לִבְּךָ֖ יֶהְגֶּ֣ה אֵימָ֑ה אַיֵּ֤ה סֹפֵר֙ אַיֵּ֣ה שֹׁקֵ֔ל אַיֵּ֖ה סֹפֵ֥ר אֶת־הַמִּגְדָּלִֽים׃
Hatimu akan merenungkan kengerian itu: “Di manakah juru tulis itu? Di manakah penimbang itu? Di manakah orang yang menghitung menara-menara itu?”
Rashi
he meditates Heb. יהגה. Every expression of הגה refers to the heart, as you say (below 19:15): “and the meditation (והגיון) of my heart”; (Isa. 33:18), “Your heart shall meditate (יהגה) in fear”; (Prov. 24:2), “For their heart thinks (יהגה) of plunder.”
Tosafot Yom Tov
BE NOT LIKE SERVANTS SERVING THE MASTER FOR PAY. Rav: rather, out of love alone. In other words, the mishna enjoins that the service be out of love alone, for this is the truest kind of service. It does not mean to say, however, that that service for pay is forbidden, as in either case he is serving G-d; for this reason our perfect Torah did not see unfit to mention rewards and punishments. One who serves in the hopes of earning reward or avoiding pain is simply not on the level of the one who serves out of love alone, whose service has no secondary intention whatsoever.
And the tanna wished to enjoin us to be among those who serve out of love alone, but not to exclude one who serves in the hopes of earning reward from the category of those who serve! This is not the case, as the Sages say in Bava Batra 10b: One who says, “I give this sela to charity that my son should live!” or “...that I should have a share in the world to come!” is perfectly righteous. Furthermore, if one takes the opposite position, one cuts the very legs out from under the nation of Israel!8In rabbinic literature, in order to avoid making a damning or frightening statement about some party, one refers to said party by a name that usually denotes its opposite. Here, in order to avoid saying “one cuts the legs out from under Israel” in Hebrew, the author actually writes “one cuts the legs out from under the haters of Israel.” Cf. Sanhedrin 106a. For “where is the weigher, where is the counter” (Isaiah 33:18) who shall say that so-and-so is one who truly serves out of love alone?9This is a societal problem, for Jewish law prescribes respect and reverence for those who are considered servants of G-d. Once only those who serve out of love alone are considered servants of God, it is impossible to determine who is and isn’t such a one, and the category has lost any legal or cultural relevance. And can it be good in G-d’s eyes that anyone who serves Him with the intent that the rewards promised by the Torah itself be fulfilled—that same Torah which has been communicated to us from His mouth—that such a one not receive his good lot on account of this? It pleases not their Master that people should say thus!
Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi says as much in Avot 2:1: Consider the loss incurred in doing a mitzvah against the reward for doing it, per my explanation there. Similarly, in 2:16: And you have a faithful taskmaster, who shall pay your wages. Cf. what I’ve written there on And you should know what reward awaits the righteous in the future. And we further see that there can be nothing wrong with this from the story of Azariah the brother of Simon, related in the mishna in Zevachim 1:2.10Azariah provided for his brother Simon in order that he should have a portion of the reward for Simon’s Torah studies.
As mentioned above, the tanna of our mishna does not prohibit this, and I say that his own words prove it, which he chose with care in order that we shouldn’t misunderstand them. For why would he say “be not like servants serving the master for pay” when he could simply have said “do not serve for pay,” which would have gotten the point across to his students more succinctly? By saying “be not like servants who serve the master for pay” he taught that even those who serve for pay are servants at any rate, just that one should not be like them but greater than they, and should serve out of love alone.
I saw that our master Maharal, in his commentary on Avot, Derech Chaim, deals with the question of why the mishna continues and says “but rather be like servants who serve the master without thought of pay” and doesn’t simply stop at “be not like servants serving the master for pay”. He writes that had the tanna said only “be not like servants serving the master for pay” the implication would have been that he prohibits being like servants serving the master for pay, while in fact there is no such prohibition and one who does so is even completely righteous. He means only that there is a level and grade above that one, which is serving out of love alone. It is for this reason that he goes back and explicitly says “rather, be like servants etc.”, to explain that he means only that one should aspire to be a servant serving without thought of pay. All this is the opinion of Maharal.
Now you can see how this tanna has, in his wisdom and perfection, very cleverly worded his teaching. For with the first phrase he taught that one should not deny the value of those who serve for pay and that they are still called servants, and he then further clarified this by saying “rather be etc.”, i.e. I mean only that you should rather be thus, but not that it is forbidden to serve for pay; the main point is to show you the utmost level of perfection, in which you should be serving out of love alone, not to prohibit the other kind of service.
At this point, there is certainly no way to misunderstand the words of the tanna the way Tzadok and Baitos did, who claimed that he meant to say that there is no pay to be received at all, as Rav mentions in his commentary to mishna 11. Still, he should have made it completely clear to the point that whosever was listening would have understood this.
[*I saw that the Tosafot in Rosh HaShana, at the beginning of page 4a, write that our mishna discusses the case of gentiles, who tend to regret the good deed they have done if they are not rewarded for it. I find this quite odd—can it be that the tanna has decided to discuss idolaters? All the more so in tractate Avot, which collects the dicta the Sages constantly emphasized, at least according to one opinion mentioned by Rav above in mishna 2. And certainly Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi shouldn’t have set it down in the mishna, if these words are only concerning idolaters!
