Chovos Halevavos:

We'll pick up now in be'ezrat Hashem towards the very end of the hakdama and then perhaps we'll come back and maybe maybe have a few more comments on the middle part, we'll see. But towards the end, the Rabbeinu Bachaye explains the the structure of Chovot ha-Levavot, what he chose to be the ten she'arim and why he arranged them as he did. So maybe first let's just review that and then try to understand it a little bit. So he says that the foundation for everything is of course recognizing yichud Hashem, which is why that's the first sha'ar of the sefer, recognizing metziut and yichud Hashem. He says that recognition of metziut and yichud Hashem makes us realize that we can't try to understand Hashem Himself, that we can't try to understand the essence of Hashem and that our way of knowing Hashem is through his through the through his creation and and how Hashem has revealed Himself in the creation. So hence, the sha'ar hasheni is sha'ar habechina, again bechina in the sense of discernment. Having again recognized metziut, yichud Hashem, having come to appreciate a little bit הקדוש ברוך הוא מתוך הבריאה, so then that's mechayev us in avodat Hashem and hence that's the sha'ar hashlishi. Recognizing that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not only sovereign, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is manhig the world, that that is mechayev in bitachon. Hence, the sha'ar harevii is bitachon. But turning for a moment to to that yichud Hashem, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu in everything He does, in His sovereignty, in His hanhagat ha'olam, in His governance of the world, has no partner. It's it's only Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So mimmeila, that means that our avodat Hashem also has to be as as monolithic as as Hakadosh Baruch Hu is is one. Hence, the sha'ar of yichud hamaaseh that what we should be doing is אך ורק לשם שמים. Reflecting on metziut, yichud Hashem, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's adnut, hanhagat ha'olam, so a person recognizes the relative of romemut Hashem and shiflut ha'adam, hence sha'ar hakni'ah, sha'ar ha'anavah is the sha'ar hashishi. That a person almost inevitably doesn't satisfy the demands of what's been outlined until now, the need for teshuvah, hence the sha'ar hashvii is sha'ar hateshuvah. The fact that that a person also can't satisfy what's expected of him without cheshbon hanefesh, hence sha'ar cheshbon hanefesh. And the the penultimate stage for a person to really, really be oved Hashem, he has to he has to be free of ahavat olam hazeh, ahavat hachomriyut, hence sha'ar haperishut, and ultimately. He says that these she'arim encompass all Chovos HaLevavos. So at some point it's kedai to go back and, or maybe as we learn, and just try to figure out where all the examples which he gave of Chovos HaLevavos are encompassed, are encapsulated within these ten she'arim. One of the examples he gave is V'ahavta L'rei'acha Kamocha, and just very superficially, V'ahavta L'rei'acha Kamocha doesn't seem to have been subsumed over here. Obviously it is. He says that these ten she'arim are rubrics which encompass all Chovos HaLevavos, so that's again one just avenue of thought to be aware of how everything really is included here in these ten she'arim. But for now just one or two comments occasioned from how he again in a sentence defines each of these she'arim. First one is a little bit confusing, again just to raise the question for now. He says, ואחר כך כשנתבוננתי, again this is towards the very end of the hakdama, I'm reading from the Kafach translation,

ואחר כך התבוננתי במה שחייבים אנו לאחד האמיתי מן האדנות ומה שחובה על הנבראים מן העבדות לפניו ולפיכך קבעתי חובת עבודת השם יסוד שלישי לכמה מחובות הלבבות.

Right, he says again, beginning where hakaros m'tzius Hashem, yichud Hashem, which was the sha'ar harishon, again supplemented by yedi'as Hashem through Sha'ar HaBechina, so then a person should recognize that all that is mechayev him. All that is mechayev avodas Hashem. So if you only had these two lines here, you wouldn't know Rabbeinu Bachya's famous approach that the mechayev in avodas Hashem is hakaras hatov. Over here in this little, I think in both translations you get the same impression, but in this little summation, sounds more like that when a person recognizes the reality of malchus shamayim, sort of like the Mechilta says. The Mechilta says on

