We now come to the final mishnah of chapter one - mishnah 18 - which records the words of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. The commentators disagree as to which Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is meant in our mishnah. Most understand that this is the grandson of the Shimon mentioned in the previous mishnah, that is, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the son of Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh, who lived after the destruction of the Temple; whereas the earlier Nasi, who also bore the name Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, was the last Nasi in the period preceding the destruction. Others understand that this is the very same Shimon of the previous mishnah, and that there he is mentioned without the title 'Rabban' because he said those words in his youth, while here he speaks from within his office as Nasi.
The text of the mishnah:
"Al sheloshah devarim ha'olam omed: al hadin, ve'al ha'emes, ve'al hashalom" - the world stands on three things: on justice, on truth, and on peace. The mishnah concludes by bringing a source from the prophecy of Zechariah: "Shene'emar: emes umishpat shalom shiftu besha'areichem" - as it is said: "Truth and a judgment of peace shall you judge in your gates."
This closing source is somewhat puzzling, since it is not clear how this verse proves that the world stands on these three things. Indeed, many omit this source from the text altogether, because it does not belong here.
The contradiction to the teaching of Shimon HaTzaddik:
First we must address a fundamental difficulty: in the second mishnah of the tractate we learned the words of Shimon HaTzaddik, who also said that the world stands on three things - on Torah, on the service of God, and on acts of kindness. It is exceedingly strange that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, whoever he may be, living hundreds of years later, would directly dispute and argue with Shimon HaTzaddik, who was among the last of the Men of the Great Assembly. Such a thing seems implausible.
Some have noted that the wording is not identical in the two mishnayos: some have the text here as "Al sheloshah devarim ha'olam kayam" - the world endures on three things - while in mishnah 2 there is a version reading "the world was created on three things." In any case, the commentators understand that the difference between the two mishnayos is a difference of plane: the three that Shimon HaTzaddik listed are the reasons for the creation of the world, and without them the world would have no purpose and would, as it were, revert to chaos; whereas here we are speaking of the social world, the world of human beings and the relationships between them - the stability of society and civilization depends on these three things. These are two separate matters.
A judgment that is true to its very truth - partnership in the work of creation:
Although we have distinguished between the two planes, it is worth noting that there is a Gemara which links the ideas together and speaks of the world's endurance in the sense of the actual creation of the world. The Gemara in Shabbos (10a) relates that Rav Chisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna sat in judgment the entire day, until they grew faint from hunger. Rav Chiya bar Rav MiDifti said to them: it says "and the people stood over Moshe from the morning until the evening" - "and would it enter your mind that Moshe sat and judged the entire day? When was the Torah taught?" Is it conceivable that Moshe Rabbeinu judged the people from morning until evening every single day, and when did he transmit the Torah? After all, his primary role in Israel is to teach the Torah he received at Sinai, and it is unreasonable that he spent the whole day occupied with monetary cases.
Rather, the verse comes to teach you: any judge who renders a judgment that is true to its very truth - meaning that he judges properly, according to the truth of the Torah, to the highest level - even for a single hour in the day, Scripture credits him as though he became a partner with the Holy One, blessed is He, in the work of creation. The Gemara derives this from a gezeirah shavah: it is written here "and the people stood over Moshe from the morning until the evening," and it is written there in the account of creation "and it was evening and it was morning, one day."
We see, then, that the Gemara weaves the two ideas together: if the purpose of justice and of the judge is to ensure that disputes are resolved without violence and to advance social harmony and peace, and when he does this with a judgment that is true to its very truth - for this is justice and this is truth - it turns out that he is like a partner in the creation of the world. In this way the values of our mishnah are bound up with those very values that were attributed to the beginning of the creation of the world.
A personal note - "Deshe":
The following should be taken with considerable reservation, since it is a personal insight only and has no basis in the commentators - take it or leave it. The Gemara immediately preceding it on the same page (Shabbos 10a) relates: "Rav Ami v'Rav Asi havu yasvei v'garsei beinei amudei" - the two great Amoraim, who were regarded as the judges of Israel and sat in Teveria, would sit and learn between the pillars, apparently in a place that afforded them a little privacy. "V'chol sha'ata v'sha'ata havu tafchei a'ivra d'dasha v'amrei: Ya d'is lei dina leisi v'lei'ol" - every single hour they would knock on the bolt of the door and announce: whoever has a case to be judged, let him come and enter.
