We continue with Chapter 4 of Maseches Avos, and in Mishnah 2 we meet Ben Azzai. Like Ben Zoma in the previous mishnah, Ben Azzai too has no title of "Rabbi" before his name, because he passed away prematurely, before he had the chance to receive semichah. Nevertheless, the Gemara is clear that he was as great as any of the greats of his generation. He was a student of Rabbi Akiva, and later a colleague-student and contemporary of his, and he was known especially for his diligence, his eagerness and the sheer intensity of his Torah learning, as well as for his piety and his fear of Heaven.
Ben Azzai's greatness:
His diligence: The Mishnah in Maseches Sotah (Chapter 9, Mishnah 15) says: "Mishemes Ben Azzai batlu ha'shakdanim" - when Ben Azzai died, the diligent ones ceased. Once he passed away, there were no longer people who learned Torah with such intense, unbroken devotion and such great enthusiasm.
His piety: The Gemara in Maseches Berachos says: "Haro'eh Ben Azzai b'chalom - yetzapeh la'chassidus" - one who sees Ben Azzai in a dream should look forward to piety. If a person sees him symbolically in a dream, he should anticipate piety, because Ben Azzai was an exceptional God-fearing man and a chassid.
The thing he is best known for is the fact that he never married. The Tosefta in Yevamos highlights his own statements about the importance of marriage and bringing children into the world, and yet he himself did not do so. On this point there are two seemingly contradictory traditions: according to one, he never married at all, while the Gemara in Kesubos (daf 63) says that he was divorced from Rabbi Akiva's daughter. A possible resolution of the contradiction: he had kiddushin with Rabbi Akiva's daughter, and although in a certain sense they were legally married by virtue of the kiddushin, they never actually entered into marriage. Ben Azzai held that he was in the category of an anus, one under compulsion: marriage was simply not possible for him, since he was utterly devoted to Torah learning and had neither the mental space nor the emotional space for a wife, and it would not have been fair to her. He therefore remained, as it were against his will, devoted full time to learning, morning, noon and night.
Even the manner of his passing appears in a famous Gemara in Chagigah (daf 14b): "Four entered the pardes" - four sages delved into the hidden, mystical parts of the Torah, in a kind of meditative state. Three of them did not emerge safely and did not survive the experience, and only Rabbi Akiva emerged whole. The three were Acher (Elisha ben Avuyah), Ben Zoma and Ben Azzai. The Ben Azzai of our mishnah passed away as part of that process, and so he died at a young age.
The words of the Mishnah:
"Hevei ratz l'mitzvah kalah, u'voreiach min ha'aveirah" - a person should run toward a mitzvah that appears to be of light value, and flee from sin. Some versions read "Hevei ratz l'mitzvah kalah k'vachamurah" - run to a light mitzvah as to a weighty one - but Tosafos notes that in most versions these words do not appear, and he too omits them, so we will leave that outside the text.
The Mishnah then adds two reasons for this:
"Shemitzvah goreres mitzvah, va'aveirah goreres aveirah" - for one mitzvah draws another mitzvah after it, and one sin draws another sin after it.
"Sesechar mitzvah mitzvah, u'sechar aveirah aveirah" - the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the reward of a sin is another sin.
It is worth noting that at the beginning of Chapter 2 Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi already taught us: "Hevei zahir b'mitzvah kalah k'vachamurah, she'ein atah yodea matan secharan shel mitzvos" - be as careful with a light mitzvah as with a weighty one, for you do not know the reward given for the mitzvos. Here Ben Azzai says more than that: it is not enough to be careful about performing mitzvos and avoiding sins; one must run toward the mitzvos and flee from the sins - and for this too he gives a reason, in fact two reasons.
The first reason - one mitzvah draws another mitzvah:
This is a natural process, or at the very least a natural psychological process: a person who moves in the direction of mitzvos falls into a habit, and from then on he is naturally drawn, as part of human nature, to pursue further mitzvos. He gets into the groove and goes with the momentum. Chazal attributed decisive weight to the power of habit and to a person training himself to do the right thing and to fall into good habits. The first reason to run toward mitzvos, then, is that the running instills in a person a desire and a habit to follow after mitzvos, and consequently he will continue to follow after them - and that is for his own good.
And the same is true in reverse: one sin drags another sin after it, and therefore a person must flee from sin, for whoever goes after one transgression finds that another follows it, and then another after that. Here too we are dealing with a natural phenomenon in human psychology: someone who slips into a bad habit keeps sliding downward, and one thing leads to the next. At first a person pays no attention to something that seems insignificant to him, such as handling muktzeh, and before he notices he is desecrating Shabbos, and before he notices he has thrown off the yoke entirely and abandoned everything.
