Avos 2:1

בס״ד

אבות ב:א

        

Rabbi says: Which is the straight path a person should choose?  Whichever a person respects and draws respect from others; And be as diligent about a minor commandment as you are about a major commandment, for you never know the ultimate consequence of a commandment; And you should consider the cost of performing a commandment in relation to what it brings you, and what you gain from a transgression in relation to the harm it brings; And if you consider three things, you won’t fall into transgression: know what is above you - a sharp eye; and a listening ear; and all your actions are written in a book.

רַבִּי אוֹמֵר, אֵיזוֹהִי דֶרֶךְ יְשָׁרָה שֶׁיָּבֹר לוֹ הָאָדָם, כֹּל שֶׁהִיא תִפְאֶרֶת לְעוֹשֶׂיהָ וְתִפְאֶרֶת לוֹ מִן הָאָדָם. וֶהֱוֵי זָהִיר בְּמִצְוָה קַלָּה כְבַחֲמוּרָה, שֶׁאֵין אַתָּה יוֹדֵעַ מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל מִצְוֹת. וֶהֱוֵי מְחַשֵּׁב הֶפְסֵד מִצְוָה כְּנֶגֶד שְׂכָרָהּ, וּשְׂכַר עֲבֵרָה כְנֶגֶד הֶפְסֵדָהּ. וְהִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים וְאִי אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַעְלָה מִמְּךָ, עַיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹזֶן שׁוֹמַעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶׂיךָ בַסֵּפֶר נִכְתָּבִין:

        Whenever the Mishnah or Talmud transmits the teachings of “Rabbi”, we are learning the teachings of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi.  He served as the official political and religious leader of the Jews for nearly half a century before his death in or around 220.  He wielded enormous power among his own people and also was on intimate terms with Roman officials.  The Talmud tells many stories about his philosophical debates with a Roman Emperor named “Antoninus.”  This is probably Emperor Caracalla, who granted all the Jews Roman citizenship in 224.  You can find some typical examples of Rabbi’s disputes with Antoninus in Bavli Sanhedrin 91 a-b.

        But Rabbi’s worldly status is not the reason why the Talmud remembers Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi as Rabbenu HaKadosh, “Our Holy Rabbi.”  His greatest achievement was to gather the selected Torah-traditions of the Sages into a single collection organized by topics.  This collection is the Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, the Six Orders of the Mishnah.  While earlier Sages, such as Rabbi Aqiva, had attempted to draw together all of the Torah tradition for their students, the collection of Rabbi was so comprehensive and well-organized that it soon became the study-text in the yeshivahs of Eretz Israel and Bavel.  The Tosefta is a collection of halakhas that parallels and supplements Rabbi’s Mishnah, while both the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Talmud Bavli use it as their basic halakhic source.  Even though no-one today poskins halakhah on the basis of the Mishnah alone, there is no halakhic idea that does not have a foundation in Rabbi’s Mishnah.

        When we look at Rabbi’s teachings in this mishnah, something should surprise us.  Of his four statements, only two focus on the fulfillment of halakhic obligations.  These are the middle two teachings, about diligence in performing ALL mitzvahs and about ignoring the worldly costs of performing any of them.  But the first and last teachings are, strictly speaking, about the attitude we should bring to our fulfillment of mitzvahs.

        What does Rabbi mean when he tells us that we should choose a way of life that we respect and that draws respect from others?  What could he mean other than a life lived in response to HaShem through obedience to His ways?  The Tiferet Yisrael points out that this is included in Rabbi’s statement, but only as the basic starting point.  Our bare-bones observance of halakhah is itself only a skeleton of Yiddishkeit if it is not given flesh by the cultivation of personal traits of character and hygiene that signal to others the beauty and dignity found in the ways of Torah.  A person who keeps the mitzvahs ofkashrus perfectly, for example, but is impatient with others or violates common standards of public decency that have no halakhic source, shows disrespect for Torah as well as for her or himself.  That person will, obviously, find no respect among others.  Nor will such a person attract others to the values of Torah.  So the “straight path” we should choose is a way of being among people that displays our connection to Torah and brings honor to Torah through us.

        Rabbi’s message in this first teaching is connected to the message of his last teaching in this mishnah.  The first teaching admits that the effect of our Torah observance upon those observing us is something we need to be aware of.  This last one goes further in the same direction — there is a part of halakhic observance which can tempt us to perform mitzvahs for selfish motives rather than inner devotion.  It is not hard to perform any number ofmitzvahs that are easily noticed by others — long tzitzis, for example, or exaggerated types of praying — primarily as efforts to shape our image in others’ eyes.  Rabbi here reminds us that the only eyes that matter are those of HaShem, and the only ears that matter are His, for it is our image in HIS Book that defines who we really are.  And He is not fooled by exaggerated exercises in piety that have no inner dimension to them.

        It is in the context of these general teachings about the impact of ourmitzvahs on others that we can understand Rabbi’s second and third teachings about the value of mitzvahs.  As Rambam and other meforshim point out, the Torah itself seems to rank commandments in terms of importance.  Violations of some commandments, for example, are more severe than violations of others, and so forth!  So what point is Rabbi making when he says we should perform all mitzvahs as if they were of equal value?  The point comes in his final expression — we never know the consequence of ANY mitzvah, either on our own relationship to HaShem or on those among whom we fulfill our obligations.

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