Knowing and/vs. Understanding Chovos Halevavos

Vechacham echad amar, chacham acher amar: למדתי לברר מעשי חמש ועשרים שנה. The paraphrase is leva'er ma'asai is lizakech ma'asai, meaning the same way borrer is in the context of hilchos Shabbos, that you're separating the ochel mitoch pesoles, so leva'er ma'asai means to to purify my actions. That I should do what I do with purity of motivation is something that for me has been an avodah of twenty-five years. Throughout the hachdamah and then throughout the sefer, the Chovos HaLevavos groups together mitzvos that I think maybe we would have had a different classification for. So on the previous page, which we saw yesterday, he talks about

כמו אמונת הייחוד אם אנחנו חייבים לעיין בו מצד שכלנו או יספיק לנו אם נדעהו מצד הקבלה שנאמר שאלקינו אחד כאשר יאמרו הפתאים מבלי אות ומופת או אם אנחנו חייבים לחקור על עניין האחד האמת והאחד העובר ולהבדיל העניין הזה אצלנו משאר ענייני האחדים הנמצאים.

Something we would have thought that maybe there are some mitzvos which deal with emuna and those mitzvos that deal with emuna, so what is the ideal, just to sincerely accept the belief, or is the ideal to to understand it to the best of our ability which requires investigation? That's one type of mitzvah. Another type of mitzvah is again the degree of lishmah that a person has in doing a mitzvah is a different avodah. And yet throughout, the Chovos HaLevavos there's no, no, this is all the same class, the same category of Chovos HaLevavos. And I think what we would have had a more I don't know, a more classes within the classification, the Chovos Ha'eivarim, and then there are the Chovos emunos vede'os, and then there are Chovos in terms of midos, and then there are Chovos in terms of again, yichud hama'aseh, purity of motivation. And he goes back and forth between the two, right? So here when he talks about the neglect of Chovos HaLevavos, he's talking about the neglect of understanding what Hashem echad means. And here when he's talking about the neglect of Chovos HaLevavos, he's again seamlessly going back and forth, he's talking about the fact that we're not again, we don't look to the actions that we engage in, we don't look to purify them, that they should be with the purest motive possible. So the point is that what the Chovos HaLevavos is about and what he's pushing back against is that avodas Hashem, Torah is not only about externalities. And and what all these have in common is, is... is a certain superficiality and externality. If a person is doing things without being mevarer maasav, again, there's a it's so externally he's he's conforming. If a person simply accepts without understanding to the best of his ability, there's a superficiality. And Chovos HaLevavos is no, Avodas Hashem is is not something which is carried out only through external action because that reduces it to to a very if it's only that, so then that reduces it to to a superficial endeavor, Rachmana litzlan. And that's what all these examples have in common. v'amar chacham acher

יש מן החכמה משהו צפון בלבבות החכמים כמטמון הנסתר אשר אם יסתירוהו והוא לא ישיגהו אדם וכאשר יגלוהו לא יהיה עליהם מאדם יושר אמריהם בו וזה כמו שאמר הכתוב מים עמוקים עצה בלב איש ואיש תבונה ידלנה

ratzu lomar

כי החכמה תקועה בתולדות האדם בטבע ובכח הכרתו כמים הטמונים בלב הארץ.

Just as if you have an underground spring, the water is there but you have to you have to dig to access it, so too our capacity to understand Chovos HaLevavos, because as he mentioned earlier, they're all sichliyos, is one we have, but a person again needs to needs to to dig deep and not be content again with with superficial understanding.

והנבון המשכיל ישתדל לחקור מה שיש בכחו ובמצפוניו מן החכמה לגלותו ולהראותו וישאבנה מלבו כאשר יחקר על המים אשר במעמקי הארץ. ואני שאלתי אחד מהנחשבים מחכמי התורה במקצת מה שזכרתי לך בחכמת המצפון והשיב אותי כי הקבלה תעמוד במקום העיון בזה ובמה שדומה לזה. אמרתי לו אין זה ראוי אלא למי שאין בו יכולת לעיין מפני מיעוט הכרתו ורוחק כוונתו כנשים וקטנים וחסרי הדעת מן האנשים אך מי שכח שכלו והכרתו לעמוד על בירור מה שקיבל ויעכבהו מלעיין בו בשכלו העצלות והקלות במצות האל ותורתו הוא נענש על זה ואשם על אשר התעלם ממנו.

