Seven days from Hillel to Rabbi Eliezer

The speaker is still the Rabban Gamliel of the two mishnayot (teachings) before this one (Avot 2:2 and 2:3), the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (the Prince). Bartenura explains the first line with money:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) takes it to be about everything a person wants: do the will of Hashem (God) as eagerly as your own, until you want only what He wants. He applies it to money as well: what a person has was given by Hashem and is a deposit in his hands, and with a deposit one does what its owner wants. Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) suggests that the first line is about the positive commandments, the things to do, and the second line about the prohibitions.

"So that He will set aside the will of others": Bartenura explains, He will overturn the plans of all who rise against you to do you harm. He adds a reading that he heard. The words "the will of others" are a respectful way of speaking about Heaven, and it is as if the mishnah had said, "so that He will set aside His will before your will." He compares it to a saying he quotes from the Gemara (the Talmud; Shabbat 63a): whoever does a mitzvah (commandment) as it should be done, even a decree of seventy years is cancelled for him. In the Gemara as we have it, Rav Chinana bar Idi says that one who does a mitzvah as it was commanded is not brought bad news, and Rav Asi, or some say Rabbi Chanina, adds: even if the Holy One, blessed be He, makes a decree, "he cancels it." His proof is two verses that stand side by side: "and who will say to Him, what are You doing?" (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, 8:4), and then "one who keeps a mitzvah will know no evil thing" (8:5). Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains: one who keeps mitzvot can say it to Him. On that reading, the one who cancels the decree is the person who did the mitzvah.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under Rashi's name says: "This is Hillel the Elder, who spoke above, in chapter 1." Hillel the Elder taught in Avot 1:12 to 1:14, many generations before this Rabban Gamliel. Tosafot Yom Tov brings another view, from the book Asarah Maamarot by Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano: that this Hillel is a grandson of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. He answers, "If it is a tradition, we will accept it," and if it is a matter of reasoning, Rashi wrote plainly that this is Hillel the Elder. He also explains why Hillel's words were placed here: Rabban Gamliel spoke, two mishnayot earlier, about those who work with the community, and four mishnayot on, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai will be named as one who received from Hillel.

Bartenura is pointing to a baraita (a teaching of the Sages from the time of the Mishnah that was not included in it) in the Gemara (Taanit 11a). When Israel is in distress and one of them separates himself, the two angels who accompany a person lay their hands on his head and say: this one, who separated from the community, let him not see the comfort of the community. A second baraita there brings Moshe (Moses). During the battle with Amalek (the people who attacked Israel on the way out of Egypt) he sat on a stone (Shemot, Exodus, 17:12). Did Moshe not have one cushion to sit on? He said: since Israel is in distress, I too will be with them in distress. The baraita ends: whoever puts himself in distress together with the community merits to see its comfort.

Rabbeinu Yonah takes the rule to be about a community that is busy with Torah and mitzvot. It speaks, he says, of a community that walks in a good path and gathers to do a mitzvah. From a community that leans toward a bad path and whose deeds are corrupt, one who separates is to be praised. The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) has one line here, pointing back to the fourth chapter of Shemonah Perakim (Eight Chapters, his introduction to Pirkei Avot): one should part from the community only as far as its corruption requires.

The Gemara (Berachot 29a) quotes this mishnah, with these same words, as a challenge to Abaye, who had said: we have a tradition that a good person does not turn bad. Abaye answers that Yochanan and Yannai are one person. Rava says they are two, Yannai wicked from the start and Yochanan righteous from the start. For Rava, the Gemara says, even one who was righteous from the start may turn back. The Rambam reads the rule as being about character. Even a person who has a good trait firmly set in his soul should not stop repeating the good acts that strengthen it:

That, the Rambam says, is the meaning of "until the day you die."

Rabbeinu Yonah reads "his place" as his rank, and ties it to the rule before it: a person should not trust himself, or rely on his own mind too much. When you see your fellow in a high position not acting uprightly, do not say: if I were in his place, I would do none of the wrong that he does. You do not know. You are a person as he is, and perhaps that position would bend you too. When you have reached his place and his rank and have overcome your own traits, he writes, then you may question his.

