Introduction to Pirkei Avot Part 1 By Rabbi Moshe Snow

okay good morning everyone uh it is a great salute for me to introduce our our newest addition to our lineup here at the OU Isel Center um and that is Rabbi my illustrious and distinguished father-in-law Rabbi mosha snow Rabbi mosha snow of course for many decades was a leading rabic personality in the Brooklyn New York area as well as a longtime beloved faculty member at the JC Yeshiva in in Elizabeth New Jersey and it's a great to to introduce and welcome Rabbi snow to our lineup here and you're in for a treat Rabbi snow has been teaching pavas in depth I won't say for how many many many many years and uh we're delighted to add that special class to our lineup here on Tuesday morning so without further Ado rabbi mnow uh if I may ask everybody just please turn their phones on to silent for the duration of this year thank you everyone this is the first me it's the first time I'm giving not in my but here Ines and uh thank you all for coming let's hope that it's worthwhile uh Rabbi sh's introduction uh was played down because I told him just the fact that you're my son-in-law doesn't give you the right to exaggerate we're about to embark on uh a study of one of the most famous you might say tractates Orum in kaz's lexicon of peros peros means chapters of the fathers but it's been translated generally over all the years as ethics of the fathers or the teachings of the fathers and that's because there's a reason for this name interestingly enough peros is part of Shas but it appears in the section of nikin for those of you who know there are six orders of the mishna spelling uh two words that pointed out over the time cut literally means choose the time and it's it's an acronym for Zim moim nikim Kim and taros so ethics of the fathers oros appears in at the end at the very end of nikin nikin has to do with damages with just in the DFI starting B we just finished b bakama b Basu according to many interpretations encapsulated one section of naikin of Damages and the Jewish people have this very big concern about being careful of others property others body others ownership to the point where when you start learning uh in in in B the first Miss two people are holding on to a garment and this one says it's mine the other one says it's mine as is well known and what do you do how do you how do you work this out and the and the next 10 15 BL gar deal with small little measures of this one says half is mine the other one says the other f is mine and so on and so forth and they want to avoid difficulty I want to do the right thing and divide everything up in the most proper way so we have damages and discussions about everyday objects and things and if someone entrusts someone with someone else's property and so on and at the end of theas and then you go to sh people who take Oaths and swears the laws of the son and so on at the end of all this comes peros and peros is the end of nikin because of the fact that the Jewish people are so concerned about others property and others wealth and others being we have to know how to deal with that and there are ethical values attached to this is it right to do something or is it not right to do something this is something that even the nations of the world as is pointed out by the rambam in his introduction to peo says that the nations of the world also have values they also have ethical values but they're constantly in flux and they're never empirical and long lasting they change with the times what's acceptable today was not acceptable yesterday and hopefully won't be acceptable tomorrow and and as we know when we look at the society and the declining of moral values and ethical values and what's proper and what's acceptable we know that as the ramban points out there's one difference between CLA Israel its values and its ethical teachings and the rest of the world and that is it never changes it Remains the Same because it's divine in its origin so that's the that's the beginning of of the concept that has to do with peas now the ramb the rambam in his introduction uh actually it's brought down by the uh by he quotes the ra and he says there's two reasons there are two main reasons why peros is included in zekin and why we have to study them and he says the first reason is and this is very important important because if we take a look at the first Mna in we see that it says M they said three things so it starts out MOS received the Torah from that's the first M and he gave it over to yesu andu and so on so forth and the r says the first reason is because our tradition our masterful tradition of passing it on from generation to generation and people to people is a guarantee of the authenticity of the Torah because it's in every single generation that they backed up what was said from the previous ones and said this is EMS and this is true now you could say that you know over time you know one one of the things people often complain about is well wait a minute if you you ever play game telephone you play the game telephone you know the game starts you have 15 people in a row and one Whispers something to the second person and the second person to the third and the third to the and when you get to the 15th it's not the same mches that started out at the first so they say well if the Jewish people had this passed on from generation