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1989

Radical Moderation: Avot Chapter 2 (1989)

Pirkei Avot Passionate Moderation
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Avot Perek Bet and Dalet (1969)

This mishnah has a parallel in Chapter IV, where, in the name of R. Elazar HaKappar, we read of three similar qualities that “take a man out of the world” – עין רעה, יצר הרע, ושנאת הבריות. If we accept this parallelism, then “the evil eye” should be understood not in its usual context as a kind of “jinx,” but rather as a sense of begrudging which harms the perpetrator much more than its intended victim. Jealousy – the evil eye – eats away at the innards of the one who is jealous and slowly destroys him, not only psychologically and spiritually, but even physically. יצר הרע and תאווה are obviously related. And the pursuit of honor usually implies a desire to be superior to others – hence שנאת הבריות. But why only these three? And what is the meaning of the strange phrase “take him out of the world”? Should not the mishnah have mentioned three worse crimes – perhaps the three cardinal sins? I believe that the Tanna was aiming specifically at three qualities or dispositions which lend themselves to misinterpretation. The cardinal crimes or the great virtues are simple enough to observe. The blacks and the whites of life are not what make up the “world” – which is for the greatest part comprised of shades of gray. It is rare that, in crisis, we are confronted with clear-cut options: good and evil, right and wrong. Normally, we have to make subtle distinctions; we are faced with paradoxes and ambivalences and are forced to choose amid uncertainty and confusion. This confusion and ambivalence are most oppressive when we deal with ideas and qualities that can serve both the ends of good and of evil, of the right and of the wrong. At such times, not only is there an element of uncertainty as to whether we are using or abusing a certain quality, but there is a tendency for us to submit to rationalization – to abuse a quality and to assume we are doing the proper thing. Since the world is constituted mostly of such uncertainties and such qualities of double nature, when we c…
Pirkei Avot Character Development General Jewish Thought Passionate Moderation

Article

Pride, Humility, and Meekness (1990)

Maimonides' theory of character, as formulated in his Commentary on the Mishnah (the section on Avot, more popularly known as "The Eight Chapters") and later in his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, posits the famous rule of the mean as the key to character. The Middle Way is identified by him as the derekh Hashem, the "way of the Lord," and thus the way man must follow in forming his own character. Maimonides allows for only two exceptions, in which it is mandatory to go to one of the extremes. In each of the cases, Maimonides declares the Middle Way to be inoperative; here, in these two instances, one must necessarily go to the extreme. Thus, in the case of pride, Maimonides posits three points on the character bar: pride on one end, humility or lowliness (shiflut) on the other, and a mid-point he calls anavah. This last is the compromise between arrogant self-importance and self-debasing humility. Yet, while ordinarily the Middle Way calls for just such a moderate balance of traits, that does not hold true for this case of one's self-image, and also not for temper where too one must go to the other extreme. Maimonides offers two proof texts for his assertion of this exception. The first is the character of Moses in the enigmatic accusation against Moses by his brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam. We are not privy to the details of the siblings' complaint, but what is underscored is the remarkable reaction of Moses: he does not say a word, despite all temptation. Thus, Moses earns the Torah's encomium, והאיש משה ענו מארד מכל האדם אשר על פני האדמה, Moses was very anav, more so than any man the face of the earth. Since the Torah qualifies the anav sobriquet with the intensifier "very," that means that this mid-point must be extremely anav, which means: humble or lowly. And later, in Avot (chapter 4), we read: רבי לויטם איש יבנה אומר מאוד מארד הרה שפל רוח שתקרת אנוש רימה—r. Levitas of Yavneh said: Be very lowly of spirit, for the hope of man is naught but the worm. N…
Pirkei Avot Character Development Passionate Moderation

Speech

The Theme of Moderation in Modern Orthodoxy (1989)

I begin on two contradictory notes, one apologetic, the other not only not apologetic but anti-apologetic. The apologetic note concerns my uneasiness in using the term Centrist Orthodoxy, but it is a term which I prefer principally for one reason, which I shall elaborate presently. Critics of the term assume that Centrist indicates that we locate ourselves at some midpoint between orthodoxy and assimilationism, and claim that territory as our religious home. But that is nonsense. Only slightly less absurd is the idea that centrist orthodoxy is the mid-point between Satmar and the few intellectuals who occupy the ground called the Orthodox Left. That is also inaccurate. It is no compliment to our intelligence to imagine that we who declare ourselves Centrist walk around the religious terrain with a yardstick, calipers and a calculator measuring the exact distance between Neturei Karta and Humanistic Judaism - so called - in order to locate the exact middle or centre. We are not, and do not aspire to be ideological geographers or spiritual statisticians who search out the exact centre between right and wrong, religious and non-religioua, mitzva and avera, and settle upon that as our religious goal. It may be wrong, but I submit that our centrism is not really that simple minded and religiously asinine.What of the title we have been called all along, Modern Orthodoxy? I am uncomfortable with that label because it is a combination of two highly infelicitous words. One is arrogant, modern: I'm modern, that makes me better than anyone else in the past. The other is inaccurate because orthodoxy implies ideological blindness and constricted thought, and that is not correct.Of course there are those who say that we should do away with all adjectives and simply identify ourselves as orthodox jews, period. It does away with the whole problem of labels, or it seems to. In fact if we did that that would leave 90 percent of this audience and all those who have come to the Sympos…
Passionate Moderation