Bartenura gives two readings. The first: do not let your words be so unclear that they cannot be understood at first, counting on the listener to work them out in the end if he thinks hard. That leads people to mistake your meaning, and they may go astray into heresy (denying what the Torah teaches) through you. The second: do not tell your secret, even between you and yourself, saying that there is no one here to hear you, because in the end it will be heard, "for a bird of the sky will carry the sound" (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, 10:20). He notes that the wording "for in the end it will be heard" goes with the second reading (on the first, the words are "and in the end it will be heard"), and that Rashi had a different text: "a thing that can be heard." On that text the rule is about Torah. Do not say of a word of Torah which you can hear now that you will hear it later. Bend your ear and hear it at once.

The Rambam reads it as a rule about how to speak: words whose plain sense is far-fetched and seems wrong, and which turn out to be right only when a person looks hard at them. Your words, he says, should not need a far-fetched explanation and extra study before the listener understands them.

Bartenura fills in the words: when I am free "from my business," I will occupy myself with Torah. The Rambam says the same, and connects it to an earlier mishnah (Avot 1:15):

Rabbeinu Yonah gives the reason. You do not know what a day will bring. Tomorrow too you will be called to something, for there is no shortage of new matters every day, and you will find yourself leaving the world without Torah. "Rather, make your Torah the fixed thing and your work the side thing."

Bartenura brings the word from the Aramaic translation of the Torah (the Targum). Where Bereishit (Genesis) 47:19 says "and the land will not be desolate," the Targum has: the land will not lie bur. The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says: like a field that is bur (a field left unworked).

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) defines the two by what each one has:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) explains why the am ha'aretz does not reach the level of the chasid, the one who does more than the law requires: only one who is great in Torah can reach it. It needs a pure heart and a clear soul, and the am ha'aretz does not have the wisdom to move from the middle line to the far end.

Rabbeinu Yonah: shame is a good trait in every matter except learning. A student should not say: a fool like me, how can I ask a thing in front of a great sage? If that is his rule all his days, where will wisdom come to him from? He quotes a saying from Mivchar HaPeninim (Choice of Pearls), a book of sayings on character: "Ask as fools ask, and guard as the generous guard." He explains the second half: the generous neither scatter their money nor hold it back, but give it where it belongs, and so wisdom is to be spoken with the right people at the right time. And he concludes that a person should ask every question and not be ashamed, so that he learns.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name brings a verse (Mishlei, Proverbs, 30:32) as it is explained in the Gemara (the Talmud; Berachot 63b). There Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani says: whoever makes himself look foolish over words of Torah will in the end be raised up, and if he muzzled himself, his hand will be on his mouth. Rashi explains there: the first is one who asks his teacher all his doubts, even those his friends laugh at him for. The second shut his mouth and did not ask, and when he is asked he will not know what to answer.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name: this is a teacher who is short of patience, and angry if the student asks many times about one matter. The Rambam defines the kapdan, the short-tempered person of the mishnah (teaching), as one who minds every little thing and gets angry. Rabbeinu Yonah describes the teacher who is needed: broad of heart, answering every person on every thing they ask, and when they find his answer hard to understand, going back over it for them until they get to the bottom of the matter.

Bartenura brings the verse "and it is not beyond the sea" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 30:13) as the Gemara reads it (Eruvin 55a): the Torah is not found among those who travel beyond the sea. In the Gemara these are the words of Rabbi Yochanan. "It is not in heaven": it will not be found in the arrogant. "And it is not beyond the sea": it will not be found in traveling merchants or in traders. The Rambam brings the same teaching and says that the Sages attached it to the verse as a figure of speech.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) points to two words in the mishnah. "Not everyone": for it is possible, and there have been people who did much business and grew wise. He quotes this from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), with two names from the Gemara. Rabbi Elazar ben Charsom's father left him a thousand towns and a thousand ships. The Gemara says he never once went to see them, and sat and learned Torah all day and all night (Yoma 35b). Ilfa, who learned with Rabbi Yochanan, went into business when the two of them were in great need. When he came back, he offered to show the source in the Mishnah for any baraita (a teaching of the Sages from the time of the Mishnah that was not included in it) he was asked about (Taanit 21a). And "much": for without any business to keep his body alive, a person's Torah does not last either, as a later mishnah says, "if there is no flour, there is no Torah" (Avot 3:17), and as an earlier mishnah said, Torah study is good together with a worldly occupation (Avot 2:2).

