Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well during these challenging times.
What comes first: building character or attaining Torah knowledge?
The custom to study a chapter of Pirkei Avot on each Shabbos between Pesach and Shavuot is commonly understood to be based on the principle that derech eretz (good character) precedes the Torah, that the necessary preparation for receiving the Torah on Shavuot is the refinement of character we learn about in Avot. At the same time, we see Torah study as building character, as the Talmud (Yoma 86a) describes: “He who studies Torah – see how beautiful his deeds are, how refined his manners.” This duality illustrates the virtuous cycle described in Avot (3:17) that “where there is no derech eretz there is no Torah and where there is no Torah there is no derech eretz.” The already refined are drawn to engage in Torah study which in turn helps them grow more refined. This virtuous cycle is conveyed in a remarkable pair of stories told in the Midrash about Rabbi Yanai.
One is a well-known story found in the Midrash on parshat Metzora (Vayikra Rabba 16:2). A certain peddler would circulate proclaiming, “Who seeks to purchase the elixir of life?” When Rabbi Yanai, who was at the time studying Torah heard this offer, he invited the peddler in. The peddler initially demurred, saying “you and those like you do not need this,” but when pressed the peddler showed Rabbi Yanai the verse: “Who is the man who desires life? Guard your tongue from evil” (Tehillim 34:14–15). Rabbi Yanai was deeply struck by how the peddler had brought those words to life, noting that all his life he had been reading them and had failed to see in them what the peddler had. Notice that while the peddler felt that a Torah scholar had no need to focus explicitly on guarding his tongue, Rabbi Yanai himself insisted on pausing his deep Torah study to learn this lesson of derech eretz from the peddler.
This story seems to follow a story told in an earlier Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 9:3). The same Rabbi Yanai encountered a distinguished and impressive person and invited him home as a guest. After their meal, Rabbi Yanai attempted unsuccessfully to initiate Torah discussions with the guest but discovered that the man was so ignorant of Torah that he could not even lead the bentsching. Rabbi Yanai was deeply disappointed and expressed shockingly sharp disdain for his guest’s ignorance, whereupon the guest grabbed Rabbi Yanai and called him out for closing him out of his rightful portion in the world of Torah study. When Rabbi Yanai saw his guest’s craving for Torah he was mollified but remained puzzled as to how such an ignorant person could be so refined. The man explained: “I have never heard a bad word said about someone and shared it back to its subject and I never saw two people quarreling with one another and did not make peace between them.” These words of course struck home, as they stood in contrast to how Rabbi Yanai had just disparaged his guest.
Rabbi Yanai had begun with an assumption that Torah was the exclusive pathway to build character but came away recognizing that refinement can be achieved independent of Torah study when someone uses the power of speech to grow peace rather than strife. The postscript offered by the Midrash to this revelation of Rabbi Yanai was a restatement of the principle that derech Eretz precedes the Torah, and it is what serves as the pathway to achieve it.
This explains Rabbi Yanai’s amazement at the words of the peddler whom he later encountered and interrupted his Torah study to learn from. Having spent much of his life thinking that Torah study alone constituted the pathway to life, he learned first from his guest and then from the peddler that building character and practicing refined speech are critical to both the pathway and the goal of Torah study, free-standing yet interrelated components of a virtuous cycle of building greatness, for “where there is no derech eretz there is no Torah and where there is no Torah there is no derech Eretz.”
Have a wonderful Shabbos and may we be blessed with besoros tovos, truly good news.
Moshe Hauer