Perek 1, Part 4

לא כן הרשעים כי אם כמץ אשר תדפנו רוח. So the Malbim comments,

כמץ אשר תדפנו רוח אשר הוסר הדגן מתוכו והרוח ישאנו.

As long as the kernel is still on the stalk, so then that weighs down the whole stalk, it weighs down the chaff as well. The chaff is only easily displaced and carried off by the wind when it’s been separated from the dagan, from the kernel, which is weighty. What’s the nimshal?

כי כן בעוד שההמון מידבק אל הצדיק לשומרו ולהקיף עליו כמץ על הדגן בו ימצא סתרה.

As long as the, again, the hamon, the multitudes, cling to the tzaddiq, and the same way the chaff, the shell, everything helps preserve the dagan, and in that sense serves a very constructive role and crucial role. So if a person isn’t on his own so, doesn’t see himself as being the analog to the dagan, but he still can and should play a pivotal role in what the tzaddiq accomplishes. We know historically, gedolim have their lieutenants who help implement the vision and achieve the goals which the gedolim identify but cannot single-handedly bring to fruition. In fact, this idea, the source of this idea is really in Chazal, and Chazal say the one aspect of the mitzvah u-le-dovqah bo is to be mehanneh talmid chakham. So it means that even if one isn’t positioned, can’t or doesn’t position himself to attain the devequs in the way that the talmid chakham does, but in enabling the talmid chakham, so one is also connected to everything that’s accomplished. The Malbim is going to repeat this again, I think, in... If you take a look in Kapitel Gimmel Pasuk Yud-Beis,

נשקו בר פן יאנף ותאבדו דרך כי יבער כמעט אפו אשרי כל חוסי בו.

No, I'm sorry, that's Kapitel Beis Pasuk Yud-Beis, excuse me. Kapitel Beis, as the beginning of the Kapitel indicates, so the Kapitel addresses the Umot Ha'olam. למה רגשו גוים ולאומים יהגו ריק. They're pushing back instead of cooperating. Nashku Bar, Neshika which in other contexts means to kiss represents Chibur. Hitchabru. The word Bar, Baur, what's choice, right? That which is choice, Mevur. התחברו אל המובחר מאת השם. So how does one connect, how does one attach oneself to choice from Hashem?

שבמה שתעבדו עבודת המלך משיח השם, יחשב כאלו אתם עובדים את השם,

which is the same, the same idea we have here in our Kapitel. It's the same general approach that underlines Yissachar-Zevulun, the first Mishnah in Zevachim, רב שמעון אחי עזריה, that Azaria supported him. It's never intended and it doesn't mean that a person, let's say to take the somewhat narrow example of Yissachar-Zevulun, the fact that a person is a Zevulun doesn't mean that he's not supposed to learn as much as he can. It just means that his Chelek in Torah is not limited to what he learns but is exponentially increased by what he enables as well. And the same thing here in the context in which the Malbim says, בעוד שההמון נספח אל הצדיק ושומע אל קולו. It doesn't mean, okay, so I'll, I'll, I'll drive the Tzadik where he has to go and I'll do this, I'll do that for him, I don't need to go to Shul, I don't need to... it's not, it doesn't mean to the exclusion of as an alternative to, but what it means is that it tremendously increases what the person can accomplish, what the person can be a part of. The Rasha who chooses not to do that, so he's

כמוץ אשר תדפנו רוח. על כן לא יקומו רשעים במשפט וחטאים בעדת צדיקים.

