Seven days from Rabbi Yehoshua to Akavya ben Mahalalel

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah is the second of the five students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. His teacher's praise of him was: "happy is she who bore him" (Avot 2:8). Each of the five said three things (Avot 2:10). Rabbi Eliezer's came first, in the mishnah (teaching) before this one. These are Rabbi Yehoshua's.

"A bad eye" appeared two mishnayot (teachings) earlier (Avot 2:9), as Rabbi Eliezer's answer to the question of which path a person should keep far from. Bartenura explains there that a good eye is one who is satisfied with what he has, does not ask for extras, and is not envious when he sees that his friends have more than he has. Here he gives a second reading as well:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) explains the evil eye as a person who is not happy with his share and eyes with ill will a friend who is richer than he is, thinking: when will I be as rich as he is? His proof is the wording. Here the mishnah says ayin hara ("the evil eye"), in the masculine form, which he reads as one who eyes others with ill will. The earlier mishnah said ayin ra'ah ("a bad eye"), which Rabbeinu Yonah himself explained there as stinginess. For him the two are different things, "not like the words of some commentators." Bartenura's first reading, above, takes them as the same. Such a person, Rabbeinu Yonah writes, brings harm on himself and on his friend. On the friend, "as the scholars of nature have said": a vapor rises from that thought and burns the things he looks at with his evil eye. And on himself: since he craves things that he has no power to get, that thought ruins his body.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) starts from Bartenura's reading, that the evil eye is the "bad eye" of the earlier mishnah, and quotes the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century) on the link between the two. Since the evil eye takes a person out of the world, it goes without saying that a person should keep far from it. That is why Rabbi Yehoshua, when he was asked which path to keep far from (Avot 2:9), answered "a bad friend": that answer was less obvious.

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) reads the three as eagerness for money, much desire, and "badness of the soul." The last, he says, is the sickness of black bile (a dark, bitter mood, in the medicine of his day), which brings a person to loathe what his eyes see, to find the company of animals pleasant, and to go off alone to deserts and forests and choose a place where no one lives. With such people, he adds, this is not the withdrawal of the pious. It comes from their bad desire and their envy of others. And he says how these three take a person out of the world:

Bartenura does not comment on these words. Tosafot Yom Tov gives the Rambam's reading of them: much desire. Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot) has a long passage on them (chapter 16), which opens:

It grows with a person from his mother's womb, Avot de-Rabbi Natan explains, and the good inclination is born after thirteen years. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar gives a parable there. The evil inclination is like iron that was put into the fire: as long as it is in the fire, any vessel one wants can be made from it. So too, the evil inclination has no remedy except words of Torah.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) has the first of the three: baseless hatred. On the third, Tosafot Yom Tov brings from Midrash Shmuel that some explain it this way: everyone curses such a person, their curse takes hold of him, and he leaves the world. For the Sages said (Megillah 15a; in the Gemara, the Talmud, these are the words of Rabbi Elazar in the name of Rabbi Chanina): do not let the curse of an ordinary person be a light thing in your eyes.

Tosafot Yom Tov sends the reader to a later mishnah, where Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says nearly the same sentence about envy, desire and honor:

In his comment there, Tosafot Yom Tov matches the two lists. Envy comes from the evil eye, and desire comes from the evil inclination. And honor is the cause of hatred of people, for no one is as hated by people as one who chases honor.

Rabbi Yose the Kohen is the third of the five students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. His teacher's praise of him was one word: chasid, a pious person (Avot 2:8). When the five were asked which path a person should hold to, his answer was "a good neighbor" (Avot 2:9).

Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot) goes on: and as a person wants no bad name to go out about his own money, so he should want none to go out about his fellow's money. It gives a second explanation as well. When a Torah scholar comes to you (to say "teach me"; the printed text has these words in round brackets), if you are able to teach him, teach him. If not, let him go at once, and do not take his money from him. Its verse is: "Do not say to your fellow, go and come back, and tomorrow I will give, when you have it with you" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 3:28).

Rabbeinu Yonah explains the rule in a few words: "to carry out with it the instruction of its owner."

