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That is, he meant the third of the three [evils of the tongue], namely his statement, "a tongue that speaks great things."
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The Sages spoke at very great length about this accursed sin, and the last thing they said was that anyone who slanders denies the fundamental principle, as it is said, "Who have said, 'With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are with us — who is lord over us?'" (Ps 12:5).
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I have described only some of what they said about this sin — and even so I have gone on at length — so that a person may avoid it as much as he is able and make it his aim to keep silent from this kind of speech.
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Mishnah [17]
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:*Justice.* This means the governance of the city with equity.
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We have already explained in the Fourth Chapter that "truth" corresponds to the rational virtues, and "peace" to the virtues of character.
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When these three virtues are attained, then existence is as perfect as can possibly be, without doubt or question. Chapter Two.
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Mishnah [1]
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It is clear that "the straight path" consists in the actions of the good, which we explained in the Fourth Chapter — namely the intermediate actions — for through them a person attains within his soul excellent dispositions and conducts himself well among people. This is the meaning of "[the path] that is an honor to the one who follows it and an honor to him from his fellow men."
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Then he said that one ought to be as careful with a commandment that is thought to be light — such as rejoicing on the festival and the study of the holy tongue — as with a commandment whose gravity is evident, such as circumcision, the fringes, and the slaughter of the Passover offering. He gave as the reason for this, "for you do not know the recompense given for the commandments."
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The meaning of this is as I shall describe. The whole of the Law consists of positive commandments and prohibitions. As for the prohibitions, Scripture has specified the punishment for almost every one of them: for some it set death, for others excision (*karet*), death at the hands of Heaven, and lashes. So we know from the penalties that the prohibitions are graded — some involve severe deprivation and some less than that — and they are eight ranks. The first and most severe is the class of things for which stoning is incurred; below it, those liable to burning; third, those liable to beheading; fourth, those liable to strangulation; fifth, those liable to excision; sixth, those liable to death at the hands of Heaven; seventh, those liable to lashes; and eighth, the prohibitions for which one is not lashed. From these ranks we know the gravity or lightness of the sin.
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As for the positive commandments, Scripture did not make clear the reward of each one before God, so that we might know which of them are weighty and which less so. Rather, it commanded the fulfillment of this precept and that precept, and one does not know which of them has the greater reward before God. For this reason one ought to be diligent about them all. It is on this principle that they said, "One occupied with a commandment is exempt from [another] commandment" (BT Sukkah 25a), without weighing the commandment he is engaged in performing against the other that he forgoes. For this reason, too, they said, "One does not pass over commandments" (BT Yoma 33a) — meaning, if the performance of a commandment falls to you, do not pass it by and leave it in order to perform another commandment.
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Then he said that where the degree to which one commandment is to be preferred over another has not been made clear, there is room for weighing: namely, every positive commandment that you find carries a grave liability for transgressing it — know that there is also a great reward in fulfilling it. For example, circumcision, the Passover offering, resting on the Sabbath, and making a parapet [for one's roof] are all positive commandments; but one who performs labor on the Sabbath incurs stoning, one who neglects circumcision or the [Passover] offering in its appointed time incurs excision, and one who "places blood in his house" [by failing to make a parapet] transgresses a prohibition, namely "You shall not place blood" (Deut 22:8). From this you learn that the reward of resting on the Sabbath is very great, greater than the reward of circumcision, and that the reward of circumcision is greater before God than the reward of making a parapet. This is the meaning of his saying, "And weigh the loss [incurred by neglecting] a commandment against its reward."
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He also said that you may infer the reward for refraining from a transgression — even when you have not committed it — since this too is made plain from its punishment: for the sin whose perpetrator's punishment is severe, the reward for refraining from it is correspondingly severe [great], as is explained in [Tractate] Kiddushin, where they said, "Whoever sits and does not commit a transgression is given reward as one who performs a commandment" (BT Kiddushin 39b) — and we have already explained this there.
