We continue in Pirkei Avos, chapter 1, mishnah 6, where we meet the second of the Pairs: Yehoshua ben Perachyah and Nittai HaArbeli. Their period of leadership appears to fall near the end of the second century BCE - in the days of Yochanan the Kohen Gadol, who is John Hyrcanus (from 134 to 104 BCE), or in the days of his son Alexander Yannai, King Yannai (from 103 to 76 BCE). This is derived from the Gemara's account that Yehoshua ben Perachyah was forced to flee, as one of the Perushim, from the persecutions, and only later, once it was safe, did he return to his place. It is not clear whether this was during the great civil war that took place around 80 BCE or earlier. Yochanan the Kohen Gadol was a complex figure, and at a late stage of his life he turned against the Perushim.
In any case, a considerable gap emerges here between the first of the Pairs, who lived roughly in the era of Antiochus and the Chanukah story - around 170 or 160 BCE - and the pair before us, who are closer to 125 BCE and even later than that. Here Yehoshua ben Perachyah says three things, in a very famous mishnah.
"Aseh lecha rav" - Make for yourself a rav:
The first statement: "Yehoshua ben Perachyah omer: aseh lecha rav" - Yehoshua ben Perachyah says: make for yourself a rav. The Rambam is precise about the word "aseh," make, which means to appoint - to make a rav for oneself, as opposed to learning from a rav. In other words, a person must choose for himself a figure who will serve as his halachic advisor, someone who keeps him on the straight path, even if that person is not necessarily suited to the role. He needs someone independent and objective outside of himself, who will watch over him, advise him and guide him, and this is true even if he himself is the more learned and the greater of the two. Just as every professional athlete has a coach: under normal circumstances the athlete is better than the coach, and certainly so if he is an outstanding athlete, and nevertheless the coach stands on the sidelines, observes with an objective eye, and can advise him how to improve.
A second approach is that of the Bartenura, and the two approaches go hand in hand. The Bartenura understands the mishnah in the context of a rav who transmits the mesorah: in the time of the Mishnah, the Oral Torah was transmitted orally alone, and therefore a person needs a teacher to teach him. The advice is that he should have one single rav who transmits the mesorah to him, so that he receives one coherent, unified transmission. For when several teachers each teach him a portion, the different versions and variations in wording can appear to contradict one another and be difficult to reconcile, and a lack of clarity results - whereas receiving the mesorah demands clarity.
The Bartenura notes, based on the Gemara in Avodah Zarah, that when it comes to sevara one should not choose only one rav; rather, it is fitting for a person to have several teachers. Sevara is the reasoning, the perspective, the grasp of the inner mechanics of a given matter and the "why" behind it, and from a multiplicity of perspectives insight is gained: the more ways there are to look at the matter, the better. But all this applies to sevara; for receiving the raw material and for receiving the big picture of the mesorah, one rav is far preferable, because the message arrives unified and coherent.
In our times the mesorah is not transmitted in precisely that manner, and therefore according to the Bartenura's approach the mishnah is less applicable today. But according to the Rambam a person certainly needs to have one rav who is his address, whom he trusts to guide him, whose voice he heeds and to whose instruction he submits. The choice of who that will be is left to the person, but once he has chosen him, he must follow his rulings and his direction.
"Ukeneh lecha chaver" - And acquire for yourself a friend:
The second statement: besides the one who stands above him, so to speak, a person needs someone of his own generation and his own level, and that is the chaver, the friend. The mishnah uses the singular: one friend at the very least. The word "chaver" comes from the root chibur, connection, the joining of things to one another - the one who is connected to you. He is with you in spirit, identifies with you, sympathizes with you, understands where you came from and what pains you; and even if he is not with you physically, he is connected to you in spirit.
The word "keneh" - acquire - is a technical halachic term from the language of kinyan, to acquire an object, to acquire rights. That is, a person must formally acquire the right to have this person as his friend. The Bartenura is precise that even if theoretically he would have to pay him in order for him to be his friend, he would have to do so, because it is so important for a person to have a friend. It is only that the usual price is not money and gifts, but mutuality: you will be his friend and he will be yours - that is the payment.
And what is a friend? The intention is not a friend of circumstance, an acquaintance with whom one is on friendly terms. Picture a teenage boy listing how many friends he has, and his father answering that he would be delighted to have even one. The friend of the mishnah is someone who meets two basic and indispensable criteria:
Respect: first, that the two of them share common values; and second, that each of them believes that his fellow upholds those values and lives up to what is expected of someone who espouses them. Out of this, he respects him.
Trust: that a person is confident that his own good is on his fellow's heart. The other does not use him as a tool, and he has no driving agenda other than what is good for him.
It is not particularly hard to find people who share your values and whom you can respect for upholding them; anyone living in a good community will find good people there who share his values. But someone you can genuinely rely on to have your interests at heart, truly and altruistically - that is exceedingly hard to find. Human beings are bad at altruism; we are built to check what we ourselves stand to gain. A person who has his fellow's good at heart regardless of his own benefit is a rarity indeed.
