Mishlei 2:18 – The Impacts of Forsaking Torah

Good morning Rabotai. Pasuk yud chet: כי שחה אל מות ביתה ואל רפאים מעגלתיה. She lowers, lashon hashtachavaya or a person prostrates himself, so here we'll see in the Gra that he understands shacha in a transitive sense, she lowers her house el mavet, ve-el refaim maglotayich and her, a ma'agal is a circle, but here maybe more in terms of a circuit that describes a person's movement or motion, ve-el refaim maglotayich. What does that mean? Says the Gra: הוא גם כן נגד התאוה. The first half of the pasuk again following up on taiva and chemda, the taiva for physical pleasure, chemda for mamon:

הוא גם כן נגד התאוה שיושבים בביתם ורואים למלאות תאוותם.

As we mentioned, the desire to satisfy one's taivas is depicted in terms of something which plays out within one's own home, in the sense that it's a response to something internal. There is an internal yetzer hara we have, a natural urge, a natural desire, and in that sense it's depicted as something which a person can, if he erroneously chooses to do so, satisfy at home. So they who do that, who focus on the material and the physical, שוחים את ביתם אל מות. They lower their house to death.

כי היושב בביתו ועוסק בתורה שהיא החיים הוא חי כמו שנאמר כי הוא חייך ואורך ימיך.

So if a person's focus, if a person's center of gravity is Torah, so then he's alive. But a person who forsakes Torah, so then that by forsaking Torah, so by forsaking chayim, כי הוא חייך ועץ חיים, so mamaila it's el mavet.

והם יושבים בביתם אך עוסקים למלאות תאוותם ואינם עסוקים בתורה לכן הם שוחים אל מות ביתם.

The second half of the pasuk, ואל רפאים מעגלתיה נגד הרודף תמיד אחרי הממון. Again, someone who's excessively focused on mamon. As the Gra indicated earlier, it's not an alien focus or pursuit, it's only when it's excessive and disproportionate. So it's נגד הרודף תמיד אחרי הממון and gratuitously beyond what he needs, הוא מוביל סחורה לכל מדינה ועוזב התורה. So he's constantly on the go, on the road to try to increase his profit even more and more. As we mentioned, the reason the pursuit of money is depicted as one which involves travel and even overseas travel is on one level that's just practically what is often entailed, but more importantly and more fundamentally because again it represents something external. A person is looking for something external and hence that's depicted as something which involves the person going outside and beyond. Keshe-ba la-Torah, even when that person will now take some time out ללמוד תורה ומצוות לקיים מצוות, hen kevedot alav. So he'll find them very onerous ומרפה עצמו מלשמור עצמו מעבירות. And because he finds it onerous, so then mamaila he will be lax. Rifyon, refaim is lashon loose, הן ולאו ורפיה בידיה, something that's loose or here in the sense of laxity, he'll be lax מלשמור עצמו מעבירות. There is a big yesod here, it's the Rambam has it in a couple of places also, if you take a look. If you look in the, in the Rambam at the end of פרק א הלכות דעות, so the Rambam in discussing cultivating and internalizing the midda beinonis in פרק א הלכה ז, so the Rambam notes וכיצד ירגיל אדם עצמו בדעות אלו עד שיקבעו בו. How does a person train himself, how does a person habituate himself to these dispositions, to these character traits, so that he internalizes them? Ya'aseh v'yishneh v'yeshaleish, a person should repeat again and again and reinforce במעשים שעושה על פי הדעות הממוצעות. If I want to be suitably charitable, so I have to push myself to act charitably. If I want to be suitably zariz, so even though I'm not naturally that, I need to push myself time and time again to act with zerizus, v'yachshov bahen tamid. This is the second time here in Perek Aleph that the Rambam has emphasized the temidiyus, how one's preoccupation with cultivating middos is not something which can sort of be a, you know, a part-time job, a part-time focus, or is just at one stage in one's life. It requires temidiyus. V'yachshov bahen tamid עד שיהיו מעשים קלים עליו ולא יהיה בהן טורח. Ultimately, the Rambam says, a person will reach a place where acting appropriately becomes easy and natural and won't be experienced as a torach, as being burdensome. So מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן that until the person trains himself, so we do experience Torah and mitzvos as difficult, and even as onerous, not because there's anything which is inherently or intrinsically onerous about Torah and mitzvos, but only because if we're out of sync with Torah, so then the adjustment process is one that does involve exertion and does involve and does entail difficulty. The Rambam has this idea again, and Reb Refoel zecher tzaddik livracha used to quote, used to juxtapose these two passages from the Rambam. If you take a look in Hilchos Issurei Biah... I'm sorry, I'm not finding it right now. I think the Rambam here has a lashon that you tell a prospective geir the טורח שיש בעשייתן על עמי הארצות. If a person's life, if a person's focus in life, if a person's values in life are out of sync with Torah, so then when he sort of, you know, in an arai sense does involve himself with Torah and mitzvos, so then he will experience torach. And that's the exact same idea that the Gra is presenting here when he says that the person whose focus in life is his financial success and amassing wealth and an unnecessarily luxurious lifestyle, so even when he does turn towards Torah and mitzvos, hen kveidos alav. V'zehu v'el refaim, ששם יהיו הרפאים שמרפים עצמם מתורה ומצוות. So their circuits, the circuits that they travel lead them to, or her again in the metaphor, lead her to refaim, to people who are lax. סבב איתם להוביל סחורה ולרדוף אחר הממון v'osan haredifos that preoccupation, those disproportionate pursuits of money shehu rodeif umisovev

