Home Shalom promotes healthy relationships and facilitates the creation of judgement free, safe spaces in the Jewish community. Home Shalom is a program of The Advot Project.
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“The crown of a good name surpasses them all.”
~Mishnah Avot 4:17
One of the most frequently quoted sages in the Talmud is Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai. He was a disciple of the famed Rabbi Akiva and said to be the author of the famous Jewish mystical book The Zohar. According to rabbinic legend, when Rabbi Shimon spoke out against the Roman emperor Hadrian, he was condemned to death and hid in a cave in the north of Israel with his son Eleazer for 13 years until Hadrian died and he felt it safe to emerge. The Talmud in Shabbat 33b recounts that they survived on dates and carob fruit from a carob tree that miraculously sprung up to hide the entrance of the cave along with a spring of water and that they studied Torah the entire time. When they emerged and Shimon saw the people busy with agricultural pursuits and not studying Torah, the power of his angry glances alone started killing people and a voice from heaven (bat kol) told him to return to the cave. He did so for another twelve months until another heavenly voice said it was time to reenter society again.
One of his better known sayings is from the Mishnah Avot 4:17, where he taught, “There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of Priesthood and the crown of Kingship – but the crown of a good name surpasses them all.”
The image of a “crown” is a symbol of authority and respect. Kingship and the priesthood are hereditary passed down from father to son from the House of David, or the descendants of Aaron. Even though the “crown of Torah” is earned by individual study and effort, Rabbi Shimon recognized that the most important symbol of authority and respect in the world is the one that comes with having a shem tov, a “good name.”
The reputation that you earn in the world is not simply the result of inherited status or intellectual acumen but rather the result of who you are as measured by what you say, what you do, and how you treat others every day. The real lesson is that having a shem tov, earning the greatest level of honor and respect from your peers, is totally in your hands and that power is one no one can ever take away.
