Chayey Sara (Tamim); Vayishlach (shalem b’mamono)

Talking about different facets different elements of temimus. We spoke about the Rambam in Hilchos Avodah Zarah that temimus means not only to be practically devout but also to be intellectually devout and committed to Torah. We spoke last week about the Rambam Shemoneh Perakim that temimus means a balanced life which encompasses which combines which blends all midos even apparently opposing or opposite midos. We spoke a little bit about temimus in terms of using one's time. Another facet of temimus of completeness, though the Gemara doesn't use the term in this context, it clearly belongs in any discussion of temimus, the well-known Gemara in Avodah Zarah דף יז עמוד ב. The Gemara tells the story:

תנו רבנן כשנתפסו ר' אלעזר בן פרטא ור' חנינא בן תרדיון אמר לו ר' אלעזר בן פרטא לר' חנינא בן תרדיון אשריך שנתפסת על דבר אחד.

When the Roman government arrested the two of them, so Rebbi Elazar said to ר' חנינא בן תרדיון, "You are fortunate, שנתפסת על דבר אחד, there's only one, you've only been indicted on one count. Maybe you'll get off the hook. Oy li, woe is me שנתפסתי על חמשה דברים. I've been indicted for five things for five violations by the Romans."

אמר לו ר' חנינא אשריך שנתפסת על חמשה דברים ואתה ניצול.

You are fortunate because you who have been indicted for five things you will be saved. אוי לי שנתפסתי על דבר אחד ואיני ניצול. I who was only indicted for one violation will not be saved. And again we know ר' חנינא בן תרדיון is one of the asarah harugei malchus. שאתה עסקת בתורה ובגמילות חסדים you preoccupied yourself with Torah and with chesed ואני לא עסקתי אלא בתורה בלבד and I was exclusively preoccupied with Torah.

וכדרב הונא דאמר רב הונא כל העוסק בתורה בלבד דומה כמי שאין לו אלוה

someone who is exclusively preoccupied with Torah it's as though he has no God.

שנאמר וימים רבים לישראל ללא אלהי אמת. מאי ללא אלהי אמת שכל העוסק בתורה בלבד דומה כמי שאין לו אלוה

that one who is exclusively preoccupied with Torah it's as though he has no God, rachmana litzlan. So here too there's a very strong, it's difficult to imagine the Gemara's phrasing of this being any stronger, but a very strong imperative that again one's life has to be complete in terms of that he has to be oved Hashem not only through talmud Torah but also through gemilas chasadim as well. And for that matter all of Torah the entire range of mitzvos ha-Torah. Rabbeinu Chananel

כל העוסק בתורה בלבד ואינו מתעסק במצות וגם להוציא הדין לאמיתו וההוראה כתיקונה כאילו גם תורה אין לו

