שִׁמְע֤וּ אֵלַי֙ יֹ֣דְעֵי צֶ֔דֶק עַ֖ם תּוֹרָתִ֣י בְלִבָּ֑ם אַל־תִּֽירְאוּ֙ חֶרְפַּ֣ת אֱנ֔וֹשׁ וּמִגִּדֻּפֹתָ֖ם אַל־תֵּחָֽתּוּ׃
의를 아는 자들아, 마음에 내 율법이 있는 백성들아, 너희는 나를 듣고 사람의 훼방을 두려워 말라 사람의 비방에 놀라지 말라
Chafetz Chaim
Here is known the magnitude of the virtue of the Torah that changed the scripture in his heart several times. And His will be blessed that His Torah be in our mouths as it is written "And you shall have a sign on your hand, etc., so that the Torah of God may be in your mouth". And let it be engraved on the tablet of our heart as it is written "And these things which I command today upon your heart" and may His will be blessed that we be diligent in the Torah and as it is written "If you walk in my commandments" and with the Torah of the priests (quoted in Rashi) can this be the fulfillment of the mitzvot, when he says "And my commandments you shall keep "After all, keeping the unleavened bread means, oh, what am I fulfilling if in my law you go that you labor in the Torah. And this saying is very dear to him, which praises the people of Israel in this and as it is written (Isaiah 7:7) "My people have my Torah in their hearts." And on the contrary, those who distract themselves from the Torah and forget it Out of his laziness, he warned about this very much and the Ahzal in the Minachot (page 19:) He who forgets one thing from the Talmud goes over how much to the enemy as it is said: "Guard yourself and guard your soul very much lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they turn away". And so it is with the Fathers above that the scripture is written as if he commits himself in his soul:
Tosafot Yom Tov
THE HOPE [Heb. tikvat] OF MAN [Heb. enosh] IS THE WORM. Rambam: he should consider his end and his return to the worm. I found a similar approach in Rashi’s commentary to the verse “the only desire of the righteous is the good, and the hope of the wicked is wrath” (Proverbs 11:23): they are assured of and hoping for Gehinnom. This shows that once a person is sure that something will happen it can be said to be “his hope”.
Maharal writes in Derech Chaim that the mishna does not say “for your hope is the worm” because no person hopes to be eaten by the worms. It says instead “for the hope of man is the worm”, i.e. that every person is destined to be eaten by the worms.137The “hope of man” refers not to any actual person’s hope but to the fate of every person insofar as he is human, per the use of “hope” Tosafot Yom Tov has established above. Saying “your hope” would imply a personal hope, which is not true. He also writes that the alphanumeric value of “man” [Heb. enosh, אנוש] is the same as the alphanumeric value of the sum of two other synonyms for “man”, אדם and איש. It is because of the joining of earth, אדמה, and the essence, i.e. potential, of man, אישות, that a person is the flesh, בשר, which is eaten by worms. He did not concern himself over the difference of one between the two values138The value of אנוש is 357, and the value of אדם + איש is 356. [because one alludes to the joining of earth and the essence of man].
Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of Chasid Ya’avetz that the mishna means “be lowly of spirit” before those who insult you, and do not answer them becase “the hope of [the] man” who insults you is the worm, and why should you care what he says? He then says that this is based on the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear the disparagement of man, and do not be broken by their insults; for like a garment, a moth will eat them, and like wool, a worm will eat them” (Isaiah 51:7-8).
Midrash Shmuel also writes that “hope” here is to be understood literally, and explains the mishna as saying that the hope and desire of a person is that he receive a proper burial and not be buried like a donkey. I say that although everyone hopes to have a proper burial befitting a person, it cannot be said that his hope and desire is to be eaten by the worm. If he were to be buried and not eaten by any worms, that would be best. Not only that, we find the Sages mentioning people whom the worms did not touch (Bava Batra 17a) and, we find the story of R. Elazar bar Shimon in Bava Metzia 83b.139In this story, R. Elazar bar Shimon’s daughter stores his body in her attic. One day she sees a worm coming out of his ear. He appears to her in a dream and explains that he once heard someone insulting a Torah scholar and did not sufficiently protest; the worm is a punishment for this. The import of the story is that worms only eat bodies that were engaged in sin, and it is possible to hope to be sinless and therefore not subject to worms.
