Transcript

I think I think we left off around where the Rambam is about to quote the line from the Mishna of כל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא, one sentence before that in this translation it begins with Lefichach cheshbonen. One line before the Rambam quotes from the Mishna

כל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא: לפיכך חשבוני זה הנעזר בהשם בתכלית הסופית והניח מה שזולתו ואמר כל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא.

So the Tanna is focusing on what's ultimate, which is why he's speaking about Olam Haba. Says the Rambam:

ואם היות התכלית אינו ראוי למי שרוצה להיות עובד מאהבה לעבוד כדי להשיג העולם הבא כמו שביארנו במשך הקודם אלא יעבוד על הדרך שאמר דהיינו שהאמין שיש שם ידיעה שהגיעה אל הנביאים מאת השם שהודיעם בה שהמעלות הן כך והפחיתויות הן כך נתחייב מצד שהוא אדם ישר להתקרב אל המעלות ולהתרחק מן הפחיתויות ואם עשה כן נשלם בו העניין האנושי ונבדל מן הבהמות והואיל ונהיה אדם שלם הנה מהחלטות האדם שלא ימנעהו מונע שתתקיים נפשו בקיום מושכל וזהו העולם הבא כמו שביארנו.

So what's going on here? Why is the Rambam sort of returning to the theme of Oved Meahava which he discussed, I don't know, rather exhaustively earlier? So it seems to me that the Rambam is addressing the following question or preempting the following. Preempting. Don't think that there's any kind of tension, that there's a שני כתובים המכחישים זה את זה in the following sense: that on the one hand התכלית הרי היא העולם הבא ולעומתו היא ההשתדלות. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed everything that

העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור בפני העולם הבא התקן עצמך בפרוזדור כדי שתיכנס לטרקלין.

That Olam Hazeh is a bridge that a person crosses which leads to Olam Haba michad gisa. All that's true michad gisa. But meidach gisa a person is supposed within his own avodas Hashem is supposed to ideally, optimally be oblivious to sechar including Olam Haba, right as the Rambam writes at the beginning of perek yud of Hilchos Teshuva:

אל יאמר אדם הריני עושה מצוות התורה ועוסק בחכמתה כדי שאקבל הברכות הכתובות בתורה או כדי שאזכה לחיי העולם הבא שהעובד על דרך זה הוא עובד מיראה ואינה מעלת הנביאים ולא מעלת החכמים.

So is there some kind of sort of like telling someone, you know, when he gets in the car, you know, on the one hand you tell him... The goal is, the goal is to get to Philadelphia, and on the other hand you tell him, but don't be thinking about Philadelphia. So how's he going to get to Philadelphia if he's not... So what the Rambam says is that what the oved me'ahava... so this is something that the Rambam hasn't touched on yet, right? He has discussed what oved me'ahava means. He's presented what olam haba is. But this question of how do you... is there a tension or even an outright contradiction between saying again everything was designed for olam haba? In terms of a person, it's designed again התכלית הרי עולם הבא. But ignore the tachlit. So then how do you get there? So the Rambam says because what the oved me'ahava will do is what brings lidei olam haba. What the oved me'ahava will do mitoch ahava, that gufa is what if the person were just out of self-interest calculating what should I do to get l'chayei olam haba? It's the same path. The question is whether or not the person travels that path out of self-interest, or he travels that path mitoch ahava. You re-read these lines, kemeduma that's what's going here, rabosai. The words they come to life. On the one hand, again, I'm beginning a line or two earlier than we began initially.

והתכלית הרי היא עולם הבא ולמוצאה היא ההשתדלות ולפיכך חשבון זה הנעזר בהשם בתכלית הסופית והניח מה שזולתה ואמר כל ישראל יש לו חלק לעולם הבא. ואם הייתה התכלית אינו ראוי למי שרוצה להיות עובד מאהבה לאהוב כדי להשיג עולם הבא כמו שביארנו במה שקדם.

So is there a tension there or even an outright contradiction?

אלא יעבור על הדרך שאמר והיינו שהאמין שיש שם ידיעה שהגיעה אל הנביאים מאת השם שהודיע בה שהמעלות הן כך והפחיתויות הן כך. נתחייב מצד שהוא אדם ישר

meaning without focusing on the fact that the ma'alos, cultivating the ma'alos is going to be my ticket to olam haba and the pechisuyos are going to impede and diminish the chelek in olam haba. But no, without focusing on that,

