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Bag Bag turns Torah

by Leora


What kind of tree is this? Keep reading to find out.

I have to admit I picked studying this mishnah of Pirkei Avot because of the humorous name, Bag-Bag. The next mishnah has a guy named He He. Did the mishnah mean to be funny?

25. Ben Bag-Bag used to say of the Torah: Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it, and wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it.

בן בגבג אומר, הפוך בה והפך בה, והגי בה דכולא בה, ובה תחזי, סיב ובלי בה; ומינה לא תזוז, שאין לך מידה טובה יותר ממנה

Irving Bunim, in his book Ethics from Sinai, tells us that Ben Bag-Bag and Ben He He were proselytes, converts to Judaism. But perhaps it is only to my ears that the names sound humorous or sing-song. According to the commentator Kehati, if you add the letters Beit(2) and Gimel(3) —the letters in Bag—you get 5, the same as amount as Heh. The reason why they are given names with a Heh is to compare them to Abraham and Sarah, who both had ‘Heh’s added to their names when they took Judaism upon themselves (Abraham used to be Avram and Sarah used to be Sarai).

So, what does this mean, turn the Torah? We do turn it a bit in the synagogue each week, as the Torah portion of the week is read, and by the end of the cycle, in September, we have turned all the way to Devarim, the fifth and last book of the Torah.

Irving Bunim relates:

If you can, visit the Rare Book Room of the New York Public Library. In a special glass case lies a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, one of the most valuable printed books in the world, open to some page. Why?— it is the best way to keep the precious book from deteriorating, by exposing a different page every day.

So perhaps, Bunim explains, we should keep the Torah fresh in our minds by turning its pages each day.

He then explores a different way to look at this turning:

When you find two conflicting opinions in your Torah study, turn from one view to the other, and consider each separately, to reach as full an understanding as possible of both sides…A warning lies in these words, not to forsake any part of the Torah after a cursory examination, because it is too easy and we already know it, or worse, because it seems illogical or unreasonable. Turn to it again and again.

In Rashi one can find a comparison of a fig tree, the type of tree in the top photo, to Torah. Rashi quotes Eruvin 54:2 that says “Why is a fig tree like Torah?” The figs on a tree don’t ripen all at once but rather a few at a time, so every time one looks, one might find a new fig. Thus it is with learning Torah; each time, one may find something new.

And just one original thought here on my own: the language of the mishnah is Haphoch or to change, and it is similar to the language of Purim, when we say V’nahapoch, or everything should be changed around (in the Purim story, Haman gets hung on the tree instead of Mordechai, for example). So now that we are in the Three Weeks, a time of sadness when we mourn Jewish losses, perhaps we can hope for things to be changed about and to have this become a time of joy and redemption.

A summary of Pirkei Avot posts on Ilana-Davita’s blog

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by Leora on July 25, 2008 Comments (9)

Learn As a Child

by Leora

Pirkei Avot

Pirkei Avot 4:25 —

Elisha ben Avuyah used to say: He who learns as a child, what is he like? He is like ink written on new paper. He who learns as an old man, what is he like? He is like ink written on blotting paper.

ד,כה [כ] אלישע בן אבא אומר, הלמד תורה ילד, למה הוא דומה--לדיו כתובה על נייר חדש; והלמד זקן, למה הוא דומה--לדיו כתובה על נייר מחוק

This part of a series of posts about Pirkei Avot. Ilana-Davita posted a summary of this summer’s posts (so far).

Approaches to Learning

One will often read a post and say, wow, that person knows a lot. I could never write that. I don’t have that kind of knowledge. What I would like to share with you through this post is the process I went through to write this post.

Step One: I decide I will find a mishnah that to which I find some emotional connection. I am reading a Jewish newspaper (can’t remember which one) at my in-laws, and I find a column about the above mishnah. It evokes some feeling for me, though all I can remember from the newspaper column is that kids are like sponges, and it is easier to learn as a youngster because they are like empty slates, waiting to be filled with information.

A quote by George Bernard Shaw comes to mind:

"Youth is wasted on the young. "

Does it fit here? Maybe, in that older people are usually more appreciative of knowledge, too bad it's easier to learn when young.

Step Two: I make sure I know what all the words mean, both in English and in Hebrew.

דיו=ink
מחוק is like מחק

Mahak means to erase. Mahuk means erased. The translation above says "blotting." Other translations say "blotted" or "smudged".

