Hil. Deos Perek 7, Yesodei HaTorah Perek 1

Okay we left off in the end of Perek Zayin of Hilchos Deos and we just wanted to have a couple of he’aros in terms of what we were doing here yesterday in the sugya as well which is where we're holding here in the Rambam also. And in the beginning of the sugya when the Gemara quotes רבה בר רב הונא's din of כל מילתא דמיתאמרא באפי תלתא so the Rashbam comments כל מילתא של גנאי and then he continues

דמיתאמרא באפי תלתא לית ביה משום לישנא בישא אם יחזרו ויאמרו לזה כך אמר פלוני עליך.

And then he explains

וטעמא כמה דמפורש בערכין וביש בערכין מאי טעמא חברך חברא אית ליה.

So the Rashbam is describing a case of re-chi-lus:

אם יחזרו ויאמרו לזה כך אמר עליך פלוני אם יחזרו ויאמרו לזה כך אמר פלוני עליך.

Nevertheless the Rashbam makes a point of saying that the kol milta was a milta shel genai. So le-cho-ra the mashma-us in the Rashbam is against the Kessef Mishneh's hag-da-ra within the Rambam. Right? The Kessef Mishneh says in the beginning of Perek Zayin here within the Rambam and this is what the Chofetz Chaim follows throughout his Sefer

דע רבינו שרכיל היינו האומר פלוני אמר עליך כך וכך או עשה לך כך אף על פי שאותו דבר אינו גנות למי שנאמר עליו כמו בהלשנת דואג שאמר על אחימלך שנתן לחם וחרב גולית לדוד ואילו נשאל אחימלך היה מצדיק שאין בזה גנות ואדרבה חושב שעשה עבודה לשאול כמו שנתנצל בדברים. אף על פי שאין בו גנות לחבירו כיון שטוען דברים מזה והולך לזה רכיל מקרי.

So le-cho-ra according to the Kessef Mishneh there would be no need to modify the כל מילתא של גנאי. Kol milta you can have something which would be again the chiddush be-appei telata is that it removes the problem again according to the Rashbam here the ha-medubar is re-chi-lus. So the mashma-us in the Rashbam is that there's only a potential problem of re-chi-lus which has to be alleviated if it was a milta shel genai ודלא כהבנת הכסף משנה in the Rambam. Okay. The other point just to clarify we contrasted yesterday that even though le-fumya basically the Rambam and the Rashbam seem to be in the same camp in terms of be-appei telata not like I guess Tosafos's pshat that be-appei telata is a heter for the person saying it because it's an indication that what he's saying isn't intended as loshon hora not like the Rabbeinu Yonah that it's mutar to say but be-appei telata removes a problem of maris ha-ayin that be-appei telata is a heter to repeat. Okay. But then we said that one of the crucial differences between the Rambam and the Rashbam is that the Rashbam emphasizes the milta de-avida le-igluyei. He emphasizes what will be whereas the Rambam says kvar nishma ha-davar. Right? The loshon ha-Rambam in Halacha Hei כבר נשמע הדבר ונודע. But the emes is the difference le-cho-ra is there but is somewhat subtle and that's for the following reason: According to the Rambam how does our sugya unfold? Right? So the Gemara has a machlokes between the talmidei Rebbe Yochanan whether it's מחאה בפני שנים או מחאה בפני שלשה. So the Gemara says

לימא בדדרבה בר רב הונא קמיפלגי דאמר רבה בר רב הונא כל מילתא דמיתאמרא באפי תלתא לית בה משום לישנא בישא מאן דאמר בפני שנים לית ליה דרבה בר רב הונא מאן דאמר בפני שלשה אית ליה דרבה בר רב הונא.

