Transcript

I think we had done, we had looked last time at the concluding mashal that the Chovot HaLevavot gives. And let's perhaps take a look at that again and try to understand a little bit, be’ezrat Hashem, the

וראיתי לחתום פתיחת הספר הזה במשל נאה יזרז אותך לעמוד על עניינו

veye’ircha, it will awaken you, it will arouse you, לדעת מעלת המין הזה מן המצוות משאריתן. So there is, again, this is something that the Chovot HaLevavot said earlier in the hakdamah. There is a hierarchy. You know, the Mishnah in Avos says

הוי זהיר במצוה קלה כבחמורה שאין אתה יודע מתן שכרן של מצוות

notwithstanding, but that doesn't mean that, you know, that we have total agnosticism, total chesron yedi’ah in terms of the relative importance of mitzvot. So in a different sense, right, the Rambam says בכל מצוות לא תעשה we can infer the chomer hamitzvah generally. There are occasional exceptions, but generally one can infer the chomer hamitzvah from the onesh. If one mitzvah is misas beis din, so clearly that’s chamur than something which is in quotation marks only kares. And something which is kares is chamur, again in quotation marks, than something which is only misa bidei shamayim. But by and large, by mitzvos aseh, so there the Torah doesn't detail the sachar. Although even there the Rambam says it's not an absolute rule. He says when a mitzvas aseh is linked to a mitzvas lo sa’aseh, so then you can look at the chomer of its twin lo sa’aseh and that will give insight into the chomer haseh. So Melacha bashabbos is both aseh and lo sa’aseh. Melacha be-Yom Tov is both aseh and lo sa’aseh. So clearly when Chazal say הוי זהיר במצוה קלה כבחמורה it means, you know, in a certain area. And that’s what the Chovot HaLevavot is also telling us, that there is a hierarchy within mitzvot. And the Chovot HaLevavot, again, not rachmana litzlan that that implies any hisrashlus rachmana litzlan in terms of dikduk bechovos ha-evarim. But there is a ma’alah of מן הזה מן המצוות משאריתן. Now the next line I think I don't think I translated it correctly. ומעלת שאר החכמות הטבעיות והמוסריות והדבריות מחכמת התורה. So the preposition Mem, right? In English we’re used to prepositions being words. But in lashon hakodesh prepositions are often letters, right? Lamed, Mem, etc. Prepositions can be letters, they are letters. So the preposition mem sometimes means if you say that one is greater, bigger, whatever, a comparison of one to another, so you have it with a mem. Right? Hu gadol me'achiv means he's older than his brother or he's bigger than his brother. Right? So the prepositional mem, but that's not what it means here. So I think Rav Kapach in his translation, so he translates this line as follows, meaning he translates from the Arabic:

ומעלת שאר המדעים כלומר הטבעים וההכשרתיים וההגיון לגבי ידיעת התורה.

So what this line means is, and again, in light of this, it's because this is what Ibn Tibbon is saying also, is that one from the moshal he's about to give, one will also understand the importance of sh'ar chochmos from within chochmas haTorah, from the role that they play, from their bearing, from their relevance to chochmas haTorah. So the mem is more of from within, not the mem of the comparative sense. What I said last time what was correct. Okay. So now to the moshal. The English translation also, there's a new English translation but I don't have that one. The older English translation also is similar to Rav Kapach's translation. Just reading the beginning of the moshal:

שאחד מן המלכים חלק אל עבדיו לוזי המשי לבחון בהם את דעתם.

So he gives them unprocessed silk. And then the Chovos HaLevavos goes on to describe how the pikei'ach divides it into different groups: the superior quality, the intermediate quality, the inferior or or the least, whereas the how does he refer to the other? K'sil, the fool, he doesn't separate it out and because of that he's not able to produce anything superior with the silk. But the way the Chovos HaLevavos introduces the moshal is that the king designed this as a test. Right?

שאחד מן המלכים חלק אל עבדיו לוזי המשי לבחון בהם את דעתם.

And it's quite clear that that's intended, that that's not incidental to the moshal, that that's absolutely essential to the moshal because when he then begins to present what the nimshal is, so he says:

וכן האלוקים יתברך נתן ספר תורתו האמת לעבדיו לבחון אותם.

So there's a tremendously important yesod here in Chovos HaLevavos. If we were asked to say where we're tested in relation to the Torah, it would be as to whether or not we abide by the Torah, whether or not we live by the Torah. Do we comply with the Torah? And the Chovos HaLevavos says that the test element of Torah is even more basic than that, it runs even deeper than that. It's whether we correctly interpret the Torah in the first place.

