Avos 4:20-21 – Balance

אלישע בן אבויה אומר הלומד תורה ילד למה הוא דומה לדיו כתובה על נייר חדש והלומד זקן למה הוא דומה לדיו כתובה על נייר מחוק.

So the impression that the dyo makes, you can have the same dyo but depending upon the surface on which you're writing it makes a different impression. If if you're writing with dyo on a niyar chadash, it it makes a more lasting abiding impression, whereas if you're writing with dyo on a niyar machuk, so then the impression it makes is not as as lasting. The Rambam

אמר שהלימוד בילדות מתקיים ואינו ממהר להשתכח ועניין הלימוד בזקנות הוא בהפך וזה ברור וגלוי.

Lichora as and welcome as this mishnah is to those of us at a certain at a certain age, but the emes is that lichora the moshal also implies that it is something that one can compensate for. Let's say in terms of the moshal. So maybe one needs to work a little harder initially to to impress the dyo on the niyar machuk and then maybe ein hachinami one also needs to reinforce it more regularly, but lemaiseh you can write and and preserve something on a niyar machuk. Ayin aleph.

רבי יוסי בר יהודה איש כפר הבבלי אומר הלומד מן הקטנים למה הוא דומה לאוכל ענבים קהות ושותה יין מגתו.

Meaning if you let the anavim fully ripen so then they they're good, they're nourishing, they're they're tasteful. If you let the the wine sit it will ferment, it will become alcoholic and it'll become a good wine, it'll become a choice wine. But if you eat the anavim or you drink the the juice of the grape prematurely, so then what you get is an unripe grape and and wine which isn't really wine.

והלומד מן הזקנים למה הוא דומה לאוכל ענבים בשלות ושותה יין ישן. רבי אומר אל תסתכל בקנקן אלא במה שיש בו יש קנקן חדש מלא ישן וישן אפילו חדש אין בו.

What does the Rambam say?

אמר רבי יוסי כי תלמוד הצעירים יש בו ספקות ונידונים שאינם מזוקקים ואינם בטוחים מן הקושיות לפי שעדיין לא אכלו להם הימים כדי שיחזרו וישנו את ידיעותיהם ויסירו ספקותיהם ואמר רבי אל תבחן את היין על פי כלי כי יש כלי חדש ובו יין עתיק וכלי עתיק ריקן שאין בו כלום. כך יש צעירים שנידוניהם ולימודיהם זכים,

pure, שלא נתערב בהם שיבוש, there isn't any confusion, there isn't anything which still needs to be. filtered

כמו היין העתיק שכבר נבדלו עכירותו ושמריו ממנו ויש זקנים שאין בהם תלמוד כלל כל שכן אם יש בהם תלמוד משובש ומבולבל.

So agav, yosif from the end of the Rambam and and one sees this in life also and and one can read certain books which which unfortunately illustrate this principle all too powerfully is that a little knowledge, mixed up, incomplete, misunderstood, partial is is worse, is more dangerous than no knowledge. No knowledge, okay, so then hopefully a person realizes he doesn't know anything. A person knows but but it's meshubash u-mevulbal, it's a kol she-ken, that's worse than שאין בהם תלמוד כלל. A little knowledge, a little knowledge which a person mistakes for a lot of knowledge, knowledge which is confused and incomplete which a person mistakes for knowledge which is clear and more comprehensive is dangerous. It it generates lots lots of distortions. How do you understand here the pashtus yosif from the Rambam is that the Rambam understood Rabbi Yose ben Yehuda and Rebbi as having a machlokes. It's hard to understand because lich'ora it's pashut that Rebbi is right. Sometimes you have someone who even in his youth is משכמו ומעלה גבוה מכל העם. Ein hachinami, if you compare the Vilna Gaon at age thirteen to the Vilna Gaon at age forty, so avada he was greater at age forty than he was at age thirteen. But if you compare the Vilna Gaon at age thirteen to other forty year olds, mistama the Vilna Gaon at age thirteen was already greater, which is what Rebbi is saying, which is what Rebbi is saying. And and it just seems so compelling that how can you say Rabbi Yose ben Yehuda? So if not for the Rambam, so maybe we would have said, but maybe this would have been a kvetch, maybe that's why the Rambam didn't say it, we would have said Rabbi Yose ben Yehuda is talking bederech klal and Rebbi is saying that's true bederech klal, but you know, but let's not lose sight of the fact that there are exceptions. I don't know, you can make ukimtas, but I don't see the, I don't really see the basis in in the Rambam for understanding what the nekudas hamachlokes is here. You can make ukimtas, but I don't really see where it is in the Rambam. So ayen alav, what's pshat in Rabbi Yose ben Yehuda according to the Rambam?