אנוכי השם אלוקיך לא יהיה לך אלוהים אחרים על פני,

le-man she-bakotz, the Mechilta says משל למה הדבר דומה that a melech who comes into a medina and the people say to him gezor aleinu gezeiros and he says, first kabbalu malchusi and then egzor aleichem gezeiros. So anochi Hashem elokecha is the kabbalas malchus, and then once there's the kabbalas malchus, once there's the recognition, the acknowledgment of malchus, so then there's, then one can move on to the gezeiros. So that's what it sounds like here, that based on yichud Hashem, based on Sha'ar HaBechinas, so a person recognizes m'tzius, yichud Hashem, adnus Hashem, malchus shamayim, so mimeila it's time to assume the ol of the gezeiros, of avodas Hashem. And then of course very famously later, this we already saw echoes of earlier in the hakdama, so Chovos HaLevavos has his shita of how hakaras hatov is, as we discussed already a little bit, is the mechayev in avodas Hashem. So yesh l'ayen bazeh. Then he says, the way he introduces how Sha'ar HaRivi'i, Sha'ar HaBitachon, probably the most famous of all the, of the whole sefer Chovos HaLevavos, the way Sha'ar HaRivi'i comes in is that

ואחר כך ביררתי מה חייבים אנו לאחד האמיתי שהוא לבדו מנהיג הכל ושהתועלת והנזק אינם ביד זולתו ולא בגזירה בלתי כי ברשותו נתחייבנו לבטוח עליו ולהשליך עליו ולפיכך קבעתי הביטחון יסוד רביעי לכמה מחובות הלבבות.

Right, so after I, I then... Clarified what we're obligated to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, again, is not only Adon Hakol but who's Manhig Hakol. Hakadosh Baruch Hu who governs, Hakadosh Baruch Hu who supervises, Hakadosh Baruch Hu who exercises hashgacha pratis, and that is mechayev in bitachon. So there's a very clear, this is not mechudash, this is pesukim in nevi'im, it might be, it seems a drop mechudash to us because of I don't know certain maybe erroneous associations we sometimes have. When we talk about someone being a ba'al bitachon, so it often, when we say it, it often has the connotation of some midas chasidus. When you say about someone he's a big ba'al bitachon, again, it means something very different than he's a shomer Shabbos, he's nizhar in kashrus, he's nizhar in every other, Rabbeinu Bachya again and this isn't ke-she'le-atzmo I guess shouldn't be at all mechudash but perhaps is for us, explains how a lack of bitachon be'emes is a intimate denial of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's hanhagas ha-olam. Imagine the door to the room here would be like the type of doors they have on bank vaults. And then you'd have someone who the door would be locked and he's determined he's going to break in, so he's taking his fist and he's banging on the bank vault door. So we would say that there's a lack of, there's a denial of reality in what he's doing. If he understood the reality then he would realize that he can spend the rest of his life banging on the door of the bank vault but the strength of the metal and the thickness of the metal is such that he can live 200 years, he's never going to be able to break through. So there's a certain his actions represent the denial of reality. When a person's actions the Chovos HaLevavos says are not consistent with bitachon, it's not just that he's lacking a ma'ala, a midas chasidus of being a ba'al bitachon, I mean he's denying שהתועלת והנזק אינם ביד זולתו ולא בגזירת בלתו that it's that everything is in the hands of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. One of the biggest ongoing challenges in the life of an oved Hashem is to constantly be calibrating his hishtadlus, that the hishtadlus should be consistent with a sense of bitachon and shouldn't be overdone to the point where it detracts or contradicts genuine bitachon. There's a hishtadlus which is is consistent with bitachon. And then there's a point at which ishtadlus can be overdone where the ishtadlus reflects that the person thinks that he's through his actions, he's gonna control, he's gonna determine, he's gonna dictate rather than making ishtadlus. And sometimes it's clear where the line is, and sometimes it requires a tremendous amount of pikchus and/or hisyatzus for us to know where that line is between the ishtadlus which is consistent with bitachon and a ishtadlus which presumes to be more than ishtadlus but rather dictating and determining. Chovos Halvavos's placement and explanation of Sha'ar Prishus is also very, very interesting. He says,

אחר כך חשבותי על לבי ענין האחד האמיתי וראיתי כי יחודו בלב שלם לא יתכן בנפש המאמין עם שיכרות לבו ביין אהבת העולם והתמכר לתאוותיו הבהמיות.

