Here's the text of a Minchah-Maariv mini-shiur given by Jeremy Phillips on Tuesday 18 August 2026, during Rabbi Kenigsberg's summer vacation.
In last week's shiur I introduced you to a roaming Rav, Rabbi Yose ben Kisma, and we discussed whether he should stay home at Kisari and learn there, or leave for a much more remunerative position where his prospects for personal advancement in Torah were less certain. This evening we look at another rabbi who faced a travel decision. But, in our mishnah today—Avot 4:18—the incentive to move was not the prospect of gold and silver: it was likely the lure of a lady.
The mishnah reads like this:
רַבִּי נְהוֹרָאִי אוֹמֵר: הֱוֵי גוֹלֶה לִמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה,
וְאַל תֹּאמַר שֶׁהִיא תָבוֹא אַחֲרֶֽיךָ, שֶׁחֲבֵרֶֽיךָ יְקַיְּמֽוּהָ בְיָדֶֽךָ,
וְאֶל בִּינָתְךָ אַל תִּשָּׁעֵ
Rabbi Nehora'i used
to say: Exile yourself to a place of Torah; do not say that it will come after
you, because it is your colleagues (your chaverim) will fix it into
you—and do not rely on your own understanding.
This is a mishnah that leaves out
a crucial piece of information, something for which we have to look to the
Gemara. Who was Rabbi Nehorai, and why does it matter to us?
The basic message of the mishnah
needs no great explanation. It is axiomatic that, if you are going to learn
Torah, you don’t need books, smart phones or a good internet connection—you need
human resources: at least one Rav, a teacher, and at least one chaver,
someone with whom you can learn. If you are where they are not, or they are
where you are not, you aren’t going to learn much Torah. What’s more, if you
have already learned some Torah, you need to keep it fresh by going over it,
revising it and discussing it with others. Otherwise, with the best will in the
world, you will find yourself eventually getting muddled, getting it wrong—or
forgetting it completely. So, if we know what this mishnah teaches, why does it
matter who its author is?
As the Gemara indicates, the later
Tannaim were in agreement that Nehorai was not Rabbi Nehorai’s real name, and
were speculating as to who he really was. One suggestion was that he was really
Rabbi Nehemiah. Why, because Rabbi Nehemiah was one of the five prime talmidim
of Rabbi Avika and, in the fourth perek of Avot where we find our mishnah, it
just so happens that the previous four mishnayot were taught in the names of each
of the other four. The second suggestion is that Rabbi Nehorai is Rabbi Meir,
because the name Nehorai in Aramaic means “the one who illuminates”, which is
also the meaning of “Meir”. A third
suggestion—and this to me seems the most plausible—is that Rabbi Nehorai is
actually Rabbi Elazar ben Arach. Why? Because of a piece of aggadah that
attaches to Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, alluded to near the end of Gemara Shabbat
and fleshed out by midrashim in Kohelet Rabbah and Yalkut Shimoni.
The story goes like this. Al
regel achat, we are taught that Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was one of the five top talmidim of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who
described him as a ma’ayan hamitgaber—an unceasingly-flowing spring,
full of original ideas. He was, according to Abba Shaul at Avot 2:12, the most
brilliant of them all. There we learn that, if all the talmidei
chachamim—including Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol—were placed in one pan of the scales,
with Rabbi Elazar ben Arach put in the other, he would outweigh them all. But
curiously, given the man’s scintillating brilliance, we appear to learn very
little from him. Why might this be the case?
Alas, for the good rabbi, he
settled down in Diomsit but neither his chaverim nor his talmidim
followed him there. Diomsit was not a makom Torah and, while they never
lost their respect and affection for Rabbi Elazar, they had better places to
learn, presumably with fewer attractions and fewer pleasures of the flesh.