Rabbeinu Yonah: one who is busy with his trade all day, and makes it the fixed thing and his Torah the side thing, will never grow wise.

The Rambam notes that the Targum uses this word for "a man wrestled with him" (Bereishit 32:25). The commentary printed under Rashi's name takes the line to be about the community: strive, and occupy yourself with the needs of the community, "but in a place where there is a man, you occupy yourself with your Torah." Rabbeinu Yonah brings three readings. The first is from earlier commentators: where there are no people to help you with the mitzvot (commandments) and to correct you, strive to set yourself straight. If you see a generation in which the Torah is neglected, stand up and work at it. And where no one is greater than you in wisdom, do not hold back from growing wise.

The same story is told of Hillel the Elder in a baraita (a teaching of the Sages from the time of the Mishnah that was not included in it) in the Gemara (the Talmud; Sukkah 53a). Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains there: they had cut off his head and thrown it into the water, and Hillel recognized him as a murderer, whom robbers like himself had now met. The Aramaic word in Hillel's sentence, usually translated "drowned," means "set afloat," and Rashi reads the line as: because you floated the skulls of others on the water, others have now floated yours. Hillel spoke in Aramaic, and Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) notes that this was the language ordinary people spoke in those times.

The phrase comes from a teaching of the school of Rabbi Yishmael in the Gemara (Shabbat 32a), about the fence the Torah requires around a roof (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 22:8). The verse calls the one who falls from the roof "the faller" before he has fallen: he was due to fall since the six days of Creation. But merit is brought about through one who has merit, and guilt through one who is guilty. Rashi explains: the guilty one is the owner of the house, who did not keep the mitzvah (commandment) of the fence. In our words: a fall that was coming still comes through someone, and that someone answers for it.

Tosafot Yom Tov says this is the Rambam's view in the eighth chapter of his introduction to Pirkei Avot (Shemonah Perakim): even though it was just, before the Holy One, that this man be killed, He did not decree that this particular person should be the one to kill him. That person did it by his own choice, and so he will be punished.

He brings two verses and a saying of the Sages. "His own sins will trap the wicked man" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 5:22). "He dug a pit and hollowed it out" (Tehillim, Psalms, 7:16), and the verse goes on: "and he fell into the hole he made." And from the Mishnah (Sotah 1:7): "With the measure by which a person measures, they measure out to him." This, he says, can be seen at every time and in every place. Whoever does wrong, and invents kinds of wrongdoing and vice:

He ends with a verse from Iyov (Job 34:11): "For He pays a person according to his deeds."

Tosafot Yom Tov asks what a reader may be asking. The first person who was ever killed had killed no one: Hevel (Abel) was killed by Kayin (Cain). So how did Hillel know that this man had drowned others? And how could he say that the killers would be drowned? "It happens every day," he writes: murderers die in their beds. For the first question he points to Rashi on Sukkah 53a: Hillel recognized the man.

His own answer is that Hillel was not laying down that this is always what happens. Many are killed who did not kill, and many kill who are not killed. Hillel was stating what reason requires, measure for measure, and what actually happens contradicts it. On this reading Hillel was not claiming to know what this man had done: it may be, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, that the one swept away had swept no one away. He said it between himself and a bone that cannot hear. That, he suggests, is why Hillel went on to teach the next mishnah (teaching; Avot 2:7), "the more flesh, the more worms" and "the more Torah, the more life," so that a person should not come to say that there is no judgment and no Judge: where we can see how things work, good and bad each bring what fits them. From what is revealed a person can judge what is hidden, he writes: there too everything goes by justice, though we do not have the power to grasp it. He quotes Yeshayahu (Isaiah 55:8): "For My thoughts are not your thoughts."