רבי אלעזר הקפר אומר הקנאה והתאוה והכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם.

What does that mean? Rambam:

אמר צרות עין בשל חבירו ורוב התאוה ואהבת הכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם כשהוא נפסד כי אם המדות האלו או אחת מהן יהיה הפסד הדעת בהכרח ולא יושכלו מעלות הגיוניות ולא מעלה של מדות.

Noch amol, let's read through, stopping this time a little bit bli neder: אמר צרות עין בשל חבירו ורוב התאוה ואהבת הכבוד. So so the Rambam is clearly explaining kina as צרות עין בשל חבירו, which is interesting, right? We ordinarily translate... אומר צרת עין בשל חבירו ורוב התאווה ואהבת הכבוד. So the Rambam is clearly explaining Kina as צרת עין בשל חבירו, which is interesting, right? We ordinarily translate Kina as jealousy. So I'm jealous of what you have. Kina is jealousy. So I'm jealous of what you have. But the Rambam says again I'm not sure whether we do or don't, whether this is what we do or don't mean by jealousy, but the Rambam says it's not that I'm jealous with what you have that I want it also. That's not צרת עין בשל חבירו. I'm jealous that you have what I don't have, not because I want to be equal but because I want to be better. And therefore it's a צרת עין בשל חבירו that I begrudge you what you have. I begrudge, it's not that, oh, you have such a nice car, such a nice house, such a nice whatever, and I'm jealous I want to have that also. No, you wouldn't translate that as צרת עין בשל חבירו. צרת עין בשל חבירו means I begrudge you what you have. Why? Because the core of at least Kina as the Rambam is explaining it, maybe that's not translated in case the English doesn't carry this association, is the begrudging. The begrudging which means that I want to be better. So if I want to be better it's not just that I want to have as nice a car as you do. No, I want to have a nicer car. I want to have a nicer car. I want to be better. If I'm jealous of how much money you earn, I want to earn more money. It's not the pshat that I want to earn as much money. I want to earn more money. I want a bigger house. Or if I can't get that, then I want you to have a smaller house. What's pshat that each of these three, excuse me, that each of these three things has the potential, not just the potential but does in actuality cause a person to leave the world morally and spiritually impoverished? Why is that? Because each of these is open-ended. I don't know, if I have lu yetzuyer I have a yetzer hara to, I don't know, I have a yetzer hara to ich veis climb a certain mountain. Okay, but it's a very challenging climb. You have to invest six months of training before you can climb that mountain, but it's a self-contained whatever for whatever reason. It's my yetzer hara is davka this mountain. Okay, so lemaise I may end up wasting six months or a year of my life, which is horrible to waste that much time, but at least it is self-contained. At least it's not going to be something which is going to dominate my life. But what happens if I have a yetzer hara which is open-ended? So Chazal say that אין אדם מת וחצי תאוותו בידו. If a person is really really a baal taiva, so a person cannot ever sate that taiva. יש לו מנה רוצה מאתים. If I have a hundred, then I want two hundred. So I can't, the finish line, what do they say yeah, moving the goalposts, right? That if the goalposts are constantly going to be moved, then you never get there. If the finishing line is going to be adjusted and made consistently more distant, so then it will taki become an obsession that will preoccupy me my entire life. And that's what each of these three have in common. They're open-ended yetzer haras. Open-ended yetzer haras. אין אדם מת וחצי תאוותו בידו. Ahavas hakavod. A person never really, since kavod is never, kavod can never really satisfy someone who who thrives on kavod. He's never gonna get enough of it and the same is true in terms of this competitiveness of the kinah, this competitiveness of the kinah means that if I have 150 billion, with a B, dollars in in the bank, it bothers me that there's someone else in the world who has 160 billion dollars in the in the bank. So a person's never going to be able to stop. It takes over a person's life. The Rambam quotes this Mishnah and in Hilchos De'os, if you have a Rambam, take a look first initially at the end of Perek Beis and then the beginning of Perek Gimmel, Rabosai. Perek Beis, Halachah Zayin. Beis Zayin, Rabosai. לא יהיה אדם בעל שחוק והתל. A person shouldn't be flippant and lightheaded. Velo atzev ve’oneh. Shouldn't be in a, you know, a permanent state of sadness and depression, gloom and doom, shouldn't be like Eeyore for those who are in a position to pick up on that literary reference. Velo atzev ve’oneh, ela some’ach. A person should be happy. Kach amru chachamim, שחוק וקלות ראש מרגילין לערווה. Flippancy, lightheadedness, position a person, habituate a person for erva. Because a person who's flippant, there's no boundaries. No boundaries, everything is, you know, you make light of everything, there's no boundaries, there's no discipline. So that's margil la’erva.

