Avos 4:5: Lomeid Al Menas La’asos

And I think we left off in the middle of the Mishna of Rabbi Ishmael beno.

רבי ישמעאל בנו אומר הלומד על מנת ללמד מספיקין בידו ללמוד וללמד.

So that we spoke a little bit last week. והלומד על מנת לעשות מספיקין בידו ללמוד וללמד ולעשות. So following up on the approach of last week. So it's not only that alongside the hiyuv of lilmod, there's a hiyuv la'asot. That would only tell us that there's a complementary hiyuv. That neither is enough; it's not enough la'asot, it's not enough lilmod. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants it to be lilmod and la'asot. And that is certainly true. But the relationship between the lilmod and la'asot, the fact that the lilmod should be al menat la'asot suggests that it's not two just complementary hiyuvim. But you can't learn authentically, legitimately—we can always do things inauthentically and illegitimately, lots of options in that area—but in terms of authentically and legitimately, a person cannot learn if it's not al menat la'asot. Lechora, besides the nafka mina of the attitude and the resolve that a person has when learning, besides the clear nafka mina there, you see other expressions of this in halacha as well. So for instance, the Gemara in Moed Katan daf tet, which the Rambam quotes lehalacha in פרק ג' הלכות תלמוד תורה, says that if a person is learning and there's a מצווה שאי אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים which comes his way. What's a מצווה שאי אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים? Either of two things. Either it's a hovat yachid. Mitzvas lulav is אי אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים. You can take the lulav, but that is not a replacement for my taking the lulav because each of us individually is supposed to take the lulav. So a hovat yachid is always going to be by definition a מצווה שאי אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים. I can sit in the sukkah first night Sukkos, but that doesn't do anything for the fact that you're supposed to sit in the sukkah first night Sukkos as well. Or it could be let's say it's a chesed. Let's say it's some kind of tzorkei tzibur. So there it's not necessarily the case that all of us are supposed to be doing this particular chesed. No, this chesed needs to get done. These tzorkei tzibur need to be attended to, but lema'aseh I realize that there's a contribution that I can make that otherwise won't be made. Does that mean that otherwise people will be neglecting it? Or does that mean that it's just the more people the better? It could mean either. But either way, there's a point that there's a contribution that again even though it's that the chesed needs to be done, right, it's the heftza rather than the gavra, it's that the chesed needs to be done, it's that the tzorkei tzibur need to be attended to, but אף על פי כן at times it will be אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים, in which case lo yafsik talmudo. A person should not interrupt his learning, a person shouldn't disturb his learning, but if it's אי אפשר להיעשות על ידי אחרים because otherwise no one's gonna attend to it, or no, we need as many people possible attending to it or any variation of those themes, so then a person is supposed to be mafsik talmudo. The Rambam the way the Rambam quotes the Gemara again, it's Gemara in Moed Katan and the way the Rambam quotes it here in פרק ג הלכה ד in Hilchos Talmud Torah:

היה לפניו עשיית מצוה ותלמוד תורה אם אפשר למצוה להעשות על ידי אחרים לא יפסיק תלמודו ואם לאו יעשה המצוה ויחזור לתורתו

or veyachzor letalmudo. Okay, fine. Or in other words, what this din says is that Talmud Torah is not governed by the עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה the way other mitzvos are. Let's say a person is busy with a mitzvah of hashavas aveidah. It's an aveidah that requires care and he's being metapel with the aveidah. So another mitzvah comes his way. So we don't ask whether that second mitzvah is אפשר אי אפשר לעשות על ידי אחר. He's עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה. Okay, according to some Rishonim we ask could he do both simultaneously? But leaving that question aside, let's say he can't do both simultaneously, it doesn't make a difference whether the second mitzvah is אפשר אי אפשר לעשות על ידי אחר. So this is meyuchad to Talmud Torah. Meaning Talmud Torah is less protected as it were by the עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה than other mitzvos. Now the Gemara in Moed Katan quotes pesukim from Divrei Kabbalah. Let's look at the top of דף ט עמוד ב in Moed Katan. הד יתבי וקמיבעיא להו. Kesiv, what's this? This is Mishlei. יקרה היא מפנינים וכל חפציך לא ישוו בה. Torah is more precious than pearls and all your chafatzim, all the objects of your desire don't equal, don't equate to it. הא חפצי שמים ישוו בה? But chafatzei shamayim can compete with Torah. And kesiv there's another pasuk also in Mishlei,

וכל חפצים לא ישוו בה. אפילו חפצי שמים לא ישוו בה.