So there are three readings, as we understand them. For Rashi on Sukkah, Hillel recognized the man, and Bartenura too takes Hillel's words as a plain statement of what the man had done. For the Rambam, the rule can be seen at every time and in every place. In Tosafot Yom Tov's own answer, what we see often contradicts it, and the justice is hidden.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under Rashi's name notes that in some places the custom was not to say this mishnah. It gives no reason. Tosafot Yom Tov replies that the Rambam, Bartenura and all the commentators have it.

The last sentence is Rabbi Yitzchak's, in the Gemara (the Talmud; Berachot 18b, and it is quoted again in Shabbat 13b). Do the dead feel pain? Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) explains that the body of the dead feels nothing at all. The Sages' words, he writes, are about the soul of the one who died, which sees what has become of the body and is greatly pained. Bartenura then states the point of the whole list:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): a person should not think that with great wealth he will pass his days in ease. He worries about it all year long. Ask the wealthy, he writes, and they will tell you.

The mishnah names what comes with each of the three: witchcraft, immorality, robbery. Rabbeinu Yonah explains that what the members of a person's household do is laid at his door. When the slaves rob, he is punished for it, because it is in his power to prevent them. What the female slaves do counts as if he had done it, because a disgrace was done in his house. And by taking many wives he causes them to turn to witchcraft to win his love. The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says of the slaves that they rob other people, and sums up: none of these increases counts for anything.

For Torah, Bartenura brings a verse: "for it is your life and the length of your days" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 30:20). In the text of the mishnah that Bartenura explains, the next line reads "the more wisdom, the more yeshivah": one who gives reasons for his words, and whose reasoning sits well with those who hear it, has many students gather to hear him. He then records our reading, "the more yeshivah, the more wisdom": one who has many students, the students sharpen him and add to his wisdom. The commentary printed under Rashi's name explains it the same way and quotes the Gemara's words, "and from my students most of all." The full saying is Rabbi Chanina's (Taanit 7a): I have learned much from my teachers, more from my friends than from my teachers, and from my students most of all.

For tzedakah, Bartenura brings Yeshayahu (Isaiah 32:17): "And the work of tzedakah will be peace." Rabbeinu Yonah: people who benefit from his money love him, and so he increases peace in the world.

Rabbeinu Yonah: a good name is a person's own, and he will not leave it to others. It is the opposite of possessions, which he leaves behind when he dies. Tosafot Yom Tov brings a reading from an earlier commentary: "for himself" means for his own benefit in this world.

Tosafot Yom Tov, on the mishnah before this one (Avot 2:6), connects the two. There Hillel said that a person is paid back measure for measure, and what we see often contradicts it. This list, he suggests, shows the same order in things we can see: each increase, for bad or for good, brings what fits it.

A baraita (a teaching of the Sages from the time of the Mishnah that was not included in it) in the Gemara (Sukkah 28a) says of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai that he left aside neither Scripture nor Mishnah, neither Gemara, halachot nor aggadot, neither a great matter nor a small one. The same page says that Hillel the Elder had eighty students, and that the least of them all was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains "for this you were created": for this you came into the world. It brings a teaching from the Gemara (Shabbat 88a, where it is Reish Lakish's): the Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the works of creation, that if Israel does not accept the Torah, He will return the world to formlessness and emptiness. "So a great obligation lies on him, and it is not a favor that he does."

Rabbeinu Yonah gives two reasons. You are still at the beginning: the Torah is "longer than the earth and wider than the sea" (Iyov, Job, 11:9), and a person has not done one part in a thousand of what there is for him to do. And the Holy One, blessed be He, brought you into being only to do His will. "It is like a debtor who has paid his debt. Do people give him credit for that?" He adds that the same is true of mitzvot (commandments).

Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot), chapter 14, has the saying as "if you have done much of your Torah," and explains:

A plastered cistern: Bartenura says the reading is bor sud, a cistern coated with plaster.

Happy is she who bore him: Bartenura gives two readings. He was so blessed with good traits that everyone said of him, happy is the one who bore him. And some say: because she brought it about that he became wise. She used to go around to all the study halls in her city and say to them: I ask of you, pray for this child inside me, that he become a sage. And from the day he was born she did not take his cradle out of the beit midrash (the study hall), so that nothing but words of Torah would enter his ears. In the Talmud of the Land of Israel (Yevamot 1:6), Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas says of Rabbi Yehoshua: I remember that his mother used to bring his cradle to the synagogue, so that his ears would cling to words of Torah.

