I think we're about to start on page 76, is that right? Ein Ish HaHalacha down there? אין איש ההלכה בעל דברים. Hamachshava ve-hadibbur, haguf-peh ve-haguf-lev, logos be-tor machshava ve-logos be-tor ma'amar. The Greek word has both meanings. מהווים בעיה ישנה בפילוסופיה. Ha-higayon ve-hadikduk. משפטי היגיון משפטי דקדוק. ne-atzim bi-yad ha-atika שהרבה דיו נשפכה והרבה קולמוסין נשתברו עליה. Ish hada'at מבקר את המחשבה על הדיבור את ההיגיון על המאמר. אין הוא בעל מליצה ובעל ניבים רבים. השפה איננה משמשת לו בתור מטרה לעצמה אלא כלי שרת לניסוח המחשבה. כשאיש הדעת משתמש בלשון הרי הוא מדקדק שלא להעדיף מילים ושלא להבל דברים. כל יתר כנטול דמי.
And that's of course a klal in Minchot, which is then homiletically quoted in other contexts. That whatever if you remove it, whatever the consequences of removing something, so adding to it, doubling it, has the same consequences. Adaraba, hamachshava mevalbelet hasafa. Harayon al halashon. כל משפט מבטא רעיון. כל חיבור מילים מחשבה. אם המחשבה יכולה להתבטא בשלוש מילים
lo yevatte'ena be-arba. אין המילים היתרות גונבות לביאור והסברת העניין ela le-irpul hatochen. I think that we likely we've all experienced when something is overexplained, at a certain point it becomes counterproductive because the overexplanation confuses things. Ish ha-hakara מדקדק בכל מילה ומילה שתקביל לגרעין הקוגניטיבי הכמוס בה. אין הוא יוצא בשמות ובמונחים במקום מחשבה והגות לב.
Hamachshava bashela ve-nigmeret. It ripens, it matures. ואחר כך בא הדיבור. הלוגוס החושב קודם ללוגוס המדבר. איש ההלכה דומה בנידון זה לאיש הדעת. טיפוסיים במידה זו הם
Rashi, Rambam, ha-Gra mi-Vilna, ve-Rabbi Chaim mi-Brisk. צמצמו בדיבורם והרחיבו את מחשבתם. תילי תילים של הלכות תלויים בכל קוצו של יוד בפירוש רש\"י ובספר משנה תורה לרמב\"ם.
Milat ve-ayen בביאורי הגר\"א מכילה אוצרות מחשבה. Kol mishpat u-mishpat בכתבי רב חיים מהווה מעיין נובע של חידוש והכרה. Let's just stop here for a moment. The world, the reality, the religious experience of the Ish Halacha consists of... Initially his immersion in his attempt to understand the ideal world of Halakha. That's his spiritual metaphysical reality. Since Halakha again isn't just a prosaic guide and directive and mandate, but again it's initially, it is all that, it is mandate, it is directive, but initially and at its core it's a world of ideas. So to master that world of ideas requires all the rigor and precision of very clear thought. That rigor and precision of thought, so as not to be compromised, not to be adulterated when the Ish Halakha then seeks to communicate, seeks to teach, seeks to transmit, so the way that rigor and precision is preserved is by speaking, writing very sparingly. And that's what the Rav is depicting here. When he writes אם המחשבה יכולה להתבטא בשלוש מלים לא יבטאנה בארבע, the rigor and precision is compromised. There's a sort of intellectual flabbiness that gets introduced if the idea can be stated in three words and instead one states it in four words. There's a looseness there which detracts from the rigor and the precision. And the Rav says that that's what accounts for why the Ish Halakha speaks, writes so sparingly. From Rav Chaim's sefarim, we have a sense for, no but you can encounter how Rav Chaim wrote, but there are places where Rav Elchonon has that he asked Rav Chaim a kashe, places where the Birchas Shmuel has that they asked Rav Chaim a kashe, and they will quote him verbatim and he answers with two or three words. The Birchas Shmuel says he asked the Rebbe this and the Rebbe said three words and then he has four pages to try to figure out, try to unpack what Rav Chaim said in those three words because so much was compressed and condensed. That the three word summation is possible once you have the broader explanation that he attempts to provide. It's interesting, at first glance in the Hakdama, so a different perspective is provided for why the sefer is relatively so thin. ולגודל ענותנותו שנה הכל בדרך קצרה ובדברים מעטים עד שפעמים רבות. כלל חידושים גדולים ונכבדים במילה אחת או שתיים ממש. כאשר המעיינים המבינים יבינו בדבריו.