Two mishnayot (teachings) earlier, Rabbi Eliezer said the same of a fellow's honor: let it be as dear to you as your own (Avot 2:10). Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah), discussing that rule, brings a proof from this one. Would it enter your mind, he asks, that a person who scatters his own money and wastes it may scatter and waste his fellow's? Rather, Rabbi Yose was not speaking about that person. He spoke only of one whose own money is dear to him.

The phrase comes from the Gemara (the Talmud; Bava Metzia 85a). Rabbi Parnach says there in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: when a person is a Torah scholar, and his son is a Torah scholar, and his son's son is a Torah scholar, the Torah will never again leave his descendants, as it is said: "... My words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your children, or from the mouth of your children's children, says the Lord, from now and forever" (Yeshayahu, Isaiah, 59:21). What does "from now and forever" mean? Rabbi Yirmiyah explains: from then on, the Torah comes looking for its own lodging. Tosafot Yom Tov puts that Gemara together with this mishnah. Rabbi Yose is teaching, he says, that this is so when a person prepares himself for it: then it stays with him more than with someone else. And if he does not, it does not.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): do not say, since my father was a great scholar, I will be one as well, without any effort. Rabbeinu Yonah: you will not reach it unless you toil in it, for it is not like an inheritance from one's fathers, which a son receives without effort. If you want it, he writes, acquire it for yourself by the work of your hands.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan brings Moshe (Moses):

Moshe asked to be told who would come in and go out at the head of the people (Bamidbar, Numbers, 27:15-18). The answer he was given was Yehoshua (Joshua).

The square and round brackets in that quotation are in the printed text (Vilna, 1883). Square brackets are around words that its editors added, and round brackets around words that they questioned.

Rabbeinu Yonah gives the word "prepare" two more meanings. Prepare yourself with good character, so that you can learn the Torah. And cut down on pleasures, so that you can learn much. The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) points to the eighth chapter of his Shemonah Perakim (Eight Chapters, his introduction to Pirkei Avot), where he explained what preparation is. A person cannot be born with a virtue or with a fault, he writes there. He can be born with a leaning toward one. And if a person with a leaning toward a virtue is left with no teaching at all, he will stay ignorant.

The Rambam points to the fifth chapter of Shemonah Perakim, which is about this line. A person, he writes there, should always set one aim before his eyes: to know Hashem (God) as far as a person is able. In his eating and drinking, his married life, his sleeping and waking, his moving and resting, he should aim only at the health of his body. And the aim of a healthy body is that the soul should find its tools healthy and whole, to gain wisdom and good character, until it reaches that one aim.

A baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah that is not in it), quoted in the Gemara (Beitzah 16a), uses these same words about Hillel the Elder. They said of Shammai the Elder that all his days he ate in honor of Shabbat. When he found a fine animal he said: this one is for Shabbat. When he found a finer one, he set the second aside and ate the first. But Hillel the Elder had another way: all his deeds were for the sake of Heaven, as it is said, "Blessed is the Lord, day by day" (Tehillim, Psalms, 68:20). Rashi, in his commentary on the Gemara, explains Hillel's way: he trusted that a fine one would come his way for Shabbat. A second baraita there gives the two as the teachings of their schools. The school of Shammai says: from the first day of your week, for your Shabbat. The school of Hillel says: "Blessed is the Lord, day by day."

Avot de-Rabbi Natan: "for the sake of Heaven" is for the sake of Torah, as it is said, "In all your ways know Him, and He will make your paths straight" (Mishlei 3:6).

Rabbeinu Yonah applies the rule to things that are neither commanded nor forbidden: eating and drinking, sitting, standing and walking, lying down, married life, and conversation. All of them, he writes, should be for the service of your Creator, or for something that leads to it. He sums up: a person must put his eyes and his heart on his ways, and weigh all his deeds on the scales of his mind. The Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law) quotes this mishnah and explains it in nearly the same words as Rabbeinu Yonah (Orach Chayim 231).

Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel is the fourth of the five students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. His teacher's praise of him was "one who fears sin" (Avot 2:8). When the five were asked which path a person should hold to, his answer was "one who sees what will come of things" (Avot 2:9).