But according to the Rambam why is רבה בר רב הונא relevant to mecha-ah? Ha-mecha-ah certainly it's not enough that כבר נשמע הדבר ונודע it certainly mecha-ah has to be measured by the likelihood that it's going to come to the attention of the machzik that's certainly so. According to the Rashbam so this sugya is ki-fshuta. That's what the Rashbam said the heter be-appei telata is that a davar asid le-hisgalos so there's no re-chi-lus. According to the Rambam the heter be-appei telata is right now ba-hoveh כבר נשמע הדבר ונודע and what you're saying is not derech re-chi-lus you're not mesaper derech re-chi-lus because it's already in the public domain. So what's the relevance of this to Machar? So ela al korchacha, you see that according to the Rambam, again, without obscuring the emphasis in the Rambam of kvar nishma venoda, that the reason when you say it be'apei tlasa, it's considered kvar nishma venoda, is because of the process or the inevitability which the Rashbam is describing of milsa d'avida leigluyei. Why is it that if I say it to one person, so it's not nishma venoda? If I say it to two people, it's not nishma venoda. If I say it to three people, all of a sudden it's nishma venoda, so that's because of what the Rashbam said. So if that's the case, so then maybe there's no difference between the Rambam and the Rashbam. It's true the Rambam is emphasizing what's true in the present. The Rambam emphasizes that in the present it's true that nishma hadavar venoda. But why is that? Because of what's likely to happen. And the Rashbam is emphasizing what's likely to happen, but because of what's likely to happen, it's already muttar now in the present. So maybe it's

מה אמר חד ומה אמר חד, מה אמר חצי דבר ומה אמר חצי דבר

and together it's a davar shaleim. Ela mai, lich'ora the fact that the Rambam emphasizes nishma hadavar venoda, agam that you see from our sugya that the fact that we classify be'apei tlasa as nishma hadavar venoda is because of what we foresee as happening. אף על פי כן there's an important difference between him and the Rashbam, and that's in the line that the Rambam adds, והוא שלא יתכוין להעביר הקול ולגלותו יותר. Dehainu, when the Rashbam says that the heter is milsa d'avida leigluyei, it's almost as if you can paraphrase the Rashbam and כל העומד להגלות כמגולה דמי. And therefore, it's no longer can no longer be a cheftza shel rechilus. It can no longer be a cheftza shel rechilus because ha'omed lehisgalos it's a nafka mina whether that person hears it from me or whether he hears it when he looks at the headlines tomorrow or when he hears people talking at some point during the day. So kol ha'omed lehisgalos kekilu, so the Rashbam isn't going to have it's mufka from rechilus at this point. The Rambam who's emphasizing again, even though it's true and we're factoring that in, but the Rambam who's emphasizing the present that כבר נשמע הדבר ונודע, but not osid lehisgalos kekilu, no, it's already in the public domain, it's no longer secret information. Is it does everyone in the world know? No, but it's no longer secret information. So if you say it casually, again, whether like the Chofetz Chaim says or like the Yad Ketana says, if you say it casually, so then you're not mesaper derech rechilus because it's already in the public domain. But if you're מתכוין להעביר הקול ולגלותו יותר, heyos that we're measuring things ba'asher hu sham, we're not measuring things al shem ha'osid. We're measuring things ba'asher hu sham, so then it's still it's still nitpas in being mesaper derech rechilus if your kavana is להעביר הקול ולגלותו יותר. So lich'ora that difference between the Rambam and the Rashbam remains. Okay, so maybe we'll see here in Hilchos Deios a little bit the last halachos in Hilchos Deios. So halacha zayin:

הנוקם מחבירו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר לא תקום. ואף על פי שאינו לוקה דעה רעה היא עד מאד. אלא ראוי לאדם להיות מעביר על כל דברי העולם שהכל אצל המבינים דברי הבל והבאי ואינן כדאי לנקום עליהן.

Keitzad hi hanekima?

אמר לו חבירו השאילני קרדומך, אמר לו איני משאילך. ולמחר צריך לשאול ממנו, אמר לו השאילני קרדומך, אמר לו איני משאילך כדרך שלא השאלתני כששאלתי ממך הרי זה נוקם. אלא כשיבא לו לשאול יתן בלב שלם ולא ימל לו ולא יגמול לו כאשר גמלו וכן כל כיוצא בזה.