I recognized that to really wholeheartedly believe in Yichud Hashem is not possible if a person has intoxicated himself with love of Olam Hazeh and has sort of sold himself, is meshubad to his taivos.

ואחר כך כשיחשוב לפנות לבו ולרוקן מחשבתו ממוססות העולם על ידי הפרישות מתענוגיו.

Only when a person cleanses himself, clears his heart from luxury and indulgence through prishus, so only then does he have real Yichud Hashem, and only then can his ma'asim really be l'shem Shamayim. And therefore he now has the Sha'ar Prishus. I think there's lichora two points here. The intertwining, the interlocking here of the midos and emunah is very pronounced there, it's very dramatic. Agam that we would associate Yichud Hashem as an understanding, as a belief, and we would think that you could compartmentalize and say that it's something which has intellectual and cognitive prerequisites, Chovos Halvavos reflects what you have in ma'amrei Chazal as well, in Tosafos in Kesubos quotes, עד שאדם יתפלל שיכנסו דברי תורה לתוך מעיו, Tosafos quotes a ma'amar Chazal, so yispalel that achilah u'shiyah shouldn't be nichnasim l'soch me'av again in the sense of being mismakel l'ta'avaso habahami. In the words of the Chovos Halevavos. So the two you can't, you can't compartmentalize. And lechora one way to understand a little bit why that compartmentalization can't happen is that the capacity is that Yichud Hashem isn't something that Yichud Hashem is something a person again feels, lives, experiences, isn't just something intellectual but it's a spiritual capacity. And that spiritual a person only has that enhanced spiritual capacity for a complete appreciation and understanding of Yichud Hashem through perishus. As long as as a person is is involved in ta'anugei olam hazeh so that caps the spiritual his spiritual capacity and as long as that spiritual capacity is capped he can't have a full feeling, experience for Yichud Hashem. Maybe a little bit of a mashal might maybe be a little bit helpful. Let's say you have someone who goes to goes to an art museum. Two people they go to they go to an art museum. One of them the only thing in life that interests him is art and the type of art that's depicted here in the museum. The other one he's interested in art, he has a genuine interest in art but he's interested in other things also. He's very interested in floor tiles and carpeting and he's very interested in the in people watching. So the first person when he goes to the museum is going to be able to absorb everything there is to absorb from the art because there's nothing else distracting him. He's not distracted by looking at the other people who are in the museum. He's not distracted by looking at the floor tiles on the floor of the museum or the carpet which they have in the museum. Libo ponui entirely to focus and to soak in all the displays of art. The other person there's only so much that he can absorb, there's only so much that he can soak in of the art because while he is interested in the art genuinely he's simultaneously interested in other things and there's only and mimmela he's not going to be because of those other competing and diversionary interests he's not going to be able to soak. Again, the full effect of the exhibits in the museum. That's one big yesod. It's a big yeitzer hora in life I think that we have to not recognize that sometimes the price we have to pay for something is to give up on something else. We like to apply Koheles's advice of ואחוז בזה וגם מזה אל תנח ידך in contexts that he clearly didn't intend them. The other very very important thing to be gleaned here from the Chovos HaLevavos's explanation of what Sha'ar Prishus is about is lichora prishus should have come much earlier, no? If without prishus you don't really have Yichud Hashem and without prishus you don't really have, you can't really do anything leshaim shamayim, person's not really doing anything totally leshaim shamayim until he has prishus, so how did he already have the Sha'ar Yichud Hashem and he had the Sha'ar Yichud HaMa'aseh, which is doing things leshaim shamayim? So prishus should have been, I don't know, instead of first day of cheider, instead of beginning the first few pesukim in Sefer Vayikra, we should begin Sha'ar HaPrishus, no? So clearly what's reflected here and again this is something which is obviously has a teretz in Chazal, but what's reflected here in the Chovos HaLevavos is that to a degree the path to Torah and mitzvos is Torah and mitzvos. Dehainu

לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ומצוות אפילו שלא לשמה שמתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה.

