The book Derech Chayim is unique among the Maharal's writings in being a comprehensive commentary on one entire tractate of the Talmud, a tractate that the Maharal himself called precious and sublime, Tractate Avot.
When the Maharal wrote this book, he brought together three of his favorite topics into one whole. Questions of the ethics of human behavior, the concept of the rabbinic tradition of Judaism, and the importance of studying the texts of the Mishnah. In the careful planning of his work, which Maharal illustrates in the prefaces to his books, Pirkei Avot could not have been omitted. Indeed, Tractate Avot differs from all other parts of the Mishnah in that it does not deal with religious law at all, but instead devotes itself entirely to questions of morality, decency, and good qualities, quoting the most prominent of the Mishnah's rabbis.
In 2009, the four-hundredth anniversary year of the death of the greatest rabbi who ever lived in Bohemia and Moravia, no more appropriate book could have been chosen for publication than the Maharal's commentary on Tractate Avot, which he himself called Derech Chayim - The Way of Life.
The Czech edition