Perek 1, Mishna 1

Good morning again, rabosei. Let's begin with the first Mishnah in Avos.

משה קיבל תורה מסיני ומסרה ליהושע ויהושע לזקנים וזקנים לנביאים ונביאים מסרוה לאנשי כנסת הגדולה.

So there were two very blatant questions that, as it were, just jump off the page at us here. Number one: why the melitzah of miSinai? Why not say Moshe kibel Torah from HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Number two: why the lack of symmetry? The first link in the mesorah, which is HaKadosh Baruch Hu to Moshe, is described from the vantage point of the mekabel. But then the subsequent links in the mesorah are described from the vantage point of the moser. So why is that? If you're going to say mesarah li'Yehoshua, so why not say that הקדוש ברוך הוא מסר תורה למשה and then Moshe li'Yehoshua, etcetera? Or conversely, if it's משה קיבל תורה מסיני and Yehoshua mimenu u’zekenim, etcetera. So those are the two questions. Why not refer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu directly? Why with the melitzah of miSinai? Number two: why the shift between kibel and masar? Tov, the idea we're going to try to discuss just a little bit is a little bit of a little bit abstract. So we need to maybe stretch a little bit to try to understand correctly, b'ezras Hashem. Chazal tell us amongst those devarim which were kadmu l'olam, that Torah kadma l'olam. But even those things which were kadmu l'olam, they're also created. Torah is a davar hanivra. Even though it's Torah represents חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא, but חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא distilled into Torah is a davar hanivra. Hu v'daito echad. HaKadosh Baruch Hu and His chochmah, everything about HaKadosh Baruch Hu is one. So הוא ודעתו הוא וחכמתו, everything is echad. And חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא in an absolute sense is not a davar hanivra. חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא as distilled into Torah is a davar hanivra. Now to try to, again, unfortunately I'm not able to do anything other than try to understand and present things on a very, very superficial level. To understand what that represents, what the briyah of Torah represents, so let's maybe begin with the following mashal and again, with the reminder that obviously in this type of context every mashal is obviously inadequate and is a mashal be'alma, but it helps the gears begin turning. Imagine you would have someone who was a preschool director and she oversees the three-year-old group, maybe the four-year-old group as well, very sweet, endearing children. Okay, and she tries to infuse as much content and chinuch as she can into the preschool routine and curriculum. Okay, so v'yehi hayom, she has the following einfal. She goes to the world's leading living physicist, a Nobel laureate, and says, introduces herself and says. You know I have in my charge all these really wonderful sweet children and we try to do our best for them. So in that vein I'm here to ask you if you can please come up with a version of Einstein's special theory and general theory of relativity and give me a somewhat abridged and maybe somewhat simplified version that we can use as a textbook for our three-year-olds. So one can only imagine the response which will be forthcoming depending upon whether that physicist is or isn't a baal middos; one might be able to quote the response, one might not be able to quote the response, but obviously if the physicist even bothers responding the physicist is gonna tell the preschool director that this is the most ludicrous and insulting suggestion he's ever heard. What do you mean? You take the most abstract, profound, deep theories and insights which the most brilliant of minds have to work hard to be able to grasp and assimilate and you're asking me to present that to your classes of three-year-olds? But that's only a mashal be'alma for what the Ribbono Shel Olam did. The Ribbono Shel Olam took in the Torah חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא which is infinite and therefore totally beyond not just mortal man, it should be totally beyond malachim as well. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu created something, Torah, where chochmaso in some form is intelligible and accessible to us. The anavah embodied in that is indescribable. We're all familiar with the famous Maamar Chazal that Hakadosh Baruch Hu exemplified middas ha'anavah, that he passed up on Mount Everest and all the other majestic mountains and mountain ranges and instead gave the Torah on modest and lowly Har Sinai. A little bit of the omek of what Chazal have in mind there is that that's only a symbol for the anavah, that's not the substance of the anavah. The substance of the anavah is the very existence of Torah and then giving it to Klal Yisrael. That's the profound, indescribable, incomprehensible anavah that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made his chochmah accessible, intelligible and then gave it to us with the mitzvah, with the zchus, with the incredible privilege of being able to learn and access and bond with his chochmah, with his Torah, is the ultimate ultimate expression and gesture of anavah. If the mishna would have said משה קיבל תורה מהקדוש ברוך הוא it wouldn't have telegraphed and highlighted that point and hence the lashon hamishna is משה קיבל תורה מסיני. Okay, what about the other question that we raised? Why the shift from kibel to masra? So let's take the idea we've been discussing and try to go a little bit further, try to deepen our understanding a bit. If the lashon hamishna would have been and the understanding that would have evoked is again if you think about the Torah Shebechtav ke'ilu again obviously Hakadosh Baruch Hu dictates it but in terms of the imagery and the understanding that would have evoked is that ke'ilu Hakadosh Baruch Hu in His capital H realm has the Torah and