Good morning Rabosai, let's see Halacha Aleph here. דעות הרבה יש לכל אחד ואחד מבני אדם וזו משונה מזו ורחוקה ממנה ביותר. יש אדם שהוא בעל חמה כעוס תמיד ויש אדם שדעתו מיושבת עליו ואינו כועס כלל ואם כעס יכעס כעס מעט בכמה שנים.
So that's sort of one spectrum. ויש אדם שהוא גבה לב ביותר ויש שהוא שפל רוח עד מאוד.
Another spectrum. ויש שהוא בעל תאוה לא תשבע נפשו מהלוך בתאותו ויש שהוא טהור גוף ביותר לא יתאוה אפילו לדברים מועטים שהגוף צריך להם. ויש בעל נפש רחבה שלא תשבע נפשו מכל ממון העולם כענין שנאמר אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף ויש מקצר שדיו אפילו דבר מועט שלא יספיק לו ולא ירדוף להשיג כל צרכו.
So we now b'ezras Hashem will come back to fill in the rest of Halacha Aleph and Bais, but for now let's see Halachos, part of Halacha Gimmel and then part of Halacha Daled. שני קצוות הרחוקות זו מזו בכל דעה ודעה אינן דרך טובה ואין ראוי לו לאדם ללכת בהן ולא ללמדם לעצמו. הדרך הישרה הלכה ד' היא מידה בינונית שבכל דעה ודעה מכל הדעות שיש לו לאדם והיא הדעה שהיא רחוקה משני הקצוות ריחוק שווה ואינה קרובה לא לזו ולא לזו ולפיכך ציוו חכמים הראשונים שיהא אדם שם דעותיו תמיד ומשער אותם ומכוון אותם בדרך האמצעית כדי שיהא שלם כיצד לא יהא בעל חמה נוח לכעוס ולא כמת שאינו מרגיש אלא בינוני לא יכעס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו כדי שלא ייעשה כיוצא בו פעם אחרת וכן לא יתאווה אלא לדברים שהגוף צריך להם ואי אפשר לחיות בזולתן כענין שנאמר צדיק אוכל לשובע נפשו.
One more example, וכן לא יהיה עמל בעסקו אלא להשיג דבר שצריך לו לחיי שעה כענין שנאמר טוב מעט לצדיק,
good. So let's maybe begin with a couple of questions. In Halacha Aleph when the Rambam describes דעות הרבה יש לכל אחד ואחד מבני אדם, so the Rambam describes there's a person who's a ba'al cheima, he's ko'eis tamid, he's always always angry. And then there's a person who's so serene that nothing just about you can't elicit any reaction from him. I don't know if these are the only types the Rambam knew, I mean like who did the Rambam hang out with? He didn't know people who, I don't know, maybe they get angry more often than they should, but not ko'eis tamid? The guy the Rambam sat next to in the Knissel of Cairo, he used to be ko'eis tamid and the guy who sat on his other side, he was so unflappable that nothing, I don't know in our experience, I think we know people who get angry more often than they should, and maybe we also know people who, I don't know, are maybe too apathetic, but I don't know. Okay, that's one question. It's so pashut, no? What's the definition of the... Excuse me, what's the definition of the derech hayesharah? So lichora we would say as follows, right? The if you sort of now depict the different ends of the spectrums that the Rambam illustrated and you now think of it as a scale of zero to ten. So let's say the person who's a בעל חמה כועס תמיד, he's a ten. And the person sheda'ato meyushevet alav, he's a zero. So lichora the pshat is that the derech hayesharah is someone who's a five, right? He is רחוק משני הקצוות ריחוק שווה. So he's a five. So what does that mean? So that would mean that he's not always angry. On the other hand, he's not always apathetic, but he's in a healthy balanced way sort of emotionally involved. I think that's what we would have said, no? And lemaiseh that definition probably would have been supported by almost all the Rambam's examples except for the first one. Because in Halacha Dalet when the Rambam illustrates keitzaid, so the Rambam says that the middah beinonit between those two ends of the spectrum is הבינוני לא יכעס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו כדי שלא יעשה כיוצא בו פעם אחרת.
