אמר המחבר החיבור הזה לא חיברתי ללמד לבני אדם את אשר לא ידעו אלא להזכירם את הידוע להם כבר ומפורסם אצלם פרסום גדול כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי אלא דברים שרוב בני האדם יודעים אותם ולא מסתפקים בהם כלל אלא שכפי רוב פרסומם וכנגד מה שאמיתתם גלויה לכל כך ההעלם מהם מצוי מאוד והשכחה רבה על כן אין התועלת הנלקט מזה הספר יוצא מן הקריאה בו פעם אחת כי כבר אפשר שלא ימצא הקורא בשכלו חידושים אחר קריאתו שלא היו בו לפני קריאתו אלא מעט אבל התועלת יוצא מן החזרה עליו וההתמדה.
The comment or the tradition from the Vilna Gaon as to the extraordinary precision and economy with which Ramchal wrote, that he didn't find an extra word in the first how many prakim was it 10 11 prakim. Obviously it doesn't mean that a person is supposed to kvetch, that's never the way to understand and to penetrate to what's compressed within divrei Torah. But what it does mean is when in a smooth natural fashion ideas emerge which assume that things were written bedikduk gadol, so then those ideas should be recognized as correct and and a valid insightful reading. Generally we we paraphrase one of the ideas of this paragraph as saying that Ramchal disavows chiddushim within Mesillat Yesharim and says that there aren't too many chiddushim in Mesillat Yesharim. The emet is he says something very very different than that. Ramchal says כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי אלא דברים שרוב בני האדם יודעים אותם.
Addressing each of us directly in the second person, so Ramchal says you won't find chiddushim in Mesillat Yesharim, which is something very different than saying that there are no chiddushim embedded in Mesillat Yesharim. And and he reinforces it: כי כבר אפשר שלא ימצא הקורא בשכלו חידושים אחר קריאתו שלא היו בו לפני קריאתו אלא מעט.
He says it's entirely possible that the korei won't won't find chiddushim besikhlo with his with his sechel. So it's quite clear that Ramchal is in no way implying that there aren't chiddushim in the words between the lines. He's saying but I'm realistic, I recognize that that that most people will will not will not notice and will not discern the chiddushim. Often we we blur that crucial difference between what we don't understand in the text and between the text itself. When the gedolei hadoros for whom me'od... speak belashon katzara, Ich veis, דברי הרמב"ם אינם מובנים or something. What that's shorthand for einam muvanim. And when the shorthand is clear and obviously understood as such, so then it's takeh the best way to express oneself. But yitachen that we live in a time when certainly the society around us doesn't encourage shiflus haruach, doesn't look to people who are shfalei ruach for leadership. And to what extent we're all affected and tainted by that, so everyone has to try to figure out for himself. But yitachen that for us it's good to spell out on a regular basis that it's not that the Rambam doesn't make sense, rachmana litzlan, it's not that the Gemara doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense li hakatam, this doesn't make sense. I'm not zocheh to understand. The Rambam makes sense, the Gemara makes sense. Chazal say כי לא דבר ריק הוא מכם ואם הוא ריק מכם הוא ריק.
Divrei Torah never empty, shallow, they're deep, profound, beautiful. If ever rachmana litzlan they're experienced as reik, it's mikem hu reik. Says haRamchal כי לא תמצא ברוב דברי אלא דברים שברוב בני אדם יודעים אותם אפשר שלא ימצא הקורא בשכלו חידושים.
haRamchal writes that he's coming to counteract shichcha. אלא שכפי רוב פרסומם וכנגד מה שאמיתתם גלויה לכל כך ההעלם מהם מצוי מאוד והשכחה רבה.
