Perek 1

Instead of giving an introduction to the Ish Hahalacha, which obviously has its merits, but by definition that sort of gets us ahead of ourselves in terms of the reading and the learning. So maybe we'll let that overview emerge naturally and organically just from beginning to try to read carefully and learn a little bit and understand a little bit bezras Hashem. שתי דמויות המכחישות זו את זו משתקפות באיש ההלכה. There are two contradictory images which are reflected in the Ish Halacha. שתי בבואות שאין ראי זו כראי זו. Two shadows שאין ראי זו כראי זו different and distinct. mitgalmos are embodied benafsho uverucho.

מצד אחד רחוק הוא מאיש הדת הכללי כרחוק מזרח ממערב.

On the one hand, the Ish Hahalacha is as far removed from the general religious mystical type as far removed as East is from West. ושווה בהרבה דרכים לאיש הדעת הפרוזאי. And he's comparable in many ways, the Ish Hada'as Haprozai, the prosaic man of cognition, think of a scientist, a mathematician.

ומצד אחר הרי הוא איש אלוהים בעל גישה אונטולוגית מקודשת לשמיים.

On the other hand, he's a man of God. Let me just stop there and translate those five words. So the root 'ontos' in Greek means being, so ontology, like biology, so 'bio' means life and biology is the study of life and cardiology is the study of the heart, so ontology is the study of being. So ba'al gisha ontologit, the Ish Hahalacha possesses, he has an ontological approach which is consecrated lashamayim. So already here, at this point we don't really understand what it means and we certainly don't know what its content is yet, but already here you see that the Rav is going to revolutionize our understanding and appreciation of Halacha. Halacha, already here at the outset in describing the Ish Hahalacha as ba'al gisha ontologit, so it's clear the Rav is teaching us that Halacha not only provides a manual of do's and don'ts but it provides an all-encompassing approach to being, to existence. It's a perspective on being and existence. It can't be at this point fully intelligible. Mitzad echad, mitzad acher, from the other side, הרי הוא איש אלוהים. Totally totally different, totally different orientation than the than that which one associates with the ish hadaas, the the type of the the scientist, mathematician. He's an ish elokim,

בעל גישה אונטולוגית מקודשת לשמים ותפיסת עולם נהנה מזיו השכינה.

So occasionally maybe we'll comment on the translation. The translation on the whole is a very good translation. Ish HaHalacha is is an exceedingly difficult work to translate. It's exceedingly difficult, A, because you can't translate anything unless you understand it, and it's a very profound work. B, it's the language is so rich in on the one hand rabbinic idiom, on the other hand philosophical terminology, and especially the rabbinic idiom doesn't easily or or literally translate. So it's a very, very challenging work to translate and the translation is very good. So the comments I don't mean with the comments to demean the translation. But here, kimiduma, the translation here is wrong. I think the translation of this sentence says, someone has the English in in front of them? On the other hand, he is a man of God. So far so good. Possessed of an ontological approach that is devoted to God. Okay, that's also good. Utfisat olam and of a world view saturated with the radiance of the divine presence. So he translates neheneh miziv hashchina as modifying the tfisat olam, and of a world view saturated with the radiance of the divine presence. If that's what it meant, it probably would have said tfisat olam hanehenet would have been the way to to express that. It's it's hard to push that into the words. So it seems like as the comma properly is correctly placed, that that the way to read and and try to understand is as follows: that that he's an ish elokim, baal gisha, again, he's one of, right? The possessor of, he's one of בעל גישה אונטולוגית מקודשת לשמים ותפיסת עולם. But that itself, as we just said, is a tremendous chidush that halacha carries with it, provides tfisat olam, a world view. That itself the Rav is is emphasizing. This is not just a person who's committed to a certain discipline and to on a practical level to a certain way of life. No, that that through halacha this is a person who has a has a world view. A term perhaps otherwise which we would associate with a philosophical system. No, but that's gufe the point that that the ish hahalacha has that through halacha. And then neheneh miziv hashchina is not modifying the tfisat olam, it's modifying the ish haelokim. Mitzad acher, I think just texturely that's the only way it it reads properly. Mitzad acher, הרי הוא איש אלוהים, he's an ish elokim who's neheneh miziv hashchina, right? Often the ish da'as, right, with the ayin, the ish da'as is the pursuit becomes totally secularized. The scientific pursuit, the mathematical pursuit. Certainly in in our day, that that's often, Baruch Hashem, not always, but but often, often the case that that that pursuit, that orientation, that scientific orientation, mathematical orientation is something which is secularized. And and you wouldn't describe, you wouldn't describe that individual as an ish Elokim. You wouldn't describe him as being nehene miziv hashchina. And that's what the Rav is saying, that the the presence within the ish ha-Halacha of certain elements which are comparable to that of of the cognitive type, notwithstanding, but but he's an ish Elokim who's nehene miziv hashchina. Yitachen, and here, this is going to come up a couple of times, even this morning, אם ירצה השם בלי נדר. Obviously, whenever, whenever reading, whenever learning, so the challenge is to neither under-interpret nor over-interpret. Neither to read things too superficially and and too glibly. But on the other hand, there obviously is such a thing as as over-interpreting. לא להוסיף ולא לגרוע, right? lo l'hosif. How how do you know when you're over-interpreting? So there's no simple, there's no blood test. No no no no test that that that one runs in a laboratory that that yields results, you know, if it turns blue and if the ink fades within two minutes, you know, that's an indication that that that you've over-interpreted. Certainly one major consideration in in making that judgment is who the who the author is, what the profundity of mind and and subtlety of expression are that he typically consistently operates with. So kimedumeh, and again, this he'arah, even if correct—I think it is—will only be partially intelligible here on page 1, but ul'halan l'miferia, im yirtzeh Hashem. Where where do you know the phrase nehene miziv hashchina from? Tzadikim yoshvim, nehene miziv hashchina, it's in Chazal, right? Gemara Berachot, maybe? Rambam, Hilchos Teshuva. And and what does that describe? It describes like Olam ha-Ba. Two words, two words, two words. Olam ha-Ba. Good. Lav bechidi, lav bechidi. You you file this away for, again, for future reference when hopefully it will become more fully intelligible. Lav bechidi that the Rav describes the ish ha-Halacha in Olam ha-Zeh with the term that Chazal use describing Chayei Olam ha-Ba. Lav bechidi, let's let's note that. Lefichach, consequently,

