Today we will attempt to outline the hashkafas Chazal with regard to making hishtadlus b'parnassah. And what we saw, I think very unequivocally, is that it's nothing less than a religious obligation. Number one, in a positive sense of asei tov, that it's a mitzvah to make hishtadlus b'parnassah. גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפיו, but even in halakha, it's quite clear that hishtadlus b'parnassah is a tzorech mitzvah. For instance, a person is not supposed to be maflig b'sefinah ג' ימים קודם השבת, but l'tzorech mitzvah it's muttar, and in such a context, parnassah is considered a tzorech mitzvah. And then we also noted the many ma'amarei Chazal that cautioned us that it's also a religious obligation, not only in terms of asei tov, but in terms of sur me'ra as well, כל שאינו מלמד בנו אומנות כאילו מלמדו ליסטות. That Chazal cautioned us against the yetzer hara of gezel, and clearly not to make adequate hishtadlus b'parnassah compounds and magnifies that yetzer hara. That's what we discussed last week. But truth be told, instinctively, when we hear such a hashkafa, even though again, I think it emerges unequivocally from innumerable mekoros in Chazal, instinctively we resist accepting such a hashkafa. Someone whose attachment to Torah has become strong and intense, someone whose aspirations in Torah are real and challenging as they should be, so once a person understands the chashivus of Torah, somehow or other we're suspicious of anything which seems to distract or divert us from that exclusive preoccupation. And that seems to be a healthy instinct, certainly seems to have its root in our yetzer hatov. And yet, the koshya hashniya is that it seems unequivocally clear that the Torah does mandate hashkafa such as that which we spoke of last week. So what's the koshya hashlishiya here? So the koshya hashlishiya is to be found in the Rambam in Perek Gimmel, Hilchos De'os, Halachos Bais and Gimmel, where he has his presentation of b'chol d'rachecha doeihu and בכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. Not so much the long halakhos, I want to be mikatzer, I'm not going to read them, but I think we're all familiar with it. But I'd just like to share with you two ha'aros, not so much about what the Rambam says, but where he says it. Or more precisely, where he doesn't say it, where he doesn't place the halakha, and where he does place the halakha. The second one is more germane to what we've been discussing. The first one, which is absolutely remarkable and probably something which a person should be mindful of every day of his life, is later in Perek Hey, Hilchos De'os, the Rambam has a perek which he begins: keshem she'hechacham. כשם שהחכם ניכר בחכמתו ובדעותיו והוא מובדל בהם משאר העם כך צריך שיהיה ניכר במעשיו ובמאכלו ובמשקהו ובבעילתו ובעשיית צרכיו ובדיבורו ובהליכו ובמלבושו ובכלכלת דבריו ובמשאו ובמתנו ויהיו כל המעשים האלו נאים ומתוקנים ביותר.
There's a higher standard for a chacham, a higher standard in everything a person does, in every realm of life, every type of activity in which we engage, so those who are chachamim have to hold themselves to a higher standard. And it's interesting that some things which we find in Pirkei Avos, the Rambam quotes here in Perek Hey, the perek which he has introduced again as the higher standard for chachamim. It's not clear whether everything in this perek is necessarily limited, but certainly for the most part, that's the emphasis here. In light of that, so I think we would have expected that if you have a mishna in Pirkei Avos of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, this demand that we strive that everything we do, everything, without exception, all-inclusive, all-encompassing, everything we do should be leshem shamayim, so I would have thought once the Rambam has already made this conceptual breakthrough that not everything in Pirkei Avos is addressed to each of us, but some of it is not addressed to us, some of it is only addressed to chachamim, to gedolim, that that mishna of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים certainly would have been an example of that. That mishna certainly should have been included in Perek Hey, not here in Perek Gimmel where the Rambam is addressing all of us. And yet it's here in Perek Gimmel that the Rambam quotes this halacha of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, that everything a person does is supposed to be measured by and oriented leshem shamayim. That's in terms of what's to be gleaned from where the Rambam did not place the halacha. In terms of what's to be learned from where he did place the halacha, and again it's this which ties in more directly with what the type of inyonim we were discussing last week is again, as you'll recall, earlier here in Hilchos Deios, the first two perakim as well as the first halacha in Perek Gimmel have been about how a person is supposed to follow the derech hamemutza’as, a person is supposed to follow the middle path between the extremes when it comes to middos, and in the Rambam's, according to the Rambam's understanding, this is actually how we're mekayem the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav. Good, so that's the first topic which the Rambam takes up in Hilchos Deios. And now he's finished that topic, so now he wants to tell us about another very fundamental idea. But were that the case, so then the Rambam certainly should have finished, certainly should have finished the discussion of vehalachta bidrachav, of the golden mean, at the end of one perek, and bechol derachecha da'eihu and וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים should have begun a new perek. And yet the Rambam, very, very conspicuously doesn't do it that way. He lets the discussion of vehalachta bidrachav again, which he identifies with the derech hamemutza’as, he lets that spill over into Perek Gimmel and only in Halacha Beis does he come to the ideas of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים and bechol derachecha da'eihu. So clearly, and be'emes when you look in Halacha Aleph, so this is not just by inference, but it's almost explicit. One of the things, just parenthetically, one of the things that we sometimes miss in the Rambam, I think Reb Chaim and mamshichei darko after him and the Rav did a lot to restore this, is the Rambam intended Mishneh Torah to be studied keseder. That's the way he writes in the hakdama. That's not the way history basically has. has decided that Mishneh Torah be studied, we look it up in the Ein Mishpat. But when we look it up in the Ein Mishpat, so sometimes we don't really have the perspective in terms of what's happening within the Rambam. And sometimes we miss a lot because of that. And this is actually a perfect example here. The Rambam here is basically responding to the same type of question that we just asked. And that is in Perek Aleph and Perek Beis, the Rambam says again, you have to go the