Pirkei Avot: Hope Off The Arbel Cliffs

There are times that a text echoes a powerful message, and there are times the mountains and the valleys echo a message. In this Mishna it is the Mountains and the valleys that are speaking, as they reflect the message of hope the rabbis of the Mishna shared during some of the darkest times our people have faced.

“Joshua ben Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite received [the oral tradition] from them. Joshua Ben Perahiah used to say: Appoint a teacher for thyself, acquire a companion for thyself, and judge all men with the scale weighted in his favor.” (Avot 1:6)

Joshua ben Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite also date back to the era of the Zugot (pairs), as Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Prachiya served as the Nasi (president) of the Sanhedrin alongside Nitay Ha’Arbeli who was the Av Beit Din.

It is hard to study this Mishna without also having in mind one of the only stories the Talmud (Sotah 47a) shares with us about Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Prachya. It is important to note that despite this story referencing someone by the name of Jesus the Nazarene, this cannot be possibly referring to the founder of Christianity for the simple reason that Yehoshua Ben Prachya lived in the year 130 BCE while the founder of Christianity lived around the year 30 CE.

“The Sages taught: It should always be the left, weaker hand that pushes another away and the right, stronger hand that draws him near. In other words, even when a student is rebuffed, he should be given the opportunity to return. This is not like Elisha, who pushed Gehazi away with both hands and not like Yehoshua ben Peraḥya, who pushed Jesus the Nazarene, one of his students, away with both hands….The Gemara returns to the incident in which Yehoshua ben Peraḥya turned away Jesus the Nazarene: What is this incident? When King Yannai was killing the Sages, Shimon ben Shataḥ was hidden by his sister, Yannai’s wife, while Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya went and fled to Alexandria of Egypt. When peace was made between Yannai and the Sages, Shimon ben Shataḥ sent him the following letter: From myself, Jerusalem the holy city, to you, Alexandria of Egypt. My sister, my husband dwells within you, and I am sitting desolate. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya said: I can learn from it that there is peace, and I can return.”

When he came back to Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Yehoshua arrived at a certain inn. The innkeeper stood before him, honoring him considerably, and overall they accorded him great honor. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya then sat and was praising them by saying: How beautiful is this inn. Jesus the Nazarene, one of his students, said to him: My teacher, but the eyes of the innkeeper’s wife are narrow [terutot]. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya said to him: Wicked one! is this what you are engaged in?! Gazing at women? He brought out four hundred shofarot and excommunicated him. Every day, Jesus would come before him, but he would not accept his wish to return. One day, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya was reciting Shema when Jesus came before him. He intended to accept him on this occasion, so he signaled to him with his hand to wait. Jesus thought he was rejecting him entirely. He, therefore, went and stood up a brick and worshipped it as an idol. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Peraḥya said to him: Return from your sins. Jesus said to him: This is the tradition that I received from you: Anyone who sins and causes the masses to sin is not given the opportunity to repent.” 

Considering the historical backdrop of what was going on in Jerusalem at that time, it is not difficult to imagine how much more the lessons of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Prachya teaches in this Mishna. “Make for theyself a teacher–Aseh lecha Rav” in light of the fact that it was during his lifetime that King Yannai killed all the sages. The lesson of “Make for thyself a teacher–Aseh lecha Rav” taught here, according to Maimonides in his commentary to the Mishna here, comes to teach us that even if there is no one in your area that is wiser or more knowledgeable than you, you should still find someone and appoint them as your rabbi, since the best possible way to learn, Maimonides says, is from someone else. Therefore even if there is no one else there that can serve as your teacher, make sure that you appoint someone to be your teacher.

One can only imagine what the land of Israel looked like after King Yannai killed every single rabbi. Individuals who wanted to find someone who would be a proper Torah teacher to them would have a hard time doing so. Yet despite the lack of proper Torah scholars, Yehoshua Ben Prachya urged members of his generation and the generations that followed to make sure they “made for themselves” a rabbi and found someone who would teach them. During the Soviet oppression of Jews, when religion in Russia was considered a serious crime and rabbis were killed and imprisoned, Russian Jews had no access to rabbis and teachers. During those difficult times.

Following the commentary of Maimonides and many others, what the Mishna is telling us with the first two of its three lessons is that when something necessary does not happen, make sure it happens. If you are in a place where there is no one who is smart enough to be your rabbi and teacher, make sure you make the internal push to make one of them your rabbi. Having a teacher is necessary, even if at the price of having a teacher who is not wiser than you. The same is true for acquiring a companion. Sure, ideally, one should be blessed to find a friendship that comes their way naturally as they go through life. Yet if that does not happen, the Mishna urges us to take the unnatural step of making every effort to make sure that we acquire a friend for ourselves and that we make an effort. That we are the ones to step out of our comfort zone and initiate contact with others. The same line of logic is true about judging others favorably. Sure, there are times when it is easy to judge someone favorably. Sure, there are times that as long as we have a healthy perspective, we will give people the benefit of the doubt; we will see the good in what they do and judge them favorably. Yet what Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Prachya is urging us to do here is to make an effort to judge others favorably even when it might not be our natural go-to feeling. 

More recent commentaries from the Mussar movement have explained this final statement about judging favorably as one that explains the previous two and not the first two as explaining the last. Having a teacher is not easy. There will be times you will be angry at that teacher, frustrated, feel ignored, or have trouble with something they have done. The same is true of friendship. What the Mishna is teaching us is that if you would like your work of making for yourself a teacher and acquiring a friend for yourself, you must also make sure you judge others favorably. There is no way you can sustain friendships without judging favorably. There is no way you can keep up your faith in your teachers without judging favorably. Therefore, Mishna tells us that the later part is to achieve the first. 