it's as though he has no Torah. Why is that? I understand that the person should be indicted. I understand that that such a fragmented avodas Hashem is not acceptable. So what the Gemara should have said what we would have expected is that Torah yesh lo but that's not enough. Torah yesh lo but that's not enough. You can't be monolithic in that sense. You have to have more than Torah. And yet it's quite clear from the Gemara and the way the Rabbeinu Chananel paraphrases it I'm not sure if he had a different girsa or if it's just a paraphrase ein lo eloka ein lo Torah that it's not only... that his Avodas Hashem is incomplete, inadequate, lacking, but that the Torah itself is undermined and undercut by the fact that he doesn't supplement it with gemilus chasadim and with implementing Torah. So clearly this reflects the fact we discussed it in Kiddushin when we learned the sugyas of talmud Torah. The Gemara in Moed Katan says, the Rambam quotes it in Hilchos Talmud Torah, that the din of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה does not apply fully when the mitzvah in which the first mitzvah in which you're personally osek is talmud Torah. By talmud Torah, if the competing second mitzvah is אי אפשר ליעשות על ידי אחרים, so then you have to be mafsik the talmud Torah. Now the Gemara in Moed Katan quotes psukim from divrei kabbalah, doesn't quote psukim from Chumash for this. The din of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה is a din de'oraisa. It's a din de'oraisa. So clearly this is basically a svara. The psukim which the Gemara in Moed Katan has, notwithstanding, they're not psukim from Chumash. So basically it's a svara. How do we know that the din of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה shouldn't apply to talmud Torah the same way it applies to all other mitzvos? How do we know that in a svara? So the answer is as follows. The Yerushalmi says, famous Yerushalmi, also in dealing with this limitation of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה to talmud Torah, says that if you would take רבי שמעון בר יוחאי וחבריו שתורתם אומנתם and you would apply the din of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה, so they would never be mkayem any mitzvos. They would never be mkayem any mitzvos. And okay, so if you're never mkayem any mitzvos for other reasons, so that's unspeakable. But he's עוסק בתלמוד תורה. So what's so terrible? And the Yerushalmi says no, talmud Torah has to be al mnas la'asos. Talmud Torah has to be al mnas la'asos. So what's the pshat? The pshat is like this. When do we say עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה? When by abstaining from the second mitzvah, you're not undercutting or contradicting the first mitzvah. So therefore if I'm involved with a mitzvah being of hashavas aveida. And because of that I'm patur from giving a prutah to an ani, from giving a prutah to an ani. So the fact that I'm patur from mitzvas tzedakah, that doesn't contradict or undermine my mitzvah of hashavas aveida. Two mitzvos, equal mitzvos, I happen to be preoccupied with this, okay so I'm patur from the other. There's nothing about the mitzvah of hashavas aveida which per se is mechayev in tzedakah. However by talmud Torah which is לומד על מנת לעשות, so if you'll say no, I can't do this mitzvah even though it's אי אפשר ליעשות על ידי אחרים, even though it won't be done if I don't do it, if a person will say I'm not going to do this mitzvah because עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה, so it's not merely that you're passing on the second mitzvah, but that contradicts the first mitzvah. So in such circumstances the Torah never said עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה. The svara is that the Torah said עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה when the first mitzvah is not contradicted by your exemption or abstention from the second mitzvah. But where the first mitzvah's contradicted, so then it doesn't make any sense. עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה would be nonsensical. So that's the pshat and that's what the Gemara here in Avodah Zarah is also based on. Is אפילו תורה אין לו, אפילו תורה אין לו because what's the Torah worth if it's supposed to be al mnas la'asos and the only thing a person has done in his life is study Torah? So that's another balance and another sense of completeness that a person has to try to maintain in his life of Torah with gemilus chasadim with mitzvos. I just wanted in this context to discuss one basic basic idea in terms of chesed. The Rav zichrono livracha once explained very very beautifully. In a hesped for my paternal grandmother, aleha hashalom, he talked about what chessed means and he said that chessed means that the chessed you're doing is irrational chessed. True chessed, ultimate chessed means if you would stop rationally and ask whether or not the beneficiary of this chessed is deserving, the answer is no. The answer is no, he really doesn't, עס קומט אים נישט. He really doesn't deserve it. And what true chessed means is that it's irrational in the sense that there's nothing to justify it in terms of whether the other person is deserving, that you do it because it's a chessed and the other person needs it. Again, I don't remember whether he quoted this or whether I just saw it later, but if you look in two places, the meforshim actually say this. So the Torah says

איש אשר יקח את אחתו בת אביו או בת אמו וראה את ערותה והיא תראה את ערותו חסד הוא.

