Pirke Avot chapter two, verse eight: three in one

He used to say:
The more flesh, the more worms.
The more possessions, the more worry.
The more wives, the more witchcraft.
The more maidservants, the more unchastity.
The more slaves, the more robbery.

The more Torah, the more life.
The more the company of scholars, the more wisdom.
The more counsel, the more understanding.
The more charity, the more peace.

If one acquires a good name he acquires something for himself.
If one acquires for himself knowledge of the Torah he acquires for himself life in the world to come.

I would be willing to argue that in structure, this is a triple. It doesn’t look like one, but essentially, it’s illustrative detail to three points: the pursuit of physical comforts leads to physical discomfort, the pursuit of Torah leads to Torah, and the highest reputation is the blessing of the Divine. I think there’s a natural break between the first five warnings, the next four rewards, and the last two, which have a different verb and a different rhythm, although in Hebrew the sentence structure is much more similar to the first nine.

You know, I always took this as standard mind/body split stuff. The cravings of the body are evil, while the soul lifts you above. And that is certainly there as part of the mindset (and Gentle Readers will recall that I reject that mindset), but looking at it today, I think the actual verse takes a different angle on it. It’s not really saying that the physical urges are evil, it’s saying that they are counterproductive. That’s a take on the mind/body split that makes some sense to me.

Is it true, though? I mean I do understand that the pursuit of physical comforts, when taken to excess, reverberates to physical discomfort. But is that true of piety? Is there moderation in all things, or, as we find in the Machsor Vitry, is all increase profitless except increase of learning? If it is true, what separates the two? What separates the accumulation of servants from the accumulation of scholars, that makes the excess of one harmful and the excess of the other glorious? Is it simply selfishness? But it’s possible to gain servants, possessions, wives, even slaves out of something more than selfishness. A hope for a future dynasty, for instance, is more than selfish. Or a desire for charity on a grander scale, a dream of great achievement to be made with great wealth and great power.

Or is it the focus on the material, such that the physical world simply, by the unyielding laws of nature, cannot help but reward success with failure? By this angle, not only Scripture but any learning could escape that fate; we could escape the physical world by studying Torah or by studying music theory or number theory, political theory or literary theory, in endlessly fruitful and endlessly blissful consultations without fear of excess. It’s only when we attempt to apply those theories to actuality that moderation becomes imperative.

Which, circling around again, may perhaps be what those last two verses are hinting at: this immoderation in learning is fine for the World to Come, Hillel says, but the fellow who acquires a Good Name, who acquires neither worms nor worry, witchcraft, unchastity or robbery, but who is able to apply himself to the World that Is without succumbing to the temptations of excess, that person has something for himself. Not something shadowy and serene to be found after the end of all things, but an actual thing of this world, an accomplishment he can put in his pocket.

I am taking Hillel’s triple here as something closer to thesis/antithesis/synthesis than progression. In the end, we want people (and communities) to combine Torah study and materialism, this world and the world to come, righteousness and flesh, in the right amounts, not split at all, nor joined even, but a single thing.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.