Prime Principles - Pirke Abot 1:3 Love Conquers All

Selfishness, Rewards, and Love....

Antignos of Sokho received [Torah] from Shimon HaTsadik.
He would say:
‘Be not like the serva

nts who serve the master for the sake of receiving a prize,
be like the servants who serve the master not for the sake of receiving a prize.
And let the fear of Heaven be upon you.

Antignos of Sokho and the Highest Goal

Antignos of Sokho was among the earliest of tanna’im (rabbis of the Mishnaic period), whose very name indicates the Hellenistic influence in the Land of Israel. The Jewish confrontation with Greece prompted us to consider, among many other things, our understanding of the nature of our relationship with God.

One of the more prominent and fashionable philosophies around that time (early second century BCE) was that espoused by the philosopher Epicurus (Ἐπίκουρος) (341–270 BCE). Central to his thought was that death is the end of body and soul and that the gods did not care about nor judge what human beings did with their lives. Death, he said, was therefore not to be feared. It is significant that a heretic in the Talmud is referred to simply as Epicurus — אפיקורוס.

It is likely that Antignos responded, at least in part, to these ideas in his central teaching presented in our mishna. His point was that what matters most is not whether we will or will not be in trouble with God regarding the adherence of His Torah and commandments as Epicurus was questioning, but whether we are interested in having a loving relationship with Him.

By saying that we should be like the servant who serves the master with no interest for a prize he is highlighting the value of engaging in a relationship for no ulterior motives. He is telling us, in essence, to become people who act from true love as it is the way to emerge beyond the selfish motives that drive us. As Rambam explains in a comment about our mishna:

The great Sages would command the more understanding and brilliant among their students in private: "‘Do not be like servants who serve their master [for the sake of receiving a reward].’ Rather, since He is the Master, it is fitting to serve Him;" i.e., serve [Him] out of love. (Rambam, Teshuba, 10:4)

Note, however, that Rambam assigns the teaching of Antignos to the ‘understanding and brilliant’ students specifically, and only in private! Why is this teaching reserved for the elite? As we explore, Antignos’ statement prompts a great deal of questioning and difficulty from the commentators^[1]. They are perplexed as to why Antignos should make the lack of regard for reward a virtue when it seems that the Torah clearly sets the commandments before us based on a reward system.

And it shall be if you hearken to my commandments that I command you today,
to love God your Lord and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your being;

I will give forth the rain of your land in its due time…
you shall gather in your grain, your new wine and your shining oil;
I will give forth herbage in your fields, for your animals, you will eat and you will be satisfied.
( Deut., 11:13-15)

If reward is not something we should ideally consider, why mention it in Torah at all? Does the burden of proof not lie with Antignos?

We have a rabbinic tradition that this idea was so contentious and extreme, that it catalysed the first major split from normative Judaism which seems eerily similar to the Epicurean philosophy.

Antignos of Sokho had two disciples who used to study his teachings. They taught them to their disciples, and theirs to their disciples. These disciples began analysing the words closely and asked:

‘Why did our ancestors see fit to say this thing? Is it possible that a labourer should work all day and not take his reward in the evening? To the contrary, if our ancestors had believed in another world and in the resurrection of the dead, they would not have spoken in this manner’.

So they arose and withdrew from the Torah and split into two sects, the Sadducees and the Bethusians: The Sadducees (Tsedukim) were named after Tsadok, and the Bethusians after Bethus. And they used silver vessels and gold vessels all their lives — not because they were ostentatious, but because the Sadducees said, ‘It is tradition amongst the Pharisees to afflict themselves in this world; yet in the World to Come they will have nothing’. (Abot deRibbi Natan, 5)

The difficulty that the disciples faced may have stemmed partially from the difficulty that most of us find with the idea. Antignos revealed that the bar for our service and interaction with God was set on the highest rung. A true relationship of genuine sharing and care is one of love. Otherwise, what may be called a ‘relationship’ is really a partnering of two parties or people for their own benefit. A ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ arrangement.

It is a lofty goal. And Rambam acknowledges that not everyone is up to the task of reaching it.

One who serves [God] out of love occupies himself in the Torah and the mitzvot and walks in the paths of wisdom for no ulterior motive: not because of fear that evil will occur, nor in order to acquire benefit. Rather, he does what is true because it is true, and ultimately, good will come because of it.
This is a very high level which is not merited by every wise man.
(Rambam, Teshuba, 10)

He does however, discuss how it is that we should approach this goal. The pathway to achievement is gradual, deliberate and sensitive to the psychological and cognitive levels of the developing human being.