On the face of it the Gemara is puzzling: what is it coming to teach us? The commentators surely said what they said about it. But it is strange that they are sitting in the middle of the room between the pillars, and in order to knock they get up, go to the door, and tap on the 'ivra d'dasha'. One can suggest a lovely idea: the word 'dasha' itself is made up of three letters - dalet, shin, alef - the initial letters of din (justice), shalom (peace) and emes (truth). In other words, in the midst of their learning, and out of their readiness to render judgment, they were reminding themselves every single hour why they were there: to sustain the world through justice, peace and truth, and never to let it slip from their minds. It is a constant reminder, much like kissing the mezuzah on entering a room, of what they are really doing.
The Preconditions for a Stable Society:
Let us return to our Mishnah, which focuses on the preconditions for a stable society - how a society can continue to exist. For anyone unfamiliar with this field who does not deal with political thought, I would point you to a wonderful essay by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his introduction to his volume on Sefer Devarim in the Covenant and Conversation series, where he discusses this at length; it is well worth investing the time to read it.
In brief: the idea of society is that human beings live together and try to create something greater than the sum of its parts. A person does not live alone on a mountaintop, because he calculates that as part of a community he can achieve more than he can on his own. But the central value of the individual is his autonomy, his liberty and his freedom of choice. A person is a being of free will, and his freedom of action is what defines him, and naturally he seeks to realize himself and to shape who he will become.
The problem arises the moment there is a society of people living and acting together: each one has an independent will, and at times my will collides with yours. When we are speaking of dozens, hundreds and thousands of people, a way is needed to coordinate between the competing wills, so that we can act together peacefully and productively, in a way where the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts.
Three Ways of Organizing Society:
Positive incentive - a market economy: Each person is told to act in his own self-interest and to gain as much as he can for himself, and Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' will guarantee the best outcome for everyone. The supreme value is liberty, and everyone may do as he wishes - and this, to some degree, comes at the expense of order and its quality.
Coercion from above - an authoritarian regime: Instead of leaving the decision in the hands of the individual, order is imposed upon him and he is told what to do. There are advantages to this: a society that is more orderly, safer and cleaner, but at the price of surrendering part of the individual's freedoms. Think of China today.
Consent and mutual responsibility - a covenantal society: This, perhaps, is the vision that Rabbi Sacks presents as the vision of the Torah. Society functions neither out of selfish interest nor out of external coercion, but out of mutual consent, mutual concern and mutual responsibility. I agree to restrain some of my desires because I care about you as well - "V'ahavta l're'acha kamocha" - love your fellow as yourself. What guarantees that I will not act in complete opposition to your interest, but will rather bear it in mind and minimize the friction, is the covenant we have entered into together. It is not imposed on me, and although at times I give up some of my liberty, my sense of self is larger than 'I' - it is 'we': Knesses Yisrael, the Jewish people, the local community; and therefore my interests are larger than myself, they are the success of the whole, and for that reason I bear responsibility for you as well.
These are the three possibilities for organizing society and for balancing liberty against order. And now, returning to the Mishnah, we find that justice, truth and peace are necessary preconditions for every one of these approaches - whether in an extreme free-market economy, in a wholly authoritarian society, or in a covenantal society - and without them society will collapse and fall apart.
Justice:
'Din' means law and the rule of law, including the enforcement of property rights - and this is one of the things the commentators highlight here. If I took something belonging to you, you will get it back; if I broke your window, I will be obligated to repair it and pay for the damage. That is the meaning of din.
In a market economy: What makes the American stock market more attractive than markets in Brazil, South Africa or Russia is the confidence that there is rule of law there, that property rights will be enforced and that the system is predictable: that an investor will be able to exit his investment as he wishes, that there will be no corruption or unfair favoring of one company over another. Without confidence that property rights and personal rights are protected, and that the government does not wield disproportionate power, a person will hesitate to expand and to expose himself, and he will not operate in a market that has no rule of law but rather corruption, unfairness and unpredictability.
In an authoritarian regime: Every communist society seeks to persuade the people that the government is acting for their benefit. As long as the rule of law is enforced, wages are paid on time and a person is protected when misfortune strikes him - the society will be orderly and stable. But if people feel that there is no rule of law, that there is corruption, that others are exploiting them or receiving what they do not deserve, and that they can be harmed and have their property taken with no punishment and no consequences - the stability of the regime will be undermined and the people will revolt, for they will not entrust their lives to a government that does not have their welfare in mind.