What do you mean chessed hu? So Rashi quotes that midrasho means that it's a hint that one time in the history of the world Hakadosh Baruch Hu allowed such a marriage between brother and sister, but who did Kayin and Hevel marry? They married their twin sisters. So it's a hint that what the aveira this person is doing once as a chessed from the Ribbono Shel Olam was permitted by Kayin and Hevel, but that's the drash on the pasuk. What's the pshuto shel mikra? What does the lashon chessed mean in this context? So Rashi says לשון ארמי חרפה חסודא. Take a look in the Ibn Ezra on this pasuk, so the Ibn Ezra says that chessed, I mean we translate it as kindness, right, in the sense of gemilus chassadim. He says that's not what it really means. What the word chessed, what the shoresh chessed really means is an excess or an extreme. And it just so happens that we 99% of the time use it in the context of a positive excess or extreme. When you do someone a favor, when you bestow a chessed upon them, that's an extreme. He says the truth is just in terms of the etymology, in terms of the connotation of the word, so chessed means the other extreme also. Any extreme. So what the Torah here is saying, this is an outrageous aveira. chessed hu. It's an outrageous excess and extreme of znus, but that's what the shoresh really means. The same thing, if you look in Sefer Yona, in tfillas Yona, so Yona says משמרים הבלי שוא חסדם יעזבו. So there are two basic understandings in the meforshim here. Meshmarim havlei shav, he's referring to the other people who were on the boat with him. So they were meshmarim havlei shav, they observed futility, they were ovdei avoda zara. Then it says chasdam ya'azovu. So what does chasdam ya'azovu mean? So there are two pshatim. One pshat is that the chessed, the kindness they did when they were in the eis tzara and they were nodeir all kinds of nedarim, they promised that we'll do this, we'll do this, we'll do this, ya'azovu. They're not going to fulfill any of that. Chasdam ya'azovu, all the chessed which they promised when their lives were in jeopardy, so chasdam ya'azovu. There is a second pshat, the Ibn Ezra says this, the Radak quotes the Radak actually says it's a Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer. ויש מפרשים חסדם יעזבו מן חסד הוא. Meaning that pasuk which we just looked at in Parshas Kedoshim. כלומר יעזבו אליליהם שהם חסד ונבלה. Chasdam ya'azovu according to this pshat means just the opposite, not that they're going to. Retract and and not fulfill all the nedarim they made but aderaba they're going to abandon avodah zarah. That's what the words Chasdam Yazovu mean. And and the so the Radak says how does Chasdam Yazovu mean that? And he says look, that's what the word chesed means. Chesed means an extreme and and he refers to this pasuk in Parshas Kedoshim.

ויש מפרשים חסדם יעזבו מן חסד הוא כלומר יעזבו אליליהם שהם חסד ונבלה וכן הוא בפרקי דרבי אליעזר.

Keivan Sherau Hamalachim with a ches, right, from the the the helmsmen of of of the ship,

כשהגיעו אל נינוה את כל הניסים שעשה הקדוש ברוך הוא עם יונה עמדו והשליכו איש אלוהיו בים שנאמר משמרים הבלי שווא חסדם יעזובו.

So the Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer says that pshat in chesed. So chesed means an extreme. So in Kedoshim it means an extreme of znus, here in Sefer Yonah it means an extreme in terms of avodah zarah, belief in avodah zarah. So when we use chesed to refer to kindness, that's also that's exactly the yesod which the Rav said, it means it's supposed to be an extreme, extreme in the sense that it's not it's not something you try to justify in terms of whether or not the person, the beneficiary, is deserving. That's not an extreme. If you can justify it, that's not an extreme. But if you can't justify it, if the guy doesn't deserve the chesed, doesn't deserve the chesed, doesn't deserve the chesed, and אף על פי כן you extend the chesed, that's extreme. And that's what the lashon of chesed really means. If you take a look in the Mesillas Yesharim, so he doesn't I don't know if he so much articulates it as much as he just assumes this understanding of chesed. He says here, quotes, and this is in Perek Tet, Be'ur Chelkei Hachasidus, ואמרו עוד ונתן לך רחמים וריחמך. So he quotes from the Gemara in Shabbos,

כל המרחם על הבריות מרחמים עליו מן השמים. וזה פשוט כי הקדוש ברוך הוא מודד מידה כנגד מידה.

Right? The Gemara in Sotah

שכל מידותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אינן אלא מידה כנגד מידה.

