Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai received the tradition of the Torah from Hillel and Shammai. He was one of Hillel and Shammai’s later students, at the end of the Second Beit HaMikdash. He famously said, “If you studied a lot of Torah, don’t take credit for yourself. Don’t think you’re such a big man, because that’s the purpose of your creation.” You were created by Hashem to learn Torah and do mitzvot (commandments). That was the main purpose of your creation. It’s like somebody who has a debt and pays it back. He doesn’t say, “Oh, wow, look, I’m so great—I paid back my debt.” No, you had an obligation. You had a certain duty that you had to take care of, and therefore you don’t need any special praise. It’s the same with Torah. If you learned a lot of Torah, that’s why you’re here. You can’t forget that. Don’t start thinking you did something so out of the norm. You were created to study Torah.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had five well-known students. These are them. He would praise each one for a unique aspect of his makeup. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos was like a pit whose walls were sealed with plaster and that didn’t lose a drop of water. In order to preserve water in those days, they would have a well or some sort of pit and coat it with plaster on the inside, so no water would seep through. There would be no leaks. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos’s mind was so thorough, and he reviewed his studies so many times that he didn’t forget anything. He was constantly doing Chazara (review), and therefore his mind never lost any of the Torah he learned.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya: Ashrei yoladto, fortunate is the woman who gave birth to him. His mother was a very special woman. She was a very special woman. When she was pregnant, she used to go to all the rabbis and ask them for a beracha (blessing) that her son would be a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar). When he was newly born, she took his cradle and brought it to the Midrash (study hall) so he would hear Divrei Torah (words of Torah). Since his mother had such an impact on his growth as a Talmid Chacham, even before he was born, we praise his mother. We bring her up here as the one who deserves some of the credit.
Rabbi Yosei HaKohen was a Hasid, a pious person. A pious person is always careful to go above the letter of the law. They don’t want to just fulfill base obligations. They want to fulfill all of the opinions, or they want to go without any question. He was very careful to do that. We mentioned earlier in the Mishnah that somebody who is an am ha'aretz, a person who’s unlearned, cannot become a Hasid. So we’re also including here that if he’s a Hasid, he must be a Talmid Chacham as well.
Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel feared sin. He was very, very careful not to sin. He therefore also included certain things that were permitted among the things he didn’t get involved with, in order to create a boundary, a little bit of a spiritual fence, to make sure he didn’t get close to indulging too much.
Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was a spring of water that was constantly growing stronger, like a spring of water that grows and grows. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach brought different thoughts to Torah. He had different sevarot, different logic, and he would use that with his Torah. On any type of difficult topic that came up, he had the ability to understand in depth, creating his own system that he would apply to it.
Who was the one who said that? In the scale comparison of the sages, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai would say that if all the rabbis of Bnei Israel were on one side of the scale and Eliezer ben Hurkanos was on the other side, he would outweigh them all. He was so special, so unique, and so great; he knew so much Torah that he would outweigh all the rabbis on the other side of the scale, since he never forgot anything. So it totally changes the balance of the scale: him, him alone.
Now we’ll look at it from a qualitative perspective, which is Rabbi Elazar ben Arach. If Abba Shaul quoted a different type of tradition, it isn’t a contradiction. The first one was talking about breadth of knowledge. You were talking about the sharpness. If all of Israel were on one side of the scale, with Eliezer ben Hurkanos on that side, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach were on the other side of the scale, Rabbi Elazar ben Arach would outweigh them all.
Abba Shaul would say, in the name of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, that if all the rabbis of Bnei Israel were on one side of the scale, and Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos, whom we just praised for knowing so much in the last part of the Mishnah, were included among them, while Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was on the other side of the scale, Rabbi Elazar ben Arach would outweigh them all. In the last part of the Mishnah, he put Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos with them. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was so sharp in learning. He was so creative, and he had such deep logic that he would outweigh all of the Chachmei Yisrael (sages of Israel). His creativity and his thought—nobody could match them. So therefore, he would outweigh everybody.