CHAPTER VI. Hebrew Text (appendix)

HEBREW TEXT (Appendix)

PREFACE

Notwithstanding the fact that there are many editions of the Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, and that it has been translated innumerable times in all modern tongues, no apology need be given for the appearance of this little volume in the series of Jewish Classics. The Pirke Abot is indeed a classical bit of that ancient Jewish classic, the Mishnah.

The translation in this edition is based largely upon that of Taylor, in his Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, and upon the excellent version of Singer, in his Authorized Daily Prayer Book.

This edition is intended mainly for popular reading, but it has been thought wise to amplify the notes, especially with bibliographical references, so that it may serve the purpose of a teacher's handbook, and also be useful as a text-book for the higher grades of religious schools and for study circles. The references are to books that are generally accessible, and, wherever possible, to books in English. The notes are by no means intended to be exhaustive, but rather to be suggestive.

It is the humble hope of the editor that this little book may be the means of further popularizing the practical and, at the same time, high-minded wisdom of the "Fathers"; that it may serve as an incentive to a more detailed study of their philosophy of life, and that its appearance may help us to lead in a revival of that most ancient and praiseworthy custom of reading the Pirke Abot in the house of worship on the Sabbath, during the summer months. Let him into whose hands these sayings fall "meditate upon them day and night," for "he who would be saintly must fulfil the dicta of the Fathers."

JOSEPH I GORFINKLE.

Mt. Vernon, N. Y. February, 1913.

INTRODUCTION

NAME

The Tractate Abot (Massechet Abot) is the ninth treatise of The Order or Series on Damages (Seder Nezikin), which is the fourth section of the Mishnah (1). It is commonly known in Hebrew as Pirke Abot, The Chapters of the Fathers, and has also been termed Mishnat ha-Chasidim, Instruction for the Pious, because of the Rabbinic saying, "He who wishes to be pious, let him practise the teachings of Abot" (2). On account of the nature of its contents, it is generally designated in English as the Ethics of the Fathers. Taylor entitles his edition Dibre Aboth ha-Olam, Sayings of the Fathers of the World, and has as the English title, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers. Gustav Gottheil refers to the Abot as the Sayings of the Pharisaic Fathers (3). Its German title is generally Die Spruche der Vater, and in French it is usually rendered Chapitres or Maximes des Peres_.

(1) See infra, [Chapter V], n. 61.

(2) Baba Kamma, 30a. See Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, p. 3. Maimonides refers to this saying in the Foreword of his Eight Chapters; see Gorfinkle, The Eight Chapters, etc., p. 34.

(3) See Sun and Shield, p. 321 et passim. See infra, n. 8, which accounts for the use of "Pharisaic."

The use of the word Abot (fathers), in the title, is of very ancient date. We can only guess at the reason for its being used, and, consequently, there are various explanations for it. Samuel de Uceda, in his collective commentary, says that as this tractate of the Mishnah contains the advice and good counsel, which, for the most part, come from a father, the Rabbis mentioned in it adopt the role of "fathers," and are therefore so designated. This explanation does not, however, deter him from advancing another to the effect that this treatise is the basis of all subsequent ethical and moral teachings and doctrines, and the Rabbis are, in consequence, the "fathers" or prototypes of all ethical teachers and moralists (4). Loeb attributes its use to the fact that the Rabbis of Abot are the "fathers" or "ancestors of Rabbinic Judaism" (5). Hoffman states that the word abot means "teachers of tradition" (Traditionslehrer), and points to the expression abot ha-olam (Eduyot, I. 4), which, translated literally, is "fathers of the world," but is used to designate the most distinguished teachers, which is a true characterization of the Rabbis of Abot (6). Taylor says in regard to the title, "It takes its name from the fact that it consists to a great extent of the maxims of the Jewish Fathers whose names are mentioned in the pages" (7). Hoffmann's seems the most acceptable explanation.

(4) Midrash Shemuel (ed. Warsaw, 1876), p. 6. The Midrash Shemuel is a collective commentary, first published in Venice in 1579, and which has since passed through six editions. See p. 22, n. 21.

(5) La Chaine, etc., p. 307, n. 1.

(6) See Hoffman, Seder Nesikin, Introd., p. xx, and p. 258, n. 36. In this passage of Eduyot, Hillel and Shammai are referred to as abot ha-olam; in Yerushalmi Shekalim, III, 47b, Rabbi and Ishmael and Rabbi Akiba, and in Yerushalmi Chagigah, II, 77d, all the pairs of Abot I are similarly designated.

(7) Taylor, loc. cit.

