{"id":12493,"date":"2009-10-31T11:33:17","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T15:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2009\/10\/31\/12493.html"},"modified":"2018-06-11T09:57:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T14:57:04","slug":"pirke-avot-chapter-three-verse-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2009\/10\/31\/pirke-avot-chapter-three-verse-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirke Avot chapter three, verse seven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I think I’m going to whip through a bunch of verses today, because they are repeating previous ones:\n

Rabbi Halafta of Kefar Hananiah says: When ten sit studying the Torah, the Shekina resides in their midst, as it is said, Gd standeth in the congregation of Gd<\/a>. How do we know that the same is true of five? For it is said, This band of His He hath established on the earth<\/a>. How do we know that the same is true of three? For it is said, In the mist of the judges He judgeth<\/a>. How do we know that the same is true of two? For it is said, Then they that feared the Lord spoke with one another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard<\/a>. How do we know that the same is true of one? For it is said, In every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come unto thee and bless thee<\/a>.<\/blockquote>\n

This is, of course, just a different version of Chanina ben Teradion’s saying<\/a> a few verses back, with different proof texts and starting with ten rather than three. Although starting with ten makes it a bit more dramatic, there isn’t a surprise here: of course if the Divine Presence sits with three who sit and study Torah, the same is true for five and ten. Starting with a bigger number is just delaying the big payoff, which is with a single person.\n

The difference is in the proof texts, which are frankly a little weaker here; most modern translations of Amos don’t think that agudah<\/i>is referring to a band of people at all. What is nice is the implication about the written word, as the Malachi verse continues with a reference to a sefer zikron<\/i>, book of remembrance<\/i> being written before the eyes of the Gd-fearers, and the Exodus quote is about all the places asher az’kir<\/i>, where the remembrance is, and where az’kir<\/i> is the same zkr<\/i> root as zikron<\/i>. And is not the Pirke Avot<\/i> a sefer zikron<\/i>? So I like that. Other than that, though, this is just a repetition. Good to have, but not worth a whole week, right?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I\u2019m going to whip through a bunch of verses today, because they are repeating previous ones: Rabbi Halafta of Kefar Hananiah says: When ten sit studying the Torah, the Shekina resides in their midst, as it is said,…<\/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-12493","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\/12493","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=12493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18907,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12493\/revisions\/18907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}