Digging with Darren

As we’re counting the omer in anticipation of Shavuot, it is traditional to study Pirkei Avot each week. If you don’t have a copy of it, you can study it online for free at my other site where I plan on making more texts like these available.

Study Pirkei Avot here.

I have launched a new, related site where I am posting eTexts such as Pirkei Avot, the Didache, Odes of Solomon, etc. (that’s actually all I have at the moment, but will be adding more as time goes on).

http://etexts.diggingwithdarren.com/

It will be my permanent repository for such texts and will be easily searchable. I through it together quickly, but it’s already very handy and easy to use. I plan on making it a lot more functional in the future. I would also like to know if anyone would volunteer to help me add texts from time to time. If you’re interested, please give me a shout at darren [at] diggingwithdarren (dot) com. I look forward to hearing if anyone finds the site useful.

Yesterday’s reading regarding the sending away of the mother bird (Deut 22:6-7) gives us insight into the nature of Torah. The sending away of the mother bird is considered the “least of the commandments.” We fulfill all of the mitzvot, rather than only the “greater” ones because we do not know the reward for any of the mitzvot, save two (actually three…see Deut 11:20,21) the “least” and the “greatest.” And they both carry the same reward. Here are some texts to illustrate the point.

R. Abba b. Kahana said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: ‘Do not spend time weighing up the precepts of the Torah, as Scripture hath it, And weighed the mountains in scales- [Based on the word ba-peles] (Isa. 40:12); and do not say, ‘Seeing that this precept is a great one, I will perform it because its reward is great, and seeing that the other precept is a minor one, I will not perform it.’ What did God do? He did not reveal to His creatures the reward for each separate precept, so that they may perform all the precepts without questioning. Whence this? For it is said, ‘Her ways wander, that thou canst not know them.’ It is as if a king hired for himself labourers and brought them straight into his garden without disclosing what he intended to pay for the various kinds of work in the garden, lest they should neglect the work for which the pay was little for work for which the pay was high. In the evening he called each one in turn and asked him: ‘ At which tree have you worked? ‘ He replied: ‘At this one.’ Thereupon the king said to him: ‘This is a pepper tree and the pay for working at it is one golden piece.’ He then called another and asked him: ‘At which tree have you worked? ‘ And he replied: ‘ Under this tree.’ The king thereupon said: ‘This is a white-blossom tree and the pay for working at it is a half a golden piece.’ He then called yet another, and asked him: ‘At which tree have you worked?’ And he replied: ‘At this one.’ Whereupon the king exclaimed: ‘ This is an olive tree and the pay for working at it is two hundred zuz.’ Said the labourers to the king: ‘You should have informed us from the outset which tree had the greater pay attached to it, so that we might have worked at it.’ Thereupon the king replied: ‘ Had I done this, how would the whole of my garden have been worked?’ So God did not reveal the reward of the precepts, except of two, the weightiest and the least weighty. The honouring of parents is the very weightiest and its reward is long life, as it is said, Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long (Ex. XX, 12); and the sending away of the mother bird is the least weighty, and what is its reward? Length of days.
—Devarim Rabba 6:2

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.”
—Matthew 20:1-16, ESV

Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said: …Be as scrupulous about a light precept as of a weighty one, for you do not know the reward allotted for each precept.
Avot 2:1

Ben Azzai said: Be eager to fulfill the smallest mitzvah and flee from transgression; for one mitzvah induces another and one transgression leads to another transgression. The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, the reward of one transgression is another transgression.
Avot 4:2

I just want to remind people who are studying Pirkei Avot between Chag HaMatzot and Shavuot that I have the full text of Pirkei Avot available online (along with a scarce bit of commentary) here:

Read the full text of Pirkei Avot (’Ethics of the Fathers’) online

Today is eight days, which are one week and one day, of the Omer.

As many of you know, I’ve been going through a series of books called A Daily Dose of Torah for the past year or so. Here’s something I recently came across:

“Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (in Mesillas Yesharim Chapter 1) explains that Hashem placed man in a world that is full of situations that can distance him from maintaining a close relationship with Hashem. Even things that seem to be good are tests for a person, to see if he will withstand temptation and use what seems to be an obstacle as a stepping-stone to come closer to Hashem”
(vol 14, p. 31).

It then sites the example from Proverbs 30:8 & 9, which states:

“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

The commentary notes that both poverty and wealth can be a test of one’s service of Hashem. This reminds me of a passage in Pirkei Avot (which we study from now until Shavuot – Pentecost), which says:

Rabbi Yonatan said: He who fulfills the Torah in poverty shall in the end fulfill it in wealth. He who disregards the Torah in wealth shall in the end disregard it in poverty. (Avot 4:11)

Also, Hillel (the grandfather of Paul’s teacher Gamliel) said, “Say not: When I have time I will study, because you may never have the time” (Avot 2:5).

The time to study and live Torah is now. The spirit of Elijah is calling us to return to Torah and live it, not merely theorize about it. If you haven’t cleared the leaven from your home, please do so today. We only have three days left of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and we must purge ourselves from both the physical and spiritual leaven in order to be obedient to Torah and our Messiah. Otherwise, we are denying the validity of Torah and Messiah in our lives and deceiving ourselves, being merely “hearers of the Word” rather than “doers of the Word.”

Do C.S. Lewis and the Talmud have anything in common? Recently, my wife and I have been reading The Chronicles of Narnia to our children. We are on the third book in the series, The Horse and His Boy. Over the course of a few days I read the first half of the book (of which I never could get into) and then let my wife take over in reading the second half of the book. Since I had lost interest in the book, they finished it up without me. When they were nearly finished with the book my wife said that while reading she had found a Talmudic inference by Lewis (my wife is very cool).

As Shasta (the main character of the book) has just reached what he believes to be his haven and resting place after narrowly escaping death and saving his companion’s life, he is told there is no time to rest and he must press on to warn King Lune of an impending attack. Lewis tells us:

Shasta’s heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.

Although I’m sure Lewis didn’t intend on citing a Talmudic principle (as he was generally smug in the Christian “superiority” to Judaism), he nevertheless was able to deduce the same conclusion as Rabbi Azzai of the Talmudic era:

Ben Azzai said: Be eager to fulfill the smallest mitzvah and flee from transgression; for one mitzvah induces another and one transgression leads to another transgression. The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, the reward of one transgression is another transgression.
Avot 4:2

Shalom Chaverim – Just a note to say that during this time of studying Pirkei Avot I was trying to update the text for it on my site and realized that I had some serious errors. Not only did I have wrong numberings of mishnayot, but chapter two was incomplete. I was missing 5 mishnayot! I am in the process of cleaning up all six chapters, as well as adding the Hebrew, so…if you see any errors on the pages that I have finished adding the Hebrew, please let me know so that I can correct them. Your help is appreciated.

shalom uvracha,
-darren