A Warning Concerning Midnight Musings

Rabbi Melanie Aron

May, 2001

The third chapter of Pirke Avot, the chapter we are reading this week, as we make our way from Passover to Shavuot, includes various well known teachings. Many of these have made their way into contemporary Jewish music. Songs like Ten Lo Mishelo and Im Ein Kemach Ein Torah take their words from teachings in this chapter. (Ten lo Mishelo, she-atah veshel-chah shelo- give God what is God's, since you and all that you have are God's. Im ein kemach, ein Torah, im ein Torah ein kemach, where there is no sustenance, there is no Torah and where there is no Torah, there is no sustenance.)

Other teachings may also be familiar to us:

"Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear of it, people would swallow each other alive."

"If ten sit and engage in Torah study, then the Divine presence abides among them"

The well known concept of making a fence around the Torah, additional restrictions to protect the original Biblical mandate, is also found in this chapter.

I would like to focus briefly on a less well known teaching, of Rabbi Chananiah ben Chachinai, a student of Rabbi Akivah and a contemporary of Rabbi Shimon bar Kochba, who led the famous revolt against the Romans.

He teaches: "One who spends the night awake, or who goes on a journey along, or who turns his mind to useless thoughts, is liable for his soul." What is Rabbi Chachinai talking about? What is it that this person is doing wrong and what is this strange final phrase- mit-chayev benafsho?

The phrase mitchayev benafsho is found in two other teachings in this chapter. One concerns the person who forgets what he or she has learned and the other, the person who is supposed to be studying but gets distracted. Clearly, these are not wrongs that we can be liable for in a court of law, nor do they damage another person. But they do perhaps damage our own souls. When we allow ourselves to forget what is important to us, or get distracted from our higher purposes we can damage ourselves.

Another translation may help us understand this text. Is it wrong to be up in the night- then what about all the parents of infants and toddlers? Is it wrong to travel by yourself- but sometimes one has no choice? A different translation makes these dependent clauses, thus : "One who spends the night awake or who goes on a journey alone and turns his mind to useless thoughts."

Rabbi Chachinai is trying to help us deal with those times when the wrong kind of thoughts might consume us, when we are awake in the middle of the night, or by ourselves on a difficult journey, and all kinds of worries can come into our minds. These concerns can be hard to banish from our thoughts, we can become mired in them. Indeed they might damage our soul. He is suggesting that we can add to the meaning of our lives, if we use those times instead, to think higher thoughts, to study or contemplate. Instead of being stuck in unpleasant worries, we can come to cherish those times when we are free from work and the usual household distractions, and turn our minds in a positive direction.

The theme of this third chapter of Pirke Avot is ways of investing one's life with meaning. That is why it talks about everyday things, table talk and midnight worries. Like the Torah portion for this week, Kedoshim, it reminds us that we can bring holiness to these day to day moments and thus sanctify our lives.