I look up mahak, and I find Balashon's post. He quotes another use of the word "mahuk", where it means erased. It doesn't help me come up with something to say about how learning as an older person is like writing on blotting paper.

Step Three: I get help.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in France, Ilana-Davita looks up the mishnah in one of her books. She emails me it is translated as "palimpsest." I don't know what that means. (Do you?)

If I understand Rambam correctly (the only commentator for this mishnah in
my commented version of PA), when you get old your mind is obfuscated by
other things that you have already learned so learning is not as easy.

I had read it slightly differently. When you are older, your mind is like
palimpsest in that the different strata of learning are still underlying;
they have not completely disappeared. The new does not completely replace
the old.

However it does not have to be negative (Rambam's commentary sounded
negative as regards older people, here at least) and might just reflect
different understandings and experiences at different stages of one's life
that have accumulated in a person's mind.

Does it make sense?

She also sends me the Wikipedia link for palimpsest.

My husband also helps out, as we learn some of the perushim, commentators, on this mishnah. Here's a comment by Kehati: Learning as a child is like engraving in stone; learning as as an adult is like engraving in the sand.

Step Four: I take what I've learned and state a problem that I have with the text.
I can understand how a youth can easily absorb the Torah when young. Do you ever ask your children to memorize a number, because your brain is too cluttered to think straight? Another example: we just got new cell phones, the same model, one for me, one for my husband, one for Eldest son. My husband, who spends long days at a brain-intensive job, asks Eldest son to teach him how to use the phone.

However, I have a hard time grasping why learning as an adult is like writing on blotting paper. Ilana-Davita suggestion to use the word "palimpsest" means that learning as an adult is like adding one more layer to many layers of learning.

But I want more.

Step Five: One could argue that it's easier to learn as an adult, because an adult often wants to learn, whereas a kid may prefer to play on the computer, hang out with friends, or just laze around. No coercion involved with older folks.

Once again, I visit my in-laws. What do I find on their bookshelf but a copy of the three volume Ethics from Sinai by Irving Bunim, copyright 1966. I ask to borrow Volumn II, the one with my mishnah, and my generous mother-in-law says take the whole set, they have so many books already.

Here's what Irving Bunim wrote about my mishnah:

Think young. Turn over a new leaf and be receptive to new thoughts, eager for new understanding that will bring spiritual growth.

On the other hand, if you learn as an old man, with the attitude that mental growth, like physical growth, is no longer possible, then you will indeed be a page already covered with writing: erase it as you will, it can no longer receive new writing well.

So, Irving Bunim is suggesting that you should think like you are young, even if you are not.

Conclusion

So, why do you think learning as an old man is like ink on blotting paper? Did this post help you learn the mishnah? Can you think like you are young, and learn some Torah, find some room for it on top of all the clutter in your brain? If you like learning Torah, perhaps you can share with us some of your approaches to learning. Hope you got something out of reading today's long post!

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by Leora on July 16, 2008 Comments (6)

Books on Pirkei Avot

by Leora

Pirkei AvotHow does one study a text? What I do is look for books about books!

Ilana-Davita wrote a great introduction to Pirkei Avot, Ethics of Our Fathers. Larry Lennhoff provided a link to online study with Rabbi Simchah Roth. And to my surprise today, Little Frumhouse posted about the first mishnah of Pirkei Avot.

Jewish Action, the magazine of the Orthodox Union, has a review this month on two books on Pirkei Avot:

I was in our local “sefarim” (books) store this afternoon, and I saw a three-volume commentary by Irving Bunim called Ethics from Sinai: A Wide-Ranging Commentary on Pirkei Avos. The store also has an Art Scroll Children’s Pirkei Avos, which is rather tempting, so I could perhaps interest one of my children? It would be much more fun to learn with one of them.

Of all these various books, the one that appeals to me most seems to be Relevance. After all, am I not seeking to find relevance in the Mishnah of 2000 years ago to my present life?

In his review in Jewish Action magazine, Sholom Gold tells us that Rabbi Dan Roth discovered there are 1,128 books already written on Pirkei Avot! This is one well-discussed text. But Sholom Gold is glad that despite the many books already written, Rabbi Roth has written this one:

True to the work’s title, Rabbi Roth consistently tries to make Pirkei Avot relevant to the contemporary reader. In doing so, the author tells us that he was inspired by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who once wrote: “I intend to show that this full and authentic Judaism does not belong to an antiquated past but to the living pulsating present; nay, that the whole future with all its intellectual and social problems whose solution mankind expects of it, belongs to Judaism, the full and unabridged Judaism.”

