Here's a piece on Pirkei Avot by our member Jeremy Phillips on a thought that was sparked off by the current FIFA World Cup soccer tournament hosted this year on the far side of the Atlantic.
“Seeing is believing” is a mantra that has been repeated so often that many people, myself included, often forget to think about what it means. But recently I was jolted out of my intellectual somnolence on this point by a small and (in the great course of things) trivial occurrence.
One of my grandkids, aged 6, was watching a sports program that featured highlights of soccer games from the FIFA World Cup. The program showed some of the goals—not just once but a second time as action replays. This juvenile spectator, seeking to make sense of what he viewed, believed that each of what we know to be action replays was in reality an additional goal, though identical to the goal that preceded it.
At first I thought this was an amusing mistake based on an inadequate perception of what the child had seen. On further reflection I concluded that this inference—though fallacious—was not in itself illogical. After all, if we watch traffic lights go several times through their sequence of changes, we recognize that the second and subsequent changes are not “action replays” but separate, if identical, events. From this it seems that the value we derive from what we see with our eyes depends not only on what we see but what we know or infer when we see it.
This led me to ask: what does Pirkei Avot have to say about how we should see things? I was surprised by what I found.
My first port of call was the all-embracing baraita at Avot 6:6, which lists the 48 things that facilitate the acquisition of Torah. This baraita has something to say about what one hears, says, feels, understands and even thinks—but is silent concerning what one sees. Working my way back into the five chapters of mishnah, I gradually realized that sight, despite its significance in our daily lives, was a subject from which Avot appears to consciously distance itself.
While sight is a regular human faculty for which most of us are grateful, we are warned how dangerous it can be for us to use it. Thus at Avot 3:9 Rabbi Yaakov cautions that someone who breaks off from his learning to admire a beautiful tree or field is regarded as having forfeited his soul. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar adds (Avot 4:23) that we should not seek to look at a person at the time of his degradation. Indeed, even when we do look at something, we should not accept the evidence of our eyes at face value: Rabbi Meir says as much in Avot 4:27 when he teaches:
אַל תִּסְתַּכֵּל בְּקַנְקַן, אֶלָּא בְּמַה שֶּׁיֶּשׁ בּוֹ, יֵשׁ קַנְקַן חָדָשׁ מָלֵא יָשָׁן, וְיָשָׁן שֶׁאֲפִילוּ חָדָשׁ אֵין בּוֹ
Don’t look at the vessel, but at what it contains. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that don’t even contain new wine.
These negative teachings with regard to human sight stand in sharp contrast to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s mishnah at Avot 2:1, when he references a higher form of vision:
הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַֽעְלָה מִמָּךְ, עַֽיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹֽזֶן שׁוֹמַֽעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּסֵֽפֶר נִכְתָּבִים
Contemplate three things, and you will not come to the grip of transgression. Know what is above you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.
The message here is unambiguous. We cannot see this “seeing eye”. It is a quality possessed by God alone. This is the ability to perceive that lies above us and which lies normally well beyond our reach. It is metaphorically speaking, the eye of God and it is only this eye that truly comprehends what it views. When someone has this gift, having been touched by Ru’ach haKodesh (a spirit of holiness), we have a special word for that person. He is a ro’eh—literally a “seer”.
There is an allusion to the seer in Avot itself. Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel, when asked at Avot 2:13 to identify the ideal path to which a person should cling, answers הָרוֹאֶה אֶת הַנּוֹלָד (haro’eh et hanolad, “one who sees the outcome of that which has yet to emerge”). In other words, he is one who sees, or foresees, that which is not yet visible—something that falls within the capabilities of the seer.
Is seeing then to be relegated to playing a relatively insignificant role in our lives as practising Jews and in our relationships with God and man? Yes, according to Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks who has repeatedly and consistently argued that Judaism is fundamentally a religion of sound over sight. While the Greeks and other ancient civilizations viewed seeing as a form of knowledge, Judaism takes the contrary view. God cannot be seen, only heard, which is why the Shema, a declaration of faith based on listening, not seeing, provides us with the supreme means of linking us to God and to our fellows.
For comments and discussion of this post on Facebook, click here.
