Zero tolerance

 Over the years I have quite lost track of the number of times I have heard this message from pulpit rabbis:    

"Lineage is like a row of zeros. They add up to nothing unless there's a number in front of them".

Quite right, I thought, having no discernible lineage of my own and having too often been confronted with boasts of others whose pedigree was impeccable. I did however wonder where this wisdom came from. Was it just a commonplace, something everyone with the possible exception of myself already knew?

This week I found a source. Maybe it is not the earliest Jewish source but it is the first I've tracked down. You can find it in Rabbi the Ruach Chaim of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, published posthumously after his death in 1821. Ruach Chaim is Reb Chaim's commentary on Pirkei Avot and you can find the reference to zeros (for zero read "nul" in the Hebrew) in his observations on the baraita at Avot 6:8. That baraita describes children -- presumably righteous and Torah-true ones -- as "befitting the righteous and befitting the world".

Is it an original observation by Rabbi Chaim Volozhin, I wonder, or does anyone know of an earlier Jewish source or usage?