And and we we we tried to understand why it's relevant for Rambam to tell us that Malachim, Kochavim, and Galgalim, that all these creations, all these creatures are programmed. They're not ba'alei bechira. How is that relevant for the Yesod Hachamishi? So we suggested that the Rambam is thereby addressing the question of in addressing ourselves that that to Malachim, so why is that so fundamentally different than Avimelech giving Avraham Avinu a knipple and and asking him to daven? So the Rambam's answer to that question is that ein hachi nami, if you're going to a ba'al bechira and you're not asking him as a ba'al koach that he should affect the the outcome, the consequence you're going to, but you're going to a ba'al bechira and you're asking him, do me a favor and and can I please have your tefillos as well, so then that's not, you're not being oved the person, you're not being meromem the person, you're not making that person an intermediary in terms of how how you relate to the Ribbono Shel Olam. Ma she'ein kein, so what does it mean if you direct tefilla, acts of worship to a computer? The computer can't can't respond. So obviously what it means is well, that's the way you relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So that Chasam Sofer has a teshuva in which he expands upon something the Maharal says rather cryptically in Nesivos Avodah. Maharal talks about the Gemara in Taanis that on a taanis you go out to the beis hakevaros. The Gemara says there are two possible reasons for why to go out to the beis hakevaros: one is החי יתן אל לבו, because it's very sobering. It it generates koved rosh and Rachmana litzlan that a person should be morbid, but a person should be realistic, a person should live with with koved rosh. החי יתן אל לבו. So that the Gemara says would be accomplished even if you go to a goyishe cemetery. But if you go to a a Yiddishe beis olam, so then you have the added dimension that the the meisim are will be mevakesh rachamim. So the Maharal has a funny lashon that המתים אוהבי ישראל הם and mis-chabrim eileinu, it's a funny funny lashon, it's not clear what he means. It's not clear what he means. The Chasam Sofer, Chasam Sofer thinks the Maharal's pshat m'forash and he's just, you know, kihu d'oveid kocha just repeating what the Maharal says. He's actually he's saying an excellent pshat in the Maharal. Chasam Sofer says no, what the Maharal is telling us is the following yesod. The emes is, and you have to hear this because it's extraordinary, the emes is there's no such thing as davening for another person. No such thing as davening for another person. Moshe Rabbeinu davens, davens, davens for Miriam? What do you mean there's no such thing? Avraham Avinu, Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells Avimelech he's going to daven? What do you mean there's no such thing? So the Chasam Sofer shows how what the Maharal is explaining is that if a person takes someone else's tzaros to heart as in the famous story of Rav Aryeh Levin of "our knee hurts," a person takes someone else's tzaros to heart, so then he's not davening for someone else. He's not detached from from the tzara. He's he's in the tzara. He's in the throes of. So says the Maharal, the malachim have no empathy for us. He says malachim have no empathy. He can't ask malachim to davon for us because then you're asking someone to davon for someone else. Something, whatever, some, some, some briya to davon for another briya. He says מה שאין כן המתים he says no, that again, whatever this means, however, whatever, בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לך. But the Maharal says that empathy and that's what he means that ohavei Yisroel heim and המתים משתתפים בצערן של חיים whatever else it means, but in terms of hilchos tefillah what it means is no, this standard is met. And when the meisim are mevakshim aleinu rachamim, so it's with this standard of of appropriating the tzarah as one's own. And only then can can a person can a person davon. Meaning, the meisim are still davening for the chayim. Ke'ilu, why doesn't that still run into the problem that Rebbe mentioned before? Meaning, unless somehow a meis isn't a briya? Again, so I'm saying so in terms of it's it's hard for us to fathom and understand these things, but but yes, on some level, so so correct, and the Maharal is telling us that the meisim can and do become aware, and right, and and then the neshamah