יוסי בן יועזר וכו'. כתב הר"ב כל התנאים וכו' כדתנן משנה ב' פ"ב דחגיגה ושם [דף ט"ז ד"ה יוסי] פירשו התוספות בשם הירושלמי שבימיהם היתה מחלוקת ראשונה בישראל ולכך אומר אני שלפניהם לא הוזכרו זוגות כי היה הא' לראש בדורו ואין שני לו. מה שא"כ מימות אלו ואילך שנתפרדה החבילה והיו לשנים ראשים. ואעפ"כ כל תורתם אמת שהרי קבלוה. ואין המחלוקת אלא בדברים התלוים בסברא להדרש באחת מן המדות שהתורה נדרשת בהן כמו שהרחיב הרמב"ם הדבור בזה בהקדמתו לפי' המשניות: YOSSI BEN YO`EZER. Rav: all of the tannaim menioned in this chapter are pairs—so-and-so and so-and-so received the tradition from so-and-so and so-and-so—the first one in the pair was the Nassi16The supervisor of the Sanhedrin and leader of the Jews recognized by the Roman government. and the second was the Av Beit Din17The highest-ranking member of the Sanhedrin., per the mishna in Chagiga 2:2.
Tosafot, commenting on the Talmud ad loc. (s.v. Yossi), write in the name of the Jerusalem Talmud that the period of Yossi ben Yo`ezer and Yossi ben Yochanan saw the first unresolved legal dispute in Israel. Based on this, I say that no pairs preceding them are mentioned because there was one head in each generation and he had no competing peer, whereas starting with them the “rope was unraveled” and there were two leaders.
Even so the Torah of each was authentic, as they had each received the tradition, and the disputes arose only concerning decisions that depended on reasoning or that had to be resolved through one of the thirteen rules of interpretation,18The thirteen rules of R. Yishmael found at the beginning of the Sifra. as Rambam writes at length in his introuction to the Mishna.
קבלו מהם. פירש הרמ"ה משמעון ואנטיגנוס. וכתב רבי יוסף ן' נחמיאש שלמדו תחלה לפני שמעון הצדיק ונפטר. והם עדיין לא למדו כל צרכם וחזרו ללמוד לפני אנטיגנוס הממלא מקום שמעון הצדיק עד שנפטר ג"כ. והם מלאו את מקומו. ע"כ במדרש שמואל. ואין נראה מה שכתב בשם הר"ר יהודה לירמא שבני דורן קבלו מהן. ושכן אפשר לפרש כל לשון קבלה שבפרק זה. ע"כ. אע"פ שיש קצת פנים לזה מדלא תנן בפירוש קבלו משמעון ואנטיגנוס כי היכי דתנן לעיל קבל משמעון. אבל מ"מ אין נראה לפי שאין מן הראוי שלא יזכיר שהם קבלו ויזכיר שאחרים קבלו מהם. ועוד שעיקר כונת הודעת הקבלה שהודיע התנא. הוא להורות שלשלת הקבלה שהיא מסיני איש מפי איש עד המחבר הזה. ומהם הוא שחבר החבור. ויש ספרים הגירסא ממנו. וכתב המדרש שמואל בשם הרשב"ץ שהיא הגרסא המדוקדקת אם הוחזקה: RECEIVED THE TRADITION FROM THEM. Ramah explains “them” as referring to Simon and Antigonos. R. Yosef ibn Nahmias, quoted in Midrash Shmuel, writes that they first studied under Simon the Righteous, who died before they had completed their studies; they then went and studied under Antigonos, who held the post of Simon the Righteous until his death. They in turn filled his position.
But what Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of R. Yehuda Lerma, that it was actually their contemporaries who “received the tradition from them,” and that this is how one might read each instance of “receiving” in this chapter—this seems quite dubious. For even though there is some slight support for this reading from the fact that the mishna does not explicitly say “they received the tradition from Simon and Antigonos” the way it says earlier of Antigonos that he “received the tradition from Simon,” on the whole this interpretation is quite unlikely.