to generation to generation maybe it got skewed in between maybe it got messed up maybe it's not as authentic as it was in the past now a lot of people say that when it comes to Toral especially when it comes to the oral law they say well you know you can you can tell me the written law is exactly word for word and so on but you know when it comes to oral law maybe it's not so so the ramban points out right away you should put him in a high place love because it went from generation to generation it came to the generation and we know that it's exactly the same as it was from before how how do we know that how do we know that so in is Introduction to understanding the value of Torah I want to read you a very interesting discussion in the gar shabas shabas tells three stories about Hill and shamai everybody's familiar familiar with the Second Story right what was it uh a perspective G or according to the m it wasn't really a g it was a non from Jew who wanted to know if you know what's being taught is authentic and he says you know teach me the whole Torah teach teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot we you're all familiar with this right teach me the Tor I stand on one foot so he comes to shamai and shamai theor says he took theion he took the he took the the beam the beam of the building as the says he says he took the he took a beam from the house and he and he he ripped it out of the he ripped it out of the ceiling and he started chasing the person as if he's going to hit him with the with theion okay the explains really what's going on over here is he was trying to give a message to the person you see this building I just took a beam right out of the building did the building collapse it didn't collapse it shows you that the it the Torah isn't dependent upon you know you're standing on one foot it's not one thing there's a whole compendium of things so we're familiar with that particular story but I want you to know that the story that comes before that is really even more valuable in terms of understanding the nature of the Tav and T the over here he brings down let me get my let me get my reading glasses on over here see he brings down the first particular Story one second also about H and shamai and it's also about the G who the perspective G who wants to learn you know the whole tah while standing on on one foot and he says he says like this he says like this so it's okay he says oh it's I'm sorry he brings down like this he says the first story you know uh he said to him how how many how many Tas do you have we have two Tas what are they right as far as the Torah is concerned I believe you I trust you I accept it no problem but the T I don't believe you that that's authentic it could get skewer over time I don't believe you that it's authentic right so he said to uh he said convert me on condition that you teach me only the Torah I'll accept it if you teach me the so Shai got a bit angry at him and he he threw him out goodbye H oh now the G perspective G or perspective Bala comes to H right and he says to him and he says convert me and teach me the right way and G he accepted him and he gave him Gus he said yeah I'll accept you you could take just T no problem how could he do that we'll see in a minute y on the first day of the lessons that he was going to teach him he said to him gim Hill said to the perspective g a point that Olive he points at an olive and he said this is an alive he points at the base he said this is a base points at the giml he said this is a giml points at the dollar he said this is a dollar and he said go home andaz over today's lesson I want you to review what I taught you today the next day when the G came back for the second lesson Hill points to the Al and he says doid he points to the baz he says gimmel he points to the gimmel he says baze he points to the doid and he says Al just the opposite he points says just the opposite right so he said uh you know and and what what the G say the g says but wait a minute you told me yesterday gim today you're telling me gim what what's going on over here so H says to him wait a minute how do you know I was right yesterday you're relying on my b telling you that this is what theab is about caught dead to wrs and he understood completely we don't know what an olive or a baze or a gimel or a it is without Torah how do we know our Mo our teacher our rebi whatever you had in kindergarten first second third grade there's an olive you said okay it's an olive so the whole transmission is all Bal everything is really B and the the kav and the Bal work in such a way that it's impossible to get past Olive Bay gimal if you don't recognize that the authenticity of Tor is totally dependent upon your acceptance of Tor andal recognized and understood this Hashem understood this and he gave us a t which by the way you take a Tav you take the written law and you start analyzing simple things you take the Ten Commandments for instance there's a fascinating question about the first of the aeras what is the first commandment what is it I am so what's the Commandment I don't see a commandment there what's the first I don't see anything I don't hear about it and what is go to the go to the last one don't CET or desire someone else's whatever what do that mean I'm not allow to have feelings I'm not all to say oh boy that what what's this thing that's