Pirke Avot, verse six: teacher

Who shall we go with this time for a translation? How about, um, Judah Goldin:

Joshua ben Perahyah and Nittai the Arbelite took over from them. Joshua ben Perahyah says: provide thyself with a teacher, get thee a comrade, and judge everyone with the scale weighted in his favor.

Joshua ben Perahyah is supposed by the Rabbis to be the teacher of Jesus of Nazareth, by the way, although the dates don’t work out at all. It’s not clear what’s going on with that part of things. References to Jesus in Jewish literature are extremely suspect. However, the story is told that Joshua ben Perahyah is extremely uncharitable to this Jesus (whether it is the Jesus or not), and—look, I’ll tell the story. It is said that Joshua ben Perahyah, during his refugee period, comes to an inn with his disciple, Jesus. Joshua says to Jesus what beauty!, meaning the inn, you see, but Jesus, thinking he means the barmaid, says that she’s all right, you know, but frankly he thinks her eyes are a little too close together to be what he would call beautiful. Joshua says sex, sex, sex, that’s all you ever think about! and tells him to get out and never darken his doorstep again. Well, and he doesn’t actually have a doorstep at this point, but the meaning is clear. Jesus tries to get back in Joshua ben Perahyah’s good graces, but nothing doing. Finally, after many years, Jesus comes to Joshua ben Perahyah to be reconciled, and Joshua ben Perahyah is at prayer. While praying, he is overcome with mercy and good feeling and whatnot, and decides to take his disciple back into his heart. He motions to him to wait until he is finished davening, and returns to his prayer. But! Jesus interprets the silent gesture as a dismissal, and is filled with bitterness. He leaves for the last time, and departs from the path of the Torah, and raises up disciples to depart also. And let this be a lesson to everyone.

Again, even if we take the events of that story as happening, historically, the Jesus in the story could not have been Jesus of Nazareth, because Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t born for another hundred years or so. But he is so identified by generations of Rabbis, and that’s interesting in itself, yes?

Particularly since Joshua ben Perahyah is known for this triple statement, and for that story, and for very little else. Provide thyself with a teacher.

The sages point out, by the way, that this is a teacher, not teacherss. The correct path is not to flit from teacher to teacher, but to find one teacher worthy of respect, admiration and service, and cling to him. Later, the ideal is altered to finding one teacher, and then after a goodly amount of time learning from that teacher, go to find another teacher, and then another, in sequence rather than in parallel, being a full disciple to one for as long as that teacher thinks it is helpful to you, and then after all three teachers have declared that you are fully capable, then you can begin to teach others yourself. A sort of undergrad/doctoral/postdoc sort of thing, I suppose. Anyway, the emphasis in this verse about the importance of finding a teacher, one, to follow, is kept.

Modern Rabbis do not follow this practice, of course, but go to a Yeshiva that is more like a college than a house. I have often heard Rabbis refer to a particular Teacher, though, upper case and all, whom they clearly have identified with this verse, whether it is the Rosh Yeshiva or just somebody whose influence was far greater than the two or three classes they took.

I think when we look at the story, with the innkeeper and the gesture and so on, there’s something important there about finding a teacher, and not letting that teacher’s faults, for he will have them, prevent you from following that teacher and learning. On the other hand, there’s something in there about the importance of being a teacher, of bringing up many disciples.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.