PURPOSE

The original aim of Abot was to show the divine source and authority of the traditional law revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and to demonstrate its continuity from Moses through Joshua, the elders, and the men of the Great Synagogue, down to those Rabbis who lived during the period between 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. Loeb maintains that Abot was originally a composition of the Pharisaic Rabbis who wished to indicate that the traditions held and expounded by them, and which the Sadducees repudiated, were divine and, in time and sequence, uninterruptedly authoritative (8). This line of continuous tradition is plainly seen in the first two chapters. A second and probably later purpose was to present a body of practical maxims and aphorisms for the daily guidance of the people.

(8) La Chaine, etc. The Sadducees belonged to the priestly and aristocratic families. They made light of the oral traditions, did not believe in the future life, and were indifferent to the independence of the Jewish nation. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were constituted largely from the common people; they were believers in, and strict observers of, the traditional laws, and were ardent nationalists. The bitter attack of Jesus on them, which has resulted in making the word "Pharisee" synonymous with "hypocrite" and "self-righteous person," was, to say the least, unjust, as Herford has so lucidly pointed out in his sympathetic study of the Pharisees. Herford, though not a Jew, has taken up the cudgels most ably in defence of this sect, with remarkable insight into the life and literature of the ancient Jews. He demonstrates conclusively that though there were hypocrites among the Pharisees, as among all classes and creeds, yet the average Pharisee was a man of the most elevated religious ideals, who misunderstood Jesus, but who, in turn was misunderstood by him. Huxley, in his Evolution of Theology, says, "of all the strange ironies in history, perhaps the strangest is that 'Pharisee' is current as a term of reproach among the theological descendants of that sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence." Such great teachers and men of sterling quality and golden utterance as Antigonus of Soko (I, 3), Hillel (I, 12-14; II, 5-8), Jochanan ben Zakkai (II, 9-19), Gamaliel, whose pupil was Paul, the apostle (I, 16), and Judah, the Prince (II, 1), whose sayings grace the pages of Abot, were, as Loeb points out, of the Pharisaic school or party. There is naturally a large literature on the Pharisees. Herford's Pharisaism deserves careful perusal. See, also, Josephus (ed. Whiston-Margoliouth), Antiq., XIII, 10.6, XVIII, 1, 2-4; Schurer, History of the Jews, etc., II, ii, p. 14 et seq.; Jewish Encyclopedia and literature mentioned there; Geiger, Judaism and Its History, p. 102 et seq., and Friedlander, G., The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount, p. 34 et seq.

DESCRIPTION

The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers is the oldest collection of ethical dicta of the Rabbis of the Mishnah (9). It is a Rabbinic anthology. It has been happily styled "a compendium of practical ethics" (10), and, as Mielziner has said, "these Rabbinical sentences, if properly arranged, present an almost complete code of human duties" (11). The Abot is, then, a sort of moral code.

(9) There was another, and apparently older, recension of Pirke Abot on which is based the Abot de-Rabbi Natan, an hagadic or homiletical exposition of Abot. Two recensions of Abot de-Rabbi Natan exist, and have been edited by Schechter. On this work, see Hoffman, Die erste Mischna, p. 26 et seq., Mielziner, article Abot de-Rabbi Natan, in Jewish Encyclopedia, Strack, Einleitung, p. 69 et seq., and Pollak, Rabbi Nathans System, etc., Introduction, pp. 7-9. An English translation is found in Rodkinson's edition of the Talmud, vol. V, p. 1 et seq._

(10) Taylor, loc. cit. Lazarus, Ethics of Judaism, II. 113, calls it "a compendium of ethics."

(11) In Jewish Encyclopedia, art. Abot.

CONTENTS

Even a superficial reading of Abot will bring home to one the fact that it is made up of various strata. In fact, it falls naturally into the following strands or divisions:

A. Chapter I, 1-15: Chronologically arranged sayings of the oldest authorities, from the men of the Great Synagogue to Hillel and Shammai.

B. (1) Chapters I, 16-II, 4: Sayings of the men of the school of Hillel to Rabban Gamaliel (about 230 C.E.), the son of Judah ha-Nasi

(2) Chapter II, 5-8: Additional sayings of Hillel.

C. (1) Chapter II, 9-19: The sayings of Jochanan ben Zakkai, the pupil of Hillel, and of his disciples.

(2) Chapter II, 20-21: The sayings of Rabbi Tarfon, a younger contemporary of Jochanan ben Zakkai.

D. Chapter III: the maxims of seventeen Tannaim (authorities mentioned in the Mishnah) to the time of and including Rabbi Akiba. These are not arranged in strictly chronological order.

E. Chapter IV: The sayings of twenty-five Tannaim after the time of Rabbi Akiba, who were contemporaries of Rabbi Meir and of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi. These are not chronologically arranged.