Imagine a small child who has been brought to his teacher so that he may be taught the Torah, which is his ultimate good because it will bring him to perfection. However, because his understanding is deficient, he does not grasp the true value of that good, nor does he understand the perfection which he can only achieve by means of Torah. Of necessity, therefore, his teacher, who has acquired greater perfection than the child, must bribe him to study by means of things which the child loves in a childish way. Thus a teacher may say, ‘Read and I will give you some honey’. With this stimulation the child tries to read. He does not work hard for the sake of reading itself, since he does not understand its value. He reads in order to obtain the sweets. Eating these delicacies seems far more important and beneficial to him than reading. Therefore, although he thinks of study as work and effort, he is willing to do it in order to get what he wants. When his understanding has so improved that even this reward has ceased to be valuable to him, he will desire something more honourable….Now these are base goals. Yet this
approach is unavoidable because of man’s limited insight, as a result of which he makes the goal of wisdom something other than wisdom itself… which makes a mockery of truth….(Rambam, Introduction to Perek Helek)^[2]

With calculated guidance and active maturation we come to the understanding that what matters most in this life is truth and reality. Genuine love is among the higher truths — perhaps the highest. It is in love that we discover our truest selves, the grace and beauty of sharing and nurturing the lives of others. It is the essential act of God in creation.

To love means to commit oneself without guarantee,
to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.
(Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving)

Why is true Love so Difficult for Us?

The teaching of Antignos is understandably difficult for us to absorb for the very same reason that true love is difficult for us to achieve. On the one hand love is something we all look for and hope for. We believe it to be central to our lives and we know that at times we are willing to do anything for it — even sacrifice our own lives. On the other hand, it is also something we fear greatly. We often cannot even bring ourselves to say to others that we love them. We know that true love requires, among other attributes, responsibility, honesty, integrity, generosity, sensitivity, empathy and vulnerability. All characteristics that are challenging for most of us to consistently maintain, much less perfect.

The question we must consider is why do we so wish to have it in our lives and at the same time find it so difficult? On the most basic level, it is a selfish desire. At the heart of every single cell in our body lie selfish genes that drive us as though we are nothing more than elaborate carriers for them. We are used by them in order to replicate and survive.

We, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes…
A predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.
(Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene^[3])

The genes protect themselves within the confines of the body. The skin, its fortress; the eyes, body, and teeth its predatory weaponry; the brain, its covert control centre. It is there that the plotting, aggressive, pleasure-seeking, protective drives are generated. The mind is so protective, it even keeps secrets from itself.

Ninety-five percent of our mind is unconscious. If you work long enough and hard enough to understand yourself, you will come to discover that this vast part of your mind, of which you have little awareness, contains riches beyond the imagination.’
(M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled^[4])

The oldest and most hard-wired part of this powerful brain is built on not much more than the primal drives of fear and protection

Even before birth, primitive regions of our brains are deeply affected by our biological, social and emotional experiences…For example, the amygdala (our executive centre for fear processing) is fully mature by eight months of gestation.
(Louis Cozolino, Why Therapy Works^[5])

While it may be that, as Dawkins^[6] wrote, ‘Consciousness…can be thought of as the culmination of the…emancipation of survival machines as executive decision-takers from their ultimate masters, the genes….’, the genes nonetheless maintain powerful control over our thinking and perception of reality.

Our minds are masters of illusion…our thinking is biased in self-favourable and anxiety-reducing ways…The brain doesn’t care if our thinking makes sense; its main concern is to keep us alive. That’s why it is willing to sacrifice evidence and logic for surviving another day. So what we usually call resistance may
simply be primitive brain circuitry engaging in anxiety reduction by holding onto the beliefs that make us feel safe.
(Cozolino, ibid.)

The selfish types of love manifest in our lives because we wish to have experiences that make us feel safe, secure and valued. We want others to love us because it makes us feel wanted. At the same time we fear loving others because we fear allowing ourselves to be seen intimately, flaws and all. We also shy away from the responsibilities that loving someone would demand of us.

Thus, even our altruistic behaviours and seemingly moral actions — love included — are often less than wholesome and pure in their motivations. There is, as Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson call it, an ‘elephant in the brain’^[7]. Just as we use the ‘elephant in the room’ as an expression to speak of an evident fact that everyone is aware of but dare not speak about, so too are there darker motives in our minds for acting altruistically that we know about but do not overtly acknowledge.