כאשר נבדוק את תודעתו הדתית של איש ההלכה בסימנים המובהקים שהפסיכולוגיה התיאורית והפילוסופיה המודרנית של הדת נתנו באישיות הדתית.

So again, the the intimation... transformative understanding of Halacha awaiting us in trying to learn and understand Ish Halacha is again clear in this sentence. the Rav speaks of trying to analyze the religious consciousness of the Ish Halacha. Halacha clearly obviously requires that one scrupulously check for the right hashgacha on the food one's about to eat. But if that sort of what if that dimension exhausts what Halacha is, then I don't know if one really talks about a complex religious consciousness of Ish Halacha. So again, as in the previous line about the Ba'al Gisha Ontologit, it's clear that Halacha is something which is all encompassing, it's something which molds the person's inner life and religious experience. Ish Halacha miyatzek, he represents dmut yokan mekorit, an original image, ve'ofi atzmai muzar, and independent, strange in quotation marks, in the sense of singular, independent, singular character שאין לב חכמי הדת גס בהם. Those who study religion are not familiar with this dmut, this ofi.

ואם איש הדת הכללי מופיע עכשיו לאור הפילוסופיה המודרנית בתור טיפוס אנטיטתטי בעל סתירות וניגודים הנאבק קשה עם תודעתו ומתלבט בייסורי השניות של קיום ושלילה אישור והכחשה,

