Seven days from Rabbi Chanina to Rabbi Dostai

Rabbi Chanina is called segan ha-kohanim, the deputy of the kohanim (the priests who served in the Temple). The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) explains the word: second, that is, he is second to the High Priest.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name says the same, and brings the opening of a verse (in the printed text it stands in square brackets): "Seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you" (Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah, 29:7). The verse goes on: "and pray for it to the Lord, for in its welfare you will have welfare." The commentary adds that we find that offerings were vowed and donated on their behalf, as with the seventy bulls that Israel offered on the festival of Sukkot for the seventy nations.

In the Gemara (the Talmud; Avodah Zarah 3b to 4a) Rav Yehuda, in the name of Shmuel, asks why people are compared to the fish of the sea. Three readings follow, and this is the third. It ends: "and this is what we learned," and quotes Rabbi Chanina's mishnah (teaching). The first two readings are these. As fish die at once when they come up onto dry land, so do people when they separate from words of Torah and from the mitzvot (commandments). And as fish die at once when the sun beats down on them, so do people. The Gemara adds that this can be read about this world or about the World to Come (the world of the future).

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah), on the words "of the government": this is the king together with his ministers and advisers, who run his kingdom and do justice in the land, and that is why the mishnah did not say "the welfare of the king." "So the commentators explained," he writes.

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) reads the mishnah as a rule about prayer. A person should pray for the peace of the whole world, and be pained at the pain of others. This is the way of the righteous, he writes, as David said: "As for me, when they were ill, my clothing was sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting" (Tehillim, Psalms, 35:13). A person should not make his pleas and requests for his own needs alone, but pray for all people, that they should stand in peace. And in the welfare of the government there is peace for the world. On the words "the fear of it" he adds: "which is hard on us."

Two earlier mishnayot (teachings) in Pirkei Avot also speak of the ruling power. Shemaya says: do not make yourself known to the government (Avot 1:10). Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (the Prince), says:

And here Rabbi Chanina says: pray for its welfare. Rabbeinu Yonah, on that earlier mishnah, first explains it as it sounds: keep away from the government, which in the end takes a person's property. That, he writes, is the plain meaning, and if so the mishnah speaks of a fault in kings. "Far be it," he writes: through them the whole world is kept standing, and they do justice in the land. So he reads it another way: a king's love and a king's hatred are not in his own hands. When a king brings a person close, it comes from Hashem (God).

The mishnah goes on to another sage:

That is the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century). Rabbeinu Yonah: the scorners of this verse are not people who mock others. They are people who sit down together regularly just to talk about nothing, and are idle from words of Torah, at a time when they have no work to do and no need to speak of their own affairs. This was said about neglect of Torah, he writes, for that is what this chapter speaks about. Tosafot Yom Tov brings from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), in the name of "the Chasid" (the pious one): there is no greater scorn than that of a person who is told, "Count gold coins for one hour, and whatever you count will be yours," and sits idle. He is surely scorning the gold coins. So too, he says, one who sits idle from words of Torah, knowing how great its reward is, is nothing but a scorner.

On the verse for one person, Bartenura connects the word "is silent" (ve-yidom) to the phrase "a still, small voice" (kol demamah dakah): one who learns alone learns in a whisper. And "he has taken it upon himself":

The Gemara tells of the arrest and death of Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon in two passages (Avodah Zarah 17b and 18a). In the first, he has been seized. He is brought in and asked: why do you busy yourself with Torah? He answers: "As the Lord my God commanded me." They sentence him to be burned. In the second, the great men of Rome find him sitting and learning Torah, gathering crowds in public, with a Torah scroll resting in his lap. They take him and burn him.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century) says the same, and adds that the prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah) calls such an offering "vomit and filth" to show contempt for it, just as idols themselves are called by names of disgust. He also looks at the verse that comes just before:

That verse is: "These too reeled with wine and staggered with strong drink" (Yeshayahu 28:7). Because of this, the Rambam writes, all the tables are as if those foul things had been eaten on them.

And on the verse's last words, "with no place" (beli makom), Bartenura writes:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): three people sitting together are called a group, for they join in the invitation to Birkat HaMazon (the blessing after a meal; when three have eaten together, one invites the others to bless). A group should not come together with no words of Torah between them, he writes. That is throwing off the yoke of the Torah (a yoke is the harness of a working animal; here, the duties the Torah places on a person): they eat and drink and enjoy, and it does not enter their minds to mention the Torah. "Woe to them, woe to their enjoyment."