going on in India the guy has a one billion dollar watch or what was it a million dollar something like that I love that's oh let me see that watch a human being can't take a look at it you you can't have feelings is that what it means and if you go through the gamar on this you find out it's not that at all it has to do with doing something that demonstrates that you're going to get that thing you know the gor says and it's Hally brought down that if a person said you know uh I I want to buy your house and the other person said no it's not for sale he said but I want I want that house what's the house what what the market value on that house oh the market value on that house well it depends where it is I suppose if it's in RAV Baka it's probably worth a lot more than if it's in some one of the but all right so person says other houses were worth $2 million he said I'll give you 10 million he said you going to give me 10 million I don't really want to sell it oh come on I'll give you 10 I'll give you 12 I'll give you 15 20 and you agree to 20 million do you know that you have transgressed low Sak mode even though you paid for it with good money you don't even know what L Sak mode means we don't know where means we really don't even know how to translate if we don't go to the it's hard to explain what do is our God right wait a minute I just gave you two names now you're telling me it's one you just gave me two different names what does that mean and you say which one is it or oh now no it's not elu it's only how do you translate and this is a dilemma that if you really with thought about it you're going to wonder what am I ding every single day I say my eyes I take the doll I stretch out the Dollar by the way mentioning the dollar just throw out last week said if you remember in it says you what's unusual about the word a it's got a large r at the end of the at the end of the word a large right and do you spell and the dollar is large right how come the dollar is large by a and the and the r is lodged by a so I once heard at Russia this goes back this goes back more than 60 years ago I heard of Russia from a from a rabbi at a B Mitzvah and he said and it was the I don't know which said was but he he said this particular thing he said you know what the difference between and is I'll I'll tell you the difference Aid is straight and perpendicular exactly a a little bit bent says you know what happen when you you know what happens when you take and you start bending it a little bit and you start playing around with the one and only God if becomes that's why there is a large ration of large Doge you got to know the difference now this is T but it's in the Tor and consequently when it comes to and it's telling us it's because the tradition of clel is exact and is passed down from generation to generation to generation EX exactly the way it always was so the ram when he gives us that information at the beginning of per and he says that the first reason is that the is it's crucial to learn because of that reason and the second reason he gives and we're now going to focus on another point is because he wants to let us know what the literally but it also means of course instruction in terms of like said he was the the a of the Bali mus and he said mus is crucial to learn because when you when you study the MOs toos that the gdm have that will help us understand what we should emulate and how we should behave and it's specifically the that bear this m because they're the ones who have to be the most ethical of all the people because if they are ethical and they are doing the right thing and we will emulate them we in turn will copy that particular Point theava Caba brings down that RAB Isel salant was once asked why does he emphasize muser so much why you why you emphasizing the teaching of muser why why don't you emphasize the teaching of or the teaching of pish of the or or or the mishna why you emphasizing mus so much I'll tell you person once came to me and he said to me you know rebi I only have 15 minutes a day to learn what should I learn in those 15 minutes should I learn should I learn Novi should I learn should I learn M should I learn medish what should I learn says if you only have 15 minutes a day learn mus he says mus you want me to learn M if I only have 15 minutes a day what about all the other things that are important he said if you start learning mus you're going to find out you have more than 15 minutes a day that's why so so it's so it's not so ped that that the mus is not of the of tremendous value it has tremendous value because the the m and the mus which brings out the right MOS that is what is absolutely crucial I learned in the and and of course I was exposed to r mosha z and to his son Ravid Z and RAV Feinstein when he was asked numerous times by people I'm looking for a for my daughter or for my son either whatever it was what should I look for in the perspective mate and Ravid invariably answered find someone with good meidos because that is going to make a successful marriage more important than anything else you have to see the person's MOS one of the stories that is told over in the safer that they wrote about I don't even call it a book it's not even a biography it's mish's safer because when you when you read it and you read the kind of person he was and how he dealt with people you get the