Seven days from Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa to Rabbi Akiva

That is: what a person has in mind at the start is what his work reaches at the end. Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) uses Bartenura's reading, first in thought, to answer a question. Hillel (one of the earliest sages quoted in Pirkei Avot) said in an earlier mishnah (teaching): "A boor (a person with no learning) cannot be one who fears sin" (Avot 2:5). How, then, can fear of sin come before wisdom? Here, he writes, it comes first in thought and not in practice. A boor does not know what a sin is, that he should fear it. But in thought a person can fear anything that will turn out to be a sin.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) has two readings. One: he keeps far from what is forbidden and from sin. The other: in all his deeds and all his affairs, fear of sin comes first and comes before him, and he remembers it in whatever he does. Of wisdom that comes first it says: there is no substance in it, for if there is no fear of Hashem (God), there is no wisdom.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century) explains the mishnah by habit:

One word of our English does not follow the Hebrew shown. Sefaria's text of the Rambam reads kinyanei ha-de'ot; de'ot can mean traits or opinions. Another printing reads kinyanei ha-ra'ot, "bad habits." The two differ by one letter. Our English follows the second. Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) gives a second explanation that runs the same way: when wisdom comes first, it keeps a person from sins he is used to, "and in the end he will kick at it, for it seems to him like a load."

Bartenura sets the two sayings side by side. The first speaks of one who is careful about the prohibitions of the Torah, and this one of one who is quick to do its positive mitzvot (the commandments to do something).

Rabbeinu Yonah brings how the early commentators explained it: such a person's desire for wisdom is greater than his wisdom, so every day he adds wisdom to his wisdom. Then he asks: how can a person's deeds be more than his wisdom? If he does not know the Torah and the mitzvot, on what basis does he do them? He answers that the mishnah gives good advice to one who does not yet know. He takes on himself, with a whole heart, to do everything the Sages will tell him, and from that moment he is given reward as if he had taken on all the mitzvot. And so, he writes, it is spelled out in Avot de-Rabbi Natan (an early expansion of Pirkei Avot):

The verse is what Israel said at Mount Sinai (Shemot, Exodus, 24:7). Rabbeinu Yonah: they put doing before hearing. They took on themselves to do all that they would be commanded, and at once received reward as if they had done it. Tosafot Yom Tov adds that this is why the mishnah says "more than" and not "before." The deeds themselves cannot come first, for he does not yet know them. What comes first is taking them on, and what a person takes on is more than he will ever learn.

Avot de-Rabbi Natan goes on, in the same chapter, with a question put to Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai (the leading sage at the time the Second Temple was destroyed). One who is wise and fears sin, what is he? "A craftsman with the tools of his craft in his hand." Wise, and does not fear sin? "A craftsman without the tools of his craft in his hand." Fears sin, and is not wise? "He is not a craftsman, but the tools of his craft are in his hand."

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) says the same. Tosafot Yom Tov brings from Midrash Shmuel, in the name of a commentary it quotes as "the Rashbam" (the name of Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a grandson of Rashi, 12th century), two verses: "And you will find favor and good understanding in the eyes of God and man" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 3:4), and "The kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him" (Tehillim, Psalms, 103:17). Anyone on whom a thread of kindness is drawn (people find him gracious), it is known that he fears Heaven.

The Gemara that Rabbeinu Yonah points to (Yoma 86a) is a baraita (a teaching of the Sages from the time of the Mishnah) quoted by the sage Abaye. The Gemara asks what counts as chilul Hashem (profaning God's name) and brings five answers. This baraita is the one Abaye brings. It is taught on the verse "And you shall love the Lord your God" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 6:5): that the name of Heaven should become beloved through you. A person reads and learns and serves Torah scholars (learns from them at close hand), and his dealings with people are gentle. What do people say of him? "Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah. Woe to the people who did not learn Torah. So-and-so, who learned Torah: see how pleasant his ways are, how right his deeds." But one who reads and learns and serves Torah scholars, and his dealings are not in good faith, and his speech with people is not gentle, what do people say of him? "Woe to so-and-so who learned Torah, woe to his father who taught him Torah, woe to his teacher who taught him Torah. So-and-so, who learned Torah: see how corrupt his deeds are, and how ugly his ways." Rabbeinu Yonah quotes only the first half, in slightly different words. The spirit of the Makom is pleased with such a person, he writes, because the Torah is praised through him.