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings three reasons from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), which names where each comes from. From the commentary Lev Avot: the verse that the mishnah (teaching) quotes also speaks of three, the sage, the kohen (priest) and the prophet. From "the Chasid" (the pious one): two people may be caught up in their talk, and are judged as people who sinned without meaning to. When there are three, the third should have reminded them. And from a commentary that Midrash Shmuel quotes as "the Rashbam" (the name of Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a grandson of Rashi, 12th century): an ordinary table has three, for the invitation to bless.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) has one line here: "and people are used to exempting themselves with Birkat HaMazon." Tosafot Yom Tov quotes Bartenura's words and first tries to support them. Birkat HaMazon has three main blessings (the fourth was added later), and he matches them to Torah, Prophets and Writings, or to Scripture, Mishnah and Talmud (see "The table before the Lord" below). Then he writes that his mind is not settled with this ruling, that one fulfills the duty this way. Rabbi Shimon is certainly not speaking of that, he says: are we dealing with wicked people who do not say Birkat HaMazon, which is a positive commandment of the Torah? And the teachings of Avot are teachings of piety, as the Gemara says (the Talmud; Bava Kamma 30a): one who wants to be pious should fulfill the teachings of Avot. That is Rava's answer there. Rav Yehuda says: the laws of damages. And some say: the laws of blessings. Tosafot Yom Tov ends with the same line of Rashi.

The Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law) opens its laws of conduct at a meal with a rule: one does not talk during the meal, so that food should not go down the windpipe. Magen Avraham (Rabbi Avraham Gombiner, a 17th-century commentator on the Shulchan Aruch) notes there that this includes even words of Torah, and then writes:

The Shelah is Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz (16th to 17th century), known by the name of his book, Shenei Luchot HaBerit. The Mishnah Berurah (the commentary on the Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, about 1900) explains (170:1): the rule against talking, even words of Torah, applies only while a person is actually eating, because of the danger. Between courses it is allowed, and it is a mitzvah (commandment) for every person to learn Torah at his table. He brings in the name of the Shelah that one should learn a mishnah, or a halachah (a law), or aggadah (the Sages' teachings that are not law), or books of mussar (teachings on character), and that one does not fulfill it with Birkat HaMazon. At the least he should say some psalm, and it is good to say, after the blessing over the bread, "The Lord is my shepherd" (Tehillim 23), which is words of Torah and also a prayer for his food.

Bartenura then brings a second explanation. Some say that the proof is from the beginning of the verse: "The altar was of wood, three cubits (amot; a cubit is a measure of length) high" (Yechezkel, Ezekiel, 41:22). Do not read amot but imot (mothers, in the sense of foundations): three, for Torah, Prophets and Writings. And some say: Scripture, Mishnah and Talmud. A person needs to speak of them at the table, and then it is called "the table that is before the Lord." He ends: "so Rashi explained."

The verse begins with an altar and ends with a table. On this the Gemara (Berachot 55a) brings Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar, who both say: as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel. Now, a person's table atones for him. The Gemara says this about one who stays long at his table: perhaps a poor person will come, and he will give him food.

Tosafot Yom Tov, from Midrash Shmuel, on "as if they ate from the table of the Makom": it is counted for them as if they had brought offerings, in the way that the Sages said of the kohanim (priests), that they receive their portion from the table of the Most High.

So Bartenura. The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says the same on the words "one who is awake at night." Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) notes that Bartenura follows a text that reads "and turns his heart" (u-mefaneh). Other texts, like the one printed here, read "and one who turns his heart" (ve-ha-mefaneh), which makes three people. He brings both sides from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century). Midrash Shmuel quotes a writer he calls "the Chasid" (the pious one), who says the second text is a copyist's mistake. His argument: if the one who is awake at night turns his heart to idleness, he is already the third person on the list. If he does not, why should he be liable? Midrash Shmuel also brings a commentary that it quotes as "the Rashbam" (the name of Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a grandson of Rashi, 12th century). One who is awake at night is meant even at home, and one who walks on the road even by day. In both cases he is alone, and he is in danger because harmful spirits meet him. According to this, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, the text "and one who turns" can be kept.

