It says clearly the shlilus hagashmius mimenu. We we we can't in a positive sense define what Hashem is, but we we can negate that that that who He is, what He is, has nothing, there's no physicality associated with that. And והוא שהאחד הזה אינו גוף ולא כח בגוף. And since Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not physical, not any kind of physical force, so as a result לא יארעו לו מאורעות הגוף. As a result, anything which is a function of physicality doesn't apply to Hakadosh Baruch Hu either, kegon hatnuah v'hamenucha, we can't say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in motion, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is at rest, לא מצד העצם ולא במקרה. ולכן שללו ממנו עליהם השלום השלילות החיבור והפירוד.
That's why Chazal say that that again you have to negate. You can't, you can't associate with Hakadosh Baruch Hu again, either being connected to to something or being separated. ואמרו לא ישיבה ולא עמידה. You can't talk about posture. לא עורף ולא עיפוי, כלומר לא פירוד והוא עורף ולא חיבור כי עיפוי מן אמרו ויפיהו בכסף תשתוון, כלומר ידחף אותם בכסף מחמת התחברם בהם. ואמר הנביא ואל מי תדמיוני אל ואל מי תדמיוני ואשוה, ואילו היה גוף היה דומה לגופים.
That's how you have two people who I don't know they look as as different as as you can imagine. One is one is tall, one is short, one is fat, one is skinny, one has black hair, one has blonde hair, one's a man, one's a woman v'chulu v'chulu. All the differences notwithstanding, there's a point, there's a point of similarity. They're both people. They're both and and even if so, what if you have all those differences and and one's a person, one's an animal, still a point of of similarity. Says the Rambam to to reject any point of similarity, to say that there's no comparison pashut that can be drawn, that's only possible if Hakadosh Baruch Hu is totally, absolutely incorporeal. If there were any corporeality, so then there would be some kind of miktzas dimyon that that you could speak of. ואילו היה גוף היה דומה לגופים. There would be some. וכל מה שבא בכתובים בתורה מתוארי הגוף, and whatever you find in Tanach describing Hakadosh Baruch Hu with physical descriptions, כגון ההליכה ממקום למקום, going from one place to the next, והעמידה והישיבה והדיבור וכיוצא בזה, standing, sitting, speaking, כולם הם דרך השאלה. Again speech, so speech means you you use your your vocal chords are are vibrating v'chulu. That's what speech means when when it's predicated of of of a person. So obviously that's not what speech means when it says וידבר ה' אל משה לאמר. Somehow or other it means that there's some communication. Same way speech for us is a way that we we we communicate. So וידבר ה' אל משה לאמר means that there's some communication between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and Moshe Rabbeinu. Later the Rambam when he talks about Torah min hashamayim, he says that only Moshe Rabbeinu understood, only Moshe Rabbeinu knew the eichus of that communication, that we can't even, we don't even understand how that, because again it wasn't Hakadosh Baruch Hu's voice which is communicating to Moshe Rabbeinu. Again it's direct unmediated communication. What that communication is we we don't know. understand how that because again it wasn't I thought it's not a Kadosh Baruch Hu's voice which is communicating to Moshe Rabbeinu. Again, it's direct unmediated communication. What that communication is we don't know. כולם הם דרך השאלה. Right? As it were, we're borrowing it. It's an extension of its meaning in a physical context, so you extrapolate from there and you borrow it as it were. You extrapolate from there and then it has a non-physical sense as well. Again, so dibbur, speech, physically means, again, you produce intelligible sounds from your through exercising your vocal cords. That's what dibbur means in its physical context. And then through hash'alah, it means communication. Yeshiva means in a physical sense, it means to sit. And then by extrapolation in a non-physical sense, it means something which is abiding, vechulu. וכמו שאמרו דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם. So why does the Torah speak that way about Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Because דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם. The Torah speaks in terms that it's easier for us to relate to. It's easier for us to relate to the reality of Hakadosh Baruch Hu when these terms are used. וקדמו בני אדם בענין זה הרבה. Pashut what that, what is the Rambam alluding to over there, not sure, but yitachen that this idea that the anthropomorphisms in the Torah are to be understood in light of this klal of דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם, so lema'aseh, that was said before the Rambam. Chovot Halevavot has it in Sha'ar Hayichud, Ibn Ezra has it in his perush al hatorah. So maybe that's what the Rambam means that this perspective on the Torah's anthropomorphisms, I'm not claiming to be mechadesh anything in providing this דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם perspective. So it means that on the one hand, as it were, the Torah is accommodating us, but on the other hand, it's an accommodation which we're supposed to use as a stepping stone. Dehainu, that what the klal of דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם in this context, what it means is that let's say in Kriat Shema, וחרה אף ה' בכם. Right? השמרו לכם פן יפתה לבבכם וסרתם ועבדתם אלהים אחרים והשתחויתם להם וחרה אף ה' בכם.
