Last week's parsha, ויאמר ה' אל משה רד העד בעם רד העד בעם פן יהרסו אל ה' לראות ונפל ממנו רב.
God tells Moshe to go down and to once again warn the people that they shouldn't violate the gvulos, the boundaries that had been assigned to each of them. פן יהרסו אל ה', lest they be hores el Hashem. My father often in conjunction with that posuk would come back to the Rambam at the end of Hilchos Me'ilah. The Rambam writes as follows: ראוי לאדם להתבונן במשפטי התורה הקדושה ולדעת סוף עניינם כפי כוחו.
A person should reflect on mitzvos HaTorah and to the best of his ability try to discern what the goal, what the tachlis of the mitzvah is. ודבר שלא ימצא לו טעם ולא ידע לו עילה, a mitzvah for which a person can't find a reason, a mitzvah for which a person can't find a reason, not able to understand, to identify what its cause, the cause of the mitzvah, אל יהי קל בעיניו. He shouldn't relate to that as something light, something unimportant, insignificant, Rachmana litzlan, ואל יהרוס לעלות אל ה' פן יפרוץ בו. He shouldn't be hores, again quoting the posuk. ולא תהיה מחשבתו בו כמחשבתו בשאר דברי החול. So what is, what does hores mean beyond its literal physical meaning, which is to break the boundary, the physical boundary? What does it mean? My father used to juxtapose this Rambam in the back of the Ibn Tibbon translation of the Moreh. So Ibn Tibbon has a glossary. Shmuel Ibn Tibbon the metargem has a glossary of words that he used in translating to explain, to explain the words. One of the words that Ibn Tibbon uses in his translation is to be hores. And he writes as follows: הרס והריסה הוא שיכניס את עצמו בדבר שאין ראוי להיכנס בו.
A person inserts himself, injects himself into something that he's not qualified, an area that he's not qualified to enter. Me'omro, where did, where did, where did I get, says Shmuel Ibn Tibbon, where did I derive that word, that usage from? מאומרו פן יהרסו אל ה' לראות שעניינו לפי פשוטו. Its simple meaning is שלא ייכנסו במקום שאין ראוי להם להיכנס בו ולראות מה שאין ראוי לראותו,
that by Ma'amad Har Sinai that people should not again physically enter territory which was off-limits to them and should not see what they were not invited, what they were not qualified to see. Ulphi hamuchvan bo, so again that's the literal physical meaning, but clearly the literal physical meaning is representative of something beyond the physical, ulphi hamuchvan bo שלא יעיינו בדבר שאין ראוי להם לעיין בו. That a person shouldn't go beyond his intellectual capacity, ability, and preparedness. A person should not go beyond his intellectual ability, capacity, and preparedness. ועל כן כל מי שיכניס עצמו... ...to delve into a chochma kodem sheyeda hatzaoteha before he knows the necessary prerequisites for that chochma, for that discipline, nikra horeis. Such a person is referred to as a horeis and it's in that sense that even Tibbon uses the word in the translation. In the Rambam in Hilchos Meila a person is stymied by a mitzvas HaTorah, not able to discern its rationale, doesn't understand what its purpose or its function in religious spiritual life is. If rachmana litzlan his reaction is that it's kal b'einav that מחשבתו בו כמחשבתו בשאר דברי החול, so it means that as it were, he's brashly, brazenly passing judgment on mitzvos HaTorah. The Rambam continues as a darshens a kal vachomer from Meila and says קל וחומר למצוה שחקק לנו הקדוש ברוך הוא שלא יבעט אדם בהן
a person shouldn't be contemptuous rachmana litzlan of mitzvos HaTorah מפני שלא ידע טעמן. Human nature is such that we're prone to being horeis. We're susceptible to this serious, serious egregious aveira of being horeis. Where does that come from? That tendency, that susceptibility? It comes from an intellectual self-centeredness. When something doesn't make sense to me, so in my intellectual self-centeredness, so I conclude that it doesn't make sense. You know that there's a fascinating diyuk in the beginning of Mesillas Yesharim when Ramchal famously writes that החיבור הזה לא חיברתי ללמד לבני אדם את אשר לא ידעו אלא להזכירם את הידוע להם כבר ומפורסם אצלם פרסום גדול.