of its own accord davons. That that process is one that that can and does unfold. Le'mayseh, the following is is profoundly a very good hanhagah anyway, but certainly, certainly according to the Maharal and Chasam Sofer, it it should be mamashly ikuva. When when a tzibbur is asked to say Tehillim for a choleh, so really it taka should be that if we're told this is a Jew who's sick, so we should feel the tzar. That that's what should be. Maybe that's not the case 100 percent of the time with 100 percent of the people. And if you give a little bit of a little bit of of a picture of the person is so and so years old and a ba'al mishpacha, not a ba'al mishpacha, all alone or a ba'al mishpacha and and Rachmana litzlan is suffering from from the following, it makes it a lot easier for for people to relate to and to at least b'ezras Hashem meet this standard of of the Maharal and the Chasam Sofer. Otherwise just we're going to say Tehillim for a choleh, it's just and when it happens every day routinely, I don't know. I heard, by the way, say that Tehillim is not tefillah anyway, so maybe it's a, maybe that's the. What does he mean here this last sentence in the yesod hachamishi? זה היסוד החמישי והוא האזהרה על עבודה זרה ורוב התורה היא באזהרה עליה.
Really? Majority of the Torah is about avodah zarah? Why? And therefore there's two parts to the answer. One part as someone, I think very correctly pointed out to me once. The Rambam isn't necessarily claiming that it's the rov mitzvos ha-Torah, it's the rov ha-Torah. Meaning you can have a narrative in the beginning of Parshas Va'eschanan which goes on for many pesukim which is all about avoda zara and lav davka that every posuk, every every half posuk is a separate mitzva in the taryag mitzvos. And besides with that he can meyashev another kasha because elsewhere the Rambam writes that rov mitzvos ha-Torah are to curb our physical desires and instincts and yetzer ha-ra. He says that's the rov mitzvos ha-Torah, coming to, that's all ma'achalos asuros, that's all issurei bia is coming to curb that. And here he says the rov ha-Torah is avoda zara. So that's no, he says rov ha-Torah, not rov mitzvos ha-Torah. rov ha-Torah hi ba-azhara aleha. So that's certainly a very important part of the peshat in the Rambam that he's not stating that at least 307 of the taryag mitzvos are avoda zara-related issurim. He's saying the rov ha-Torah including as it were narrative which doesn't translate as mitzvos. But the peshittas is, I don't know, maybe that's enough, I don't know you have to be be-vhinat Ezra ha-Sofer and see if if that's enough to say peshat in the Rambam. But the tochan is there's something else here also which is absolutely remarkable. The Rambam of the Torah-dik works that the Rambam wrote, he also wrote medical works and Miloth ha-Higgayon, he wrote he wrote in chochma as well, but the Torah-dik works that we have from the Rambam starts with the Peirush ha-Mishnayos, it's the first. So he wrote this in his youth. The last thing he wrote, not referring now to any of the Igros, but in terms of the major works, the last thing he wrote was the Moreh. The peshittas is that there are many indications that the Rambam had it all worked out in his head already, he had it all worked out in his head already. There are occasional glimpses in that. One of the pillars, maybe the pillar of or one of the pillars of the Rambam's whole Ta'amei ha-Mitzvos which he didn't write down for another 40 years, he didn't have a chance to write it down for another 35 years or something, is that many chukim she-ta'amam satum Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu commanded le-apukei from avoda zara-dik practices. So לא תקיפו פאת ראשכם and לא תשחית את פאת זקנך was a practice of, the reason galachin were called galachin, that's why galachin are called galachin because they were megulachim. Rambam says issur kilayim, kilei begadim was also avoda zara-dik practice. Many many things which on the surface seem to have no connection with avoda zara, Rambam says when you scratch the surface, you see that they come le-apukei from avoda zara. So the peshittas is that he has that whole ma'aracha is he has it all in his head already and that also contributes to this statement of rov ha-Torah hi ba-azhara aleha. Another case where you have the glimpse of the Rambam's just unimaginable synthetic mastery of kol ha-Torah kullah, klaleha u'perateha. In the hakdama, so