Even other mitzvos can't compete with Torah, with Talmud Torah. Answers the Gemara:

כאן במצוה שאפשר לעשותה על ידי אחרים כאן במצוה שאי אפשר לעשותה על ידי אחרים.

So those are pesukim in Mishlei, but עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה is a pasuk in Chumash, right? בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך is פרט לעוסק במצוה ובלכתך דידך. The Gemara in Berachos, the Gemara in Sukkah. So it's a din de-oraisa. So what do you know in the what's the makor that min ha-Torah this is true? Maybe it's like the Gemara says in where is it in Yevamos that something was a kabbalah and אתי יחזקאל ואסמכה אקרא. So here too it was a kabbalah and אסמכה שלמה המלך אקרא. Lich-ora the pshat is like this. It's clear that the pshat is like this. Basically the Rishonim quote a Yerushalmi that really expresses this explicitly. Imagine for a minute that Talmud Torah was protected by the עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה the same way other mitzvos are, the same way hashavas aveidah is. And then imagine you have Rashbi ve-chaveirav. You have Shimon bar Yochai. So Rashbi ve-chaveirav as much as is humanly possible spent every waking second, mistama it's what he used to cholem about also, mistama Rashbi, I don't know if he cholem about Sheva Schweitzes or he cholem about Zohar, but mistama it's what he cholem about also. But Rashbi ve-chaveirav as much as is humanly possible spent every waking second learning. So is there time for him to do any mitzvos? No. If osek be-mitzvah would be patur min ha-mitzvah even by Talmud Torah, so then it would result, the Yerushalmi says this meforesh. The Yerushalmi I think the Yerushalmi quotes Yerushalmi in Shabbos. It would result in Rashbi being לומד שלא על מנת לעשות. So lu yehi that learning... beginning that limud and ma'aseh were two complementary chiyuvim, okay, so I don't know, so maybe it's like Rabbi Elazar שיטת שמחת יום טוב, it can be either kulo la-Hashem or kulo lachem, that's also good. But you see klar from what the Yerushalmi is telling us that how do we know that עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה does not apply in the same sense to Talmud Torah? Because it cannot, because עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה is never said where my not attending to the second mitzvah is pogem the first mitzvah. If I'm busy with hashavas aveidah and an oni comes, it's not a pegam in my hashavas aveidah that I can't free myself at the moment to give the oni the prutah. It's not a pegam. But if as a result of my learning lulav ha-gazul I'm not going to bentsch lulav, if as a result of my learning sukkah she-hi gevohah I'm not going to sit in the sukkah, so that's a pegam in my learning. Avadah you don't say עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה where the second mitzvah is necessary to ensure and protect the integrity of the first mitzvah. So l'chora here too you see again just to retrace, to review for a second, what we're trying to recognize is that לומד על מנת לעשות is not simply that we have complementary chiyuvim. It's not just that אחז בזה וגם מזה אל תנח ידך, but rather the same way I have no right to learn if I'm not going to teach because תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה קהלת יעקב. It's not just that le-lamed is an additional complementary chiyuv, but it's inherent in the chiyuv lilmod, so so too you see that la-asot is inherent, it's not just complementary to, it's inherent within the chiyuv lilmod, and that's why the din of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה cannot and does not apply to Talmud Torah the same way it applies to shear mitzvos. But okay, but now let's, so that l'chora helps prove and and again give another, give even a tangible expression to this din of לומד על מנת לעשות. Again the Yerushalmi meforush I think references the לומד על מנת לעשות there. But what does it mean? Let's try to understand what what does it mean that that the chiyuv la-asot is is a part of the chiyuv lilmod? It's not a complementary chiyuv that and that the two are linked, no, it it inheres. What what do the words mean? Let's see if we can get a tfisa on that b'ezras Hashem. So let's perhaps try to understand as follows. If you go to the Rambam in Peirush Hamishnayos in the Hakdama to Perek Chelek where the Rambam lists the yud gimmel ikkarim, if you go to ha-yesod ha-asiri, ha-yesod ha-asiri,

והיסוד העשירי שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשי בני האדם ואינו מעלים עיניו מהם.

