Pirke Avot chapter two, verses thirteen and fourteen

We are on verse thirteen of chapter two of Pirke Avot, and Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai is still talking about and to his five disciples. I’ll use the translation of Judah Goldin:

Rabban Johanan said to them: Go out and see which is the right way to which a man should cleave.
     Rabbie Eliezer replied: a liberal eye.
     Rabbi Joshua replied: a good companion.
     Rabbi Yose replied: a good neighbor.
     Rabbi Simeon replied: foresight.
     Rabbi Eleazar replied: goodheartedness.

Said Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai to them: I prefer the answer of Eleazar ben Arak, for in his words, your words are included.

Rabban Johanan said to them: Go out and see which is the evil way which a man should sun.
     Rabbi Eliezer replied: a grudging eye.
     Rabbi Joshua replied: an evil companion.
     Rabbi Yose replied: an evil neighbor.
     Rabbi Simeon replied: borrowing and not repaying; for he that borrows from man is as one who borrows from Gd, blessed be He, as it is said, The wicked, borroweth and payeth not, but the righteous dealeth graciously, and giveth (Psalm 37:21).
     Rabbi Eleazar replied: meanheartedness.

Said Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai to them: I prefer the answer of Eleazar ben Arak, for in his words, your words are included.

Mr. Goldin, by the way, gives a spin on Rabbi Eliezer’s eyes, as the Hebrew is just a good and an evil, matching the other three in form. The phrase good eye doesn’t mean much of anything to us, though, so it makes sense for Mr. Goldin to try to capture the idiom, and of course evil eye is its own idiom and makes no sense in that context. Rabbi Simeon seems to have wedged his way into the conversation without taking into account the form, and I think not only his proof text but his whole answer is pretty clearly added later. But that’s my opinion, and isn’t really relevant to the question of how to apply this teaching, which includes Rabbi Simeon now, even if there was a time when it didn’t.

I’ve always liked these verses; I’ve always thought that being meanspirited or greathearted was (a) the foundation from which a variety of ills and graces come, and (2) really a matter of fundamental worldview, a habit of mind, a bias, not unlike Conservatism or Liberalism. Not, I mean to say, that I think Conservatives are all meanspirited, because, obviously not, but that it’s a sort of attitude, a filter through which you see the universe, and that the adoption of a particular attitude will inevitably color your perceptions and then affect your actions. So the good heart encompasses being (or attracting) a good neighbor and a good friend, being judicious and thinking long-term, and all other manner of Good Things.

And Rabbi Jochanan doesn’t dismiss those Good Things. It’s not that being a Good Neighbor isn’t a Good Thing in itself, or that it isn’t a path to righteousness in itself. It’s that Good Neighborliness follows on Goodheartedness; it’s hard to imagine a man with a good heart being a bad neighbor or even, really, having a bad neighbor. And (as with Christian Grace), if the fruits of the Good Heart are not apparent, that is, if the fellow isn’t a Good Neighbor, then the odds are that there isn’t a Good Heart, either. It’s not a question of faith over works or veezy vurzey, it’s more a matter of using faith to form a habit of works, and the habit of works leading to a situation where the achievement of any particular work is a comfort to the faith.

So I’ve always liked the idea of it. I’ve tried to have a Good Heart, to want to help people, to adjust my attitude so that the other stuff follows. And it has certainly helped. I’m not making a claim to Goodness—my sloth alone disallows any such claim—but I have found that my priority on keeping a good heart has helped me in life more than anything else.

And yet, now that I look at the verses, and now that I’m writing about them, I do wonder if they are any practical use. I mean, I don’t know that very many people think that it is morally and ethically positive to hold grudges, to begrudge other people’s successes, to distrust people, to have a Bad Heart. And can a person really work at good-heartedness? I can work at being a Good Neighbor, in ways that are practical and easily determined. I can work on being a Good Friend. I can work on having a Good Eye, in the sense of looking for the good in everything I see. I can certainly work on prioritizing long-term thinking over short-term gains with unpayable debts. But can I work on having a Good Heart?

If we analogize to Christian Grace, as I understand it, Grace is bestowed on a person. If you are Graced, as it were, you will have a Good Heart and all manner of good things will flow from that. And as Grace not in your power, and is invisible besides, what is incumbent on you is to be worthy of Grace, and to act as if you have Grace. This will only be possible, really, if you do have Grace, but to the extent that you fail to act that way, it reveals that you don’t have Grace. Yet. But you might, after lunch, so start again with the acting as if.

But in this formulation, Rabban Jochanan does not seem to be saying that the path to which you should cleave is acting as if you have a Good Heart, just that it is a Good Heart. If you woke up today feeling crabby and meanspirited, you are Off the Path (and in fact on the derech ra’ah, the evil path), which encompasses all the ills of the world, bad neighborliness, uswusf. How do you get back on the derech tovah? How do you go about cleaving to the good path and shunning the bad one? Is it enough to act as if you have a Good Heart until your spirit changes?

R. Travers Herford, in his note on the verses, points out that the second and third verses seek to answer Rabban Jochanan’s question in the relations between people. The first and last responses are found in the self. Rabbi Simeon’s response, however, he describes as “not so much ethical as philosophical”.

I’m tempted, then, at the moment, to focus on that fourth response: foresight. Or, as Joseph Hertz puts it, seeing the fruit of an action. Perhaps that is a reason for the possible later insertion of the verse. When you find yourself on the wrong path, when you find that your heart is two sizes too small today, the practical advice we have here is to think long-term. To attempt to see the fruits of your actions. As your eye expands to take in the possibilities, then perhaps your heart can grow into a Good Heart (which in turn encompasses foresight as a matter of habit).

I don’t know, just my thought on it today. By the way, we will have a triple from each of the five disciples and then the two famous verses from Rabbi Tarfon; if I look at one a week and miss a week or so, and I miss a week or two as seems likely (I missed last week, after all), that will mean that we finish the second chapter just before Rosh Hashanah. We have thee more chapters after that (and another that is often included as well); I will need to decide whether to continue with another year of Pirke Avot or to come up with some new topic for our studies for the year. I would like some input from Gentle Readers—should I be thinking of something new, and if so, what? Or should we keep plugging along with Pirke Avot? Let me know.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.