Pirkei Avot 1:1 By Rabbi Moshe Snow

okay welcome everyone today it's not just it's not just coming you have tremendous for coming I must tell you a story that just happened and I I know if I repeat it now because it just happened I'll have it in my mind and maybe you will too and it's really really worthwhile we were all set the com to be early no problem whatsoever and we got into the car my my daughter Henny is here uh and she drove us for those of you who are uh into cooking she writes a column in the Jerusalem Post called in the kitchen with Henny if if you know anyone who's interested in that but anyway she she commercial break but anyway anyway we got in the car and we're we're we're set to come no problem plenty of time we get into the car which is in the garage and we come to the gate you press a number and the gate opens she pressed the number the gate didn't open so she said try your phone I tried my phone called the number the gate supposed to open the gate did not open for some reason the mobile network did not connect with the number that we pressed to get how what do we do now I'm stuck here I I can't get out of the garage we're stuck in the car what's going to happen so we're waiting we're waiting all a sudden we see the gate at the other end of the garage is opening not the one we're going to the other one we had to back up turn around because someone else was going out of the garage so they pressed their button and the garage door opened but we had to get there before the garage closed and by the time we turned around the garage is starting to close and you know how the two doors go they go like this and they go like this and it's about to close and so she takes she goes as close as she can the second before the garage closes and when she got close enough sure enough what happened the garage doors opened up again right and and I'm thinking to myself this is M like right the gates about to close oh was it oh my daughter said it I don't remember my daughter said it she says it's like it's like the E I said this is I got a this is unbelievable the gates are about to close the doors are closing but you get if you get close enough it's going to open up again promish unbelievable can't forget that story so it's if I say it it'll stay in my head okay so welcome everyone what yeah we weren't crying yet but it was raining so cry wouldn't have gotten through that dat might cry that's funny funny okay all we we spent two sessions on the introduction of and why that was the introduction to it gives us this amount of confidence to know that all of Israel has a share in the world to come today we have the the actual first Mna in the first per of peros and the first mishna we're going to learn the mishna we're going to say the whole mishna and then we're going to analyze slowly but surely from the very beginning on what's going on in this particular Mna so we have this beginning and if you have a if you have a in front of you fine otherwise it's a short Mna we'll speak out loud the mishna MOS T Moshe the word received or accepted M T mos received the Torah from har sini from Mount sin we'll discuss the wording after we finish the M thenu he then gave it over to his talmid yosua and we'll see how that fits inua and yosua gave it over to the elders The Men Who were known as the zakim those who were known as the zakim they gave it over to the next the next bearers of the m to the Nim now notice that Moshe Moshe received the Torah from SII but after that it was yosua he gave it over yua doesn't sayel yosua received it as a as we have it today too and and to the the gave it over to the Nim and the Nim gave it over to the members of the great assembly the anes AA we'll discuss who they were as we go through Point by point of the mishna and now Begins the concept that we discussed in the two introduction sessions about the miss about what payas is all about in terms of mos and it says they the said three things number one be deliberate in judgment don't be so quick to pronounce judgment deliberate it carefully even though you might start applying some aphorisms strike while the iron is hot you know and so on but when it comes to judgment it's got to be you have to be deliberate you have to be careful not to jump to conclusions because there are so many aspects of making a judgment that it's easy to fall into the pit of making a mistake so so first having be careful quiet when it comes to making judgments and do the best you can to increase the numbers of students that you have it's it's clear that sometimes you can teach somebody something someone something and that one little phrase that one little idea that you give over can Inspire that individual and not only will you be inspiring that individual but all the individuals that that person comes in contact with and you can actually create worlds of observant Jewish people just by a statement that you have by and finally make a little bit of a fence around the Torah protect the Torah this concept of T can be found in many of the Rabin ordinances in many mitv that we have we find throughout CH that sometimes would make a certain requirement in order to protect a deeper requirement in order be because one might lead to the other so you have to make a we'll give examples of this as we get to the explanation in depth of each and every word of this particular mishna okay so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to have a little bit of a discussion here about the about the M as we just said okay there is a there is an introduction uh to the to the tanak that is printed in the mados nvi and it goes through a series of all the names of the m the m that we have as we've explained and the Torah and you remember the first session that we had and we gave the example from the gor and chabas about Hill and shamai and you remember the example with the olive