So what happened to Rabbi Elazar? He
quite forgot his Torah. Rabbi Chelbo picks up the story from there: When
eventually he did return, he got up to lein and suffered the indignity that
many of us have experienced: he thought he could do it but then he tried to do
it and got it wrong. He tried to read Hachodesh hazeh lachem (“This
month shall be for you”) but he misidentified one letter in each word and what
came out was haharesh hayah libbam (which sort of means “Their hearts
were silent”). But the scholars prayed
for him and, mirabile dictu, his learning returned. At this point the
Gemara then quotes our mishnah in full. If Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is indeed the
Rabbi Nehorai of our mishnah, this makes sense because he would be teaching us
on the basis of his own personal experience.
So that’s the story. But is this
all that the mishnah has to offer? No! So let’s look into it more deeply. In
the first place, can it really be true that the Tanna is telling Torah scholars
to go into exile in order to learn Torah? No, says Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau in
his monumental Yachel Israel. There’s no positive mitzvah to go into
exile and no-one is supposed to leave Israel anyway. But, citing Rabbi Akiva’s
24-year absence from home, he suggests that if you really want to seek out
Torah and learn it properly, and can’t do that where you are, you have to
cultivate the mindset of someone who is prepared to shift themselves and go off
to where Torah can be found.
Several other commentators agree
that the place of exile is only really a state of mind rather than a physical
location at all. In other words, it’s the metaphorical ‘place’ one arrives at
if you travel back in time, along the spiritual
path of your forefathers who accepted upon themselves the yoke of learning
Torah and of keeping its commandments. Thus, explains the Mahari’a (Rabbi
Yehudah Assad), only once you have arrived at that notional point are you then
fully entitled to engage in investigating the deepest meanings of the Torah,
subject only to the proviso that you should not rely solely on your own
intellective activity but should measure it against the path of Torah and
mitzvot along which you travel.
פַּת בְּמֶֽלַח תֹּאכֵל, וּמַֽיִם בִּמְשׂוּרָה תִּשְׁתֶּה,
וְעַל הָאָֽרֶץ תִּישָׁן, וְחַיֵּי צַֽעַר תִּחְיֶה, וּבַתּוֹרָה אַתָּה עָמֵל,
אִם אַתָּה עֽוֹשֶׂה כֵּן, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם
הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא
Not every commentator takes so
dramatic a view of our mishnah. Taking a more measured approach, neither the
Meiri nor the Bartenura are in such a hurry. The first thing you should do,
they agree, is to look around and see if you are already in a place where you
can learn Torah. The reason for exiling yourself is to enable you to get
the benefit of Torah scholars and chavrutot in your vicinity. If you
already have them, then don’t go anywhere. This is good news for anyone who
lives in Lakewood, Gateshead, Bnei Brak or any other established Makom Torah.
A curious view of going into exile
is espoused by Rabbi Yisrael Lifschitz in his Tiferet Yisrael. What he
learns is that a young man learning Torah should exile himself from his home
and get away from his parents. Why? Because living at home is bad for you. He
gives three reasons: (i) parents reinforce or at least validate the childish
habits of their offspring; (ii) they continue to treat their children as
children, spoiling them and thus impeding their growth and independence; (iii) children
living at home don’t cultivate the art of self-reliance. No other rabbi comes
close to saying anything like this.
This colourful and imaginative
rabbi addresses a facet of this mishnah that we have so far left unexplored. It
teaches וְאַל תֹּאמַר שֶׁהִיא תָבוֹא אַחֲרֶֽיך,
“don’t say that it [meaning the Torah] will come after you”. We might ask why
it doesn’t. The Pele Yo’etz explains by referring to a passage from Mishlei
that we recite every Friday night: Eishet Chayil Mi Yimtza (“A woman of
valour, who can find her?”). Some people take this passage as an allegory that
refers to Shabbat, or to the mother of Shlomo HaMelech or to the Torah. Others
sing it to their wives.
So, the Pele Yo’etz asks, when you
sing Eishet Chayil have you ever wondered what the difference is between
the holy Torah and your wife? He answers
thus. In the first place, he says, when husband and wife have an argument and
the husband storms off in anger, the wife will eventually go after him in order
to make peace with him; the Torah, however, is different. The Yerushalmi to
Berachot says “If you leave me for one day, I’ll leave you for two.” Secondly,
a wife has only one husband at a time and may have no-one else to whom to turn
if her husband leaves her, while the Torah is always followed by a multitude of
admirers and enthusiastic suitors. Thirdly, it is the husband whose role is to
support his wife and provide for her needs while, in contrast, as we learn in
Mishlei itself, it is the Torah that provides for those who are wedded to it. Finally,
the wife is presumed to be less knowledgeable and less intelligent than her
husband, while it is the Torah that imparts her knowledge and wisdom to those
who pursue her.
This comparison reflects the social
and economic reality of the Ottoman-ruled Balkans in the early 19th century and
may appear inappropriate, if not offensive, to those who read it two centuries
later. However, the punchline is as powerful now as it was then: don’t treat the
Torah as though it was dependent on you, for the truth is quite the reverse.
The Torah owes you nothing and has no need for you at all. If you do not
continue to study its content and you fail to practice its principles, you can
hardly expect it to cling faithfully to you – particularly if you run off in
pursuit of other activities and pleasures, in places like Diomsit where the
light of Torah rarely, if ever, shines.
There is a touch of irony in the
Pele Yo’etz’s explanation here since this Mishnah reflects an element of role
reversal: if the Rabbi Nehorai of our mishnah is indeed Rabbi Elazar ben Arach,
it was his wife who decided to live in Diomsit, and he who followed after her.
****************************
As a footnote to this shiur, one
might ask why, if it’s so deleterious to a talmid chacham’s Torah learning and
spiritual health, would he ever consider going to places that are Torah-free
zones like Diomsit at all. This question clearly troubled the Maharal, since he
discusses it in his Derech Chaim. The Maharal’s approach to this question
reflects a degree of sensitivity to the human condition. He points out that, for
people in general, the attraction of leaving a spiritual citadel in pursuit of
a more earthly paradise needs no deep explanation. We know it in our own lives.
After all, we like to think of ourselves as being committed to Torah; we learn;
we keep the mitzvot and so on—but how many of us seek to spend our vacations
and share quality time with our families in seaside resorts with comfy hotels
in preference to trooping off to Lakewood, Gateshead or Bnei Brak. The Maharal
understood this. Humans, being gashmi (inherently physical rather than
spiritual beings), are drawn by their natural desires to that which is also gashmi.
When a person who is gashmi encounters that which is gashmi, the
spiritual dimension of Torah—which is the complete antithesis of man’s earthly
instincts and desires—can easily be not just ignored but forgotten. This
unfortunate consequence is best avoided by relocating in a stronghold of Torah,
a place where the power of the ruchni is strong enough to overcome the powerful
appeal of the gashmi.
As a further footnote, it’s worth
considering the final words of Rabbi Nehorai’s advice in this mishnah: וְאֶל
בִּינָתְךָ אַל תִּשָּׁעֵ (“don’t rely on your
own understanding”). These words come straight out of a verse from Mishlei (at
3.5), but they are not treated as a
proof pasuk: rather, our Tanna has simply incorporated the last part of the
verse into his own mishnaic advice. The
full verse actually suggests the exact opposite of what he’s teaching: you don’t
need to rely on rabbis or chaverim at all. The full verse reads
בְּטַח אֶל-יְהוָה, בְּכָל-לִבֶּךָ וְאֶל-בִּינָתְךָ
אַל-תִּשָּׁעֵן
(“Trust in God with all your heart, and don’t rely on your own understanding”). In case you are wondering, the view that all understanding comes from God and his hashgachah over any individual is reflected in the Mikra’ot Godolot, in the commentaries of the Metzudat David, the Ralbag and the Malbim—none of whom make any reference to our mishnah and the need to enhance one’s understanding by engaging with any other mortals.