So here too the schar of מרחמים עליו מן השמים is clearly mida keneged mida correlated with the fact that he was meracheim al habriyos. Now,

ומי שמרחם ועושה חסד עם הבריות גם הוא בדינו ירחמוהו וימחלו לו עוונותיו בחסד שהרי מחילה זו דין הוא כיוון שהוא מידה כנגד מידתו והוא מה שאמרו ז"ל למי נושא עוון למי שעובר על פשע מי שאינו רוצה להעביר על מידותיו ואינו רוצה לגמול חסד הנה הדין נותן שגם עמו לא יעשו אלא שורת הדין.

So he's taking for granted, right, that the pshat in chesed is by definition it means lifnim mishuras hadin. That a person is acting lifnim mishuras hadin with his fellow Jew and that's why the mida keneged mida is that when the person is judged min hashamayim that Hakadosh Baruch Hu goes lifnim mishuras hadin. So here too again he doesn't he doesn't articulate it as much as he just assumes this definition of chesed. Clearly clearly this is something in terms of applying and implementing halacha l'maaseh which is relevant every day, every hour, every minute. And I think if we look inward so too often I think we make a cheshbon when it comes to chesed as to whether or not whether or not the other person is deserving of the chesed or not. And I think it's very important that we should try to keep this definition in mind of chesed of an extreme, of something which isn't justifiable. And I think that that would dictate a certain behavior in many many instances. Rashi quotes the Midrash ויבוא יעקב שלם עיר שכם. So Rashi quotes

שלם בגופו שנתרפא מצלעתו, שלם בממונו שלא חסר כלום מכל אותו דורון, שלם בתורתו שלא שכח מלימודו בבית לבן ומתלמודו בבית לבן.

So Yaakov Avinu's shleimus was b’gufo, b’mamono, b’torato. But that the Torah should call attention to the fact that Yaakov Avinu was shalem b’torato is understood, understood. Perhaps even the fact that he was shalem b’gufo, perhaps that should be understood as again focusing our attention on the fact that the Ribbono Shel Olam made a miracle to cure him of

ויזרח לו השמש כאשר עבר את פנואל והוא צולע על ירכו.

Well what does the Torah have to tell us about Yaakov Avinu's 1040 here? That he was shalem b’mamono. And if he would have been, why are we interested in what financial bracket Yaakov Avinu is? Yaakov Avinu of course had been injured. ויותר יעקב לבדו ויאבק איש עמו עד עלות השחר. Rashi quotes in the Gemara in Chulin שכח פכים קטנים וחזר עליהם. Forgot little little containers and went back for them. So here too apparently there was a concern on Yaakov Avinu's part for his material possessions and for his finances and rather very very great concern. I mean again Yaakov was quite wealthy lich’ora and yet he was interested in the pachim ktanim. So lich’ora what emerges from these two marei mekomos is as follows. Obviously our neshamos come down into Olam Hazeh for avodas Hashem. That’s the only reason that our neshamos come down into Olam Hazeh because this is the Olam Ha'asiyah. This is where a person is oveid Hashem. And obviously our neshamos did not come down into Olam Hazeh to accumulate wealth or to be infused into a body just so we can be concerned with our physical well-being per se. Clearly that’s the case. Nevertheless that clear focus which we should always always maintain notwithstanding that should not lead to a sense of disdain or bitul for mamono or gufo. The fact that a person correctly realizes that one’s tachlis in life is avodas Hashem and everything that that involves and... implies, but that is not supposed to create a sense of bittul for mammono or for gufo. And that's why the Torah tells us it's important to know that not only was he shalem betalmudo, but he was also shalem begufo, he was also shalem bemammono. Why is it? Very simple. Tuesday night, we had occasion to read the Rambam of Perek Tes of Hilchos Teshuva, and we focused on a different part of that halacha, but the Rambam says there in that same halacha that the reason the Torah emphasizes so much in Bechukosai and all the brachos of how successful and prosperous we'll be in olam hazeh, אם בחקתי תלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם, is not because this is the s’char hamitzvah, but because this is crucial in terms of providing the support system wherein there will be no impediments to our avodas Hashem. And that's what the Rambam says amazingly. The Rambam says the reason you want to know, again this has to do with the Rambam's shitta, that quoting Shmuel's meimra, that

אין בין עולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שיעבוד מלכויות בלבד.

