Halacha 3:6 – Pas balelech. Al Tomar. Anava.

Hagmul u-vracha.

משנשא לבו לקיים מצוה זו כראוי ולהיות מוכתר בכתר של תורה. לא יסיח דעתו לדברים אחרים. ולא ישים על לבו שיקנה תורה עם העושר והכבוד כאחד. כך היא דרכה של תורה. פת במלח תאכל ועל הארץ תישן וחיי צער תחיה ובתורה אתה עמל. ולא עליך המלאכה לגמור ולא אתה בן חורין ליבטל. אבל אם הרבית תורה הרבית שכר והשכר לפי הצער.

Okay, a couple of things. First of all there is a machlokos that the Rambam and Rashi in this din, this regimen of pas b'melach tochal. So Rashi says, meaning if necessary. Meaning if the only way a person can dedicate himself to Torah is to endure these hardships, then he has to be willing to do so. Let's say that a person has resources available to him and that he's able to devote himself single-mindedly and wholeheartedly to Torah without needing to endure the פת במלח תאכל על הארץ תישן, so then it's not necessary. This is rather a statement of to what degree, if necessary, a person has to be ready to be moseir nefesh. But for the Rambam, it's clear that's not the pshat. Rambam is clear that a person can have endless funds at his disposal and this is part of kinyan Torah on that highest level of מוכתר בכתר של תורה. Now the ending of halacha vav seems anomalous. Here's this incredible and incredibly inspiring depiction of someone who's being moseir nefesh for Torah and clearly the associations we have with this is tremendous ahavas Torah l'shma. And then the Rambam says, you know, אם הרבית תורה הרבית שכר והשכר לפי הצער. Kind of an anticlimactic ending, no? So pshat is as follows. Hasachar l'fi hatza'ar is just as the Hebrew translation of the mishna l'fum tza'ara agra. So what is that statement of l'fum tza'ara agra? So we figure like this. So on a nice day a person gets up and he walks the half mile from his house to shul to davven with a minyan. There isn't any tza'ar associated with it. If it's 15 degrees and it's the midst of a raging snowstorm and he trudges through the snowdrifts, assuming that it's not dangerous to do so, and he trudges through the snowdrifts to get to shul, so then, you know, he endures tremendous tza'ar to get there, so hasachar l'fi hatza'ar. But if you take a look at the Rambam in Peirush HaMishnayos on the mishna, Rambam says,

ואמר בן ה"ה לפי מה שתצטער בתורה יהיה שכרך. ואמרו שלא יתקיים מן החכמה אלא מה שתלמוד בטורח עמל ויראה מן המלמד. אבל קריאת התענוג והמנוחה אין קיום לה ולא תועלת בה. ואמרו בפירוש מאמרו או מאמרו אף חכמתי עמדה לי חכמה שלמדתי באף עמדה לי. ומפני זה ציווה להטיל אימה על התלמידים ואמרו זרוק מרה בתלמידים.