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says the same of the Shema: to read it at its hour. Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) gives a reason why the mishnah (teaching) warns about these two in particular: they are accepting the yoke of the kingship of Heaven (taking God as King) and serving Him. He also reports, from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), that Rabbeinu Yonah had a text that says "be more careful with the Shema than with prayer." Rabbeinu Yonah's reason: the time for prayer is wide, until four hours, while the time for the Shema, as the vatikin read it (the word is explained below), is short, set right at sunrise. That, he says, is why the mishnah says "be careful": it needs great care.

The Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law) gives both times. The morning Shema may be read until the end of three hours, "which is a quarter of the day." The choicest way to do the mitzvah (commandment), it says, is to read it as the vatikin did (it explains the word as students, and brings Rashi's explanation: humble people who cherish the mitzvot), who timed it so as to finish with sunrise and pray at once (Orach Chayim 58:1). The morning prayer lasts until the end of four hours, "which is a third of the day" (Orach Chayim 89:1). These hours, as its words show, are parts of the day, and not hours on a clock.

Both readings are in the Gemara (the Talmud; Berachot 29b), on a mishnah in which Rabbi Eliezer says: one who makes his prayer fixed, his prayer is not pleading (Berachot 4:4). What is "fixed"? Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi said in the name of Rabbi Oshaya: anyone whose prayer is like a burden on him. The Rabbis say: anyone who does not say it in the language of pleading. Rabbah and Rav Yosef both say: anyone who is not able to say something new in it. Rabbi Zeira said: I am able to say something new in it, but I am afraid that I would become confused. The Gemara then brings one more view, which is about the time of day at which a person prays.

The Rambam: "fixed" means that the prayer is heavy on him, and he treats it like a person who was told to do some task, and does it so that he can rest from it.

The Shulchan Aruch puts the first two readings into one law:

Rabbeinu Yonah: he should say the prayer like a poor person who pleads and asks for a thing he needs, and not like a person who asks and has no need of it, who does not plead with a whole heart. And every person needs to ask for himself, he adds, for there is no person on earth who does not sin. Prayer should not be a load to him, and he should not do it like one who has paid off his debt.

The verse in the mishnah is from Yoel (Joel) 2:13. Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot; chapter 17) has Rabbi Shimon's rule in slightly different words: do not make your prayer "talk," but pleading before the Holy One, blessed be He. It brings the same words about Hashem (God) from another verse, Yonah (Jonah) 4:2.

That is Bartenura's first reading, and the one in the commentary printed under Rashi's name. His second is the Rambam's, which he puts this way: do not hold yourself to be wicked, for from that you go over to bad ways altogether. In the Rambam's own words:

Bartenura adds a third reading, which he heard: do not be wicked in this, that you separate from the community and stand by yourself. (The Hebrew words, bifnei atzmecha, can be read "before yourself" and "by yourself.")

Rabbeinu Yonah reads the line as being about giving up. A person should not be wicked in his own eyes in such a way that he cannot come back in repentance. Such a person despairs of repentance, and when a sin comes to his hand he treats it as permitted, because it seems light to him next to the heavy ones he has already done. But he should not be righteous in his own eyes either. Rabbeinu Yonah brings the Gemara (Niddah 30b): a child in its mother's womb is made to swear. He quotes this much: "Even if the whole world says that you are righteous, be in your own eyes like a wicked person." (In the Gemara the oath begins, "Be righteous and do not be wicked," and goes on after these words.) Not actually wicked, he explains. Rather, he should be in his own eyes half guilty and half innocent. If he does one mitzvah, happy is he, for he has tipped himself to the side of merit. If he does one sin, woe to him, for he has tipped himself to the side of guilt. Rabbeinu Yonah gives this as a saying of the Sages (the printed text has him name Vayikra Rabbah, a Midrash). It is taught in the Gemara (Kiddushin 40a to 40b).

Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is the fifth of the five students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. His teacher's praise of him was "a spring that keeps growing stronger" (Avot 2:8). When the five were asked which path a person should hold to, his answer was "a good heart," and their teacher preferred it to the others, because it includes them (Avot 2:9).

The verse is Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 1:12. Or, the Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) adds, the word means habit and steadiness, as in the verse "to be diligent at my doors day by day" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 8:34).