Ish Halacha על אחת כמה וכמה. And if in general religious man, the English uses the Latin term homo religiosus, it's a good translation. If the general homo religiosus appears now to the light of modern philosophy as an antithetical type who has within him contradictions and contrasts, so how much more so is that true of the Ish Halacha. מקצתו הוא איש דת. On the one hand, it would appear that partially the Ish Halacha is the same as the homo religiosus. umiktzato ish da'at, cognitive type, intellectual type, but the reality is that כולו מובדל ומופלא משניהם. Here's a very important point to understand. You know the fallacy of sometimes people will study Yahadut and להבדיל להבדיל להבדיל אלף אלפי הבדלות and other religions from a perspective of comparative religions. The fallacy which to a large degree to a great degree in large measure really The fallacy which to a large degree, to a great degree, in large measure, really invalidates that whole approach is that two things can appear phenomenologically similar but at their root, at their core are very different. And B, A and B sort of overlap, they're not on the same level, so they're not totally distinct. And B, if you look microscopically at two parts, they may seem the same or even identical, but when you see each part in its natural context as part of its whole, so you realize that it's something very different. The fact that our neighbors may have a certain Sunday morning routine doesn't mean that it's fundamentally the same as what we do on Shabbos morning or any other morning of the week. Something can appear to someone who's just superficially looking from the outside in phenomenologically the same, but A at its core and B in terms of the whole of which it's a part is totally different. And that's what the Rav is saying. מקצתו איש הדת ומקצתו איש הדעת but כולו מובדל ומופרש משניהם. It's not that he's fifty percent different than each of them, he's one hundred percent different than each of them. Because the part is defined by the whole. What the part means is in context, the part is defined by the whole. Hu, the Ish HaHalacha, mehaveh tipus, he constitutes a tipus, antinomian, antinomic type, mishum nimuk kaful, for a double reason. One,

בשל נשמת איש הדעת שנתגלגלה לתוך ישותו והסובלת כאמור לעיל מכאובי סתירה והכחשה עצמית.

Two,

בשל נשמת איש הדת שירדה לתוכו והמכחישה את כל מגמותיה וכמיהותיה

shel hanefesh hadatit. That contradiction again which the Rav will explain in section beis here, that contradiction between the desires and the tendency of the nefesh hadatit and the enterprise of the Ish HaDa'at, well the Rav will explain that in the ensuing pages. Baram, but one should know sort of foreshadowing what the end of the story will be,

אין הניגודים המתרוצצים בתודעתו הדתית של איש ההלכה מביאים לידי תערובת של מין בשאינו מינו שסופה ניוון וכמישה.

It's not that the contrasts within the persona of the Ish HaHalacha that they remain separate and therefore opposed, and that's what he means by the moshal of being a ta'aroves of min besheino mino, that they remain separate and therefore opposed. Because if that were the case, if it were just constant opposition, so then that result, that process is one which is enervating and ultimately destructive, so that would be sofa nivun u-khemisha. Nivun, something is medaldel ve-holech, it becomes diminished. Kemisha is withering. Kopei laya, on the contrary, mitoch hastiros vehantinomiyot. ועל אישיות נהדרה נהדרה בקודש. On the contrary, from the contradictions, from the antinomies emerges a resplendent personality

שנשמתה נזדככה בכור הלבטים והנידודים ונצרפה באישם של יסורי פירוד רוחני.

Its soul was purified in the furnace of struggles and contrasts and through the fire of the suffering of the inner spiritual initial division within.

במידה יותר מרובה מזו של האישיות הדתית הכללית הכרע הנפשי עובר לאיחוי.

Right, and Moed Katan talks about which when a person says Kriya so one is allowed to be me'ache, one is not allowed to be me'ache. Me'ache means to sew it back together, to bring it back together. So הכרע הנפשי עובר לאיחוי the spiritual fissure, that spiritual tear, ultimately ends up with becoming whole and when that happens

זה מעלה לפעמים את האדם לידי מעלת שלמות כזו שאין כמוה ליפעה ולהדר במדרגת האישיות התמה והמלוכדת.

What a person achieves because the process was one which was fraught initially with contradiction and contrast what he achieves in terms of the ultimate splendor, yofah, is more than if the personality had been harmonious all along. L'pum tza'ara agra, l'fi hakera ha'ichui. Now let's just read a few more lines and then try to explain what this means. המזיגה הרוחנית של איש ההלכה מצטיינת בתפארתה ובשכלולה. The spiritual mixture, combination, the idiom is to limzog kos from Chazal, they had to add water to the wine. So meziga means to mix. Hameziga haruchanit, the spiritual mixture which is the ish hahalacha mitztayenet stands out bitifartah uv'shichlulah

כי הלא הכרע נגע בתוך תוכה של הווייתו ובחביון ישותו.

Since the initial kera touched his innermost recesses so that means that the growth that it provided was on the deepest level. יש הרבה מן האמת במשנתם הדיאלקטית של הרקליטוס והגל. There's a lot of truth in the dialectical teaching of Heraclitus, ancient Greek, and Hegel בנוגע לתהליך ההוויה בכלל. Right, so Hegel is the one who's sort of the source of the terms in Western thought of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. He said that the way things develop is you have again the thesis and the antithesis are the two opposing forces and then from that emerges the synthesis. The synthesis being something which represents growth, progress, development and then the Rav says there's a lot of truth to that philosophy.

