Avot276

1:
From the chronological point of view our present mishnah takes us to the end of the Tannaïtic period, a time almost coëval with the compilation of the Mishnah. Indeed, Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar was a personal friend and supporter of Rabbi Yehudah, the President of the Sanhedrin and the Compiler of the Mishnah. (For, like any illustrious public figure, Rabbi had critics and detractors as well as ardent supporters.) Thus our journey which started – at the beginning of chapter 1 – in the middle of the 5th century BCE has now reached the beginning of the third century CE. We have travelled some 650 years!

2:
The last two mishnayot of Chapter 4 are attributed to Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar. In our classical sources he is often given the honorific title of 'Berabbi' which indicates that he was the scion of a long line of sages. (Indeed, he too fathered a famous Amora of the next generation who is known as bar-Kappara.) Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar was not only, as already mentioned, a friend and supporter of Rabbi, but he was also a member of Rabbi Yehudah's Bet Midrash. Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar also has the distinction of being the only sage of the Tannaïtic age who has some physical remains: in 1969 a stone, which had served as the lintel over the main entrance to a Bet Midrash, was found on the Golan Heights inscribed with the words: "This is the Bet Midrash of Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar."

3:
Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar was a gentle soul and peace-loving. One of his more famous maxims is quoted in the Sifré [to Numbers 6:26]:

In Avot 193 we had occasion to quote Rambam who was in turn quoting Rabbi El'azar ha-Kappar to the effect that it is sinful to deny oneself those good things of life which are permitted to us.

4:
In our present mishnah Rabbi El'azar makes a most cogent psychological observation. There are three character attributes which, in excess, can be a person's ruin: envy, cupidity and the craving for status. All three have been mentioned previously in Tractate Avot as being negative traits but here they are joined together.

5:
Envy can eat away at the soul of any person if it is not strictly controlled. (It has to be controlled because envy is a natural reaction of the human spirit and cannot be denied.) The most famous example of the trait of envy being held in strict control is the reaction of Moses [Numbers 11:28-29] when told that two of Israel's elders, Eldad and Medad, had been given the gift of prophecy and were speaking in prophetic ecstasy in the camp:

To be continued.

Bayla Singer writes:

In Avot 273 you offer the conclusion that it is better to learn Torah when young – that the "baggage" of one's life "gets in the way" of the older learner. May I offer an additional interpretation? At each age of our lives, we carry our experiences and accumulated wisdom. Thus "turn it and turn it" and the saying that we do not read Torah, Torah reads us. When one's "parchment" is prepared for new learning, all that we have learned till then forms the foundation for a mature understanding. This is what I tell my adult (and in some cases elderly) students when they wail "I'm too old to start now, I'll never catch up." The pre-B'nai Mitzvah child learns mostly by rote, usually without deep understanding; the thoughtful adult can obtain enlightenment on vital issues the child has never encountered.

I comment:

Bayla sent this comment before she saw the two following mishnayot [Avot 274 and Avot 275] which negate the previous message, as does Bayla.