Mishnah: איזהו חכם? הלומד מכל אדם

Four questions, four answers, four proof-texts, and one grammatical device repeated so tightly that the mishnah is essentially a drill on it. ה plus a participle — the one who … — carries every one of Ben Zoma's answers, and the construction is not a museum piece: it is how modern Hebrew still builds the words on train announcements and registration forms. This page reads the whole mishnah for that one structure.

The text is Mishnah, Avot 4:1, redacted around 200 CE and long in the public domain, so it is quoted here entire. It is Ben Zoma's — Shimon ben Zoma, an early second-century tanna — not "the Talmud's" in general. The Hebrew below follows the Torat Emet text as given on Sefaria; the question marks are this page's, since the printed mishnah has only commas, and the bracketed chapter references that editions insert before each proof-text appear here in the translation line instead. Each of the four answers is followed in the mishnah by שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר shene'emár "as it is said" — the subordinator ש־ on the nif'al of א־מ־ר — introducing the scriptural proof-text; those verses are printed below as lines of their own.

The text

ה + participle: the whole construction in one letter

Every answer has the same shape. Take a participle — the form that also serves as the present tense — and put the definite article on it. That single ה converts a verb into a noun meaning "the one who does this", and the noun can drag a full clause along behind it:

• הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ — "the one who conquers his urge". The participle keeps its direct object.
• הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ — "the one who is content with his portion". It keeps its prepositional complement.
• הַמְכַבֵּד אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת — "the one who honours other people". Object again.

English needs three or four words for this — the one who, he who, whoever — and a relative pronoun on top. Hebrew needs one letter and no relative pronoun at all, which is why the mishnah's answers are two or three words long. Compare the bare participle without the article: לומד on its own is just the present tense, "learns / is learning", and needs a subject.

The article is the entire difference. Nothing else changes. The participle's ordinary tensed life — how it works as the present tense, and how it agrees — is on the active participle; this page is only about what happens once ה is bolted onto the front.

The same construction, tomorrow morning

This is not archaism. Modern Hebrew builds signage, announcements and officialese out of exactly this device, and the words are so common that most learners meet them before they ever open a mishnah: הנוסעים the passengers (the ones who travel), המשתתפים the participants, המעוניינים those interested, הדוברים the speakers, הממתינים those waiting.

Two things the four answers are not doing identically

The third participle is a different animal

Line them up and they look like one series. They are not.

שָׂמֵחַ is not a קוֹטֵל at all — it is the קָטֵל pattern, the small closed class of stative pa'al verbs whose present form doubles as a plain adjective: יָשֵׁן yashén asleep, עָיֵף ayéf tired, רָעֵב ra'év hungry, זָקֵן zakén old, מָלֵא malé full. That is why the third answer is not really parallel to the others in meaning. The wise, the mighty and the honoured are defined by something they do; the rich are defined by something they are. English translations that give "the one who rejoices in his portion" quietly convert a state into an activity, and the Hebrew does not say that.

A pi'el and its own pu'al, in one line

The fourth pair is the sharpest thing in the mishnah, and it is entirely a matter of vowels:

Same three root letters, same מ prefix, opposite voice. pu'al is not a binyan you choose — it exists only as the passive of pi'el, and has no infinitive and no imperative. So the mishnah's answer is a closed loop with no spare parts: who is the honour-ed one? the honour-ing one.

And in the classical spelling the two words are the same four letters, מכבד and מכבד, told apart only by pointing. Modern ktiv male repairs precisely this: the kubuts of מְכֻבָּד is written with a ו, giving מכובד, while the pi'el keeps מכבד. One of the reforms did its job.

Two smaller things worth having

איזהו is אֵיזֶה + הוּא fused — an interrogative with a copula pronoun already inside it, so the question needs no verb: which-he wise? Modern Hebrew keeps the pattern in מיהו míhu "who is" and מהו máhu "what is", both (formal); in speech you say מי זה and מה זה, or just מי and מה. The mechanics of that pronoun-as-copula are on the pronoun copula.

מִכׇּל אָדָם is מִן + כׇּל + an indefinite singular, which is how Hebrew says every: not "from all people" but "from every person". The preposition מִן assimilates into whatever follows and doubles its first consonant, which is where the dagesh in מִכׇּל comes from. And note that את appears twice in the mishnah for two different reasons — את יצרו is definite because a possessive suffix makes a noun definite, את הבריות because of the article. Either route triggers את; an indefinite object would take none.

Common Mistakes

1. Dropping the article and losing the nominal reading. Without ה the participle is not a noun at all — it is a bare present tense with nobody performing it.

2. Calquing "the one who" with an extra word. English needs a head noun for the relative clause to attach to, so learners insert one. Hebrew's article already is the head.

3. Using the pi'el where the pu'al is meant. Both words exist and both are common, so the mistake produces perfectly good Hebrew that says the opposite of what you wanted.

4. Leaving out את before a noun made definite by a possessive suffix. The article is visible and reminds you; a suffix is not, so learners forget the noun is definite at all.

Key Takeaways

• ה + participle = "the one who …", a full headless relative in one letter, and it keeps all of the verb's complements: הכובש את יצרו, השמח בחלקו.
• Remove the article and you have an ordinary present tense that needs a subject. That ה is the whole construction.
• It is fully modern: הנוסעים, המשתתפים, המעוניינים, הזוכים are the same device on today's signage.
• The four participles are not one shape. הַשָּׂמֵחַ is the stative קָטֵל pattern — a state, not an activity — alongside יָשֵׁן, עָיֵף, רָעֵב.
• מְכֻבָּד (pu'al) and הַמְכַבֵּד (pi'el) stand in a single line: pu'al is the passive of pi'el and nothing else. Classically the two are the same four letters; modern ktiv male separates them as מכובד and מכבד.
• איזהו = איזה + הוא, an interrogative with the copula built in. Modern מיהו / מהו are its formal descendants.