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Pirkei Avos Ch. 3- Patience: The ultimate virtue
It is customary to study a chapter from the Tractate Avos, or Pirkei Avos, in the weeks in between Pesach and Shavuos. This week we learn Chapter 3. Pirkei Avos are filled with the ethical teachings and wisdom of the great sages of the Mishnah.
For this year’s Parsha Lesson I will be focusing on a chinuch (parenting/educational) lesson that can be derived from the Dvar Torah.
Background
In the first Mishna of this week’s Perek (chapter), Akavyah ben Mahalalel (a great Tannaic sage who lived in the era just before the destruction of the 2nd Beis Hamikdash) famously said- ‘look at these three things and you will not come to sin: 1. From where you come, 2. To where you are going, 3. Before whom you will have to give an accounting.’
The Mishna continues to explain that all people come from insignificance- which is the beginning of their conception and ‘planting’. All people are going to end up in the ground as food for the worms. And once a person passes on and their body is interred, their neshama or their essence/ consciousness, will go up before Hashem Himself to give an accounting of all of their deeds and their time on this world.
Akavya ben Mahalalel is saying, essentially, that if one focuses on these three ideas, if someone incorporates these ideas into their mindset, they will not sin.
R’ Moshe Chayim Luzzato in his magnum opus, Mesillas Yesharim, explains (in chapter 23) that in truth all three of these ideas that Akavya ben Mahalel is advocating that a person inculcate into their perspective, are all to rid one of ‘gaivah’ or haughtiness/ arrogance. By focusing on how insignificant a person’s formation was, and to the lowly end that awaits him after he passes on, and how he will have to give an accounting for all of his deeds and stand judgement before G-d Himself, even the most arrogant person will be subdued and ‘taken down.’
Question
How does this advice and this perspective help a person to never sin??
Yes, it will help a person to not be arrogant, which may in turn enable a person to more successfully navigate certain challenges of character and choosing right or wrong.. But to never sin!? How would this advice result in this goal that Akavyah ben Mehalalel is claiming it would?
Let us say that someone has a particularly difficult time with certain challenges of doing that which is right and good, or say that someone has a particularly challenging time with different aspects of belief in Hashem, how would not being haughty help the person to not sin?
Answer
The truth is that haughtiness and arrogance are at the core and are the root of all of man’s problems in choosing right or wrong. As the Tiferes Yisroel explains (Pirkei Avos Perek 4, Mishna 9) Man’s arrogance leads him to either not recognize the kindness and goodness that G-d has done for him and therefore indulge in the blessing he has been given and use the power of what he has been granted to indulge his lesser impulses. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, Man’s arrogance leads him to become angry with not ‘getting what he deserves’ and thereby resorting to inappropriate and forbidden means to acquire them.
A person’s inability to recognize, with humility that they have tremendous blessing that is not ‘coming to them’ and to also have the humility to accept whichever ‘hand you were dealt’, is the fundamental core and root of all of Man’s problems.
Man must realize, clearly, and with humility, that G-d created the world and orchestrated the events of his life and gave him what he has, good, bad and other. As a defense mechanism, to protect and further his own ego, and to continue to act and behave of his own volition, without rules or conscience, Man denies the obvious.
Even when Man does recognize Hashem as being the Creator of the world, Man’s insistence that the rules don’t apply to me because ‘I have suffered so much’, or because ‘I have such difficulties’, is very simply: arrogance. On the other end of the spectrum, Man’s abusing that which he has and using it for his own indulgence, is a denial of the G-d that gave him the blessing. This leads Man to both neglect the responsibility that such blessing confers as well as to indulge and chase after pleasure which will arrive at his sinning.
When Man realizes that he does not in fact ‘deserve’ anything, and he then responsibly uses the blessing he has been given to do good, or submits himself to the ‘suffering’ and ‘hardship’ that Hashem has decreed upon Him- happily- then Man will not sin. He will be able to live his life ‘straight’ and follow the rules of the Creator of the World, Hashem. The underlying issue at hand, then, is very simply: arrogance.
Chinuch Lesson
We must recognize that the blessing we have received in our lives is a gift from the Creator of the World, for which we did not do anything to deserve. These gifts that Hashem has bestowed on us, were given to us in order to do good with and fulfill the mitzvos of the Torah and uplift those around us.
If one has an attitude of entitlement and lacks gratitude and appreciation, and in their arrogance comes to demand things- of G-d, of those around them, etc.- that is someone who will remain discontented with any amount of blessing they have. That is someone who will selfishly indulge in whatever they are given as being ‘rightfully theirs’ and merely to be used for their own delight.
If, on the other hand, we can ourselves develop, and model for our children, gratitude for what we have and a humility to accept the challenges that we have been charged with, we will be giving them the foundation to live a life of true happiness, satisfaction and appreciation. And, as Akavya ben Mahalel tells us, we will be endowing them with a perspective which will keep them far away from sin and guide them in living a ‘straight’ and good life.
Wishing you and your family a wonderful Shabbos!
Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer
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