Mishlei 2:5-6

Good morning rabosai. I think we were trying to work our way through the Gra on the pasuk of אז תבין יראת ה' vedaas Elokim timtza. And the Gra explains that our pasuk is expressing the second half or the flip side of the relationship between chochma and yiras Hashem, between bina and daas. Whereas reishis chochma, excuse me, whereas תחלת חכמה יראת ה' expresses the relationship of אם אין חכמה אין יראה, our pasuk is expressing the relationship of אם אין חכמה אין יראה. And therefore it's oz tavin, when you'll have the benefit of bina, bina is elicited from within chochma. When you'll have the benefit of bina, so then, then you'll have yiras Hashem. אז תבין יראת ה'. And it'll be based on daas, right? אם אין דעת אין בינה, through daas, so then timtza, timtza refers to as the Gra explains, chochma, hachochma me'ayin timatzei. Chochma is a metzia. We'll come back to that in a minute, bli neder, im yirtzeh Hashem to try to understand a little bit what that means. So we tried to understand at least in some rudimentary fashion again how the Gra is explaining to us these two couplets, the first one being of אם אין יראה אין חכמה, but conversely אם אין חכמה אין יראה, that there's an initial impetus of yira. The yira provides that impetus that a person should gain chochma, and then based on the chochma he's able to implement the yira. Just to slightly try to sharpen that point a little bit rabosai. So again, so oz tavin, so bina is davar mitoch davar. Bina is to recognize, again, sometimes it's on the level of parshanus, it's a miut or a ribui which is embedded, hidden in a pasuk as it were and the bina extracts it. And sometimes it's something which is logically implied and then one discovers and understands what the implications are. So a little bit the omek of אז תבין יראת ה' the vort is like this, that be'emes yiras Hashem, again, davar mitoch davar. The mitoch yiras Hashem, the davar that emerges is that there should be yiras cheit. And in that sense it's davar mitoch davar in the sense that genuine yiras Hashem is mechayev in yiras cheit. It can't be that a person genuinely has yiras Hashem but is you know sort of cavalier or casual about cheit. And in that sense it's davar mitoch davar, right? It's something which is logically implied, something which is logically dictated, but in order for the person to understand what the implications of yiras Hashem are, he needs the chochma to know אין בור ירא חטא. He needs to know what the halachos are. And itachen that's the pshat in when we bentch rosh chodesh and we ask for חיים שיש בהם יראת שמים ויראת חטא. Again the tefilla that we say when we bentch rosh chodesh is from the Gemara in Berachos. It was, what was it? It was tefillas Rav in the slot where we say Elokai netzor leshoni, so Rav used to say the tefilla that we say for bentching rosh chodesh. So we ask for יראת שמים ויראת חטא. And lichora in light of this passage in the Gra, so the pshat is as follows: yiras shamayim again a person has on whatever level, obviously אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור. But on whatever level a person has yiras shamayim, he's yarei of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And then what that, the davar mitoch davar, the אז תבין יראת ה' when a person understands what the implications of that yiras shamayim are, so then the person has yiras cheit as well. And that's what we ask for Hakadosh Baruch Hu, not only should we have the foundation of yiras shamayim, but then we should know what the yiras shamayim implies. and we should have the complementary yiras cheit as well. וכן כתוב בהיפך again, so he's just re-reading here in the Gra on pasuk hei,

וכן כתוב בהיפך אצל יראה בינה דהיינו תבין יראת השם.

So that's the relationship of אם אין בינה אין, excuse me, of אם אין חכמה אין יראה again, but since the bina is in the chochma, so that's how our pasuk is reflecting the

אם אין חכמה אין יראה. ואצל דעת חכמה ודעת אלוקים תמצא

reflecting the half of אם אין דעת אין בינה. And again, so even though it's referring to chochma, the timtza, according to the Gra, it's referring to chochma, it's still expressing what the mishna in Avos says אם אין דעת אין בינה because again, the bina is latent in the chochma. Why does metzia refer to chochma?

כי מציאה היא מאין. וזהו בחכמה כמו שנאמר והחכמה מאין תמצא.

What does that mean? A metzia means if a person has a job and he earns a salary, so that's not a metzia. He worked for it. He does an honest day's work and in return he gets his wages. When a person's walking down the street and finds something, so that's a metzia. So metzia as it were comes from nowhere, meaning the person didn't invest any effort, there was no, it's not compensation for anything, it's not remuneration for anything. It's me-ayin. It's me-ayin. So that's why metzia is associated with ayin, as it were, from nowhere, from nothing. Why is that the appropriate depiction of chochma? Because unlike in contradistinction to bina, chochma is, the bina again is something which is embedded within chochma. Again, whether it's the vav of v'im and im min hatzon, whether it's the min hatzon, whether it's a ribbuy that's embedded, and the chochma is the initial stage of all wisdom, meaning the initial body of wisdom, the initial corpus of wisdom is the chochma. And then the bina is what's embedded in there, is what inheres in there. So that original, that original corpus, that original foundation of chochma, so that's a metzia, right? That's not coming from anywhere, that's just Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us again, in terms of using the illustration, but again it's not solely this, but in terms of using the illustration of the Torah shebiksav, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us the pesukim in Chumash. So that's a metzia, that as it were comes from nowhere. And the dinim which are meforashim bikra, as it were, they came from nowhere. We didn't extract it from anywhere, we didn't elicit it from anywhere, we didn't deduce it from anything. It was a metzia. We just we got it from nowhere as it were. Ma she'ein kein the bina which is embedded on that, so that's not from nowhere, that's as it were, that's me'yesh, that's not me-ayin. And that's why chochma is associated with ayin ma she'ein kein bina, because chochma is the first stage. It's the first stage, so the first stage comes from nowhere, it's not being elicited and drawn out from something else, that's the metzia.