So we generally translate shichcha as forgetfulness. Within shichcha is the opposite of zechira. And zechira means either of two things, right? Zechira can mean to remember. Right now a person is conjuring up a certain memory, he remembers something, remembers something. When you go to the supermarket, so please remember to buy a quart of milk. The zechira means that a person again remembers at a certain point. In that sense its opposite shichcha means that the person forgets. He forgets at that moment or maybe it also can mean he forgets entirely. You have a lock with a combination and you forget the combination, so it means that that yediyah a person has lost that yediyah. That's what forgetfulness means. But Rashi also tells us on זכור את יום השבת לקדשו that zechira can also mean תנו לב לזכור תמיד. That zechira means not only what we in English would express as to remember, but to be mindful of, to be constantly mindful of. And it's clear... That when Ramchal speaks of shichecha, he's speaking of shichecha as a lack of mindfulness, as not being mindful of. He's not talking about shichecha the way I forgot the combination because aderaba he's talking about things that are מפורסמים אצלם פרסום גדול. And אף על פי כן they're subject to shichecha. So it's clear that what Ramchal is talking about is a lack of mindfulness. No, the person knows it. If you ask him and if you ask him what the combination is, he'll stop and he'll think and he'll remember. He's talking about a lack of mindfulness, a lack of awareness. So then what Ramchal is teaching us is that the yesodos here are yesodos which are supposed to be integrated into our consciousness, supposed to be embedded permanently and therefore constantly within our consciousness. The emes is that in these opening lines, Ramchal shares the secret. If you think of any, if you zoche to have known a ben or bnei aliya, people for whom there's aliya, constant aliya, as much as that's within to the degree to the degree that that's consistent with כי שבע יפול צדיק. The secret to that life of aliya is the fact that there's a temidius to what they do. That they have embedded within their consciousness zechira in the sense of awareness, zechira in the sense of mindfulness. Klalo shel davar Ramchal concludes perek gimel צריך אדם להיות מתבונן בשכלו תמיד בכל זמן. Skipping one phase, מה הוא הדרך האמיתית לפי חוק התורה שאדם צריך ללכת בה.
If a person really wants to maximize his potential, really wants to be oved Hashem kefi kocho, so the secret is this temidius. Towards the opposite end of the spectrum, there's a famous mashal kemiduma from Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz says if you want to boil some water for a cup of tea, so you take the teakettle and you put it on the fire for a minute. Time to rest a little bit. Time to rest a little bit. Take the teakettle off for a couple minutes to rest a little bit. Then okay, time to continue. Put the teakettle back. And one continues with that cycle of on and off, on and off. As the proportions change between the on and off, a person will come closer and ultimately have a cup of tea, but if he wants to maximize the amount of water that he's going to boil, if he wants to maximize the number of cups of tea that he can drink, then he's going to leave it on the fire all the time. In that same perek gimmel, Ramchal says, הנה מה שראוי לכל אדם שיהיה מדקדק ושוקל דרכיו דבר יום ביומו כסוחרים הגדולים אשר יפלסו תמיד כל עסקיהם למען לא יתקלקלו.
At the, if you have if you have been in the supermarket when they're changing shifts for the cashiers, so when every shift ends, the manager comes and the manager counts the amount of money that's in the drawer and then that's going to be compared to all the sales that were rung up, the amount of money that was in the drawer beforehand, and then everything has to everything has to shtimm. Everything has to shtimm. Same thing happens in the bank every day when the day is over, so then the money in each teller's drawer is going to be checked against how much money was there to begin with and whatever transactions were conducted. In this context, an interesting Rambam. The Rambam writes in Hilchos De'os when he's talking about cultivating the correct combination, the correct blend of de'os, so he says this is his interpretation plus elaboration of a meimar Chazal. He says, לפיכך ציוו חכמים הראשונים שיהיה אדם שם לשון שומה דעותיו תמיד.
That a person has to be constantly assessing, reassessing, evaluating his middos. So it's something extraordinary. Yitachen that yesterday the person was sham de'osav and everything was good. Everything was good. Everything was good. Wasn't too interested in money, wasn't too disinterested in money, wasn't eating too much, wasn't eating too little, wasn't overreacting, wasn't underreacting, everything was good. Everything was good. It's been that way now for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. No, he's got to check again today. ציוו חכמים הראשונים שיהיה אדם שם דעותיו תמיד. זה לעומת זה עשה אלוקים.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a person with a capacity for change, a capacity for hischadshus, so that no matter what mistakes we made in the past, we can change and we have a hischadshus. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us that middah which is the which which unlocks the potential for human greatness, but זה לעומת זה עשה אלוקים. If a person has that koach for change and that koach for hischadshus, given the זה לעומת זה עשה אלוקים, it can play out in an undesirable direction as well. The chazakah, the momentum notwithstanding, ציוו חכמים הראשונים שיהיה אדם שם דעותיו תמיד. הנה מה שראוי לכל אדם שיהיה מדקדק ושוקל דרכיו דבר יום ביומו.
The Ramchal is talking more broadly than the Rambam. He's not only talking about middos, but the yesod in terms of the need for temidius and how it's that which... If a person can sustain the temidiyos, it's that which is the secret bisyata d'shmaya to an aliyah masmedes.