On the second half of the saying Rabbeinu Yonah writes: he will not be "clean before the Lord and before Israel," the words of a verse (Bamidbar, Numbers, 32:22).

Tosafot Yom Tov brings from Midrash Shmuel why the mishnah needs both halves. From the first alone, one could think that a person may be disliked because he goes to the far end of piety, and the spirit of the Makom is pleased with him even so. From the second alone, one could think that a person may be liked because he looks pure on the outside, while "within himself he sets his ambush" (words from the prophet Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah, 9:7). So the mishnah teaches that it is a clear sign in both directions. And it did not say "the spirit of all people," for we are not concerned with a minority. So we find with Mordechai, of the Book of Esther, who was "accepted by most of his brothers" (Esther 10:3). The Gemara (Megillah 16b) reads that verse closely: by most of his brothers, and not by all of them. It teaches that some of the Sanhedrin (the high court of sages) parted from him. Rashi (the classic 11th-century commentator) explains why: he had left his Torah learning and gone into office. The Gemara goes on, in the name of the sage Rav Yosef, that Torah learning is greater than saving lives, since Mordechai's name stands one place lower in a later list of leaders.

Midrash Shmuel itself brings this last point in the name of Rabbi Yosef ibn Nachmias (a commentator on Avot whom Midrash Shmuel quotes): no person can be pleasing and acceptable to all people. He should be acceptable to most, and one need not be concerned about a minority.

The mishnah goes on to another sage:

Bartenura, one by one. Sleep of the morning: he sleeps on until the time for reciting the Shema (the declaration "Hear, O Israel," said morning and evening) has passed. Wine of midday: it draws a person's heart, as it is written, "to draw my flesh with wine" (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, 2:3), and brings him to drunkenness. The talk of children: it keeps their fathers from being busy with Torah. Sitting in the gathering places of the unlearned: they gather and speak of idle things.

The commentary printed under Rashi's name reads two of them differently from Bartenura. Sleep of the morning, in a second version it gives: it is sweet to a person, he is drawn after it, and it keeps him from Torah. The talk of children: young men who are busy with words of mockery, and people run after them. Rabbeinu Yonah: sleep of the morning does away with prayer in its time, and wine of midday does away with Torah learning and brings a person to sin. Of the talk of children he writes that the delight of it draws people's hearts, through their love for the young, and the Torah is left idle.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century) sums up the four:

Rabbeinu Yonah: for what was a person created, if not to be busy with Torah, which is length of days and years of life? He gives a parable. A king gave his servant a hundred silver coins. The servant threw them into the sea, and came back and asked him for more. Is it not right that he be given no more? The coins are his days: why should he be given more? So it is, he writes, with one who is not busy with Torah. Tosafot Yom Tov brings from Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century) why the mishnah says midday: in the morning a person is sluggish from sleep, in the evening he is tired and wants rest, and at midday he is at his full strength, so the wine then makes him altogether merry.

Sacred things: Bartenura explains this as one who causes an offering to become disqualified, or who takes for his own use something given to the Temple, whether for the altar or for the building's upkeep. The festivals:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): the mishnah says "despises" and not "profanes" because it is not speaking of the festival day itself, which is like Shabbat, but of its middle days. Such a person says: these days are not as holy as the first ones.