So to impress upon us the chomer of the aveira of avodah zarah, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu, who's the architect of the human personality, so He knows that what impresses that upon us is not just to sort of talk in abstract legal terms and say this is an aveira chamura, but when you depict Hakadosh Baruch Hu as being enraged, וחרה אף ה' בכם, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will be furious, kavyachol. When you depict Hakadosh Baruch Hu as a Kel Kanna in the Aseret Hadibrot, so then that's something which impresses upon us the same way if let's say we do something wrong and someone says to us, "That wasn't preferable," or someone begins turns red in the face and begins setting new records for decibel levels, and obviously it makes more of an impression upon us in the second way than the first way. So on the one hand, in that sense, the Torah's accommodating us. Right? So the Torah is speaking in a way that is easier for us to grasp, it's easier for us to relate to. But meidach gisa, it's only a stepping stone. We're not supposed to stop at that havana. We're not supposed to stop at that havana and chas veshalom think literally that the experience that we have or that we see in others. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn't, doesn't get angry. What it means is that what it taka means is it means to communicate how chomur this, this aveira is. So on the one hand, the Torah accommodates us by speaking in terms that it's easier for us to relate to. But the accommodation is only a stepping stone, is only for us to process how chomur the, the aveira is. But then we then have to realize and that's, that's all that metaphor of חרון אף ה' בכם meant. It doesn't, it's not a description of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And it's very, very important that whenever we, to remind ourselves, to reinforce that, that absolutely crucial perspective, so whenever we quote such anthropomorphic imagery it has to be with a kavyachol. It has to be with a kavyachol. Sometimes, sometimes, you know, people, people say and, and they do it leshem shamayim meaning very well, they say time and time again you do this, you make Hakadosh Boruch Hu happy, you do this and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is very happy, and, and you give nachas to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So all those leshonos, those anthropomorphic leshonos are legitimate anthropomorphic leshonos. But if we use them without always reminding ourselves kavyachol, kavyachol, kavyachol, so what happens is that we be, rachmana litzlan, there's a susceptibility to forgetting that it's, that it's on the level of דברי תורה כלשון בני אדם. And this third yesod, that's why the loshon of kavyachol should be shagur bfinu whenever, whenever quoting such leshonos, whenever reflecting on such leshonos, it always has to be with that perspective of דברי תורה כלשון בני אדם, that kavyachol. And this third yesod is what he points to in כי לא ראיתם כל תמונה, meaning you didn't see Him as a possessor of form. The apprehension that you had, what you apprehended, what you understood, there was nothing physical about it, because as he said לא גוף ולא כוח בגוף. So it's with regard to this one of the yud gimmel ikkarim that you have that famous machlokes, the Rambam and the Ra'avad here in perek gimmel of hilchos teshuva where the Rambam, again as we mentioned, it's here that you more or less almost have the Rambam's list of the yud gimmel ikkarim. So the Rambam lists חמישה הם הנקראים מינים and one of those is האומר שיש ריבון אחד אלא שהוא גוף ובעל תמונה. Gimmel zayin teshuva. Said the Ra'avad, why did he call this one a min, when many greater and better than him followed this line of thought based on what they saw in the pesukim and more from what they saw in the divrei aggados which confuse the minds. So first of all, just correct translation of the Ra'avad as has already been pointed out, the word mimenu in loshon hakodesh means either two different things. Mimenu can be comparative, it can mean than him, such as כי גדול הוא ממנו. According to Chazal, the meraglim were saying kavyachol against Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So then mimenu means that they were saying, kavyachol, they were saying greater than, than Him with a capital, capital H. Now, that's not what the Ra'avad means. The Ra'avad doesn't think that these people who didn't know how to learn pshat in Tanach and couldn't understand aggados, he didn't think that they were gadol from the Rambam. He didn't think they were greater