‘We should often blush at our noblest deeds, if the world were to see all their underlying motives.’
(Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims^[8])

It is not unusual for our revealed, noble motives like loyalty, tradition, cooperation, progress, and safety to conceal deeper ones like competition, deception, social status, selfishness and politics.

But we can emancipate ourselves. It does require great work and effort from us for the genes have been running successfully and relentlessly for eons. The Hakhamim recognised these base drives as an ‘old and foolish king’^[9]. He rules over us with great power and we all obey him, but he lacks reason, thought or planning. He is blind to the future and is likely to drive us, the gene carriers, into oblivion if we do not rebel and take charge.

Breaking Free

In order to break free of the shackles of the old, foolish king of drives, we must care about ourselves, the carriers and realise that the genes are meant to work for us, not vice versa. We must be the drivers rather than the driven. Achieving this on the various levels that it can be achieved is a process of maturity.

The ability to love genuinely is among the greatest accomplishments for a human being because it means that we have managed to truly mature and free ourselves from the powerful, selfish drives that rule us from birth. We become whole beings who are well-seated in our own identity and value so that we can share ourselves with others and allow ourselves to be loved — believing from the strength of our being that we are worthy of that love.

Erich Fromm^[10] presented the difference between the mature and immature aspects of love like this:

Immature love says: “I love you because I need you.”
Mature love says: “I need you because I love you.”

Although an elaboration risks ruining its elegance, it would help our understanding to unpack it.

Immature love has personal, selfish need at its centre. It is fed by the preoccupation with oneself. It lives and dies by one’s lacking as it fills the inner, hollow feelings of loneliness and inadequacy in oneself. Such love lives as a byproduct of neediness and can never truly flourish until the hollows are healed. I love you because I need you.

Mature love has love at its centre. It grows from the knowledge of another being — unique, beautiful, expressive of God. Mature love seeks sharing rather than taking. The mature person is whole in his or her self. The integrity of being becomes a source of sharing and becomes open for connection. The truth of being is shared through love and the need for the one who is loved is a derivative of that love. It is, in its highest state, a form of truth. I need you because I love you.

The War of Becoming

Some of us never reach the mature love that Fromm speaks of because we do not complete the rigorous work that is required to achieve it. True maturity of heart and mind does not happen on its own. It requires struggling against the genes that would have it otherwise. If we wish to be the masters of our own lives, we must fight a war of independence against the domination of our own drives and desires.

We find that [a person] is in the midst of a powerful war, for all the elements of the world, both good and bad are challenges to him…If he becomes a valiant warrior and triumphs in the war on all fronts, he will emerge as a whole human being who will merit bonding with his Maker. (Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzzatto, Mesilat Yesharim)

It is a war of truth and freedom. And like all war, this one too has its share of casualties. Not everyone survives. Some of us are taken captive and later redeemed, some of us surrender to the enemy, some of us spy and show false loyalty. And some of us fight with valour by God’s graces and emerge from battle with a wreath of glory on our heads.

Rabbi Shimon ben Levi says: A person’s inclination overpowers him every day, and seeks to kill him, as it is stated: “The wicked watches the righteous and seeks to slay him” (Psalms 37:32). And if not for the fact that the Holy One, Blessed be He, assists each person in battling his evil inclination, he could not overcome it, as it is stated: “The Lord will not leave him in his hand” (Psalms 37:33).

Divine Breath

How are we to win such battles being the mortal vessels that we are, fighting against immortal and formidable genes? There is but one aspect of the human being that has the wherewithal to wage and win such a war. The selfish gene cowers before it and rages from fear against it. It is, of course, the human soul.

The soul is the breath of God within us^[11]; the godly form of our very existence^[12]. It is us. And it is made from, and thrives on, true love. It is the source of our bravery and courage, strength and pride, glory and beauty.

The selfish gene is driven by fear. The loving soul is driven by Life. Life always triumphs in the end and love therefore, conquers all.

The heart of a faithful and courageous warrior is not born, but forged. A true warrior fights for love knowing that if he is to lose his battle, he will be left forever within the prison of his own being and at the mercy of his own selfishness.