But I was put at ease when I saw their words in Pesachim, at the top of 8b, where they write that our mishna is discussing a case of one who will have anguish and regret over the charity he has given if whatever good thing he is hoping for doesn’t come to pass, but one who has no anguish and regret is completely righteous, and the Talmud in Rosh HaShana 4a and Bava Batra 10b seems to say as much. Accordingly, when the Tosafot say our mishna is discussing an idolater, they mean that simply as an example of someone who regrets having done a good deed, as the Talmud there says. But our mishna is discussing a Jew having this regret. And what they mean to say is that our mishna is discussing the case of, for example, an idolater, etc., which is to say a Jew who regrets it, just like the average idolater who regrets it.]
And the tanna wished to enjoin us to be among those who serve out of love alone, but not to exclude one who serves in the hopes of earning reward from the category of those who serve! This is not the case, as the Sages say in Bava Batra 10b: One who says, “I give this sela to charity that my son should live!” or “...that I should have a share in the world to come!” is perfectly righteous. Furthermore, if one takes the opposite position, one cuts the very legs out from under the nation of Israel!8In rabbinic literature, in order to avoid making a damning or frightening statement about some party, one refers to said party by a name that usually denotes its opposite. Here, in order to avoid saying “one cuts the legs out from under Israel” in Hebrew, the author actually writes “one cuts the legs out from under the haters of Israel.” Cf. Sanhedrin 106a. For “where is the weigher, where is the counter” (Isaiah 33:18) who shall say that so-and-so is one who truly serves out of love alone?9This is a societal problem, for Jewish law prescribes respect and reverence for those who are considered servants of G-d. Once only those who serve out of love alone are considered servants of God, it is impossible to determine who is and isn’t such a one, and the category has lost any legal or cultural relevance. And can it be good in G-d’s eyes that anyone who serves Him with the intent that the rewards promised by the Torah itself be fulfilled—that same Torah which has been communicated to us from His mouth—that such a one not receive his good lot on account of this? It pleases not their Master that people should say thus!
Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi says as much in Avot 2:1: Consider the loss incurred in doing a mitzvah against the reward for doing it, per my explanation there. Similarly, in 2:16: And you have a faithful taskmaster, who shall pay your wages. Cf. what I’ve written there on And you should know what reward awaits the righteous in the future. And we further see that there can be nothing wrong with this from the story of Azariah the brother of Simon, related in the mishna in Zevachim 1:2.10Azariah provided for his brother Simon in order that he should have a portion of the reward for Simon’s Torah studies.
As mentioned above, the tanna of our mishna does not prohibit this, and I say that his own words prove it, which he chose with care in order that we shouldn’t misunderstand them. For why would he say “be not like servants serving the master for pay” when he could simply have said “do not serve for pay,” which would have gotten the point across to his students more succinctly? By saying “be not like servants who serve the master for pay” he taught that even those who serve for pay are servants at any rate, just that one should not be like them but greater than they, and should serve out of love alone.
I saw that our master Maharal, in his commentary on Avot, Derech Chaim, deals with the question of why the mishna continues and says “but rather be like servants who serve the master without thought of pay” and doesn’t simply stop at “be not like servants serving the master for pay”. He writes that had the tanna said only “be not like servants serving the master for pay” the implication would have been that he prohibits being like servants serving the master for pay, while in fact there is no such prohibition and one who does so is even completely righteous. He means only that there is a level and grade above that one, which is serving out of love alone. It is for this reason that he goes back and explicitly says “rather, be like servants etc.”, to explain that he means only that one should aspire to be a servant serving without thought of pay. All this is the opinion of Maharal.
Now you can see how this tanna has, in his wisdom and perfection, very cleverly worded his teaching. For with the first phrase he taught that one should not deny the value of those who serve for pay and that they are still called servants, and he then further clarified this by saying “rather be etc.”, i.e. I mean only that you should rather be thus, but not that it is forbidden to serve for pay; the main point is to show you the utmost level of perfection, in which you should be serving out of love alone, not to prohibit the other kind of service.
At this point, there is certainly no way to misunderstand the words of the tanna the way Tzadok and Baitos did, who claimed that he meant to say that there is no pay to be received at all, as Rav mentions in his commentary to mishna 11. Still, he should have made it completely clear to the point that whosever was listening would have understood this.
[*I saw that the Tosafot in Rosh HaShana, at the beginning of page 4a, write that our mishna discusses the case of gentiles, who tend to regret the good deed they have done if they are not rewarded for it. I find this quite odd—can it be that the tanna has decided to discuss idolaters? All the more so in tractate Avot, which collects the dicta the Sages constantly emphasized, at least according to one opinion mentioned by Rav above in mishna 2. And certainly Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi shouldn’t have set it down in the mishna, if these words are only concerning idolaters!
But I was put at ease when I saw their words in Pesachim, at the top of 8b, where they write that our mishna is discussing a case of one who will have anguish and regret over the charity he has given if whatever good thing he is hoping for doesn’t come to pass, but one who has no anguish and regret is completely righteous, and the Talmud in Rosh HaShana 4a and Bava Batra 10b seems to say as much. Accordingly, when the Tosafot say our mishna is discussing an idolater, they mean that simply as an example of someone who regrets having done a good deed, as the Talmud there says. But our mishna is discussing a Jew having this regret. And what they mean to say is that our mishna is discussing the case of, for example, an idolater, etc., which is to say a Jew who regrets it, just like the average idolater who regrets it.]
Rashi
And you shall meditate in it. Every expression of הִגָיוֹן in the Torah refers to the [meditation] of the heart,15Metsudas Tzion says that הִגָיוֹן sometimes refers to speech as it is written: And my tongue will speak (תֶּהְגֶה) of Your righteousness (Tehillim 35:28). as it is said, ‘And the thoughts of my heart before you;’16Tehillim 19:15. ‘Your heart will give forth fearful thoughts.’17Yeshayahu 33:18.