than the Rambam. But mimenu also means from amongst us. And that's what mimenu also means in הן האדם היה כאחד ממנו. Right? It means he's like he's unique amongst us, one pshat in the pasuk. So mimenu also, so that's what the Ra'avad means. The translation of the word is kama gedolim u'tovim and a lot of the Ra'avad is saying there are a lot of people otherwise very ehrlicha Yidn amongst us, mimenu, who have made this error and the Rambam shouldn't classify them as minim. So it's clear two things, just to have accurate perspective on this Ra'avad, two things that again we need to note very, very clearly. Number one, of all the ikkarim that the Rambam lists and they're all right here. It's not a question of did the Ra'avad wasn't massig systematically? No, they're all right here. Right here in front of me and the only one he comments on is this one. Right? The only one he doesn't say that why did you call him a min, someone who is an atheist rachmana litzlan or vechu'lei vechu'lei? He only said it about this and even here he didn't say it's not minos. He says that a person who accidentally in his ignorance believes it shouldn't be classified as a min. He doesn't say that the belief isn't heretical. He says if a person well-meaningly stumbles onto this particular heretical belief, he shouldn't be classified as a heretic. So the Ra'avad doesn't disagree with that again. He doesn't comment on any other of the ikkarim and even this ikkar, all he's saying is whether or not the unintentional heresy should brand a person a heretic. And the Ra'avad tells you why this should be an exception because he says this exception a person can come to this mistake through talmud Torah rachmana litzlan. Because a person can learn a pasuk Chumash and know so yad Hashem and vayeshev and vayelech vechu'lei vechu'lei. And what's more, he says that the aggadeta which if a person doesn't know what to do with them are meshabbesh, are very, very confusing. So because a person can come to this mistake rachmana litzlan through talmud Torah, the Ra'avad says it's minos, it's heresy, but we give him a pass. He's not a heretic, although the belief is heretical. Question is what's the Rambam's answer to that? So lema'aseh they point out that the Rambam himself explains why he doesn't think at least in some cases that this is that this is an answer. And I think we've mentioned this, it's mamash, mamash a yesod gadol, yesod gadol in yud gimmel ikkarim and a yesod gadol in life. The Rambam says the Ribbono Shel Olam doesn't expect every person to necessarily have enough of a philosophical bent to know on his own, is it conceivable that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should be a ba'al guf rachmana litzlan? Or to necessarily understand on his own why that's why that can't be. And he doesn't expect people to necessarily be creative enough or bright enough, he doesn't expect everyone to know so what are those aggadetas in Chazal talking about? What does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is maniach tefillin vechu'lei? What the Torah does expect is that a person has to know his own limitations. And for this person to rely on his own understanding of a pasuk in Chumash and his own understanding of an aggadas Chazal and not to go to people who know more and know better, that there's no excuse for. That's why the Rambam says this is no defense. And the Rambam says hashgach atzmecha, I'll prove to you that what I'm telling you is the Torah's reasoning. Let's see ovdei avodah zarah for whom the Torah is mechayev misah and kares and the Torah says is geferlech, geferlech. No one is oveid avodah zarah, well, in the way the Rambam says lema'aseh it's got to be true that it's true some of the ones who are in positions of power. But other than the ones who are in positions of power, so no one's over avodah zarah knowing it's a fake, knowing that it's all sheker. They believe in it. That's why they do it. Again, the ones who are interested in the power ship know so a lot of them don't really believe in it. And yet you see that that's not a defense. You see that that's not a defense to someone who's being over Baal Peor. He obviously believes. If he didn't believe he wouldn't be doing it. And you see the Torah says, no, if you give him hasra'ah, mi-da'as, chayav misa. But the only reason he did it is because he's convinced that it's true. He's obviously mistaken. So what's the answer is, okay, but Rabbi Akiva yadat, the Rambam yadat, so meheichah taysay that you're rejecting tradition and drawing your own conclusion. We all have to know our own