Tosafot Yom Tov also brings Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century), which takes "and one who turns" as the main text. One who is awake at night comes to harm, it explains, because night was created only for sleep, or for study. This is from the Gemara (the Talmud; Eruvin 65a), where Rav Yehuda says that night was created only for sleep, and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says that the moon was created only for study. "One who turns his heart to idleness" is a person who is drawn after idleness and looks for it, even by day. The one who is awake at night need not be looking for it: he is anyone who is not sleeping, or learning, or busy with his work. For the text that reads "and turns," Derech Chaim adds: the mishnah says "one who is awake" so that it will not be read as speaking of a person who clears his mind in order to fall asleep.

Rabbeinu Yonah: "because they are favored hours." In them a person should think only of things that are favored before the Makom (a name of God), and these are words of Torah. How valued those hours are, he writes, and how fit for thinking of Torah, for he has no work to do, and does not hear the voices of people. And if he turns his heart to idleness he is liable for his life, for he loses a time in which he could have had clear and right thought, and takes it away from thinking of words of Torah.

What "liable for his life" means, Tosafot Yom Tov explains in his comment on the next mishnah (Avot 3:5), and he explains it by the danger. If robbers or harmful spirits meet him, he must answer for his own blood. It may be that no harm comes. He says this to show that the next mishnah is no lighter. There, one who throws off the yoke of Torah (a yoke is the harness of a working animal; here, the duties the Torah places on a person) has the yoke of the government and the yoke of earning a living placed on him, and he will not be able to escape carrying them.

Two more mishnayot (teachings) in this chapter use nearly the same words (Avot 3:7 and 3:8). There the wording is "Scripture counts it against him as if he were liable for his life." Tosafot Yom Tov explains the difference. In Avot 3:7 a person learning on the road stops to admire a tree. That, he suggests, is only a passing interruption, and the person goes straight back to his learning. In Avot 3:8 a person forgets his learning. That person, he writes, does not prefer idleness to Torah. He sits idle when something idle comes his way. On the text that counts three people, he writes, the third person of the mishnah here is one who prefers idleness to Torah and goes looking for it.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century): the yoke of Torah is steady study. The yoke of government is the burden of the king and his armies. The yoke of derech eretz is "the burden of time," which we take to mean the troubles that the times bring. And he explains what the mishnah (teaching) says of them:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): since he makes his Torah the main thing and his work a passing thing, the Holy One, blessed be He, will guard him from everything bad, so that he will not have to stop learning Torah. A king takes people to do his work. Hashem will not put it in the king's heart to take this man. And the yoke of derech eretz: he will not need to do much work for his living, and a little will be enough for him to live on. For the work of the righteous is blessed, and his soul is happy with its share.

The Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law) writes of the same pair, Torah and work. After prayer and a fixed time of learning (the section before this one), a person goes to his work, it says, "for any Torah that has no work with it will not last in the end, and it brings sin in its wake" (these are the words of an earlier mishnah, Avot 2:2), "for poverty will lead him to go against the will of his Maker." And it goes on:

Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot) has a teaching in the name of the sage whose saying about the government stands three mishnayot (teachings) before this one (Avot 3:2):

The list goes on, and ends with "thoughts of idle things" and "thoughts of the yoke of flesh and blood." And whoever does not put words of Torah on his heart, it says, is given all of them.

The Rambam explains it another way: one who says that the Torah is not from Heaven, "and I will not bear it." Rabbeinu Yonah, on the yoke of government that is placed on this person: he thinks that he will get much of his work done if he sets down the work of the Torah, and Hashem will upset his plan, and put it in the heart of the king to take him to do work for the king. For "a king's heart is like streams of water in the hand of the Lord" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 21:1). And the yoke of derech eretz: he wanders and toils after his living and cannot find it. Even when he finds it he is not happy with his share, and all his days he labors for nothing, to grow rich and to add wealth to wealth, as it is said: "One who loves money will not be satisfied with money" (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, 5:9).

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) sets this mishnah beside the one before it (Avot 3:4). "Liable for his life," there, is not harsher than having these yokes placed on him. There it meant that if harm meets him the guilt is his own, and it is possible that no harm will happen. Here the yokes are placed on him, and he will not be able to escape carrying them. "So it seems to me," he writes.

