Avos, chapter 1, mishnah 12. We now come to the last of the pairs - Hillel and Shammai. I will leave the biographical background for a later stage, since many mishnayos of Hillel still lie ahead of us; but there is a great deal to say about this mishnah itself, and I ask you to stay with me until the end of the lesson.
The mishnah opens: Hillel and Shammai received the tradition from Shemayah and Avtalyon. Hillel is the last of the nesi'im of the pairs; he was appointed nasi around the year 30 BCE, about a hundred years before the destruction of the Temple, and passed away around the year 10 CE, after serving as nasi for some forty years.
Hillel is the first from whom several sayings have been transmitted to us: until now each one - Antigonus of Socho, Shemayah and Avtalyon, and each of the pairs - had only a single statement, whereas Hillel will have many. And this is how he opens: "Hevei mitalmidav shel Aharon, ohev shalom v'rodef shalom, ohev es habriyos umekarvan laTorah" - be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing them close to Torah. This Aharon is Aharon the Kohen, the brother of Moshe Rabbeinu.
A figure to emulate, not an abstract instruction:
The first thing that stands out is that Hillel is not issuing an abstract directive - to do or to refrain, to be or not to be. He places before a person a picture of a figure worth imitating: be like Aharon. This principle is enormously important, because it seems that Hillel's educational approach was to be a model and a living example of what it means to be a Jew of Torah. He himself was a source of inspiration, and out of his extraordinary humility he would never say "look at me and be like me"; but indirectly he is saying exactly that - that you should have a portrait drawn in your heart, an example according to which you seek to live.
This stands out especially against the background of the period. Hillel represents the spiritual face of the nation - a man whose love, tolerance and wisdom were almost superhuman. Facing him stood the temporal leadership of the Jewish people during most of the years of his term as nasi: King Herod, a fascinating and extraordinary man, but ultimately utterly wicked and a terrible person. And Hillel teaches us to seek out precisely a flesh and blood figure to whom a person can lift his eyes, whom he can admire and imitate - and the figure he asks us to imitate is Aharon the Kohen.
"Among his disciples" and not "like him":
Hillel does not say "be like Aharon the Kohen," but rather "hevei mitalmidav shel Aharon" - be among the disciples of Aharon, and this too is worth noting. A disciple is one who learns from another person how to behave and how to conduct himself, and shapes himself according to the model before him. To be a disciple means to learn from someone not only his words, but also his deeds.
More than that: Aharon the Kohen was a man larger than life, extraordinary in his stature (and we will yet bring several stories on this), and apparently none of us has it in him to be like him. But that is not the point. The point is that a person must make himself into one who aspires to resemble, in certain respects, the character traits of Aharon the Kohen.
From here emerges the first essential point of the mishnah, one that deserves to be written in large letters at the head of every mishnah, and really on every page of Shulchan Aruch and before every person who approaches Judaism from any point of view whatsoever: life is not an all or nothing matter. There is no such thing as being Aharon the Kohen - that was his own service, and you will never be like him. But you can try to resemble him, and every step is a step in the right direction. When a person is judged - and this is of course not our place, but the role of the Holy One, blessed is He, who is good - the judgment is according to his potential. And since apparently none of us has the potential to be Aharon the Kohen, it does not say "be like Aharon," but rather "be among the disciples of Aharon" - be like one who longs to be like Aharon, and that should be your aspiration.
"Ohev shalom":
And what did Aharon do? First, he was a lover of peace - a desire in the heart to see relationships of peace. It is worth being precise: the common translation of "shalom" as the absence of war is a faulty translation. The word shalom derives from the root "shalem," which means full and complete; when several parts work together properly, the thing is whole and perfect. Shalom, then, is a state in which everyone works together in harmony, as opposed to a state in which there merely is no active conflict. A cemetery is a quiet place, but it is not a place of peace. Shalom requires a number of people, with their competing interests, their drives, their talents and their weaknesses, working together in harmony and building something greater than themselves, instead of rubbing against one another and standing in conflict.