ובהשקפתם של קירקגור קארל בארת ורודולף אוטו ביחס אל התודעה הדתית והתגלמות חייה של איש הדת בפרט שכוח יוצר נטוע באנטי-תיזה.

What does that mean? So let's maybe give it's not really a mashal, it's an example. It's an example. In learning, so You learn, you learn a Gemara with that Rashi. We'll call that the thesis. Then you encounter a difficulty. Something which it doesn't make any sense. Maybe the difficulty is something which seems to be inherently illogical, inherently nonsensical within the sugya. Maybe the antithesis is from, how does this, how does this jibe with what we know from elsewhere? And then the answer provides a deeper understanding than we had of the Gemara before the kashya. It's not that the answer takes you back to where you were before you had the kashya and that the answer just, we're now been relieved of that kashya. That the Gemara when we first read it was good, but then Tosafos has a kashya. The Rambam was good, but then we have the Ravad's hassaga and now we don't understand the Rambam. So after Reb Chaim it's not just that the Ravad, no, you come to a deeper understanding. Right, that's how all authentic learning unfolds. Which is why it's not just something pedagogic. That's why the path to authentic chidushim invariably involves kashyas. Exactly because of this idea that the Rav is presenting, that כוח יוצר נטוע באנטיתזה. And when in quotation marks chidushim are generated without a kashya, so very often they turn out to be very artificial and forced and contrived and not real. Because it's, it's the koach, it's the antithesis, it's the difficulty in the Rambam that leads to the deeper understanding in the Rambam. It's the kashya which leads to the, and if you think of any emesdike sugya of Torah, it follows that pattern of כוח יוצר נטוע באנטיתזה. That's why it could be, it could be, you know, again, with being careful not to overinterpret, when the Rav is explaining, so the Rav is basically saying that the same process which we're familiar with intellectually in terms of learning Torah happens to the ish ha-halacha existentially in terms of his inner being, that the presence initially of contrast and conflicting forces ultimately are resolved into something greater and deeper than it would have been otherwise. And again, parallel to the experience that we're familiar with from learning. It could be that that that the Rav himself is actually hinting at this example. Again, he'll talk about it in footnote five explicitly, but it could be that he's hinting at this example we're giving from learning in the following sense. When the Rav says lefum tzaara agra, so at first glance, it's, you know, a rhetorical application. You know, lefum tzaara agra, just as there's a klal that schar is commensurate to the tzaar that a person has. So too, so using it basically as a melitza, you know, rhetorically over here, that the keren nafshi and all and all the agony and spiritual struggles which which go along with that, so that yields something something great and splendid. It's really a rhetorical usage. But the emes is, it could be that it could be that in his mind, there's more than that. If you take a look at that mishna in the end of Pirkei Avos, the end of perek hey of Pirkei Avos, I think we spoke about this last year. So we quote that as a general klal. If it was raining and you got all wet walking to shul, so not to worry some lefum tza'ara agra. It was a little bit more difficult to make minyan this morning, so lefum tza'ara agra. But the Rambam in Perush HaMishnayos writes as follows:

לפי מה שמצטער בתורה יהיה שכרך ואמרו שלא יתקיים מן החכמה אלא מה שתלמוד בטורח עמל

and then continues veyarei min hamelamed. So the Rambam understands that the klal of lefum tza'ara agra that Ben Hei Hei is talking exclusively about Talmud Torah. He's not talking about other mitzvos. Which means that lefum tza'ara agra is true of Talmud Torah in a different way than it's true of other mitzvos. Ein hachi nami, it's presumably it is the case that if you're going to get drenched walking to shul, אין הקדוש ברוך הוא מקפח שכר כל בריה. You're scoring some points there and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is definitely going to see to it that there's a dividend. But לפום צערא אגרא בתלמוד תורה means something much more than that. לפום צערא אגרא בתלמוד תורה, so it's talking about sechar, right? But then the Rambam toch kedei dibbur segues: Ben Hei Hei, Ben Hei Hei said,

לפי מה שמצטער בתורה יהיה שכרך ואמרו שלא יתקיים מן החכמה אלא מה שתלמוד בטורח עמל וירא מן המלמד.

