[1] This passage has been difficult for me to understand according to the plain meaning of the text, in its saying: "lest you incur the penalty of exile." For this moral lesson is not unique to the context of exile — it applies equally when they dwell in the Land of Israel, since it would always be proper for scholars, wherever they may be, to be careful in their words and to explain them as they ought to be explained, so that their students should not derive from them the opposite of their intended meaning and thereby come to heresy — as happened to Tzadok and Baithos in relation to their teacher Antigonus.

[2] A further difficulty arises with the phrase "and you will be exiled to a place of evil waters," for this does not seem to point to anything in the allegorical meaning — since we have no more than the teacher who speaks and the students who listen. If the water is a metaphor for the words of the teacher, how can they be called "evil waters," since those words are in themselves good? And if "a place of evil waters" refers to the students who come after them, then in truth the Mishnah should have said nothing more than: "Sages, be careful with your words" — that is, explain them properly — "lest the students who come after you drink and die, and the Name of Heaven be desecrated," and the rest of the passage would appear to have no bearing on the matter. It therefore seems fitting to explain this passage in one of two ways:

[3] The first reason — Avtalyon, having heard his teacher Shimon ben Shatach say: "Be thorough in examining the witnesses" and "Be careful with your words, lest from them they learn to speak falsely" — saw fit to elaborate and expand upon his teacher's words, fashioning them in his own image and likeness. He taught that not only in the matter of witnesses must a sage be vigilant, out of concern that his words might lead others to speak falsely, but rather this vigilance is fitting for all sages regarding their words in general — so that students who have not yet served their teachers sufficiently should not hear them and misunderstand their words contrary to the intended meaning, thereby being led to adopt corrupt views, which are the true death of the soul, as was done by Tzadok and Beitus. For this reason, it is proper that sages take care with their words to explain them fittingly, in a manner that admits of no misinterpretation, as the wise man stated (Iyov 33:3): "And the knowledge of my lips they speak clearly."

[4] Our Sages, may their memory be blessed, already noted (Pesachim 42a) the case of that sage who publicly expounded the laws of chametz and matzah and declared: one may knead dough only with "our water" — *mayim shelanu*. His intention was water that had been drawn the previous day and had stood through one night, since rivers and springs begin to warm during the days of Nissan. He used the expression *mayim shelanu* in the sense of *linah* — water that has "lodged" overnight — yet the people who heard the discourse understood it to mean that one may only knead with water from his own home, reading *shelanu* as "ours." So they arose early in the morning, each one with his jug at his doorstep, waiting for him to give them water from his own supply with which to knead their dough. If this could occur with the words of that sage, how much more so with the words of other sages. It is for this reason that Avtalyon said: "Sages, be careful with your words." There is no doubt that this lesson is fitting for every person — that one should explain and clarify one's words precisely as one intends them — but among the Sages this is all the more essential, since they are more closely scrutinized, and there is genuine danger in their words being misunderstood, given that a mistaken understanding of their intent can become received teaching for all of humanity.

[5] And behold, Avtalyon said: "Lest you incur the penalty of exile" — for he was a seer who perceived with his wisdom that the Second Temple would be destroyed and that the people would come into exile among the nations, among whom there exist corrupted beliefs and false convictions. This is what he meant by: "and you be exiled to a place of evil waters" — which is a metaphor for heresy. He was saying: perhaps you will come to a land where there are corrupted beliefs, where people are not scrupulous in the observance of mitzvot, and the heretics — the people of that land — who hear your words will interpret them according to their own corrupt beliefs and convictions. "And the disciples who come after them will drink" — meaning that at a later time, those disciples will drink from the mouths of the people of that land those evil beliefs, and will assume that this had been your very faith; they will die spiritually, in their souls and in their convictions, and through this the Name of Hashem will be desecrated. For the corruption of those beliefs will cascade from generation to generation, and they will be attributed to the sages of Israel, who straighten every crooked path. And since all of this flows from the fact that the matters were obscure and sealed, therefore he warned them about this.