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The text of the Torah, regarding deeds being recorded before Him (exalted be He), shows this, as it is known, [in] the verse "your book that you have written" (Exod 32:32).
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Mishnah [2]
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By "the way of the world" (*derekh eretz*) he means occupation with one's livelihood.
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As for his saying "and draws iniquity along with it" — as they explained elsewhere, they said, "its end is that he comes to rob people" (BT Kiddushin 30b).
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And his saying, "And as for you, I credit you with great reward" is an address from God to those who labor on behalf of the community, for they may be kept from performing a [private] commandment because of their occupation with the affairs of the community; so he said that God credits them with the reward of performing that commandment, even though they did not perform it, since they were occupied with communal matters for the sake of Heaven.
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Mishnah [3]
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We have already explained that "the [governing] authority" refers to the sovereign power; so he is telling of their character and warning [us] against them.
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Mishnah [5]
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We have already spoken in the Fourth Chapter that one ought not to separate himself from the community except to the extent of their corruption, as we explained there. So he said that even if a person has attained an excellent disposition within his soul and become firmly established [in it], he should not stay his hand from repeatedly performing good deeds, so as to strengthen that disposition further; nor should he feel secure and say, "This virtue I have already attained and it cannot be lost" — for it can indeed be lost. This is the meaning of "until the day of your death."
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As for "and do not say a thing that cannot be understood," this refers to speech whose surface meaning seems far-fetched and corrupt, but which, upon careful reflection, is seen to be sound. He forbade this manner of speech, as if to say: do not let your speech require a far-fetched interpretation and much reflection before it is understood.
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And as for "in the end it will be understood" — that is, when you have done with this matter [it will become clear]. This is similar to what preceded, the instruction of Shammai his colleague, "Make your Torah fixed."
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Mishnah [6]
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A *bur* is one who has no learning and no [refined] character. An *am ha-aretz* lacks the rational virtues but may possess some of the virtues of character. *Bayshan* means bashfulness, and *qapdan* means short-temperedness.
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The meaning of "exert yourself" is: discipline your soul and draw it toward acquiring the virtues, for there is no scholar to teach you, so be your own teacher. The Targum of "and a man wrestled with him" (Gen 32:25) is "and a man exerted himself with him."
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They said that the Torah is found neither among the arrogant and proud nor among those who travel to distant lands; and they supported this with a verse interpreted by way of an unusual reading, namely "It is not in heaven... nor is it beyond the sea" (Deut 30:12–13). They said: "It is not found among the haughty of spirit, nor among those who cross beyond the sea" (BT Eruvin 55a).
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Mishnah [7]
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He said: "Because you drowned [others], you were drowned; and the one who drowned you will [himself] be drowned" — meaning, you killed because you killed another, and the one who killed you will be killed.
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The aim of this saying is that evil deeds recoil upon their doers, as it says, "The wicked man's iniquities entrap him" (Prov 5:22), and "He who digs a pit will fall into it" (cf. Prov 26:27; Eccl 10:8), and as the Sages said, "By the measure with which a man measures, it is measured out to him" (M. Sotah 1:7). This is seen and witnessed in every age and place: that everyone who does evil deeds and contrives kinds of injustice and vices — harm reaches his own self from those very evils that he devised, for he has taught a craft that operates against him and against others.
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Likewise, everyone who teaches a virtue or institutes some good deed — the benefit of that deed reaches him, for he has taught something that profits both him and others. The text of Scripture concerning this is very wise, saying, "For the work of a man He repays him" (Job 34:11).
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Mishnah [10]
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He praised Rabbi Eliezer for retentive memory; Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananyah for the virtues of character; Rabbi Yose the Priest for both the rational and the moral virtues; Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel for chastity; and Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh for keenness of mind and surpassing comprehension, every difficult matter being easy for him, his understanding outstripping the matter itself.
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Mishnah [12]
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*A good eye* is contentment with what a person has, and it is one of the virtues of character. *An evil eye* is its opposite — namely, regarding much as too little and grasping for more.