וכן אלוקים יתברך נתן ספר תורתו האמת לעבדו לבחון אותם.

And the maskil, livchon osam what? To see will we, will we eat only beheima tehora and not beheima temei'a? Will we eat only beheima tehora if it's shachted in accordance with the halacha l'Moshe mi'Sinai of shechita? Yes, yes, but it runs much deeper than that.

והמשכיל הפיקח כשיקרא אותו בימי הבנתו הברורה יחלקהו לשלושה חלקים.

Why, why doesn't Hakadosh Baruch Hu as it were in Chumash? So why doesn't the Torah? I think on an email you can get, right, if someone wants, either it's objectively important or the person's a nudnik so then they mark the email very important. I think there are more nudniks out there than there are people who have very important emails to send, but whatever. There is such a way of marking an email of being very important. So why didn't Hakadosh Baruch Hu flag the Chovos HaLevavos and highlight their importance in Chumash? So the Chovos HaLevavos says it's obviously bekavana. Whatever's in the Torah, how the Torah is written, everything obviously is bekavana. It's bekavana, part of the livchon osam is again the nimshal to the melech who wants to see what the avadim will do with this silk that he presents them. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to see what we, on the one hand it means we collectively, but it also means we individually at a certain point, what we do with the Torah. So the test of Torah isn't exhausted by do we comply? Of course, of course, of course, that's, it goes without saying how essential and basic that is to the test of Torah. But the test of Torah is again at an even earlier stage: to know how to properly comply, we have to properly interpret and prioritize in the first place. It's impossible to properly live a life of Torah by simply receiving a specific directive for every moment of life and and just mindlessly complying. What what does that mean? So maybe first to give some examples and then to try to explain what what the underlying idea is. So in in the on one hand different, but on the other hand relevant context, so the Ramban famously he has this sod, as you know, in three places: he has it by Tishbos v'Shavos, he has it by Kedoshim Tihyu, he has it by Veasita HaYashar VeHatov. So the Ramban says it's it's fundamental to Torah. Torah, because of our limitations, so Torah in terms of the number of psukim, the number of mishnayos, the number of blatt gemara, Torah is finite. Right, there's only so many psukim in in Chumash. There are only so many mishnayos in in Mishna and how long does it take to make a Siyum? Five and a half. Five and a half years. There's a finite number of mishnayos and Daf Yomi is what seven and a half years? So Torah is finite. Torah has to be finite because since since we're limited, so to finish Torah on any level, Torah has to be finite. Mi'idach gisa, the number of situations in which a person, again, every Jew from the time of Ma'amad Har Sinai until עד שיכלו כל נשמות שבגוף, until until Mashiach comes, the number of situations that if you multiply that by the number of situations that any one of us encounters in his lifetime and you multiply that by the number of Jews. Okay, so maybe you then can subtract whatever, you know, overlap there is between that. It's going to be some kind of astronomical number, right? Which which far surpasses the number of psukim in Chumash, the number of explicit directives we have. So the Ramban says it's it's a klal gadol that that the Torah gives specific examples in in terms of bein adam l'chavero. The Torah has many, many mitzvos, specific examples in terms of how the Torah tells us specifically, directly, mitzvos which govern bein adam l'chavero and then the Torah says and in general Veasita HaYashar VeHatov and that we are supposed to develop based on those mitzvos a sense for what Hakadosh Baruch Hu considers yashar v'tov and then extrapolate to any and every other situation. And it's the same yesod as is relevant in in Kedoshim Tihyu, but Kedoshim Tihyu is talking about a different area of life, it's not talking bein adam l'chavero etcetera. So lemaaseh a person can't just mindlessly say okay tell me what to do and I'll do it. You know I want to be a good Jew, tell me what to do and I'll do it. You know tell me give me tell me when to jump, I'll jump and and. So again of course it's true that that a person is meshabed his sechel to the sechel haTorah, to chochmas haTorah, to חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא. But that, that notwithstanding, the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed avodas Hashem, it's impossible for a person. to simply retreat to a position of, you know, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. That works a lot of the time. It works a lot of the time. If you want to know how to cut the salad on Shabbos, it works. It works a lot of the time, but it doesn't work all the time. It doesn't work all the time. And the same thing's here, what the Chovos HaLevavos is telling us is the same. It's not as simple as okay, I'll follow the Ribono Shel Olam's Torah. No, the Ribono Shel Olam, there's a test in first you have to figure out within the Torah which elements of avodah are most fundamental. Right? That's what this whole mashal is highlighting. You want in Brachos it says that לעולם יהא אדם ערום ביראה. Right? So a person has to be cunning in his yiras shamayim. So we don't really associate those two. We don't associate ormah, cunningness, with yirah. And then the Sefer Chassidim in commenting on this Gemara in Brachos gives two examples. One example is from Parshas Matos where the Torah says ויקצוף משה על פקודי החיל that when they come back after the engaging in milchama with Midyan, so Moshe Rabbeinu angrily accosts the commanding officers and he says, hachayisem kol nekeivah? You what? You spared the women? And then he goes on to chastise them, hein heinah hayu, they were the ones who lured Bnei Yisrael into sin. So the Sefer Chassidim says yeah, but if you look, when Moshe Rabbeinu gave them marching orders he never told them that they were supposed to kill all the women. So he says yeah, ein hachi nami, Moshe Rabbeinu didn't tell them, and that's what the Gemara in Brachos means לעולם יהא אדם ערום ביראה that again we have to be mekayem again as scrupulously, as meticulously every kutzo shel yod of what's explicit, but that doesn't exhaust our obligation and there is a need to know, you know, what does the Torah expect of me in this situation, even if this situation isn't explicitly described in Shulchan Aruch. Again, it's there's a tzad shaveh to all this, to the Sefer Chassidim, to the Ramban, to the Chovos HaLevavos here. And in toch hapshat is as follows. If you go back to the very beginning of the hakdamah, you know the velt says בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים, you know, we don't do enough chazarah so when we come back everything's everything is everything is new, so baruch Hashem it's been a long time since the hakdamah so who remembers what the beginning of the hakdamah was? But okay, so בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים. If we go back to the beginning of the hakdamah, the hakdamah again in this edition it's the second paragraph, around seven lines into the hakdamah, hagedolah shebatovos, the greatest of the innumerable tovos