That for Torah to be miskayemes, it has to be with amal. It has to be with yira min hamelamed. What's the non-sequitur? How does that connect with what Ben Hei Hei is saying of lefum tza'ara agra? So it's clear what the Rambam is saying is that the pshat is that by other mitzvos the tza'ar is incidental. Tefilla be-tzibbur doesn't involve getting wet. The definition of tefilla be-tzibbur of what tefilla be-tzibbur means, means you're in shul with nine other nine other gedolim and you're coordinating your davening. Okay, maybe there's a leak in the ceiling and you're getting wet. Maybe it's raining and you got wet on the way to shul, but it's incidental. It's not telling you something that's integral to the mitzvah, to the effort of the mitzvah. Lefum tza'ara agra, the Rambam says Ben Hei Hei is telling us that that's integral, it's not coincidental. It's not that it will happen ammol. No, it's integral to Talmud Torah. It's integral to Talmud Torah. So part of it certainly is, and the Rambam certainly indicates as much in Hilchos Talmud Torah, is the פת במלח תאכל ועל הארץ תישן. That's certainly part of the lefum tza'ara. But it's clear from the Rambam here, it's in a dakestike way lechorah indicated in Mishneh Torah as well, but it's clear from the Rambam here that lefum tza'ara agra means much more than that. It doesn't mean only the פת במלח תאכל ועל הארץ תישן. What it means is that just forgetting what the sleeping accommodations are and forgetting what's on the menu, that the lefum tza'ara is in the Talmud Torah itself. Within the Talmud Torah itself. And lechorah, a major part, if not exclusively what that means, is what we were talking about, the fact that the real understanding of Torah only comes after a person is frustrated by the kasha that he doesn't understand. That tza'ar of, the famous story of Reb Chaim Volozhiner came to visit the Gra, and told him the Gra hadn't eaten in who knows how long because he was stuck on, he couldn't... and he sent for Rav Chaim Volozhiner right away. He was metzta'er, he was stuck on something, it's there's no greater tza'ar than that, and that inability, that seemingly, that's it seems to be a dead end. It seems to be that the person is stymied, and then it's only again through the prodigious exertion, effort, מה שתלמוד בטורח ועמל, that then the person gets to, then he gets to the deeper understanding. So that those periods of frustration, of difficulty, so that's integral to the process. Lefi tza'ara agra, itachayn is takeh alluding to this example we were giving. It's not stam that the Rav says that as a melitza and we're giving an example so that we can relate a little bit to this idea of lefi hakera ha'ichuy, that the fact that there's initially contrast and conflict, that that yields something deeper, greater, more authentic. And now the Rav is alluding to that instance that you have by Talmud Torah as well. Again, kol v'chomer, he's talking about it in terms of the person, in terms of the neshamah of the person. Hastira mafret hayeshut, it catalyzes that fruitfulness. הניגוד מחדש מעשה בראשית, hashlila bona olamot. Negation is a positive, constructive force. סוף סוף מן הסלידנות וההקשה מעמיקה ומרחיבה את התעודה. Okay, then he says that the goal here, te'udatenu, our task, our goal b'ma'amar zeh, to penetrate l'toch kivshona, to the furnace, shel toda'at, again, a furnace is where things are forged, right? Where this, what the Rav's been describing, where this plays out. The furnace in which this plays out, תוך תודעת איש ההלכה, again reflecting that rich, multidimensional conception, understanding of Halacha, v'la'amod al mahuto, and to understand the essence, של טיפוס מוזר ומשונה, this singular, unique type, hamitgaleh ba'olam, who is revealed to the world, מתוך ד' אמותיו המצומצמות, כשידיו מלוכלכות בשפיר ובשליא. Beram,

כדי לצאת ידי חובתנו במשא זה, עלינו לפתוח בביאור שרטוט אופיו וקו יסודי בהשקפתו האונטולוגית של איש הדת והשוואה עם איש הדעת.

But first we need to understand those two other ideal types, of the ish hadaat and ish hadas, שמתוכם של השינויים וההבדלים שבין שניהם, because by recognizing the differences between those two, that will be instrumental in understanding the ish hahalacha. נכיר את בעל ההוויות אביי ורבא. Okay, so bli neder, I'm not sure if next Thursday we'll begin from beiz or if we'll come back to footnote four. Footnote four, all the footnotes are very important, but the longer footnotes are even more important than the shorter footnotes, so footnote four is very important. I'm not sure which we'll begin with next time.