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His saying here, "one who foresees the consequences" (*ha-ro'eh et ha-nolad*), means inferring from what is at hand what will come to be. This does not belong to the [theoretical] sciences such that it would be a rational virtue — its explanation being the inference of the hidden from the manifest. Rather, he means by it reflection upon a person's affairs, those of his conduct by which his existence is sustained, that he should look to the outcomes of his affairs. Corresponding to this he gave a single example, namely "one who borrows and does not repay," for he will not be lent anything again in the future; and this is a vice of character.
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We have already explained in the Second Chapter of the [Eight] Chapters that we set down to introduce this tractate that the virtues of character all belong to the appetitive faculty of the soul, and that the vices of character likewise belong to it. And we explained in the Fourth Chapter that the actions that are good are the intermediate actions that proceed from the virtues of character.
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Likewise it is known among the philosophers and the physicians that the appetitive soul resides in the heart, and the heart is its [seat] and to it [the appetitive soul] is ascribed. For although all the faculties issue from the heart, which is their source according to the true view, nevertheless the appetitive faculty did not issue from it to another organ in the way that the nutritive faculty issued — I mean the nutritive part that we described in the First Chapter — from the heart to the liver.
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So it follows from all that we have explained that "a good heart" means the actions of the good, which are the intermediate actions, and these are the virtues of character; thus it comprehends contentment, befriending the virtuous, and the other virtues. This is the meaning of his saying, "for your words are included in his words." Likewise "an evil heart" [means] the vices of character, and it too comprehends all that they [the other sages] warned against.
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Mishnah [13]
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*Do not be easily angered* — do not let your soul incline to short temper and rage. They condemned short temper excessively, and the last thing they said was that anyone who is short-tempered is like one who worships idolatry; they supported this with the verse, "There shall be no strange god within you, nor shall you bow to a foreign god" (Ps 81:10) — meaning that the two are one and the same.
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As for "repent one day before your death" — since one does not know when he will die, [the result is that] all his days will be repentance.
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As for his saying, "warm yourself by the fire of the Sages," this is not from the [teaching] by which he [Rabbi Eliezer] instructed [us]; rather it is something he heard from another and reported, and for that reason it was not counted among the sum of his sayings.
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The aim of this instruction is to say to you: when you associate with the scholars and people of virtue, do not behave brashly toward them or display excessive familiarity, nor force yourself upon them. Rather, let your company with them be such that you expand [in conversation] where they invite you to, and stop at the limit to which they bring you, and do not press nearer to them than the closeness they have granted you — lest you spoil their estimation of you and their love turn to hatred, and you fail to obtain from them the benefit you hope for.
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He likened this to one who warms himself at a fire: if he sits at some distance from it, he enjoys its warmth and benefits from its light; but whoever neglects himself and draws too near is burned, and the benefit turns to harm. This is the meaning of his saying, by way of analogy, "warm yourself by the fire of the Sages, but beware of their coals."
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Then he added a further warning about this, saying: do not suppose that if they sting you with their tongues you can then turn back and beguile them with words so that they are taken in — rather, they will not accept the charm, just as the snake does not accept it, as it says, "which does not heed the voice of charmers" (Ps 58:6). And you may take a lesson from this in the story of Geḥazi with his master, and of Jesus the Nazarene with his master Yehoshua ben Peraḥyah (cf. BT Sotah 47a).
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Mishnah [14]
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He says that greed, gluttony, and self-affliction — which is a melancholic, black-bile malady — make a person hate the sight of his own kind and loathe them, and find his comfort among wild beasts, dwelling in wastelands and deserts and along untraveled roads. This, without doubt, destroys the person.
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Mishnah [15]
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We have already explained in the Eighth Chapter the meaning of preparedness — that a person ought to prepare himself for the virtues. And we explained in the Fifth Chapter the meaning of his saying, "and let all your deeds be for the sake of Heaven."
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Mishnah [16]
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When a person imagines himself to be deficient, he does not regard as grave any failing that he commits. We have already explained that the meaning of...