Yediat Hashem. Yediat Hashem, not just of klalim, not just that Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows the laws of nature and and the the physical principles of the universe, not just that Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows these eternal unchanging realities, no, Hakadosh Baruch Hu also Now l'fum and and in the Ani Ma'amins

אני מאמין שהבורא יתברך שמו יודע כל מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותם שנאמר היוצר יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם

I don't know from the Ani Ma'amins one would think that there's something special that davka here we have a pasuk because we don't quote psukim in the other Ani Ma'amins but I'm not sure what pshat in that is the Rambam gives us psukim for for everything in the in the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim so I don't know why the why the mechaber of the Ani Ma'amins punk put a pasuk in in the tenth Ani Ma'amin שהקדוש ברוך הוא יודע מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותם. Okay. Seemingly there is a omission there is an omission here in the Rambam's Yud Gimmel Ikkarim which is very curious which is that the Rambam doesn't say anything about hashgacha. He says yedia but he doesn't say anything about hashgacha. I may be standing I don't know on the side of a schoolyard and I'm watching I'm seeing what's going on and two kids start to fight and I don't do anything about it. So I'm yodeia but I'm not being mashgiach. If I if I do something about it if I'm telling the kids I see a kid about to do something dangerous and and I warn him and I intervene as is necessary so then I'm yodeia umashgiach. But the fact that I'm there and I know so there's yedia and there's hashgacha. So seemingly hashgacha is not in the Rambam's Yud Gimmel Ikkarim. So lachora lachora as follows. So the first indication that that things are not as simply complicated as they appear to be meaning that that we don't have this complication that it what's the Rambam's pasuk? The Rambam says velo kedat mishe'omar right? Kemishe'omar. The Rambam is saying the yesod that's true is to the exclusion of the heretical belief recorded in Sefer Yechezkel velo kedat again if you have it in front of you take a look ולא כדת מי שאמר עזב ה׳ את הארץ. What does עזב ה׳ את הארץ mean? So it's clear that עזב ה׳ את הארץ means Hakadosh Baruch Hu abandoned the world. Abandonment means lack of involvement lack of protection. It doesn't necessarily mean lack of yedia. So the Rambam is saying the yesod I'm going to tell you the yesod and then I'll tell you the counterpoint the antithesis is the heresy that Yechezkel recorded. So the yesod is שהקדוש ברוך הוא יודע מעשה בני אדם. And the counterpoint is ולא כדת מי שאמר עזב ה׳ את הארץ. So how is that point and counterpoint? It's clear right? It's clear that עזב ה׳ את הארץ is a denial of hashgacha. I mean it doesn't need any any proof if we just sort of I don't know I don't know if we're feeling a little insecure here and and we want some corroboration so if you take a look in the Ramban the famous Ramban at the end of Parshat Bo Ramban says

ועתה אומר לך כלל בטעם מצוות רבות הנה מעת היות עבודת גילולים בעולם מימי אנוש החלו הדעות להשתבש באמונה.

