Avos 2:2, 1 - A contentious mishna

"Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince said:

1.Good is Torah together with a worldly occupation (derech eretz), for the exertion in both makes one forget sin.

2.All Torah study without work will result in waste and will cause sinfulness.

3.Anyone who works for the community should work for the sake of Heaven...

This famous Mishna has served as a favourite destination for reading into it ideological positions of all different kinds. Some focused on the construct "X and Y", in this case, "Torah with Derech Eretz", explaining and bringing proofs that in such a construct it is the first word, Torah, is of the main importance and  "Derech Eretz" seconday to it (See Tosafos Yeshanim to Yoma 85b and Rash  quoted in Gro). Some even claimed that Derech Eretz refers to politeness and social graces and not to an occupation (Kovetz Heoros by R. Elchanan Wasserman based on a midrash rabba), which, of course, makes Torah study without working the ultimate goal. Others, on the contrary say that it is the second item in the construct "X with Z) is the predominant one, saying that work is more important than Torah study  (Tos. Yeshanim ibid).

It is quite clear to me that Derech Eretz must mean "occupation". That fact comes out of the way in which the mishna divides into three parts, each part with tis "key" word, and the key words are all about work and not about politeness and social grace.

1.Good is Torah together with a worldly occupation (derech eretz), for the exertion in both makes one forget sin.

2.All Torah study without work will result in waste and will cause sinfulness.

3.Anyone who labors for the community should work for the sake of Heaven...

Incidentally, this mishna is unusual because most such mishnayos that employ tripartite divisions do not obvously connect the different parts. In Avos, for example, certain commentators spilled much ink attempting to explain how these parts of many mishanyos fit together. Yet, this mishna is clearly organized around the concept of occupation, work, labor.

Personally, I think that mishanyos that are built in threes are a merely a special case of list-making.  Some list making is menumonic and some is the work of legal systematization. I wrote about it here. Briefly, I believe that early Tannoim received a mass of unorganized precedent, law and commentary, in the form of short statemetns and as commentary on Troah verses. They then, over several generations engaged in making lists. Many such lists, contain 3, 5, 7, or 10 examples of a rule or a law. The Tannaim who did these are caleld Sofrim, which means not scribes but counters. This is why we accasionally find mishnayos which list three apparently unconnected laws or axamples. Some of them are truly unconnected, except thorugh being united by their author. Others are connected by a "key" word, as in our mishna, and others are, in fact, thematically connected.

to be continued

Lists and exceptions

 

Comments

[h]

I have long wondered why the same root that means “to count” also means “to relate”, or to “enscribe”. What you say makes sense, but it does not take into account the fact that the same phenomenon exists also in several foreign languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French. Nor does it explain why in Hebrew the root SPR also means to take a haircut.

[avakesh]

I think that until the adoption of Arabic numerals and the invention of zero, counting was done thorugh letters - hence, the same word for writing adn counting.

[h]

What about taking a haircut?

[Term papers]

Congratulation, to you man, Such a nice post, really interesting, really admire your work, to have some more of it,Thanks.