Komentarz do Pirke Awot 6:11

Only for His honor: [meaning,] for his praise.

Whatever the Holy Blessed One created in His world, he created only for His glory, as it is said: “All who are linked to My name, whom I have created, formed and made for My glory” (Isaiah 43:7), And it says: “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever” (Exodus 15:18). In the previous mishnah we learned that God has five possessions in this world. Our mishnah expands this idea and states that all of creation is meant to glorify God. Even pieces of our world that we may think are extraneous and unnecessary, are somehow linked into the great web called God’s creation. Each piece, as unexplainable as it may be to us, has its place and ultimately it too gives glory to God. As much as this mishnah teaches about God, it teaches more about the world and how we, as God’s caretakers, must look at it. You may note that the second verse does not seem to support the idea in this section. It was probably brought as a small prayer, to be said at the end of the last mishnah of the chapter (the next section is not truly part of this chapter).

Rabbi Chananya ben Akashia says, etc.: He did not say his statement concerning Tractate Avot, but rather in Tractate Makkot in [the chapter entitled] Ellu hen HaLokin. And since there is a nice ending to it, all the people are accustomed to say it at the end of each and every chapter, since we do not say Kaddish over mishnah but rather over aggadah (homiletical teachings). As the master said (Sotah 49a), ("Upon what does the world survive? Upon the Kedushah of the order) and upon the [declaration in Kaddish,] 'May His name be exalted' of aggadah." And these [chapters] were called The Chapters of the Fathers because they are the words that were arranged of the first fathers - that received the Torah one from another. For example, Moshe and Yehoshua and the elders [received it] one from the other, up until the men of the Great Assembly and Shammai and Hillel and Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and their students. And Rebbi [who redacted the Mishnah] let us know how their actions were correct and that they would caution the people of their generations and guide them in the straight path. So too is it fitting for each sage to caution the people of his generation and to let them know of the straight path.

Said Rabbi Hananiah ben Akashya: It pleased the Holy Blessed One to grant merit to Israel, that is why He gave them Torah and commandments in abundance, as it is said, “The Lord was pleased for His righteousness, to make Torah great and glorious” (Isaiah 42:21). This last section appears as the last mishnah in tractate Makkot. In order to save you the trouble of looking back, I will quote what I wrote there (with a few minor additions which I have thought about since then): This oft-quoted mishnah responds to an important theological question regarding the performance of commandments. Why does God care, or how is God affected, by Israel performing ritual commandments, for instance, kashruth, the dietary laws? Many have asked, what does God care how I eat my meat, whether I eat it with milk or not? The answer that Rabbi Hananiah ben Akashiah gives is that by performing God’s commandment, Israel accrues merit with God. It is a way for Israel to live up to a covenant, entered into with the infinite divine. The mitvoth, the commandments, and the learning of Torah, are not magical rites, performed in order to manipulate God into treating us better. Rather they are a symbol God’s grace to Israel, a means by which Israel can act out the will of the divine. They are means by which Israel can show God how much they love God. Note that this concept is opposed to that which Paul, the leader of early Christianity posited, namely that the law causes people to be sinners, and without the law there is no sin. In Judaism halakhah is not a stumbling block but an opportunity for people to perform God’s will. This is not an opportunity that should be taken for granted. This mishnah is customarily recited in synagogues after the completion of each chapter of Avoth, which is studied between Pesach and Shavuoth. Since it is one of the core ideas in all of Judaism, it has become in essence a prayer recited liturgically, and not just a learned text. Congratulations! We have finished Avoth. As I have mentioned at the end of every tractate, it is a tradition at this point to thank God for helping us to finish learning the tractate and to commit ourselves to going back and relearning it, so that we may not forget it and so that its lessons will stay with us for all of our lives. I might add that now that we have learned many tractates, it becomes more important to go back and look over material. You will have noted how different and special tractate Avoth really was. The lessons that we have learned should be internalized, for they contain some of the most important concepts in all of Judaism. Tomorrow we begin tractate Horayoth, and with God’s help, when we complete Horayoth, we will have finished all of Seder Nezikin!