הם יובילו אותו לקהל רפאים שעל ידי זה מרפה עצמו מדברי תורה ומצוות.

Now here's a second reason: A, it's not only because when he turns to Torah and mitzvos it's too onerous because his orientation is materialistic and physical, and obviously the orientation of Torah and mitzvos is the opposite, but a second reason why he gets derailed is מפני שנסתייגע מן הדרכים הסיבובים שסיבב. If a person is working unnecessarily hard because he's looking not just to have a dignified parnassah, he's looking to unnecessarily amass wealth and he's working longer and harder hours because of that, so when he comes home at night, instead of coming home at night at 6:00 or 6:30, he comes home at night at 9:00 or 9:30, it's very, very hard to grab a bite of dinner, spend time with family and then also open a sefer. It's not going to happen. He's too exhausted. He's too enervated. ומוות ורפאים הם מיתה וכרת. Again, in addition to the one level of what the nimshal is, on a second level, in extreme cases, the movess and refaim are metaphors for misa and karess. וכן אחר מיתה סוד מיתה וגיהנום. Okay, so we'll stop here. בלי נדר אם ירצה השם we'll continue in the 10th at 12:30 rabosai. Okay, have a very good productive morning, everyone should be well, be safe be'ezras Hashem. Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Please. So I didn't really understand what Rabbi meant by that searching mamon is something external, seemingly in contrast with Torah. Isn't the search for Torah also like a sort of quest, like a sort of nafak dak ve'ashkach? No, it is practically, and that's, meaning practically, practically it is, and that's what we mentioned yesterday, there's an inyan practically of הוי גולה למקום תורה. So practically it certainly can and at times should involve relocating, as it were, being displaced from one's original place. The idea of depicting Torah as something that a person pursues bibeiso is two things. A, that Chazal said that הרוצה שיחכים ירבה בישיבה, meaning once you find the place, so then the point is not to be running around and draying all the time. Once a person finds the place, once he locates himself to the makom Torah, so then it's יעקב איש תם יושב אהלים, right? That resonates now for us. It means to, again, not to run, not to dray, but just to entrench oneself in the aholei Torah, A. B, I think the other part of the why the metaphor for Torah is not going out, again, is that Torah is something that a person is, it's internal and intrinsic in terms of the need for Torah, in terms of what Torah is doing for the person, and therefore metaphorically you depict that as being within one's home. It's not something that a person is going to search for something which is external or extrinsic. Okay, see you later be'ezras Hashem, bli neder, rabosai.