וציווה שלא יהיה אדם פרוץ בשחוק ולא עצב ומתאבל אלא מקבל את כל האדם בסבר פנים יפות. וכן לא יהיה בעל נפש רחבה כבלעם,

nival le’hon, who's always looking to amass money. On the other hand,

לא עצל ובטל ממלאכה אלא בעל עין טובה מעט עסק ועוסק בתורה ואותו המעט שהוא חלקו ישמח בו.

Right, איזהו עשיר השמח בחלקו. But here the Rambam is telling us very important, something that I don't know, one can learn the Mishnah and not necessarily walk away with. When the Rav says אותו המעט שהוא חלקו ישמח בו, why is that so important? Oso ha'me'at, just limit yourself to oso ha'me'at. How did a person should be be'simcha? Here he just told us that, right? He just said at the beginning of the halachah,

לא יהיה אדם בעל שחוק והתל לא עצב ואונן אלא שמח.

He already told me that. So what's he telling me noch a mahl that אותו המעט שהוא חלקו ישמח בו? Why is he repeating it? So it's klar that the Rambam isn't just repeating that middah of simcha. The Rambam is saying the only way, excuse me, the only way it's realistic and the only way it's sustainable that I'll be content with the me’at that I need is if I'm some’ach bo. If I'm gonna have that me’at but inwardly I'm gonna feel deprived, so lema’aseh that's not, it's not realistic to think that's sustainable, because eventually that feeling, excuse me, eventually that feeling will overcome and overtake me. That's why, that's what we know that same yesod in so many other contexts, let's say bein adam le’chavero. Let's say you say something and it was an insult but b'ma'aseh it's petty and I resent it. But machsom l'peh, I don't say anything. Gevaldig. Yeah, that is true, it is gevaldig. But b'ma'aseh if I resent it, eventually I am gonna respond. It's not realistic to think that that will be long-term sustainable. Ultimately the avodah has to be to learn not to resent it because otherwise it just builds up and pressure cookers eventually explode. So if I'm not sameach b'mu'at, eventually I'm not going to remain on that track. It's a big yesod.

ולא יהיה בעל קטטה ולא בעל קנאה ולא בעל תאווה ולא רודף אחר כבוד. כך אמרו חכמים הקנאה והתאווה והכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם. כלל של דבר ילך במידה הבינונית שבכל דעה ודעה עד שיהיו כל דעותיו מכוונות באמצעות והוא ששלמה אומר בכל דרכיך דעהו.