אשר הטיב בהם הבורא לעבדיו המדברים אחרי המציאו אותם על תכונת הכרתם בהם גמורה והבנתם שלמה היא החכמה.

The greatest blessing, the greatest benefaction that Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed upon people is chokhmah. It's possible that in the conclusion of the hakdama, so Chovos Halevavos has taken us full circle back to that starting point that hiyos that the greatest tova, the greatest blessing Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed upon us is chochma, אשר היא חיי רוחם ונר שכלם. The Rambam would express a similar idea as he does, that it's the tzelam Elokim with which Hakadosh Baruch Hu endowed us. So that precludes that our avodas Hashem should ever be possible just by saying, "tell me what to do and I'll do it." The chochma needs to be operative in avodas Hashem. It can't be, "tell me what to say and I'll parrot it, tell me always just what to do and I'll do it." Yeah, so when the Torah tells us what to do, yes, a person does it, whether he understands it or doesn't understand why, of course a person does it. And of course that element of unconditional acceptance is there. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants, He created man with the biggest tova of being a baal chochma, and so the chochma needs to be front and center in the avodas Hashem, which is why talmud Torah is so central, but beyond talmud Torah, which is why in kiyum mitzvos it's so central. Again, the Ramban says a person has to develop, again, with chochma, a person has to develop a sense. Again, so Chazal give us examples of ve'asisa hayashar vehatov and the lifnim mishuras hadin, but even with the examples Chazal give us, again, it can never be fully specified. A person has to develop a sense for what the Torah wants from a person at any given moment, in any given situation. It comes from a good place in people's hearts, it comes from a very good place in people's hearts. But I don't know, nowadays people want a formula for everything. They want a formula for everything, they want a test for everything, they want, they don't want to think. They want, they want there should be a formula for every situation. How do we know this? How do we know that? And again, and you should be able to plug it in like you plug it into a mathematical formula and it works. And of course there are guidelines to how you think and there are guidelines to values, etc. But there's no formula, there's no formula that replaces the person acting as a baal chochma because that's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us and that's what it means to be oved Hashem. That can't be delegated. That's part of being a Yid who's oved Hashem. And that's why every, every one of us to the best of his ability needs to develop and cultivate that chochma. Again, it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that we don't consult, it doesn't mean that we don't defer, it doesn't mean that we don't ask, but the goal is not to just be able to parrot and respond to. highly specified directives at every moment because then the person is not acting as a ba'al chochma. Yet we have to ask, of course we have to ask of people who know more than us. And do we have to defer? Of course we have to defer. But that's not at the extent, not at the expense of trying to grow and develop and to be able to learn how to build and exercise this muscle of chochma which is again the essence of who one is and therefore it should be front and center within one's avodas Hashem. Okay, I think that's, okay, there's more, but we'll stop there.