Perek 1 part 5, Perek 2 part 1

כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים ודרך רשעים תאבד. The question the Meforshim and a question is always an indicator, sort of when you if you go hiking on a trail, so you have these markers to tell you at any crossroads how the trail continues. So a question is a marker. It points the Meforshim in certain directions. The impression we get is that throughout the Kapitl, there's a contrast being drawn between the Tzaddikim on the one hand, the Chata'im, the Resha'im on the other hand, and presumably that contrast, that davar v'hipucho, carries over to this pasuk also. And yet it doesn't quite seem to, it doesn't seem that the antithesis of derech resha'im toved would be יודע ה' דרך צדיקים. It doesn't seem to align in that way. So that's the background to the Malbim's comment. Some other Meforshim also clearly reacting to that impetus. Ki yodea Hashem, the Malbim writes, הידיעה הזאת היא הסתבכות המושכל במשכיל. K'mo she'kasuv,

כי ידעתיו למען אשר יצוה את בניו ואת ביתו אחריו.

Rotzeh lomar, hu davek biyedi'aso. So this idea, it's an idea but it's a reality, of histabkus hamuskal b'maskil is something that the Rambam places at the center of his machshavah. And what it, I don't know, just to try to explain or describe very, very superficially what it means. When we generally, if we would try to understand or describe thought, the way we would, I think, most of the time, the way we would try to describe or understand thought: you have a person who's engaging in thought, you have whatever the focus or the object of his investigation is, and then you have the thought, the knowledge. So you have a scientist and he's trying to understand what law governs certain phenomena, he's thinking about certain phenomena in the universe and then his thought is that there's a natural law, there's a physical law that... So there's the person thinking, the subject, there's what he's focusing on, and then there's the relationship is the subject is thinking about the object. The Rambam tells us that and this is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu... Again leaving aside, again we're sort of coming in at the end of the Rambam's discussion and parachuting in. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us in such a way that we're capable of thought on another level where you have again what the Malbim quotes histabkus hamuskal bamaskil. Again, maskil is the one thinking, right? He's the one who's operating with the sechel; it's a hifil, right? He's the one who's operating with the sechel. The muskal is that which is the object of what's being thought about and that knowledge is not just something intellectual, not just something cognitive, but it's really metaphysical in the sense that the maskil becomes davuk in the muskal. According to the Rambam, this is this is what dveikus bashem means. It means that when a person is able to think about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, about truths, truths of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world, eternal truths of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's world in such a way that you have this histabkus hamuskal bamaskil or the, we'll see in a minute why the Malbim is describing it in that order as opposed to maskil bamuskal, but obviously it's a two-way street. So what the Malbim, again just superficially, הידיעה הזאת היא הזדבקות המושכל במשכיל. So the muskal in this context is Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the maskil in this context is the tzaddik, the tzaddikim. And כי יודע ה׳ דרך צדיקים means that the what's achieved, what's attained as a result of the קיום בתורת ה׳ חפצו v'chulu is so the tzaddik is focused on Hakadosh Baruch Hu and as a result ki yodea, yodea belashon and so we know from the pasuk in Bereishis of והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו that sometimes yedia means chibur. Why does how does yedia sometimes mean chibur? That comes from this idea, right? Obviously there it's not a chibur which is based on this metaphysical dimension of knowledge but the point is that's how how does yedia come to mean chibur? So this is the again the pnimiyos of the Oneg Yom Tov that yedia means chibur because yedia on its highest level involves histabkus hamaskil bamuskal, hamuskal bamaskil so then memaila that definition sort of spins off and yedia is used as a lashon chibur in other contexts as well. And the Malbim says that's the pshat what it says in Parshas Vayeira ki yedaitiv again parallel to ki yodea Hashem here. So I know in the sense of this histabkus between Me, capital M, and Avraham Avinu. Lema'an there's a machlokes in the meforshim whether lema'an is in order or because; the Malbim understands it to mean because ki yedaitiv lema'an because since he daveik in yediosi, since he, lowercase a, since he Avraham Avinu is daveik in yediosi, that’s why ki yedaitiv. What does that