So that's not a five, right? It's not saying that as opposed to the person who's ko'eis tamid and the person who's apathetic, he's a person who's emotional but in a balanced way, in a disciplined way. No, the beinoni takeh does get angry, but he gets angry, he picks his spots. He picks his occasions. So lichora you see here the havanah in the Rambam's middah beinonit and it's almost impossible is that the pshat in the middah beinonit is not that unlike the person who's ko'eis tamid who's a ten, and unlike the person שדעתו מיושבת עליו תמיד who's a zero, the person who goes in the middah beinonit is a five. No, the pshat is he has both in him. He has the zero in him, he has the ten in him. He has the capacity to be da'ato meyushevet and he has the capacity to be ko'eis. And as opposed to the person who's ko'eis tamid, so מידת הכעס שולטת עליו. The person who's da'ato meyushevet alav is מידת דעתו מיושבת שולטת עליו. The person who's a beinoni, he's sholeit on the middah, which then allows him... to exercise and draw upon whichever capacity is the correct one. Now in almost every other example, practically you can't tell the difference between whether the pshat in the middah beinonus is a five or whether the pshat in the middah beinonus is that the person has within himself both the zero and the ten, which is why it's hard to pick up on it. But over here, and tifen meod, that's why this is the Rambam's first example. That the Rambam gives this as the first example in illustrating what the middah beinonus means is that we should understand that the middah beinonus means, again, not that the person that his capacity is a moderate capacity. No, he has, but unlike what distinguishes him is that the people on the extremes, they only have this capacity, they only have that capacity. One's a slave to this extreme, one's a slave to that extreme. He has both capacities within him, which then, again, so when you're talking about how interested should a person be in money, so it doesn't really make a difference if the pshat is that a person is a five or that he has the ten and zero within him. Either way, bederech klal it translates the same way. And when it comes to physical enjoyment, it's not going to, we're not going to be able to see the difference between whether he's a ten and a zero and a five on a daily basis. But here, when it comes to anger, you see the difference, and that's why the Rambam says no, the middah beinonus of anger is that he does get angry at times. Not that he's a five, no, at times he's a ten. Again, there's a famous teirutz of Beis HaLevi, but that's a separate question which isn't, I mean it's relevant halacha l'maaseh, but it's not relevant to what we're talking about now. When there's a דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו, he's a ten. So how is that the middah beinonus? No, because you see the pshat middah beinonus is not that a person is a five. The pshat middah beinonus is that a person is sholeit such that he has within himself both capacities. Now רובא דרובא דרובא דרובא, the way that translates and the way that will express itself practically is as a five, but conceptually and sometimes it will practically nafka mina as well, it means that the person has the zero and the ten within him. He's neither, or he's both, whichever is the correct... oh, do you hear that, rabosai? So now, let's return to our earlier question. So we asked, like, who does the Rambam hang out with here, you know? He hangs out with a bunch of, I don't know, they're all kannoim on opposite sides of the spectrum. Kois tamid, or is that מיושב שלו ואינו כועס כלל. He's either gaval l'vei biyoser or שפל רוח עד מאוד. He's either a hedonist or he's an ascetic. These are types of people you meet. These are the only middos, though. If you meet someone getting angry a lot, but not tamid, that's not its own middah. That means that he has a combination of the two middos, not the right combination, but it means the middos are taka the extremes. The middos are the extremes. Ein hachi nami bifoal, if you would have asked the Rambam in a way that didn't involve problems of shemiras halashon, the people you know, so the Rambam would have said ruba d'ruba, maybe they get angry too often, or maybe they don't react strongly enough to certain situations. He wouldn't have said, oh, they're all either what he writes in hilchos deios, but those are the deios, right? And the deia, there's a deia of anger, and there's a deia of composure. And therefore when you're talking about types, if you're talking about a typology, so the typology is There's a type who's koes tamid, and there's a type who's never koes klal. In real life, okay, so we see people who mix those two types, but that's not its own midah. Like, it's not a midah to get angry 70% of the time, or to get angry 10% of