He ends with the words of the Gemara (the Talmud; Bava Metzia 58b): "the red goes and the white comes." There a teaching is recited before the sage Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak: anyone who whitens his fellow's face in public, it is as if he sheds blood. He answers: you have said well, for we see that the red goes and the white comes. Further on (59a) the Gemara brings a saying in three chains of names, the last of them Rabbi Yochanan in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: it is better for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace than to whiten his fellow's face in public. It learns this from Tamar (Bereishit, Genesis, 38:25). Rashi (the classic 11th-century commentator) explains: she was being taken out to be burned, and still she did not say in front of them who the man was. She sent word to him, with his own things (so the verse), and left it to him to admit it on his own.

Rabbeinu Yonah counts it as an offshoot of one of the three sins for which a person must let himself be killed and not transgress. The three are idolatry, forbidden relations and bloodshed. One who whitens his fellow's face in public, he writes, is an offshoot of bloodshed, "for his blood flees because of the shame."

The covenant of Avraham: Bartenura, one who has not had himself circumcised, or one who was circumcised and hides it so that it will not be seen. The fifth: Bartenura's first reading is one who shows faces and readings in the Torah that are not according to halachah. He gives as an example a translation of a verse that is not its plain meaning, and adds that this includes one who expounds the Torah in mockery. The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) names King Menashe (a king of Yehudah, Judah), who used to ask mockingly why Moshe (Moses) had to write "and Timna was a concubine" (Bereishit 36:12; the Gemara tells it in Sanhedrin 99b). Bartenura's second reading is one who is brazen-faced, who transgresses the words of the Torah in public, with a high hand, and has no shame. This is how the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century) reads it: it is the furthest point of denying the Torah, he writes, and he brings the Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud; Peah 1:1), which gives King Yehoyakim, another king of Yehudah, as its example.

The Gemara itself (Sanhedrin 99b) records a dispute in two versions. In the second, it is about the fifth item: Rav and Rabbi Chanina say it is one who despises a Torah scholar; Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi say it is one who despises his fellow in front of a Torah scholar. In the first version those same two answers define the apikoros (see below), and the fifth item is then one who despises a Torah scholar himself, or one like Menashe. Rabbeinu Yonah adds that the same holds for one who is brazen toward those who learn the Torah.

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 99a) brings Rabbi Elazar of Modi'in's list in a teaching on the verse "For he has despised the word of the Lord and broken His commandment; that soul shall surely be cut off" (Bamidbar, Numbers, 15:31): cut off in this world, and cut off in the World to Come. The commentary printed under Rashi's name writes that the one who whitens a face is not in the list there, "and I do not know how he learns it from the verse." Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) notes that in our texts of the Gemara it is in the list. He brings an explanation from Midrash Shmuel: one who shames his fellow in public despises him, "and there is no greater apikoros than this." Midrash Shmuel's own words are fuller: he shames and reviles his fellow in public, "and his intent is not for his benefit, only to despise his fellow, and there is no greater apikoros than this." An apikoros, in one view in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 99b), is one who despises a Torah scholar. One of the Gemara's readings of "he has despised the word of the Lord" (Sanhedrin 99a) is the apikoros. Tosafot Yom Tov gives an explanation of his own: a person was created in the image of God, and so he is himself "the word of the Lord."

The Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah say the same, from the Talmud Yerushalmi. The Rambam: these sins are graver than others, in that sufferings together with death do not atone for them. Tosafot Yom Tov spells out the other side: for other sins, sufferings together with death cleanse. He also records, from Midrash Shmuel, in the name of an earlier commentator he calls Rabbi Ephraim, a text of the mishnah that has "good deeds" and no "Torah" in this clause.

How do these five sit beside the Mishnah's other list of those who have no share in the World to Come (Sanhedrin 10:1)? Tosafot Yom Tov brings three answers. Midrash Shmuel: all five are included in the apikoros, who is on that list. And two suggestions from Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century). One: they may be included in "one who says the Torah is not from Heaven," which is also on that list. The other: those on that list have no share even with all the Torah and mitzvot (commandments) in their hand, while the five here are said of a person whose merits and sins are evenly weighed, and these tip the scale. Derech Chaim writes that the second seems right.

Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) brings a mishnah (a teaching of the Mishnah; Nedarim 3:8) in which "the black-headed" means men in general, the bald and the gray among them. He suggests that in vows we follow the way people speak, while here the Sages mean the young. There are only two extremes, he writes: the head, which takes in every person of standing, and tishchoret, which takes in every person without it.

He adds: "And this is more than what Shammai said, 'with a pleasant face.'" Shammai's words are in an earlier mishnah:

Bartenura explains the word "receive" (mekabel) from a word for facing: stand facing every person with joy. Tosafot Yom Tov writes that he does not know why the commentators did not explain Shammai's mishnah the same way.

Rabbeinu Yonah reads "head" as a head and lord. Make yourself light before him and do what he needs, as it is said: "Do not glorify yourself before a king, and do not stand in the place of the great" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 25:6). Tishchoret, in his reading, is an officer whom the king has appointed over his people. One does not make oneself light before him, for he is not the lord, but one should be pleasant in speech with him. The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator) brings readings close to this. "Some say" a head is the heads of the city and its judges. Tishchoret is the city's treasurer or, in another reading, the forced service that a ruler demands.

This is Bartenura's second reading, and the first reading in the commentary printed under Rashi's name, which calls tishchoret a word for old age and brings the verse "for childhood and shacharut are vanity" (Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, 11:10).

None of these readings changes the third clause: receive every person with joy. The commentary printed under Rashi's name explains it: with every person, let your words be pleasant.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator), on the word "accustom": they draw a person on to sin. 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) why this clause is not worded as a fence, like the others. Worded this way it teaches more: jesting and frivolity do not only bring a person to it. They make a habit of it.

His first example is the word sukkot (booths), written twice without the letter vav and once with it. From this the Sages learn that a sukkah (the booth the Torah commands) is valid with three walls.

Bartenura brings the Gemara (the Talmud; Taanit 9a) on the doubled words "aser te'aser," "you shall surely tithe" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 14:22): tithe (aser) so that you will grow rich (titasher). In the Gemara, Rabbi Yochanan meets the young son of the sage Reish Lakish, who recites this verse and asks what it means. Tithe so that you will grow rich, Rabbi Yochanan tells him. How do you know? Go and test it. Is it permitted to test the Holy One, blessed be He? Rabbi Yochanan answers in the name of Rabbi Hoshaya: except in this, as it is said, "Bring all the tithe to the storehouse ... and test Me in this" (the prophet Malachi 3:10). The Gemara's permission to test is stated about tithes. Rabbeinu Yonah writes, about wealth and not about testing: one who wants wealth should give his tithes generously, and charity is like tithes.

The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 12th century): a person who makes vows and keeps them gains the habit of holding back from what he wants to hold back from, and perishut becomes easier for him. By perishut the Rambam means here guarding oneself from ritual impurity (a state in which a person may not touch sacred things). Rabbeinu Yonah, who reads perishut as self-restraint, sets a limit. A vow of this kind is like a medicine, for one whose inclination overpowers him. One who rules his own spirit, and can reach self-restraint without a vow, should not vow, as the Sages said: "Is what the Torah forbade not enough for you, that you forbid yourself what is permitted?" In our words: vows have laws of their own, and making one is a question for a rav (rabbi).

Of this, Bartenura writes, King Shlomo (Solomon) said: "Even a fool who keeps silent is counted wise" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 17:28). Rabbeinu Yonah, on the student who cannot wait for his teacher to finish, brings another verse: "A fool does not desire understanding, but only that his heart be revealed" (Mishlei 18:2). An earlier mishnah, in the name of Shimon the son of Rabban Gamliel, also praises silence. Midrash Shmuel ties the two together.

Rabbeinu Yonah adds one more thing that silence leads to: of what he has not heard, a person says, "I have not heard." Tosafot Yom Tov notes that only in this clause is the fence named first, "a fence for wisdom is silence," and brings two reasons. Derech Chaim (the commentary on Pirkei Avot by the Maharal, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, 16th century): this is how a list marks its last item. Midrash Shmuel: the other things have other fences as well, while wisdom has no fence but silence.