Vechein kol hanoter. See there is a question in the Rambam as follows. When the Rambam originally, again, in the opening words of the halacha, when he presents the isser, he doesn't say anything about davar shebemamon. He just says הנוקם את חברו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר לא תקום. Then, in giving an illustration, so he gives an illustration of davar shebemamon. So the shaila is what's what's pshat? Is is according to the Rambam is is nekamah limited to davar shebemamon? So the way we have the girsa in in our Gemaras in Yoma, so the Gemara says mefurash that it is limited to davar shebemamon because the Gemara says the Gemara quotes that

כל תלמיד חכם שאינו נוקם ונוטר כנחש אינו תלמיד חכם.

So the Gemara says how can that be? It says לא תקום ולא תטור. So the Gemara answers no that לא תקום ולא תטור is bedavar shebemamon. That's the way we have the girsa. Okay. The Sefer Hachinuch is I think is mefurash

שלא לנקום רמ"א כלומר שנמנענו מלקחת נקם מישראל והעניין הוא כגון ישראל שהרע או ציער לחברו באחד מכל הדברים ונוהג רוב בני אדם שבעולם הוא שלא יסורו מלחפש אחר מי שהרע להם עד שיגמלו כמעשהו הרע או יכאיבוהו כמו שהכאיבם ומזה העניין מנענו השם ברוך הוא באמרו לא תקום.

So mefurash that it doesn't it's not limited to davar shebemamon. Mefurash. Lashon sifra

עד היכן כוחה של נקמה? אמר לו השאילני מגלך ולא אשאילו, למחר השאילני קרדומך, אמר לו איני משאילך כדרך שלא השאלתני מגלך, וכך נאמר לא תקום.

Meaning the sifra the Sefer Hachinuch says is ad kedei kach, even to take nekamah in such a petty, you would think davar shebemamon is so petty so maybe that wouldn't be considered nekamah? אין לך דבר קטן ובזוי מזה הדבר שבממון. So ka mashma lan even that's bechlal the isser nekamah. What does he do with the mefurash Gemara? So on the bottom here they metzayen the Rav Yerucham Fishel Perla in his peirush on the Sefer Hamitzvot of Sa'adia Gaon quotes from the תשובות רבנו אברהם בן הרמב"ם that he had a different girsa in the Gemara. And where we have, you have to work out what the rest of the sugya is there, but where we have in the Gemara that the Gemara distinguishes between davar shebemamon and other things, Rabbeinu Avraham has a girsa that the Gemara distinguishes between divrei Torah and milei d'alma, that a talmid chacham is nokeim venoteir kenachash means when the offense to him was an offense to Torah. So then he's mechuyav to be nokeim venoteir kenachash. When the offense to him was as an individual bemilei d'alma, it had nothing to do with kavod hatorah, so that's where the Torah said לא תקום ולא תטור. So this whole chillek between davar shebemamon and not davar shebemamon doesn't exist. So in light of that, the pshutam shel devarim in the Rambam is that the Rambam would be maskim with the Sefer Hachinuch and that the isser of nekamah mide'oraisa according to the Rambam is not is not limited to a davar shebemamon. The rishonim who have the Gemara in Yoma as as we have printed in our Gemaras, so according to them me'ikar hadin there's only an isser nekamah by a davar shebemamon. But if a person humiliates another person, so then it's not assur for him to me'ikar hadin, me'ikar hadin he's not going to get the middas chassidus but me'ikar hadin it's not assur for him to to respond in in kind. How do we pasken? So the Chafetz Chaim in has a discussion of this in Sefer Chafetz Chaim because he talks about lashon hara being a form of nekamah a form of netirah, so he says we should treat it as ספקא דאורייתא לחומרא. That's his hachra'ah in Sefer Chafetz Chaim. Here in in the notes points out that in kuf nun vav where the Mishnah Berurah quotes... so in the Magen Avraham who quotes the Gemara in Yuma, so he just presents it as a davar she’be’mamon. But in Sefer Chofetz Chaim he says we should treat it as a safek d’oraisa l’chumra and assume that that nekama and netira is not limited to mamon. Meishe Simcha right in the beginning of Hilchos Talmud Torah he assumes the girsa in the Gemara in Yuma as we have it and says what's takeh p’shat that the Torah only assur's nekama by a davar she’be’mamon? It's a funny it's a funny thing. Why should the Torah assur only by a davar she’be’mamon? So he says that everything you have in the Torah is something which is realistic for every every bar da'as, every Jew every bar da'as is capable of being mikayem mitzvos haTorah. There's no such thing as a mitzvah in the Torah which is too difficult which is something that’s beyond our ability to fulfill. He says a little bit of a I don’t know anyway whatever. So he says one of the things he explains based on that he says that when it comes to middos he says he theorizes as follows. That maybe the least common denominator of of the the middos that that everyone is capable of is again when the nekama the potential nekama is is limited to the realm of mamon. So there the Torah says everyone is expected to be able to be misgaber. Everyone is but if it’s tza’ara de-gupha if it’s something which is more significant than a davar she’be’mamon so there the Torah doesn't necessarily expect it from from everyone. That's what Meishe Simcha writes. Halacha Ches: וכן כל הנוטר לאחד מישראל. Question why the Rambam changes the lashon from chaveiro to echad mi’yisrael. Stama chaveiro also means echad mi’yisrael. Again so he’s paraphrasing the lashon ha’pasuk לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך but but I don’t know l’cho’ora b'nei amecha is referring back to lo tikom which is what chaveiro means also. So what what's the Rambam hinting at here? Don't know. וכן כל הנוטר לאחד מישראל over b’lo sa’asei