Bartenura's second reading: he makes himself hefker, and does not care for his own life enough to worry that harm may come on him for scorning the Torah or those who learn it. Tosafot Yom Tov notes that Bartenura's "one who scorns the Torah" also means one who scorns those who learn it, as his second reading ends. Bartenura writes this outright on the mishnah that lists the apikoros (Sanhedrin 10:1): one who scorns Torah scholars, and all the more so one who scorns the Torah itself. The Gemara (the Talmud; Sanhedrin 99b) says who is called an apikoros. In its first version, Rav and Rabbi Chanina say: one who scorns a Torah scholar. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi say: one who scorns his fellow in front of a Torah scholar. The Gemara then gives a second version, and other examples, such as (Rava) people who say: what good have the Rabbis ever done us?

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): the apikoros of this mishnah (teaching) is one who denies the Oral Torah (the tradition handed down together with the written Torah), and the same applies, he says, to those who teach against the halachah (Jewish law). He gives the reason for the rule. If such a person is not answered according to his claims, the world will learn from him, seeing that he has won, and the name of Heaven is desecrated.

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 38b) quotes this mishnah, and Rabbi Yochanan says: this was taught only of an apikoros who is not a Jew. But a Jewish apikoros is all the more unrestrained. Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains: he knew and then denied, so he picks at every word, and you will not find an answer that he accepts. The Rambam brings this Gemara. One needs to learn things, he writes, with which to answer an apikoros from the nations, and to dispute with them and answer them if they raise difficulties. But a Jewish apikoros, he explains, will scorn all the more, "and because of this one does not need (ein tzarich) to speak with him at all, for he has no remedy and no cure at all." He brings a verse for this (Mishlei 2:19).

On the same page of the Gemara, Rav Nachman says: a person who knows how to answer the minim (heretics) as Rav Idit did should answer. And one who does not should not answer.

Who is an apikoros in this sense, and what that means for speaking with any particular person, is a question for a rav (a rabbi), and not for this page.

Tosafot Yom Tov quotes two points from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century). The first is in the name of Rabbi Moshe Almosnino, on the word "know": know it yourself, with full knowledge. Your answer to him should not be one that you only received, or learned from someone else, for in that way you will not defeat him. The second is on the words "what to answer": you should not go to them to challenge their views. Only if they come to you and challenge you, know what to answer them. "But you, do not begin to set the dog on yourself."

Tosafot Yom Tov also notes, from Midrash Shmuel, that Rabbeinu Yonah explains the mishnah as one instruction: be diligent and toil in learning Torah, in order that you will know what to answer. It follows, he says, that this reading does not have the word "know," and so it seems from the Rambam as well. Other texts do have it.

Tosafot Yom Tov: at first sight, Bartenura's "before whom" seems to be the apikoros. But his words appear to be copied from the Rambam, and the Rambam explains "before whom" as Hashem (God). He quotes the Rambam: even though you learn the views of the nations in order to know how to answer them,

That, the Rambam says, is "know before whom you labor": a person should direct his heart to faith in Hashem. Rabbeinu Yonah: before the One who examines the inner parts and the heart. And when you toil in the Torah, he adds, delight in it, for the Torah says of itself, "I was a delight day by day" (Mishlei 8:30).

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) counts the three sayings of this mishnah: be diligent; know what to answer; and know before whom you labor and who your employer is. Rabbeinu Yonah: do not do the work of the Torah deceitfully, for Hashem is your employer, and nothing is hidden from Him. He sets this beside an earlier mishnah (Avot 1:3): "do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward." Even so, he says, to overcome the evil inclination (the pull to do wrong), which turns a person away from the mitzvot (commandments), it is good to think that there will be a reward for them. And knowing the reward, he says, is not meant to make it the reason for serving. It is like knowing the greatness of Hashem: it brings a person to add love for Him.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): the day is this world. Rabbeinu Yonah: a person's days are short against the Torah, which is great, "longer than the earth in measure and wider than the sea" (Iyov, Job, 11:9). He brings a midrash (a teaching of the Sages on a verse; it is in Shemot Rabbah 47:7, a collection of midrash on Shemot, Exodus, in different words) about the forty days that Moshe (Moses) stood on Mount Sinai without sleeping. It is like a king who said to his servant: measure out gold coins from now until tomorrow, and whatever you measure will be yours. How could he sleep? In that hour he would lose so much. So Moshe said: if I sleep, how many pearls of Torah will I lose? Rabbeinu Yonah concludes: how much more so should we not give sleep to our eyes (his words are from Tehillim, Psalms, 132:4).

Rabbeinu Yonah: these are people, who are lazy about learning Torah. For even the wise who are quick grow lazy. It is a person's nature to be lazy, he writes, and no person is saved from it. Some have more of it and some less.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name: the owner of the house is the Holy One, blessed be He. Rabbeinu Yonah sets two kinds of worker side by side. One is paid by the job. If he does a little he is paid a little, if he does much he is paid much, by the price that was set for the whole work, and the owner does not mind which. You are not like that worker, he writes. The Holy One, blessed be He, commands you to do the work of the Torah, and not to put it off, in all that you are able to do. If you go against His command, Rabbeinu Yonah writes, the punishment is great, for you have no permission to be idle from it for even one hour.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) explains the order of these chapters in his comment on the mishnah (teaching) after the next one (Avot 3:1). The Mishnah first gave the chain from Hillel down to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (the Prince) and his son, without a break. Then it went back and brought Hillel's own sayings, so as to follow them with Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who received from him, and then with the sayings of his students. And it placed Rabbi Tarfon's saying next to theirs because it is like the saying of Rabbi Elazar, the last of the students.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): "to finish": all of it. Rabbeinu Yonah: so that it should not enter your mind to say, I am not able enough, and I cannot finish it. What is gained by the toil, and what will my effort achieve? For it is not on you to finish it. Rather, since you are toiling in the Torah, you have kept the command of your Creator.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name: not free to be idle from it altogether, and therefore, if you do much, you receive reward. Rabbeinu Yonah hears a second voice here, the opposite of the first. Do not say: since I am not obliged to finish the work, I will not press myself. I will learn one hour every day. It is not so, he writes. You are a servant acquired for it, to study it day and night.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) quotes the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century). The mishnah (teaching) before this one said "the reward is much," and a person might take that to mean: I will receive much reward for learning one hour, and after that I can sit idle. So Rabbi Tarfon says: if you have learned much Torah, you are given much reward. And if not, not. On the contrary, he adds, there is a punishment for the sin of neglecting Torah.

Tosafot Yom Tov then asks how this fits another mishnah (Menachot 13:11). It is said of a burnt offering of an animal, of a burnt offering of a bird, and of an offering of flour alike that it is "a pleasing aroma," to teach that the one who does much and the one who does little are the same, provided that a person directs his mind to Heaven. His answer: one who brings an offering of flour is presumably poor, as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says on the verse (Vayikra, Leviticus, 2:1). The poor person does according to his strength and his means, and so his little is equal before Hashem (God) to the much of the rich person. But one who has it in his power to do much and does little is certainly not equal to one who does much. And in our mishnah too, he says, "if you have learned much Torah" is said of one who is able.

Rabbeinu Yonah: this comes to say that the one who chooses to do more, and grows wise, has an advantage over the one who does less, even though neither of them was idle. And "your employer is faithful": do not be afraid, like a worker whose employer may say to him "go and come back" because he has no money in his hand. You are working for One who will pay, and pays faithfully.

The Rambam (the great 12th-century teacher of Jewish law and philosophy) is pointing to his commentary on the Mishnah, tractate (volume) Sanhedrin, chapter 10. Rabbeinu Yonah: when you think of this, your hands will be strengthened to work at the Torah, and from it you will take to heart the greatness of the kindness of the Holy One, blessed be He, and add love for Him. Tosafot Yom Tov, from Midrash Shmuel: when Rabbi Tarfon says that the employer is faithful to pay, he does not mean that you should serve in order to receive a reward (Avot 1:3). He means only that you should know it.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah): Akavya ben Mahalalel lived in the time of the Temple. The Mishnah did not want to break into the chain from Hillel down to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (the Prince) and his son, and after that it brought Hillel's sayings, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and his students. So Akavya's saying comes only here.