He says, I didn't write to teach anyone things that they don't know, just to remind and to reinforce. כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי אלא דברים שרוב בני אדם יודעים אותם ולא מסתפקים בהם כלל.
You're not going to find most of what you're going to find here is what the overwhelming majority of people know and no one harbors any doubts about it. אלא שכפי רוב פרסומם וכנגד מה שאמיתתם גלויה לכל כך ההעלם מהם מצוי מאד והשכחה רבה.
But people are not mindful of it. Everyone knows it, what I'm going to tell you everyone knows, but hardly anyone is mindful of it. But it's interesting, right? Ramchal writes, כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי אלא דברים שרוב בני אדם יודעים אותם.
What he should have said l'chora is כי אין ברוב דברי אלא דברים שרוב בני אדם יודעים אותם.
So it's clear that what Ramchal is saying, the emes is that there's chiddushim all over in Mesillas Yesharim. Addressing us, he says, you're not going to find it, כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי. I know my audience, says Ramchal. I know my audience. Ki lo timtza, you're not going to appreciate the chiddushim, you're not going to appreciate all the remazim, all the allusions, all the profundity. What you're going to see is דברים שרוב בני אדם יודעים אותם ואף על פי כן.
No, I know that, and אף על פי כן there's a to'eles, there's a tachlis to'eles to what I'm doing. That, that distinction between כי אין ברוב דברי and כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי, that, that's what we're talking about. To recognize, to recognize that if I learn Mesillas Yesharim and don't find chiddushim, there's a difference between that and between, between reporting that and reporting back that there were not chiddushim in Mesillas Yesharim. And the ability to recognize that difference, whether ein berov devarav or אני הקטן לא מצאתי ברוב דבריו is a question of of how much we're misgaber on our natural self-centeredness, in this context, the self-centeredness that expresses itself intellectually. That natural self-centeredness that we have, which lichora ranks second to to to nothing else in in terms of in terms of our priorities in tikkun hamiddos, expresses itself in obviously in in other areas and realms as well, not just, not just intellectually, and just to to briefly mention one other. Often when when we encounter adversity, when we again have to deal with some degree of yissurim, there's a very high level on our part of frustration, resentment, anger. It's always the case, always the case that what generates those reactions of the frustration, the resentment, and the anger is also a self-centeredness, not an intellectual self-centeredness, but call it an existential self-centeredness. It's true of virtually almost everyone that whatever yissurim the person may be enduring, there are yissurim in the world that other people are enduring much more gracefully which dwarf his own. When I get a splinter, so I react as if the weight of the world is now, is now on my shoulders and and the and the and I'm frustrated by that encounter with with yissurim. Why? Because I'm oblivious to, I'm oblivious to everyone else. There's a, there's a focus on oneself that we're oblivious to everyone else and what's happening in the world, which would give us a little bit of a sense of proportion. Very, very, very, very few people are dealing with yissurim that they wouldn't benefit from having a sense of proportion by being more attuned to the yissurim that maybe the person sitting right, right next to them is is dealing with. But if I'm so The other way self-centeredness is what's driving that reaction is that it's very easy to fall into the trap of living—it's not so much conscious, it's much more subconscious—of living with a sense of entitlement. When is a person frustrated? When does a person feel resentment? I'm frustrated if I don't feel that I'm able to live and function the way I expect to be able to. Frustration is always when there's a gap between my expectations and what materializes. So that's what generates frustration. So when you stop and reflect on that, it means that if I'm living with frustration, it means it's because I'm living with a sense of entitlement. No one holds an IOU against the Ribono shel Olam. No one has in their hands an IOU. The Ribono shel Olam doesn't—a person's not entitled to anything. עד שלא נוצרתי איני כדאי ועכשיו שנוצרתי כאילו לא נוצרתי.
Everything a person has is a bracha. A person's alive, the biggest bracha. A person's alive and he's a Jew. Kedushas Yisrael, אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים. Everything is a gift. When I get my splinter and begin identifying with Iyov in certain parts of Sefer Iyov, it's just—it's also a form of self-centeredness, a very profound form of existential self-centeredness, completely oblivious to other people's genuine yisurim, and because of that, with a total lack of proportion, reacting with such disproportionality. And moreover, it betrays a sense of entitlement, whether in the intellectual realm, whether in the existential realm, whether in other realms that we haven't touched upon. It's primary within our avoda to chip away and try to correct that midda.