רבי אלעזר בן ערך

Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was a tanna of the Land of Israel and a student of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai. He is remembered above all for the praise his teacher gave him: in Pirkei Avot, when the master weighed the qualities of his students, he declared that he saw the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Arach as outweighing those of all the others, for his words encompassed theirs. This is the saying brought in Pele Yoetz, where it serves to teach that a good heart is the root of all of Judaism and the service of Hashem.

The Gemara in Eruvin (13b) brings a tradition that identifies him with the figure called Nehorai — “because he would light up the eyes of the sages in halachah” — though the same passage records other views on whose name that title belonged to. A striking account appears in Shabbat (147b): Rabbi Elazar ben Arach traveled to a certain place and was drawn after its ways, and his learning slipped away from him, so that when he came to read “hachodesh hazeh lachem” he instead read it wrongly; the sages prayed for him, and his learning returned. His name is also invoked in the midrashic literature, such as Kohelet Rabbah, in discussions of Torah scholars laboring together over their learning.