The second reason - the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah:
Beyond the natural psychological process of entering into good habits and avoiding bad ones, which has a positive long term effect, there is a separate and supernatural phenomenon: the Holy One, blessed is He, arranges opportunities for additional mitzvos for a person as part of his reward. To one who wants to do mitzvos, the Holy One, blessed is He, says: "I have another mitzvah that needs to be done; I will place it in this person's path so that he will earn additional reward." And in the same measure, the reward of a sin is a sin: when there is something bad before Him that needs to be done, He arranges those transgressions before a person who is already a sinner, using him as a convenient instrument - and so that person goes on digging his pit deeper. This is the first approach of the Bartenura.
The Bartenura brings a second approach as well, and it is truly remarkable. Many people are familiar with the concept of "the joy of a mitzvah" - the happiness that comes with performing mitzvos. Here the Bartenura says that the joy of the mitzvah, the pleasure and delight a person derives from performing it, is itself a mitzvah in its own right. In other words: a person who prepares a fine drink for himself in honor of Shabbos receives his reward for observing Shabbos properly, and if he enjoys it, he receives reward for the enjoyment as well. And so it is with every mitzvah: one who enjoys giving charity and feels good about having given to someone receives reward for that good feeling too.
These are his words: "Another explanation: the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah - that all the longing and delight a person has in performing the mitzvah is counted for him as a mitzvah in its own right, and he receives reward for the mitzvah he did and for the delight and pleasure he took in doing it." A person is paid in the World to Come not only for the mitzvah itself, but receives a second payment, as it were, for having enjoyed doing the mitzvah. According to this explanation, it is worth running even toward a light mitzvah, since the enjoyment it brings earns double reward. And it is clear that the more a person runs toward something, the more he will enjoy it - again, this is human nature - so the gain grows exponentially. Therefore one should pursue every small mitzvah, for its benefit is great.
A third approach - the mitzvah as connection:
There is a third approach here, more abstract and kabbalistic in character, and it is the approach of Rabbeinu Bachya. What is the reward a person receives in Gan Eden? It is not a salary, and it is not something external and separate from him, but rather the very bond he created with the Holy One, blessed is He. The word "mitzvah" is usually understood from the root tzadi-vav-heh, meaning a command, but it carries an additional meaning from the word tzavsa - togetherness, connection. The mitzvos are the means by which a person actually creates his bond with the Holy One, blessed is He; and in the World to Come, when he takes pleasure in that bond, that itself is the mitzvah. In other words, the reward is not something external: performing the mitzvah is the connection, and it is itself the reward. And this is the meaning of the words "she'schar mitzvah mitzvah" - the ultimate reward a person receives from a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself. Therefore one should pursue every small mitzvah, even a light mitzvah that requires no effort or money, for it too creates a new avenue of connection to the Holy One, blessed is He - and that is a person's purpose here in the first place. Every small thing counts, and just as one should pursue every small mitzvah, so should one avoid every transgression, for those very same reasons.
One final point should be noted: although the reward of a sin is a sin and one sin drags another after it, we must not forget that teshuvah is always available. One who does teshuvah out of fear has his transgressions nullified, as it were, and he is not punished for them, and he breaks the cycle. And if he does teshuvah out of love, his transgressions are transformed into mitzvos.
The Mishnah in practical halachah:
This Mishnah finds its place in halachah itself. The Shulchan Aruch in Orach Chaim (siman 60) discusses going to shul in the morning and writes: "mitzvah larutz k'she'holech l'veis haknesses" - it is a mitzvah to run when one goes to shul - and likewise "u'lchol devar mitzvah" - that there is a mitzvah to run to perform any mitzvah, as our Mishnah teaches. And more than that: "afilu b'Shabbos she'assur lifsoa p'siah gassah" - even though on Shabbos one may not take large strides and may not run, running for the sake of a mitzvah is permitted. And in that same place it says that when leaving shul one should not run out, since he appears to be fleeing from the shul and treating it with disrespect - do not run away from the mitzvah.
In summary: we learned the words of Ben Azzai, that being careful with mitzvos is not enough; one must run toward them and flee from sin. We saw two reasons for this: the natural process by which one mitzvah leads to another and one sin leads to another, and the fact that the reward is itself a mitzvah - whether as an additional opportunity that the Holy One, blessed is He, arranges, or as reward for the enjoyment of the mitzvah (the Bartenura), or as the very bond with the Creator, which is the ultimate reward (Rabbeinu Bachya). And with Hashem's help, may we merit to live by this directive.