Rambam writes at the end of פרק א' הלכות דעות כיצד ירגיל אדם עצמו בדעות אלו עד שיקבעו בו.
How does a person acquire the various character traits mandated by the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav, meaning how does he not merely practically act in a way that's consistent with these de'os, but how does he make these de'os a part of himself? How do they become rooted? How do they mold and shape his nefesh? יעשה וישנה וישלש במעשים שעושה על פי הדעות הממוצעות ויחזור בהן תמיד עד שיהיו מעשיהן קלים עליו ולא יהיה בהן טורח ויקבעו הדעות בנפשו.
The constant reinforcement. If a person acts in a way that's consistent with rachmanus, he becomes a rachman. If a person acts in a way that's consistent with chaninah, he becomes a chanun. If a person acts in a way that's consistent with kedushah, he becomes a kadosh. ולפי שהשמות האלו שנקרא בהן היוצר הן הדרך הבינונית שאנו חייבים ללכת בה נקרא דרך זו דרך השם.
The derech habeinonish is derech Hashem. והיא שלמדה אברהם אבינו לבניו. And this is what Avraham Avinu taught. שנאמר כי ידעתיו למען אשר יצוה את בניו ואת ביתו אחריו ושמרו דרך השם לעשות צדקה ומשפט.
Rambam is telling us that pshat in the pasuk in the parsha of ושמרו דרך השם לעשות צדקה ומשפט, Rabbi Hutner in his sefer discusses this point. It is not that Avraham Avinu taught two independent values, two independent de'os of tzedakah umishpat, but rather Avraham Avinu taught a blend, a derech that integrates, that encompasses tzedakah and mishpat together. That combination of the extremes of tzedakah and mishpat yields the derech habeinonish. To explain a little more and when Rambam illustrates the derech habeinonish by the middah of ka'as, it says כיצד לא יהיה בעל חמה נוח לכעוס ולא כמי שאינו מרגיש אלא בינוני. לא יכעוס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו כדי שלא יעשה כיוצא בו פעם אחרת.
So this example, and mistama it's not incidental or coincidental that this is the first illustration Rambam gives of the middah beinonis. Exposes a certain yesod which is often beneath the surface. And that is that the pshat in the middah benonit is not that if one extreme represents a zero and one extreme represents a ten that the person is supposed to be a five, but rather the pshat in the middah benonit is he's supposed to have within him the zero and the ten, and that's why bederech klal the way it will manifest itself is as a five. How does that emerge from this example? Because we would have thought that the middah benonit between being a בעל חמה נוח לכעוס, someone who has a volatile temper and he easily flies off the handle, that's one end of the spectrum, the other end of the spectrum is כמי שאינו מרגיש, but benoni should mean that he reacts, he feels, but in a controlled fashion. But the Rambam doesn't say that. The Rambam says that he takeh gets angry but very selectively and very productively in a very targeted way. So that's the yesod of tzedek umishpat. The yesod again of tzedek umishpat, not that the pshat is that the middah benonit splits the difference between the two, but it represents a combination of the two, that both are present within the person. Ruba deruba it manifests itself as a five but beyesod hadavar it's because he incorporates within himself the tzedaka and the mishpat. Lichora it's in this context that the famous Rashi quoting Chazal at the beginning of Breishis should be understood: ברא אלקים ולא אמר ברא ה' שבתחילה עלה במחשבה לבראתו במידת הדין וראה שאין העולם מתקיים והקדים מידת הרחמים ושיתפה למידת הדין.