Again, ul'goidel invesunso, because of his great humility, shana hakol, Rav Chaim taught everything, bederech ketzara, right, as the Gemara in Pesachim instructs, uvidvarim muatim, עד שפעמים רבות כלל חידושים גדולים ונכבדים במילה אחת או שתיים ממש.
Again, this is different, but it's not an alternate understanding. Partially it's offering perspective on something else and partially it's a complementary perspective. What does that mean? What does it mean בדרך קצרה ובדברים מועטים? It would be a little ironic for that just to be a melitza. Here we are extolling the, you know, the brevity and, you know, it's just a rhetorical flourish. So in the previous paragraph, אולם הוא ברוב חכמתו ועוצם תבונתו הבהירה והזכה. With his great wisdom and with the force of his pure lucid understanding, בירר וצירף וליבן וזיקק תמיד דבריו בירור אחר בירור צירוף וצירוף אחר צירוף, ויביא את דבריו בכור מאה פעמים פעם אחר פעם ביגיעה עצומה ובהעמקה נפלאה.
You wonder parenthetically whether or not implicitly there's a pshat being suggested in כל השונה פרקו מאה פעמים, right? אינו דומה שונה פרקו מאה ואחת פעמים לשונה פרקו מאה פעמים.
So I think we generally understand that to mean chazara, that כל השונה פרקו מאה פעמים is how many times a person, a person chazzers. But you wonder over here if it's not being suggested, between the words, between the lines, ויביא את דבריו בכור, again, in the crucible of understanding, the furnace of understanding, me'ah pe'amim, if the pshat is not being suggested here that שונה פרקו מאה פעמים is not just for the purpose of chazara, but to really understand, that it's a shiyur not only in chazara, but it's, it's in. intended as a shiur in havana as well. ויביא את דבריו בכור מאה פעמים פעם אחר פעם וביגיעה עצומה ובהעמקה נפלאה לקרב ולרחק להוסיף ולגרוע. וכן עשה כל ימי חייו עד יומו האחרון. ויברור תמיד סולת מסולת עד שהעמיד את דבריו על האמת הצרוף והברור כפי הכרעת עומק שכלו ואור עוצם תבונתו.
And now here, here is the line that sheds light on the line that we read before but that comes afterwards: וברב צדקתו וענוותנותו לא רצה באריכות דברים. Again, it's attributed to anvatanuso, but here too to berov tzidkaso in his righteousness, his piety. ויוצא מתוך דבריו את כל המשא ומתן ואת כל החידושים הרבים והחריפים שנאמרו בענין זה רק מסקנא דשמעתא טהורה וברורה כפי הכרעת עומק שכלו וזכות דעתו וחריפותו. על פי המשפט אשר יצא לו מכל המשא ומתן הנ\"ל באופן שהדברים הקצרים שאנחנו מדפיסים פה בכל ענין וענין הם מסקנא דשמעתא של שקלא וטריא ארוכה ועיון מרובה וחידושים רבים שנאמרו באותו ענין כל ימי משך תלמודו עד שנותיו האחרונות.
So one aspect of the kitzer that's being discussed here that the Rav is not talking about, he's not talking about that aspect of the kitzer is that you can write a ma'aracha on a sugya and you can go through all the possible approaches and sort of one by one bring rayos against this approach, against that approach, why this havana falls short, why that havana is inadequate. And before doing that you could be mepalpel and suggest terutzim charifim me'od on the apparent difficulties and say b'sof shel davar it's not compelling. So Rav Chaim eliminated all that. You don't have any of that. Rav Chaim doesn't tell you about all the and again and whenever he does so as we've seen it becomes something that remains l'maskana. He doesn't go through all the hava aminas. That's what it means hacol b'derech kitzer. He goes straight to the maskana. He could have dreiyed us around through the countryside through every that's what it means b'derech kitzer. Then bidvarim mu'atim is what the Rav is talking about. bidvarim mu'atim is that and when he is telling you the emes and when he is telling you the chidush that even there it's bidvarim mu'atim. And again in this sense again so the phrase dvarim mu'atim lichora is commenting on the same aspect that the Rav is, the first one is commenting on a different aspect. So a person it's not just the impulse to do differently than Rav Chaim did in the sefer. The impulse to share as part of the ma'aracha all the different turns in the maze. It's not just something which would be attributable to pashut gaiva, this way my sefer will be that thick instead of being this thin. One would have to be godel anvatanuso to withstand that yetzer hara. There is... it's difficult to express, but you'll know it on your own. I think Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes in his introduction to his English translation of Chumash, The Living Torah, right? I think that's what it's called, The Living Torah. So he writes that it took him nine months to write the translation. And he says, you know, in a way it's like another child. So we use the idiom pri rucha. That's when a person when you yageia ve'amel to understand, and again, and part of that process are the, you know, the havaminehs, the, you know, the exploration of the paths that don't lead to the emes hatzrufa vehazaka. So all of those thoughts, all of those yegia ve'amal, there's an attachment to it. It's very hard to just leave it, very hard to, you know, it's like a... you don't abandon a child. And so that's godol vehisnaso and then you could easily easily, you know, you could make an argument for why that has its place and why that should be there. To resist that impulse that's really something that's attributable to ברוב צדקתו ולגודל והתנשאו. There was no... even that, you know, rather noble negiya, very noble negiya, so he didn't have that either. And the devarim mu'atim also, there is a again, not a prost ga'avah of, you know, making the sefer more voluminous. There is an impulse, you know, that maybe to... if a person is as Rav Chaim was tamid kesidran, saying chiddushim, again, there is an impulse which can you can make a good argument for. To call attention to it, to underscore, you know, here comes a big chiddush and to say it again and again and again because it's so emesdik and so new and so wonderful. But again, since that would conflict with what the Rav talks about, so again, because of hisnaso, so he not only limited himself to the derech ketzara and doesn't take us on a journey through the other paths in the sugya which don't work out, which are not correct, but even in the derech ketzara he speaks bedevarim mu'atim. איש נדהם כשעה אחת עזב צחוק פתח פה בשירה ובזמרה ואינו מדקדק בביטויו ובצורת לשוניות.
The Ibn Ezra famously has a critique of I think it was Elazar Hakallir and the other paitanim, who he says they don't follow the rules of grammar in their piyut. And he's very critical of them. He says Saadia Gaon was the exception to that rule, what Rav Saadia Gaon wrote in his... is kedas ve-kedin in terms of klalei halashon and klalei hadikduk. The Maharal has a defense of, I think in the Netivot Olam, is that what it is? The Maharal has a defense of Eleazar ha-Kalir. So does the Rav, actually, if you take a look in the Kinot, the summary, the adaptation of his comments that he made on the Kinot, he actually defends in that context Eleazar ha-Kalir. In this context, the Rav is citing it as a reflection of sort of an emotional overflow. So the emotion overflows and then it overwhelms the rigor of expression and even the rules of language and grammar. ברם הלכה אינו מבעבע בפיוטים. His, again, his religious experience isn't driven by that emotional dimension. לא חס ושלום בשל חששות פילוסופיים אלא משום שהוא עובד את קונו במחשבת ההלכה הטהורה ובהכרה דייקנית,
precise ve-be-higayon tzach. אינו מאבד אתו באמירת שירות ותשבחות. הכרת התורה זוהי העבודה היותר קדושה ורוממה. הנה הוא עובד את הבורא בגילוי האמת והלכה בתירוץ קושיות ופשיטות איבעיות.
Again, let's read a little bit more and then we'll try to understand, be-ezrat ha-Shem. מעשה ונכנס אבא מרי בליל ראש השנה לבית הכנסת ומצאני אומר תהלים עם הציבור.