Otherwise, Bartenura asks, what would be special about him? Even an am ha'aretz (an unlearned person) can be one who fears sin, as an earlier mishnah (Avot 2:5) implied, in Bartenura's reading there.

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) explains each of the five praises. Rabbi Eliezer is praised for a good memory. Rabbi Yehoshua for traits of character, through which a person is fortunate, honored and loved by most people. Rabbi Yose for good character and for virtues of the intellect. Rabbi Shimon for fear of sin, which the Rambam explains as eagerness and effort in what is good, and care to keep from what is bad. And Rabbi Elazar ben Arach for good understanding: every deep matter was easy for him, and his understanding added to it.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan has other praises as well. Rabbi Eliezer is also "a tarred jug that keeps its wine." Rabbi Yehoshua is "a threefold cord that is not quickly broken." Rabbi Yose is "the chasid of the generation." And Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is "a rushing stream and a spring that keeps gaining strength, whose waters grow stronger and go out."

Rabbeinu Yonah explains the two statements the same way. The commentary printed under Rashi's name adds that Rabbi Eliezer was not as sharp as Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, and quotes a saying from the Gemara: between "Sinai" (one who knows the whole tradition) and "one who uproots mountains" (one with a sharp mind), Sinai is preferable. The Gemara (Horayot 14a) records that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and the Sages disagreed about which is preferable. It tells of two sages, Rav Yosef, who was "Sinai," and Rabbah, who was "one who uproots mountains," when one of them had to be chosen to lead. They sent the question to the Land of Israel, and the answer that came back was: Sinai is preferable, because everyone needs the one who has the wheat. Even so, Rav Yosef did not accept, and Rabbah led first, for twenty-two years.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) asks why the mishnah stops here to say from whom he received. In the line of Hillel's descendants there was no need to say it. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was not of that family. And he had many students, among whom, and after whom, disputes multiplied. So the mishnah records that even though they disagreed about many laws, they had received the essence of the Torah.

A good neighbor, Bartenura says, is found near a person by day and by night, while a good friend is not with him at every hour. One who sees what will come looks ahead to what is going to be, and so he comes to weigh the loss from a mitzvah (commandment) against its reward, and the gain from a sin against its loss. Those are words of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (the Prince) at the start of this chapter (Avot 2:1).

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) explains a good heart as good actions, meaning the balanced ones, neither too much nor too little, which come from good traits of character. It includes contentment, love of good people and the other virtues, and that, he says, is what "your words are included in his" means.

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) reads the question differently. A person should hold to every good and upright trait. The question is which one trait to be complete in, "for it is better for a person to hold one trait completely, and from it he will easily reach all the important traits, than to have several traits and be complete in none of them." On his reading the answers are things to be. Be a good friend to another person. Be a good neighbor to all your neighbors: one who is a true friend to five people or to eight is close to loving everyone. And he explains a good heart as patience: one who is not short-tempered, who keeps far from anger and answers gently.

Bartenura asks why Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai needed to ask about the bad path. Is it not simply the opposite of the good one? Not always, he answers. Going beyond the letter of the law is good, and one who does not, and keeps to the law of the Torah, is not bad. A person could have said the same here: contentment is a good path, but seeking more is not a bad path, since he harms no one by it. So the question had to be asked.

The Rambam reads the verse the same way, and brings two verses in which Hashem (God) is called righteous (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 32:4, and Nechemiah, Nehemiah, 9:33). The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains the name Makom, literally "place": He is the place of the world, and the world is not His place.

Rabbeinu Yonah says that "like one who borrows from the Makom" answers a person who thinks: I have nothing to pay with, he has already taken me to court, they found nothing of mine to seize, and I left cleared. What is my sin? You may be cleared by human judgment, he writes, but not by the judgment of Heaven. He reads the verse closely: one who borrows and does not repay is called wicked even if he has nothing, because from the start he should have looked at how he would repay. At the time of the loan, a person has to think and see whether he will be able to pay it back when the time comes.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings a question from an earlier commentary, the Midrash Shmuel: what of a person who does not care about his own honor? Will he then not care about his fellow's? Tosafot Yom Tov answers that the mishnah (teaching) speaks to someone whose own honor is dear to him, which is why it says "dear to you." His proof is a mishnah two further on, "Let your fellow's money be as dear to you as your own" (Avot 2:12). Would anyone think that a person who scatters and loses his own money may scatter and lose his fellow's?

