I’m only (planning to) devote one note to the next verse, because it doesn’t seem to benefit from being split up, but that’s not because I think it’s boring or doesn’t reward close attention. Or because it isn’t a triple, although it isn’t as well-formed a triple as many of the other ones. But the language of this one doesn’t (I think) respond well to being broken up and put back together. I haven’t used Jacob Neusner’s translation recently, let’s try that one:\n
Avtalyon says:
Sages, watch what you say,
Lest you become liable to the punishment of exile, and go into exile to a place of bad water, and disciples who follow you drink bad water and die, and the name of Heaven be thereby profaned.<\/blockquote>\nThe place of exile is Alexandria, under the persecution of the Pharisees by the Sadducees, and the bad water is heresy (the Torah is frequently referred to as water). So a translation something along the lines of … a place of unorthodoxy, and disciples who follow you will go native, and bring your name and your community into ill-repute when they hear about it back home<\/i> is simultaneously more and less literal, if you follow me.\n
This is the first verse to be addressed to a particular audience. Sages<\/i>, begins Avtalyon (who we could call Pollio, if we preferred), watch what you say<\/i>. The Talmud adds that if sages are to be heedful of their words, how much the more should those who are not sages, but I’m not sure that it follows from this verse. Rather than arguing from the greater to the lesser (if a great man should be wary, should not all men be wary?), these seems to me to be arguing from the specific to the general (if a man with disciples should be wary, should not all men be wary?). The question is whether the sages should be wary because it is good to watch what you say, or whether sages should be wary because of the possibility of the profanation of the Name, consequent on the possibility of disciples drinking the bad water, consequent on the possibility of exile, independent (or nearly) of the words actually said.\n
I’m interested, though, in leaving that whole thorny issue (which could be the subject of endless and fruitful discussion) to the sages, because when I read the address sages<\/i>, I’m pretty sure Avtalyon is talking to somebody else. So if I am not a sage, what do I take from a verse addressed to sages?\n
For one thing, I take a model of sage behavior. In this case, the sage behavior is to be cautious because of a sequence of events not yet begun that could have catastrophic outcomes. In other words, think long-term, pay attention to worst-case scenarios, don’t go off half-cocked.\n
Another is a model of disciple behavior. In this case, it’s bad disciple behavior, drinking from the evil waters because they happen to be in a place of evil waters. By doing so, they profane the Name, yes, and they die, which isn’t good either, but they also ruin the reputation of the sage that led them. The implication is that the disciple is responsible for the good name of the teacher, which is true but can escape notice. You aren’t just risking your own credibility, but your teachers before you and (if applicable) your disciples after you. No reputation is an island.\n
But even if I don’t identify myself with the sage (to whom the verse is addressed) or the disciple (who is mentioned explicitly), there is a remaining category, which is the person in the place of bad water. Which I am. Which most people are, presumably, in these Diasporic days. I take the point that I have my own responsibility to the sages, to the disciples of the sages, and my responsibility to them includes testing the water before drinking it. There’s a yiddish phrase I’m not sure is known outside the Tribe, a shanda fur de goyim<\/i>, a shame in front of the non-Jews. If a Jew misbehaves, it reflects badly on me; if I misbehave, it reflects badly on all Jews. Is that fair? Is it reasonable? No. But it’s true anyway, and so I have a responsibility to Avtalyon as well as to the Divine.\n
And I’ll add, because the verse seems to me to be crying out for it, that if the bad waters of heresy lead to a profanation of the Name, surely even more so are the bad waters of bad water<\/i>.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Which Your Humble Blogger sits among the sages, or off to one side of the sages, actually most of the time in the next room, but in the house, or on the same side of the street, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-11794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture","tag-pirkeavot"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18647,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11794\/revisions\/18647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}