Ye’di’ah and Hashgacha

Then there is another very important point that emerges from the Ramban we were learning yesterday on Ki Yeda'tiv. Maybe just to read a line or so. והנכון בעיני כי היא ידיעה בו ממש. Meaning, not lashon chiba, not even yedi'ah that I know ki yeda'tiv that I know something about it אשר יצוה את בניו, right, the alternate possibilities that the Ramban mentioned. No, but it means yedi'ah bo mamash. Ki yeda'tiv.

ירמוז כי ידיעת השם שהיא השגחתו בעולם השפל היא לשמור הכללים וגם בני האדם מונחים בו למקרים עד בוא עת פקודתם אבל בחסידיו ישים אליו לבו לדעת אותו בפרט להיות שמירתו דבקה בו תמיד.

So the Ramban is talking about hashgacha, but he is saying that is yedi'ah. He is talking about yedi'ah, but he is saying that is hashgacha, right? He is going back and forth between the two. The way we, I think, generally think of and define for ourselves those two terms, they are very distinct, right? Yedi'ah is a person, let us say to speak in human terms, that a person knows what is going on, and hashgacha in human terms is whether the person intervenes, whether he gets involved. A person can know and stand on the sidelines, or a person can know and, based on his knowledge, he can intervene. And the Ramban is saying no, ki yeda'tiv means hashgacha. Right now, before we try to, albeit very superficially, try to understand that, it is again here too the Ramban and the Rambam are telling us the same thing, and this actually accounts for what otherwise is a very big question in the Rambam's Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim. So hayesod ha'asiri, let us say the way we summarize in the Ani Ma'amin שהבורא יתברך שמו יודע מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותם. Right? And we speak of yedi'ah, and then Yud-Alef is sechar va'onesh. So seemingly hashgacha is missing from the Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim. It is a question, you know, there are, it surfaces in a couple of places, you know, exactly what the Rambam put into the Yud-Gimmel Ikkarim, what he did not, but we would have thought that hashgacha would make the cutoff in terms of there being an ikkar emunah. And yet the Rambam, just the yesod is yedi'ah. היסוד העשירי הוא שיתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם. But ela mai, again we will see in a minute that really one can and recognize this same idea in the Rambam himself already, but in our Ramban it is quite clear that again yedi'ah is hashgacha, hashgacha is yedi'ah. And maybe the mashal to try to, again very superficially, have some sense for what this means is imagine the following. I do not know, maybe what they do now with brainwaves, maybe you do not have to imagine, maybe it is true already. I do not know what they are holding, but certainly once upon a time you can see the light switch, you can see the light switch. But then if you want the light switch to change positions, you have to go do something. You have to go press the switch. But imagine someone has a koach that through seeing, that affects change. So then that would close the gap which exists between seeing and doing. I don't know now you can do it with your brain waves that's besides the point but in the world that used to be. So there's a gap, right? So imagine someone he has a koach that by seeing the light switch and willing, so then the light switch changes positions, so then when we talk about that individual, we wouldn't differentiate the seeing and the doing anymore, right? That would reflect our experience, but it wouldn't hold true for him. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows something gufeh, gufeh means that he's mashgiach. That gap between yediyah and hashgacha is when we're sort of imposing upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu our experience. That with a human being, it's one thing to know. A person can know that there's an ani, but that doesn't mean that I've done anything about it, it doesn't mean that I've given tzedakah, that I can intervene and give tzedakah. But by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, his yediyah gufeh, the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows something itself elevates above nature and means that it's not prone to random accidents vechulu. That his yediyah gufeh by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, being known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu means being elevated and being mushgach. And it's clear that that's what the Ramban is saying, right? And that's why the Ramban is, again, he's, you know, seamlessly, again, we think of it as going back and forth, but it's not going back and forth. It's hainu hach, he's not really going back and forth. That's only, you know, in terms of our initial erroneous understanding. כי ידיעת השם שהיא השגחתו because being known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu means not just being known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows the laws of nature and that's what, again, that's what generates everything in the domem, tzomeach, and chai. When a person's an individual and he's known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then it means that he's elevated above, so the yediyah is gufeh the hashgacha. Being known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu gufeh is something that provides the hashgacha, that gufeh is the hashgacha. Again, imagine a human being, he has the koach that looking at something is poel on that object. That looking on something has an effect, it does something to that object. So when you would be talking about that individual, you wouldn't differentiate again the stage of looking and the stage of acting. Now it's clear that the Rambam uses yediyah in the same way and that's why hashgacha isn't in the yud gimmel ikkarim, but it's not something distinct from yediyah. It's hainu hach, it's not that it's missing. And again, how do you know that the Rambam means the same thing as the Ramban? Because this is, you know, we don't know who, as far as I know, we don't know who authored, who paraphrased the Rambam's yud gimmel ikkarim in the Ani Ma'amin. But anytime you paraphrase the Rambam, you're going to lose something, right? It's impossible to paraphrase the Rambam and capture everything. So the way we say it in the Ani Ma'amin, again, שהבורא יתברך שמו יודע כל מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותם so you don't really have a clue to this the fact that yediyah and hashgacha hainu hach. But here you do, in the Rambam's words himself you do:

היסוד העשירי שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם ולא הזניחם.

Again his lehazniach means to neglect, right? Velo hiznichom, meaning that's what yediya means. That's exactly what this Ramban is saying. And what's more, what's the Rambam's proof text for that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is yodea? What's the proof text? He continues, if you continue reading here:

היסוד העשירי שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם ולא הניחם

velo k'das ha'omer, not like that heretical view that עזב ה' את הארץ. Again עזב ה' את הארץ lekulo, again according to our initial incorrect differentiation of the two, עזב ה' את הארץ just takes the position that Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't intervene, that he abandoned. A person, let's say again speaking in human terms, a person can know full well and still abandon. A parent can know full well that the child needs help and they can rachmana litzlan abandon the child. It doesn't mean that there's a lack of yediya, it means there's a lack of intervention, a lack of involvement. And when the Rambam is is the pasuk that the Rambam quotes that the Yesod HaAsiri rejects, right? That the Yesod HaAsiri the pasuk which is the the antithesis of the Yesod HaAsiri, the Yesod HaAsiri is שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם and the antithesis of yodea is עזב ה' את הארץ. You see clearly exactly the same the same construct, the same understanding as as in the Ramban that by Hakadosh Baruch Hu being known by Hakadosh Baruch Hu gufa is to have hashgacha. But the person needs to act and live in a way that he's a yachid and therefore be known as a yachid as opposed to just being an instance, an individual instance of a klal as as we tried to explain yesterday. Doesn't borei u'manhig mean hashgacha? I don't maybe in the one second, sorry. Yeah I don't I don't know what it means in the Ani Maamin, but but the Rambam in the Rambam it's not in the Yesod HaRishon. So if the, you know, the mechaber of the Ani Maamin put it there, then that's a little bit of a shtikl of a liberty of if if the Ani Maamin means what the Rambam says it means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is responsible for the ultimately as as the first cause and because of ratzon Hashem of natural law, so he's responsible for all the planetary motion and the because of the the natural physical laws that Hakadosh Baruch Hu willed and wills, so so that's why the the leaves are falling off the tree vechulu vechulu. That's if if the Ani Maamin is expressing what the Rambam says in the Yesod HaRishon, then that's what it means. It doesn't mean hashgacha. Doesn't mean hashgacha. Hashgacha for the Rambam is explicitly in the in the Yesod HaAsiri, that's what he says, that the Yesod HaAsiri of yediya is the antithesis of עזב ה' את הארץ. The yediya means velo hiznichom. You have in in Tehillim, one second, you have in Tehillim in one of the earlier perakim. So Dovid HaMelech says כי אראה שמיך מעשה אצבעותיך ירח וכוכבים אשר כוננת. Right I see the vast Briyah. מה אנוש כי תזכרנו ובן אדם כי תפקדנו. So I think again what it means, I think what it means is that that knowing, remembering, ki tiskereinu, again in the sense of that that Adam potentially stands out as a yachid that you know him individually as a yachid within this vast, within this vast briyah. Okay we'll stop here.