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) explains the second half:

The Sages, he says, spoke very strongly against anger, and their strongest words are that one who is angry is like one who worships idols. They attached it to the verse (Tehillim, Psalms, 81:10): "There shall be no strange god in you." In the Gemara as we have it (the Talmud; tractate Shabbat, page 105b), the teaching with this verse is about acts done in anger. It is taught there in the name of Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri: one who tears his clothes in his anger, breaks his things in his anger or scatters his money in his anger should be in your eyes like one who worships idols. For that is the craft of the yetzer hara (the pull toward doing wrong): today it tells him, do this, and tomorrow it tells him, do that, until it tells him to worship idols, and he goes and does it. Rabbi Avin brings the verse.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan, chapter 15, explains "do not be easy to anger" with the two great teachers of chapter 1: let a person be humble like Hillel the Elder, and not impatient like Shammai the Elder. It tells of two men who made a bet of four hundred zuz (silver coins) on whether one of them could make Hillel angry. One of them came to Hillel's door on a Friday afternoon, again and again, with odd questions, and he lost the bet. The Gemara tells the story too (Shabbat 30b to 31a).

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) notes that a person will sometimes be angry in spite of himself, and that the mishnah asks him not to be easy to anger. Weigh it on the scales of your mind, he writes: is this a thing to be angry about? If you find any argument for putting the anger away, put it away. He brings Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 7:9): "Do not be quick in your spirit to anger, for anger rests in the lap of fools."

The Gemara (Shabbat 153a) tells it in nearly the same words, and adds a verse from Kohelet (9:8), "At all times let your clothes be white," and a parable of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Eliezer's teacher. A king invited his servants to a feast and did not set a time. The wise ones dressed up and sat at the door of the king's house. The foolish ones went to their work. Suddenly the king called for his servants. The wise came in before him dressed up, and the foolish came in dirty. The king was glad to see the wise and angry at the foolish.

Bartenura counts the warning about the Sages as the third of Rabbi Eliezer's three things. The Rambam counts differently. This, he says, is not Rabbi Eliezer's own teaching but something he heard from another and used to repeat, and so it is not counted among his words. Avot de-Rabbi Natan lists the three as honor, anger and repentance, and brings the fire and the coals afterwards, as a teaching handed down in Rabbi Eliezer's name.

The Rambam reads it as a rule for keeping company with the wise and with people of high character. Do not be too familiar with them, and do not be proud toward them. Come close when they bring you close, and no closer than they bring you, "so that you do not spoil their intention toward you, and turn their love into hatred."

Bartenura explains "be careful of their coals": do not treat the Sages lightly, so that you are not punished on their account. Then he explains the three comparisons. A fox's bite is hard to heal, because its teeth are thin and crooked. A scorpion's sting is worse than a snake's bite. And the saraf (a kind of serpent) burns with its breath as it hisses. Or, in a second reading: this serpent does not respond to a snake charmer's whisper as other snakes do (Tehillim 58:6), and so a Torah scholar, if you provoke him and then come to make peace with him, does not accept it.

In his code of law, the Mishneh Torah (Hilchot Talmud Torah, the Laws of Torah Study, 7:13), the Rambam writes about how a Torah scholar himself should act. A sage may place a person under a ban for slighting his honor, he writes, but it is no praise for a scholar to do so. The early pious ones heard themselves insulted and did not answer, and forgave the one who had insulted them. That is when the insult was in private. A scholar who was shamed in public may not give up his honor, and if he does he is punished, because it is a shaming of the Torah. He "takes revenge and holds on to the matter like a snake, until the other asks his forgiveness, and he forgives him."

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) reads the coals as the words of the Sages: be careful not to be punished on their account by going against what they said, "even the lightest of the light."