Pirkei Avot
The review then brings samples of how Rabbi Roth relates individual phrases or lines to modern life. For example, “Rabbi Akiva said…’Masoret is a protective fence around the Torah’. Rabbi Roth learns from this that the ideal way to preserve the Torah is by maintaining the oral quality of the law. He then relates this to our own day and warns of over-dependence on DVDs and computers for Torah knowledge: “But let us never allow this surge of information to prevent us from internalizing the Torah.”

He then expands on this to include photography:

Even when visiting tragic places such as Auschwitz and other death camps, one will find people busy taking photos instead of using the heartrending moment for deep thought and reflection.

As one who takes many photos, this line gave me pause. Sometimes I feel I am better able to see nature when I take photos. But often when I am with my children, I just want to enjoy them. I don’t want to spend all my time snapping away. As an artist, I could take this even one step further — perhaps one can allow oneself down periods to reflect, and then the art will be ever so stronger when one returns to the canvas or paper. I doubt Rabbi Akiva meant that I should feel OK about reflecting and then returning to artwork, but somehow that’s where I traveled in this intellectual journey…

Stay tuned for more on Pirkei Avot on this blog when I return from vacation.

See my previous post on Pirkei Avot, in which I tackled women’s issues

Update: Jewish Action article is now online. (Thank you, Ilana-Davita)

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by Leora on June 17, 2008 Comments (8)

One Needs Humor

by Leora

Or wit. A witty answer can be a good response to a difficult issue.

For married or otherwise attached-to-a-man women: How would you respond if someone told your husband (or significant other) not to talk too much to you?

Here’s the quote from Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:5:

5. Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem said: Let your house be wide open and let the poor be members of thy household; and do not talk much with women. This was said about one’s own wife; how much more so about the wife of one’s neighbor. Therefore the sages have said: He who talks too much with women brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Torah and will in the end inherit Gehenna.

More Pirkei Avot here.

My initial reaction: that’s it! No more studying 2000 year old texts! From now on, you’re getting posts on gardening, recipes, and maybe one or two on therapy and depression.

Then: OK, I’ll do a little research. Found some idea somewhere that perhaps the “talk” here refers to idle gossip. But the word in Hebrew is שיחה — siḥah. My husband pointed out that “siḥah” in Breishit refers to Yitzchak going out to the field to pray(Genesis 24:63):
וַיֵּצֵא יִצְחָק לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה So it can’t mean gossip.

Then I found this commentary, a response by Bruriah (or Beruriah), an extremely knowledgeable woman from those times:

There is a story concerning this saying and the one woman highly respected in the Talmud as a scholar—Beruriah, the daughter of Chananiah ben Tradion (see 3:3) and wife of Rabbi Meir (see 4:12). Rabbi Yosse the Galilean was once walking on a road when he encountered Beruria, and he asked her: “By which road do we go to the city of Lydda?” She replied, “Galilean fool!, do not the sages say, ‘Don’t talk a lot with the woman’? You should have said, ‘Whither Lydda?’”(Er. 53b.)

Here is the story behind the story. Divorce was rare among the Rabbis, but Rabbi Yosse the Galilean divorced his wife—who was reputed to be a shrew. Beruriah would have known Rabbi Yosse and his ex-wife, since Yosse and her own husband Meir had both been students of Rabbi Akiva (see 3:17-20). Beruriah was as sharp-tongued as she was brilliant, and may well have sympathized with the ex-wife. This exchange was evidently in public, and in saying “which way do we go to Lydda,” Yosse may have embarrassed Beruriah with the innuendo. Hence her calling him a fool and retorting with the ‘perfect squelch’—ridiculing in one erudite turn of phrase both Rabbi Yosse’s ‘macho’ taunting and this misogynistic saying from Avot.

Years ago I had a Mad Magazine book called Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. I imagine Bruriah did that naturally. Can anyone offer suggestions on how to develop a sharp wit? Seems like it could be quite helpful in studying Talmud.

Ilana-Davita and I have begun to study Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) this summer. It worked well with the Book of Ruth. Who knows what kind of topics might come up… Feel free to do a little studying of your own.

And if you are knowledgeable about Pirkei Avot, any books or commentary suggestions are most welcome. I’ve started to look at Kehati, which is a modern commentary in Hebrew.

Ilana-Davita: Pirkei Avot: The Name

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by Leora on June 13, 2008 Comments (24)