Good, Perek Gimmel. Shema yomar adam: הואיל והתאווה והקנאה וכיוצא בהן. I'm reading the way you have it in here in this one volume Rambam, the way you have it in the Frankel, which is what the rov kisvei yad say. So let's pay careful attention here. Yeah.

שמא יאמר הואיל והתאווה והכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם.

Excuse me.

הואיל והתאווה והכבוד וכיוצא בהן דרך רעה היא ומוציאין את האדם מן העולם אפרוש מהם ביותר ואתרחק לצד האחרון עד שלא יאכל בשר ולא ישתה יין ולא ישא אשה ולא ישב בדירה נאה ולא ילבש מלבוש נאה אלא השק והצמר הקשה וכיוצא בהן כמו כהני אדום גם זו דרך רעה היא ואסור לילך בה.

So why didn't the Rambam mention kina? Right? The Rambam is working off our mishna that he just quoted at the end of Perek Beis. And the Rambam says, you know, maybe it's a natural reaction to think, you know, if kina and ta'avah and kavod are מוציאין את האדם מן העולם, so isn't it a natural reaction to think, so I should distance myself as far as possible. So he should have said: שמא יאמר אדם הואיל והקנאה והתאווה והכבוד. Stama, that's where the mistake in the other manuscripts came from because there was some well-meaning sofer along the way who, in quotation marks, corrected the mistake. But why takeh isn't kina mentioned here? So yitachen as follows. Come back to our mishna, the Peirush HaMishnayos of Rambam over there.

אמר צרות עין בכל חברו ורוב התאווה ואהבת הכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם.