gives it to Moshe Rabbeinu hein Torah Shebechtav הן תורה שבעל פה. But that's not true. Again heyos Torah is a davar hanivra into which some Chochmas Hashem is distilled so consider the following mashal. I think scientists explain that the phenomenon of freezing rain I mean if it's cold enough that it's freezing so why isn't it snow? So I think the explanation they give is that where the moisture forms the temperature is warmer so it forms in the liquid state. But then if there's a disparity and then in the lower atmosphere our atmosphere the temperature is colder than it was warmer in the higher atmosphere and colder in the lower atmosphere so then it comes down in the liquid state because that was the temperature in the upper atmosphere. But in the lower atmosphere it's colder it's below 32 degrees so it freezes and hence you'll get the freezing rain. Okay for the moment I think that's correct if for some reason it's wrong I apologize but let's use it either way as a mashal. And for the moment only focus on freezing rain don't focus on its again for so far initially for purposes of the mashal I hope bezras Hashem will be instructive just think of freezing rain don't think of the whole hishtalshelus just think of freezing rain. So if the question is asked where does the freezing rain materialize? So the answer is the freezing rain didn't materialize up above it materialized down here. And it would be therefore a misleading statement to say that min hashamayim freezing rain was sent down. No that would be the brevity of that statement would be too easily misunderstood because that would again evoke the imagery and the understanding that it was freezing rain and that's the package that was sent down special delivery. When in reality it wasn't up above freezing rain. So the freezing rain materialized only in our atmosphere. Heyos that the Torah is a davar hanivra so as it were the Torah similar in the mashal to the freezing rain it materializes in our world. In Hakadosh Baruch Hu's realm there's just His infinite Chochmah. The Torah materializes in our realm. The Torah materializes in Moshe Rabbeinu's hands figuratively in Moshe Rabbeinu's head and mouth more literally more accurately. And hence the Mishna doesn't say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu masar Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu because that would evoke an image and an understanding that the Torah is crystallized in Hakadosh Baruch Hu's realm. No Torah that form of חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא a form of חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא which is finite there's only a certain number of pesukim in Chumash and there's only a certain number of mishnayos in Shas and there's only a certain number of drashos. the units, there's so many Psukim and and they consist of of units of words, of syllables, of Psukim etc. so all that that's not the form חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא exists. The חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא exists in in His realm, in His realm it's it's infinite and Poshut. That that's the the the bit, the little bit of חכמת הקדוש ברוך הוא which was distilled into the Briyah of of Torah. So that is true only in that first link. In that first link it's crystallizing in the lower atmosphere. But when when every subsequent link in the Masorah, so no, what Yehoshua is receiving is what's in Moshe Rabbeinu's hands, so hence, Moshe was Moser le-Yehoshua. What the Zekenim are receiving is what was in Yehoshua's hands, hence it's and Yehoshua le-Zekenim. Yehoshua is is Moser to the to the Zekenim. You know the first thing the Nefesh HaChaim has a a more nuanced version of this. It's not it's not necessary for our Mishna, the more nuanced version, but but his nuanced version of this is I I think if I'm remembering correctly, he's commenting on the Aggadeta where the Malachim want to keep Torah in Shamayim. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu that he should answer them, Hashev lahem teshuvah, and Moshe Rabbeinu says that do you have parents etc. so obviously the Torah's for us it's not for you. So at first glance the Malachim don't come off looking looking like very good Lamdanim in in that that Aggadeta. I mean you know Me-ikara mai kasavar. So how did the Malachim the Malachim didn't didn't understand that there are no כי יגח שור איש שור רעהו, that there are no Shevarim running around in Shamayim? So so what was the Hava Amina? So the Nefesh HaChaim explains very again it's it's this idea which we've been talking about but in a again a more subtle and nuanced fashion. He says as Torah is Mishtalsheles, if you imagine the the Torah coming down through the Olamos, in every world Torah translates into categories that are meaningful and intelligible in that world. And the Torah as we have it which talks about כי יגח שור איש and which talks about כבד את אביך ואת אמך is the way the Torah translates in our Olam ha-tachton, in our Olam ha-asiyah, but that's not the way it translates and that's not what it means. It has a different meaning which is appropriate and which is meaningful in the Olam ha-malachim, in the higher realms and that's how the Malachim could Tayna Torah should should remain with us. So Eib azoi, what was Moshe Rabbeinu's answer? No, so Moshe Rabbeinu's answer was but you see the fact that Torah also has this other this other layer and level of meaning, the layer and level of meaning that's no, there's a physical Shor, there's a physical Shor and that physical Shor gores another Shor. Torah that's what Torah means, that that that there is a Torah has that level of Peshuto shel mikra, of Halacha that that concrete example and case is is Torah, so you see that Torah was intended to continue its Hishtalshelus, Torah was intended to continue its Hishtalshelus beyond your realm Malachim all the way into into the human into the human