Bays all let me let me review that very important of were not there what some of you wen't here not that session okay so let me let me let me Let me refresh that because this is crucial to the understanding of the entire the system of picas that we're having this is part of torab so Torah shav a lot of people say well Tor shav yeah it's easy uh we know that that's AU authentic because it's written down and uh when it's passed on to the next Generation they see what's written down and they say well no I received this from there and that's the M because it's written it's hand written how do you know Tes how do we know that t is authentic I mean after all it's oral law and by the way if you've ever studied gamar you know that even though the gar is written down it's still Tor there's so much analization here in this particular Mish RI put this mishna together as part of p and we're we're we're we're walking blindly in what exactly this is speaking about here look at the first line m t soel means what he accepted right when it came to Yeshua was did Yeshua have a cabala it doesn't say Yu it says Yu it doesn't say yua Moshe Moshe got it from SII he gave it over to Yeshua Yeshua gave it over to someone doesn't say anything about cab on by them Why didn't it say Moshe why it say Moshe what well eventually we get through all the generations that's true okay but and because if you take a look at the shalis of the M the Ram in his introduction explains what happened and it's brought down in the gor also that Moshe got it from hasem then he would teach it over to Aon and Yeshua sitting right next to him they in turn would review it by teaching over to their children and to the Next Generation and so on and so forth and that's the M that's our M that everything came down from Moshe to us in a direct line descendency in the family or through talid to from rebi to talmid and talmid to his talmid and so on and so down to today and parents when they raise their children they teach the Torah and they say we have a m from our from Our Generations past and this is the m that's clear but let's get back to our original question which is how we know this this authenticity right so people say when you have something written it's clear as day because it's written you can't change it Bim is passed down from one generation to the next to the next to the next to the next it's written Bim we know exactly what those words are no question about it there's a famous story in the chabas we're not going to read it now just going to quickly run through it there are three stories about hillo and shamai I'm repeating this from the first session but there are three stories about hillo and shamay and a perspective convert or according to the Mas a perspective uh Bal Chua came to shamai and he said you know you know the famous story what did he say teach me the Torah while I stand on one foot are you familiar with the story right he said to sh teach me the Torah where I stand on one foot and shamai took a he ripped out a beam from the ceiling and the house did not Collapse by the way he ripped out a beam from the ceiling and he chased the guy with the beam you know and he said no I can't teach you the whole Torah is standing on one foot there too it's too much and this business of one foot means that there's only one beam to the building no it's not so so he chased him out he said you can't you can't you can't learn like this he went to Hill and Hill said okay you ready start standing on one foot right okay told him to stand like this and he said that he put it in the negative by the way you know because in the Torah it says we but when H taught the perspective or convert he didn't say what did he say what's hateful to you what's ha do not do one to others as you would not have others do un to you at least that's what the English translation says but basically that's what H told him he said he said that's the whole Torah right what okay good point right what's hateful to you don't do to your friend that's the Torah now go and learn of course we have which is a positive that's because we already have accepted the m and once you have a Torah then you have a lot of positive things to give over but when you don't have Torah it's it's it's not as easy to understand no love your neighbor as yourself what do you mean as myself I love I can't love anybody else like I love myself but when but when you say don't do to him what you wouldn't oh yeah that I can buy that I understand the negative had to be given over in this case for the reasonable reason that he wasn't yet an observant Jew once you become an observant Jew then you could say we understand that okay so that that that's a good question they all ask that on that particular story that's the famous story everybody knows but I want you to focus on the story that comes before that and this again it's a repetition of our first sh but it's important because if you have this next story which is the story that precedes the story of that's the whole Tor zil Gore the first story is very interesting the perspective convert comes to shamai and he says I will become an observant Jew if you teach me the Torah she the written law but I do not accept the oral law only the written law so sh says goodbye not going to happen he goes to Hillel he says teach me and I accept I'll become a fir Jew but only if you teach me just the written law not the oral law so Hill says okay you ready today is lesson number one what's the lesson number one he he has four letters that he put on a Blackboard or on a piece of paper or on a PAP papus or on a parchment or whatever was available at the time or he drew it in the sand said whatever okay he he puts four letters down and he points to the first one he said this is an olive second one this is a base the third one this is a giml the fourth one this is a doid that's lesson number