Why'd the Rambam put in the word rov? Ta'avah, the mishna says ta'avah is מוציא את האדם מן העולם. So why did the Rambam put in the word rov? It's klar because the Rambam is telling us a little bit of ta'avah a person needs. If a person had no ta'avah, so we probably would not have eaten a nourishing breakfast this morning. And if we had no ta'avah, we probably wouldn't eat a nourishing dinner tonight and we wouldn't be able to function at full capacity and we wouldn't maintain our health. Rachmana litzlan, sometimes you see a person who's sick and and they lose the ta'avas achila and it's such a chore, rachmana litzlan. It's so onerous for the person to eat and and it's not unusual in those terrible circumstances, rachmana litzlan, that the person takeh is not able to take in enough nutrition. So it's clear that when the mishna says... Taiva, the Mishna means an excess of Taiva. The same way, the same way, Chazal say that when temporarily that they asked that the Yetzer Hara for gillui arayos be eliminated, so people stopped getting married and and and there was no pirya verivya. So ela, there needs to be the correct measure of Taiva for the way Ribbono Shel Olam created the world, for the way the world is going to function as it's supposed to. And Kovod also, the Rambam similarly doesn't use the word rov, but he also doesn't just translate, he also adds ahavas hakovod, which has the same sense of extreme in the following way: a person can be machshiv something without loving it. So a little bit of a measure of Kovod, which translates into self-respect, which translates into dressing in a respectable, dignified manner, a person is supposed to have. He's not supposed to be so, so, so empty of Kovod to the extreme that he doesn't have self-respect. To the extreme that he says, oh, I'm such a nothing, so what difference does it make whether I walk around in torn clothing or whether I walk around in appropriate, dignified clothing? Should he be so interested in Kovod that he wants to wear malbush serara, that he wants to wear the the finery of royalty, that he should project a royal image, that he should look impressive? No, המוציא אדם מן העולם. But on the other hand, you can't say, you shouldn't say that that what the Mishna is alluding us to is the danger of any Kovod. So that's why the Rambam says rov hataiva and ahavas hakovod, right? Both meaning in the extreme. What did he do with kinah here in the peirush hamishnayos? He just translated it. He didn't add the rov, the ahavas. Why? Because vaistois, kinah, again, and remember how the Rambam defined it for us as צרות עין בשל חבירו. Kinah doesn't have any place. Bracket for a minute, קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, bracket that. That's I don't think it's a tshuv to what we're talking about. Kinah doesn't, does not have a place. It's not that an excess of kinah is המוציא אדם מן העולם. No, it's pshuto kemashmao, kinah is המוציא אדם מן העולם. But Taiva and Kovod, it's the excess which is המוציא אדם מן העולם. Oh, come back to our Rambam here in Hilchos De'os, so that lichora that's the pshat, right? We asked the Rambam is working off our Mishna, which he quoted at the end of perek bais. So lichora again, the hava amina that the Mishna gives rise to is esrachaik meihen beyoser, esrachaik the sitra achra. So why did the Rambam omit kinah? Because the answer is that by kinah ein hachi nami, that's true. There's no reason to have any צרות עין בשל חבירו. And and that's why קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה is not not a question in that context, it's not a tzoros ayin. But kinah as a tzoros ayin, so there the shma yomer adam is right? A person takeh should look to have no kinah, to harbor no kinah. But when it comes to Taiva and Kovod, there it's wrong. And that's why the Rambam only has the shma yomer, again, leshitaso the way he already explained the Mishna here in peirush hamishnayos. Well let's try to understand something else here be'ezras Hashem rabosai. That the excess of Kovod is המוציא אדם מן העולם, we understand. That the other extreme, that the excess of ta'ava is מוציא את האדם מן העולם, we understand. They're open-ended. אין אדם מת וחצי תאוותו בידו, a person's never gonna he's never gonna sate that yeitzer hara. It's not, let me satisfy that yeitzer hara and then get on with life. No, a person's never gonna satisfy the yeitzer hara, so he'll never get on with life. But what's so terrible about the other extreme? What's so terrible again, the way the Rambam depicts the other extreme of kavod is that לא ילבש מלבוש נאה, he won't wear dignified clothing, nice dignified clothing. He'll wear davka sak va'tzemer ve'kosha. Why is that so bad? Why is that a derech ra'ah? So maybe as we said before, maybe sort of the surface is going to reflect what's beneath the surface. Maybe the chizoniyos is going to be reflecting the pnimiyos and maybe it's not so much the sak va'tzemer va'kosha which keshe'le'atzman derech ra'ah, but rather what they reflect, rather what they manifest, dehaino the lack of self-respect, the lack of self-esteem, the lack of self-confidence. Now that yesod is true, but I don't know, when you read the Rambam, you have the impression that that's not what he's talking about, hagam that that again the yitachen that yesod is true. Sounds like this even keshe'le'atzmo, this extreme even on the behavioral level keshe'le'atzmo is a derech ra'ah. What's so terrible? What's so terrible if instead of wearing instead of being nicely attired, a person walks around in sak tzemer ve'kosha? So the vort is like this rabosai. There is, if we lived on Mars, I'm not sure whether this phenomenon is I haven't met enough Martians to know whether this is true amongst Martians. If anyone has any experience, share, please, jump in. But amongst us earthlings, the following seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is very much a reality and reveals something about human nature. Some of the people who are the most bombastic and act in a very grandiose way, some of those people, not all of them, some of them inwardly are very insecure. And all the bombast and grandiosity is a way of compensating, overcompensating for their insecurity. Rachmana litzlan, the people who are obsessed most about food, rachmana litzlan, are anorexics who deny themselves, who can starve themselves in the most extreme cases literally to death, rachmana litzlan. So there is the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the beriah. When a person is lacking for whatever reason, whatever the dynamic is, whatever the mental health or emotional or whatever that dynamic is, when a person is lacking something, when a person doesn't have something in its appropriate quantity, so then he's not freed from that, but on the contrary, that now becomes something which becomes totally dominant. If a person has the appropriate degree of self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, he doesn't have to be interested in kavod, doesn't have to be interested in an. external validation. He has the appropriate self-respect, self-confidence, self-esteem, he doesn't need that. Validation isn't, isn't something that comes from external sources. When a person lacks that, so it's not, oh, you see how far he is from gaiva. No, it has the opposite result. He, he the excess in one direction ends up really breeding an excess in the opposite direction. And that's why sometimes the people who are the excess in the direction of not eating, they become the most obsessed in terms of thinking about food. Again, there it doesn't translate into the eating, but it translates in terms of the mental preoccupation rachmana litzlan. A person lema'aseh we're physical. We're not malochim. We're, we're people. Which is not to say that we should be hedonists, which is not to say that taivos don't need to be curbed and, and disciplined. But lema'aseh we're physical, and the metzius is that when a person denies himself the measure of gashmius which our physical nature requires, he becomes more obsessed with it rather than disentangled and rather than transcending it. Because unless you're holding by Moshe Rabbeinu on Har Sinai, so one is not in a position to, one is not in a position to be such a porush. And even, you know, when you look at the loshon of the Rambam, the Rambam writes when he quotes Ben Azzai in Hilchos Ishus