So the emes is it's not that there's a middas harachamim and there's a middas hadin. There's a blending, shitfa lemiddas hadin, a shutfus. Middas harachamim doesn't exist independently, middas hadin doesn't exist independently, there's a symbiosis between the two. The same way within the derech Hashem, mishpat is not supposed to exist independently of tzedaka nor is tzedaka supposed to exist independently of mishpat. It's a yesod with tremendous implications. A well-meaning but superficial understanding of middos and deios which doesn't recognize the coexistence of opposites can ultimately erode the deah itself. Give an example. A person is aware of a situation where there's a nirdaph and there are some people who are supporting the nirdaph and then there are rodfim. And his well-meaning, well-intended posture is that I talk to both sides because there has to be shalom. The fallacy of that well-intentioned blunder is that it takes a deah and allows it to exist independently and absolutely, not linked to its opposite. And every deah is linked to its opposite. Even shalom, gadol hashalom, shem shamayim is nimchak, gadol hashalom. But even shalom is not an absolute. And the emes is, the emes is, that when we make such an error, it's not only that we over-apply and overextend the middah, it's not the middah. If no matter what the situation is, no matter what the situation is, my answer is shalom. So the exceptional case is megaleh that what I represent isn't really shalom, genuine shalom in every other situation, every other circumstance either. If my understanding of shalom is such that my reaction to there's a nirdaph and there's rodfim is there has to be shalom amongst the different factions, amongst the different groups, and because of that I'm neutral, so then in every other situation maybe there's a superficial resemblance and approximation of shalom, but it's not shalom in any other circumstance either. And it's true no matter how holy that the mida is. When we don't recognize that tzedaka is linked to the mishpat, the mishpat is linked to the tzedaka, that the rachamim is linked to the din, the din is linked to the rachamim, it doesn't exist, it doesn't stand independently. So we undo the mida. רחמנים ביישנים גומלי חסדים. But when the rachmanus says that if the murderer is more seriously injured than the victim, so you treat, you give the first aid and you treat the murderer before you treat the victim, so the rachmanus is not, it's what the Ramchal says, it's a rachamim which is מכחיש את הדין לגמרי, which is not the mida of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Because no midos exist in a vacuum. All midos have to be integrated with each other and alongside each other. The murderer who did his best and maybe he even succeeded, rachmana litzlan, and as soon as he gets better he'll try again, to say that rachmanus dictates that if he's more seriously injured in repelling his murderous attack that he should be tended to before the innocent victims of his attack is to take rachmanus and chanina and detach it from din, is to take tzedaka and detach it from mishpat. That's not the shalom of Avraham Avinu levanov. אברהם אבינו לימדה לבניו, the way the Gemara darshens that pasuk we're learning now in Sanhedrin legabei peshara, it's צדקה שיש בה משפט ומשפט שיש בו צדקה. It's not independent. Kehena vekehena, kehena vekehena, in terms of such examples. The parsha provides one of the most grotesque examples of the distortion that happens when a mida tova, a mida kedosha is uprooted from that broader context of all midos, which is the behavior of Lot. הנה נא לי שתי בנות אשר לא ידעו איש הוציאה נא אתהן אליכם ועשו להן כטוב בעיניכם רק לאנשים האל אל תעשו דבר כי על כן באו בצל קרתי.
A little bit, a little bit of the omek hadavar as to why this havana in darkei Hashem is muchrachas, again, it's clear, tzidku u'mishpat, the Rambam's example of ka'as, shitfa b'middas hadin. As the Rambam emphasized, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't really have to'arim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is echad. Doesn't have, it doesn't have, rachmana litzlan, to'arim. There can't be any, any type of ribbuy in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. There isn't any type of ribbuy. So what do the to'arim represent? So what the to'arim really represent is Hakadosh Baruch Hu acts in such a way that were a person to act in that way, so we would ascribe that to'ar to the person. Person is not echad in, in, in any, in any absolute sense, obviously. Hakadosh Baruch Hu acts in such a way. His pe'ulos, his actions, are such that were they to emanate from a person, we would describe that person as chanun, as rachum. We, we would ascribe those to'arim to him. So ultimately, within Hakadosh Baruch Hu, avada, avada, the middos don't exist separately. avada, avada, everything is one, one, one metzius peshuta. And, and that dictates that within the vehalachta bidrachav also, that it's not the p'shat that the middos exist separately and discretely and distinctly. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's rachmanus, as it were, doesn't exist independently of the venakei lo yenakei. You can't, you can't, you can't separate that, rachmana litzlan. So when we use the vehalachta bidrachav, so clearly, clearly, that's what it means. It doesn't mean that the middos, again, are independent middos, the middos that have to coexist alongside each other. The Rav comments in one of his drashos that the very existence of the world is such a blend of chesed and emes. It's both simultaneously. Again, that coexistence, that balance, mitzad echad הוא שהנביא אומר והשם אלקים אמת הוא לבדו האמת ואין לאחר אמת כאמיתו והוא שהתורה עומדת אין עוד מלבדו כלומר אין שם מצוי אמת מלבדו כאמיתו.
So the metzius is emes. That that metzius is one that we're allowed to share in, as it were, that we're allowed to live off of is chesed. Olam chesed yibaneh. There always has to be an emes to chesed and there has to be a chesed to emes. An emes without chesed is a perversion, a chesed without emes is a perversion, because they exist and they can only exist side by side and together.