Confronting Vulnerability

Avot 4:22

He used to say: The ones who were born are to die, and the ones who have died are to be brought to life, and the ones brought to life are to be judged; so that one may know, make known, and have the knowledge that He is G-d, He is the designer, He is the creator, He is the discerner, He is the judge, He is the witness, He is the complainant, and that He will summon to judgment.

Blessed be He, before Whom there is no iniquity, nor forgetting, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes, for all is His. And know that all is according to the reckoning. And let not your impulse assure you that the grave is a place of refuge for you; for against your will were you formed, against your will were you born, against your will you live, against your will you will die, and against your will you will give an account and reckoning before the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

The final Mishna of the fourth chapter opens with a resoundingly shocking statement: “The ones who were born are to die.” Rabbi Elazar’s frank realization that from the time we are born we are destined to die frames the entirety of the Mishna. This knowledge is meant to instill our awareness of G-d and His judgment, informing our religious decision-making.

This existential awareness of our mortality is not foreign to Pirkei Avot. Rabbi Eliezer encouraged us to “repent one day before your death” (2:10), and similar to this Mishna, Akaviah ben Mahalalel adjured meditating on the stark reality and relative quickness of the lifecycle: “From where do you come? From a putrid drop. Where are you going? To a place of dust, of worm, and of maggot. Before whom you are destined to give an account and reckoning? Before the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.” (3:1).

In his book Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics, Professor Jonathan Wyn Schofer notes the psychological theories stemming from Freudian thought that there is a human tendency to deny and suppress our inevitable mortality. The rabbis, in contrast, “portray vulnerability through images and genres that resist abstraction, evasion, and superficial acceptance.”  In his commentary on this Mishna, Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski similarity points to the way halacha confronts death as a rejoinder to the desire to avoid confronting reality: “There’s no denying of what happened nor disguising it. There are no frills that can eliminate the pain subsequent to the loss of a loved one. The painful reality must be acknowledged, accepted, and overcome so that one can proceed with life.”

Stoic philosophers contemporary to the Sages of the Mishna also emphasized encountering the reality of death. Marcus Aurelius, for instance, writes in Meditations: “In the conviction that it is possible you may depart from life at once, act and speak and think in every case accordingly.” As historian Sir Richard Sorabji notes in Emotions and Peace of Mind, the purpose of such future-oriented thinking was to shape one’s orientation to the present. Despite their similarities, Professor Schofer contrasts the Stoic approach with that of the rabbis. The goal of the Stoic focus on death was to free a person from fear and other emotions. The goal of the sayings in Pirkei Avot, however, are to intensify one’s emotions towards G-d, Who rewards and punishes, thereby “inspiring humility, anxiety, and vigilance.” The emotional resonances of this outlook don’t necessarily lead to peace of mind but are meant to increase religious and ethical decision-making.

Rabbi Dr. Reuven Bulka explains the repeated focus on judgment as an ethical motivator. He writes:

The emphasis on ultimate judgment as a recurring ethical theme is constantly brought to the fore because it places individuals on their eternal, ethical toes by forcing the recognition that every act, every deed performed, and every transgression avoided has ultimate value and will ultimately be weighed. The individual sees that everything has consequence. It is the individual who sees consequence in every action who is most likely to be ethically attuned.

The mindset that evades thinking about judgment and consequences may lead to more relaxation, but will likely not augment ethical, moral, and spiritual sensitives.  Because there is a natural tendency for people to evade thinking about such serious and weighty issues, contemplating and repeating the mantra are important for inculcating the message.

Embedded within Rabbi Elazar’s message is another practical strategy to instill these lofty principles. In a seemingly repetitive fashion, the Mishna states, “So that one may know, make known, and have the knowledge that He is G-d.” What is the difference between “one may know,” in the first clause, and “have the knowledge” in the last? Rabbi Yosef Yavetz explains that first we may have some elementary or superficial knowledge of the concept. Then, by teaching it to others through the second step (“make known”), we truly reflect and process the ideal, so that it leads to the stage where we “have the knowledge.” It is through teaching others about G-d that we ourselves become truly transformed.