פרק טו הלכה ג: מי שחשקה נפשו בתורה תמיד ושגה בה כבן עזאי ונדבק בה כל ימיו ולא נשא אשה אין בידו עון.

So here we have chashka nafsho batorah - gevaldig. שגה בה כבן עזאי - extraordinary. נדבק בה כל ימיו. And the Rambam says about it is, yeah, we takeh pasken that way, but the psak is that ein beyado avon. And even then, that's provided והוא שלא יהיה יצרו מתגבר עליו. It isn't promulgated as the ideal. Even when it's done in a way that אין יצרו מתגבר עליו, the Rambam has to say about it is that ein beyado avon. He doesn't say הרי זה נתקדש קדש קדשים, the way he talks about, you know, the loshon that he has in the end of Hilchos Shemitta Veyovel. You know, the Rambam gives the example of komay edom here in Hilchos De'os in gimel aleph: kegon komay edom. So I think, I think it's in Ish Halachah, I'm sorry, I didn't check beforehand. בלי נדר אם ירצה השם, I, I will try to check and, and give a more exact reference, but I think it's in Ish Halachah that the Rav has a comment. He says when you read the, you know, the literature, I think there are some autobiographies, you know, from monks, you know, who their lifestyle was celibate. Once upon a time it really was celibate, not like, not like today where, where that's just the official policy. Even then, mistama even then it was yeish veyeish. And an oath of poverty, but davka to be poor. The preoccupation which they had with the yeitzer. Because that's human nature, that's Teva Ha'adam. Teva Ha'adam is that when we're denied what in its correct measure is something we're supposed to have because of who we are, how we were created, so then it produces the opposite effect. It can produce the opposite effect on a behavioral level. It can produce the opposite effect in terms of obsessiveness of thought even when it doesn't translate at all in terms of the behavioral level. And that's what the Rambam is saying: don't make that mistake. Don't think that it's being more frum, more religious, more Oveid Hashem. Na, גשמיות ביי מיר איז גארנישט, I don't care what my clothing looks like. No, you're a Basar Vadam, Gashmius is something by you. And on the contrary, if you want to keep it in its place, that it doesn't mushroom and that it doesn't dominate your consciousness, so give it, give it its due. Give it its due. A person's gonna starve himself represented figuratively by לא יאכל בשר ולא ישתה יין. So then he's gonna obsess about food and Gashmius is gonna play a bigger role in terms of his mental life than someone who eats modestly, moderately, in a healthy way. Whenever we try to be too smart, whenever we discount the advice of the Chacham Mikol Adam, אל תהי צדיק הרבה, it boomerangs. And when a person is so spiritual that he doesn't pay any attention to the need to have Parnassah, so he ends up being poor and he ends up having to run around to ask for money. Some people who Rachmana Litzlan have to do that not because they neglected it, just because of Tzoros. But there are some people for whom that lifestyle was self-imposed. And it's Mamash what the way a person is Memayeit B'gashmius is not by ignoring it, neglecting it, denying it, is by catering to it in a disciplined way. And otherwise it's also a Derech Ra-ah. Okay, so we'll stop here. Have ever a good productive day, Rabosai. A Gutten Shabbos. Be well, be safe.