שנאמר לא תטר את בני עמך. כיצד ראובן שאמר לשמעון שכור לי בית זה או השאילני שור זה ולא רצה שמעון. לימים צרך שמעון לראובן לשאול ממנו או לשכור ואמר לו ראובן הילך הריני משאילך ואיני כמותך ולא אשלם לך כמעשיך. העושה כזה

over b’lo titor.

אלא ימחה הדבר מלבו ולא יטרנו. שכל זמן שהוא נוטר את הדבר וזוכרו שמא יבוא לנקום. לפיכך הקפידה תורה על הנטירה עד שימחה העוון מלבו כלל ולא יזכרנו. וזו היא הדעה הנכונה שאפשר שיתקיים בה יישוב הארץ ומשאם ומתנם של בני אדם זה עם זה.

So he questions as follows. Couple of questions. One: why does the Rambam say

אלא ימחה הדבר מלבו ולא יטרנו שכל זמן שהוא נוטר את הדבר וזוכרו שמא יבוא לנקום.

What does the Rambam have to make this into a siyag for? There's an issur haTorah lo titor. Why does the Rambam have to the Rambam has to interpret that as a siyag d’oraisa because I wanted to give Yosef Engel another mareh makom. Yosef Engel had enough beki'us he was going to come up with enough mareh mekomos without the Rambam's help. The other just not a question the Rambam but just in terms of the etzem halav what happens in this case when Reuven when when Shimon approaches Reuven, right? That's the second go round. Shimon had turned Reuven down initially now Shimon approaches Reuven and let's say Reuven gives him what he wants. He's mash'il him the shor he's maskir him the bayis doesn't say a word mamash he's chosem es piv. He doesn't say איני כמותך ולא אשלם לך כמעשיך but that's what he's thinking. He's thinking the guy's a menubal ya chutzpah that he should come ask me after he didn't after he didn't give it to me but he has the he has the self-discipline not to say anything. But it's inside he's cooking. So is he over the lav k'hai gavna or not? Is he over or not? So in the Rambam it's hard to tell, right? On the one hand, the Rambam illustrates it, illustrates netirah that he does verbalize it. And on the other hand, the Rambam says ימחה הדבר מלבו ולא יטרנו. On the other hand, the Rambam says this is what you're not supposed to do, and what you are supposed to do goes to the other extreme, and he doesn't tell us what happens if a person is in the middle. So here in his discussion here in the pesicha,