From the time in the generation of Enosh when avodah zarah first entered the world so there was all kinds of confusion and distortions in inyanei emunah. Mehem kofrim be'ikar there's one group who are atheists. Ay if a person's an atheist how is there a world? ואומרים כי העולם קדמון. No, the world is always been there. Kachashu ba'Hashem, they, they rachmana litzlan denied HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Vayomeru, and they said lo hu, he isn't. So that's one, one group of mishtabshim be'emunah. Second group, ומהם מכחישים בידיעתו הפרטית. There's a second group that said no, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't know things that are changing, that are in flux. No, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is eternal and immutable. He's above even knowing things that change. ואמרו איך ידע קל ויש דעה בעליון. It can't be that HaKadosh Baruch Hu knows things that change. So they're denying yedi'at Hashem. Umehem sheyodu beyedi'ah, the third group of shibush be'emunah, says the Ramban, is they acknowledge yedi'ah umakchishim bahashgacha. But they deny that there's providence. They deny that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is mashgiach. ויעשו אדם כדגי הים and they think man is no different than the fish of the ocean שלא ישגיח הקל בהם. Right? The Rishonim, the Ramban, the Rambam, the Rishonim were of the opinion, I don't know if all the Rishonim, but certainly the Gedolei HaRishonim were of the opinion that hashgacha is meyuchedes for people. There's no hashgacha for lower forms of life. That's why the way the Ramban is based on on the pasuk in Trei Asar, the way the Ramban is expressing a denial of hashgacha is to say that ויעשו אדם כדגי הים. For dagei hayam the takeh is no hashgacha. When you go fishing, so there isn't a hashgacha pratis unless it's gonna affect, you know, how good a supper you have. But mitzad the fish, there's no, there's no hashgacha pratis as to which fish you're gonna catch.

ויעשו אדם כדגי הים שלא ישגיח הקל בהם ואין עמהם עונש או שכר.

Yomeru, what's the pasuk that expresses this third group, their heresy? The heresy of they... Something yet, he's fallen down, but you know I'm other than, you'll excuse the allusion, I don't know Amelia Bedelia, so I think the rest of us understand that if we're asked, anyone who did not understand that allusion, I don't think can graduate until that that that allusion is literary allusion is clear. But other than other than other than Amelia Bedelia, so we understand that if you're supposed to keep your eye on someone, it doesn't mean to watch him fall down, it means to get involved that that he shouldn't fall down. So kumt oys that that our question was wrong. It's not true. It's clear from the לא כדת מי שאמר עזב ה' את הארץ on the one hand, and now we realize when we backtrack that that's what the phrase of אינו מעלים אינו מהם means, that this yesod is about yedia and hashgacha. But then let's continue. Let's continue.

אלא כמו שאמר גדול העצה ורב העליליה אשר עיניך פקוחות על כל דרכי בני האדם. ואמר וירא ה' כי רבה רעת האדם בארץ. ואמר זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה.