So, parenthetically, not parenthetically, I don't know, I think we probably would have written this ma'aseh: I was saying Tehillim. It's always about the Rav. It just happens to be that he was the one that his father spoke to, but he's not the focus of attention here, right? מעשה ונכנס אבא מרי בליל ראש השנה לבית הכנסת ומצאני אומר תהלים עם הציבור, ולקח את ספר התהלים מידי והושיט לי מסכת ראש השנה ובצאתך לעבוד את הבורא עכשיו, כלך לך אצל הלכות קדושת היום. רב חיים מבריסק עוסק בתורה בשעת אמירת פיוט בימי הדין: בראש השנה טפל להלכות שופר וביום הכיפורים להלכות עבודת היום. הקדוש ברוך הוא יושב ועוסק בתורה ואין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ד' אמות של הלכה. אין לימוד התורה אמצעי למטרה אחרת אלא תכלית השאיפות ושיא היסודות.
So, here are the two, at least two, important points. Number one, the depiction of learning as העבודה היותר קדושה ורוממה, the most sacred and exalted form of worship. So this is partially very much following the lead of the Rambam and partially very different. Partially following the lead of the Rambam, whether it's the Rambam... the way we usually quote it, לפי הדעה תהיה האהבה. The Rambam has in the Moreh that the connection, in quotation marks, that we have with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is through the Sechel. And in that sense, so these, you know, you hear echoes of the Rambam here. But in another sense, it's very different and it's very different than the Rambam in the following sense: that whereas the Rambam understands the Gemara in Sukkah and Bava Basra talking about the שמונים תלמידי הלל הזקן, Hagadol shebechulan was Yonason ben Uziel, and the katan shebechulan was רבי יוחנן בן זכאי, ואמרו עליו על רבי יוחנן בן זכאי
shelo hiniach, he knew everything, and then it says also דבר גדול דבר קטן. He knew everything. He knew everything. Sichas malachei hashareis, whatever. As if you wanted to know, Rebbi Yochanan Zakai knew everything, and he was the katan shebechulan. He knew דבר גדול דבר קטן. So the Gemara says, what's davar gadol, what's davar katan? So the Gemara says, davar gadol is Maaseh Maaseh Merkavah, and davar katan is Havayos de-Abaye ve-Rava. So the Rambam in Perek Daled of Yesodei HaTorah says that davar gadol and davar katan is intended axiologically: that the study of Maaseh Merkavah is Gadol in terms of its importance, in terms of its kedushah, from Havayos de-Abaye ve-Rava. The Kesef Mishneh quotes the the Radbaz, who was very disturbed by this. הרמב\"ם כתב מה שכתב הלוואי שלא כתב. That's from or אמר מה שאמר והלוואי שלא אמר. That was the Radbaz's, I think, what the Kesef Mishneh quotes from the Radbaz, ayin sham. So in that sense, others, what's the, why isn't it just a befeirushe Gemara? Why is it the Rambam's understanding of the Gemara? Isn't it just a befeirushe Gemara? The question is no. Others say that דבר גדול דבר קטן maybe means the complexity of the inyanim, and it's not intended as, as again, an axiological assessment. It's not, it's not suggesting a hierarchy in mitzvas talmud Torah, but it, which is how the Rambam took it, but rather, it means in terms of difficulty. Now clearly the Rav, what he's presenting here, again, in this sense, so he's very much diverging from the Rambam in that the emphasis on learning and the emphasis on the Sechel, but he certainly doesn't have this hierarchy at all. He's certainly understanding the Gemara like the, you know, the way the Radbaz and others do, because he's applying it הוא עובד כמו במחשבת ההלכה הטהורה. Don't limit it to Maaseh Merkavah. It's shoreshosom. Okay. Point number two. רבי חיים איש בריסק hayah osek baTorah—I'm reading at the bottom of page 77—רבי חיים איש בריסק hayah osek baTorah בשעת אמירת פיוט בימי הדין. Rosh Hashanah tippel behilchos shofar, ve-Yom Kippurim behilchos avodas hayom, and that's in keeping with הקדוש ברוך הוא יושב ועוסק בתורה ואין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ד' אמות של הלכה.
