Tu Bishvat is, of course, the new year of the trees, the first hint that winter’s blusters are on the wane and that hope–growth, renewal–is already on the way. Though the original importance of the day was more commercial than ecological (it was about the tithing of fruit) the holiday offers a rich set of associations between our relationship to the land, to the trees, to the fruits for which we say a blessing of thanks every time we eat them. The Kabbalists took this further, using the mysteries of seeds and peels and shells as a way to map our inner world and relationships to the Divine.
In honor of Tu Bishvat, I’d like to discuss a little Torah that is, for many people, deeply troubling. The Mishnah in Pirke Avot tells us, “R. Shimon said, A person who is walking along repeating a teaching (of Torah) and interrupts his learning to say, ‘What a beautiful tree,’ ‘What a beautiful field,’ deserves to lose his life.” (Pirke Avot 3:7)
The sorts of problems that people have with this passage are obvious: it seems to denigrate the appreciation of God’s Creation, to fetishize God’s words, to promote an insular and myopic view of what matters in life and in the world. But none of that takes into consideration the context of the mishnah. The grave sin here is inturrupting the learning of Torah to say these things. And given that the language here is probably talking about a person engaged in the repetition and memorization of the always-fragile oral tradition, pausing in the wrong place could cause a person to forget or, worse, corrupt the tradition. Which would be nothing short of absolute disaster. The intention here was to exhort the reader to mindfulness in our actions and giving everything we do our full attention. It’s about not being split, partly here and partly there: listen fully when you listen, eat fully when you eat, study fully when you study. Don’t study when you eat. It’s not that admiring trees is bad–rather the opposite–but the time to do it is not when one’s attention must be turned to something else. The time to do it is when one’s attention must be turned to… admiring trees. And sunsets. And fields. And all of the glory of God’s work. There are many times for that, and this season, Tu Bishvat, is one of them.
Another way to honor this holiday is to (also) take a break from one’s studies and to get out there in the big world and do some ma’asim tovim, good works. Acts of righteousness, even. To honor the trees by becoming like them.
For, it is written, “The one whose deeds exceed his wisdom, he is like a tree whose branches are few, but whose roots are many, so that even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against it, it could not be budged from its place, as it is said in the Torah: ‘For you shall be as a tree planted by waters, that spreads its roots by the river, and it shall not notice the heat’s arrival, but its foliage shall be green; it shall not dread the year of drought, neither shall it cease yielding fruit.’” (Pirke Avot 3:17)
Tu Bishvat Sameach!
Comments (10)
I can’t agree with this at all. It seems reminiscent of the type of exegesis in which the rabbis of that period were often engaged – rationalizing a text that they found troubling. I don’t think that interruption in the process of formulating the oral law could have been all that serious an issue; they debated the meanings of individual scriptural verses, and their practical applications, for years - even across generations. I think that the text is really much more straightforward – it’s simply another example of the gedolim shoring up their worldview by insisting that Torah study is all that matters.
And they were always invoking the death penalty – for looking at a tree, getting the incense mixture wrong, etc. It’s an odd paradox – they claimed that a court that executed more than one person in a generation (or something of the sort) was a “gang of murderers”, but let someone step out of line, or disagree, or even make an innocent mistake, and they deserved to be put to death! I really do think that it’s time that we stopped whitewashing this.
Nice drash! It’s a troubling text, all right, but I like the way you approach it. Mindfulness and full focus in all things — a tough thing to strive for in today’s world of multitasking, but no less important for all that.
The context of the mishnah makes it clear that Danya’s just preseting pshat (the straightforward meaning). But don’t take my word for it — open a few editions of Pirkei Avot and compare. I doubt if the interpretation you presented will be there at all — but if it is, it will be one among several.
The rabbinic tradition has always been multifaceted. The burden of proof is on whoever oversimplifies and claims that the rabbis “always” thought _____ (fill in the blank). This is the case whether that person is oversimplifying to defend the tradition (itself a traditional activity, and not one to be dismissed as “rationalizing”), or whether that person is oversimplifying to attack the tradition, as Cipher appears to do.
When I said “always”, I meant constantly - not every single time.
Danya’s not presenting the straightforward, or pshat, level of meaning. She’s delving into what she feels is a deeper meaning. It’s perfectly acceptable, but I don’t happen to agree with her. I think that the surface meaning - that someone who interrupts Torah study to admire a tree should be put to death - is what the rabbis meant to say. If they didn’t mean it, they could have come up with something in a less ominous tone. And yeah – they often said things like that.
As far as rationalizing goes - whenever they came across something that made them uncomfortable - such as the injunction to put to death a rebellious son, or the slaughter of the Canaanite children - they’d come up with a convenient explanation that made it easier for them to swallow. They enjoyed a freedom of interpretation to a degree that the more conservative factions within our tradition insist that we cannot allow ourselves.
I think that we need to examine the tradition critically, not merely accept everything that’s been handed down to us on the premise that their level of understanding was greater than ours could possibly be. I feel very strongly that acknowledging the flaws of our ancestors and proceeding from there is part of the maturation process. It’s important to look at a statement like this – that someone who momentarily loses his train of thought while studying Torah has committed a capital crime – and recognize that perhaps these guys didn’t have all of the answers. The tradition doesn’t have to be static.