נתחייב מצד שהוא אדם ישר להתקרב אל המעלות ולהתרחק מן הפחיתויות

and this gufa, if

עשה כן נשלם בו העניין האנושי ונבדל מן הבהמות והוא והיה ונהיה אדם שלם

nothing is going to prevent him from chayei olam haba. You hear rabosai? That lichora is the pshat what the Rambam is presenting here. Ready? Can you say it again? I'm still confused. I don't understand. From the beginning or from... I understand the question and I just don't understand how what's the answer to this question? What's the answer to the question? It's not a question. What's the explanation of why the question's not a question? It's not an answer because the question's not a question. So what's the explanation to why the question's not a question? So go back to our moshal, right? That on the one hand you say that the tachlis is that the person getting into the car should drive from New York to Philadelphia. That's on the one hand. Me'idach gisa you tell him but he shouldn't give it a not only shouldn't he give it a second thought, he shouldn't even give it a first thought. So we would have thought then that there's not just tension but an outright contradiction between those two. But what if the best route to Philadelphia Philadelphia is lined the whole way with trees and there's beautiful foliage to look at and beautiful scenery to look at. And you tell the person that he should get into the car and what he should be mindful of is driving a longer route with this beautiful foliage and beautiful scenery. So then l'ma'aseh that description, that definition converges 100 percent with the description or definition of, you know, go Route 95 or whatever it is to, from New York to Philadelphia. No, that's too convoluted a mashal. Without the mashal, I can skip the mashal. I like the mashal but we'll skip it, okay. What the oved me'ahava will do, a person who is oved me'ahava will understand that to be the oved me'ahava is קרבת אלוהים לי טוב, צמאה נפשי לאלוהים לאל חי. The oved me'ahava understands that to be worthy of that, any, any direction and directives we've been given as to shleimus ha'adam is something that he needs to be totally committed to. The Rambam writes in Shmonah Perakim, Perek Dalet, if you're using this edition, it's on page ת ק ל א. It's the way you can find it in other editions is it's several lines after the Rambam quoted the psukim in Zechariah of

כה אמר ה' צבאות צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום השביעי

concluding ve'ha'emes ve'ha'shalom ehavu, so several lines after that.

והוא כי התורה לא אסרה מה שאסרה וצוותה מה שצוותה אלא מן הסיבה הזאת כלומר כדי שנתרחק מן הצד האחד יותר דרך חינוך כי איסור המאכלות האסורות כולם ואיסור הביאות האסורות והאזהרה על הקדשה וחיוב כתובה וקידושין

etc. All this is k'dei she... es kol zeh, I skipped a few lines,

את כל זה לא ציווה השם עלינו אלא כדי שנתרחק מגבול התאווה הרחקה מרובה וכן כל מה שנאמר בתורה מנתינת המעשרות והלקט והשכחה והפאה והפרט והעוללות ודין השמיטה והיובל והצדקה כדי מחסורו כי כל זה קרוב להסתפקות כדי שנתרחק מגבול השפלות

etc. The two pillars of mitzvos haTorah are the mitzvos train us to have midos tovos and this he says, the other point is not here in Shmonah Perakim, the other point we had already when we learned the yud gimmel ikkarim here in the hakdama l'perek chelek and they keep us away from avodah zarah. So basically what the Rambam is saying is that the center of gravity of a person who's just calculating how do I get to Olam HaBa and the how should I be Oved Hashem, it's the same. And that's why there's no tension between saying that on the one hand that the ultimate tachlis is Olam HaBa and saying on the other hand but that's not what you shouldn't be motivated by that, you shouldn't be focused on that. So then how do you get there? Because what the oved me'ahava mitoch ahavato will do is exactly what the person who's looking to see how do I earn tickets by keeping Torah u'Mitzvos will do, just he'll be doing it out of a different motivation. You also have here a theme, I think we spoke about this. I think we spoke about it, maybe not. You have it in various... where did we just have it? One second. Yeah, we had it over here. One second. And maybe we had it, maybe we didn't. I don't remember. Take a look in the Rambam in Perek Ches of Hilchos Teshuva, Halacha Aleph. הטובה הצפונה לצדיקים היא חיי העולם הבא. Again the Rambam gets the lashon Hatova HaTzfuna from the pasuk he's going to quote מה רב טובך אשר צפנת ליראיך. Right, that's how the pasuk refers to Olam HaBa as the good which is hidden away, right? Tzafun boruch.

הטובה הצפונה לצדיקים היא חיי העולם הבא והם החיים שאין עמהם מוות והטובה שאין עמה רעה. הוא שכתוב בתורה למען ייטב לך והארכת ימים.

Mipi Hashmua lamdu, lamdu, lamdu, limdu, Lema'an yitav lach, lamdu,

למען ייטב לך לעולם שכולו טוב והארכת ימים לעולם שכולו ארוך וזהו העולם הבא. שכר הצדיקים הוא שיזכו לנועם זה ויהיו בטובה זו ופורענות הרשעים הוא שלא יזכו לחיים אלו אלא יכרתו וימותו.

