have no merit at all — but no: they are full of mitzvot like the seeds of a pomegranate; they have much merit. We fail to see it, and they must no longer be looked down upon. And Rabbi Chananya ben Akashya — he was a man devoted to the study of Torah. I dare say he is cited only once in the Talmud, and yet every day we are evoking his teaching. Why?

Because this man had no children. At the end of his days he turned [to G-d]: “I have tried to answer Your expectation; I have made great efforts. Now I am about to pass away, and I do not have a single child who could recite the kaddish for me, who could sanctify Your name for me. I am deprived of this joy of leaving a child to sanctify Your name on my behalf.” And the Holy One, blessed be He, answered him: “Listen, I take note of your grievance, but I assure you that it will not be one son, two people, three people who will recite the kaddish for you. It will be the whole people of Israel: every time it wishes to conclude a study, it will end with your saying, with your mishnah, and it will recite the kaddish” — because we have the custom of reciting the kaddish after citing a teaching of the Oral Law […]. So that is where we conclude the teaching of Pirkei Avot, which we will begin next week. Now, if you have questions, with pleasure. [A participant:] “Mr. Benizri, hello, and thank you for this wonderful teaching. I want to stress how much you are exactly like the teacher you were, with your suit and tie — you always had to be a dignified man, and to embody for yourself all that wonderful dignity and that value of dignity you have always passed on to us. There is one thing I forgot, or did not understand: what made the holiness leave Yaakov like that at the end of his life? That I did not understand — or perhaps I was distracted.”

Yes. You know, there are two sins for which we give account at every crisis in history. There are two unforgettable, unforgivable sins. The sale of Yosef — the abandonment of a brother: that is not forgiven; we would have to give proof that we have moved beyond it. And the chet ha-egel. So: the sale of a brother concerns the relationship with others; the chet ha-egel, the sin of the calf, concerns the relationship with G-d. Well, these are sins that have not yet reached their expiry date. We carry them with us, unfortunately, because somewhere we still continue to be idolaters, and we have not yet fully integrated the notion of brotherhood — and then there are serious family quarrels.

Is that all right — have I answered your question? “Yes, thank you.” Another question? [Another participant:] “I would like… It is not a question, but I too would like to thank you for the extraordinary teaching you have given us all these years.” “Me too.” “How great your teaching was — I was already aware of it at the time.” “[…] Who should be thanking you?” “No — because my young son, who is twelve, is at a Jewish school, and truly, when I compare the classes he has with the classes we received thanks to you, there is simply no comparison. And I tell myself every day what luck we had to receive this teaching. It stays with us.”

[The Rav:] You give me great joy […]. I have learned much from my teachers. I have learned much from my friends — u-mi-talmidai yoter mi-kullam — and from my students I have learned even more than from my teachers and my friends. So you have allowed me to surpass myself and to sharpen my blades in order to meet all your demands, and I thank you. There we are — on that note, have a good evening. [Participants:] “Thank you. Thank you very much.” [The host:] “I would like to remind you that the lecture will be available within 24 hours on YouTube. Search for ‘Maison de la culture juive’ and you will find it.” “Thank you very much. Goodbye.”

[Closing exchanges among the participants:] “See you very soon. Goodbye. Thank you.” “And thanks, as always, to Manu.” “Thank you, Manu.” “Yes, I said it too.” “Of course. Thank you, Manu.” [The Rav:] “Sorry for the little disruption at the beginning. Forgive me. Forgive me, everyone.” “Is it all right, Manu? Did it record?” “Julien, we can’t really talk about these sources here. Damn.” “On YouTube it isn’t recommended. But it doesn’t matter, I’ll cut it, don’t worry. We cut the beginning, we cut the end.” “Great, it’s really nice. The video call is…” “We need to keep the beginning and the end for our archives.” “Isn’t that good? I didn’t hear the beginning.” “You’ll find it in the archives.”

“There she is — we can’t see you.” “Yes, I know, I know. Something is wrong with my camera. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here. Hello!” “Bye, everyone, see you soon.” “Goodbye. Thank you very much. Goodbye, have a good evening. See you next week. Until next time, goodbye.” “Thanks, I’ll call you back.” “Are you all right, Nadel?” “Yes.” “Anne-Laure? I don’t know whether Anne-Laure was here.” “But was she there? Was Anne-Laure there?” “This is Belinda’s brother.” “I know, but I’m Bernard’s acquaintance.” “Who was it who told me that? Who said good evening to me?”

“Julie.” “I don’t think my sister is here tonight.” “Yes, I saw Belinda.” “Me too, I saw her — I saw Belinda.” “And Luc Raisman, who is staying online, it seems to me.” “Yes, hello Bernard. I’m busy working on the video, you see. In any case, the moments before and after have to be kept for our archives.” “All right, good evening, see you soon. Good evening, everyone.” “Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone, goodbye.” “See you soon, bye.” “Thanks for the editing.” “Bye-bye.”