The Rambam ends with the words "charut (engraved) on the tablets" (Shemot, Exodus, 32:16): read cherut, freedom. That is, he writes, freedom from what the times bring and from the affairs of kings, for one who accepts and does what is written on the tablets. Tosafot Yom Tov brings from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), in the name of Rabbi Matityah HaYitzhari (an earlier commentator on Pirkei Avot), that the Rambam's text of this mishnah ended with these words. Tosafot Yom Tov adds that the saying is found in the baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah that is not in it) that begins "The Sages taught," which is printed as the sixth chapter of Pirkei Avot:

The verse for ten is "God stands in the congregation of God," and the verse for three, in the mishnah (teaching) as printed here, is the end of the same verse: "in the midst of the judges He judges" (Tehillim, Psalms, 82:1). These are the other three:

The verse for two goes on: "and a book of remembrance was written before Him."

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century): with ten the verse says "stands." He stands, as it were, and they sit.

That is the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century), on the verse for five. A court, he notes, is no fewer than three, and its judges are called elohim (the word in the verse for three). Bartenura (Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, the classic 15th-century commentator on the Mishnah, the Sages' collection of teachings) first explains the two verses the other way around. "In the midst of the judges" is five: three judges and the two sides of a case. And a "bundle" is three. He gives two reasons. One is that a bundle of hyssop (ezov, a plant) is three stalks. Then he brings the order printed here, from "some books," and adds how that verse begins:

The Gemara (the Talmud; Berachot 6a) brings a teaching of Ravin bar Rav Adda in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak. From where do we learn that when ten pray, the Shechinah is with them? That when three sit in judgment, the Shechinah is with them? That when two sit and are busy with Torah, the Shechinah is with them? And that even when one sits and is busy with Torah, the Shechinah is with him? The verses are the ones in this mishnah. Then the Gemara asks. Since it is so even of one, why say two? Two: their words are written in the book of remembrance. One: his words are not written in the book of remembrance. Since it is so even of two, why say three? You might have said that judgment is only making peace, and the Shechinah does not come. So it teaches that judgment, too, is Torah. Since it is so even of three, why say ten? With ten, the Shechinah comes first. With three, not until they sit.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator), on "where I cause My name to be mentioned": that is, where I put it in your heart to mention My name, there I will come to you. And "you" is one person. Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) asks the Gemara's question in his own way. If even one has much reward, it is obvious that ten down to two are given reward. Rather, he answers, the mishnah means that each one is given reward according to how many they are.

An earlier mishnah made part of this count. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon said of two that the Shechinah rests between them, and of one that the Holy One, blessed be He, sets a reward for him (Avot 3:2).

Tosafot Yom Tov: and so we find ten who judge, in the first chapter of tractate (volume) Sanhedrin. He adds that although Bartenura's text speaks of judges, Bartenura himself writes "a bundle busy with Torah," because being busy with Torah is included all the more so.

Bartota is the name of a place. So writes the commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator). Rabbi Shimon ben Tzemach Duran (the Rashbatz, 14th to 15th century), in his commentary Magen Avot, opens with the saying "Fine are words that come from the mouth of one who does them." This sage, he writes, is the one of whom it is told, in the chapter about the pious, that the collectors of charity used to run away from him, because he would give them everything he had.

The story the Rashbatz means is in the Gemara (the Talmud; Taanit 24a), in the chapter he calls "the chapter of the pious." There the man is called Elazar of Birta. When the charity collectors saw him they would hide from him, because whatever he had with him he gave them. One day he went up to the market to buy what his daughter needed for her wedding. The collectors saw him and hid. He ran after them and said: I put you under oath: what are you busy with? They said: with an orphan boy and an orphan girl. (To marry them to each other, explains the commentary printed as Rashi's on that page.) He said: I swear by the Temple service, they come before my daughter. He took all that he had with him and gave it to them. One zuz (a silver coin) was left. He bought wheat with it, went up, and threw it into the storehouse. His wife came and asked his daughter: what did your father bring? She said: whatever he brought, he threw into the storehouse. She went to open the storehouse door, and saw that it was full of wheat, which was coming out through the socket of the door, and the door would not open because of the wheat. His daughter went to the study hall and said to him: come and see what the One who loves you has done for you. He said to her: I swear by the Temple service, it is consecrated property to you (set aside as holy, which a person may not use), and you have no more share in it than any one of the poor of Israel. The same commentary explains why: it was the work of a miracle, and a person may not benefit from the work of a miracle.