one go home and study come back tomorrow comes back the next day and Hillel says okay you ready for lesson two he says sure Hillel points to the doid and he says this is the first letter right he says to the he points to the AL if he points to the Al he says doid he points to the base he says giml he points to the gimmel he says b right so Al he says the B he says gimel the giml he says baz and the do he says Al just the opposite instead of saying Al B gim he says this is gim B Al wait a minute wait a minute the guy says to Hill wait a minute wait a minute yesterday you told me iive Bay gim and today you're telling me the same letters is says how do you know I was right yesterday huh how do you know what I told you yesterday is true how do you know you don't but you do if you trust me you know it everybody knows it and that's passed on orally what an olive is is an oral teaching what a baz is is an oral teaching what a gimel is is an oral teaching if you don't have a faith in the T you don't have faith in anything you don't you don't know anything you're never going to be able to read learn or fathom any system of intelligence the guy got the message and he sat and learned T we are deal dealing here with the same issue right now the Cabas Tor that Moshe received was an oral explanation of the written law what's an Al what's a baz what's a gimel what's a doid and the purpose of the gamar mentions this first is because without this you don't have anything okay so that's a recapitulation of what we did in the first session but now what we want to do now is take a look at the that's written to the to the tanak and and this hak this introduction does a lot for us in terms of spelling out all the generations all the generations that received the Torah and that passed it on and we can pinpoint to exact tradition being passed down from rebi to talmid to next talmud to the next talud down to today and the shales doesn't end let me give you some examples okay in this introduction he he starts out he starts out by telling us okay what's the what's what's the uh what's the mourus he brings like this he brings down uh famous t raban that is written in in the order of the How does it go number one yes and name we have all these books all of these books are in our possession we can get a hold of all of them what about suim this the order of the writings that are not part of the Novi itself what's that Ru R Rim mishle KES shirim the kinis of a Esther is part of written by and this is all from you can look it up we have the exact sh to go on he's adding that the rim they found that they not only had the order of all of these but they also put the trop in and the exact annotation and the Kudos okay so let's go through what some of the tradition includes first the written law you have then you have yua you have Yeshua which tells us all theas with the kings of Canan and the division of the land of Israel to the 12 and it was written by yahushua and it was completed by Pinas Ben elazar hohen which was the Next Generation this tells us what happened in the time of the chatim and this was written by shmuel harasi also known as shmuel hanavi so we have exactly who wrote what when it was written in the order Moshe yahushua then we have the which was written byi who bridged the times of the Kings and of the up until the destruction practically that Y and yes Andel spoke about and then you have MIM which included oh we just you just spoke about and then you have yes all the of yes which was written by and his you have which he wrote himself which was written by the from of course the time of p on okay then you have the now again what what I'm doing here is I'm just reading off for you it's it's it's just dry and straightforward but it it's important that you we all know that the M goes from rebi to talmid and rebi to talmid and parent to child just like it does today and it's extent to us all and and and I'll if you want I I would like to point out that there are books in English of exactly chasing the M down all the generations to all theal RAB RAB Zak Fel wrote three that are unbelievable uh Anvil of Sinai is one of them uh I but I forget the other one but it's but he has an entire bibliography straight down generation to generation starting from mosu really which we're going to discuss soon too all the way down yob then it comes to Moshe Aon and so on and so forth so you can get all of this information in terms of and so on and so forth all this is available and if anybody wants to read it in the introduction to the to the MOSI you're more than welcome to do that too okay now uh in addition to the uh 48 n he has a list these these are all available to us I'm just trying to point out the mov Moshe Aon yua Pinas El and so on and so forth all the way down till today all of these things are exent to us and available for us to see it's not a problem so it's important to know that when we speak about MOS Tor that Moshe received the Torah from SII it's gone through an entire history down to this day parent to child rebi to talmid just like we're learning now that's the way it was given over throughout all the generations okay now why does it say Moshe t CI rather than any other language and now by the way when when it says Moshe T that Moshe received the Torah from sin the question was asked before wasn't this given over to all of why does it say it just as he gave it over only to Yeshua no he gave it over to Yeshua and to all of Israel but only by Moshe it says Torah now there is an issue with the terminology of Mosel rather than in every other way in every other way we don't find that it says Keel there is a gamar there is a gamar in kadu FAS fascinating piece of every every time somebody learns you know one of these statements in the gar that talk about the M or tell us some of the things about how it came down to us the is on okay