Avos 3:11

בס׳ד

אבות ג:יא

Rabbi Elazar of Modin says: One who desecrates holy offerings, One who disregards Festivals, One who shames his friend in public, One who nullifies the covenant of Avraham Avinu (may he rest in peace), And one who violates tradition in the name of Torah, even if he has Torah and mitzvahs in his favor - He has no share in the Coming World.

רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר הַמּוֹדָעִי אוֹמֵר, הַמְחַלֵּל אֶת הַקָּדָשִׁים, וְהַמְבַזֶּה אֶת הַמּוֹעֲדוֹת, וְהַמַּלְבִּין פְּנֵי חֲבֵרוֹ בָרַבִּים, וְהַמֵּפֵר בְּרִיתוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם, וְהַמְגַלֶּה פָנִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ תוֹרָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, אֵין לוֹ חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא:

        Rabbi Elazar of Modin lived in profound messianic expectation.  It started with his home.  Modin was the hometown of the Hasmoneans who fought a successful war of Jewish independence centuries before. And it ran in the family. He was an uncle of Shimon bar Kokhba, the freedom fighter whom many Sages, including Rabbi Aqiva, considered to be Melekh HaMashiakh (Talmud Yerushalmi Taanis 68d).

        In this mishnah, he reflects upon those who, through their behavior, call into question the promises of HaShem to bring redemption to Klal Yisroel.  Since they doubt God’s promises, and demonstrate this doubt in public ways, justice demands that they receive no share in the Coming World of redemption.  All of the behaviors mentioned here fall under the category of Apikorsus (see Avos 2:14) - denial of HaShem’s existence, His dominion, or His revelation.  Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1 lists the Apikoros as one of a number of people who will not merit to see the Coming World.  Rabbi Elazar’s words here are a kind of definition of the various types of people included in Sanhedrin’s general rule.

        The first kind of Apikoros “desecrates holy offerings.”  In the simplest sense, this describes a person who is intentionally careless in the preparation and distribution of sacrificial animals and their meat in the Temple.  Now why would Rabbi Elazar, who lived after the Hurban, be so worried about this?  Perhaps he expected the imminent rebuilding of the Temple.  If so, this explains the relevance of his concern.  But there is a deeper puzzle connected with this type of Apikorsus.  The Torah gives clear instructions as to the punishments for those who defile offerings.  Kares, an early death without offspring, is the usual punishment for the most serious offenses.  Why, then, does Rabbi Elazar ignore the Torah’s clear punishment to stress that the defiler of offerings is denied a share in the Coming World?

        It seems to me, that Rabbi Elazar meant his words to apply well beyond the particular area of Temple sacrifices.  A person who “defiles holy offerings” is a person who, ultimately, has no respect for holiness, kedushah, and the holy offerings of lives lived in avodas HaShem.  People who see the world as empty of God have no sense of the separateness and specialness of the holy.  They live in a two-dimensional world.  For this reason - their inability to perceive holiness as a reality - they will not see the final manifestation of holiness when HaShem’s world is ultimately transformed at the coming of Mashiakh.  Since they cannot see holiness in its concealed form now, they will not have developed special sensitivities to perceive even its open forms in the future.

        The second type of Apikoros, who “disregards the Festivals”, is in a similar position.  Some meforshim see the Hebrew word moadim (“Festivals”) as a reference to the period of Hol HaMoed in Sukkos and Pesah.  People who treat these special days as wholly secular days prove themselves insensitive to holiness in general.  The Tiferes Yisroel, however, sees the word moadim as a reference to ALL the holy days of the calendar.  The person described here has an inability to see how moments in time can be infused with the holiness of HaShem.  Shabbos is just Saturday; Yom Kippur is a day to catch the World Series on TV;  Seder night is a convenient moment to go out for a burger and fries.  As with the first type of Apikoros, this person’s inability to perceive holiness in Shabbos or Yom Tov denies them the sensitivities they’ll need to perceive holiness in its open form in messianic times.

        Now what does a person who “shames his friend in public” have to do with these other characters?  The Tiferes Yisroel’s words here are so appropriate that I’ll just quote them: “This person does believe in HaShem’s creation of the world, but he denies that humanity is created in the Divine Image and that the soul has an eternal dimension.  Rather he believes that the soul is derived from the physical processes of the body and will disappear along with them. Therefore he has no regard for the honor due every human soul.  He’ll think nothing of shaming people in public, for in his opinion there is no distinction between human sensibilities and those of animals.”  Denying the Divine Image in the human soul, this person will be denied the vision of God in the end of days.

        The “covenant of Avraham” is, of course, circumcision.  There are many ways of nullifying it.  Parents who deny circumcision to their sons fall into this category.  So does a person who, uncircumcised by his parents, chooses not to be circumcised in adulthood.  Finally - and this happened frequently among Greek-speaking Jews in ancient times - there are those who are circumcised but have a special plastic surgery to hide it.  By rejecting the sign of the Covenant in their own bodies, they also deny themselves the covenantal promises of physical and spiritual redemption from Exile that comes from our perfection in the Coming World.  For this reason, the joys of the Coming World will be hidden to them.

        The final category of Apikoros is the person who accepts the existence of holiness in the world, agrees that the soul is immortal, and even recognizes the covenantal relationship of God with His people, Israel.  But what sticks in this person’s throat is the idea that the Sages have developed a tradition, steeped in holiness, that serves as a reliable guide to the life of covenantal holiness.  In the name of the Written Torah, this person seeks to overturn the Oral Torah; to divide the source of Jewish life from its traditional forms of expression.  By introducing division into the world of Torah, this person is denied the experience of the ultimate unification of Israel and HaShem in the Coming World.

        The last point is very dangerous and difficult to apply.  Who is ultimately to say with confidence that an honest Jew’s search for HaShem’s will is “wrong?” If, as we have seen earlier, there is an undeniable human element to the Sage’s Torah, how can we challenge the right of an honest person to question aspects of the tradition?  Our own time is one in which many serious Jews feel compelled to depart from tradition in the name of HaShem, to find new ways of avodah where traditional ways leave them feeling spiritually empty. I believe we must always be open to these new promptings of Jewish souls searching for God.  All honest paths must be respected and honored.  When the Coming World indeed comes, let Elijah reconcile the disputes.

        In the meantime, we who hold by traditional halakhah must act in a way that does not make the Torah we love seem like an oppressive force to other Jews. There is no greater hillul HaShem, in my opinion, than the sight of frum Jews abusing more liberal Jews at the kosel hamaarivi in Yerushalayim for choosing to daven in a mixed minyan of men and women.

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