So the pshat is what רב יהודה אמר רב is saying in that maimar is not only don't wait to begin your his'askus in Torah and mitzvos until you feel that you're already on a madreiga of lishma, you can begin shelo lishma, it means that also, but lichora it also means that the most effective method of reaching the lishma or an indispensable method of reaching the lishma is the shelo lishma. Lemaiseh it's the involvement in Torah and mitzvos, again with an incomplete understanding of Yichud Hashem, an incomplete assimilation, internalization, experience of Yichud Hashem, which gets a person involved in Torah and mitzvos, that gets him to a madreiga where he can be and an incomplete וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. That gets a person to a madreiga where now he's on a madreiga to try to practice prishus and then be able to reach the higher madreiga of Yichud Hashem and Yichud HaMa'aseh and

וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים. לעולם יעסוק אדם בתורה ומצוות שלא לשמה שמתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה.

So what's what's the what's the lashon le'olam? It should be בתחילה יעסוק אדם שלא לשמה because מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה. So what does it mean le'olam? So the Me'or Einayim says that it's taka le'olam. A person never, never achieves perfection. It's always the case that our involvement with Torah on one level, it's that gufeh which lets us reach the next level of involvement of Torah, and that's a never-ending climb, never-ending ascent. Today's shelo lishma will bring me to what my conception of lishma is. Today's yichud Hashem ultimately will help me reach a higher darga of yichud Hashem, and then that will help me reach even a higher darga, and that will help me reach an even higher darga, and and that's a never-ending upward spiral over the course of a person's life. Earlier Rabbeinu Bachya wanted to comment, just before this, a little bit, it wanted to comment in terms of pursuit of knowledge. And basically he says that for the most part, with the partial exception of the first sha'ar, that of yichud Hashem, he says that basically Chovot Halevavot is an intuitive sefer. He's not so much engaging in in logical demonstrations as much as he is helping us intuit. And devarim muskalim again he uses in the sense of something for which we have an intuition. He acknowledges the fact that in some of the some of the stories, some of the pithy sayings, some of the illustrations, he's drawing on non-Jewish sources. He explains that in light of ma'amar Chazal, one of them כל האומר דבר חכמה אפילו באומות העולם נקרא חכם, so there is chochma to be gleaned. It's always a very delicate enterprise to make sure that one is not being erroneously or negatively influenced in dealing with non-Jewish sources. The impression you have in the Chovos Halevavos is, it requires a, well, leaving aside that impression at least for now, it requires a tremendous understanding of what is consistent with Torah and what not. And he does emphasize how he uses these things alongside Sifrei Neviim, alongside Mesoras Ha-Mekubbelos Mikadmonenu. And just one, one last, just to highlight one last passage earlier here in the Hakdama, he says that the goal of Chovos Halevavos is that by being mekayeim both Chovos Halevavos and Chovos Ha-Eivarim, that's how a person is mekayeim the pasuk in Parshas Shoftim תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך. The Tamim means the entire person: the external person, what he says, what he does, and the internal person, what he thinks, what he feels, what he believes. And it's only by having both of those in concert devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu that it's a, that he's mekayeim תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך. Rambam also discusses what תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך means, doesn't really apply it as broadly as the Chovos Halevavos, but has a very, very interesting application. Rambam says if you look at the context of תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך, it comes after the Torah ossers all kinds of ich veis witchcraft and sorcery and the like. And then after that the Torah says תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך. So the Rambam says, what's pshat? So it means as follows: it's not enough that a person complies practically with what the Torah says and doesn't engage again in the witchcraft, in the sorcery, in these different Avodah Zarah-dike practices. But if a person refrains from them but thinks, you know that really these are things which there's truth to them, they're really worthwhile, aval mah e'eseh? So no, תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך, the Rambam says, the Torah says don't do it, and then תמים תהיה עם ה' אלהיך, you should be tamim with Hakadosh Baruch Hu and you should believe with your whole heart, as my father zichrono livracha used to say, it should be accompanied by an intellectual conviction that what the Torah dismisses as being no good, again, not just to comply with that practically, but to have the intellectual conviction that that's takeh the way it is and that these things all are sheker and slight of the hand. It's not enough in observing Torah to comply practically, but a person has to do it with a conviction that it's emes. Not what can we do, this is what it says and you can't change the halacha. No, if this is what it says then this is emes. Not what can you do, and we have no breira and we have to do. No, if this is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu says in the Torah, then it's emes. That's what the Rambam says tamim. תמים תהיה עם ה' אלקיך that that's when a person's shmiras hamitzvos is b'ofen shel temimus.