I suppose some of the psukim are only. So when the Rambam quotes וירא ה' כי רבה רעת האדם בארץ, right, that's before the mabul. So what he means is, and remember what the what what ensued, what follows is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sends the mabul. So you see yedia, not only yedia, but you see hashgacha also. But he doesn't really say that, right? He just quotes this pasuk. And similarly for זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה, so is it the pshat and remember, right, remember we just read Parshas Vayeira recently. So remember what happens when זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu destroys it. But he doesn't say that. It sounds like this pasuk already contains within it everything he said, but then that would only seem to prove yedia, it wouldn't prove hashgacha. But he clearly is talking about hashgacha as well. Oh, so the vort is as follows. And this is a I don't know, it's a difficult idea, I don't know how how how lucidly I understand and and and can explain it, but let's try be'ezras Hashem to understand. I'd say I think now they already have the the knowledge, or they're working on it, or whatever. Once upon a time, if if you wanted to turn on the light, so you, well, once upon a time, so you got your two sticks together and you and you rubbed your two sticks. But in in more recent more recent history, so you you walked over to the light switch and you you flipped on the light switch. Okay. So you can sort of know that you want light and you can know that there's a need for light, and then totally distinct from that, you need to go put on the light. But now with brainwaves, they I don't know, it's one big science fiction world nowadays. Nowadays with brainwaves, I suppose you can you can do things. It's almost as if the the gap between knowing and doing is is being closed. It's almost as if the knowing and the doing become one and the same. Again, I don't claim to understand this or know anything about it, but it probably isn't really that, but at least to the extent that that that you're, you know, that the brain is is doing it without. The. By Hakadosh Baruch Hu, His yediya gufa is hashgacha. Being noda to Hakadosh Baruch Hu means being mushgach. And hashgacha is, it's not there's yediya and then Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as it were, acts on the yediya. A, I detect that it's getting dark here, and then B, I engage in an action of putting on the light. It's not that I see the child about to fall, Rachmana litzlan, and then I run over and I do something to steady him, that the child shouldn't fall. It's that by virtue of my knowing, as it were, when I know, when I see him, that itself steadies him. If it's someone that I'm looking at, so then whatever the appropriate hashgacha is, results. So therefore, a pasuk, once one understands that about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, meaning when the Ramban is talking about the three classes of shibush ba'emunah, the three classes, Rachmana litzlan, of kefira, in addition to everything else that they're wrong about, even the separating out the yediya and hashgacha itself gufa is a shibush. Meaning, it's not the third group who says yodu beyediya veyikhperu, what was the lashon haRamban? They're modeh beyediya, but they're kofer bahashgacha. The shibush is not only the kefira bahashgacha, the shibush is also that separating out hashgacha from yediya. So by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, again, on the one hand, the yesod ha'asiri, the Rambam seems at points he's talking only about yediya, at points we get the impression he's talking about yediya and hashgacha, so what's the answer? Hainu hach, that's the answer. Hainu hach. Again, a little bit of a mashal, think of how we do things with brainwaves, but then obviously every mashal is, you know, totally inadequate and at best partial. Or another way to express the same very profound idea is that knowledge is action. When we say that, again, obviously we're talking in anthropomorphic terms, but when we say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's hashgacha happens gufa through His yediya, again, as though by virtue of standing on the side of the schoolyard and seeing that the child's about to fall, that gufa steadies the child, if that's what the hashgacha should be. So knowledge is action. That's a very different reality, not just conception. It's a very different reality of knowledge than we generally think of, right? We have a very clear... Distinction and delineation between knowledge and action. There's knowledge and there's action. I know there's a problem with my carburetor. Okay. Now I gotta pick up the hood and roll my sleeves up and fix the carburetor. Whatever a carburetor is, but I'm told there's a shmu of there's such a thing in the car. Okay. And yet by Hakadosh Baruch Hu who's the source of knowledge, this gap doesn't exist. C'tainye hach. Knowledge isn't just something which is on an intellectual plane, but knowledge is itself a reality. Knowledge itself is the reality. So then yedia and hashgacha are one and the same. So what determines whether when we learn, whether we have knowledge, whether we acquire knowledge in the conventional prosaic sense, or whether we acquire knowledge in this profound metaphysical sense? The answer is if it's al menat la'asos. A limud which is al menat la'asos. And that's why, again, it's not a complementary chiyuv, it inheres within the chiyuv lilmod. If the limud is not going to be a limud which is pursuit of a knowledge with a lowercase k, but it's pursuit of knowledge with a capital K, the knowledge which is some kind of on some level of vehalachta bidrachav, of yedias Hashem. So then that lomed has to be al menat la'asos, that my knowledge is deed. And for that reason the la'asos isn't just a complementary or supplementary chiyuv, but it inheres within the chiyuv lilmod. To learn in in the sense that learning should be requires that it be al menat la'asos. That lich'ora is maybe a little bit of the pshat here. Okay, so maybe we'll stop here. Everyone should have a good productive day, a gutte voch Rabosai, everyone should should be well, be safe, be'ezras Hashem. I don't remember now what the shita of the Rambam is on this. I could ask about today's shiur. If לימוד על מנת לעשות is some lower aspect of this metzius of an asiya, would that mean that being al menat la'asos would result in one understanding what such yedia is or it's sort of such a removed tzur of that than it just it's just vehalachta bidrachav? No, no, no. Whatever one's going to understand is is a separate a separate. So it's in a way it's it's like symbolic or or? Not symbolic because what it means even on our level, again, you know, what it means on our level is that the definition of knowledge is not what you know, but knowledge is when you learn something, the knowledge is who you are. So if I learn hilchos tefillin and I don't put on tefillin, so that's not knowledge because knowledge is supposed to become part of the person. Hilchos tefillin doesn't become a part of the person if the person doesn't put on tefillin. So maybe think of it in those terms. That's knowledge conventionally. Is understood is what I know. So there's what I know and there's what I am, and for the Torah knowledge is what and who a person is, or that's what it should be, knowledge with a capital K. And the only way the knowledge becomes what and who the person is is if there's no daylight between his limud and his asiyah. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Have a good Shabbos.