realm. Ve-heim amru, that Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, Shlosha devarim. It said three things. A, hevu or havu mesunim badin, veha'amidu talmidim harbe, ve'asu seyag latorah. What does hevu mesunim badin mean? The Rambam writes sheyismahamahu bemahalach hadin that they should be deliberate, they should proceed slowly in the course of the din torah, velo yifskuhu bimheira, that they shouldn't hastily pasken the din torah, kedei sheyavinuha, so that they will understand it thoroughly and accurately. Ki efshar, says the Rambam, it's it's quite plausible and it would be very normal and natural שיתגלו להם ענינים שאינם מתגלים בעיון ראשון. It's it's very normal and natural that a person notices things the second time around that he doesn't notice the first time around. There may be a certain detail in the case that didn't seem significant that they recognize is significant. There may be a certain vantage point. The difference between the difference between let's say a din torah as opposed to the way most sugyas in shas are is that most sugyas in shas are focusing on they're focusing on the din. The din is what's being discussed. What is the din? In a din torah you have to figure out what's the din that governs this case. What's the din that I should that I should apply to this case? So you have to be able to to to to sort through and recognize and conceptualize, okay, so Reuven taneh this happened, Shimon taneh this happened, so so what what what din is it in shulchan aruch that that either literally directly or by extrapolation is relevant here? Certainly certainly that may not be correctly or even if partially correctly fully grasped the first time around. Emes is, this yesod is again the Anshei Knesset Hagdola clearly said it in in the context of a moshav beis din, but but this yesod is by no means limited to a moshav beis din. It applies every time we sit down to to learn a blatt gemara. Not just a blatt gemara, a pasuk chumash also, a pasuk chumash also. There's so much in every blatt gemara, there's so much in every pasuk chumash that not only is it efshar, but I think for rubba derubba, for the overwhelming majority of people, certainly for us, it's not just efshar, but but it's it's virtually guaranteed that that there's so much that that we'll only begin to notice be'iyun hasheni, be'iyun hashlishi, be'iyun ha'revii. And and maybe the mashal to to help to help us understand that is as follows. Let's say you're taking a train and the train is is going I don't know whether it's going through a a city or whether it's out in the country, but either way at every point the and you're sitting next to the window and you're looking looking out the window. The train I don't know how fast train goes, whatever whatever the speed of the train is, the you know the normal maximum speed at which the train travels. And you're looking out the window the whole time and really really focusing, really really concentrating to take everything in. And you do your best, let's say when you're going through the city so so there are all the buildings and and you're noticing the buildings and and and maybe something about their architecture vechulu. Now imagine that that you take that that same The same trip a second time, the same route, and again you sit next to the window. So what's going to happen inevitably is that what you having already seen a lot, now you're going to be free to notice things that you didn't notice before because you were so busy processing the first round of iyun. So now maybe you won't just notice the buildings, maybe you'll notice how the people are dressed. And you'll notice, oh look at that, the people in this state they dress differently than in my home state. And maybe you'll notice a flower bed which is planted in front of one of the buildings. It's smaller. It couldn't catch your attention the first time around because you were too busy processing the large buildings. That's why you find in different gedolim attached different numbers to it. But I think maybe the Steipler has the letter that you know that learning things four times means you learned it and now you can do chazara. I recently read a story that someone came to Rav Berl Shapiro, Rav Berl Shapiro was Rav Chaim's father-in-law, and was sort of bemoaning the fact that even though he had chazered so much he still didn't feel that he had a mastery over I forget whatever masechta it was and Rav Berl asked him how many times he had chazered, he said 15 times. He said 15 times, he says by me that's learning. That means you've just learned it. Now you're ready to begin chazering. What do you mean 15 times is just learning? No, it's this yesod that there's only so much we're able to take in be-iyun ha-rishon. So the Rambam says efsha. That by dayanim it's efsha, it's not a guarantee. But by us it's not an efsha, by us it's guaranteed that that's how it's going to happen. If you look in the Rambam in Hilchos Sanhedrin where he quotes our mishna of heyu mesunim badin you see something very very interesting. It's in I believe in perek chaf of Hilchos Sanhedrin, I'm sorry just one minute. Yeah, perek chaf halacha zayin. Gas libo be-hora'ah. Right, gas libo means you have that lashon in Hilchos Yichud also. Gas libo means when a person has a familiarity, he feels a sense of comfort and familiarity that you know he'll let his guard down. So in Hilchos Yichud so even though generally with an eishes ish if ba'alah ba-ir there's no issur yichud because eimas ba'alah aleha, but if the man with whom she's alone is if it's gas ha-lev so then we say that no, if there's too much of a comfort, if it's too much of a comfort zone so then then that what would ordinarily mean that it's not yichud and that it's not assur wouldn't apply. So gas libo be-hora'ah means that a person doesn't have this sense of eimas ha-din, no he feels very comfortable and very intimate with paskening a din Torah.

