Ve'amarti belibi. ואמרתי בלבי שאחבר בעניין הזה ספר שיהיה נחלק על שורשי חובות הלבבות ומצוות המצפונים ולשומו מאסף לכל ושיהיה מספיק בעניינם ומורה הדרך הטובה והישרה ומנהיג במנהגי הקדמונים ומוסר החסידים.
So the Chovot HaLevavot organized the sefer around the shorashim, the principles, the major principles and categories of Chovot HaLevavot. U'meir mishnat hapetayut, right, it will awaken from the slumber of foolishness. Shomer petaim Hashem, machkimas pesi. Right, the imagery of that if a person isn't focused on what's important in life that it's as if he goes through life sleepwalking. We know from the Rambam Hilchos Teshuva, uru yeshenim mishenaschem, the Rabbeinu Yonah in Sha'arei Teshuva. ומעיר משנת הפתיות ומעמיק בדקדוקי החכמה הזאת ומזכיר דעת אלקים בתורתו וגורם הצלת הנפש ומזריז העושה ומעורר המעלים ומיישר המקדים ומרגיל המאחר.
So not only is the sefer Chovot HaLevavot designed to teach us Chovot HaLevavot but there's also in avodas Hashem, again here Chovot HaLevavot particularly in that tchum, but it's true more broadly as well, sequence is also important. Meyasher hamakdim, right, someone who is prematurely involved in some avoda, so it sets him straight. U'margil ham'acher and someone who is delaying for later an avoda which is supposed to come earlier. It's true in Talmud Torah, it's true in avodas Hashem in general that there's a natural progression and we need to go מן המוקדם אל המאוחר and when we don't follow that natural and necessary sequence it doesn't work. וכאשר זממתי לעשות מה שהסכמתי עליו מחיבור הספר הזה ראיתי כי אין איש כמוני ראוי לחבר חיבור כמוהו ושיערתי בנפשי.
So he had second thoughts and considered himself. unworthy to write this sefer. v'shiarti b'nafshi כי כחי קצר מחלק מחלקותיו כפי הצורך לאומנות כובד הדבר בעיניי וקוצר דעתי וחלשות שכלי מהשיג העניינים.
He questioned his ability, his qualifications to be able to understand and present and organize as it needs to be. That was one reservation he had to overcome. The other reservation was ושאינני בקי בצחות לשון הערבי. My, I'm not such a master of the Judeo-Arabic asher b'chibarti oso, which was the language in which the sefer was going to be written מפני שהיא קרובה להבין לרוב אנשי דורנו. ויראתי שאטרח בדבר יותר מן הראוי ושאעבור בו את המידה הנכונה עד שאמרתי בנפשי לשוב ממחשבתי ולהשיב ממה שהסכמתי עליו.
So he had questions like this. You know, we're almost a almost a millennium later, and you know, so with the benefit of historical hindsight, so we rather wistfully think, you know, if only the Chovos HaLevavos would have written the sefer in Loshon Hakodesh. So for the past close to a thousand years, so how long after he was mechaber the sefer was it studied in the original? I don't know, until the 12th century, I'm not sure how long. So why didn't he have that long-term perspective? For close to, again, for so many hundreds of years, so mistama b'meshech hadoros, so in Teiman they continued to learn the Chovos HaLevavos in the original, but the rest of the world. So we're all getting it in a kli sheni. Yeah, the same question you can ask on the Rambam, what he wrote in Arabic, Saadia Gaon, Yehuda Halevi, all the medieval classics. And I guess you could say, you know, that in their humility, they didn't think they were going to stand at the top of the bestseller list for the next thousand years. Halevai that, halevai for the next 25 or 50 years, the Chovos HaLevavos would be on the bestseller list. Maybe, but I don't know. So it could be that the pshat is as follows. Now the Rishonim understood, the cycle of Golus is, in case those of us in America didn't understand it, recent events and trajectory is clearly reminding us, every Golus is temporary. You know, whether it yields to the geulah asida, halevai, or whether it yields to another Golus, but every Golus is temporary. So a Golus in Muslim Spain is temporary and therefore the fact that the language is Arabic is temporary. So it's not that the Rishonim understood that. Something again, you know, the problem with the, you know, attributing it to his humility is that humility is not supposed to is not supposed to result in in lack of lack of perspective and it doesn't, genuine humility it doesn't. So yitachen, maybe the answer is as follows. Avada the Chovos HaLevavos his his certainly his she'ifa was that in Tashpav, you know, we'd still be studying his sefer. But one second, משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say