The Mishnah tells about him in tractate (volume) Eduyot (5:6). Akavya ben Mahalalel testified to four things, and in each of them the Sages ruled otherwise. They said to him: Akavya, take back the four things you have been saying, and we will make you head of the court for Israel. He said to them:

The mishnah (teaching) then lists the four. Against the fourth, the Sages brought a case that Shemaya and Avtalyon (the two leading sages of the generation before Hillel) themselves had decided. He answered in two words, which Bartenura explains in two ways. In our summary: that it was no proof. The mishnah goes on: they put him under a ban (people are told to keep apart from him), he died under the ban, and the court stoned his coffin. Bartenura (Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, the classic 15th-century commentator on the Mishnah, the Sages' collection of teachings) explains there that the ban was because he had slighted the honor of Shemaya and Avtalyon. But Rabbi Yehuda (Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai, a later sage of the Mishnah, not Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi) says in that mishnah: Heaven forbid that Akavya was put under a ban, for the Temple courtyard was never closed on any person of Israel as great in wisdom and in fear of sin as Akavya ben Mahalalel. It was another man, he says, who was banned. When that man died, the court sent and placed a stone on his coffin, and from this the mishnah learns that whoever dies under a ban has his coffin stoned. Bartenura: not stoned in fact. A stone is placed on it, as a sign that his colleagues kept apart from him. Bartenura also explains Rabbi Yehuda's picture of the courtyard: on the eve of Pesach (Passover), when the doors of the courtyard were closed on each group that came in to bring the Pesach offering, there was no one in the whole courtyard crowned with humility and fear of sin like Akavya.

The next mishnah (Eduyot 5:7) is the end of the story. At the time of his death he said to his son: my son, take back the four things I used to say. The son said: and why did you not take them back? He said: I heard them from the many, and they heard theirs from the many. I stood by what I had heard, and they stood by what they had heard. But you heard them from one person, and from the many. It is better to leave the words of the one and hold to the words of the many. The son said: father, tell your colleagues to look after me. He said: I will not. The son said: have you found some fault in me? He said: no.

Bartenura asks there why Akavya said "it is better" and not "you must," since following the many is a law of the Torah (Shemot, Exodus, 23:2). His answer is that Akavya too had received his words from many. And he ends: the halachah (Jewish law) does not follow Akavya ben Mahalalel in any of these four things.

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): when you look at where you came from, the thought will make you humble and save you from the trait of pride, of which it is said: "Everyone who is proud of heart is an abomination (a hateful thing) to the Lord" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 16:5).

Rabbeinu Yonah: when you think in your heart where you are going, you will not want any of the pleasures, and all wealth and honor will be small in your eyes. On this, he says, King Shlomo (Solomon) wrote the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). It opens with "vanity of vanities" (emptiness; the Hebrew word means a breath), and after calling everything vanity it says: "The end of the matter, everything having been heard: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of a person" (Kohelet 12:13).

Tosafot Yom Tov brings from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century) why the mishnah says "you are going," in the present, and not "you will go": from the day a person is born, he is on his way there.

Rabbeinu Yonah gives a parable. If a person comes before a king, and the king finds that he has been deceitful in what he did or false in what he said, how greatly ashamed he will be. How much more so before the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

Tosafot Yom Tov, again from Midrash Shmuel, asks why the mishnah says "look" and then says "know." Before whom a person will give an accounting is not something that is looked at and seen with the senses. It is believed, by way of knowing.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): our Rabbis derived all three from one verse, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth" (Kohelet 12:1). "Your Creator" (bor'echa) is the Holy One, blessed be He, before whom you will give judgment and accounting. Read the word also as be'ercha, "your well": remember your source, from where you came. And read it as borcha, "your pit": remember your grave, the place you are going to. The Midrash (a collection of the Sages' teachings on the verses; Vayikra Rabbah 18:1) quotes Akavya's mishnah and brings, in the names of Rav Papi and Rabbi Levi, that all three were derived from this one verse.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot) has Akavya's saying in another form:

The four it lists are: from where he came, where he is going, what he will become, and who his judge is. The same chapter tells of Rabbi Eliezer. When he was ill, his students came in to visit him and said: our teacher, teach us one thing. He said: go, and each of you be careful of his fellow's honor.