picture so uh there was one particular fell fellow who was very very tall he was very tall and he was very a girl wonderful mid old the ales you know you really should consider this sh and he said okay I'll give it a date he went out on the date he came back the next day and he said this is not for me he's 6'4 she's 5 foot4 that's still not bad 5'4 but he's 6'4 you he said she she's too short for it's not it's not for me it's not for me so he came back to Reb he said rebie should I go out again he said absolutely give it another chance he went out again and again and again and finally they got engaged so said to him you know what happened he said well I'll tell you after getting to know the person I didn't notice the height difference because Theos was so good that everything else ped by compan Arison it doesn't matter and by the way you should know something rosha was not a very tall man rosha was very short he was about 5 foot one F maybe maybe 5 foot2 maybe I don't think so he was much shorter than me all right and and and his wife was pretty tall she was about 5' 6 5' s she was pretty tall there was no problem there whatsoever because the meidos are what brought out who the people were and so the rambam is saying that the second reason why you absolutely must learn about mid of the OS and he calls the OS he brings down a p famous P by Alisha when Eli went up to sh it says that Alisha cried out because he he recognized that the teachings that came came to him from Eli were the same as the teachings as if they were given from a father and the leaders of the Jewish people are ouros AB y yob why do we study almost 2,000 years of History prior to K Israel becoming a nation when we left Egypt in 2448 it's 2 and a half thousand years because braus is the OS it teaches us what the fathers did and that we are the children and consequently consequently the study ofos according to R is actually very very important he said by the of and the children are called B the the students are called bon we have to look at our children our students as if they are Bon they they our kids because that's the future of clel and consequently peros is crucial and absolutely valuable in a in the longest term possible and the values that of course come from now if we take a look at the beginning of P every one of us knows what's my what's my time limit here 10 10 10 10 101 okay so so uh if you take a look at you take a look at in in any s in any in any safer quoting peras you're going to find that P does not start with M there's a little bit something right before that in every addition and that's a m that comes from andan the famous introduction of a the per in sanin that's called what's so we start out by saying call all of the Jewish people have a share in the world to come amen and they quote and they quote the p in yes this is part of the of at the end it says your your nation all of them are righteous all the Jewish people are righteous and and and and how do we know that all the Jewish people are righteous because the says your nation is all they shall forever inherit the land and of course it's talking about the land of they are the formation of my planting the work of my hands that I may be be glorified says hem that's the p in yesh and thek in yesh is introducing all the Jewish people have a share in the world to come what do you mean why are we starting this very powerful of which has such deep teachings and ethical values why are we starting out with the statement of all of isra every single member of what's the reason we start with that so there are a number of different that speak about this particular aspect of why it says you now difficult it is to take peros study it and then practice it it's a challenge it's a tremendous Challenge and point out that traditionally in the history of clel was always learned between p and Sh we've extended that learning to go well past sh through the entire summer but basically P was always learned between PES and Sh what's the reason for that what why do we learn it between p and Sh a number of reasons number one we have to be aware that from the time of the Advent of the n and the flaws that took place Ines Nissan in PES until 49 days later when we accepted the Torah and received it from Hashem Al we had to go and TR Traverse a tremendous wide chasm in terms of our ethical and mitzvah observance we started out as a nation that was unfortunately borish you know tell us that on PES right before we left we were we had sunken down an amazing medish sunken down to the 49th level of t t doesn't just say 49th level of not so nice m t and by and by my and by sh all of a sudden we're we're whoa number one so this is a period of time tell us in which it's good to study peros because you got to get from there to there and from p is a time to get from the lowest to the highest but there's another reason and we can relate to this of course I think it it we personally I when I used to teach this in uh in our sh in B Park you know so uh we lived in a cooler climate you might say you know even when it gets cold over here it doesn't get to 10 degrees but you know I'm talking about 10 degrees Fahrenheit okay which is way below you know 30 what is it 32 so so 0 degrees Celsius so it's a lot minus so it's really really cold and people hibernate you don't don't you don't you don't get together tooo much but when it