PIRKEI AVOT - Ethics of Our Ancestors [Jewish Ethical]

About Ethics of Our Ancestors

Atop Mount Sinai, over the course of forty days and nights, G-d taught Moses the entire Torah. The Torah was a two-part study: the "Written Torah," transcribed in the Five Books of Moses (and later extended to include all the 24 books of the Scriptures), and the "Oral Torah," a commentary on the Written Torah. The Oral Torah was orally transmitted from teacher to student for many generations. In the 2nd century CE, Rabbi Judah the Prince felt that the Oral Law would be forgotten unless it was transcribed. So, he compiled the basics into a six-part document called the Mishnah.

Pirkei Avot, also spelled as Pirkei Avoth or Pirkei Avos or Pirke Aboth, which translates to English as Chapters of the Fathers, is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims from Rabbinical Jewish tradition. It is part of didactic Jewish ethical literature. Because of its contents, the name is sometimes given as Ethics of the Fathers. Pirkei Avot consists of the Mishnaic tractate of Avot, plus one additional chapter. Avot is unique in that it is the only tractate of the Mishnah dealing solely with ethical and moral principles; there is little or no halacha (laws) found in Pirkei Avot.

The Mishnaic tractate Avot consists of five chapters. It begins with an order of transmission of the Oral Tradition; Moses receives the Torah at Mount Sinai and then transmits it through various generations (including Joshua, the Elders, and the Neviim, but notably not the Kohanim), whence it finally arrives at the Great Assembly, i.e., the Rabbis (Avot 1:1). It contains sayings attributed to sages from Simon the Just (200 BCE) to shortly after Judah haNasi (200 CE), redactor of the Mishnah. These aphorisms concern proper ethical and social conduct, as well as the importance of Torah study.

The first two chapters proceed in a general chronological order, with the second focusing on the students of Yochanan Ben Zakkai. Chapters Three and Four are thematic and contain various attributed sayings in no explicit order. Chapter Five departs from the organization and content of the preceding four in that it consists mostly of anonymous sayings structured around numerical lists, several of which have no direct connection with ethics. The last four paragraphs of this chapter return to the format of moral aphorisms attributed to specific rabbis.