Well, when the Rav in footnote... Again we haven't really been discussing the footnotes, but making an exception here. In footnote 99 when the Rav writes עיין בהקדמת הרמב\"ם לסדר זרעים and again on Maamar Zeh, the pashtus is that he means to contrast what the Rambam says about it with what the implied pshat that he's giving here. Because the Rav is taking that very much at face value again, ד' אמות של הלכה. That's what we just spoke about, right? That העבודה היותר קדושה ורמה is not just learning when one gets to the level of Maaseh Bereishis and Maaseh Merkavah, but is even in those parts of learning that are accessible to us if we get to that level. Okay, that Halacha. So is this something to be emulated? You know, is the takeaway from learning Ish HaHalacha, you know, that as coming ראש השנה הבא עלינו לטובה, that one should spend less time with the Machzor and more time with the Gemara? So whenever one hears of or observes a Hanhagah of a very, very great person, Rav Chaim for instance, so sometimes, you know, our immediate impulse is, okay, so what's more powerful than a Maaseh Rav? And from whom is it more appropriate to learn? And sometimes that is the correct reaction, but at other times the correctness and appropriateness of a Hanhagah depends upon the Madrega the person's on or the other variable can be his Tchunat HaNefesh, his Derech HaAvodah. On the level on which Rav Chaim learned, on the level in which he fulfilled Mitzvas Talmud Torah and experienced Mitzvas Talmud Torah, so this Hanhagah was certainly correct. But that doesn't necessarily mean that if we sort of uproot that Hanhagah from that context of the level on which Rav Chaim learned, the Madrega on which again he not only understood Torah but his connection to Torah, if we uproot it from that context and we plug it into our context, it doesn't necessarily follow that it remains the correct Hanhagah. We have to know which Maaseh Rav are a function of the person's Madrega, the person's Tchunat HaNefesh, and therefore lav davka are transposable and lav davka are supposed to be emulated and which ones should be emulated. ענין הלשמה עיקרו עיקרו מכל מקום לשם אהבת התורה פליגא ולמד על שרשה. אבל אם יחשוב אדם כי לשמה הכוונה דביקות ואם כן לדעתו ולדמיונו יחשוב שיעסוק בשירות ותשבחות ובפרט בספר תהלים נעימות זמירות ישראל המעוררים אהבת השם וקרבתו, וזה די לו ובזה יחיה חיים ערבים, אבל לא כן הוא, כדמצינו במדרש שדוד ביקש שעוסק בשירה ובזמרה יחשב לו כעוסק בנגעים ואהלות, הרי שנגעים ואהלות יקרים יותר ולא מצינו שהסכים הקדוש ברוך הוא לו בזה, לפי שעיקר הלימוד לא לעסוק רק בדביקות כי אם להשיג על ידי התורה המצוות. כי אם להשיג על ידי התורה המצוות והדינים ולדעת כל דבר ודבר על בוריו.
Klolo uproto vechulu. אך הדיבור והעסק לשמו בהענין עצמו וכו' כדי להבין ולהוסיף לקח ופלפול ולא רק בדבקות כמו שנשתבשו בזה הרבה.
Kegon bedinei nezikin. וכן צריך לפעמים לישא וליתן במיגו של רמאי מה שהרמאי יכול לטעון וכדומה וכו'. ואף שיכוון בעת הלימוד ענייני יראת השם מכל מקום כל הלימוד הוא לשם ייחוד קודשא בריך הוא וכשמייגע עצמו בדבר הלכה בפשטות בוודאי השכינה שורה עליו בשעת לימודו ממש.
Kemamar chazal, אין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ד' אמות של הלכה בלבד. אלה דברי רבי חיים תלמידו של הגר\"א ומייסד ישיבת וולוז'ין בספרו וכדומני שאינם זקוקים לביאור.
Okay, so we'll stop here. Maybe next week is chazara, but maybe Thursday we'll have Ish HaHalacha so we can finish the first section im yirtze hashem to eighty-two and maybe over the course of June we'll be able to attack chelek bais.