comes PES time and it gets nice people start going out so you're mingling more with people and you're meeting friends and and and not only are you meeting friends but the the world begins to Blossom out and as oural say with the for all manner of ill lcit activities although in America I don't think the seasonal makes a difference but but they but but the fact is there is this there is this pension to go to the beach and you know whatever it is and and our kazal wanted us to to be aware that when we study peros that what we've got to do is we got to we have to do everything we can to try to sort of limit it and it's a good idea to start learning these values now it it has nothing to do only with sne it has to do with human interaction when people are getting together more and they're relating to each other it's amazing how many small idiosyncrasies that are involved in our human interactions pop up and we we say oh I can't deal with this guy this you know it's just too much and and along comes a weekly study of peros and uh it sort of zaps it to you and lets you know well now's a good time to practice those mid that are so crucial for human interaction and for making is into one solid unit and not to let the frag fragmentation of personalities get in the way and and it's amazing it's amazing how how how different people could be and how much and how much muser of a positive sort that we need here's an example did you ever think to yourself I'm living in t d 5,784 years since the world was created I'm 3,000 years away from the era of mosha rabenu and others and over the centuries there have been the greatest of g t let's use stuff from our own our own history people could ask and say I don't understand the Von was not able to bring Messiah didn't happen it didn't come salant wasn't able to bring Messiah and in Our Generations ra Moshe couldn't bring M ra sh couldn't bring M ra cook couldn't bring what if they couldn't do it I'm going to do it in in my generation the hamon every every individual every one of us could say to ourselves they couldn't do it and you're telling me I should do it I I I once took some students to see re Feinstein we went to a on Friday and we went and one of them said I'm going to arel next year to learn for a year in arel and he said can I have a so took his hand shook his hand and said go learn and bring Messiah the guy's still learning we didn't bring Messiah yet so we could say to ourselves I don't I don't understand none of these greats none of the none of the powerhouses of the past years were able to bring Messiah and you're telling me that I could bring Mah you're telling me that I do properly and if I relate to my fellow human being properly and I try to keep the Mitzvah all of a sudden this generation this generation will be able to bring Messiah how's it possible it's not going to happen so I was sitting in SHO yesterday I was actually standing in sh but standing in sh and the guy in front of me is having a conversation after ding with a fell next to him and he said uh in my in my lifetime it's not going to happen I'm not going to see mhia I have no hope that I'm going to see MH and I was thinking to myself you're not allowed to say that you're not allowed to say that that's not so I waiting that every single day he could come when you say even though he's taking so long I'm gonna wait for him he could really come at any time when we say that are we saying do we say do we really mean it and I think that what we have to do over here is recognize that when with the statement all of the Jewish people have a share in the world to come and that's the way we introduce Picos it's because they're letting us know that we can bring messia even though the others did not what did the gor say the gor said shimo even though there was a tremendous difference between the leadership of shm and and Shimon but each one in his generation is as great as the previous generation and even though there are giants that preceded us we're standing on their shoulders and we are standing there because we are learning just as us and when we learn that and we inculcate those ethical values we recognize the V of each and every individual and it's interesting that the ethical values that P talks about is not talking only to the gim on the contrary it's talking to the hon to every one of us now of course we shouldn't go around thinking to ourselves I'm not important and I'm not valuable but at the same time we have to look at the value of each and every one of us gar says that a person is supposed to walk around thinking Bish because to me the world was created now that's a pretty interesting thing I you just picture somebody getting up and standing on the corner of King J George and Jaffer Road and he's standing up on a soap box he says everybody pay attention please I want you to hear this unbelievable thing they're gonna lock him up I think there is a guy that does probably so probably so probably so right right and on the other hand I'm nothing but dust and Ashes you know so how do we balance that by studying pyos we walk around with all these ethical values in our hands recognizing that I am valuable and when when when we start out with p and we say we're saying that I am part of that call Israel and that even though I may not be I'm definitely not one of the gor but I have just as much power and just as much of