limitations. That's why it's on one level it's not an oversimplification when again obviously not talking only in the context of yud gimel ikkrim but more broadly. On one level it's not so much an oversimplification to say that the source of today's bilbul hamochos and especially those who are responsible for propagating bilbul hamochos, not so much those who are nimshach after them but those who are responsible for propagating it, is ga'ivah. That's ga'ivah. It's what we mentioned once, Rav Zach's definition, not ga'ivah, it's worse than ga'ivah, it's being mizuya. A person doesn't know his own limitations. Okay, so a person doesn't know his own limitations, so he can mamash be kofer be-ikkrim. He can be מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה. He can say, no, and with all the self-righteousness and all the sanctimoniousness of being convinced that he's right and it all comes from what the Rambam says is an offense which is inexcusable, which is when we overstep our boundaries, when we don't recognize our own limitations. A person has to know what he knows, what he doesn't know, and we have to know even within what we know on what level do we know it, in what areas are we even more incompetent than in other areas. That self-knowledge is so to everything a person does in life and in this context as well. And that's what the Rambam says in Moreh also. The Torah doesn't give a pass to someone she-hu who rely on their own reaction to mikraos and go over divrei hagaddos. It is, the implication in the Rambam is, he doesn't spell it out, the implication is pretty clear: if you have a person who, a, on his own doesn't have the capacity to figure things out and b, never had access or exposure to someone who can tell him, that takeh is a legitimate defense. That is a legitimate defense. That is the clear implication of what the Rambam is saying there. But someone who just chooses to, "I think like this, I hold like this," in again, whether it's ikkrim or any other chelkei Torah, that there's no excuse for our not knowing our own limitations. Because if it's ga'ivah, one can't cope with that. All of these, all of the items have very far-reaching implications, practical implications, and specifically the ikkar hashlishi about Hakadosh Baruch Hu being eino guf and lo koach baguf, ultimate reality about physical. And it’s for that reason the more megushamdik a person is in his habits, in his aspirations, the more, in a spiritual sense, he distances himself from ultimate reality. The Rambam writes that, just to give one example of this, he says that a person’s middos, a navi’s middos affect, determine what level of nevuah he’ll be able to receive. And then he writes about the shmoneh perakim and takes no captives, tells you what Yaakov Avinu’s, where he puts him under the microscope, where he was deficient, Dovid HaMelech, Shlomo HaMelech. So what’s that connection between a person’s middos and between capacity for nevuah? So it’s not a gezeiras hakasuv. It could be, but it isn’t, not a gezeiras hakasuv. For the Rambam, everything about nevuah is something very natural, something very natural. That’s why the Rambam says that Lavan and that’s not nevuah. ויבא אלהים אל לבן means a message got delivered, means I received a message. So you use such a phrase in English that I received a message. How’d you receive the message? Doesn’t necessarily mean you received the message directly. Could be it came through messengers and ultimately it was those, what do they call them, those pigeons they used to send messages. That’s what it means, ויבא אלהים אל לבן. Lavan got the message. But it can’t be. Lavan HaArami can’t experience nevuah. Nevuah is, again, it’s something natural. And so too the interaction, the correlation between the middos of a navi and his capacity for level of nevuah is also something very natural. So what is that natural? Because all, again, all the middos are rooted in a person’s physicality. To have any excess in middos means to be excessively megushamdik. Again, middos are ultimately all rooted in our physicality. So that then means that any intemperance, any excess in middos is excessive physicality. And the more physical a person is. is every iota of excess in physicality therefore interferes with that connection that a person can have to ultimate reality, which on its highest level happens in the form of nevuah. But that correlation doesn't only exist with a navi, it exists on our level as well. Tosfos towards the end of Kesuvos quotes a Midrash that עד שיתפלל אדם שיכנסו דברי תורה לתוך מעיו יתפלל שלא יכנסו אכילה ושתיה לתוך מעיו.
