Avos 1:4-5

בס״ד

אבות א:ד-ה

יוֹסֵי בֶן יוֹעֶזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָה וְיוֹסֵי בֶן יוֹחָנָן אִישׁ יְרוּשָׁלַיִם קִבְּלוּ מֵהֶם. יוֹסֵי בֶן יוֹעֶזֶר אִישׁ צְרֵדָה אוֹמֵר, יְהִי בֵיתְךָ בֵית וַעַד לַחֲכָמִים, וֶהֱוֵי מִתְאַבֵּק בַּעֲפַר רַגְלֵיהֶם, וֶהֱוֵי שׁוֹתֶה בְצָמָא אֶת דִּבְרֵיהֶם: יוֹסֵי בֶן יוֹחָנָן אִישׁ יְרוּשָׁלַיִם אוֹמֵר, יְהִי בֵיתְךָ פָתוּחַ לִרְוָחָה, וְיִהְיוּ עֲנִיִּים בְּנֵי בֵיתֶךָ, וְאַל תַּרְבֶּה שִׂיחָה עִם הָאִשָּׁה. בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ אָמְרוּ, קַל וָחֹמֶר בְּאֵשֶׁת חֲבֵרוֹ. מִכָּאן אָמְרוּ חֲכָמִים, כָּל זְמַן שֶׁאָדָם מַרְבֶּה שִׂיחָה עִם הָאִשָּׁה, גּוֹרֵם רָעָה לְעַצְמוֹ, וּבוֹטֵל מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה, וְסוֹפוֹ יוֹרֵשׁ גֵּיהִנֹּם.

Yose ben Yoezer of Tzeredah and Yose ben Yohanan of Yerushalayim .accepted the gift of Torah from them :Yose ben Yoezer says Let your home become a .gathering place for Sages And may you become filthy .with the dust of their feet And may you thirstily .drink in their words Yose ben Yochanan of Yerushalayim :says Let your home be open wide ;for hospitality ,And may the poor be like family But don’t be overly casual .with women This was said about a man’s own wife—it applies even more !strictly to his friend’s wife :For this reason the Sages said Whenever a man becomes overly casual with a woman, he does harm to himself, wastes time he could be ,using to learn Torah, and, in the end !he’ll inherit Gehinnom

        

        Both Yose ben Yoezer and Yose ben Yohanan received the teachings of Shimon the Tzaddik, and Antigonus of Sokho.  With “the two Yoses”, the “Age of the Pairs” began in about 150 CE.  It ended with Hillel and Shammai about 170 years later.  For all this time, during the royal Jewish dynasties of the Hasmonean and Herodian families, Torah was transmitted by the two main teachers of each generation who, in turn, taught it to their disciples.  This chapter of our mishnah lists the five Pairs in their historical order (mishnahs 4-15).

        The first person mentioned in each generation’s “Pair” served the people as Nasi (“Leader”).  This was Yose ben Yoezer’s role — as Nasi he was like the Chief Rabbi of Israel under the first Hasmonean Kings.  The second person of each Pair, like Yose ben Yohanan, served as the Av Bes Din, or Chief Justice of the Sanhedrin.  While each member of each pair had greatderekh eretz for his colleague, they didn’t always agree about everything.  In fact, you can study some of their halakhic disputes in Mishnah Hagigah 2:2.

        Notice that neither Yose ben Yoezer nor Yose ben Yohanan — nor any of the other Pairs — was a King or a High Priest.  During this period, Torah was transmitted outside the main political and religious institutions of Klal Yisroel.  The Talmud, in fact, tells many stories about the vicious policies of Israel’s rulers during this time (see Berakhos 48a-b), the way the Kings appointed unqualified priests to govern the Temple (Yoma 18a), and how even the disciples of Antigonus of Sokho corrupted his teachings (Avos d’Rabbi Noson, B).  The result was that Torah was taught outside the circles of the powerful.  Why were the “official” leaders of our people so deaf to the Torah of the Pairs?  Why did they ignore the teachings of the Sages?  Perhaps they confused political and religious power with possession of the Truth.  The Kings and High Priests were so in love with their roles as official leaders that they resented anyone who reminded them of one simple fact — that the job of a leader of Klal Yisroel is to lead the people toward Torah.

        So the Pairs — and the two Yoses were the first among them — stepped in and taught Torah as it should be taught.  Perhaps, in the light of their tensions with their own government, we shouldn’t be surprised that both of them focus their teachings on the home rather than the public arena.  Yose ben Yoezer stresses that our homes should be places in which Torah teachers feel welcome; Yose ben Yohanan reminds us of the middah of Avraham Avinu — that hospitality to the stranger is the primary duty of every Jewish householder.

        Many meforshim  are troubled by the mishnah’s additional comment on Yose ben Yohanan’s teaching.  He advises his young disciples to treat women respectfully but without too much intimacy.  He wanted to keep them from the social distractions that might lead them to forget their studies.  The mishnah’s additions to his comment certainly put a stronger twist on his words.  Now it sounds like there is something about women themselves that makes them dangerous for a man to talk to.

        Here we have to focus on what the mishnah says.  The Hebrew words I’ve translated as “overly casual” are marbeh sikhah — literally “to extend conversation with.”  The word sikhah is the key.  It doesn’t mean “chatting”.  It refers to the kind of seductive talk that the Snake used in tempting Havah to eat the forbidden fruit.  So the mishnah’s point is that suggestive familiarity between men and women is dangerous because it leads us into the original situation of human rebellion against HaShem.  By ensuring only respectful and appropriate relations between men and women, the halakhah helps to keep us all from reproducing the sin that first brought Exile into human experience.

&&&