אבל הבינה אינה מאין כי היא נכללת בחכמה. ואמר כאן חמישה דברים.

So I'm not sure about these next three lines what they're all about, but I'll just read it and maybe at least try to identify some of the questions with a little bit of conjecture. But I don't really, I'm not at all sure about these next few lines here. ואמר כאן חמישה דברים: chochma, bina, v'daas. Right, that's the pasuk. of אז תבין יראת השם, which is binah, v'daas, daas Elokim timtza is the chochmah. In the previous p'sukim from the beginning of the perek, so the Gaon had explained about beginning with pasuk aleph of אם תקח אמרי ומצותי תצפן אתך, that Shlomo Hamelech was talking about Torah and mitzvos respectively. So then if you sort of now then have an overview of these first five p'sukim in the perek, so what it amounts to is ואומר כאן חמישה דברים חכמה בינה דעת ותורה ומעשה. Okay, so that is a little bit the peirush hamilos here. What needs p'shat and, it's a very important question but for the moment we're just leaving it open, is what does Torah mean as sort of distinct and beyond just all the chochmah, binah, and daas? So what is Torah referring to above and beyond the chochmah, binah, and daas? So that's one important question that we'll leave. Now the Gaon continues and says u'vechol echad v'echad, meaning in each of these chamisha devarim, hu shnayim. Each is really two. הרי חמישה מול חמישה. So what does it mean that u'vechol echad v'echad hu shnayim? What does it mean that each of these is really two? So maybe, I'm not sure, but maybe what it means, so for instance let's say about אם אין בינה אין דעת. So on the one hand there's a level of binah which needs to precede daas. Me'idach gisa, there's a level of binah that results from daas. So in that sense binah is two. And maybe that's what the Gaon means for each of these five, that sort of in the upward spiral of

אם אין א' אין ב', אם אין ב' אין א',

in that upward spiral, so each one is really, each one is really two. Maybe that's what it means. וכנגדם באדם עשרה דברים, חמישה פנימיות וחמישה חיצוניות. I don't know the full significance of the correlation, I don't know, so we'll just read it. והם הם מוח ולב וריאה וכליות וגרון שהוא הכל. Those are sort of the inner organs, the inner faculties. V'chamisha chitzoniyos, and the more outer organs and faculties, הם עינים אזנים פה ידים ורגלים. Okay, maybe just one more pasuk for this morning. כי השם יתן חכמה מפיו דעת ותבונה. What does the Gaon say? כל מה שעל ידי שטורח בחמישה דברים הנזכרים לעיל, right, which we just reviewed,

שהם חכמה בינה ודעת ותורה ומעשה, אך כך אחר כך יתן השם לך חכמה ומפיו יתן דעת ותבונה,

v'dai l'chakima. So if you'll cultivate chochmah, binah, and daas, so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give you chochmah, binah, and daas. So perhaps what this means is as follows: I don't understand, if I already cultivated it, so then what's Hakadosh Baruch Hu giving me? So maybe what it means is as follows, that chochmah, binah, and daas, again chochmah the basic, binah what's embedded, what's implied, what's inherent, daas the... The overview of combining the two and the relationship between them, all of that exists on multiple levels. So for instance, just to get a sense for what that means, משל למה הדבר דומה. So the first time we all learn Chumash, we learn Chumash as young children. And on that level, there's a level of chochma as we learn Chumash Bereishis, there's a level of chochma that we have and there's even a level of bina and daas, excuse me, on that level. A person gets older, more intellectually mature, also knows more, so he brings more to bear on what he's learning. So then, it's not only that he's capable of more bina and more daas, but even more chochma. Even in terms of what's meforash b'kra, even on the basic chochma he understands more. And mimaileh he'll also then there'll be more bina and more daas. So you can have the same chochma, bina, and daas, that same scheme of chochma, bina, and daas on multiple levels. And maybe that's a little bit of a mashal to help grasp what the Gaon is saying is, so first a person needs to pursue and on his own, I mean not on his own afukei siyatta d'shmaya, but you know, on a certain level, it's to a degree, meaning it's on his own in a certain sense, he needs to cultivate chochma, bina, and daas. Having done that, so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu elevates him to another level and on that level also he'll have the same chochma, bina, and daas and that lichora is something that continues also in an upward spiral. Right? Very often one will have the experience you learn a sugya, and then you come back to it, whether you come back to it a couple of days later, a couple of months, or a couple of years later. And then it's not just that you have new diyukim or new insights. You see dvarim meforashim that pashut one wasn't ready for and didn't register the first time, again כי ה' יתן חכמה מפיו דעת ותבונה. Okay, we'll stop here for now. בלי נדר אם ירצה ה' we'll resume around 12:30. I want you to have a good productive morning, be well, be safe, all the best.