Why Holy People Sometimes Act Like Fools

Welcome to Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot): Chapter 3, Mishna 12

Why would King David dance and jump around in public like a fool — and why does Rabbi Yishmael say that’s exactly what you should do in the presence of something greater than yourself?

In this week’s class, Rabbi Heschel Greenberg unpacks a teaching from Rabbi Yishmael that lays out three completely different postures for how to treat people: be submissive to someone above you, be pleasant to someone below you, and greet every single person with genuine joy.

The most surprising part is what “being submissive” (kal, “light”) really means — not just polite deference, but a willingness to look foolish in the presence of something greater than yourself. Rabbi Greenberg traces that idea through King David dancing before the Ark, a Hasidic rebbe whistling and dancing mid-discourse, and a Talmudic story about a rabbi who juggled at a wedding and was buried in a grave surrounded by holy fire. He also digs into why Rabbi Yishmael’s own name eventually disappeared from Jewish naming custom, what it really means to learn from a teacher by living close to them, and why Chassidic teaching insists your body and your emotions are full participants in holiness rather than obstacles to it.

🔎 In this video we explore:

• Why a rabbi’s own name can fall out of use — and what “Yishmael” actually means
• The real difference between how you owe respect to a superior, a peer, and someone younger or junior to you
• Why King David danced “like a fool” before the Ark, and why his wife Michal was wrong to shame him for it
• What it means that Elisha “poured water” for Elijah — and why the Talmud says that’s greater than being his student
• Why Joshua succeeded Moses over more scholarly, senior candidates — and the one flaw hidden inside his humility
• The Hebrew wordplay behind zaken (“elder”) that redefines what real seniority actually means
• Why the Baal Shem Tov’s followers got a prison guard drunk — and what it teaches about joy and the body

💡 Key Insights:

• Respect isn’t one-size-fits-all — the Torah gives different postures for how to relate to superiors, equals, and those younger or junior to you.
• “Holy foolishness” — dropping your dignity in the presence of something greater than yourself — is treated as a real spiritual value, not an embarrassment.
• The deepest way to learn from a teacher isn’t hearing their lectures, it’s living close enough to absorb how they actually live.
• Judaism doesn’t ask you to suppress your emotions or shame your body — it asks your mind to lead, your emotions to be treated gently, and your body to participate in joy.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

📚 Sources discussed: Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 3:12; Rabbi Yishmael; Talmud, Shabbat (the oil lamp law story); Shmuel II (2 Samuel) — King David and Michal; a Baal Shem Tov story on joy and the body; Melachim (Kings) — Elisha and Elijah; the Torah’s account of Joshua’s devotion to Moses; the Rabban Gamliel–Rabbi Yehoshua Yom Kippur dispute; Hillel and Shammai and the three converts; the Kabbalistic concept of Chochmah and Binah as the source of the emotions.

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