ולפעמים שהמספר ח' ט' בפתיחה והלאווין ולפעמים שהמספר עובר גם כן על הלאו דלא תקום ולא תטור כגון שיש לו שנאה עליו על דבר שביקש ממנו לעשות לו טובה בדבר שאלת ממון וכיוצא בזה ולא הטיבו ועבור זה נוטר לו שנאה בלבו וכשראה אחר כך עליו שום דבר גנאי מפרסמו בפני אנשים והוא עובר מתחילה על הנטירה שבלב על הלאו דלא תטור ואחר כך כשנוקם ממנו וסיפר עליו עבור זה הדברי גנאי שראה עליו עובר על הלאו דלא תקום אלא צריך שימחה הדבר מלבו.

So the Chofetz Chaim is meforesh that he thinks as long as a person harbors enmity, he's over lo sitor. Because he says that over here even before it expressed itself in his saying lashon hara or doing or saying anything, the fact that he was noter the eivah belibo, so it's an issur shebeliv. That's how the Chofetz Chaim understands. Ai, the example of eini kemoscha is lav davka. And that's the seifa of the Rambam is אלא ימחה הדבר מלבו ולא יטרנו. I don't think he's mesiyacheis because it's not really his inyan. He's not really mesiyacheis to the other question we asked about why the Rambam depicts netirah as a seyag for nekamah. Isachen conceptually that there's a very clear difference, not so much of a practical difference though, that isachen the pshat in Rambam is a little bit different. It's meduyak in the lashon HaRambam. The Rambam says העושה כזה עובר בלא תטור. That's a lichora difficult lashon according to the Chofetz Chaim that netirah is entirely beliv and it doesn't really have to manifest itself in any way. So what's haoseh kazeh? So the pashtus in the Rambam is that what he the illustration which he's giving from the Sifrei is bedafka. That there has to be some expression of the netirah. In this case, the accompanying comment of eini kemoscha. What's the אלא ימחה הדבר מלבו ולא יטרנו is like this. So the emes is other than other than vehalachta bidrachav, the Rambam doesn't have we mentioned this right in a different context the Gaon in Megillas Esther following the Shaarei Kedusha, the Rambam doesn't have specific mitzvos or isurim about midos. About midos. Again the difference between the Rambam and Rav Chaim Vital is very very major in that the Rambam does have them under vehalachta bidrachav and the Shaarei Kedusha says they're not incorporated in any of the taryag mitzvos. But outside of of V'halachta Bidrachov, you don't have middos, you don't have a separate lav on, on again, outside of V'halachta Bidrachov, on ka'as or any other middos ra'os. Why is, is a different story. One of the meforshei HaRambam who noticed this is, is if you take a look in the Migdal Oz back in פרק ב הלכות דעות, so he notices this. He notices that the Rambam says that ga'avah is assur, kofer ba'ikar, and says, but unlike the Smag, the Rambam doesn't have a mitzvah in the cheshbon halavin.

זה מפורש פרק קמא דסוטה בעשרה גם רמ"י קוצי מנאו בלאוין במצוות לא תעשה ותמה על רמז"ל שלא מנאו ואני רואה שהזכירו כאן באיסור.

