A Short Tribute

"Yehoshua ben Perachia says, "Make for yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend and judge every person as meritorious." By "Make yourself a mentor [rav]", the Tanah may have meant that one should become a mentor oneself, by toiling at Torah night and day, until reaching the level of a mentor and generating original commentary. We are given sound advice: You shall reach this level by "acquiring for yourself a friend", purchasing a quill and copybook as your friends; one should be constantly writing in the copybook, and adding to the amount [of writings] composed. And it says, "…judge every person as meritorious", meaning that if you have reached this level and have earned the merit of [creating] original commentary and composing a collection, "do not scorn any person" who has not earned similar merit but rather "judge every person as meritorious".