On Fri, 11 Mar 1994 KARLYOUNG@delphi.com wrote: > > There was an anarchic strain in the Kabbala of the time, that had some > much older precedents in the rabbinic tradition. A motto I've sort of > taken over comes from the PIRKE ABBOTH, coming from that tradition, and > it seems to me a good motto for Anarchists generally: > > Love work, > hate mastery, > and seek no intimacy with the ruling power. > > Anybody else got comments? > Another translation and a commentary: Love work. Hate authority. Don't get friendly with the government. Jacob Neusner comments: Shemaiah gives some good advice about how to live in an unredeemed world, that is, a world lacking perfection. He says to mind your own business--not bad advice most of the time. He tells us to love work. If you love what you do, you live the best possible life. If you love your work, your work becomes your faith, your hope, your vocation and your avocation. Then your life is rich in satisfaction, empty of disappointment. Shemaiah further says we should hate authority. That does not mean we should break the rules. Rather, we should be as self-reliant as possible and not try to curry favor with people more powerfuly than ourselves. Shemaiah's advice is to keep your distance [from authority] and do your work. This is the advice of a seasoned sage, an experienced observer of life. He is telling us not to expect too much from others--from "the establishment" for instance--but to rely upon ourselves and our own hard work. from Torah from Our Sages--Pirke Avot Jacob Neusner, 1984, p. 35 In saying #17 of the first chapter of PK Simeon says: All my life I grew up among the sages, and I found nothing better for a person than silence. And not the learning is the thing, but the doing. And whoever talks too much causes sin. A favorite recreation of student of Torah is the quoting of Pirke Avot, one the Tractates of the Misnah, compiled c. 200 c.e. but from an oral tradtion many centuries older. It might be well to draw attention to the fact that Simeon does not condemn talking but only talking _too much_. shalom, fowler