A person’s house his refuge and sanctuary is his private space. Does the Mishnah really want us to turn that quiet place of retreat into some kind of shul for all to gather?
In Pirkei Avos (1:4) we find “Yossi ben Yoezer a man of Tzreida says ‘Let your house be a meeting place for Sages.’ ”
These words seem baffling. What exactly is the Mishnah teaching us about our private domain?
To be honest the idea even seems a bit distasteful at first glance. Is the Mishnah saying that I have to turn my home my personal refuge and sanctuary into a beis medrash when every Jewish town has its public shuls and batei medrash? Does this mean that every personal dwelling has to be turned into a miniature yeshivah?
We might answer the question this way: Yossi ben Yoezer surely heard Shimon Hatzaddik say that Torah is one of the three pillars on which the world stands — including the physical world. Torah is the hidden energy that activates the entire universe. No doubt he was also cognizant of his teacher’s mode of living which incorporated this principle into his every action. For whenever we see a quote by a Tanna in Avos we know that these words were not merely a favorite aphorism of that Sage but a core conviction that guided his life. Rabi Yossi knew then that his teacher and master had verified this principle and he was looking for the practical formula that would enable us to keep the Torah in our life and thus perpetuate a healthy world for all time.
Looking at Yossi ben Yoezer’s injunction from this angle in the context of the platform of his rebbi we see that he was giving us a defense system to protect us from the ravages of modern society a basic truth to keep us afloat in a sea of falsehood.
What is this truth? I believe the following anecdote can show us the way to the answer.
The late chief rabbi of Great Britain Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits was also a member of Parliament’s House of Lords and was well-respected among Britain’s leading governmental figures. On one occasion the chief rabbi took then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her government’s minister of education on a tour of Greater London’s frum Jewish schools.
The government heads were astounded by what they saw. They were especially impressed by the students’ enthusiasm for their studies. That they actually liked coming to school showed clearly on their faces. The prime minister and her colleague also told Rabbi Jakobovits how amazed they were at how well-mannered and modest the children were and the respect with which they treated their teachers. They’d never seen the likes of it in typical English schools.
Rabbi Jakobovits had a quick and simple rejoinder to their exclamations. “You know why they enjoy their studies so much? And why they’re so modest and respectful toward their teachers? It’s because they don’t have television in their homes.”
What Rabbi Jakobovits was telling them was that when it comes to chinuch we mustn’t give our children mixed messages. We can’t send them to school in the morning to absorb a certain outlook and then have them come home to be fed on content that contradicts everything they learned in school. In order to grow up with a healthy outlook children must be exposed to values that are in harmony at home and at school. Television at home saturated with foolish and inappropriate content creates an unhealthy split in a child’s consciousness filling him with values that are in direct contravention to those his parents want the schools to instill in him.
With all the cheap street culture it espouses television has the upper hand in the fight for the minds of our youth. “What chance ” the chief rabbi was asking “do you think your educational system has against such a powerful opponent?”
They got the message. To the chief rabbi’s surprise the minister of education phoned him some days later to say “You made more of an impression on me than my Methodist parson ever did. For the sake of my children’s education I got rid of the telly in my house.”
If this holds true for the secular studies and values embraced by the schools of Great Britain how much more does it apply to Torah learning a pillar that upholds the whole world! Torah study mustn’t be compartmentalized. It mustn’t be something that occupies one corner of our children’s lives for a few hours a day with no connection to the rest of the day’s activities. In our Mishnah Rabi Yossi ben Yoezer comes to clarify the concept of “Torah” and its place in our lives as he learned it from Shimon Hatzaddik. His exhortation is a practical application of the concept of Torah as the foundation of the world’s very existence.
If we want to acquire Torah on the level of Shimon Hatzaddik there must be absolute harmony between all portions of our day and between all our days year-round. Torah should set the tone at all times. Just as oxygen needs to enter every cell of our bodies to keep us healthy and vibrant so Torah must enter into every facet of our lives. In all the choices we face the answer should come from the Torah. As a natural result the atmosphere of our homes will constantly reflect the words of the Sages. Most probably our home doesn’t serve as a beis medrash in the literal sense and rabbis probably don’t use it as a venue for their conferences but it will be a place where the words of the Sages underlie our decisions and actions. It will be in a very real sense a meeting place for Sages.
How does one set up such a home? The first thing is to furnish it appropriately. Line its walls with bookcases and let those bookcases be filled with the Torah wisdom of the ages. In the Jewish world it is a man’s bookshelves that tell you who he is and what his home is really all about. If the works of our people’s greatest Sages occupy those shelves that house has the privilege of hosting these distinguished guests throughout the year. The Rambam the Tur and the Shulchan Aruch sit with the family at their table and the Tannaim Amoraim Rishonim and Acharonim are bnei bayis with them. With these guests their quiet presence exerts a strong influence on the way the family conducts itself. Of course in order to get these benefits the head of the household has to remember to open the seforim and learn them. The more he honors the words of the Sages the more their light will fill his home.
The center of family life a Jewish home is also the base from which one goes out to the beis medrash. When a child knows that his father comes home from work for dinner and family time only to go out again for a few hours of learning in the neighborhood beis medrash the house is perceived as a resting place on the way to one’s true purpose. It becomes a threshold to the “meeting place of the Sages.”
If a group actually gathers in one’s home for a shiur or an hour of shared learning then the home is raised to an even higher spiritual level. An occasional event like this — and all the more so if it’s a regular occurrence — casts its light on all the days of the week. The very rooms of the house seem to look forward to that time and the house literally becomes a meeting place for Sages.
But the Tanna has more than this to say. There is one more scourge of Western civilization that has to be remedied in order for that perfect harmony to take hold. That remedy is found in the Mishnah’s next instruction: “Dust yourself in the soil of their feet.”—
—Adapted from my upcoming sefer on Pirkei Avos Me'Avos LeBanim

You can go into exile even at home
when you know you aren’t at home
(The Sfas Emes Rebbe Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Gur)