So the Reshaim can't stand B'mishpat in the sense of justifying themselves even in a vacuum, not in the presence of others, even on their own. The Reshaim again, whom the Malbim explained earlier, who sin with Atzas Reshaim, deliberate Cheit, with premeditation, with intention. Chataim, those who succumb to their Taivah, they on their own, we would have been able to be Melamed. to them the chatoim can't, can't defend themselves either. B'chol makom, reading the last line in the Malbim here on passuk hey, לא יקומו בעדת צדיקים כשיושפטו when they're judged b'mishpat hatzirufi. Don't bother looking up all the words of the Malbim in modern Hebrew dictionaries. He has his own coinages, especially in adjectives. I don't think you're going to find tzirufi in a dictionary. If you do, let me know. But it's always clear what he means. One can with siyata d'ishmaya understand what he means. K'sheyishaftu b'mishpat hatzirufi when they're metzuraf, when they're combined l'eiver hatzadikim, כי אז יצא חייב then they'll be found guilty b'har'os lahem because maybe when the chotei is viewed individually, ein hachi nami, the yetzer hara is very strong. We have very strong urges, we have very strong taivos. And on one level, it's possible to be melamed z'chus. But when it's ba'adas tzadikim, כי אז יצא חייב בהראות להם because the chotei, it's demonstrated for the chotei, look at the tzadik, look at these tzadikim, eilu kavshu yitzram. They also had to contend with a yetzer, they also have taivos, v'gavru al taivasam. So this is extraordinarily important. We often make the following mistake: we often reconstruct who a person was from birth and what his potential was from birth by the person he became, by the person into which he developed. Now, if we were dealing with intellectuals, so that's probably legitimate. That's probably legitimate. If he made some astounding breakthrough or breakthroughs in science, it's entirely legitimate to reconstruct that from birth he was born with prodigious abilities. But when we look to who a person becomes in terms of tikkun hamidos, so then it's a total fallacy to measure who the person was at birth and what his potential was from who the person is that he became and what actualized. And that's what the force of this comment of the Malbim is. We would have thought, you're taking a rasha and you're showing him, look at the Chofetz Chaim! What's the t'shuvah? No, that's what we do. We tell the rasha to look at the Chofetz Chaim, and look, you think he didn't have a yetzer hara? No, the יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו was said of the Chofetz Chaim also. You think he didn't have taivos? Of course he had taivos. He was a human being. The distinction between a rasha and a tzadik emerges. It's not predestined. Not predestined. That's what Chazal are telling us. Actually what we're about to have, I think we're about to have the Gemara today about Yosef shepizpeiz beyitzro. I will leave it for today. So Yosef HaTzaddik who emerged with that unique title of HaTzaddik, he could have gone either way. He could have gone either way. It wasn't that he didn't have a yeitzer hara. He had a very strong yeitzer hara. He had a very strong yeitzer hara and found himself challenged by it in very difficult circumstances. It's both, it's equal parts sobering and inspirational. It's sobering because basically we don't really have any excuses. Like the Gemara where we learn about Talmud Torah, the הלל מחייב עניים וכולו. We don't really have any good excuses. And that's what לא יקומו בחטאים בעדת צדיקים says. We don't really have good excuses because for every excuse which seems good, there's a pircha that, "Look, if that was really a me'akev, so look at him. Look at him." But it's equal parts inspirational to know that it wasn't that the Chofetz Chaim was predestined to be the Chofetz Chaim and that that destiny was only his and not ours. No, it's part of the, it's בכלל כתר תורה מונח. I think in the beginning of the pandemic when we first transitioned to Zoom and we were learning the Igros of Rav Hutner, I think we learned together, I think it was then, that Rav Hutner objects to the sort of sanitized hagiography which is presented as biography of gedolim and tzaddikim. And he says, it creates—these are not his words, so if there's anything inaccurate about it, don't quote him in that—it creates the dangerously erroneous impression as though the Chofetz Chaim at his bris overheard someone talking lashon hara and said, "Shhh!" But that's dangerously erroneous because we haven't heard any account that that's the way we acted at our bris. He quotes the pasuk כי שבע יפול צדיק וקם and he writes very strongly, Rav Hutner was a forceful personality, he writes very strongly that tipshim, I think that's the word he says or an equally complimentary term to tipshim, he says tipshim think that the pshat in the pasuk is despite the fact that a tzaddik falls, אף על פי כן וקם. And he says that those who are not know that the real pshat is that כי שבע יפול צדיק, and by falling, that's what enables him to become. It's not a smooth, perfectly steady ascent. No, it's part of the ascent and part of what makes the ascent. possible is the sheva yippol tzaddiq. Because the tzaddiq also encounters, also encounters the, the yetzer. Also, also has to respond and and react to taivos. The, the irony is that sometimes we sort of are given a double bilbul. We're given the bilbul of, again, the Chofetz Chaim shushing people. I don't mean to to quote Loshon Hora for for context with Chofetz Chaim's sefarim. We, we're given the, the image of the Chofetz Chaim shushing people and of a Brisker. And mei-idach gisa we're told, you know, that for a person that ability is not really relevant, let's say to learning, and if only a person wants enough, so then you know all the maayanos hachochma are are opened up. So the first one isn't true, and there are certainly many many mekoros to suggest that the second one isn't true either. A person has to know what his abilities are and, and, and make the most of his abilities. The Baal HaTanya writes in the Shulchan Aruch. He says if a person has such a weak memory that the only way he'll be able to remember what he learned is by his whole life relearning whatever he can learn in thirty days, because if he hasn't learned it in the past thirty days he's going to forget it, so the Baal HaTanya says so his mitzvas Talmud Torah is he should spend his whole life every thirty days reviewing whatever that, that cycle of learning is. The, but he didn't say "come to me for a bracha". The Baal HaTanya could've said "make an appointment with the, with the mashpiah and I'll give you a bracha and we'll solve the problem." No, that's what the, that's what the Baal HaTanya writes. The Or Sameach writes in, in, the mini-essay that he has in perek aleph of Hilchos Talmud Torah, when he talks about what's mefurash in Torah she-bi-ksav is what's the least common denominator for every Jew. And then everyone is supposed to then go beyond that according to his abilities. So he says that's why mitzvas Talmud Torah, vayomam valayla, והגית בו יומם ולילה, that's a pasuk in Yehoshua. In, in Chumash all you find is krias itim. He says because krias itim is the least common denominator. Krias itim is the least common denominator. And the variables he talks about are some of them are innate differences between people. It doesn't, doesn't make one person more inherently valuable than another. A person is measured against his own abilities, not, not against anything else. But there's an irony here that in the area of middos where we all have, we all have the ability to be mesaken our own middos. So there, I don't know, we think of the Chofetz Chaim as, as having given a free ride, a free pass. And in the area of learning where le-chora we should be mindful of our middos, not to tackle something which we're not ready for, which we're not capable of, so there we tend to think the, the opposite. Reb Chaim, who was legendary for his maaseh chessed. The maaseh chessed defy, if, if we didn't have it from such unimpeachable sources, they defy belief, the life of chessed that he lived. So for tachlis purposes the Rav used to quote that Reb Chaim said to his son, the Rav's father, he just said again for purposes of chinuch and ziruz, so he said to him, "Don't think that I was born like this. I had to work very hard on myself to, to develop it." Rabbeinu Yona writes in Pirkei Avos, he has a lashon that השכל מתנה והמידות קנין. A person's IQ is a gift from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not—okay, a person needs to develop. Such a thing as developing abilities? The person has raw abilities. Such a thing as developing ability? And actually there is. But in terms of what the baseline, what the abilities are, it's a matana. It's a matana. Matas Elokim. But middos are a kinyan. Middos are a kinyan. And that's what this Malbim is:

להראות להם כי אלה הכוחות יצרם בגודל תאוותם ותוקפם. להראות להם כי אלה הכוחות יצרם בגודל תאוותם ותוקפם.

Leharos lahem.