Avot247

10:
Rabbi Yehudah bar-Ilai was almost the last surviving sage of his generation, outliving all his colleagues. The students he left after him were prestigious: one of them, as we have already mentioned, was Rabbi Yehudah, the President of the Sanhedrin; and it was he who delivered the eulogy at the obsequies of Rabbi Yehudah bar-Ilai.

11:
Rabbi Yehudah seems to have shown a great interest in matters connected with the ancient Jewish diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt. It is possible, of course, that this interest was prompted by a visit there, though no such a visit has been recorded. His account of the events which resulted in the building in Alexandria of a Temple to rival that in Jerusalem [Menaĥot 109b] sound rather like the kind of information a tourist might get from a tour guide. In the Gemara [Megillah 9a] is also preserved a baraita in which he describes how the Greek translation of the bible came to be made for the benefit of the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria. While modern scholarship accepts the account in its broadest outlines it is also recognized that it has many features of the kind of information that a tourist might pick up from a zealous tour guide. His describition [Sukkah 51b] of the great synagogue of Alexandria certainly sounds like the account a tourist would offer of what he has seen in his travels.

12:
We have already mentioned incidentally that Rabbi Yehudah was probably rather poverty-stricken. This may account for some of his maxims that have been preserved. One, for instance [Bava Batra 10a] praises those who give charity because their generosity hastens the ultimate redemption. Another [Nedarim 49b] tells how he would bring to the Bet Midrash a wine cask instead of a chair to sit on – possibly because he didn't have any chairs; he explained to his colleagues that the effort involved in bringing the cask redounded to his credit because "great is hard work and it honours those who perform it".

13:
The correct interpretation of the teaching of Rabbi Yehudah that is the subject of our present mishnah is given by the author himself in the Gemara [Bava Metzi'a 33b]:

In other words: when ordinary people misunderstand an instruction of the Torah or misquote it any sin that may follow is forgiven them because it was quite unintentional. However, a sage, one who has taken upon himself the task of learning, interpreting and teaching God's law can not be forgiven for misquotes and misunderstandings: even though the error was unintentional it will be accounted as deliberate because it could well lead to sin if the error develops into teaching – not only the sin of the sage but also of all those who follow his instruction.

14:
Other sages too have been very strict in their evaluation of such matters. A very good example are the teachings which we found in Avot 3:9 [Avot 168].

In Avot 246 I wrote: The teachings of Rabbi Yehudah are rather eclectic. His father, Ilai, had been a student of the great Rabbi Eli'ezer … who had been an arch 'conservative'.

Yehuda Wiesen asks:

What do you mean to imply by using quotes in 'conservative'? Can you make your meaning clearer?

I respond:

I have often described the divisions among the sages according to their interpretive stance: Bet-Shammai as opposed to Bet-Hillel, Rabbi Eli'ezer as opposed to Rabbi Yehoshu'a and so on. Using modern terminology we might describe Bet-Shammai as being 'right-wing' or Rabbi Yehoshu'a as being 'left-wing'; or we might describe Bet-Hillel as being 'liberal' and Rabbi Eli'ezer as being 'conservative'. However, such designations are completely anachronistic. Already in Avot 121 I apologized for describing Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai as being 'left-wing' for this reason. (The allocation 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' derive from the way deputies in the revolutionary French National Assembly arranged their seating.) It is for this reason that I preferred that the quote marks indicate that 'conservative' (as opposed to 'liberal') is a modern conception and Rabbi Eli'ezer and his contemporaries would not have recognized it.