There is a custom we Jews have for the days between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot where we study the early rabbinic text called Pirke Avot, traditionally translated as “The Sayings of the Fathers.” It’s one of the richest collections of ancient Jewish ethics, compiled by the editors of the Mishnah, early rabbinic law that was written and codified by the rabbis living in Jerusalem between approximately 200 BCE and 200 CE.
For more than 30 years it’s been my practice to study Pirke Avot during the seven weeks between the holiday that celebrates our freedom from slavery and the holiday that celebrates God’s giving the Torah to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai. During these epic days of wandering in the Sinai desert in the first 50 days of what will be eventually 40 years before arriving in the Land of Israel, our ancestors learned a lesson that continues to animate not only our existence as a people but serves as model for any civilized society: there is no true freedom without law.
Liberation is a beautiful event. We humans yearn for it, aspire to its attainment, fight for it and earn it. But freedom is only maintained and protected by law. That’s why the Giving of the Torah seven weeks after moving from slavery to freedom is the other side of the Passover Coin.
The other tradition we Jews celebrate between Passover and Shavuot is called “Counting the Omer.” It is a tradition rooted in the Bible’s concept of ancient agriculture and marks, or counts out, the time period of early spring planting followed by the first harvest of grains like barley and wheat seven weeks later. \
For sake of argument in considering the above, consider it an early constitutional convention. And so during the Omer Counting, we read Pirke Avot. We study wisdom on our path to a freedom circumscribed by law.
The first line of Pirke Avot:
משֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי, וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ, וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ לִזְקֵנִים, וּזְקֵנִים לִנְבִיאִים, וּנְבִיאִים מְסָרוּהָ לְאַנְשֵׁי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה. הֵם אָמְרוּ שְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים, הֱווּ מְתוּנִים בַּדִּין, וְהַעֲמִידוּ תַלְמִידִים הַרְבֵּה, וַעֲשׂוּ סְיָג לַתּוֹרָה:
Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.
Our tradition extends back over a timeline that is more than 3500 years old. We receive the law, on a first name basis, from our Biblical ancestors and it is transmitted orally and then in written form generation after generation until it is in our hands. There are those who came before us who heard the law and passed it forward, over and over again, until it came into our possession.
Their wisdom endures: Be patient. Teach it to the next generation. And this business of the “fence round the Torah.” What does Robert Frost say? “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense.”
Law guides us; awakens in us the rights and dignity of the other; invites us to feel autonomous and free from harm but also safe to observe another and invite them into our realm with friendship and even love.
In a world with too much darkness I wish you a springtime of learning and growth. In a world with the overbearing weight of division I wish you neighbors and friends.
Another beautiful piece. I learn so much from your writing. And I taught a lot of Robert Frost poetry, so on this day of “put a poem in your pocket,” this resonates!