On the face of it, what is so hard about holding love of peace in your heart? But the truth is that this is not human nature. I remember my days in a tough school: when a fight broke out between kids, immediately every child in the playground would gather in a circle and chant "Fight, fight," enjoying the sight of two children beating each other. It is a frightening phenomenon, and it shows up in the news every day - people love mutual contempt and the exchange of insults and quarrels. That is human nature. It is no accident that boxers are worth hundreds of millions of dollars: people are willing to pay enormous sums to watch people fight, and that is terrible. So the first point is to be a lover of peace - that this be what your heart seeks and what you want to see, and that is work that takes real effort.
The reasoning behind it is simple enough: someone who looks at the world from the perspective of the Holy One, Blessed is He, as we all try to do, sees that every human being is a child of Hashem. And even a person who enjoys a good fight - surely if his own children are fighting and pulling each other's hair, he cannot enjoy it; he wants to see them get along. The lover of peace says: every human being is a person with strengths and weaknesses, and I do not want to see him in conflict. He wants to see every person succeed, and to live in a calm and harmonious society - and that has to be an active desire.
"V'rodef shalom":
"Rodef" means active pursuit - more than valuing peace, doing something for it. Loving peace itself is a good thing, and its source is the verse in Zechariah: "V'ha'emes v'hashalom ehavu" - love truth, which is reality, and love peace. These are the two highest Jewish values. But it is not enough to be fond of the idea of peace; you have to chase after it. The classic rodef is Reuven chasing after Shimon to kill him, whom we are commanded to stop in his active pursuit. So rodef means an active chase: it is not enough to want things to be calm and harmonious and for everyone to get along with each other; you have to make an active effort to bring it about. To pursue peace means to do everything in your power to make it possible, as the verse in Tehillim says: "Bakesh shalom v'rodfehu" - seek peace and pursue it.
A famous passage in Avos D'Rabbi Nassan describes how Aharon the Kohen would make peace between people who were quarreling: when Reuven and Shimon had a fight with each other, Aharon would go to Reuven and say, "Shimon asked me to come talk to you. He is embarrassed to come and ask you to forgive him, but he is sorry and he is asking for your forgiveness." Then he would go to Shimon and say, "Reuven could not bring himself to do it, but he asked me to tell you that he is genuinely sorry and asks you to forgive him - so why not make up?" And when the two of them would meet, they would hug, make peace and live happily. That is the model.
Two extremely important lessons emerge from this illustration:
The first lesson - the root of human conflict:
This lesson comes from Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits shlita: the story teaches that the nature of human conflict, for the most part, does not come from a place of substance but from a place of ego. Each side wants the other to admit he was wrong and apologize, to give in to him. And here is the proof: if there had been a substantive issue between Reuven and Shimon, would Aharon saying "sorry" have changed anything? If I stole your bicycle and someone came to you and said, "He is very sorry," you would answer, "How nice that he is sorry, but I need my bicycle back." Saying sorry is not the problem; the problem is the need to return what was taken, to compensate and to set right what was damaged. That is a substantive conflict - but most of the time it is all a matter of ego: he annoyed me, he did not respect me, he humiliated me, and from now on I carry a grudge against him; and if he would only say "sorry," everything would fall back into place.
From here, pursuing peace is not limited to succeeding in reconciling Reuven and Shimon - which is unlikely in most scenarios. But in any conflict you yourself have with another person, you have the ability not only to love the idea of harmony, but to bring it about, out of the recognition that a large part of the matter has to do with your own ego. If you overcome yourself, recognize that it is hard for a person to say "I am sorry," and understand that there is another side to the story - you will be able to forgive and move on. So often the obstacle to peace is a person's inability to humble himself and give up his pride.
The second lesson - truth and peace:
The second lesson, and perhaps the most important of all, emerges from an obvious question: when Aharon went to Reuven and to Shimon and told each one that his friend wanted to apologize, that was not true - they had never said any such thing. How, then, could he act that way? The answer is the rule in the Gemara: it is permitted to deviate for the sake of peace. A person may bend the facts and say something that is not true for the sake of peace.
This is an enormously important lesson. The two highest Jewish values are truth and peace, as in the verse in Zechariah that we mentioned. The question is which of them ranks higher, and which one is given precedence. The halachah rules that it is permitted to deviate for the sake of peace - one may act against the truth for the sake of peace.
It is quite possible - and this is not the place to develop the idea at length, only to put it on the table - that the many disputes between Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai are rooted in exactly this clash of values: Beis Hillel adopt peace over truth, while Beis Shammai adopt truth over peace. Chazal famously teach that in the future the halachah will follow Beis Shammai rather than Beis Hillel. Why? Because in the future, in the world of truth or in the world of Mashiach, we may be able to live by truth above all else; but in the present state of world history, with human beings and their weaknesses, their fragile egos and everything else, peace has to come first.
This principle has a very important halachic application in the area of shalom bayis, the harmony between a husband and his wife. The precise application has to be clarified with a rav, but the general rule is that one may give way and be as lenient as possible within the boundaries of the Torah, and certainly in rabbinic laws, for the sake of shalom bayis and in order to secure harmony between husband and wife - because peace is the supreme Jewish value, above everything else.
Another point, which takes us slightly off track but is extremely important: three times a day we daven Shemoneh Esrei, with its nineteen berachos. The first three are praise, the last three are thanks, and the middle thirteen are requests. Yet the very last berachah, "Sim Shalom" (or "Shalom Rav"), is a request for peace. The Gemara asks: this is not the language of thanks at all, but a fresh request, so what is it doing here? And it answers that a person has no vessel in which to receive the blessings that the Holy One is prepared to give him if he does not have peace. Without peace there is nothing, and therefore it comes first and foremost.
This is why Hillel teaches here to be a pursuer of peace - not merely to love peace, but to do everything in one's power to create peaceful relationships and to secure harmony in the community, between a man and his wife, between parents and their children and between one friend and another, and to do whatever it takes. This is an absolutely supreme value, taking precedence even over truth.
"Ohev es habriyos u'mekarvan laTorah" - loving people and drawing them close to Torah:
The final part of the Mishnah: Aharon HaKohen loved people and would draw them close to Torah. The Rema, the Bartenura and others explain what this means: when Aharon would see a person struggling, sinning or heading in the wrong direction, he would befriend him, show him love, care about him and give him a smile. As a result, that person, Aharon's friend, would say to himself: "If Aharon knew what I am doing and what I was planning to do, he would not respect me" - and out of that he would rethink the choices of his life and change himself for the better, so as to live up to the way Aharon saw him, the man who had chosen to befriend him and love him.
This is how the Rishonim understood it: there are not two separate instructions here - first to love people, and second to make an effort to bring them close to Torah. The Mishnah is saying that you should love people, be empathetic and sympathetic and care about them, and out of that a person's return and closeness to Torah will develop on its own. This is not an instruction to go out and preach or to actively bring people back to observance, but rather: love people, and if you yourself are an example of what a Jew who lives by Torah ought to be, it will be inevitable that they too draw closer to Torah.
Years spent serving as a shul rav in London raise a question worth asking: what is the definition of kiruv? What is a single act of kiruv, its basic unit of measure? The conclusion reached was that a single act of kiruv is when a person sees in you someone who has something he wants, and understands that you have it only because you are a Jew - because of your connection to the Torah and to the Jewish people. If one accepts this definition, it obligates a person to be a mentor, a model, an example and a role model; someone whom others admire and say about him: "Here is a good person who has something I want, and I am drawn to the Torah because I see what it has done and what it does for him."
One last thought on this point, and it deserves better than being left to the end: if there were one thing to say to every educator, every rav, every parent and grandparent in their educational role, it would be this - nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. It is enough to show a person that you care about him, and the impact on him will be enormous.
In summary: some understand the Mishnah as two separate stages - to love people, and to make an effort to bring them close to Torah; and others explain, as we have explained based on the Rishonim, that there is really only one thing here: love them, and they will be drawn to the Torah by themselves, assuming that you yourself are an example of what a Torah life should look like. But both approaches agree that the first stage is to care about another person sincerely, and for him to understand that you care about him; for if a person does not believe in his heart of hearts that you have his good at heart, nothing you say to him will help and he will not listen. So first and foremost: build a relationship with the person and genuinely care about him - to be "ohev shalom v'rodef shalom, ohev es habriyos u'mekarvan laTorah" - one who loves peace and pursues peace, who loves people and draws them close to Torah, like Aharon HaKohen, and in that way to fulfill the mandate that Hillel places upon us here.