Avos 2:1 - The Path of the Individual

 Rabbi Judah the Prince said: Which is the straight path that a man should choose for himself? That which is beauty to him and beauty for him from the other person.

The second chapter of Avos continues the strand of familial leadership that started with Hillel's descendents in the role of the Nasi. It continues until mishna four, which starts again with Hillel and now lists the non-familial chain of transmission from Hillel through R. Yochanan ben Zakkai and onward.

Another important development in this chapter is the preoccupation with the "path" of the individual in Divine Service. Whereas the fist chapter was focused on the political and societal role of Torah adherents in a larger, and after Shimon Hatsaddik, a corrupt and essentially areligious society, this chapter gives that quest up, or perhaps completes it, in a quest for the proper "path" for an individual. The question of :what is the right path" recurrs three times in this chapter ( I include the first mishna of the next chapter), once as an actual question. In mishna 10 and 11, R. Yochanan ben Zakkai asks his students:  אמר להם, צאו וראו איזו היא דרך טובה שידבק בה האדם

"Go and see which is the good way to which a person should cling?... What is the bad way from which a person should distance?"

Another signifcance change is the introduction of the terminology of going, entering, exiting and transitioning. One finds expression such as, "come into sin", "exit from the world", "floating on the water", "go out and see". It is as if the model of religious life as a journey begins to resonate and dominate in this chapter; the static and communal outlook gives way to a personal and unsettled travel through life as the predominant religious metaphor. The reasons for it are not hard to understand. As we discussed, the end of the Second Temple period saw the abandonment of the idea of the Jewish Polity based on the three pillars of Torah, Avodah and Sacrifical Service, an idea that the Rabbis struggled throughout this time and throughout this chapter to preserve in some way or fashion, for a religious group at least, if not for the entire state.

R. Yehuda Hanassi as a transitional figure was well suited for putting forth this teaching of individual's responsibility and a personal path. He was seventh generation to Hillel (Shabbos 56a). He is one the few Tannaim who had a dual identity, as R. Yehudah the Prince and simply as Rebbi (Shabbos 32b but see at the end of Ch.1 of Peah where we find R. Yehuda Hanassi and Rebbi in a disagreement). In this sense he was a way-station between a communal, familial model of religious leadership and life and the path of the individual that was now coming to the fore. Seder Hadoros on p.171 says that Rebbi was both a Tanna and an Amora; we find therefore an expression, "Rebbi tanna hu upalig" in Taanis 14b; in several places we find that he was treated as an Amora. This was because once the Mishna was completed, the era of Amoraim started, still while Rebbi was alive. After Rebbi, the model shifted from learning at the feet of the Sages as a group to studying from a particular individual Sage, though yeshivos still functioned as the places in which Torah was reviewed and the text of statements was fixed and elucidations were publicly offered (see Sanhedrin 17b). Until his time, you do not find that a Tanna was an exclusively student of a Sage who preceded him but you do increasingly find it after Rebbi's time.

Comments

[Yehonasan]

Thanks for an interesting post, as usual for you.
I can't find the disagreement you mentioned between Rebbi and Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi. Are you sure it is in Peah? I looked at the Mishnah and Tosefta and am unable to locate it.

[avakesh]

I am sorry, I was not clear. It is in Yerushami. Doros Harishonim mentions it and there is another place in Yerushalmi where this disagreement appears, which makes it unlikely to be a scribal error. Neither is it plausible to say that R. Yehuda Hanassi refers to Rebbi's grandson because the two never disagree and Rebbi was a Tanna while R. Yehuda Nessiah was an Amora.

Perhasp it is like R. Meir and Acheirim, referring to the same Tanna at different stages of his life (See Tosafos Sota 12a). He was called R. Yehuda Hanassi before he compiled Mishna and Rebbi after that. This would support the thesis of this post.

[avakesh]

I just want to add that Doros Harishonim brings several answers to the stirah regarding R. Meir and Acheirim. One, from Beer Shaeva at the end of Horayos is that what he learned until the ruling that he should be referred to as "acheirim" should be attributed to "R. Meir" and after that to "Acheirim".