lo aleinu parents have a small child v'hu five years old who's who's very sick and the best thing to do would be to consult a big mumche but he's out of network. So it's going to be very expensive. But they actually do have the money, but the money is in they put the money away, v'hu it's in a college account, wherever the money is. So they'll say you know we can't we can't touch that money because we have to worry about what's going to be in twenty years, what's going to be in forty years. So obviously obviously that's wrong because there isn't going to be a twenty years unless the unless the child gets better now. So maybe the pshat is Chovos HaLevavos avada he understands that that by writing it in Judeo-Arabic that's going to that's going to become dated. Does he know how soon it will become dated? Pshita not. You can't tell you whether it's fifty years or two hundred years but either way in terms of, you know, the overall scheme of history, of course he knows it's going to become dated, right? There's no reason to think that everything written in English is going to be read in, you know, divrei Torah written in English are going to be read in a hundred years from now. Meiheicha taisi. So avada he knows, but he'll say I don't have the luxury of of worrying about posterity. I have to worry about this generation. If I think this generation is drowning, then I don't have the luxury of saying that. So if, and that's what he says מפני שהיא קרובה להבין לרוב אנשי דורנו. That in this generation he says if I'd write it in Loshon HaKodesh which clearly would have been more natural for him, right? Because he says אינני בקי בצחות לשון הערבי. He doesn't say you know I'm not a writer. You know some people, you know, they have a koach to speak, they don't have a koach to write. Some people have the koach to write and not a koach to speak. He doesn't say I don't have a koach to write. He says Arabic is not my not my mame loshon. Should use exact words but so he doesn't he doesn't say that that I can't and you know the melachas ksiva is is foreign to me. No, the easier thing, the more natural thing for him would have been to write in Loshon HaKodesh, but no, מפני שהיא קרובה להבין לרוב אנשי דורנו. So that's always a tension but but at the end of the day, you know, the chachmei hamesora can't be looking only at posterity because it's their their first obligation is to make sure the Torah gets to the next generation. And then that generation's first obligation is to make sure it gets to the next generation. And and when there was a tension between the two, so so that's what that's what Chovos HaLevavos says, you know, it was a p'shita, you know, it it wasn't a question which language I was going to write it in. It had to be written in in Judeo-Arabic. It was the need of that generation. And that's certainly true for I think it's certainly true for Rav Saadia Gaon, Rav Yehuda Halevi. Could be the Rambam's cheshbon with the Moreh is a different cheshbon. I'm not sure it's the same cheshbon. Yeah, that was his cheshbon for Peirush Hamishnayos but I'm not sure that's the cheshbon. So mistama, again, hamuvan min ha'omur, if it's not the tzorach hador that the Chofetz Chaim and the Mishnah Berurah are responding to, so then avada it should be written in loshon hakodesh because that's obviously the eternal language for Talmud Torah. That's always going to be... but once it's the tzorach hador, so then the tzorach hador is machria over posterity. You have to get there. The bigger question is when did the Rambam write something like Sefer Hamitzvos in Arabic? So there's a famous teshuva the Rambam says I have charata that I wrote it in Arabic. But you have to understand me'ikar ma'ika savar, why? He said and I hope I'll have time to rewrite it in loshon hakodesh. So sue the Sultan that the Rambam didn't have time to rewrite it in loshon hakodesh. But and inach nami, so the Rambam says he had charata, he says he had charata. They asked him to have Mishneh Torah translated into Arabic and he said aderaba I have charata that I wrote Sefer Hamitzvos in Arabic. And then you have to figure out what me'ikar ma'ika savar. וכאשר זמותי להסיר משא הטורח הזה מעלי ולהניח לי מחברו שבתי וחשדתי את נפשי על בחירה במנוחה ולשכון במעון העצלה בהשקט ובטחה ויראתי שיהיה רצון הטבע להניח המחשבה הזאת ושהוא יתענה על דרך המנוחה והשלוה ולהסכים על ההנחה ולשבת במושב העצלות.