In a covenantal society: Here too, the agreement to cooperate out of mutual love, respect and concern is wonderful - but the moment there is no rule of law and some people escape their responsibilities more than others, I will be forced to look out for myself, I will stop caring for you and care only for myself, and the whole idea of covenantal mutuality will collapse. How can I afford to protect your interests when my own interests are unprotected?
Emes (Truth):
The word 'emes' can be translated as reality - in the sense of the reality of the Holy One, which is truth. The idea is that a stable society, of any kind whatsoever, must base its assumptions, its actions and its policies on what is true and real; if it does not, everything collapses. In a free market economy, as can be seen today in many countries in the Western world, the moment a person stops trusting the government, the media and the large pharmaceutical companies, and believes that they are all out to lie to him and mislead him, the stability of society is shaken at its very foundation, and people become rebellious and distrustful. You cannot organize a society when the great institutions meant to organize it are no longer considered credible but are seen as living a lie. When there is no grasp of what is real, and when there are attempts to deceive and to pull the wool over people's eyes, people respond with resistance.
This is also why literary dystopias feature tyrannical regimes of the '1984' variety, whose entire business is lying to people and controlling them through lies. The same is true in the real world: North Korea today does not dare let the truth get out, for if its residents had access to an open internet and could see how the rest of the world lives, the state would be destabilized and would collapse. People who are aware that they are not living in truth, and that they are being lied to, will not allow themselves to be ruled by an outside force. Ayn Rand put it in one sharp line, a line often quoted: "You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality." You can pretend that everything is fine, that the way people eat, the way they behave and the legal systems they run exact no price; but if all of them are rotten, corrupt and inconsistent with reality - there will be consequences, society will be shaken and everything will fall apart.
Perhaps this is also the depth of the statement of Chazal that the seal of the Holy One is truth. The letters alef, mem, taf are the beginning, the middle and the end of the alef beis - like three pillars, exactly the way Chazal picture the three pillars upon which the world and society stand, like a three legged stool that stands firm. The very shape of the letters testifies to this as well: the alef has what looks like two legs and a flat base, and so too the mem and the taf - letters of stability.
By contrast, says the Gemara, the letters of 'sheker' - the opposite of truth - are all clustered at the end of the alef beis: shin is second from the end, reish is third from the end and kuf is fourth from the end. The way they are written in a Torah scroll teaches the same lesson: the shin rests on one small point, the kuf balances on one small leg, and so too the reish - letters with no stability in them. The point is that falsehood is inherently unstable, and in the end it will collapse.
So too in a covenantal society: my commitment to my fellow Jew is based on the assumption that he has integrity, and that what he promised he will fulfill. If it turns out that the covenantal partner is lying, the covenant is broken - for its entire foundation is that I am morally obligated to you and will come to your aid when you need it. Clearly, then, there is no covenantal society without truth.
Shalom (Peace):
'Shalom' means tranquility, but in the broader definition it comes from the word shleimus, wholeness and completion - all the parts working together in harmony. The fitting translation, therefore, is harmony. And this is true by definition: a society that lacks peace is not stable and cannot endure, because its people are at odds with one another and caught up in internal wars.
We can go further and suggest an explanation of the well known Mishnah in Maseches Uktzin: "Lo matza HaKadosh Baruch Hu kli machzik berachah l'Yisrael ela ha'shalom" - the Holy One found no vessel that holds blessing for Israel other than peace. The depth of the matter is that the idea of harmony and peace is the coordination of efforts, through which the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. An individual on his own is a small vessel and a small receptacle for Hashem's blessing; but when a society functions in a coordinated way, it creates something far greater than the individuals, and thereby becomes a far larger vessel for receiving a far greater blessing. It is self evident that there is no greater receptacle for God's blessing than a society that has made itself greater than the sum of its parts, that is, one that functions in harmony - which is the very definition of shalom.
And without peace, everything falls apart. That is why Chazal said that the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed only because of baseless hatred: once there is no trust, no brotherhood and no people working together, but instead people turning on one another, the world inevitably falls apart and collapses in on itself.
In summary: The Mishnah teaches that these three things - justice, truth and peace - are the prerequisites for a stable society, the very society we are trying to build for ourselves. A person must be a model of justice - of fairness and righteousness; of truth - of living in reality, of standing by his word and of integrity; and of peace - of learning to get along with others and to work with them in order to bring out the best in his fellow. And if everyone conducts himself this way, we will have a solid society that will be the vessel holding the blessing that the Holy One wishes to pour out upon Israel.