after Peirush ha-Mishnayos, so before the Rambam wrote the Yad, so he wrote Sefer ha-Mitzvos and he says, he explains in the hakdama to Sefer ha-Mitzvos, it's a remarkable thing, he says I'm making a checklist for myself to make sure that I don't forget to discuss any of the any of the mitzvos. So this is going to be so I'm making a checklist for myself of the taryag mitzvos. He says, then heyos that I realized that my minyan ha-mitzvos differs from that of the Geonim who preceded me, so I'm going to give you, so achshav she-ba'asi le-hadpis so I wrote 14 shorashim. question to explain what the rules are for what you count as a mitzvah or not and also within the sefer hamitzvos proper, not within the shorashim if there's anything which isn't straightforward so the Rambam he quotes you this gemara he quotes you that gemara this mechilta that Toras Kohanim to prove that it's a mitzvah. Fine. But when he says that he intends basically sefer hamitzvos is intended as a companion to Mishneh Torah. So he tells us what he has in mind in Mishneh Torah. He says I have in mind in Mishneh Torah I'm going to write a sefer halacha on kol hatorah kullah and I've thought how I'm going to arrange things and I think I'll arrange things in headings of halachos and then I'll break it down into perakim and break it down into halacha so for instance he says I'll have something called hilchos tefillin and he tells me how many perakim it's going to have. The whole thing was in his head the whole thing mamash kol hatorah kullah Rambam didn't know kol hatorah kullah he knew kol hatorah kullah how he was going to distill it into Mishneh Torah and he also had in mind all of his his whole ma'aracha of taryag mitzvos רוב התורה הוא באסור עלי he has all this worked out. But then he writes it in a teshuva somewhere he says because we live in such difficult times there's so much persecution from the Almohads and the things are so difficult so he says lo higati he says I don't know anything compared to the doros harishonim he says it's just so not conducive you can't sit and write so avda chochmasenu and every point of intersection between halacha and machshava so the Rambam had to oise-cheshben everything every sugya cheshbening out kol hatorah kullah in relation to one another. You see it again it's self-evident in a narrower sense to write a list of taryag mitzvos so we don't so we have it so okay so we have a list of taryag mitzvos so okay so Saadia Gaon didn't count this or Saadia Gaon did count this the Behag did count this the Rambam didn't. To have a list of taryag mitzvos so you mamash mamash the Ramban raises a possibility that maybe only Rabbi Simlai held of taryag mitzvos and maybe others don't agree with that tradition because he says you never find the gemara asking according to Rabbi Yishmael והוא לא יטמא היא רשות and Rabbi Akiva holds it's chova so what other mitzvah does Rabbi Yishmael have that Rabbi Akiva doesn't have? You never find the gemara cheshbening that out. So that's why the Ramban says you know what maybe maybe it's takke בלשון יחיד היא שנויה the Ramban says maybe it's only but besofo shel davar the Ramban himself held to the minyan minyan taryag and he makes a cheshben he says if you look which mitzvos of the Rambam I was masig on and then you'll see what I'm mosif you'll see that my cheshben works out also ramach shasa a total of taryag. But lema'aseh what the Ramban points out that we don't find in the gemara anywhere a list of taryag mitzvos how to do that. You can't just say whether you think this is a mitzvah it has to work with the with mamash you have to cheshben kol hatorah kullah. It's not like saying what you think this line in the gemara means. No everything is just and then to say this is the mitzvah because such and such a klal so that has implications for fifty other things in Torah. It's mamash mamash the gadlus hamochin is staggering. We have Katnus Hamochin, but we have to be misgaber on it enough to recognize Gadlus Hamochin. The problem is when we have Katnus Hamochin that doesn't allow us to recognize Gadlus Hamochin. So then we don't recognize Gadlus Hamochin in older generations, and we don't recognize Gadlus Hamochin even in our days. But a person has such a Katnus Hamochin that the Katnus Hamochin is such it doesn't even recognize the Gadlus Hamochin. That's something that at all costs we have to be, b'ezrat Hashem, has to be overcome, has to be avoided.