First of all, it would be strange to mention that others received the tradition from them while not mentioning that they received the tradition themselves. Secondly, the tanna’s main point in mentioning the tradition is to show that the chain of tradition starts at Sinai and passes from scholar to scholar down to this author, whose work is a compilation of their dicta. And there are versions that have “from him” in the text. Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of the Rashbatz that this version is the most accurate, provided its authenticity can be established.
והוי מתאבק בעפר רגליהם. מפרש הר"ב בפירוש אחר שתשב לרגליהם וכו'. שכך היו נוהגים וכו' ולא קשיא על הא דפירש בסוף סוטה שעד שמת ר"ג היו לומדים תורה מעומד דהכא ה"ק שאם היו יושבים היה מנהגם שהרב יושב על הספסל והתלמידים יושבים לרגליו על הארץ. והתם נמי לא קאמר שהיה אסור להם לישב. ולא היו לומדים אלא בעמידה. דלא קאמר אלא שהיה בריאות בעולם והיו לומדים מעומד לכבוד התורה. ואם לפעמים יקרה מקרה שישבו כגון שארכו להם בבית המדרש קאמר הכא שהיו נוהגים וכו' [*אי נמי כרבא [במגילה דף כ"א] דמשני לקראי וישב בהר ואנכי עמדתי בהר. רכות מעומד קשות מיושב. לא עדיפא ממרע"ה מפי הגבורה]: AND SEAT YOURSELF IN THE DUST AT THEIR FEET. Rav writes, in the alternate explanation he offers: that you should sit on the earth at their feet, as their custom was that the master would sit on a bench and the students would sit at his feet on the ground. This does not contradict his comments on the mishna in Sotah 9:15 that until the death of Rabban Gamliel they would study Torah standing,19Rabban Gamliel came much later, as is clear from later in this chapter. for here the mishna simply means to say that if they chose to sit, the custom was that the master would sit on a bench and the students would sit on the earth at his feet. Neither does the mishna in Sotah mean that it was forbidden for them to sit and that they would only study standing, only that there was great vigor then and that they would learn while standing in honor of the Torah. And the mishna here delineates what the custom was should it happen that they would sit, as for instance when they spent long hours in the study hall.
Or, alternatively, we can answer using Rava’s approach to the contradiction between the verse “And I sat on the mountain” (Deut. 9:9) and the verse “And I stood on the mountain” (Deut. 10:10) in Megillah 21a. Rava there explains that for things that were easier to grasp, Moses would stand, and for things that were harder to grasp, Moses would sit. And these students are certainly no better than Moses learning from the Almighty.
בצמא. פי' הר"ב כאדם צמא וכו'. וכן לשון רש"י. ונ"ל שגרסתם כצמא בכף ובמדרש שמואל בשם ר"י ן' נחמיאש בשיתא סדרי משניות ירושלמיות היא הגרסא כצמא בכ"ף והכל עולה אל טעם אחד. שתשתה דבריהם. כתאותו של צמא לשתות מים. ע"כ: THIRSTILY. Rav: like a thirsty man drinking to sate himself, not like a sated man who has no desire for food and turns down even delicacies and sweets. So also Rashi. It seems that their version read ketzamei, “like a thirsty man,” with a kaf,20Meaning “like a thirsty man,” as opposed to betzama, with a beit, which would mean “with thirst.” The words tzama, “thirst,” and tzamei, “thirsty man, one who is thirsting” have the same consonontal spelling: צמא. As the texts were all written without vowels, the word is ambiguous without a prefix. If the prefix is beit, which is adverbial and would mean “with” in this case, the word is בצמא and must be vocalized betzama, “with thirst.” If the prefix is kaf, which means “like,” then the word is כצמא and must be vocalized ketzamei, “as a thirsty man.” The confusion among the texts arose because of the similarity of the letters beit ב and kaf כ. and in fact Midrash Shmuel quotes R. Yosef ibn Nahmias saying: in a Jerusalemite edition of the entire Mishna the text reads ketzamei with a kaf; both versions mean the same thing: that you should drink up their words with the same desire a thirsty man has to drink water.