Pirke Avot… speaks straight to the heart with a timeless immediacy and power. It speaks to each one of us, in each stage of life, with an immediate applicability to the important decisions we face.
Pirke Avot is…a deeply religious book. It tightly weaves together the three strands of spirituality, right conduct, and learning, forming a seamless fabric, a pattern for life. The sages whose sayings are collected here were not simply trying to give good advice in pithy phrases, but were trying to etch the outlines of a Divine Plan for mankind, a ‘Torah’. They tried to identify principles which would not only improve the quality of life, but which would also imbue lives and relationships with a sense of the sacred, with holiness. Avot and more generally the Talmud are treasures of detailed examinations of how ethical values and good relationships are intertwined.
…Pirke Avot continues the Torah’s passionate concern with establishing justice, but introduces three key changes: a greater emphasis on love and peace, a devotion to book learning and rational discussion, and a belief in God’s reward and punishment of individuals in "the world to come," as well as in this world. These views fit together to form a whole. The right education would help to produce people who are just and kind. Thus society could rely more on education, and less on the harsh punishments laid down in the Torah. God’s providence—personal concern for each individual—and reward and punishment in this life and the next were also powerful motivations for right conduct.
Berkson, William. Pirke Avot: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life. JPS, Philadelphia. 2010.
All of us crave "how-to-books" that promise to improve our lives, our skills, our fortunes. We want to know how to lose weight, cook, ski, fix the car and the TV, and-most important- how to be happy and how to relate to others and to ourselves. Some of these books enjoy a brief span of popularity; then they are forgotten. Others are more fortunate; but even these generally cannot hold the attention of their readers for very long. However, all of these volumes have some things in common: There is rarely a line that would adhere to anyone's memory, there is nothing quotable, there is nothing to be carried away as an idea. There are a few exceptions-very few. This book, Pirke Avot, is one of these exceptions.... It is a small collection, which today we might call a mini-anthology for it is composed of pithy saying of famous rabbis.... It deals with the essentials of today's life: with fixing broken relationships and-most important-it shows a Jew how to become a better person. In that sense, Pirke Avot belongs in the category of a "how-to" book, with quotable aphorisms and memorable metaphors. It teaches us the essentials of what life might be at its best. It is Jewish ethics in the broadest sense.
Kravitz, Leonard and Kerry M. Olitzky. Pirke Avot: A Modern Commentary on Jewish Ethics. "Foreward." UAHC Press, New York. 1993.
The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers is the oldest collection of ethical dicta of the Rabbis of the Mishnah. It is a Rabbinic anthology. It has been happily styled “a compendium of practical ethics,” and, as Mielziner has said, “these Rabbinical sentences, if properly arranged, present an almost complete code of human duties." The Avot is, then, a sort of moral code. BY JOSEPH I. GORFINKLE, Ph.D.
Themes by Chapters
Kravitz, Leonard and Kerry M. Olitzky. Pirke Avot: A Modern Commentary on Jewish Ethics. "Foreward." UAHC Press, New York. 1993.
Chapter 1: At Sinai Moses Received the Torah
Chapter 2: Which is the Proper Path?
Chapter 3: Know Where You Came From; Know Where You Are Going
Chapter 4: Who is Wise?
Chapter 5: The World Was Created by Ten Statements
Chapter 6: Whoever Studies the Torah for Its Own Sake Merits Many Things
Pirkei Avot falls naturally into the following strands or divisions:
- Chapter I, 1−15: Chronologically arranged sayings of the oldest authorities, from the men of the Great Synagogue to Hillel and Shammai.
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- Chapters I, 16−II, 4: Sayings of the men of the school of Hillel to Rabban Gamaliel (about 230 C.E.), the son of Judah ha−Nasi
- Chapter II, 5−8: Additional sayings of Hillel.
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- Chapter II, 9−19: The sayings of Jochanan ben Zakkai, the pupil of Hillel, and of his disciples.
- Chapter II, 20−21: The sayings of Rabbi Tarfon, a younger contemporary of Jochanan ben Zakkai.
- Chapter III: the maxims of seventeen Tannaim (authorities mentioned in the Mishnah) to the time of and including Rabbi Akiba. These are not arranged in strictly chronological order.
- Chapter IV: The sayings of twenty−five Tannaim after the time of Rabbi Akiba, who were contemporaries of Rabbi Meir and of Rabbi Judah Ha−Nasi. These are not chronologically arranged.
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- Chapter V, 1−18: Anonymous sayings forming a series of groups of ten, seven, and four things, dealing with the creation of the world, with miracles, and with the varieties of men and minds.
- Chapter V, 19−22: Anonymous sayings touching upon the varieties of motives and contrasting the good and evil dispositions.
- Chapter V, 23: Sayings of Judah ben Tema.
- Chapter V, 24: The ages of man.
- Chapter V, 25, 26: The sayings of Ben Bag Bag and of Ben He He.
- Chapter VI: The acquisition of the Torah; praise of the Torah
BY JOSEPH I. GORFINKLE, Ph.D.