The warrior’s primary defence is his ability to distinguish truth from falsehood within himself and to love, honour, and respect Life as it is rather than as he wishes it to be. Only then, can he act to bring grace and beauty to himself and others and emerge beyond the grips of genetic manipulation and into soulful empathy and bonding.

Antignos is not telling us what to do per se, but what to be: ‘Be like the servants who who serve the master not for the sake of receiving a prize’. He is setting a goal for our lives and revealing to us what we should strive to become. We should learn to love with no ulterior motive and no selfish needs. ‘Not for a prize’ means that the sharing itself is at the same time our goal and reward.

The Path to Connection With God is in Love…and Reverence

The ‘Master’ of whom Antignos speaks is of course, the Holy One. We cannot love Him if we do not learn to love ourselves and others. Indeed it is the overarching principle of the entire Torah.

Rabbi Akiva said: This is a great principle of the Torah:
"You shall love your neighbour as yourself"
(Lev. 19:18).

Antignos is teaching us that the greatest love we can have in our lives is the love of God and His love for us. It isn’t easy by any means, but it is more precious than anything we could ever have or want. A prize feeds the selfish aspects of our actions. But as we grow and mature, we have the ability to learn what matters most and the prizes become cheap. What we seek is sharing Life and our hearts become set on sharing it with the One who is the source of it all. The reward is the love and relationship itself. It is this concept that is revealed in the words of Antignos’ mishna. It is not a פרס peras - a prize that we seek when we follow God’s word, which would be nothing more than remuneration for a job well done. Rather it is שכר sekhar - the fruits of our labour — the natural outcome of our investments that we ultimately bask in.

Our love of God rests on the bedrock of truth and our faithfulness to it. We learn to love him by learning about human love and working to achieve its most perfect form. The ‘rewards’ mentioned in Torah are not payments, but tools and benefits given to us in order to further aid us in our faithful service; indications that the service is good and desired and that we are thus given the means to continue and do more.

What is the meaning of the [statements] made throughout the entire Torah: "If you observe [the Torah's laws], you will acquire such and such;" "If you do not observe [the Torah's laws], such and such will happen to you?”…those benefits are not the ultimate reward for the mitzvot…A person merits [a portion of the World to Come] according to the magnitude of his deeds and the extent of his knowledge…He will grant us all the good which will reinforce our performance of the Torah, such as plenty, peace, an abundance of silver and gold in order that we not be involved throughout all our days in matters required by the body, but rather, will sit unburdened and [thus, have the opportunity to] study wisdom and perform mitzvot in order that we will merit the
life of the World to Come.
(Rambam, Teshuba, 9:1)

Antignos is careful to add an additional point to his teaching: ‘And let the fear of Heaven be upon you’. In all love and sharing there must be an element of fear; fear of violating the essential boundaries that delineate the self that is sharing. Love is not the moulding of two beings into one, but rather the joining of two beings into one synthesised system. The concern for maintaining those boundaries is crucial to the success of the system.

In our fight for love we struggle to break free of the chains of egotism and fear that bind us and we free our hearts with courage so that we may take our place within the universe whole, perfect and wrapped in love.

I will walk within your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people.
(Lev. 26:12)

I will walk within your midst — I will walk with you in the Garden of Eden as one of you and you will not be frightened of Me. One might think that this implies: you will not revere Me, the verse however states, “but I will be your God”.
(Rashi, ibid.)

When the highest relationship with God is achieved, reverence for its boundaries must frame it. It is with such respect and care for Him that His presence will exists in our midst. In that time we will truly say we need Him because we love Him.

^[1] See Tosafot Rosh HaShana, 4a, s.v. bishbil sheyihyu banai.

^[2] Translation from I. Twerski, A Maimonides Reader (New York: Behrman, 1972)

^[3] Oxford University Press. 2016

^[4] Arrow Books. 2006

^[5] W.W. Norton & Company. 2016

^[6] The Selfish Gene.

^[7] The Elephant in the Brain. Hanson, R. & Simler, K. Oxford University Press. 2018

^[8] Translated by Leonard Tanock. Penguin. 1982

^[9] Ecclesiastes, 4:13 ‘Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer has the sense to heed warnings’. Than an old and foolish king. This is the evil inclination, which rules over all the limbs. “Old,” for when a child is born, it comes to him, as it is stated, “sin rests at the opening.”

^[10] The Art of Loving. Thorsons. 1995

^[11] God the Lord formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life. Gen. 2:4.

^[12] And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him. Gen. 1:27