why does it say that MOS why why why why not you know why not any other language so the first thing is we have to know that there are some principles in the Torah that need to be explained there's a in at the end of that sayso responsibility of a Jew to pay the wages of a person and by the way the wording in the PK is not just another Jew it's anyone I'll give you an exact wording here it's in the it's right at the end as I said in the in in pasas Pas it uses the terminology you have to pay the wages on time and uh when it talks about paying those wages on time it uses uh an expression that is not just uh relevant to the Jewish people but it's relevant to everybody it says it's in the it says now hold back the payment of a poor person or a destitute person whether it's from your brothers or any of the G that are in your land B living in your Gates you have to pay the wages on the day that it's due and you can't let the sun set without paying the wages to the worker not just a born Jew even a not a just a you have to pay on time this is a in the Torah it's a mitzva to pay on time so kazal come along and ask a question the question is all of the Jewish people have a share in the world to come what does that mean that we have a share in the world to come that we're going to get rewarded for the Mitzvah we do in this world in the world to come wait a minute what about the dictum we just read in the Torah that's a mitz that yeah have to pay on the day in which the wages are due a person does a Mitzvah and he does a Mitzvah in and what are we saying is going to happen with him he's going to get the reward where what about payment on time the sun can't set we're supposed to get it here in this world good caution no you're supposed to get it in this world how come how come you have to wait until the world to come so this is one of the questions that is asked on this particular on this on this particular mishna and when talking about this particular mishna he not only brings down this particular statement of but there's AAR which I was about to quote in K where it says very good there's no such thing as a reward for Mitzvah in this world wait a minute these two things contradict each other on the one hand you're saying you got to pay on time on the other hand you're saying that a reward for a Mitzvah in this world doesn't exist how do you feel about that that a reward for what you did in this world doesn't exist there's no and the g the G is not happy with that by the way there's a whole discussion on on K about that particular phrase and how it works out and and if you think about it if you think about it let's think about this you help someone and give that person life examples I know someone who donated a kidney I'm sure you all know people somewhere along the line who donate a kidney to somebody there's a young man he's 40 years old his kidneys are failing he's about that's it there's no hope for him it's going to be all over in a short time there's a limited amount of time he can do on dialysis and so on has no life and then someone gives him a kidney perfect match and for the rest of his life although he has to take some anti-rejection medicine he's basically living a healthy ongoing full life he lives to 90 I don't know if the guy who gave him the kidney a lift in 90 we don't know anything about that about that or more but he gave life to this person can you C can you pay a person a reward for saving a life for giving a life can you can you possibly in this world give any reward for giving a person life it's not just it's not just giving a kidney and giving life I had an experience years ago I have a have a talmid very very became a very extremely we wealthy person and I went to visit someone who had just given birth in the hospital here in AR show and when I came there there was a a wall right in front of the maternity building which had my talmud's name and that he donated and dedicated this particular wing of the hospital that children should be born because he had parents who went through the Holocaust and he wanted to help bring Jewish children into the world and it had the name his name and his family's name right in front of this building and I wrote him an email I said I want to tell you something you not only have to be a genius when you're making money and you not only have to have Satay when you're earning millions of dollars he's an extremely wealthy person it's not only that you have to be a genius in knowing how to givea giving Sedaka to the point where you are now helping Jewish children being born you're fighting against the Nazis you donated this maternity Wing because you wanted to bring more Jewish children into this world that's a is the biggest you can ever have and when he wrote me back the email the answer to this he said you don't know how you made me feel he said because I felt that I'm doing something that Hashem wants and this is something that you you can't ever expect any payment for you can't can you imagine donating 20 $ million or $30 million in order to get Jewish children being born what are you going to what are you going to give this person what what are you going to do for him what you I'm taking out for steak dinner what are you kidding it's ridiculous there's there's no reward you can M you can't it doesn't add up and it doesn't only go that way it's it's more simple than that you stand in sh and when it comes to and the and you're having on every and people are watching you and they're saying to themselves you know I I I should also do that I should also stand with kavana and pay attention to the words and what's being said and this person goes and becomes someone who pays attention to his or her doing and and and has more meaning more input more value what are you going to do to pay pay the original person back for all the people who are copying you because you did