Introductory material

Even a superficial reading of Abot will bring home to one the fact that it is made up of various strata. In fact, it falls naturally into the following strands or divisions:

A. Chapter I, 1-15: Chronologically arranged sayings of the oldest authorities, from the men of the Great Synagogue to Hillel and Shammai.

B. (1) Chapters I, 16-II, 4: Sayings of the men of the school of Hillel to Rabban Gamaliel (about 230 C.E.), the son of Judah ha-Nasi

(2) Chapter II, 5-8: Additional sayings of Hillel.

C. (1) Chapter II, 9-19: The sayings of Jochanan ben Zakkai, the pupil of Hillel, and of his disciples.

(2) Chapter II, 20-21: The sayings of Rabbi Tarfon, a younger contemporary of Jochanan ben Zakkai.

D. Chapter III: the maxims of seventeen Tannaim (authorities mentioned in the Mishnah) to the time of and including Rabbi Akiba. These are not arranged in strictly chronological order.

E. Chapter IV: The sayings of twenty-five Tannaim after the time of Rabbi Akiba, who were contemporaries of Rabbi Meir and of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi. These are not chronologically arranged.

F. (1) Chapter V, 1-18: Anonymous sayings forming a series of groups of ten, seven, and four things, dealing with the creation of the world, with miracles, and with the varieties of men and minds.

(2) Chapter V, 19-22: Anonymous sayings touching upon the varieties of motives and contrasting the good and evil dispositions.

(3) Chapter V, 23: Sayings of Judah ben Tema.

(4) Chapter V, 24: The ages of man.

(5) Chapter V, 25, 26: The sayings of Ben Bag Bag and of Ben He He.

G. Chapter VI: The acquisition of the Torah; praise of the Torah.

LANGUAGE

The language of Abot is easy Mishnaic Hebrew, with portions of four verses (I, 13; II, 7; V, 25, and V, 26) in Aramaic, which is closely related to Hebrew. It is worthy of note that these Aramaic portions originated with the school of Hillel (12).

(12) On the language of the Mishnah, see Mielziner, Introduction to the Talmud, pp. 15-16, and Lauterbach in Jewish Encyclopedia, vol II, p. 614. On the use of Aramaic in the Mishnah, see Schurer, History, I, ii, p. 8 et seq., and Bacher, in Jewish Encyclopedia, art. Aramaic Language Among the Jews. Several centuries before the common era, Aramaic was the vernacular of the Jews. Hebrew, however, remained in use as the sacred language ([lashon ha-kodesh]), it being the language of the learned, and was employed for literary, liturgical, and legal purposes. This accounts for the Mishnah being written almost entirely in Hebrew, though Aramaic was spoken on the streets. It is related of Judah ha-Nasi that he disliked the Aramaic jargon to such an extent that he forbade its use in his home, where even the servants spoke Hebrew with elegance (Rosh ha-Shanah, 26b). When scholars used Aramaic in his presence, he chided them for not speaking in Hebrew or in Greek (Baba Kamma, 82b).