I say that what caused the commentators all this difficulty is their understanding of the word tikvah as coming from the root k.v.h, meaning “to hope”. But this is not so, and the root is in fact k.v, as in the verse “kav by kav” (Isaiah 28:10). The second tav in the word tikvat is not in place of a hey140If the word in our mishna is “hope” from the root k.v.h., “to hope”, then we understand tikvat as the word tikvah appearing in the construct state and we read tikvat enosh as “the hope of man”.; it is simply a suffix, of the kind that appears in the words tif’eret, tilboshet.141The roots of which are p.’.r. and l.b.sh., respectively—the tav at the end is a suffix added on to the root. Tosafot Yom Tov suggests that our word tikvat should be understood similarly, the tav being a suffix. We find this word in the verse “the line [Heb. tikvat] of scarlet cord” (Joshua 2:18). We understand the kav in Isaiah the same way—as a measuring cord, with the verse meaning that one receives measure for measure. We also explain the verse in Proverbs 11:23, tikvat enosh `evra, to mean that the wicked are judged by the measuring cord and condemned to the wrath and rage of G-d. And this is what our tanna means when he says tikvat enosh rimah: the measuring cord by which punishment will be dealt out to a person is the worm. [I later saw a passage in Bereshit Rabbah 5:1 on the verse yikavu hamayim, “let the waters be gathered” (Genesis 1:9): he shall make a measure for the water, as the verse says, “a kav [line] shall be stretched over Jerusalem.]
Maharal writes in Derech Chaim that the mishna does not say “for your hope is the worm” because no person hopes to be eaten by the worms. It says instead “for the hope of man is the worm”, i.e. that every person is destined to be eaten by the worms.137The “hope of man” refers not to any actual person’s hope but to the fate of every person insofar as he is human, per the use of “hope” Tosafot Yom Tov has established above. Saying “your hope” would imply a personal hope, which is not true. He also writes that the alphanumeric value of “man” [Heb. enosh, אנוש] is the same as the alphanumeric value of the sum of two other synonyms for “man”, אדם and איש. It is because of the joining of earth, אדמה, and the essence, i.e. potential, of man, אישות, that a person is the flesh, בשר, which is eaten by worms. He did not concern himself over the difference of one between the two values138The value of אנוש is 357, and the value of אדם + איש is 356. [because one alludes to the joining of earth and the essence of man].
Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of Chasid Ya’avetz that the mishna means “be lowly of spirit” before those who insult you, and do not answer them becase “the hope of [the] man” who insults you is the worm, and why should you care what he says? He then says that this is based on the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear the disparagement of man, and do not be broken by their insults; for like a garment, a moth will eat them, and like wool, a worm will eat them” (Isaiah 51:7-8).
Midrash Shmuel also writes that “hope” here is to be understood literally, and explains the mishna as saying that the hope and desire of a person is that he receive a proper burial and not be buried like a donkey. I say that although everyone hopes to have a proper burial befitting a person, it cannot be said that his hope and desire is to be eaten by the worm. If he were to be buried and not eaten by any worms, that would be best. Not only that, we find the Sages mentioning people whom the worms did not touch (Bava Batra 17a) and, we find the story of R. Elazar bar Shimon in Bava Metzia 83b.139In this story, R. Elazar bar Shimon’s daughter stores his body in her attic. One day she sees a worm coming out of his ear. He appears to her in a dream and explains that he once heard someone insulting a Torah scholar and did not sufficiently protest; the worm is a punishment for this. The import of the story is that worms only eat bodies that were engaged in sin, and it is possible to hope to be sinless and therefore not subject to worms.
I say that what caused the commentators all this difficulty is their understanding of the word tikvah as coming from the root k.v.h, meaning “to hope”. But this is not so, and the root is in fact k.v, as in the verse “kav by kav” (Isaiah 28:10). The second tav in the word tikvat is not in place of a hey140If the word in our mishna is “hope” from the root k.v.h., “to hope”, then we understand tikvat as the word tikvah appearing in the construct state and we read tikvat enosh as “the hope of man”.; it is simply a suffix, of the kind that appears in the words tif’eret, tilboshet.141The roots of which are p.’.r. and l.b.sh., respectively—the tav at the end is a suffix added on to the root. Tosafot Yom Tov suggests that our word tikvat should be understood similarly, the tav being a suffix. We find this word in the verse “the line [Heb. tikvat] of scarlet cord” (Joshua 2:18). We understand the kav in Isaiah the same way—as a measuring cord, with the verse meaning that one receives measure for measure. We also explain the verse in Proverbs 11:23, tikvat enosh `evra, to mean that the wicked are judged by the measuring cord and condemned to the wrath and rage of G-d. And this is what our tanna means when he says tikvat enosh rimah: the measuring cord by which punishment will be dealt out to a person is the worm. [I later saw a passage in Bereshit Rabbah 5:1 on the verse yikavu hamayim, “let the waters be gathered” (Genesis 1:9): he shall make a measure for the water, as the verse says, “a kav [line] shall be stretched over Jerusalem.]