mean? Since he’s daveik in yediosi, that’s why ki yedaitiv? No, that’s exactly the idea, right? Since he’s daveik in yediosi, and there is this notion of hisdavkus hamuskal b’maskel that knowledge on its highest level isn’t just something intellectual. It’s something metaphysical. It creates a bond, as it were, between the person entertaining the thought and that which he’s focused on. Again, we’re talking about thoughts about eternal truths, not about whatever most of what we think about most of the time. That’s what the Malbim says שזה לא יהיה רק אצל הדברים הנצחיים הבלתי משתנים. So כמו שכתוב כי ידעתיו, I Hakadosh Baruch Hu know, but again, know in the sense of chibur, in the sense of hisdavkus. L’maan, because he Avraham Avinu is constantly focused on yediosi, which translates into always being concerned with v’shamru derech Hashem. So rotzo lomar, hu daveik biyediosei. So the person who’s daveik biyediosei, I am daveik bo. And that’s the same pshat over here. כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים means that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there is a hisdavkus. And that is the source of nitzchiyos. That hisdavkus between the tzaddik and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, between a person and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, is the source of the nitzchiyos. You’ll take a look in, I’m sorry, I forgot the perek. Take a look in the Rambam for instance in perek ches of Hilchos Teshuva, so you’ll see that that’s hadeyah that when the Rambam explains that צדיקים יושבים ועטרותיהם בראשיהם ונהנים מזיו השכינה. So he says if Olam Haba there’s no body, so what’s the metaphor of a crown? So he says the metaphor of a crown, it’s the הדעה שבגללה זכו לחיי העולם הבא. So circling back to how is כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים the opposite of derech resha'im toveid? So the rasha lives a life that does no, which ends up with avadoh, which ends up with him perishing. What’s the opposite of that? The opposite of that is to live a life which results in nitzchiyos. כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים means nitzchiyos because כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים, yediyah involves hisdavkus hamuskal b'maskel and that's the source of the nitzchiyos. That hisdavkus that the person forges over the course of his life, that’s the source of the nitzchiyos. So כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים meaning since he’s daveik biyediosei, or they, the tzaddikim, are daveik biyediosei, I am therefore, there is a hisdavkus beineihem uveini, speaking from Hakadosh Baruch Hu's vantage point. There is a hisdavkus beineihem uveini, hisdavkus hamuskal b'maskel, and that is the source of nitzchiyos, and hence כי יודע ה' דרך צדיקים is takeh the exact opposite, is diametrically opposite to derech resha'im toveid. To try to maybe give it a little bit of a mashal to make this a little bit less obscure. and abstract. Let's say, if if you're holding something, so then there's a connection between your hand and whatever it is you're holding, right? And in order to hold it, there needs to be some connection. You can't hold it if there's no physical connection. So we have a figure of speech of hold that thought, right? We use that figure of speech. So let's use that figure of speech to think in certain contexts, in certain contexts about thought happening on a spiritual, metaphysical level the way grasping or holding happens on a physical level. We generally don't think of thought that way, right? We generally I'm over here and the window that needs to be washed is over there, and I'm sort of thinking about it, right? But there's a separation between us, the subject and the object. da'as hamuskal v'hamaskil means that when dealing with eternal truths, so we need to try to understand it in terms of this mashal of physically holding or physically grasping, right? That's another figure of speech that we have that we extend from the physical realm to the mental realm, right? To grasp something, right? You say someone grasped the idea. So use those meshalim to grasp an idea, to hold a thought, but again, we use those about anything. We use hold that thought about whatever the thought's about, or to grasp, it can be whatever, how to assemble something. But if you use those meshalim in context of, again, thinking about דברים נצחיים בלתי משתנים, so then yedia is not only, again, something intellectual, something cognitive, but there's it's there's something metaphysical. It's a metaphysical process and reality. That's maybe a shemetz of what this idea means. ואמר רק שגוים ולאומים יהגו ריק. Again, kefi darko bakodesh, the Malbim distinguishes what we might have thought was a synonyms of goyim and le'umim, nations, and he says

ויש הבדל בין גוי ובין לאום. גוי נקרא הקיבוץ מבלי השקף אם הוא בעל דת או לאו.

It means a mass of people, not necessarily unified by a common religion.