Now here, here comes the line that which links up with what we're looking at now in Perek HaMishnayos.

וכל מי שאינו זוכה לחיים אלו הוא המת שאינו חי לעולם אלא נכרת ברשעו ואובד כבהמה.

I think we commented on this lashon. What's this lashon oved kibeheima? Right, it's not enough that this guy is being nichras from Olam HaBa, but the Rambam is standing there and jeering at him and telling him, you know, you're a vilde chaya. That's what oved kibeheima. So what's that all about? So it's clear what the Rambam is saying is what's human about a person is not the fact that we eat and drink v'chulu. The entire range of physical activities, there's nothing human about that. Animals do all the same things. You know, using a fork and a knife doesn't really make such a fundamental difference. Different and even using our intelligence for concrete matters, so animals do that also. I mean animals do that also, right? We all have fun, you go to the zoo and you watch the monkeys and you watch the gorillas, so they clearly have a mahalach in what they're doing. So in terms of concrete intelligence, there's nothing which is singularly human about that either. What's human about a person is his capacity for yedias Hashem, for abstract knowledge, again ultimately of yedias Hashem, and the fact that the chochma as we spoke about becomes something metaphysical, that it becomes a part of him and that it's nikkar in his middos tovos. If only someone is really human in the sense of actualizing the potential of what's uniquely human, so then the natural result is that he's זוכה לחיי עולם הבא. And what the Rambam is saying when he says that he's, the lashon here that נכרת ברשעו ואבד כבהמה, it's not that the Rambam's hurling an insult. The Rambam is saying, again to be truly human, the natural course of events is that one should be זוכה לחיי עולם הבא. And if a person doesn't, it means he didn't really actualize or realize his humanity. And that's the same thing he's saying here: ואם עשה כן נשלם בו עניין האנושי. He has some basic level of yedias Hashem and that translates. It's not something which he's not detached from that yedia. That's a yedia that's a part of him and you see it in his middos. So then ואם עשה כן נשלם בו עניין האנושי and then and only then nivdal min habeheima. You know the fact that we walk upright and a beheima walks on all fours and the beheima walks with its head down and we're able to walk erect, that doesn't make us superior to animals. And again the same point as he had in Hilchos Teshuva, once he's an adam shaleim, so then mameila the chayei olam haba is the natural progression in a person's existence. והוא עניין אדם שלם הנה מהחלטות האדם. And the other alternate translations they have here in the notes are easier to understand: miteva haadam, mitchunas haadam. I'm not sure what machlatos here obviously doesn't mean as it usually means in modern Hebrew, decisions. It means rather what's absolute. L'chalutin means something which is and it means that belashon Chazal as well, it means something which is final, which is absolute. So what's one of the absolutes of humanity is shelo. Lo yimna'ehu mone'a, there's no external impediment שתתקיים נפשו בקיום מושכל וזה עולם הבא. There's no external impediment to chayei olam haba. I don't know, you're trying to travel in olam hazeh from point A to point B. There may be a traffic jam and the highway may be closed. You can have an external mone'a that prevents you from getting from point A to point B. Mehachlatos ha'adam, again maybe it's mitchunos ha'adam, that lo yimna'ehu mone'a. There is no mone'a, there is no external impediment. There's nothing external that prevents the person שתתקיים נפשו בקיום מושכל that if he has the midos and then which accompany or which really reflect that what he has is genuine yedias Hashem

וזהו עולם הבא כמו שביארנו. וזהו עניין אמרתך כסוס כפרד אין הבין וכולו כלומר שהמונעם מלהיות חפשי אינו אלא דבר מבחוץ כגון המתג והרסן.

Animals are externally constrained. Right, you have the reins, so the reins, you put a you put a what's it called? A bit? What's it called when you put it in the animal's mouth? A muzzle? A muzzle or also also a muzzle or or a bit in in the animal's mouth, but לא יהיה אדם כן. There is nothing analogous by a person. Ella yihiyeh hamone'a, if there's something that prevents us from chayei olam haba that impedes us, these are lines to remember, to be

חרוט על לוח לבנו רבותי. אלא יהיה המונע ממנו עצמו.

The only thing which can prevent a person from olam haba is is himself. כלומר צורתו האנושית אם הייתה שלמה, if a person's again just human form is is complete, meaning he's not a beheima in terms of just living a physical materialistic instinctive existence. Im haysa shleima, היא תמנעהו ממה שמונע מן השלמות. If a person's tzuras ha'enoshas is shleima, it will prevent him from getting involved with things where he would thereby prevent himself from shleimus, vehein hanikros pchisyos, and these are the character flaws. והיא תזרז אותו אל מה שיביאהו אל השלמות, vehein hamaylos.

