It aided him: While he was bent over him, he understood and expounded "A song for Asaf; God, the gentiles have entered Your inheritance." For he could not understand it before this and expound it. And some explain that just this verse itself [and not the chapter] did he expound, "It should not be 'Song' for Asaf, rather 'Lamentation' for Asaf! And he expounded that Asaf sang for the fact that God spent His anger on sticks and stones of His house, and thus allowed Israel to survive. For if not for that, he would not have allowed even one Israelite (lit. the enemies of Israel) to survive. And so, the verse states (Lamentations 4:11), "God spent His anger and a fire went out in Zion." So explains Rashi. But there is a Midrash that Asaf said song because the gates sank into the ground. It is compared to a maidservant who went to draw water from the well and whose pitcher fell into the well. She became distraught and began to cry - until the king’s maidservant came to draw water carrying a golden pitcher, and it too, fell into the well. At which point the first maidservant began to sing. ‘Till now’, she exclaimed, I didn’t think that anybody would retrieve my cheap earthenware pitcher from the well. But now, whoever retrieves the golden pitcher, will retrieve mine as well!’ In the same way, when the sons of Korach, who were swallowed up inside the earth, saw how the gates of the Temple sunk into the ground, they proclaimed ‘Whoever rescues the gates will also rescue us!’ That explains why Asaf, who was from the family of Korach, said ‘Mizmor.’

Rabbi Tarfon had a mother: It is found in the Yerushalmi (Yerushalmi Kiddushin 1:7:7): Once the mother of Rabbi Tarfon lost her slipper in her courtyard. So she out from her couch to find it, and Rabbi Tarfon went and put his hands under her feet on the ground so that her feet would not get soiled; and she treaded on his hands. And also found in the Yerushalmi (Kiddushin 1:7:8) is that each and every time Rabbi Yishmael would arrive from the study hall, his mother would wash his feet and drink the water. When Rabbi Yishmael heard that she would do this, he refused [to do] the thing. [That was] until she went before the Sages and complained about her son, Rabbi Yishmael; that he was not fulfilling the commandment of honoring [parents]. And the Sages were confounded about the thing and asked Rabbi Yishmael. So he told them the story, and they commanded him to let her do [what] she wants, and that [her] honor was in this way.