As a rabbi was teaching this Mishna he asked the following question. I understand if the Mishna said that a person should be humble because he will eventually become a worm(s) in the grave, but the language of the Mishna says a person's hope is to be a worm. What does it mean that a person hopes to be a worm? The people in the class were left without any explanation until finally an elderly man in the back of the class with numbers tattooed on his arm stood up and said he would like to offer an explanation. The man began telling the following story. He said that during the war he was herded like cattle along with 120 other people and crammed in a cattle car to be transported to Auschwitz. The travel by train was a three day journey and they were in a cattle car (which normally housed 6 cows), without food or facilities. The cattle car was locked and sealed with no air and the stench was unbearable. This was only magnified by the bodies of the Yidden who died right there in the cattle car during the journey.

At one point, one of the passengers discovered a crack in the planks and when he put his face to the crack he was able to breath in some fresh clean air. A rabbi who was in the car realized what this man discovered and told the man it wasn't right that he shouldn't share his treasure with the rest of Yidden in the car. They therefore decided to make a line and each person would have a chance to stand in front of the crack and breath in some of the fresh air for a few moments. Every fifteen minutes or so each person would have his turn to take in some gulps of fresh air, there only source of life in the wretched cattle car. The old man explained that when he had his turn to breath in from the cracks he looked and he saw sitting on the crack a little worm. He thought to himself "how I wish I could be a worm like that, I could leave this hell and get some fresh air".The old man said is the explanation of "man's hope is to be a worm". The rabbi upon hearing this explanation was pleased and applauded the man for his true explanation. We must be exceedingly humble in life as a person can easily be reduced to a situation in which he hopes and wishes to be a worm.