וזהו העולה לדעת מכל דבריהם בעניין זה הנעלה שחשיבותו עצומה. ואורך החיבור שאקבץ בו כל הדרשות.

Right, so the Peirush Hamishnayos of of the various sefarim we have of the Rambam, the Peirush Hamishnayos is the earliest one. Written written in in his in his youth, before Sefer Hamitzvos, before Mishneh Torah, before the Moreh. So at this point in the Rambam's life, he thought he was gonna basically write a Peirush on Ein Yaakov. He was gonna he was gonna write a chibur where he explained every Aggadeta in Shas. ואורך החיבור שאקבץ בו כל הדרשות הנמצאות בתלמוד וזולתו. More than an Ein Yaakov. I don't know, I guess Midrash Rabbah also, all the Midrashim.

ואבארם ואסביר מהם הסבר המתאים לאמיתות. וכן אביא ראיות על כל זה מדבריהם ואגלה מה מהם כפשוטו ומה מהם משל ומה מהם כחלום ואמרו בסתם כאילו קרה בהקיץ. ובאותו החיבור אבאר לך אמונות רבות ושם אבאר כל הדברים אשר נתתי לך מהם בדברי אלה דוגמאות מעט שתלמד מהם.

So obviously this sefer never materialized. So I think kemidumeh that the Rambam writes that the reason, I again a little bit you have again he he explains acheish that there are some Aggadeta that he'll that he'll explain in in the Moreh, but ruba deruba this didn't materialize and I think the Rambam says that when he set out to do it, he realized that the reason Chazal said things bederech mashal. subject matter they were discussing. So by sort of writing it in code, in a moshal, so that ensures that only people who are holding on a madreiga to decode the moshal to understand what the nimshal of the moshal will have access to these inyonim. But then the Rambam realized, so mah nafshach? He says, if I'll just write bederech moshal also, so what will I have, what help will I have given you? He said, if I'll make the nimshal explicit, so I can't do that. There's a reason that Chazal, Chazal expressed these things bederech moshal. So he didn't write it.

ואין לבקר אותי על מה שיש בדברי העדר דיוק במקצת מילים ועניינים שמדקדקים בהם אנשי החכמה כי לא דקדקתי עד כדי כך כדי להבין למי שלא הורגל מקודם בשום דבר מן העניין הנכבד הזה שאין משיגין אותו כל בני אדם.

The Rambam says, you don't, don't criticize me for what I've discussed here for neglecting to explain certain details, for certain nuance and precision, because you can't when you're explaining things to people initially, so you have to explain to them the klolim. When a person knows all the klolim, so then you can tell him about the pratim and the dikdukim and the pirtei pratim. But before the person knows the pratim, before the person knows the klolim, you can't inundate him with the subtleties and the nuances of miktzas milim ve'inyonim. That's a very clear and unimpeachable principle of chinuch. Umilas apikores, says the Rambam, היא מילה ארמית עניינה זלזול וביזוי בתורה ובנושאי התורה. Now, the Rambam obviously knew that the word apikores comes from the name of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The Rambam obviously knew that. So what does he mean by saying that it's an Aramaic word? So the Rambam means as follows: even when a word comes from one language to another language, so usually let's say unfortunately in recent years, in recent decades, too much English has been incorporated into modern Hebrew. But by and large when the English words are adopted, so sort of the pronunciation is Hebraicized. So, I don't know, you don't say statistics, you say statistika. Okay, now why you have to do that and why you can't, you know, within use words from Hebrew is a good question that doesn't have a good answer. But lema'aseh, the point is that the form of the word in the adopted language will be consistent with that language. So what the Rambam is saying is that apikores, the form of the word, is an Aramaic form, like it doesn't look like a Hebrew word. Even when words come, the Rambam's not talking about what the source of the word is, he's talking about the form of the word. That even the form of this word, again, if he wanted to tell us, because you look at it, right? The word apikores is not, if you have a feel for Hebrew... It's not Hebrew. I'm just saying it's not Hebrew. It's not Hebrew. The Rambam knows that that it comes from the Greek, but the Rambam's telling us that the in terms of the just the same way if if you would talk about any of the countless English words that have been incorporated into modern Hebrew, we know they're originally English but but you'll say about one word which wasn't Hebraized in in terms of pronunciation oh that's an English word. Like once upon a time you know when you were shocked so so they used to say in Eretz Yisrael ani be-helem. Now they say ani be-shock. Okay so I don't know whether the difference between shock and shock is so you would say that's an English word. You'd say that's an English word you'd say it about that but you wouldn't say it about you know about English words which have been Hebraized in terms of their pronunciation. So lichora that's what the Rambam means by milah Aramis. The Rambam obviously knows that that it's Greek. All right so maybe we'll pick up with the the definition of the word and we'll pick up with this next week be'ezras Hashem.