Bartenura (Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, the classic 15th-century commentator on the Mishnah, the Sages' collection of teachings) brings the Rambam's reading, and then another:

Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century): man was beloved even had the thing not been made known, since he was created in the image; and when it was revealed to us, a greater love was made known.

The Gemara (Shabbat 10b) brings a rule in the name of Rav: one who gives a gift to his fellow must let him know, as it is said, "to know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you" (Shemot, Exodus, 31:13). A teaching there has the Holy One say to Moshe (Moses): I have a good gift in My treasure house, and Shabbat is its name, and I wish to give it to Israel; go and let them know. The Gemara then asks from another sage, Rabbi Chama son of Rabbi Chanina, who says that the giver need not tell, for Moshe did not know that the skin of his face shone (Shemot 34:29). It answers: one speaks of a thing that will come to be known by itself, and the other of a thing that will not. The Gemara presses: Shabbat itself would have become known. It answers: its reward would not. Rashi explains that what must become known is who gave the gift, and that the reason is "so that he will love him." Tosafot limit the rule to a gift given out of love, and not to charity.

The Rashbatz (Rabbi Shimon ben Tzemach Duran, 15th century), in Magen Avot, his commentary on Pirkei Avot, explains the Rambam's reading with this same rule, which he cites from the parallel passage in tractate Beitzah (16a): there are two goods, the gift, and the honor of being thought worth telling. The Maharal of Prague (16th century), in his commentary Derech Chaim, brings the same rule in a second explanation: one who is told of a gift will come to love the giver. He writes that his first explanation is the main one. The example of the raise is ours.

The commentary on Pirkei Avot printed under the name of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, the classic 11th-century commentator): "therefore it is upon him to do the will of his Maker." Tosafot Yom Tov opens with this line and builds on it. Rabbi Akiva said this of every person, he writes. The verse Rabbi Akiva brings as proof, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, was said to the sons of Noach (Noah), meaning all of mankind, and not to Israel alone. He is surprised at commentators who explain that this line speaks only of Israel, relying on a teaching of the Sages from elsewhere, and he calls his own reading "a paved and wide road." Rabbi Akiva, he writes, came to set all people on the straight road and to draw their hearts to the will of their Maker. He builds this on a ruling of the Rambam, in his code of law (the Mishneh Torah), about the commandments given to the sons of Noach. That ruling is long, and this page does not go into it. Rabbi Akiva chose this verse, he adds, because it stands beside a commandment given to them, and gives the reason for it. His comment goes on to ask why the mishnah says "the image" where the verse says "the image of God." This page does not go into that.

The Makom ("the Place") is a name of God. The verse the mishnah brings is "You are children of the Lord your God" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 14:1). Tosafot Yom Tov asks why it does not bring the earlier verse, "My son, My firstborn, Israel" (Shemot 4:22). That verse, he answers, could be read of the generation that left Egypt alone. This one stands beside commandments that were given for all generations.

Bartenura, on the verse: all of the work of creation, of which it is said "and God saw that it was good,"

Rabbeinu Yonah gives a picture: a craftsman has the tool of his craft, and with it he does all his work. So the Torah is the instrument of the Holy One, blessed be He, and with it the whole world was created.

This mishnah does not open with a name. The Rambam writes that the saying holds very great things, and is fit to be Rabbi Akiva's. Tosafot Yom Tov (Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, a 17th-century commentator on the Mishnah) explains why it does not open "he used to say": it continues the saying of the mishnah before it.

Bartenura (Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, the classic 15th-century commentator on the Mishnah, the Sages' collection of teachings), on "all is foreseen":

On "permission is given" Bartenura brings a verse: "See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 30:15).

