Hi good morning Shalom aleichem Rabosai. I hope everyone is well. משלי שלמה בן דוד מלך ישראל. The Gaon writes Mishlei. So a mashal is a parable. בכל דבר יש חומר ופועל וצורה ותכלית כמו שכתבנו כמה פעמים.
The chomer is the material, the substance. וכן הוא כאן משלי הוא החומר של הספר הזה. This sefer consists of parables, of metaphors. Shlomo vegomar, meaning the rest of the pasuk as the Gaon will spell out shortly. Shlomo hu hapoel. The poel is the active agent. Right? You have the material and then you have someone who's working with that material. לדעת חכמה ומוסר להבין אמרי בינה pasuk beis הוא תבנית וצורתו בנינו. Tzurah is used to mean the essential quality. If you have something which is purely physical, so then its essential quality is usually defined by its shape. So hence we use the word, we use the word tzurah. You're dealing with something physical and you sculpt it in the shape of a chair, that is its essential quality. But tzurah really has an abstract definition. I mean shape is something physical, but that's just a one instance of what a tzurah is. Tzurah really has an abstract definition meaning the essential quality. Right? The Rambam says that the tzurah of a person is his nefesh because that's the essential defining quality of what it means to be a human being. If you have a lump of clay, so what distinguishes one lump of clay from another lump of clay? So its shape is the most defining difference. So it's its essential quality, its content. Right? In a sefer, so its essential quality is going to be its content is lada'as teach, to learn, to know chochmah umusar. להבין אמרי בינה והתכלית, but what's the ultimate purpose? What's the goal of that? Hi lakachas musar is to implement the musar. כי לא הלימוד עיקר אלא המעשה. See, it's interesting, you know, obviously learning Tanach is not rachmana litzlan studying literature. And yet, there are lessons that we can learn in terms of let's say our own writing or our own oral presentation, which is obviously shelo beruach hakodesh from sifrei Tanach. Not everything is going to be unique and attributable to the fact that it's ne'emar beruach hakodesh as already indicated by these opening. Having a sense of what the sefer is about, what the sefer is conveying, seeking to accomplish, is crucial for the one learning the sefer to be able to certainly get the most and to a certain degree even to understand. If I'm reading a story, or for that matter if I'm writing a story, so it's crucial that it be understood whether the significance of the story is just I don't know it's a historical narrative, or whether the significance of the story is something beyond it, maybe it's not even historical, maybe it's maybe it's a mashal and maybe it's something which is being used as a vehicle to teach and to illustrate. So if our reaction you know to this opening pasuk is that it's something natural, so think of it sort of as a mitzvah which is a mishpat. A mitzvah which is a mishpat means that even though Hakadosh Baruch Hu revealed the mitzvah on Har Sinai, but He also gave us an intuition for the mitzvah. So it's not something that because it because it came through Maamad Har Sinai through His gilluy which is something which is lemala min hasechel. No, some of the things that Hakadosh Baruch Hu reveals are very much within the grasp of the sechel. And so too in terms of this just very intuitive opening of the sefer. Maybe we'll come back bli neder to this לא המדרש עיקר אלא המעשה but for today just try to read a little bit more. שלמה בן דוד מלך ישראל. Shlomo HaMelech is he wants to make sure that you know Mishlei was going to be a bestseller, he wants to make sure that the royalties get paid you know that the check, the royalty checks get paid to the get sent to the right address, he's got his copyright here. שלמה בן דוד מלך ישראל. So the Gaon has a different different pshat in why why this is front and center. כי הלומד בספר צריך לידע מי הוא המחבר. It's true that there is a klal קבל האמת ממי שאמרו that we should judge divrei Torah, not just divrei Torah, in any context on we should judge things on their own merit. But that notwithstanding כי הלומד בספר צריך לידע מי הוא המחבר. Why? כי אם יהיה המחבר גדול בחכמה if the mechaber is someone who's great in wisdom, בוודאי יהיו בספרו חכמות גדולות. So then there's a presumption, a chezkas vadai, an absolute presumption that if the person is gadol bechochmah, if he's great in wisdom, so then what he writes in his sefer is going to be replete with wisdom. Similarly v'chen beyirah, if he's a person who's a big baal yirah, so then there's a chezkas vadai that what he's writing in his sefer is going to be replete with yirah. If you find a manuscript, someone will go to I don't know one of the libraries where they have collections of manuscripts and he'll find a manuscript and then we'll analyze and they'll identify, they'll make a positive identification that this is a new manuscript from Rav Yisrael Salanter. So then that's not just sort of an interesting historical yediah, it's relevant in terms of what the chezkas vadai is about this sefer. If the person is gadol b'yira, so then there's a presumption that the sefer is replete with yira. V'chein b'torah similarly with torah. Why do we need that presumption? We'll figure out for ourselves. If the sefer is gadol b'chochma, so ya'id al atzmo. And similarly if if the sefer is going to be replete with yira or replete with torah in each of these cases, so הדברים יעידו על עצמם. So why do I need to know from the get-go that there is such a chezkat vaday? So the answer is is simple. Let's say let's say a person's learning a Rambam and lich'ora the Rambam is against the gemara. So why do we work so hard to to figure out what p'shat in the Rambam is? No, so he said against the gemara. He never learned the gemara, so he said against the gemara. I do it all the time. He never learned it so he said against the. So why why are we working why are we working so hard in in saying p'shat in the Rambam? So the answer is because we know who the Rambam is. And because we know who he is, and because that establishes a chezkat vaday, establishes an absolute presumption, so that influences how our approach to learning. Let's say a person receives an iggeret shlomim, receives a letter from a friend. And the friend says hi, how you doing? I forgot, not a letter, an email, excuse me. Or not an email either, a whatever, I don't know how people communicate anymore. I don't know. Pony Express. That's how I send my messages. You you of the pigeon, right? Carrier pigeon. Carrier pigeon brings you brings you a brings you a note and it's from your friend and the friend says hi, how you doing? So is there a diyuk as to why he said hi, how you doing as opposed to how are you? So in 99.99% of the cases, the answer is no. If you happen to be zocheh to be friendly with Rav Chaim, the answer the answer is going to be yes. If if a person knows who the mechaber is and because of that that creates a chezkat vaday, an absolute presumption about the tochen, so that influences how we learn. It doesn't mean that a person ever puts something into a text, but what it does mean is that the person realizes that there's reason to work harder to to understand what the what the text means. I remember once I was I was in the car many many years ago with Rav Nissan Alpert, zichrono livracha. And he was saying I don't remember I don't remember what he was talking about a midrash or a kasha of Tosfot and Rashi. I forget the I'm not positive which, but it could have been either. Maybe it was both. Maybe that's why I'm not sure. So he said he once he once had I don't know whether it was a very cryptic midrash or a strong kasha of Tosfot and Rashi. So he once said that once he went to a room and told himself he wasn't coming out until he figured out p'shat. Now I'm not necessarily recommending that. That that maybe a dangerous course of action. But if a person has the wherewithal to to figure out p'shat, so what that story reflects is is this idea. Rashi said it, there has to be a p'shat. Okay, the reason why it's not necessarily a recommended course of action for us is doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to figure out the p'shat. But in terms of that there is a p'shat and that I should be working to figure it out, and that if a person is a certain ba'al madregah, maybe he can even say and and there's nothing to stop me if only the amala will be there. So that's why it's very important to understand and to know who who the mechaber of a sefer is. Okay, so maybe we'll we'll stop here for for now and b'ezrat Hashem we'll we'll resume around 12:30. beginning the second perek. Everyone should have a good productive morning rabosai, be well, be safe.