F. (1) Chapter V, 1-18: Anonymous sayings forming a series of groups of ten, seven, and four things, dealing with the creation of the world, with miracles, and with the varieties of men and minds.

(2) Chapter V, 19-22: Anonymous sayings touching upon the varieties of motives and contrasting the good and evil dispositions.

(3) Chapter V, 23: Sayings of Judah ben Tema.

(4) Chapter V, 24: The ages of man.

(5) Chapter V, 25, 26: The sayings of Ben Bag Bag and of Ben He He.

G. Chapter VI: The acquisition of the Torah; praise of the Torah.

LANGUAGE

The language of Abot is easy Mishnaic Hebrew, with portions of four verses (I, 13; II, 7; V, 25, and V, 26) in Aramaic, which is closely related to Hebrew. It is worthy of note that these Aramaic portions originated with the school of Hillel (12).

(12) On the language of the Mishnah, see Mielziner, Introduction to the Talmud, pp. 15-16, and Lauterbach in Jewish Encyclopedia, vol II, p. 614. On the use of Aramaic in the Mishnah, see Schurer, History, I, ii, p. 8 et seq., and Bacher, in Jewish Encyclopedia, art. Aramaic Language Among the Jews. Several centuries before the common era, Aramaic was the vernacular of the Jews. Hebrew, however, remained in use as the sacred language ([lashon ha-kodesh]), it being the language of the learned, and was employed for literary, liturgical, and legal purposes. This accounts for the Mishnah being written almost entirely in Hebrew, though Aramaic was spoken on the streets. It is related of Judah ha-Nasi that he disliked the Aramaic jargon to such an extent that he forbade its use in his home, where even the servants spoke Hebrew with elegance (Rosh ha-Shanah, 26b). When scholars used Aramaic in his presence, he chided them for not speaking in Hebrew or in Greek (Baba Kamma, 82b).

DEVELOPMENT OF ABOT (13)

(13) On the subject-matter of this section, consult Hoffmann, Die erste Mischna, pp. 26-37; idem, Mischnaiot Seder Nesikin, Introd., pp. XX-XXI; Brull, Enstehung und ursprunglicher Inhalt des Traktates Abot; Loeb, La Chaine, etc.; Ginzburg, Spruche der Vater, erstes Capitel historisch beleuchtet (Liepzig, 1889); Strack, Die Spruche der Vater, Introd., pp. 7-8; idem, Einleitung, p. 52, and Rawicz, Commentar des Maimonides, p. 105, n. 3.

It is apparent from the literary construction of Abot that it has been edited several times, and that, in its earliest form, the Abot collection was much smaller than we have it to-day. Originally, probably shortly after the time of Hillel, it may have been merely a sort of appendix to the Tractate Sanhedrin, with typical sayings of each of the heads of the Sanhedrin. These dicta are contained in what is designated as section A. Later, presumably by Rabbi Akiba, there were added to this original kernel of Abot the sayings of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai and his most illustrious pupils, which comprise section C. This resulted in the grouping together of the sayings of ten generations of traditional authorities, as follows: (1) the men of the Great Synagogue, (2) Simon, the Just, (3) Antigonus of Soko, (4) Jose ben Joezer and Jose ben Jochanan, (5) Joshua ben Perachiah and Nittai, the Arbelite, (6) Judah ben Tabbai and Simeon ben Shatach, (7) Shemaiah and Abtalion, (8) Hillel and Shammai, (9) Jochanan ben Zakkai, and (10) the latter's disciples. By association of idea with this number ten, there were added to this collection numerical sayings of ten, and, then, others of seven and four, found in chapter V, 1-9 and 10-13.

Into this enlarged kernel of pithy sayings of the oldest authorities, which may be characterized as the Abot of Rabbi Akiba, later Tannaim--Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, and others--interpolated additional sayings of the afore-mentioned Rabbis, and also typical utterances of their disciples, and of other well-known teachers. This accounts for the presence in Abot of the body of maxims of the six generations of the school of Hillel, designated above as section B 1, and which was very properly introduce after the aphorisms of Hillel and of his contemporary, Shammai. The thread of tradition being interrupted by this interpolation, it was again taken up by the introduction of another body of Hillel's sayings (B 2), thus providing for a natural transition from Hillel to Jochanan ben Zakkai. Proof of the fact that section B is an addition is that in the Abot de-Rabbi Natan--which, as has been said above, is based on an older version of Abot (14)--the sayings of Jochanan ben Zakkai follow immediately upon those of Shammai. The sayings of Judah ha-Nasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, and of Rabbi Gamaliel, his son, were undoubtedly added after the time of Judah.

(14) See supra, p. 13, n. 9.