Or in other words, the Rambam interprets l'fum tza'ara agra as only referring to talmud Torah. He doesn't interpret it as a principle by other mitzvos. L'fum tza'ara agra is said directly and exclusively by talmud Torah. So what does that mean? That means that there's no extra schar for that... Every אם אתה יודע מתן שכרן של מצוות, every mitzvah has its own schar. So imagine in the celestial bank, so there's different vaults. So there's the vault which has schar for achilas matzah. So when a person eats matzah at the Seder, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu deposits into his account in Olam Haba, שכר בהאי עלמא ליכא, deposits into the individual's account in Olam Haba the schar for achilas matzah. When he shakes a lulav, so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu takes from the ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון vault. And when a person puts on tefillin, Hakadosh Baruch Hu takes from the vault of וקשרתם לאות על ידכם. What about when a person endures tza'ar to do a mitzvah? So what vault does that come from? That's a separate vault? Or no, you get extra from the achilas matzos vault? You get extra from the ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון, וקשרתם לאות על ידכם vault? So the pshat is that what the Rambam means is as follows. Avada there's an inyan of Lefum tzara agra by every mitzvah and avada there's greater schar when the person is moser nefesh for tefillah b'tzibbur as in that scenario than where he just can coast to shul, but the schar isn't schar tefillah. The schar is schar tza'ar as hechsher mitzvah, tza'ar to do a mitzvah, not schar tefillah. When he's walking through the snow, he's not—I mean, he could be stuck in a drift and he's davening, but assuming he doesn't get stuck in a drift, he's not davening, so he's not getting schar tefillah. When Ben Hei Hei says Lefum tzara agra, he's talking about something else. He's talking about the tza'ar that is integral, and that's his point, the tza'ar is integral to Talmud Torah. Whether it's the tza'ar that a person pushes himself to the limits, again, whether it means physically or intellectually, it means both. So that tza'ar is not something incidental. By tefillah b'tzibbur, the tza'ar is incidental. There's nothing inherent in tefillah b'tzibbur that involves tza'ar. There's nothing inherent to netilas lulav that involves tza'ar. But tza'ar is an integral part of Talmud Torah on its highest level. Again, whether it's the physical tza'ar, whether it's the physical tza'ar of pushing oneself to maximize the amount of time devoted to Torah or whether it's the intellectual exertion of trying to make the breakthrough to understand, again, on whatever level is appropriate to the person. But everyone has that tza'ar. Rav Chaim has that tza'ar also. He doesn't have the tza'ar of figuring out the teitch of the words the way we do. He doesn't have the tza'ar of figuring out what in the world is that Gemara that Tosafos is quoting, but he has the tza'ar to understand it the way Rav Chaim ultimately understood it. He had tza'ar also. The Vilna Gaon also had tza'ar in their learning. Everyone has tza'ar in their learning because to learn on the highest and the deepest level of which a person is capable means that he has to make a breakthrough, and that means being stymied at first, it means being frustrated at first, it means the first attempt lav davka is going to be the successful one, and maybe the fifth one isn't the successful one. So the tza'ar is integral to the mitzvah, and that's what Ben Hei Hei says Lefum tzara agra, meaning it's schar Talmud Torah. When we break our teeth to make a leining, that's schar Talmud Torah, that comes from the vault, from the vault in Shamayim where Hakadosh Baruch Hu stores schar Talmud Torah. So it's clear then that what Ben Hei Hei is saying is not just giving us insight and motivating us by the awareness of the schar that awaits. but it's clear that the sechar is being used as as a way of as a giluy milsah about what the mitzvah and the amala of Talmud Torah entails. And yitachen that's the pshat. That's the pshat in the Rambam. The Rambam's not, it's not no, the person to whom the Rambam is talking shenassa libo, the Rambam's not looking to to motivate the person with with sechar. The same way that the Rambam is saying again haschar lifi hatza'ar that don't a person shouldn't mistakenly think that the tza'ar is an indication this isn't for me. If a person is trying to learn on a level that he's not ready for, so then ina hachi nami he should tanke shouldn't be doing that and that's going to be a futile effort and a futile endeavor. But if the person is learning on the level that he's capable of and אף על פי כן he has tza'ar, so that's that's par for the course. It's not an indication that this isn't that this isn't for me. So then if ikre Talmud Torah is tza'ar, so does that work with the Eglei Tal? The Eglei Tal who seems to be saying that really ikre mitzvah is all about being misame'ach on account of hayei deTorah? What do you do? I lift weights. Lift weights. Okay. So you lift weights. So anyone who exercises enjoys pushing himself to his limits and beyond his limits and simultaneously is straining and and when he's trying to get the weight up you see his veins are bulging and and he's straining and he's loving every second as you know from... I think in the in the biography of Rebbetzin Kanievsky so it says that she was very she was very attached to her family, but when she got married so she assessed and then made a decision that what was best for her husband's continued success and and in learning was you know that they would live in Bnei Brak and that he shouldn't be disrupted by having to travel or anything. So they never made the trip even from Bnei Brak to Yerushalayim for Shabbos. So that meant that she didn't get to see her family. And it describes in the book you know that she was a very emotional person and felt things deeply but she used to cry. She used to cry but it was something that she was happily, willingly initiating, not just agreeing to, happily, willingly initiating and simultaneously she was crying. There's no stirah between so the same way there's no stirah here. There's no stirah between the chayei tza'ar and and and the simcha at the same time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is the is the you know is you know is the simcha more subliminal when You're stuck in pshat in the Rambam and and is it more b'giluy when you get pshat in the Rambam, of course? But but if you go and and you ask the person you know while he's stuck on pshat in the Rambam, is there anything else in the world you'd rather be doing, is there anything else in the world that would