I don’t think of it as an “attack”, but you want to call it that? Okay.
Cipher, you can agree with me or not (free will being cool like that) but the one thing I’d really challenge you on is the use of the Hebrew. The language isn’t of Torah study like, “let see what insights we have on this week’s parsha,” but rather on the verb “shna” (shonah, v’mafsik b’mishnato) that referred specifically to the repetition of the oral tradition. Which, by the time R. Shimon was saying the things that eventually got written down as Pirke Avot, was still decidedly only oral. I would argue that the strictness of “deserving of death” is because this person’s distractability has the possibility of corrupting the entire tradition. Of course there were always other people around who knew the mishnah (there were several versions of the mishnah, according to different rabbis, floating around, actually) but getting screwups in there really did have significant consequences nonetheless. YOu don’t want somebody teaching the bad version to his students, etc.
Anyway. You don’t have to buy it, but be preicise in what you mean by “Torah study” and what you think that really means.
I was using the term “Torah study” in the way that most Orthodox factions use it today (and concordant to your apparent meaning when you said “discuss a little Torah”), as pertaining to the general study of Torah and Talmud.
All right, there’s a fine point there. Perhaps he wasn’t merely studying; perhaps “repeating” implied memorizing, or teaching someone else. In addition, you obviously know more about the Hebrew (and, I would assume, the Aramaic) than I do, and there may be nuances there. I have to rely upon translation.
However, I think that it’s quite a leap to go from safeguarding the tradition to mindfulness in all activities. If that was what he meant, he wouldn’t have felt it necessary to invoke the death penalty. I have to see that as ironic interpretation. In spite of my insistence that they were constantly saying things like that, I don’t think that they ever threatened anyone with death for becoming distracted while eating a sandwich!
In any case, I’m not convinced. It still seems to me to be an attempt on R. Shimon’s part to fortify his worldview by invalidating everything outside of Torah (and Talmud) study. This may be a modern understanding; perhaps I’ve been too traumatized by the right-wing factions within Orthodoxy, and am projecting. So, I may be doing the same thing of which I’m accusing you, but from the opposite position!
IF he even said it at all - it may be something that was attributed to him retroactively, which would tend to support my argument. At that point, it becomes a matter of faith - either you believe that the reporting was always accurate, or you don’t. I don’t believe it, generally.
It’s difficult to discern their intentions, two thousand years later. A non-Orthodox person, such as myself (perhaps some MO people as well) would see what they were doing as being theologically liberal - devising new legislation to cope with changing social environments. A conservative Orthodox person would insist that they were merely drawing out of the Torah meanings that were inherent within it, and that the results were inspired (or at least safeguarded) by God.
I stand by what I said, though - I think that it’s very important that we stop trying to come up with explanations that rationalize or excuse their more extreme pronouncements.
and I should have said “concordant with”!
Well, I’ll just throw in one little point. Cipher’s original comment seemed to take its greatest issue from the rabbi’s use of the death penalty for every darn little thing. But let’s look at it logically: as cipher points out, the rabbis didn’t have any special love of implementing the death penalty. Of course, some of the time they definitely meant it, but most of the time…it’s more likely a lot of those “so and so should be killed” were along the lines of the way we use: If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” in other words, that they probably didn’t really intend to kill people over these relatvively minor breaches. Take it or leave it.
Cipher, thanks for clarifying your position and for keeping this argument respectful.
You also wrote:
>you obviously know more about the Hebrew (and, I would >assume, the Aramaic) than I do, and there may be nuances >there. I have to rely upon translation.
Those nuances would explain how you came to misinterpret this Mishnah to refer to the death penalty. The Hebrew says “ke’ilu mit’chayev benafsho” — “it is AS IF he deserves to die.” In other words, this offence — while technically not violating any prohibition — should be taken seriously in a philosophical way. Nobody with a knowledge of Hebrew has ever interpreted this phrase to refer to the death penalty. I agree that the rabbis said things like this all the time — if you understand “this” to mean exaggerations in order to make a point (like Danya’s interpretation). But please keep the death penalty out of this. When the rabbis discussed the death penalty, it was only in cases where the text of the Torah explicitly demands it. And even then, as you pointed out, the rabbis didn’t actually put it into practice.
That’s why Danya’s explanation actually is pshat — it’s based on the meaning of the original Hebrew words.
I recognize that this doesn’t detract from your main point about the tradition. But the Mishnah doesn’t support your point at all. In the future, before staking out positions based on texts that you haven’t read in the original, please confirm your interpretation with someone who has.
I read it in the English as he deserves to lose his life *metaphorically*. The language being strong to make a point, namely: interrupting Torah to comment on the beauty of a tree is hypocrisy: if you truly loved Torah, you couldn’t be interrupted (seduced away, as it were) from study by the beauty of a tree.
The point being, you should love the Torah also as an object of beauty.