The Gemara elsewhere (Ketubot 50a) brings Rabbi Ila: in Usha (a town in the Galilee where the Sages met) they enacted that one who gives away freely should not give away more than a fifth. A baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah that is not in it) says the same, with the reason: lest he come to need other people. It tells of one who wanted to give away more than a fifth, and his colleague did not let him.

That is the Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law). It goes on to define that fifth: in the first year it is taken from what he owns, and from then on it is a fifth of what he earned each year. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, whose notes are printed inside it) adds: a person should not give away more than a fifth, so that he will not come to need other people. Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), on this mishnah (teaching), says likewise that a person must not scatter all his money and cast himself on the community (end up living on charity).

How the story in Taanit fits with that limit, and with the order of whom to give to first, is not taken up on this page. How much a person should give, and to whom, is a question for a rav (a rabbi).

The square brackets are in the printed text. Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): this is said both of a person's body and of his money. A person's money is a deposit in his hand from the Holy One, blessed be He, except that it has an advantage over other deposits: he may take from it enough for his needs, and the rest he gives where the One who left the deposit commanded him. There is much to be glad about, he writes, that he may enjoy the deposit, and do the will of its Owner with what is left. It is like a king who gave his servant a thousand zuz and said: take a hundred for yourself, and give the nine hundred to nine people. Is he not happy?

On the verse, the commentary printed under Rashi's name writes: David said it about the silver and gold that he gathered for the Temple. Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings from Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century) why the mishnah says "and so it says of David" and not "as it is said": the verse is not a complete proof. Perhaps David's case is different, since he was giving for the Temple, which Hashem (God) had commanded in particular. Or perhaps what a whole community gives is different from what one person gives.

Other texts read "Rabbi Yaakov" here. Rabbeinu Yonah has that reading, and Tosafot Yom Tov, who found it in Midrash Shmuel, prefers it, since Rabbi Shimon's own saying was already taught (Avot 3:3).

That blessing is in the Gemara (Berachot 58b): one who sees fine creatures and fine trees says, "Blessed is He who has it so in His world." Midrash Shmuel brings the same reading in the name of Rabbi Moshe Alashkar (15th to 16th century): the mishnah teaches this even of something that has some mitzvah in it, for Torah study is equal to them all. On both readings the fault is the one the mishnah itself names: he stops his learning. Bartenura says so outright at the end of the second.

Rabbeinu Yonah: while a person is reciting his learning he should not speak of everyday things, for he needs to stand in fear and awe before the Torah. And if he is light-headed enough to stop his learning, he is liable for his life. The commentary printed under Rashi's name explains "liable for his life" as putting his life in danger: while he is busy with Torah the Satan (the accuser) has no permission to harm him, and once he stops for idle things, permission is given.

Tosafot Yom Tov: "on the road," which is a place of danger. And some explain that the same is true at home, and the mishnah speaks of the road because trees and plowed fields are common there. He asks why this mishnah says "as if he were liable for his life," when an earlier one (Avot 3:4) says "liable for his life" outright. Here, he suggests, it is only a passing interruption, and the person goes straight back to his learning. There the person turns his heart to idleness. And which verse is "Scripture"? He brings three views. Derech Chaim: the verse in the next mishnah (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 4:9). Midrash Shmuel, here: "They pluck saltwort (a desert plant) over the bush" (Iyov, Job, 30:4), which the Gemara (Chagigah 12b, in the name of Rabbi Levi) reads of one who stops words of Torah and takes up words of conversation. The Hebrew word siach means both a bush and conversation. And the commentary printed under Rashi's name: the words "Scripture counts it against him" do not belong in this mishnah, since no verse is written here.

"His error counts as willful" are words of a later mishnah (teaching; Avot 4:13): be careful in study, for an error in study counts as willful. Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) explains the same way. This person did not take to heart that forgetting is common in people. He should have gone back over the halachah (the law he learned) many times, and thought about it all day and all night, until it could not leave his heart. He did not, and so he will come to rule from what he remembers, and say "so my teacher told me," and forbid what is permitted and permit what is forbidden.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings from the commentary Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century): every single thing has many things that depend on it, so one who forgot one thing has already forgotten "the things" of the verse. His own explanation: the verse says "take care" and "guard," twice over, to put a guard on each and every word. On the word "whoever," he writes that it comes to include even one who forgot out of laziness.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): he forgot it against his will, because it was heavy on him. Rabbeinu Yonah: if he forgot it through old age, or through some other thing beyond his control, "the Merciful One exempts him."