But the Rambam says if you want to know, it's an amazing statement, why do we long so much for Mashiach? Why do we long so much for Mashiach? Because when Mashiach comes, olam keminhago noheg according to the Rambam's understanding here and in Hilchos Melachim. Olam keminhago noheg. It doesn't usher in olam haba the way others hold. The Rambam didn't have that understanding. So mipnei mah nisavu for yemos hamashiach and mipnei zeh nisavu

כל ישראל נביאיהם וחכמיהם לימות המשיח כדי שינוחו ממלכויות שאינם מניחות להם לעסוק בתורה ומצוות כהוגן וימצאו להם מרגוע וירבו בחכמה.

That the whole ideal of yemos hamashiach is just because parnassa won't be a problem and anti-semitism won't be a problem and there won't be problems and we'll be able to be oved Hashem without distractions, without impediments. That's what the ideal of yemos hamashiach is, the Rambam says. That's why everyone longs for yemos hamashiach. Because the Torah recognizes, according to the Rambam, כל ישראל נביאיהם וחכמיהם recognize that even though of course the tachlis of life is avodas Hashem, but if a person isn't healthy, if he's not shalem begufo, so he's not going to learn as well as if he were shalem begufo. And if a person is constantly challenged by the nisayon of oni, so then again he will not, if he's not shalem bemammono, he again will be distracted and rachmana litzlan possibly derailed and diverted from his avodas Hashem. And that's what the Torah is hinting at when the Torah says it's relevant to know that not only was Yaakov Avinu shalem betalmudo, but the reason he was shalem betalmudo, perhaps it's not over-interpreting in terms of the sequence of the shleimusin as listed in the midrash, he was able to be shalem betalmudo because he was also shalem begufo, he was also shalem bemammono. So the correct emphasis and preoccupation with avodas Hashem is not supposed to create a sense of bittul for being shalem begufo or bemammono. One is for purposes of avodas Hashem, one is supposed to ensure oneself, and one is also supposed to ensure, again it doesn't mean that one should aspire to be wealthy, but it means that one should make a hishtadlus that כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים but we're obligated to make a hishtadlus that a person should have adequate shleimus bemammono that he has a me'ein of what the Rambam describes as the ideal of yemos hamashiach in terms of removing impediments and obstacles from his avodas Hashem. You find this theme expressed by Chazal in other contexts as well, whether it's the Gemara at the end of Kiddushin,

כל מי שאינו מלמד את בנו אומנות כאילו מלמדו ליסטות.

The same point, the same point. And it's very important. I don't think we can be smarter than Chazal. I don't know that there's anyone who's smarter than Chazal. I don't think we're greater baalei bitachon than Chazal were, nor do I think that we are greater chachamim than Chazal were. And Chazal say that if a person doesn't have a source of support, it's keilu melamdo listus. And Rachmana litzlan puk chazi, when a person doesn't have a source of support, so then people begin to try to be moreh hetter on things for which one should not be moreh hetter. The same theme is expressed in the Gemara, I think it's later in Sukkah, how some things are מרחיבין דעתו של אדם. The Gemara says amongst them that a dirah na'ah is מרחיבה דעתו של אדם. So again, it doesn't mean that a person is supposed to that his life's dream is supposed to be a house in the suburb with a two-car garage. That's not what the Gemara means. But what the Gemara says is that the way olam hazeh was created is that a person needs a support system. He needs to facilitate his avodas Hashem. And they're not ends in of themselves, but however one cannot just ignore the need for this kind of support system. And that's why the Torah bothers to tell us that Yaakov Avinu was not only shalem b'talmudo, but was also shalem b'gufo u'v'mamono.