Derech Hamemutza'as. What does that mean? That means that yes, a person certainly should not go to the extreme of being driven to amass wealth, but on the other hand, he's not supposed to go to the other extreme either where he doesn't even spend enough time to earn enough money to meet his basic needs. And yes, a person certainly shouldn't be any kind of hedonist or shouldn't be gluttonous in eating, but on the other hand, a person should eat a sound diet that will keep him that will keep him healthy, Kehena Vechehena. So when you read this, and basically the Rambam in פרק ג הלכה א raises the question explicitly, again, the same type of question bothers us which again probably subliminally bothered many of us last week of how can it be, how can it be that the Torah is distracting us and diverting us? Oh, isn't it good that a person should go to that extreme in his Avodas Hashem that he's not interested in money at all, not even in in minimally interested in money? And shouldn't the a person's Ruchnius be so strong and so defining that he doesn't even have interest in eating anything and he should follow some kind of ascetic regimen? Shouldn't that be the case? Isn't that a fuller expression of devoting oneself to Avodas Hashem? So the Rambam says, that's why I now have to introduce you to the concept of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. Because וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים is the Kotzvah Hashlishi here. Again, the Kotzvah Harishon is that it's again unequivocal in Chazal that a person is supposed to make Hishtadlus Parnasa. And the Rambam tells us unequivocally that a person is supposed to avoid certain extremes even though we see those extremes as being more spiritual and therefore our instinct is that they should be more authentic rather than being branded excessive or extreme. So the Kotzvah Hashlishi is, ah, but if a person recognizes that the Torah says Bechol Derachecha Da'ehu and וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, so then we realize that when the Torah says that you have to make Hishtadlus Parnasa, the Torah is not thereby distracting or diverting us from Avodas Hashem, but the Torah's telling us that we have a too narrow definition of what that means. Anything which the Torah mandates, anything which which the Torah says should be done, if only a person orients that and gears that Leshem Shamayim, so that too is an act of Avodas Hashem. And that's what the Rambam says in concluding here: נמצא המהלך בדרך זו כל ימיו עובד את השם תמיד אפילו בשעה שנושא ונותן אפילו בשעה שהוא ישן.
So that's the Rambam's Kotzvah Hashlishi, that yes, a person is supposed to make Hishtadlus Parnasa, what we were discussing last week. Yes, a person is supposed to moderate again when it comes to Middos what the Rambam's been outlining here in Perek Aleph and Perek Beis, but that doesn't represent a compromise. It doesn't represent any kind of distraction or diversion, but on the contrary, it's rather that the Torah says that one's Avodas Hashem there are many fronts to it. And it's a mistake and a big mistake for a person to think that only the hours that he's privileged and that he should seek to maximize and increase to the best of his ability that he spends in the Beis Medrash, that only that time is Leshem Shamayim and everything else. is ke'ilu k'fao sheid. But that's not correct. Of course a person is supposed to be מרבה כפי כוחו וכפי מיטב יכולתו in the amount of time he spends learning and the amount of time he spends in formal taryag mitzvos, but a person has to realize that the whole idea of bechol derachecha da'ehu and בכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים is that a person can and should be עובד את השם תמיד when he's making the hishtadlus for the parnassah, when he's again avoiding that extreme of not even eating enough to keep himself healthy vechulu. This certainly reinforces something very, very basic. It's certainly true again even within talmud Torah and mitzvos formally defined, but in many ways it's even more true here. And that is that something that we have to be on guard against, and it's certainly one of the things which we are most susceptible to, that human nature is most prone to, is that we all have routines. Whether you're in college now and that's the routine, or whether learning full-time, or whether holding down a job. So we all have routines, we all have routines. And the danger is simply going about the routines automatically, mindlessly, and without thinking. Now why is it that the danger is even greater outside of Torah and mitzvos? Because acharei kechol hakol, Torah and mitzvos are intrinsically meaningful. And as flawed and as undesirable as it is, even if a person is not stopping to think and reflect about what he's doing, but what he's doing is just intrinsically meaningful and intrinsically holy. But when it comes to going about one's routine, going to work in the morning, writing out checks and paying your bills, when it comes to a person's routine, so these things are not, obviously not intrinsically meaningful the way sitting and learning a blatt Gemara is, the way davening is, the way doing a chesed is. And here the difference between someone who is not masiach da'as, someone who remains focused and oriented and geared l'shem shamayim, as opposed to someone who just again on automatic pilot goes about his routine, is the difference between night and day. And when you stop and think about it, that again, it happens totally passively, it happens too often without our even being aware of it or sensitive to it. This reflection in the morning of what I'm trying to accomplish by going to work or any other milei d'alma which I need to be involved in, that awareness can make the difference between spending 40 or 50 years of one's life in avodas Hashem or 40 or 50 years of one's life not involved in avodas Hashem. And it's staggering, absolutely staggering, how again those few minutes in the morning, maybe once or twice during the day, at night, to reorient oneself makes the difference between עובד ה' תמיד כל היום, because when you think about it, the average person, when you make a cheshbon of how many hours the average person spends on the job, how many hours a person has to spend eating, es tzorkhei haguf, such as sleeping, it's decades of one's life, probably the majority of one's life. And these few minutes again of orienting and reorienting oneself can make the difference between oved Hashem tamid and Rachmana litzlan missing out on that opportunity. It's a klal gadol baTorah, and it's also that again which underlies such hashkafas as that we spoke of, next week bli neder we'll have other occasions as well that again these seemingly moderate hashkafas, there's nothing in it which is distracting or diverting us, but it's simply a manifestation of this fundamental idea of וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים.