One of the best-known mishnayot in Pirkei Avot offers a deceptively simple distinction between types of disagreement:
“Any disagreement (mahloket) that is for the sake of Heaven (le-shem shamayim) – it will endure. And one that is not for the sake of Heaven – it will not endure.” (Avot 5:17)
Constructive disagreements endure. Destructive disagreements do not. At first glance, this mishnah seems straightforward. Upon reflection, however, one phrase jumps out as needing explanation: “it will endure (סוֹפָהּ להתקיים).”
What, exactly, is the “it” that endures?
The fifteenth-century Italian commentator Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura (known as “the Bartenura”) offers two answers. The second explanation is more intuitive:
“Disagreement which is in the name of Heaven, the purpose and its desired outcome (סוֹפָהּ, lit. its end) is to attain the truth, and this endures, as they said, that from a disagreement the truth will be clarified, as was clarified in the disagreements between Hillel and Shammai…”
Attainment of truth is the intended outcome of a disagreement for the sake of Heaven. It is the truth that ultimately endures.
The Bartenura precedes this explanation with another, less expected take on what endures from mahloket le-shem shamayim:
“That is to say that the people involved in this disagreement will endure and not perish, as with the disagreement of Hillel and Shammai, for neither the students of Beit Shammai nor the students of Beit Hillel perished. But Korach and his congregation perished.”
According to this explanation, what endures is the participants in the disagreement. In a mahloket le-shem shamayim, the people engaged in the disagreement are not destroyed as a result of it.
Why does the Bartenura start with this explanation – which actually fits less neatly into the text of mishnah? Perhaps he wants us to ask a question we might otherwise overlook: what does a disagreement do to the people involved?
A destructive disagreement destroys the parties involved, the Bartenura stresses. A constructive agreement, a disagreement for the sake of Heaven, enables the parties involved to emerge intact.
This does not mean that the parties emerge unchanged. Nor unchallenged. Perhaps not even unharmed. Serious disagreements often leave relationships bruised. But there is a profound difference between a relationship that is bruised and one that is destroyed.
The Bartenura’s language suggests that the hallmark of a holy disagreement is that neither side walks away diminished in dignity or excluded from the community. The participants, and the relationship between them, survive. They may require healing. They may require time. But they are not sacrificed on the altar of being right.
This approach also casts a well-known passage in the Talmud in a new light. The Gemara (Eruvin 13b) asks why the halakhah is generally established in accordance with Beit Hillel. Its answer is striking. It was not because Hillel’s students were sharper thinkers. Rather, they were נוחין ועלובין – gentle and humble – and they would teach the opinion of Beit Shammai before teaching their own.
Before presenting their own position, Beit Hillel first demonstrated that they had taken Beit Shammai’s position seriously enough to articulate it fairly. In doing so, they affirmed that Beit Shammai’s voice had a legitimate place within the conversation itself.
This is more than good manners. It is a way of preserving the relationship while pursuing the truth. It is a way of engaging in disagreement such that, even when the conversation ends without consensus, the participants do not leave feeling destroyed by the encounter.
As Tisha B’Av approaches, we naturally recall the rabbinic teaching that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam (baseless hatred). Yet this mishnah and the Bartenura invite us to imagine not only what caused the destruction, but what might have prevented it.
Judaism has never aspired to a world without disagreement. Interpretations of Torah abound and Rabbinic literature is built upon disagreements. Our tradition is sustained by generations of Jews learning in havruta, challenging one another in the beit midrash in pursuit of truth.
The Bartenura’s reading suggests that a mahloket le-shem shamayim is measured in two ways: by whether it brings us closer to the truth and by whether the participants remain whole in the process. Those are not competing goals. They are the twin aspirations of a disagreement conducted for the sake of Heaven.
On Tisha B’Av, we mourn a moment when those aspirations came apart – when disagreement no longer connected and strengthened the Jewish people, but fractured them. That is the deeper promise of an authentic mahloket le-shem shamayim: not that disagreement disappears, but rather all that is involved in disagreement – the truth, its seekers, and their relationship – endures.
Sefi Kraut is the Director of Mahloket Matters and has had the privilege of teaching Judaic Studies since 2004. She began her professional career teaching Tanakh to middle school students at a Jewish day school in Paramus, NJ. Upon moving to Israel in 2013, Sefi taught in several gap year programs before joining the faculty of the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators where she is thrilled to be involved in training the next generation of Jewish educators. As the Director of Mahloket Matters, Sefi has co-created a curriculum for teens called, “Mahloket Matters Teens: Navigating Inner Challenges and Societal Discord through Jewish Text and Social-Emotional Learning.” Sefi also develops and teaches Mahloket Matters fellowships and professional development workshops geared to organizational leaders, educators, school administrators, Rabbis, Hillel professionals, lay leaders, and more.