Tosafot Yom Tov reads the last words closely, following Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century). The verse does not say "lest you remove them" but "lest they depart," of themselves. So the mishnah includes one who sits idle, and through that they leave his heart, even though he does not intend it. He then sets out three people. The first means to remove words of Torah from his heart. Neither this mishnah nor Rabbi Chanina ben Chachinai (Avot 3:4) is speaking of him: he is one who throws off the yoke of Torah (Avot 3:5). The second does not want to forget, but he prefers idleness to being busy with Torah, and goes looking for it. He is the one who "turns his heart to idleness" (Avot 3:4). The third does not prefer idleness. But when something idle comes his way he sits idle, and grows slack about going back over his learning. That third person, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, is the one in this mishnah.

The Gemara (the Talmud; Menachot 99b) brings Reish Lakish: whoever lets one thing of his learning be forgotten transgresses a prohibition, as it is said, "take care ... lest you forget." Ravina counts two prohibitions in the verse, and Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak three. Could this be so even if it was because of something he could not help? The verse says "and lest they depart from your heart": Scripture speaks of one who removes them from his heart. Rabbi Dostai is quoted there as well, and there he learns that one whose learning was too hard is left out from the word "only," the verse's first word (rak), which limits the warning. Then Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar (a later sage, not Rabbi Elazar ben Arach) both say: the Torah was given in forty days, and the soul is formed in forty days (Moshe's forty days on Mount Sinai, and the forty days in which an unborn child takes form). Whoever guards his Torah, his soul is guarded, and whoever does not guard the Torah, his soul is not guarded. And the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught a parable. A man handed a small bird to his servant and said: do you think that if you lose it I will take a small coin from you for it? I will take your life from you.

Beside this stands a suggestion of Midrash Shmuel, on the word "whoever," which Tosafot Yom Tov quotes. He suggests a narrower exemption. Perhaps, he writes, the mishnah comes to include both one who forgets out of laziness and one who forgets because of something he cannot help, that he is busy finding food for his household. Even so he is liable for his life, for it is an explicit verse: "Cast your burden on the Lord" (Tehillim, Psalms, 55:23). Let him eat bread with salt, he adds, and be diligent in his learning. Only the one whose learning was too hard for him is exempt from this.

The Gemara (Shabbat 147b) tells the story after a saying of Rabbi Chelbo: the wine of Prugita and the water of Diomset cut off the ten tribes (of the northern kingdom, who were exiled and lost) from Israel. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach came there, was drawn after them, and his learning was uprooted. When he returned he stood up to read from the scroll. He meant to read "This month shall be for you" (Shemot, Exodus, 12:2), and said "Their heart was deaf." In Hebrew the two phrases differ by three letters, each mistaken for one that looks like it. The Rabbis prayed for him, and his learning came back. The Gemara goes on: and this is what we learned in a mishnah.

A baraita (a teaching from the time of the Mishnah that is not in it) follows: his name was not Rabbi Nehorai but Rabbi Nechemiah. And some say that Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was his name. Why was he called Rabbi Nehorai? Because he lights up (manhir) the eyes of the Sages in halachah.

The Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah 7:7, a collection of the Sages' teachings on the book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes) tells it another way. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had five students. When he died they went to Yavneh (where the Sages gathered after the Temple was destroyed), and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach went to his wife in Emmaus, a place of good waters and a pleasant setting. He waited for the others to come to him, and they did not come. He wanted to go to them, and the midrash tells how he was persuaded to stay. He stayed until he forgot his learning. After a time they came and asked him a question, and he did not know how to answer.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot), chapter 14, tells of the students going out from before their teacher. "He" said: I will go to Dimsit, to a beautiful place with beautiful and pleasant waters. And they said: we will go to Yavneh, to a place where Torah scholars are many and love the Torah. The chapter ends this way:

Who is "he"? The last student named before this is printed as "Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah." Binyan Yehoshua, a commentary printed with Avot de-Rabbi Natan, writes that "he" is Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, as Shabbat 147b shows. The notes of Rabbi Yeshayah Berlin (18th century) record another reading, and that of the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, 18th century): "ben Arach." In Sefaria's text the note is marked at the words "ben Azariah."