The Mishna's book of character
Pirkei Avos with Rabbi Elefant is a shiur series on one of the best-loved tractates in all of Torah: Pirkei Avos, the Ethics of the Fathers. Unlike most of the Mishna, Avos contains almost no law. It is a chain of teachings on character and conduct — humility, honesty, how to treat a friend, how to hold onto Torah — passed down from Sinai through the great sages, each named as they speak. The series works through these teachings, mishna by mishna, drawing out the depth folded into their famously short lines.
Rabbi Elefant, well known as a maggid shiur whose Daf Yomi teaching for the OU has reached a wide audience for years, brings that same clarity to Avos. The tractate's brevity is deceptive: a single line such as "who is wise? one who learns from every person" opens into a whole way of living once a teacher slows down and turns it over. A guided series is what lets a learner hear the weight in words they may have recited for years.
Learning that becomes living
Pirkei Avos has a special place in the Jewish year — it is customarily learned a chapter a week through the summer Shabbosos — and its subject makes it unusually easy to carry into daily life. A mishna about guarding one's speech, or about the danger of honor and the value of a good name, is not an abstraction; it is guidance a person can test against the very next conversation. That is much of why the tractate has stayed so beloved across every kind of Jewish community.
A recorded series suits this material well. Because each mishna stands largely on its own, a listener can take one teaching at a time, sit with it, and return when it comes up in life. For a family, a short Avos shiur becomes a natural Shabbos-table starting point, and for an individual it offers a steady diet of middos — the slow, lifelong work of building character that Avos was written to guide.
Finding kosher Torah video for your family
FilteredTube is a kosher video service built for Jewish families — every single video is approved against one written standard before it can appear, with no open feed, no comments, and no surprises. It is a calm, safe place to look for the Torah and Jewish music you love.
If your family enjoys learning Pirkei Avos, as in this series with Rabbi Elefant, search FilteredTube for the speakers and topics that matter most to you. With a daf yomi shelf, a weekly parsha shelf, topic shelves, audio-only listening for the car, and a kids mode with a PIN, kosher Jewish video is easy to reach — and the approved catalog keeps growing every day.
At a glance
Key takeaways
- This is a shiur series on Pirkei Avos, the Mishna's tractate of ethics and character, taught by Rabbi Elefant.
- Avos contains almost no law — it is a chain of teachings on middos passed from Sinai through the named sages.
- Rabbi Elefant is a well-known maggid shiur whose OU Daf Yomi teaching has reached a wide audience for years.
- Customarily learned a chapter a week through the summer, Avos turns easily from learning into daily living.
- Search FilteredTube for kosher, approved Torah video — the catalog grows every day.