How can both be so? Tosafot Yom Tov sets out what the Rambam writes, from the Rambam's introduction to this tractate (known as the "Eight Chapters"), from his code of law (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah, the Laws of Repentance, 5:5) and from his Guide for the Perplexed (his book of philosophy; 3:20). The Holy One and His knowledge are one, not two things as a person and his knowledge are. So His knowledge is not like our knowledge. We use the one word, "knowing," for both, but the word is the same and the two are not alike. As a person has no power to grasp the truth of the Creator, so he has no power to grasp the Creator's knowledge, "for My thoughts are not your thoughts" (the prophet Yeshayahu, Isaiah, 55:8). What we do know without doubt, the Rambam writes in his code, is that a person's deeds are in the person's hand.

Tosafot Yom Tov brings that the Raavad (Rabbi Avraham ben David of Posquieres, 12th century), in his notes on the Rambam's code, objects: "This author did not act in the way of the sages. A person does not begin a matter he does not know how to finish. He began with questions, left the matter as a question, and fell back on faith. It would have been better for him to leave the matter to the simple faith of the simple, and not stir their hearts and leave their minds in doubt, and perhaps, for a moment, a doubt will enter their hearts about this." The Raavad then adds: "Though there is no winning answer to this, it is good to attach some answer." His knowledge, he writes, is not a decree. He ends: "and all this is not worth much." Tosafot Yom Tov defends the Rambam: he did act in the way of the sages. The mishnah itself does the same, he writes: by saying "all is foreseen" and "permission is given" side by side, it raises the question and gives no answer.

He also brings Midrash Shmuel (a commentary on Pirkei Avot by Rabbi Shmuel de Uzeda, 16th century), who writes that there was no question to begin with: His knowing is like the seeing of one who watches a deed being done, and watching a deed does not force it; before Him there is no earlier and later. Midrash Shmuel adds, in the name of Rabbi Moshe Almosnino (16th century), that this is what the Rambam himself meant: His knowledge is always in the present. Tosafot Yom Tov notes that Midrash Shmuel's comparison, to one who watches a deed, is where the Raavad's own words end up, though the Raavad closes by saying that all this is not worth much. Rabbeinu Yonah (Rabbi Yonah of Gerona, 13th century) writes in the Rambam's name that the matter is "of the wonders." This page does not settle it.

Bartenura: with the measure of mercy. The Rambam: the Holy One's judgment of people is in kindness and goodness, not according to the law they deserve, as He described His own ways, "slow to anger and abundant in kindness" (Shemot, Exodus, 34:6), and as it is said, "The Lord is good to all" (Tehillim, Psalms, 145:9).

Bartenura gives two readings before the Rambam's. One: not all are equal in this mercy. One who does many good deeds is given much mercy, and one who does few is given less. The other: a person is judged by the greater part of his deeds, innocent if most are merits, and guilty if most are sins. Then he brings the Rambam's reading. In the Rambam's own words:

The Rambam's example of the thousand gold coins follows. And so with reward in the Torah, he writes: one who ransoms one captive for a hundred dinars (coins), or gives a hundred dinars to one poor person, is not like one who ransoms ten captives, or fills the need of ten poor people with ten dinars each. Bartenura tells the example with a hundred gold coins, and writes that the Rambam's copy of the mishnah had extra words at the end: "but not according to the deed." Rabbeinu Yonah, who lived before Bartenura, also writes that the Rambam's copy read so. Tosafot Yom Tov writes that he does not know where Bartenura had this from. The Rambam, he suggests, was only explaining the word "abundance," not quoting extra words.

Tosafot Yom Tov brings one more wording, from Midrash Shmuel in the name of Rabbi Moshe Alashkar (about 1500): "the world is judged with goodness, but not according to the greater part of the deeds." If He looked at the greater part of the deeds, the world would be lost. Know, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, that a person is still repaid according to his deeds. He brings a saying of the sage Rabbi Chanina: whoever says that the Holy One overlooks sins will lose his own life; rather, He is patient, and He collects what is His. The Gemara (the Talmud; Bava Kamma 50a) has the first half. The whole saying is in the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 67:4). He judges the world with goodness, Tosafot Yom Tov writes, so that it will not be lost, and collects what is His at the times known to Him.