the right thing you refuse to talk in you gave your in answering you D with you recognize theity of the moment and you're communicating with a can you pay that person back can you possibly give that person any reward that will equal or make the person acceptable in his life that I've done something ah Hashem paid me back he took me out to this fancy SMY restaurant wow what are you kidding doesn't make any sense you can't you can't you can't help this person you can't pay this person in this world and for a simple Mitzvah the same goes not only for these Earth shattering and lifegiving things but even the smallest thing in the world you can't possibly pay someone back back in this world and by the way the converse is also true when people are wicked and people are evil you can only kill him once he's not going to get it the Karen cus is not going to be here in this world the the evil people of this world World whether it's our current Evil all of them whether it's the Hitlers of the world or all the all the just Mindless evil people in this world what what what are you what are you going to pay them with in this world what's going to be equal nothing nothing is ever going to work that way and consequently when Moshe CI the question was raised what about what about giving me reward in this world what am I going to do with that didn't you say didn't you say that the Karen cus is only what about paying me in this world so there are a number of answers that are given one of them is because Moser Renu was M the Torah on behalf of all the Jewish people that means that he was fulfilling a he was acting as an intermediary and when you act as an intermediary you're not the one who is getting the reward you're passing it on so the reward URS later and when MOS it means that hasem gave it to us through a and when there's a involved the law of will have to be put inance until Theus is fulfilled and when clel fulfills Theus then we'll see then we're going to see that thear is going to be paid at that time so that's why it says MOS because he was Mel on behalf of as and that schah was able to help answer the serious question of what happens would be now we're really we're really uh down to the wire over here I want to continue this because there's a lot more going on amem five more minutes five more minutes okay good I want I want to introduce a little bit for the uh for the next session some of the things that we're going to be going through when it comes to MOS T first of all peros is talking about MOS as we've explained in the first introductory sessions but we have to know that that the shales hamur the chain of the giving over of the Torah from generation to generation is in and of itself one of the most important mid that a Jew has the meter of making the transition to the Next Generation now we can't guarantee that the next generation is going to accept anything because every human being has free will the proof is that you can go to the most scholarly the greatest you can go to the greatest sikim and you don't got to go far you don't got to go far had a he also had a is okay is did chv at the end that's true famous Rashi but had an asov had an asov and RKA the two greatest parents in the world possibly they had an asov there no truth over there ASA be got moik and unfortunately in every generation there have been those who haven't bought into the M because everyone has Free Will and one of the issues that we're going to be dealing with is this very important issue that when it says in the Mish the tal Torah kulam that the study of the Torah is more valuable and more important than all the other mitzvas in the Torah and that's because each and every word and letter of the study of the Torah is in and of itself a Mitzvah so it's not just that you're doing the Mitzvah of tal Torah but the Talma Torah itself is so valuable that when you say 10 words of Talma Torah you're not just doing one Mitzvah you're doing 10 maybe a 100 and maybe a thousand maybe even more especially if you're saying it in over to somebody else you say at the shabas table you say that took you five minutes not a long time right because if you say more than five minutes everybody starts going you know when's dessert coming you know so you don't want to say too long short and sweet right but every word you said is is valuable you know every word you said has has power and they said and there were five people at the table aside from your old family and so five people heard and they pass it on and so on and so on and so forth hopefully using their Free Will in the proper way and we're going to deal also next week I'm going to bring up a famous gor also shabas which deals with the issue of why was Moshe the one who is about whom it says Moshe T well everybody else was not Kel why is it all hinged on Moshe Renu what did he do what was his okay he had a he had a lot of as we know you go through the even aside from all the midashim about his greatness but can you pinpoint one thing which the gar says is the Crux of the matter as to why mosu was the Z to be the Torah and everybody else is so we hope next week to be be able to deal with that I'm gonna I'll take two minutes for questions if there's any questions any questions any comments okay not it's not necessary you don't you don't have to try to put me on trial it's fine it's okay I don't mind I hope we gain something from this and we'll continue next week everyone of course is welcome I want to wish everyone a wonderful good week a week in which this and we should be ah of course I I even had something about p in here today but we didn't get to it so maybe maybe post pum we can still get to it maybe don't forget was a it says Ah there it is that word which it doesn't say by anybody else but in the generation of P it says K that they were we'll have to discuss that maybe next week have a wonderful week