a of a tkid just as much a responsibility to break to bring messiah in our time and it's possible and we can do it and we're supposed to say that to ourselves and that's why peos has to start with the concept of because we study it and we hopefully improve one a one little bit we get we get we get a small fraction each time we we get one day better the the real the real job and the real the real value that peas has for us is to teach us that we don't have to be the RO of bezin we don't have to be the greatest we don't have to be the most MOS filled person but what we do need to do is to get a little bit better and to grow in some small way each time we Face another Y kipur and we say to ourselves you know okay I used to have ABC as a not such good meter but in the 60 years since that time I've been I've managed to get a hold of one and make it a little bit better and and and to improve some what because all the Jewish people every single one from from what we would see consider the the most unaffiliated to to the to the most learned each and every one has and we have to think about the fact that when we when we when we inculcate that within our psyche that we are fulfilling what kazal wanted us to get when they taught us the beginning of per so so more so more or less the introduction which which we'll spend some more time on in the future because I want I have to really crunch that particular introduction to P to be able to re understand what it means when it says you are the branch of my planting Claud is the branch of the planting and and you can just imagine what kazal meant when they said that you are the branch of my planting there's so much going on in that particular statement so uh this is the introduction this is the the basic introduction it's I hope to uh to delve a little bit more into uh I suppose if there's any uh spent two three minutes if there's any questions or comments on the shear anybody had yes why if uh is so important why is it at the end of the Z not the beginning of the zik okay so that's a good question uh nikin and and the Shas and the mishas are there to tell us law and so the study of law is of crucial importance in order for us to to to fulfill the responsibility the Jewish people have you would think that law doesn't have any ethical uh requirement because if you go to a you go to a judge you know because of a transgression in law he's not going to necessarily give you a lecture on ethical values they going to state the law and you're not going to get put in jail for a ethical value of a high order but kazal wanted us to know that it's just as much a law as far as clel is concerned as the nitty-gritty of what you're dealing with when when you when you deal I'll give you an example uh I recently sold a house okay because know you know what what of Hashem gave me a gift about 50 years ago and uh the gift wasn't only my wife but she bought a house for us I didn't know about it I came home from work she says Hey M I bought a house she really did it was a riot it was a riot it's the truth anyway so so I bought a house and as a rebi in Yeshiva I don't know I don't know if you're aware of this no complaints over here but if you're reban Yeshiva you know it's not the high tier salary scale you know and and and you know but but but my wife bought a house so you hold on to a house in bar for 50 years you can retire right right so I had to sell the house so I had an offer for one particular fellow for pretty close to what I wanted it wasn't exactly what I wanted it was close and I I I said you know it sounds good I I I think I think I'll accept that offer let me think about it for a day okay the next on neighbor heard which I already had offered to him for much better price but he didn't want it so batra was out of the picture he called me back I said I heard you got close to what you want I'll beat it he really want it I said I'm sorry I already told the person that I was going to give it to him and I did that based on a shil that I asked because I already sort of gave my word so now the nitty-gritty of the law was there but the ethical value kicked in so it wasn't what I wanted but that's what have to deal it came after the law itself and that's why perhaps the the pera's the ethics kick in at that point Poss plus you save the guy from transgressing he didn't have Lo but he just he he just thought he was GNA get it for a real song you know but it didn't happen I wish him all the best okay I have a question yes I met the group of the young Jewish um girls or ladies who came here for study for the Gap year yeah and I'm also going to April for the vacation and I have to come back here again um the key question is this one with the war and anti-Semitism is is growing up my life is important as much others life Israel Jew as a nation us we have a right to defend our nation but the world couldn't see that value what is Torah teaching how we handle those people who cannot see our life is precious as much like theirs got I'm not I'm I'm not qualified to to deal with that world class question uh I I I I have no intention no desire to be the prime minister of the state of Israel I understand ought to be the United Nations representative but I but I think you're asking a powerful powerful question and I I I think we have to we have to start with the next class perhaps okay thank have a very wonderful day