So I began to think that maybe my reservations were a yetzer hara masquerading as a yetzer hatov. Maybe I was just copping out, maybe that was the easy way out was to invoke my inadequacy and lack of consummate skill in Arabic. וידעתי כי כמה סכלים אבדו בעבור המורא. That excessive fear and reservation can cause a person to lose what he would otherwise have been able to attain. Not exactly the same emphasis, but there's an extraordinary comment of the Ba'al Ha'maor here in his hakdoma to the Ba'al Ha'maor. על כן מלא חשק לב כל חכם לב לדרוש ולעסוק בחכמה להבין ולהשכיל אם להימין אם להשמאיל בין האמת ובין השקר להורות ולהשכיל.
So any person who's a chacham lev is overflowing with this desire to pursue emes and to differentiate between emes and sheker, l'horos u'lehavdil. ויש אשר יגבר החשק הזה על לבו, this is extraordinary, the whole thing is, ויש אשר יגבר החשק הזה על לבו. Sometimes that desire, that bakashas ha'emes, that desire for emes becomes so strong, עד שיראה כחושק היוצא מדרך הצניעות, that he's overstepping his boundaries. עד שיראה כחושק היוצא מדרך הצניעות והמוסר בהסירו מסוה הבושת מעל פניו לבחון האמת
when he removes the veil of inhibition, of boshes, of inhibition, again in that burning desire to discern emes, ke'inyan shenemar as David HaMelech says, ואדברה בעדותיך נגד מלכים ולא אבוש. ויש רמז לדבר הזה.
Listen to this. There's a remez that a person, again a chacham lev, that a person is supposed to overcome inhibitions in pursuit of truth, and again, and he used that imagery of a masveh of boshes, of a veil of inhibition. ויש רמז לדבר הזה במסוה שהיה משה מסיר מעל פניו בבואו לדבר עם אדני לקבל זוהר ההוד וקרני הכבוד מלפני מלך הכבוד ישתבח שמו.
He says there's a remez to that in the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu when he would go into Ohel Moed to receive nevuah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu would remove the masveh. So says the Baal HaMaor, the remez in that is that again that what the masveh represents is this something which is holding back, right? It's in the sense of obstructing the vision, right? It's holding back. So it represents inhibition and lemaiseh a person, again it has to obviously be understood in the right sense and done on the right level, but a person has to overcome that inhibition to attain the truth that he's capable of attaining, to learn what he's capable of learning. וכמה חסרונות גורם אותם הפחד. And again this fear of inadequacy, and sometimes fear of inadequacy is very well placed, right? This does not mean that anything any of us feel inadequate for we should overcome, no, mistama most of the time it's well placed. וכמה חסרונות גורם אותם הפחד. And how many deficiencies that excessive fear, that inappropriate fear. vezacharti divrei ha'omer and I reminded myself, I was reminded of the saying מן הזהירות שלא תרבה להיזהר, that one thing amongst things you have to be nizhar for, you have to be nizhar on not being nizhar too much, right? min hazehirus, right? Within the midah of zehirus is to be nizhar not to be too nizhar, to know when it's excessive. ואמרתי שאם היה כל מתעסק בענין מעניני הטובה ולהורות הדרך הישרה והנכונה שותק ועומד עד שיגמור לו כל רצונו,
if a person held himself to, if everyone held himself to the exacting standard of absolute complete mastery and have every relevant skill, if everyone were to hold himself to that standard, לא היה אדם מדבר דבר אחר הנביאים עליהם השלום. So the last one to have said anything, the last one to have said. אשר בחרם השם לשליחותו, ve'imtzom be'ezrato. ואילו היה כל מי שרוצה למעלות לא כל מידות הטוב ולא יכול להשיגם מניח מה שהזדמן לו מהן, היו כל בני אדם ריקים מן הטובות וחסרים מן החמודות, ושבים במוצא תוחלת נכזבה, והיו שבילי הטוב שוממים,
the pathways of tov would be desolate, ume'on hachesed ne'ezav. So it obviously takes self-knowledge, but just about everything in life does, to know when we're appropriately being meizeher and when it crosses the line into ribuy zehirus. Okay, we'll stop there.