Some argue that altruism is not possible at all and is simply not within human capacity. In our view that is not correct, but it is very difficult. In any case, when it comes to friendship we do not need absolute altruism, because each of the two friends gives something to the other, and that is the mutuality: I will be a true friend to you and you will be a true friend to me. Even though I get something out of it, what is required is a sincere interest in my welfare and giving me the best advice, guidance and support - and I will do the same for you.
What are the benefits of such a sought after friend? Rabbeinu Yonah lists three, and one can see how each of them rests on respect and trust:
Good and honest advice: A friend is a source of straight advice. This rests on respect - that the two of them share the same values, so that the advice he gives will line up with what a person believes is right and good; and on trust - that when he gives advice he understands who the person in front of him is and what is good for him, and has his welfare at heart. This is essential, for a person is looking for someone whose advice he can seek and whose direction he can then rely on.
Criticism that can be accepted: A friend is someone who offers criticism that one is able to receive - how to develop one's character, how to improve and become a better person. This too depends on respect: if a person does not share values with his fellow and does not respect his perspective and his insights, why would he accept what he says about his conduct and his shortcomings? And on trust: he has to believe that the criticism is coming from someone whose words deserve to be taken seriously, because he cares about his good.
A study partner - a chavrusa: A friend is someone you can learn with, and the benefit here is twofold: "do good" and "turn away from evil."
A story from my grandfather's home illustrates the point: late in his life he wanted to take a trip on his own, and all his children told him he could not do it. He had traveled alone his whole life, and at first he stood his ground firmly, but in the end he backed down and said: "I am sure I can do it, but if everyone I love tells me I shouldn't, they must be seeing something I don't see." That is the idea: a person is looking for advice he can lean on, from someone who sees what he himself cannot see. When they tell him something he did not expect to hear, or point out that he is falling short in some area, he relies on their counsel - provided that he respects them and trusts them.
Let us return to the third benefit, the chavrusa. Its "do good" aspect is clear: the very fact that a person has a study partner forces him to get his nose into the book and begin learning. If they arranged to meet after the Friday night meal in the shul to learn together - since his friend is there, he has to show up too. And the same is true during the learning itself: when he drifts off the subject, his friend brings him back to the page.
The "turn away from evil" aspect is no less important: someone learning by himself will inevitably read something incorrectly, misunderstand something, or interpret it in a distorted way - and who will point out his mistake? Who will tell him: "I don't think that is what it means; I don't think that is what it says; I don't think that fits with what we learned elsewhere"? So one needs someone to whom he can present ideas and confirm that his understanding is correct. Here too respect and trust are at work, but on an intellectual level: a person respects his fellow and his intellect, his ability to think clearly, to reason soundly and to express things properly; and he trusts that what his fellow says is an expression of his desire to arrive at the truth, and not a desire to show that he is smarter or to prove him wrong.
A famous story in Bava Metzia chapter 4 illustrates this. Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish were chavrusas their whole lives - a long and complicated story, at the end of which Reish Lakish died and Rabbi Yochanan was left without a study partner and was in despair. The people of the beis midrash found someone and appointed Rabbi Elazar ben Pedas for him, who was as sharp as Rabbi Yochanan. Every time Rabbi Yochanan would say an idea, Elazar ben Pedas would tell him: "Yes, you are right, and let me bring you all the reasons why you are right." Said Rabbi Yochanan: "Who needs that? When I learned with Reish Lakish, for everything I said he would answer me with ten reasons why I was wrong, and it was wonderful, because it served as a springboard for me: he pushed me to sharpen my ideas and to check whether I had erred. But you tell me I am right - who needs that?"
And it is told that he was so despairing that he lost his mind, and the students prayed for mercy on his soul and he passed away. Rabbi Yochanan died and was taken, as it were, because when a person's purpose in life is to reach clarity and to understand - clarity or death - and he has no one to help him refine that clarity, there is no point in continuing. Rabbi Yochanan already knew what he knew, and did not need to be told that what he knew was correct; what he needed was someone to tell him that what he thought was correct was not correct at all. That is the thing a person devotes his life to.
The other famous story in the Gemara on this subject is found in Taanis 23. It is worth noting that, surprisingly, there are very few reflections, anecdotes, stories, recollections and sayings in the literature of Chazal and in the Talmud on the subject of friendship; it is astonishing how little there is. One of the most famous is the story of Choni HaMe'agel, Choni the circle drawer - a long and complex story, a beautiful story that is worth studying. The point relevant to us: Choni fell asleep for seventy years, a sort of Jewish Rip Van Winkle, and when he woke up he could not find the people of his generation and could not find anyone who valued him for who he was. In the end his distress was so great that even Heaven had mercy on him and he died.
And Rava the Amora says: this is the story of Choni HaMe'agel, and his distress - that he had no friend at the end of his days - was the fulfillment of the popular saying "o chavrusa o misusa" - give me a friend or give me death. That is to say, someone who has no peers who understand where he is coming from and who can be with him in that place emotionally, his life is not worth living.
This reminds me of something my mother told me in the name of her grandmother - my great great grandmother - who died at the age of ninety seven. At the end of her life she had outlived her own children, and certainly her siblings, her parents and her friends, and she said to my mother: "You know, there is no more enjoyment in being alive, because there is no one left who remembers my memories." That, in my humble opinion, is the idea of Choni HaMe'agel: someone who has nothing in common with anyone in terms of the context of his life no longer has any enjoyment in life.
And while we are on the subject of grandfathers: regarding the first point mentioned above about Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish - clarity or death, and wanting someone who will correct you - my grandfather had a fine saying that is worth keeping in your pocket: "If two people always agree, at least one of them isn't thinking." Someone who seeks a chavrusa, a study partner, wants both sides to think and to push each other until they arrive at clarity.
There is a further benefit in having a friend that is not included in the three things Rabbeinu Yonah lists: a person has someone he can lean on without hesitation. There is always somebody there for him, at any hour, and if he needs him he can rely on him by day and by night to be there for him. This is a precious and essential resource that every person ought to have, and therefore he should make the effort to acquire it for himself. And the price he pays for the acquisition is reciprocity - he must be there for them as well.
"Vehevei dan es kol ha'adam lechaf zechus":
The third and final part of the mishnah: "vehevei dan es kol ha'adam lechaf zechus" - a person must judge everyone favorably. The literal translation of the words "chaf zechus" is the scale-pan of merit, and that is the picture before us: a balance scale, like the scales held by the statue of Justice, the kind with which things were weighed in days gone by. There are two pans, and the advice is to tip the scale toward the side of merit - to interpret an ambiguous act in a positive way.
To make this clear, we can divide the person whose act you have witnessed, when that act looks ambiguous, into four categories:
The righteous person: someone known to generally do the right thing.
The average person: someone who sometimes does the right thing and sometimes does not, with a mixed record.
The wicked person: someone who consistently does the wrong thing, is known to fail in this area and has a history of improper behavior.
The person you do not know: someone with whom you have no acquaintance or experience at all, and you do not know whether he generally behaves properly or does the wrong thing.
In the first category, someone known to generally do the right thing, there is an obligation to judge him favorably - not because of our mishnah, but from the Torah itself. This is a Torah obligation, based on the verse "betzedek tishpot amisecha." The word "betzedek" is difficult to translate precisely, but in any case it refers to an obligation to judge your fellow Jew who conducts himself as a Jew ought to conduct himself, and the idea is that "tzedek" implies leaning toward the side of merit. This is not the place to elaborate, and the main point is this: there is an obligation to judge favorably someone who, as far as you know, behaves well and has done the right thing in the past. Therefore, when he does something whose motives are unclear, there is a Torah obligation to judge him favorably and to assume that he is doing the right thing.
Our mishnah is dealing with a different case: someone you do not know at all, about whom you know nothing and with whom you have no prior acquaintance, and whose act right now is ambiguous and open to interpretation. About such a person Yehoshua ben Perachyah gives his advice to judge him favorably. And Rashi, based on the Gemara in Maseches Shabbos (127b), writes that as a reward for judging his fellow favorably, a person will merit that Heaven judges him favorably as well.
And what about the wicked person? Someone you know to have a questionable past, who has behaved badly, who schemes wrongdoing in this area or does not live up to his moral obligations in it - there is no obligation whatsoever to judge him favorably, and on the contrary, doing so is dangerous. Someone who knows that a person has behaved badly in the past should suspect that he is continuing with the same tricks, should not let himself be taken in by him, and should be on his guard. "A wise man has his eyes in his head": he should keep his eyes wide open and expect that this person is behaving badly.
And as for the average person - someone you know who is generally good, but who has had moments when he did not live up to it - most of the Rishonim understood that he too is protected by the obligation of "betzedek tishpot amisecha," a Torah obligation, since he is generally a good Jew and a decent person; and if at times he does not do exactly the right thing in a particular area, one must still assume the best about him.
Interestingly, Rabbeinu Yonah understands, at least in his commentary on our mishnah, that the mishnah comes to address this case as well. In his view, the mishnah is speaking about someone who is average - sometimes behaving well and sometimes not - and not only about someone who is completely unknown to you. And interestingly enough, Rabbeinu Yonah himself in Shaarei Teshuvah leans as the other Rishonim do, and writes that there is a Torah mitzvah, a fundamental obligation, to judge even the average person favorably.
In summary: in this mishnah we learned three things from Yehoshua ben Perachyah. "Asei lecha rav" - appoint one rav for yourself: as an objective advisor and guide (the Rambam), and as the transmitter of a single, unified tradition (the Bartenura), whereas in matters of reasoning it is worthwhile to gather many perspectives. "Ukenei lecha chaver" - an actual acquisition, whose foundation is respect and trust, whose benefits are honest advice, criticism that is accepted, and learning with a chavrusa, as well as a friend you can always lean on, and whose price is reciprocity. "Vehevei dan es kol ha'adam lechaf zechus" - with the righteous person and the average person this is a Torah obligation stemming from "betzedek tishpot amisecha," with the person you do not know this is the advice of our mishnah and its reward comes with it, while the wicked person is not to be judged favorably; rather, one must be on guard against him.