ובשם לאום נקרא מצד שמתאחד תחת דת מיוחד, מה שאין כן לאומים

mean a collective who are held together, not by the fact that they live in the same place and they have and they have a single king over them or something, but because they subscribe to the same religion, that they have the same religious belief. If you take a look in Bereishis, in

ויאמר ה' לה שני גוים בבטנך ושני לאמים ממעיך יפרדו,

so the Malbim already introduced that distinction between goy and goyim and leumim there in Bereishis, in which case the nevuah given to Rivka Imeinu is not only that shnei goyim bevutneich that two nations will emerge, but it's going to be two different religions which we know that Esav is subsequently identified with Christians and that the struggle what's being told to Rivka Imeinu is that the struggle between Esav and Yaakov throughout the generations again is not just between two people or two national entities, but from that it's going to develop into ושני לאמים ממעיך יפרדו. What's the continuity here between the kapitel? So reading from the beginning of the Malbim here,

אחר שביאר אבדן הרשע כמוץ שתדפנו רוח ואין לו תקוה רק אם ישמע אל הבר החוזה,

the choice as in nashku bar, ונותר אל הצדיק אומר: in light of this, how self-destructive it is: למה רגשו גוים למרוד במשיח ה' ובישראל עמו. It's self-destructive; the only way they'll have a kiyum is אם יעבדו את ה' ואת דוד מלכו. So the Malbim understands, as do most meforshim, that in pasuk beis when it says על ה' ועל משיחו, it refers to David haMelech. You even have as one possibility that maybe this kapitel is talking about the melech hamashiach, the keitz hayamim, but he himself also has the other possibility which most of the meforshim assume, that mashiach Hashem in this pasuk refers to David haMelech. David haMelech was anointed, right? Mashiach literally just means anointed, right, with the shemen hamishchah. And yet the pshat is that when pasuk beis speaks of על ה' ועל משיחו, that David haMelech stands out as mashiach Hashem. Even though we find David haMelech, but Shaul was also nimshach, right? When David's men tell him when he has the chance in the cave to kill Shaul, he says chas veshalom that I should lay a hand on mashiach Hashem. So what does the pasuk mean when it sort of speaks of David haMelech as the mashiach Hashem? It's interesting; you have a similar type of in the Rambam in hilchos melachim in perek yud alef when he talks about that in parshas Bilam niba bishnei meshichim, that the psukim in parshas Bilam speak of two meshichim: David haMelech mashiach harishon and then the melech hamashiach. So it's also that again they weren't the only two who are meshichim and yet in a certain sense they are the only two who are meshichim, so maybe the pshat is like this. Maybe meshicha in its fullest sense. I think the psukim in this week's Parshas Tetzaveh. Is it Tetzaveh? Yes, it's Tetzaveh. ולקחת שמן המשחה ויצקת על ראשו ומשחת אתו meaning Aharon HaKohen.

ואת בניו תקריב והלבשתם כתנות וחגרת אתם אבנט אהרן ובניו וחבשת להם מגבעות והיתה להם לכהונה לחקת עולם.

So maybe the pshat in meshicha in its fullest sense is not only that it's an instrument of that it's an instrument of miluy of appointment, but it's an appointment l'olam. Meshicha in its fullest sense means that the nimshach is receiving a miluy olam. Now that was true for Dovid HaMelech because when Dovid HaMelech was zocha l'malchus, he was zocha l'malchus לו ולזרעו עד עולם. It wasn't only a miluy that elevated him as an individual to position of melech, but it was a miluy for l'olam, l'chukas olam. And in that sense, so Dovid HaMelech is Mashiach Hashem in the unique sense, in the sense that you wouldn't say about Shaul or any other melech who was nimshach. It didn't only represent appointment, but represented l'olam and hence the stam lashon על ה׳ ועל משיחו, his anointed one, refers specifically to Dovid HaMelech. So lama ragshu goyim, why why are the nations amassing and why are the again nations in in the terms of just they're bound by, it's a political union, u'leumim ye'hgu rik and the nations which are bound by common religious belief, why ye'hgu rik, why are they thinking threatening a futile endeavor? What's the futile endeavor? Im kein, says the Malbim, the second line in his comment in this kapittel, למה רגשו גוים למרוד במשיח ה׳ ובישראל עמו. What's the merida against

על ה׳ ועל משיחו? על ה׳ לפרוק עול הדת ושבע מצוות שהכריחם דוד לקיים.

They want to reject the belief of Hashem echad and they want to reject the sheva mitzvos that Dovid HaMelech was enforcing. V'al meshicho, they wanted to reject Dovid HaMelech's sovereignty. The goyim who didn't subscribe to a particular belief, they were looking to overthrow Dovid HaMelech's sovereignty, and the leumim, they were the ones who were looking to overthrow the das u'mitzvos Hashem. Okay, maybe we pick up in in posuk beis tomorrow.