However, לא כללו בחשבון הלאוין, and then he goes on to, to say, to give the rule of what sort of nichlal in, in formally being considered a mitzvah that, that it's in minyan, that it's in minyan hamitzvos. So whatever the hesber is, maybe, maybe we'll come to it another time. Whatever the hesber is, so the pshat in the Rambam is like this. Kol zman that the netirah is purely b'lev, so the same way, the same way there is no lav again, other than V'halachta Bidrachov, there is no lav in the, in the minyan Taryag for ka'as, for ga'avah, etc. So there's no lav for a netirah which is purely b'lev. What's in minyan hamitzvos, the same kind of, again, in the lo sa'asehs, there's some kind of, in terms of middos, there's some kind of external manifestation. Ella mai, avada that doesn't mean that, that a person isn't mechuyav to be mesaken middos ra'os, isn't mechuyav to be oker middos ra'os. So that's what the Rambam says. So we asked, why does the Rambam go from one extreme to the other extreme, and what's the status of the in-between case? The answer is like this: Formally, to be over on lo sitor, it has to, it has to be osek bazeh. Otherwise it's not nitpas in, in being one of the mitzvos, an independent mitzvah. If you now want to know on the level of de'os ra'os, what a person is supposed to do, so the Rambam says, not just that he should be chosem piv and not say ani k'moscha, but he should have the gevurah to be מוחק הדבר מליבו ולא יטרנו. And now, since he's no longer talking about lo sitor, he's just talking about the middah, the middah ra'ah, the middah meguna of netirah, so now the Rambam also says that, that the middah of netirah can also be shema yavo linkom. And even here, isn't it a מידה מגונה כשלעצמה, even on the level of de'os ra'os? Why does he have to link it up with nekomah? Yesh l'yashev. Okay. Okay, maybe we'll come to the beginning of Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah for a couple of minutes.

יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון וממציא כל הנמצא וכל הנמצאים משמים וארץ ומה שביניהם לא נמצאו אלא מאמיתת הימצאו ואם יעלה על הדעת שהוא אינו מצוי אין דבר אחר יכול להימצאות ואם יעלה על הדעת שאין כל הנמצאים מלבדו מצויים הוא לבדו יהיה מצוי ולא יבטל הוא בביטולם שכל הנמצאים צריכים לו והוא ברוך הוא אינו צריך להם ולא לאחד מהם לפיכך אין אמיתתו כאמיתת אחד מהם הוא שהנביא אומר.

So ein od milvado the Rambam says means that the truth is that only Hashem exists on his own. Everything else exists because of Hashem, from Hashem, through Hashem. That's what the pasuk means Hashem Elokim Emes. So according to the Rambam the way you're supposed to punctuate is that Hashem Elokim is emes, right? Hashem shehu Elokim, that's one half, that's the subject of the sentence, and the predicate is he's emes. Emes in the sense of that Hakadosh Baruch Hu existence is his, right, and that's what emes represents here. How do you use the word emes to express that? So the pshat is as follows. Let's say if I make the following statement and say true or false. I say it's right now in Washington Heights it's snow. So how are we going to decide if it's true? So if you look out the window and it's snowing, it's true. If you look out the window it's not snowing, so then either it's false or you need a new prescription, one of the two. Okay. Ulema'aseh, so the way we use emes is what corresponds to what is is emes and what doesn't correspond to what is is sheker, is false. So that's what the Rambam's saying that emes in the sense of it is, it exists, and in that sense Hashem Elokim is emes and only Hashem Elokim is emes because nothing else has its own existence. Nefesh HaChaim, not that he disagrees with this, but the Nefesh HaChaim quotes the same pasuk and punctuates differently. Eilu ve'eilu. He says that the pshat, the punctuation should be Hashem Elokim Emes. That Hashem is the subject and the predicate Elokim goes with the predicate, Hashem is Elokim Emes. And Elokim in the sense of ba'al hakoachos that it's not as if anything in the world becomes an independent ba'al koach, but Hashem is the Elokim Emes, that all koachos remain concentrated in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's how he reads the pasuk. I think when we were learning perek beis in Hilchos Deios we commented then, the Rav would highlight the fact that mamtzi kol nimtza is written in the present tense. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu constantly gives sustains the world, sustains whatever is, Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to constantly sustain it. It's not that he did it once 5,770 years ago. Has to be ממציא כל נמצא בהווה. Again the same idea the Nefesh HaChaim in the beginning. Some of the meforshei haRambam here in these halachos, I think, I think if I'm not mistaken, I'm not positive, I think one example is in the peirush on Sefer Hamadda, Mishna Rishona, I think HaMelech quotes it also. So if you take a look in the beginning here, he says that in the beginning of these halachos. Such a Kadosh that שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו, he says even though he didn't know it, so שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו and there's all kinds of remazim here in these in these halachos. Okay, maybe we'll continue here next time.