That it's pointless to ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to fill me with Torah if a person is, I'm not talking about eating a normal healthy diet to sustain a person to keep himself strong and healthy, but if a person is into eating beyond that, it's not clear that the Viennese table is absolutely necessary to maintain a healthy diet and sustain one's health. So the Midrash says it's a tartah d'sasrei, you can't ask. So that correlation is not only true for the navi, it's true on every level. It's true for each of us on our own levels as well. But avoiding that excessive gashmius which by definition, again, distances us from Hashem. So avada avada it means in what the Rambam devotes Sefer Kedusha to. But it means beyond that also. It means if my goals and dreams and aspirations are Olam Hazah-dik goals and dreams and aspirations, career l'shem atzmo, prestige, v'chulu v'chulu v'chulu, all the שקר החן והבל היופי. That's also, that's as much excessive gashmius as the Viennese table. A person is mechuyav, גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפיו. A person is mechuyav to make hishtadlus for parnassah. But he has to have the right attitude towards it. He has to have the right context. What's valuable in a person's career is the fact that his hishtadlus for parnassah is whatever the Torah considers inherently valuable that may be a part of what he does. What impresses us by Olam Hazah-dik standards is irrelevant. So sometimes people are prone to making a mistake that what should sort of guide us in what level we should live on is that a person has to live within his means. Avada that's true. I mean al pi din a person's not supposed to incur debt if he doesn't know how he's going to repay the debt. Avada avada a person's supposed to live within his means. But that doesn't mean that if I can afford to live a very indulgent, opulent lifestyle that there's nothing wrong with it because it's within my means to. to do so. I can afford to drive the fanciest car and live in the fanciest house and take the fanciest vacations. The fact that it may be well within my means to do so doesn't mean that it's something which is good good for my neshama. So the klal of that a person has to live within his means is certainly has to be part of our cheshbon. Dehainu that even if it's a very something very modest if a person can't afford it, he can't afford it. But the fact that I can afford it doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good idea. And and it's something that it's something which has to be has to be transmitted as part of as part of chinuch, as part of what parents give parents give their children. Mamash one sees b'chush when when a when Chazal say חנוך לנער על פי דרכו גם כי יזקין לא יסור ממנה
or something. So the same way that that the proper foundations that you provide a child b'mei naaruso or b'mei naaruso is something that will naturally stay with him or her as they get older, improper foundations also naturally stay and are very hard to uproot. When a child grows up in very opulent surroundings it becomes very difficult to adjust to a to a different standard of of living. And and again that that has that can have very very real negative consequences. People end up working so hard because of what they perceive as the standard of of living that they have to maintain. And it has very negative consequences just because even even if they have the wherewithal to maintain that standard of living, the more megushamdig we are the more distant we are from ultimate ultimate reality. L'mayseh we can get a chizuk from my very uninformed, very ignorant impression is that the more science advances, the more even in the physical world, the ultimate reality becomes so intangible. Everything becomes forces and try to shake hands say shalom aleichem to the law of gravity. You can try to everything is forces and fields. Once upon a time, when you spoke on the phone so how does this work? Basically but somehow or other so you needed a wire here and a wire there and somehow okay there was something there was something physical, visible there, something tangible. And now if it takes three seconds for the cell phone connection three three seconds for the cell phone connection the internet connection between between here and Eretz Yisrael so it's a terrible system and it's very slow and you have to change you have to change the carrier. Even in science as as that explosion of of knowledge everything is moving again obviously it's still physical but much much more dakkisdik than the physical universe once meant to be because it's advancing, it's coming closer to coming closer to truth because truth and and ultimate reality is not physical. And then obviously it's still physical, but much much more tachlis-dik than the physical universe once meant to be, because it's advancing, it's coming closer to truth, because truth and the ultimate reality is not physical. Even when we do relate to it we don't realize that I'd say everything that that we correctly intuit is a model. Now the truth is so like neveilah is an abstract concept. Okay? It can be concretized. You can have physical expressions and manifestations of it. But what's a model? The truth is is an abstract concept. Truth isn't—okay, so we sort of, we see it concretized, so we think of it as a concrete truth. But it isn't. The truth is abstract, that's just the concrete manifestation of the of the truth. Same thing with the sheretz davar. So we see it rachmana litzlan concretized, but but the yesod is is the truth is not physical. The truth is not is not concrete or tangible. The truth is is the idea, and what we're seeing is the is a manifestation, an instance, a a a concrete violation of the reality, of the truth, of everything, all mathematical truths. Two sefarim here, two sefarim there are four, but the truth of two plus two is four is is an abstract truth. You want to try to get a hush for it, and or you want to see a concrete instance of it, so you you show a child: here you have two, here you have two, so how many you have? What do you have all together? But the truth is abstract, the truth is... so we'll be back at it with a shiur tomorrow? No, on Sunday im yirtze Hashem. shiur will be at nine o'clock. Looking forward to seeing all of you at nine o'clock im yirtze Hashem. But I think this this building is is not not available, even I don't know possibly or probably, so so block 517 is supposed to be available. If for some reason it's not, then we'll we'll find somewhere be'ezrat Hashem but hopefully meet at 9:00.