וקופץ וחותך הדין קודם שיחקרהו בינו לבין עצמו עד שיהא ברור לו כשמש.

And he very quickly paskens up.

הרי זה שוטה ורשע וגס רוח. כך צוו חכמים הוי מתונים בדין.

Right, so that's our mishna. And what's the condemnation of a person who Rachmana litzlan violates this directive of heyu mesunim badin is that he's a שוטה ורשע וגס רוח. If you If you continue in Halacha Chet

כל דיין שבא לפניו דין והסכל לדמותו לדין פוסק שכבר ידע ודימה אותו ויש עמו במדינה גדול ממנו בחכמה ואינו הולך ונמלך בו הרי זה בכלל הרשעים שלבם גס בהוראה.

So he just very summarily equates this with the previous Din Torah without seeking advice. And amru chachamim

רעה על רעה תבוא לו שכל אלו הדברים וכיוצא בהן מגסות הרוח הן המביאין לידי עיוות הדין. כי רבים חללים הפילה זה תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה ומורה

atzumim kol harugeha. Let's skip the part about the הגיע להוראה ואינו מורה, that's not relevant to us at the moment. And then the Rambam concludes Halacha Chet again with גס לבו בהוראה שוטה רשע וגס רוח. And clearly from the placement of it, so the תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה ומורה is yet another instance, yet another example of גס לבו בהוראה. גס לבו בהוראה, he feels very comfortable with it and therefore goes ahead even though he's unqualified. So what's fascinating is that the same labels, the same characterization is given for someone who's eminently qualified to pasken, but he just did so hastily, too hastily. He violated hevey matun badin. He's characterized the same way as the תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה. So I don't know if we would have said it that way. I think we would have said, no, the תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה, so that's really gas libo. What he's guilty of is far worse than this person who's eminently qualified but pasken too quickly. And yet you see in halacha it's not like that. You see in halacha that there's a complete equivalence. That the person can be a gaon olam, he can know Shulchan Aruch by heart, but if he violates hevey matun badin, he's characterized the same way, he's condemned in the same harsh terms as the תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה. How is that? What how how do we process that? So lechoira the pshat is as follows. Why are we so upset at the תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה being moreh? We're so upset because how is how is the din going to be adjudicated emes l'amito when this amoretz, when this תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה is paskening? He doesn't know Choshen Mishpat. So what? So what? Maybe he'll get lucky and eich shehu bi'mechavein? No, the chances are not very good. So what disturbs us so profoundly is that din and really dayanim are representing Hakadosh Baruch Hu and that's why אלקים נצב בעדת קל. So the din where dayanim are supposed to be acting as shluchei d'rachmana for din to be perverted is gevaldig. And with a תלמיד שלא הגיע להוראה there's going to be perversion of din. Oh, so here the Torah is telling us what difference does it make whether the dayan can't and doesn't apply the right se'if in Shulchan Aruch because he never learned the se'if in Shulchan Aruch, or because even though he learned every se'if in Shulchan Aruch and every se'if katan in Shach and Taz and Tumim, but because he's paskening too quickly so he doesn't realize which is the correct sif to apply. It's the same ivus hadin. It's that same perversion of din and again in Beis Din, yes it's a human court in the sense that there are three basar vadam dayanim sitting there, but it's supposed to render דינו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, אלקים נצב בעדת קל. That's why there's a chiyuv amida in Beis Din. The chiyuv amida is not for the dayanim but it's for whom the dayanim represent, for he who authorized the dayanim to render the din. So it's going to be the same ivus hadin. It doesn't make a difference whether I make the mistake because I'm a prost am ha'aretz and I didn't know this sif in Shulchan Aruch or whether I make the mistake, no, I learned Yoreh Deah, I know every sif in Shulchan Aruch, but I was gas libi in that I didn't take the responsibility seriously to proceed deliberately and because of that I applied the wrong sif. I wasn't medameh milsa l'milsa correctly, I didn't know how to identify halachically what's the issue here. The baalei devarim tell us what their point of contention is, but then we have to figure out so what's the halachic issue on which this turns. So vos tegmer of what value is it that the dayan maybe is a big big baki if he doesn't see in the metzius what he should see or he doesn't stop to think long enough which seif of all the seifim in Shulchan Aruch he knows is the one that by extrapolation should be applied here. It's a big big limud. The Mishnah continues maybe just for another minute or two rabosai. The Mishnah continues and says haamidu talmidim harbei, to raise, to train and raise and develop many talmidim. Now as just illustrated by Hevei Mesunim Badin, there are things in Pirkei Avos which are mamash me'ikar hadin. Not everything, lav davka that one has to see what the element of midas chasidus is in every statement in Pirkei Avos. No, some statements in Pirkei Avos are just reinforcing, are just being mechazek what are dinim, are what is binding me'ikar hadin. So one needn't find some midas chasidus, one needn't find how this is a mitzvah min hamuvchar, it can be mamash me'ikar hadin as is the case with Hevei Mesunim Badin kanal. But on the other hand it doesn't have to be that way, but sometimes it is that way. Sometimes things in Pirkei Avos don't reflect the ikar hadin, they reflect how things should be done as mitzvah min hamuvchar. So into which of these two categories does the charge of haamidu talmidim harbei fall? So lichora it follows, the Rambam writes in Perek Alef of Hilchos Talmud Torah, Halacha Beis:

כשם שאדם חייב ללמד את בנו כך הוא חייב ללמד את בן בנו שנאמר והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך. ולא בנו ובן בנו בלבד אלא מצוה על כל חכם וחכם מישראל ללמד את כל התלמידים אף על פי שאינן בניו שנאמר ושננתם לבניך מפי השמועה למדו בניך אלו תלמידיך שהתלמידים קרויים בנים שנאמר ויצאו בני הנביאים.

So l'fiy zeh ata, so haamidu talmidim harbei is like Hevei Mesunim Badin. The Anshei Knesses Hagedolah are just being mechazek what's really mandated me'ikar hadin. Ela mai, upon reflection lichora that's not correct. Let's reread at least part of this halacha.

כשם שאדם חייב ללמד את בנו כך הוא חייב ללמד את בן בנו שנאמר והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך. ולא בנו ובן בנו בלבד אלא מצוה על כל חכם וחכם מישראל ללמד את כל התלמידים.

The Rambam shifts. The Rambam began again in Halacha Alef he began... Why did he switch? Why, why, why, the shift from chayav to mitzvah? So the pshat is this, certainly in this context where mitzvah is contrasted with chayav, lav davka that it has that connotation elsewhere. But where on the heels of chayav, chayav, chayav, three times he said chayav,

קטן אביו חייב ללמדו תורה, כשם שאדם חייב ללמד את בנו כך הוא חייב ללמד את בן בנו,

after that trilogy of chayav, when the Rambam says mitzvah, what he means is, no, not when I’m telling you kol hatalmidim, that’s not me’ikar hadin. If, let's say you'll have someone, he's a rebbe, and he'll be content, he really could teach, I don't know, countless talmidim, but whatever, I don't know, he's content with a handful of talmidim. So he will not have been mevatel the chiyuv me'ikar hadin of veshinantam levanekha. But on the other hand, he’ll have been yotze the mitzvah in its most minimal fashion. And if he wants to be mekayem the mitzvah in its maximum fashion, so then he’s, then it’s mitzvah, albeit not a chiyuv, it’s not, it’s not mamash obligatory, but it’s mitzvah ללמד את כל התלמידים. And that’s why the pshat is that in our Mishna where the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah say ha’amidu talmidim harbeh, so unlike hey'u metunim badin, this lichora is, they’re exhorting us to be mekayem the mitzvah bishleimusa, to be mekayem the mitzvah be'ofen min hamuvchar, and not just to do the minimum that’s necessary. Okay, so we’ll stop here. Have a productive rest of the day, rabosai, a gut chodesh, a gut shabbos, and be well, be safe.