Home General Education / Library / Speeches / Education / General Education / Avot Chapter 4; Abortion; Euthanasia; D…

Outline

May 7, 1992

Avot Chapter 4; Abortion; Euthanasia; Dying (1992)

Pirkei Avot Death & Mourning
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Speech

Avot Perek 5 (1969)

One of the things mentioned by the Mishnah, in addition to the first ten items that were created erev Shabbat bein hashmashot, is the burial place of Moses – קבורתו של משה. What a strange thought! What the Tanna is trying to teach us, I believe, is how to stabilize our views and our assessments of our fellow men. He is trying to help us avoid succumbing to the danger of extremes in our evaluation of others, especially after they have died. Consider the extraordinary case of Moses. An unbiased reading of the Torah leads us to the startling conclusion that he was probably one of the most unpopular leaders in the history of mankind. His people were afraid of him and had little love for him. He literally had to force them out of slavery and into freedom. No matter what untoward event occurred, they blamed him. Jewish tradition even maintains that they accused him of some of the vilest crimes in the annals of mankind – not excluding adultery. He had to defend himself explicitly against implied charges of graft, bribery, and theft. This holiest of all men, this chief of all prophets, was treated with utter contempt and apparently without a shred of acknowledgement or appreciation of his unparalleled greatness. He was resented, disliked, hated. Yet as soon as he died, the Israelites experienced a sudden and radical change of heart. We are told that God Himself buried Moses and did not allow his burial place to be known – ויקבור אותו בגי... ולא ידע איש את קבורתו. Why so? Because, our Sages tell us, God was afraid that the sudden wave of admiration for Moses by the people would have evil consequences – the adulation might lead to idolatry and worship. God did not want Moses, the great teacher of monotheism and the great enemy of idolatry, to become himself an object of worship. So the feelings of the Israelites for Moses ran from one extreme to the other – from hatred to worship, from contempt to idolization. Before he died, they wished he would; after he died, they were di…
Vezot Haberacha Shabbat Pirkei Avot General Jewish Thought Death & Mourning General Education

Speech

Avot Perek 6 (1969)

The perek records the story of Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma, who was accosted by a stranger who asked him, מאיזו עיר אתה? Rabbi Yosi replied, etc., etc. What we have before us is an assertion by Rabbi Yosi that it is better to live among sages than among ignoramuses – among wise men than among fools. Rabbi Yosi disdains all material rewards that might entice him to a spiritually and scholarly less favorable environment. This is, apparently, an unexceptionable teaching. Yet the matter is not quite that simple. Is it really the best policy to pursue in order to assure the dominance of Torah in Israel? If all committed Jews decided to live exclusively in Jewish areas, where kashrut and Torah and tefillah were all assured at the highest level, would this not result in the decimation of our community and in the loss of countless thousands of Jews in the outlying communities? Furthermore, do we not have sufficient examples of great Jews who, by risking an alien environment, succeeded in converting that milieu into great centers of Torah? For instance, we know that Rav left Palestine to go down to Babylon – and almost singlehandedly made that community into a center of Torah for hundreds and hundreds of years to follow. Does Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma then mean to imply that this was wrong? Does he have any alternative solution for the spreading of Torah in Israel? I believe that Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma was not preaching a kind of contemporary retrenchment policy whereby all Orthodox Jews withdraw into one neighborhood and abandon the rest of the community. The stranger who accosted him did not ask, “Where do you live?” He asked him, מאיזו עיר אתה – “From what place are you?” And therein lies the difference. Philo maintained that the pious man is a stranger on earth, for he is intrinsically a citizen of Heaven who is only temporarily here. His real makom is in Heaven. That is, I believe, the meaning of this dialogue between the Tanna and the stranger. What, asked the stranger, is your rea…
Yom Kippur Pirkei Avot Neviim Death & Mourning Passionate Moderation

Outline

אבות פרק ו׳ (1991)

רמ״א: כל העוסק בת״ל... כקרא רע אהוב, אוהב את המקום אוהב את הדריבם... ק׳ מילא מי שלומד ת״ל אוהב את המקום; אבל גם הבריות? הלא כל כבלי נתון בתורתו, ואיך נאמר עליו שאוהב את הבריות? ת׳: לפני כן אמר את התנא ״נקרא רע אוהב״? ונראה שצריכים לחבר שניהם לתואר אחד: ״רע אהוב״ צרדייני מי שמקיים ״ואהבת לרעך כמוך.״ והטעם: ומי שלומד ת״ל לומד איך לפלך כל פניי׳ אישית ועל כן גם אהבת הרע שלו ולא היא בלי פניי׳. וא״כ – אוהב את הבריות מבלי להפלות ביניהם, ובלי נגיעות אישיות.
Pirkei Avot