[6] He thus warned about "lest you incur the liability of exile," because in exile, among the nations, corrupt and ruinous beliefs will be encountered — beliefs that would not have taken hold had Israel remained upon their own land. He structured this warning in three levels: the level of the scholars who speak such things; the level of the wicked students who hear them and are drawn toward their words in the direction of heresy; and the level of the students who come after them — those whose hearts are wholesome and whose hands are clean — who hear and learn "from the place of the corrupt waters," and who receive from them, believing that these teachers themselves received such teachings from those earlier scholars, and so they die in their souls and in their beliefs. In this way, the Name of Heaven comes to be desecrated within Israel.

[7] Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, had already given warning (Devarim 27:8): "And you shall write upon the stones all the words of this Torah, well clarified" — to indicate that the words must not be obscure, sealed, or open to multiple interpretations. It was already customary in the language of the Sages, may their memory be for a blessing, to refer to heresy (minut) as "bitter waters," drawn from the analogy by which the words of Torah are compared to water. This is what is stated in the Sifri on the portion "Vehayah Ekev" — "Drink water from your cistern, from your Creator" — as in the words of Rabbi Shimon ben Manasya, who would say: "Drink water from your cistern" (Mishlei 5:15) means: drink from the waters of your Creator, and do not drink turbid waters by following after words of heresy. This, then, is the first manner of interpreting the saying.

[8] The second manner of interpretation is not that he warned them to explain their words, but rather the opposite — that they should not explain or reveal the secrets and hidden mysteries of the Torah to every person, but only to those sages who are worthy of receiving them. How much did the Sages warn about this in Chagigah (11b): "One may not expound on Ma'aseh Bereshit before two, nor on Ma'aseh Merkavah before even one." And Rabbi Chiyya said: the hidden matters of Torah are taught only to a student who is fitting, wise, able to understand on his own, and whose heart is inwardly anxious — along with the other conditions which he mentioned. And it has already been recorded that one of the Sages said to his colleagues who were well-versed in Ma'aseh Bereshit: "Teach me Ma'aseh Bereshit, and I will teach you Ma'aseh Merkavah." They replied: "The thing you have spoken is good." But when they taught him Ma'aseh Bereshit, he refrained from teaching them Ma'aseh Merkavah. Heaven forbid that he did this out of ill will to withhold wisdom, or in order to have a superiority of knowledge over them — for such traits are unseemly even in the most foolish of persons, how much more so in those pious and distinguished men. Rather, he did this because he perceived in himself that he was worthy of receiving what they possessed, while they were not worthy of receiving what he possessed. And he brought proof for this from the words of Shlomo (Shir HaShirim 4:11): "Honey and milk are under your tongue" — meaning that the hidden matters of Torah, which are sweet to the worthy soul, ought to be concealed and not rise to one's lips, but rather remain under one's tongue. Similarly, as the Sages expounded (Pesachim 119a) regarding the verse: "And her merchandise and her hire shall be holy to Hashem; it shall not be treasured nor laid up, for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before Hashem, to eat their fill and for stately covering" (Yeshayahu 23:18) — "for stately covering" (le-machseh atik) refers to matters that the Ancient of Days has covered and concealed. And upon this very matter did Avtalyon warn when he said: "Sages, be careful with your words, lest you incur the debt of exile and be exiled to a place of foul waters." The words galut ("exile") and ve-taglu ("and you will be exiled") both derive from the root galah, meaning disclosure, and their intent here concerns the revealing of the secrets and hidden matters of Torah — the Sages must take heed with their words lest they incur before Hashem the debt of exile, that is, the guilt and sin of disclosure. He then mentions what results from this, namely, that one who is unworthy will come to receive them — and this is the meaning of: "and you will be exiled to a place of foul waters." The word taglu should be read with a sheva under the tav and a patach under the gimel, and "foul waters" is a metaphor for unworthy students, for they are "a place of foul waters," and the students who come after them will drink from those waters as well. The lofty, divine wisdom will then spread from the mouths of infants and nurslings and unworthy students, and they will perish through their own misguided understanding — and there is no greater desecration of Hashem's Name than this.

[9] And our master Moshe Rabbeinu already taught us this — that he did not commit the explanation of the Torah and its secrets to writing, but transmitted them orally, and not to every person, but only to Yehoshua and his court, who were worthy of receiving it. Such, then, was the warning of this Sage concerning the Torah. The passage has thus been clarified and the difficulty resolved at its root.