the time. It's a midah to get angry 100% of the time, or 0% of the time. And then there's all kinds of, you know, the, I guess, mashal of mareh adom, right, on the color spectrum? So there's the primary colors, and then ein hachi nami you can mix colors and make all other different kinds of colors. But but if if you're listing the primary colors, then then you don't list the the mixtures. So the Rambam is talking about primary midos. What what are the primary colors? What are the primary colors? Alright, we'll have a bechinah on that tomorrow motzai shabbos. It's gotta be by tomorrow what all the primary colors are, okay. And how you make purple. Okay. So the Rambam, he's he's listing, he's listing the midos. He's not, it's not pshat that he's describing people. He's listing, he's describing the—Only three? Just three? Okay. And that's what the Rambam is saying in halachah daled that really the pshat is, so really what the pshat in middos beinonos is that what tikun hamidos represents is that a person shouldn't be hostage to, he shouldn't be slavishly bound to a midah, but he should be sholeit on midos. You know, and and that's why, you you can have the following situation. You can you can easily, you can, ruba deruba deruba, you know, the midah beinonist in bein adam l'chaveiro is that a person should be a rachum. רובא דרובא דרובא דרובא. There are situations when a person is not supposed to be a rachman. So those are the exceptional circumstances. So you can have the following: let's say you have a person is, again, very, very kind, gentle person. But kind and gentle to a fault, that that he can't, he can't adopt a a a a strong line even in those unusual circumstances where it's warranted. So if we'll sort of grade his behavior on a practical level, and we'll look at how many circumstances, in how many circumstances he acted appropriately, he'll probably get in the 90s, which is not bad, it's not a bad GPA to, you know, to score in the 90s and everything is is is not bad. But lemaiseh, if we'll grade that person conceptually on the level of the midah, I'm not sure what the grade is, but it's not in the 90s, because the exceptional case is מלמד על הכלל כולו. Because it's true that רובא דרובא דרובא דרובא the correct way to act is with rachmanus, and רובא דרובא דרובא דרובא the correct way is to act with chanina. But that's only a kiyum in vehalachta bidrachav if in the in in a way that's that's strong as as required. And if he doesn't in the one in a thousand cases, I don't know, so the other 999 cases, were they a kiyum of ve-halachta bidrachav? What do I know? He's he's at the one extreme of of extreme gentleness and and extreme compassion, but it just so happens that practically that will align most of the time. In terms of if we're not sort of just grading his behavior phenomenologically, but we're sort of assessing if it's a kiyum of ve-halachta bidrachav, so the one in a thousand case is is really crucial for so making that that determination. Coming back to the last few lines in halacha alef that that we'd skipped rabosai. ויש שהוא סגפן עצמו ברעב כובש יצר לבבו ואינו אוכל פרוטה משלו אלא בצער גדול ויש שהוא מאבד כל ממונו בידו לדעתו ועל דרכים אלו שאר כל הדעות כגון מהולל ואונן וכילי ושוע ואכזרי ורחמן ורחב לב ואמיץ לב וכל כיוצא בהם.
It's it's a at first glance it's a tefisa which is very different than I think the one that modern sensibilities operate with, but not surprisingly the Rambam's tefisa is very compelling. When the Rambam talks about midos, he doesn't distinguish between מדות בין אדם לחבירו, whether a person is achzari or rachman, or whether it's a mida which is what we would call bein adam l'atzmo, meholel or onen, whether a person is I don't know sort of perennially sad or or he's I don't know in always lightheaded. So we sort of separate those out into different areas. And yet the examples that the Rambam gives, it's clear that that distinction doesn't exist for the Rambam. It's not it's not relevant. And be-chol ofen, the pshat in in that is that whether it's relevant to a person's own personal demeanor or whether it's relevant to one's interaction with others, but it's the same yesod. It's the same yesod as to whether a person is is just controlled by some natural predisposition or some acquired trait or whether the person on the contrary has developed the control to act in a way, to act and feel in in a way that's appropriate, and it doesn't really make a difference, it's the same yesod whether the context happens to be bein adam lachavero bein adam le'atzmo, it's the same yesod, it's not a different yesod, interacting properly with each other is the same yesod as for oneself bein adam le'atzmo, it's the same it's the same yesod, and hence in the Rambam's ethics we don't we're not introducing that that distinction, okay we'll stop here for now.