So look, there are two two aspects to what the Chovos HaLevavos is saying here. Now let's say you're you're teaching, I don't know, pre-1A, I don't know, maybe earlier than pre-1A, so you're teaching some basic math. So you're going to teach that 2 plus 2 is 4. Okay? So you well first the kids need to know how to count. Okay. They know how to count to 10. They know how to count to 20. So that that foundation is there. So then you show them, you know, you have two balls, one, two. You have another two balls. Now let's count them all together. And you see that 2 plus 2 is 4. Or you can just sort of drill into the kids without giving them this demonstration with with the balls. You can just drill into the kids 2 plus 2 is 4, 2 plus 2 is 4, 2 plus 2 is 4. Now lemaaseh in the second scenario, so the the children will know that if I have $2 and you give me $2 more and you ask them how many how many dollars do I have now? So the answer will be 4. They'll they'll give the answer. But how can one equate their grasp or their belief So the children will know that if I have two dollars and you give me two more dollars and you ask them how many dollars I have now, so the answer will be four. They'll give the answer. But how can one equate their grasp or their belief in two plus two is four with the children with whom you, the teacher, did the demonstration, who really it's a different quality of belief? That's what the חובות הלבבות is claiming. It's a different quality of belief. And even if you go away from that משל and you take an example where let's say when they say what's a משל one second. There's also a difference in the איכות of the belief. Let's say you move away from that משל and again the two plus two is four isn't just parroting, but you take a משל again, I don't know if it works with the math examples anymore, you take an example where even when it's based on קבלה as opposed to deeper understanding, no, there is, it's not just sort of parroting words, but there is an understanding of what it means. אינו דומה when a person believes that something is this way or a person understands that it has to be this way. It's a different also a different איכות. The ידיעה is a deeper ידיעה when a person understands not just okay it is that way. It's a different grasp of the same idea. It's a different level of understanding of the same idea.

וזה הדבר דומה לעבד שציוהו המלך לקבל ממון מעבדי מלכותו ושמנה המעות וישקלם וירצם. והיה העבד פקח ומומחה בכל מה שצוה המלך.

So he could carry this out himself. However,

וישחקו לו עבדי המלכות לפייסו בדברים עד שהאמין בהם והביאו הממון אליו ואמרו לו כי הוא שלם במנינו ובמשקלו ובמירצו והאמין להם.

So he relies on them.

ונתעצל לעמוד על בירור דבריהם והקל במצות המלך. וכאשר הגיע הדבר אל המלך צוה להביא הממון לפניו. וכאשר שאלו על משקלו ומנינו לא יכול להשיב על הדבר. וחייבו המלך על שהקל במצותו וסמך על דברי עבדיו בדבר שהיה יכול לעמוד עליו. אפילו אם ימצא הממון כדבריהם. ואילו לא היה בקי בענין לא היה מתחייב על שסמך עליהם.

So this חובות הלבבות we already had it in the previous paragraph. He says it again in שער היחוד. He says this a few times. That there is within a certain range, there is a sliding scale of what הקדוש ברוך הוא expects from people in terms of חובות הלבבות. The חובות הלבבות even says in שער היחוד that if you have someone whose intellectual capacity doesn't allow for him to conceive of incorporeal existence. And because of that he has a corporeal conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that person is considered a ma'amin. For anyone else, so that is absolutely unacceptable and and that doesn't that doesn't qualify. But but there is a there is a sliding scale based on what Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows to be the individual's capacity. ואם לא ואילו לא היה בקי בעניין, right, if if the Eved HaMelech who was charged with checking into these coins didn't know the melachah, he wasn't an expert in this,

לא היה מחויב על מה שסמך עליהם. וכן אתה אם לא היית יכול להגיע אל עניין זה מדרך שכלך כמו עילות מצוות השמע,

such as chukim. We're not the Chovos HaLevavos thinks that we're not we're not going to be held accountable for not understanding the reason for chukim. So then

אז היתה נראית טענתך לטענה בעמדו המחקר עליו. וכן אם היתה דעתך קצרה והכרתך חלושה מהשיג אליו לא היית נענש על פשיעתך ושיח הנשים והקטנים אשר הוא בידיהם דרך קבלה אבל אם אתה איש דעת ותבונה שתוכל לעמוד בהם על בירור מה שקיבלת מהחכמים בשם הנביאים משורשי הדת וכותבי האמת אתה מצווה להשתמש בהם עד שתעמוד על העניין ויתבאר לך מדרך הקבלה והשכל יחד.

Maybe the mashal to again the how the understanding is deeper. Let's say, so when when when you study geometry, so you can sort of memorize the results of theorems and not just be parroting them, you'll understand that you know, that you understand what the words mean, you're not just parroting when you say, ich veis, if a line intersects two parallel lines, so then the angles are going to be the same where it intersects, and that when it intersects one line, so then the two angles are going to be supplementary, et cetera. So you understand what all those words mean. It's not just parroting. But it's another thing to work through the proof and understand how and why that's true. It's a different level and different eichus of understanding. That's what the Chovos HaLevavos, that's the mashal for the... it's a different level, it's a different degree of understanding. This this line here ויתבאר לך מדרך הקבלה והשכל יחד is is crucial. The kabbalah, the Rambam talks about this also in one place, the kabbalah is a guide for us in terms of deepening emunah with sechel. It doesn't mean throwing kabbalah to the winds. No, the kabbalah is the it provides the the signposts along the way to correctly employing sechel. So it doesn't mean that the person is just, you know, left to to his own in terms of in terms of sechel. It requires one level of ability to be told to figure something out, it's another level to to be told what the answer is and to figure out how you how you get to the answer. Very few people can do number one, more people can do number two. And that's what it means ויתבאר לך מדרך הקבלה והשכל יחד. How does that translate bazman hazeh? So I don't know, everyone has to have the self-awareness to know where where on the spectrum one stands based on all the relevant factors. It's more than raw IQ. It's an ability to reason. A person has to know where he stands. We're not so, I don't know that we're as, I don't know if we're as a bar daas, I don't know if we're as adept as they used to be, so a person has to figure out where he stands. Okay, then he's going to go on to bring two more proofs from Tanach, we'll pick up with that tomorrow.