The teaching of Ben Zoma

Judaism, Wntr, 1993 by Mordecai Roshwald

1.

You, my friend -- a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens -- are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul.(1)

IN THESE WORDS, SOCRATES DESCRIBES THE manner in which he would approach his fellow citizens in order to exhort them to the right of way of life.

In a similar vein, Plato, in The Republic, refers to "three classes of men -- lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain,"(2) and extols life devoted to the pursuit of wisdom as the best; life dedicated to the quest of honour as second in worth; and the life of the money-maker as the last in value.(3)

Aristotle echoes and reiterates these sentiments, praising the contemplative activity (i.e., the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake) as the prime choice. Yet, he emphasizes that the three options are not mutually exclusive, for even the wise man requires "the necessaries of life," while politics and warfare, which express the quest of honour, are accorded "nobility and grandeur among practical activities."(4)

The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the position of the Greek philosophers in this matter, even though their stand may be relevant to our times, as we make our own choice as to the right focus in our individual lives. Our intent is to clarify the position, concerning or related to these three cardinal pursuits, of Ben Zoma, a tanna (Talmudic sage) of the second century C.E., as expressed in Pirke Avot (translated as "Chapters of Fathers," or "The Wisdom of the Fathers").(5) The sayings of Ben Zoma, formulated in the terse and pithy manner characteristic of Pirke Avot, are parallel or closely related to the above statements of Plato and Aristotle, though the conclusions need not be identical. It is this affinity which suggests relating the tanna's dicta to the opinions of the Greek philosophers, despite the different cultural spheres of Judaism and Hellenism, and the assertive, rather than dialectical, nature of the rabbinical maxims.

While the dicta of Ben Zoma are terse and seemingly simple, they hide profound reflection and, indeed, a philosophy of life. It is the aim of this paper to reconstruct and reveal this philosophy by means of a careful analysis of the maxims in the context of the tannaitic world.

Ben Zoma says: Who is wise? He who learns from every man. For it is said, "From all my teachers, I got understanding |for thy precepts are my meditation~" (Psalm 119:99).

Who is a hero? He who subdues his |evil~ drive. For it is said, "He that is slow to anger is better than a hero; and he that ruleth his spirit |is better~ than a conqueror of a city" (Proverbs 16:32).

Who is a rich man? He who is happy with his portion. For it is said, "When thou eatest the labour of thy hands, happy shalt thou be and it shall be well with thee" (Psalm 128:2). Happy shalt thou be in this world, and it shall be well with thee in the world to come.

Who is an honourned man? He who honours |other~ people. For it is said, "For I will honour those that honour me, and those that despise me will be slighted" (I Samuel 2:30).(6)

It may be noted that the epigrams of Ben Zoma offer a kind of justification by adducing a Biblical quotation. This well known method of adding weight to an opinion, by linking it to the sacred and venerated text, was employed by later rabbinical sages, as well as by medieval philosophers, Jewish and Christian, such as Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas.

The Biblical quotation, as illustrated in the sayings of Ben Zoma, could be directly supportive of the tanna's opinion, or "stretched" in a variety of ways to suit his purpose. Thus, in the second dictum, concerning the hero, the Biblical verse is similar in spirit to Ben Zoma's own statement, which is not necessarily true in the other cases.

In the case of the wise man who learns from everybody, the supporting verse from the Psalms is somewhat equivocal. The Hebrew phrase translated into English, "From all my teachers I got understanding," could also be rendered as "I am wiser than all my teachers." It is the latter translation which is, in all likelihood, the correct one, if one reads the verse in the context of Psalm 119. The meaning of the whole verse would be: "As it is thy precepts, O God, that form the subject of my meditation, I am wiser than all my teachers." In all probability Ben Zoma understood the verse in this way, but took advantage of the ambiguity of the Hebrew phrasing to make use of the verse in support of his maxim.

In the instance of the dictum concerning the honoured man, we again face an adaptation of the quotation to Ben Zoma's need. The verse from I Samuel is attributed to God, who rebukes Eli for the transgressions of his sons, and says: "I (God) will honour those (men) that honour me." The use of this statement as a guide to inter-human relations is not self-evident, to say the least. However, taken out of context, the verse may read like a testimony to relations among human beings, to the effect that he who is honoured by his fellow beings, honours them in return -- which comes close to Ben Zoma's dictum.