Pirkei Avot is most unusual in that it is part of the Mishna. Why would a Musar book be made part of the Mishna by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi?
What I think is Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was codifying objective moral values, not just writing morals, but claiming that this book codifies morality in the same way the rest of the Mishna codifies halacha.
It seems that there is a moral aspect to Torah outside of the legal aspect of it. Some things are moral but not legal and somethings are legal but not moral.
The trouble with the commentaries on Pirkei Avot is the same trouble that you have in all of Tenach. The commentaries obscure things instead of making them clear. Just like if you are looking for the meaning of verses in the Torah, the last place you look is in Rashi so in Pirkei Avot. The more you read the commentaries the less clear it becomes.
Rashi's main job is to bring Midrash, never the simple explanation -except in the one place he says he is explain the verse according to the simple explanation. A whole world of myth has grown around that Rashi as if Rashi is to tell us the simple explanation of every verse; and that is palpably false. [He says on one verse alone that there he is explaining the simple explanation--that is on just that verse.] Rashi always brings the Midrash; and in places where there is no midrash, he brings the Halachic Midrash Sifra and Sifri.
The same goes for Pirkei Avot. Every one explains it according to what they want it to mean. Like when everyone says Islam is a religion of peace. They are expressing what they want to be true. Not what is true.
What ought to be done with Pirki Avot is to expand the commentary of the Gra which simply brings the sources for each statement from the Old Testament and also to learn it with the commentary of the sages themselves that is Avot DeRabbi Nathan and the perush HaRambam.
What I think is Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi was codifying objective moral values, not just writing morals, but claiming that this book codifies morality in the same way the rest of the Mishna codifies halacha.
It seems that there is a moral aspect to Torah outside of the legal aspect of it. Some things are moral but not legal and somethings are legal but not moral.
The trouble with the commentaries on Pirkei Avot is the same trouble that you have in all of Tenach. The commentaries obscure things instead of making them clear. Just like if you are looking for the meaning of verses in the Torah, the last place you look is in Rashi so in Pirkei Avot. The more you read the commentaries the less clear it becomes.
Rashi's main job is to bring Midrash, never the simple explanation -except in the one place he says he is explain the verse according to the simple explanation. A whole world of myth has grown around that Rashi as if Rashi is to tell us the simple explanation of every verse; and that is palpably false. [He says on one verse alone that there he is explaining the simple explanation--that is on just that verse.] Rashi always brings the Midrash; and in places where there is no midrash, he brings the Halachic Midrash Sifra and Sifri.
The same goes for Pirkei Avot. Every one explains it according to what they want it to mean. Like when everyone says Islam is a religion of peace. They are expressing what they want to be true. Not what is true.
What ought to be done with Pirki Avot is to expand the commentary of the Gra which simply brings the sources for each statement from the Old Testament and also to learn it with the commentary of the sages themselves that is Avot DeRabbi Nathan and the perush HaRambam.
