Avot 5:2

By Rabbi Alan Yuter
Posted Monday, December 11, 2006

1. There are 10 generations [recorded in the Torah] from Adam to Noah
2. To make known how patient is God [with 10 sinning generations
3. For all [10] generations were continuously making [God] angry [with their actions until God] brought over them them the flood.

1. There are 10 generations from Noah to Avraham
2. To make known how patient is God [with 10 sinning generations
3. For all [10 generations were continuously making [God] angry [with their actions until Abraham came and received the reward [for the little good done by the sinning ten generations]

The repetition that one finds in B and b of this double triad is teaching several subtle but profound lesson. God is merciful, but there is an accounting and God is the Ultimate Auditor. God expects humankind to be good. But in God's goodness, God does not interfere with human choice, so that we remain human. And since we have the choice to do evil, God will not stop us from doing wrong, but will hold us accountable for the wrong that we do.

God is, on one hand patient, but since there is a Judge, there is a judgment. But note well the divine disjunction in this Mishnah! God brings the flood but Abraham, a self-defined moral agent, chose to do good and not evil. To be human means that we on occasion go against the flow, where right is not determined by nomos, or convention, but by commands of the Commander.

By presenting the Mishnah as a double triad, the difference between the first and second stiche, where Abraham, like God, is a moral agent. God enforces the moral code, and Abraham affirms the moral code. Abraham is not God, but he, like we, had the power and the passion to act morally. May we, like Abraham, choose rightly, choose morally, and in the season of Elul, choose life.

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