Mishna 7

Nittai the Arbelite used to say: keep a distance from an evil neighbor, do not become attached to the wicked, and do not abandon faith in [divine] retribution.

Nitay Ha’arebeli–one of my visits to Israel that left the greatest impression on me was visiting a place named Arbel. It is a cliff of stunning beauty, just north of the Mishnaic city of Tzipory, overlooking the Sea of Galilee–the Kinneret–from the Northern Galilee. The name of the cliff? Arbel. The same Arbel mentioned here is the place of Nitay Ha’Arbeli, who lived there and later became famous in tragic circumstances. As one looks down from the steep cliff, seeing the beauty of the Kinneret, one can see caves accessible only through the very steep nooks of the cliff. As Josephus records, the caves were home to Jews who escaped the persecution of Greeks, Herod, and later the Romans. Since climbing down to these cliffs is a hard and sophisticated task, waging war against those living in these caves was almost impossible, and there was hardly the possibility of surprising its residents. Yet eventually, Herod’s aggressive soldiers prevailed in one of their wars against the residents of Arbel. By lowering themselves in large crates and boxes, lowered down the cliff with chains, the soldiers eventually overwhelmed residents of the caves living there with the solemn purpose of living their lives according to the Jewish faith.

While there are many lessons Nittai Ha’Arbeli knew and could have passed on, the idea that are person should remain distant from a wicked neighbor, not be attached to the wicked, and not abandon faith even in the face of tragedy, all become much more understandable considering the history of Arbel.

Keep a distance from an evil neighbor, do not become attached to the wicked-it is interesting to note that there are those who see this statement as a modifying clause to the previous Mishna. Although we had just learned that we must judge everyone favorably, one must make sure they do not become attached to the wicked. This balance is one of the most difficult balances to strike. On the one hand we try and judge everyone favorably and give people the benefit of the doubt, on the other hand, we must be discerning about who it is that we are attached to. This complex balance can often be best struck when understanding there are different levels of judging. If someone sees another person in the street, there should be few things stopping them from saying hello and smiling at the other person. If, on the other hand, someone is meeting a person they are considering marrying, they must be so much more discerning. When we become attached to someone in a meaningful way, we must make sure we are not connecting to someone who will negatively impact who we are. If we become connected with others, we must make sure those others live us up rather than put us down. Over my years as a teacher, I get to see firsthand the extent to which where someone sits or who they are friendly with can impact their academic success and performance in school. I get to see students who lift all those sitting around them, inspiring them to do better. I get to see parents whose first concern is who their child is friends with or spending time with. The power of our surroundings is impossible to overstate. When we are told not to become accompanied to, or be neighbors with, the wicked, we are very much influenced. The bar of determining who is “wicked” in this category is very very different than the bar for the previous Mishna’s statement telling us we should judge people favorably. 

“And do not abandon faith in [divine] retribution”—the original Hebrew of this Mishna conveys a message far more complex than any translation can bear. “Al Titya’esh Min Ha’Pura’anut”, do not despair from the tragedy. On the one hand, one can read this as a statement to the righteous who look at the world around them and see the wicked prosper and succeed. The Mishna tells us not to despair because the wicked prevail and prosper; what you see is not the whole picture. While it may not be in this world, the wicked will eventually receive the retribution they deserve. In this interpretation, what the Mishna is telling us is that eventually, the wicked will get their punishment.

Alternatively, what the Mishna is giving us a message of hope pertaining to our own hardships we are facing. If you see, or go through something very difficult in life and feel overwhelmed by the darkness of that moment, always remind yourself that this too shall pass.

There is no event in the history of our people that warrants the teachings of this Mishna like the horror of the Holocaust, which killed six million of our brothers and sisters, including one and a half million children. Many, if not most, of those who perpetrated this worst crime in human history, did not pay even a symbolic price for their horrendous crimes. Seeing such impunity for the worst of crimes ever committed might lead one to despair and a belief that justice does not exist. The Mishna teaches us that this should not lead us to despair.

The Mishna does not give a reason for why we should not despair. The matter is left open for us to fill in. Is it “do not despair” because their punishment will eventually come? Are we not to despair because this too shall pass? Should we not despair because if we despair, we only reward evildoers and perpetuate their iniquities? Should we not despair because it is in our power to eventually overwhelm those who do evil? Or should we not despair because, eventually, it is our hope that we will crush the evil of evildoers? Perhaps it is all of the above.

The most famous of all rabbis to speak on this topic was the great Rabbi Nachman of Breslav, who is buried in the city of Uman, Ukraine. While he is known by the name of the city of Breslav, from which he originates, Rabbi Nachman wanted to be buried in the city of Uman because of an event that took place in 1648—the Khmelnitzky pogroms. In 1648, dozens of Jewish communities and more than 100,000 Jews were decimated because of the pogroms of Khmelnitzky, a bloodthirsty Kozak who led packs of murderous hooligans through Jewish towns in Ukraine and massacred the residents of those communities. One of those ravaged communities was the town of Uman, where close to thirty thousand Jews were killed and were buried together in a mass grave. Rabbi Nachman of Breslav said he wanted to be buried in that town as he considered being with the martyrs who died merely because of their Judaism the greatest honor possible. Yet despite knowing of so much death and destruction, or perhaps because of it, Rabbi Nacham’s most famous statements are: “there is no despair in this world at all”, as well as: “This whole world is a narrow bridge and the most important thing is not to be afraid at all.” 

Like Nitay Ha’Arbeli, sometimes witnessing the most compelling reasons to despair, invigorate our understanding of why we must never despair. When staring evil in the face, we can be Nevile Chaimberlins, or we can be Winston Churchill. We can be succumb to our natural inclination to despair and give up, and we can remind ourselves that we must never give up.