make you happier, and you see he's very depressed right now, and the answer is no, there's nothing in the world that would make me happier than continuing to you know exert and and push and try to understand pshat. Is the simcha experienced differently? Definitely, definitely, but subliminally it's there. They say, I don't know if this is true, I didn't hear this through authoritative channels so I I can't I can't vouch for it, but but maybe it's true, that Rav Chaim's mental exertion was such that he would begin even outwardly he'd begin burning, you know you exercise so you so you sweat. His his head would begin burning ad kedei kach that he'd go over to the stone pillar in the Beis Medrash in Volozhin and and have to have to cool his head off. I don't know if it's true, but if it's true, it's very nice. But the yesod of the story is true. Whether the actual story is true, I don't know, it could be the actual story is true also, I I don't know, but the yesod is a thousand percent true. Yeah, I'm wondering if this tza'ara d'Oraisa only applies to Torah or like maybe something like tefila, like if you only reach like like the highest level of tefila if you really, really exert yourself to the highest degree, because like why, like how how else could you get to to the highest degree of exertion to the highest degree? I I think the question is is a good question, I'm not sure of the answer. The question is a good question. But the the problem that that you run into is that certainly every mitzvah, whatever you hold b'diavad in terms of mitzvos tzrichos kavanah or ein tzrichos kavanah, so obviously l'chat'chila you do mitzvos with kavanah. And kavanah also there's kavanah is is l'shem shamayim. The the purity and you know intensity of a person's kavanah is also kavanah l'shem shamayim. So then I don't know, you know again, problem number one is again the Rambam Perush Hamishnayot is is again he's ma'arich a little bit and every mareh makom is about Torah. There's no there's no indication that it applies to anything else. And B, even if you would say no, okay, הוא הדין הוא הטעם for tefila, I'm not sure why again what requires that exertion and the kavanah and kavanah is is a part of any mitzvah on its optimal level. So I'm not sure where that goes. But that's not really answering the question, that's more pushing your question to the side than answering it. I don't know. שמא תאמר עד שאקבץ ממון ואחזור. I was discussing the question not in the context that the Rambam is quoting the din of אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה but in a different context. What does that mean? Let's say, I don't know, let's say if a person will go into a certain field that if he'll do an extra two or three years of training, so then he'll, I don't know, instead of, I'm assuming this is true, that instead of being a dentist he'll be a dental surgeon, and as a dental surgeon, so he won't have to work as many hours to support his family, and he'll have more time to learn. So is that precluded by this Mishnah? Because he can, you know, is it אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה? You know, when I'll finish that extra training, is that precluded? So I think this is said explicitly, but if not, it's anyway correct that אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה is, it's clear that it's something which is open-ended, shema lo tipane. So for instance, let's say a person will hashben as follows: I'm going to invest in the stock market and I'll devote crazy, crazy hours to it. I'll work 14-hour days and, you know, I'll monitor the market in Japan, the market in Europe, the market here, the market there, and I'll make a killing on the market and I'll retire at age 30. And I'll retire at age 30 with a big enough, what's that, what's the phrase? Egg nest? No, what's the, anyway, with enough money to, and I'll retire at age 30. So that, l'chora, is אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה שמא לא תפנה. Maybe it's not going to work. Maybe at 30 you won't have struck it rich yet. You know, another year, another year, another year. And you know, at age 85, you know, he's hopping up there, next year, next year I'm definitely retiring, b'ezrat Hashem, as soon as I hit it big on the market this year. So that's what the Mishnah says, you know, אל תאמר שמא לא תפנה. But where it's something which is clearly defined and delimited, so the pshat is that's not against this Mishnah. That that is a, again, there are lots of factors in life. Life doesn't usually reduce to a single factor. Sometimes it does. But in terms of this Mishnah, the pshat is that this Mishnah means when something is ad k'dei zman means I'm going to do it for investment. I'm going to do it in a way that's speculative. So then, no, it's אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה שמא לא תפנה, so that's not ois'gehalten. Again, just that's mitzad this factor. There are other factors, there are other factors. A person has to, you know, halacha l'maaseh, if a person makes such a cheshbon, this doesn't work so much. I don't think it's as relevant to that example. Let's take a different example. So a person will take a very, very high-paying job, but he works like an indentured servant. You know, when they tell you in the interview that they order in supper for you from whatever restaurant you want and they'll pay for your Uber if you go home after 11:30 at night, you should see a yellow flag, or that there's a Vatikin minyan in the lobby. Monday through Friday, something's up. So that's a person's life. I'll take such a job for four years and then with all the money I'll, okay, and again, and the math works. You know, the salary is so obscene and and the math works. So it's true that mitsad shema lo tipaneh, the way we've discussed it until now, it's true that lechora since it's delimited, but in אם תעזבני יום יומים אעזבך, the question is whether after four years he's going to be the same person and with all that money in the bank, is he going to come back or not? Or he's going to be a different person. So halacha l'maaseh you have to cheshvon in the shema lo tipaneh not only in terms of, you know, will the money necessarily have accumulated, but will I be in a position to take advantage of that for the increased learning of, you know, who knows what four years submerged in that kind of culture, in that kind of environment, does to a person. So there's lots of cheshbonos, but mitsad again shema lo tipaneh narrowly in this Mishna means when it's potentially open-ended. Rambam says אלא עשה תורתך קבע ומלאכתך עראי. In perek aleph, when the Rambam is talking about the Talmud Torah as we engage in it on its basic level, so the Rambam writes, perek aleph halacha yud bais:

כיצד היה בעל אומנות והיה עושה במלאכה שלוש שעות ביום ובתורה תשע.

Then he goes on to say how those nine hours should be allocated. So lechora there's a difference, there are two distinctions, but they're not synonymous, they're not identical distinctions. There's a distinction between keva and arai and ikar and tafel. In perek aleph, the Rambam is talking about ikar and tafel. Now, what's tafel also has a kevias. L'rayah the Rambam says that the person his shoe repair shop is open three hours a day. It's yadua that he's open every day from nine to twelve in the morning, three to six in the afternoon. So there is a kevias to it. Now clearly it's not his ikkar kevias. It's a tafel-dike kevias, but there is a kevias. L'rayah you see on the store it doesn't say as soon as I made what I think is enough money for today I'm going to close and therefore I can't guarantee when I'll be open. No, I'm open every day, I'm open daily from nine to twelve. And that's what the Rambam is talking about again, Talmud Torah on the level that we aspire to in perek aleph is that ein hachi nami we have keviasin for other things than Talmud Torah, but certainly axiologically, and if one is blessed that it translates also quantitatively, but certainly axiologically, so Torah is the ikkar and other things are tafel even if it doesn't translate in terms of time, but in terms of chashivos axiologically, Torah always has to be ikkar. What the ben aliya, this, you know, exalted individual of perek gimmel of mi shenisso libo, so he doesn't even have a tafel-dike kevias. It's totally arai. Arai means that stands in contrast to kevias, it's like the Gemara... needed for that day. As much as he needed to buy, to go to the makolet and buy the lachmaniyot and then all the sustenance then we all say. And then we all say. I'll skip Halakha Ches. I don't know, maybe we'll come back to it. I don't know. I'm Halakha Tes.

דברי תורה נמשלו במים שנאמר הוי כל צמא לכו למים ואמרו חכמים מה המים אין מתכנסים במקום מדרון אלא נזחלים מעליו ומתקבצים במקום אשבורן כך דברי תורה אינם נמצאים בגסי הרוח ולא בלב כל גבה לב אלא בדכא ושפל רוח שמתאבק בעפר רגלי החכמים ומסיר התאוות ותענוגי הזמן מלבו.

So it's meduyak in the lashon of the Rambam. Again, then again, to be מתאבק בעפר רגלי החכמים is the phrase in Avos or based on the phrase in Avos. But the Rambam explains that that's an expression of, and it's only possible if there is shiflus haruach, right? The Rambam doesn't say אלא בדכא ושפל רוח ומתאבק בעפר רגלי החכמים ומסיר, right? He doesn't connect this phrase with a vav the way he connects the other phrases. He connects this one with a shin, right? So shfal ruach she-misabek, meaning that that's the ability, the willingness, the capacity to be מתאבק בעפר רגלי החכמים comes from this quality of daka u-shfal ruach. Someone who has that quality will be מתאבק בעפר רגלי החכמים. The Rov zichrono livracha was a very, very tolerant person. But that tolerance notwithstanding, there was one thing he really, really disliked. And that was people who were ba'alei gaiva. He used to say, a ba'al gaiva can never, he can never learn properly because he can't learn from anyone. He can't learn from anyone. To be able to learn, whether it's me-rabosai, whether it's me-chaveirai, whether it's me-talmidai, so a person can only learn commensurate with the midah of daka u-shfal ruach. To the degree that a person has it, so then he makes himself into a kli kibul and he can learn from others. To the degree that a person doesn't have it, then nothing penetrates. He's just left with—so what is a person by himself? He has neither rabosai, nor chaveirai, nor talmidai. So So what is a person by himself? He has neither rabo nor chaveiro nor talmido. So what is a person without that? Mah. Wait, what was that there?