Mishlei 2:6-7: Applying Tradition Today

Good morning, we're by Pasuk Vav.

כי ה' יתן חכמה מפיו דעת ותבונה. כלומר על ידי שתלך בחמשה דברים הנזכרים האל שהם חכמה בינה ודעת ותורה ומעשה אחר כך יתן ה' לך חכמה.

So as we mentioned yesterday, lechoreh what it means is again the mashal is that a person learns Chumash the first time, maybe it was due to the fact that he learned it at a very young age, maybe it's due to the fact that it was just the first time he was learning, both factors. So there's only so much chochmah, even that which is presented directly, there's only so much chochmah that he's able to grasp. And you can come back and back and back to the same corpus and not only will there be increased binah and da'at, but there will also be increased chochmah. So if a person tries to cultivate the chochmah, binah, and da'at, etc., so then Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives it to him on a higher level. In the note here, for those of you who are using the Phillip edition where you have these notes, so if you take a look in note 37, so I don't know, maybe it's indicated in the body of the text as well of the Gaon, I'm not sure, but in the note, so they quote from the—we have different versions of the Biur of the Gaon on Mishlei. He didn't write it himself. This isn't something which he wrote bekhsav yad kodsho, the talmidim wrote based on what the Gaon taught. So we have different versions of it, the main version is from רב מנחם מנדל משקלוב. So he has a note here that the mipiv doesn't refer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that the mipiv refers to that of the person. כי ה' יתן חכמה, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give chochmah, and then the person mipiv will be able to, based on that chochmah, to attain more da'at utvunah, similar to what we had earlier in Pasuk Gimmel of לתבונה כי אם לבינה תקרא ולתבונה תתן קולך, and so we saw there that the Gaon said that in order to have the binah, so that requires already kriya bpeh, not just to listen, to hear, to absorb, but it requires the kriya bpeh. I think we discussed then how to try to understand that, and that's what the note of Rav Menachem Mendel says, that that's the pshat. כי ה' יתן חכמה, and then that unleashes or triggers the next cycle of mipiv of the person, da'at utvunah. I don't know, maybe that's what the—I'm not sure what the last two words here just in the text of the Biur HaGra, vedai lechakima. Maybe that's what the vedai lechakima means. Vedai lechakima means that you give the chacham more chochmah, and then vedai lechakima, that's enough for him for the da'at utvunah. Maybe, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what those two words mean. Let's see the next pasuk here b'ezrat Hashem. יצפן לישרים תושיה מגן להלכי תם. Again, yitzpon, lashon tzafon, to hide away as it were, in the sense of reserving, holding in reserve for someone. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu will provide tushiyah for yesharim and he'll provide magen, a shield, leholechei tom. He here the Gaon's pshat is presented differently again whether it's in the text or whether it's here in footnote 45. The common denominator is well let's use what the footnote says. Footnote 45 the pshat of the Gaon is that yashar

השם דרכיו ומדותיו בשכלו ומעמיד אותם בדרך הישר לפי התורה.

Meaning the yashar is someone who again the way it's presented here he's constantly assessing his own his own habits his own character traits and looking to mold them and direct them al pi Torah. In the note it's a little different. I think it's easier to understand the pshat in the posuk again if you have this edition you take a look in footnote 45. פירוש כי תם וישר הם שני דברים הפכים. They're two opposite types in a certain sense.

תם הוא ההולך בתמימות ואינו יודע כלום אלא עושה מה שצוה השם.

A tam right we use it it's used that sort of way in colloquial Yiddish as well. A tmimusdike person it means you tell him what to do and he does it on chochmos. You tell him what to do he does it on chochmos. That's what the mida of tam is. Haholech b'tmimus just innocently no doesn't doesn't question doesn't analyze doesn't you tell him what to do he does it.

ההולך בתמימות ואינו יודע כלום אלא עושה מה שצוה השם. וישר הוא היודע הכל והוא חכם גדול והולך בדרך הישר.

The yashar is has a much broader understanding but he's yashar in the sense that he very consciously and deliberately is doing the right thing. וצריך האדם להיות תם וישר. A person has to combine even though again they're opposite types a person needs to combine both of those qualities within himself. De'hainu on the one hand sheyihyeh holech b'tmimus ולא יסור ימין ושמאל. A person should again on chochmos a person should do what Hashem says on chochmos on without without the in its most positive sense with the simplicity of commitment with the simplicity of and straightforwardness of devotion and dedication. But me'idach gisa it's also necessary וגם צריך שיהיה ישר. Again the yashar is

שיהיה יודע השני דרכים וילך בדרך הישר. וזה שאמרו בגמרא בחולין ערומים בדעת כאדם ומשמים עצמם כבהמה.

A beheima again is represent that which is which is ein lah daas. V'zeh she'amar that's what Shlomo HaMelech says

יצפן לישרים הן אותם שיודעים שני הדרכים. תושיה היא עצה ללכת בדרך הטוב.

Tushiya according to the pshat again of this version of what the Gaon said is milashon eitza v'sushiya. Advice counsel.

מגן להולכי תום פירוש שההולך בדרך תום אינו יודע הדרכים.

He doesn't need an eitza because he's not making decisions he's not deliberating he's not identifying different options. He just needs רק שלא יכשל שלא במתכוין. Lachach amar magen sheyagein aleichem mil'hika-sheil. Why isn't it enough to be a tam? Why is it necessary that a person needs to combine the midos of yashar and tam? So maybe a couple of maasei rav and then we'll try to extrapolate what the yesod is from those maasei rav. I think Rav Schachter tells the story that once, I don't know I think maybe it was in the early 60s, I'm not sure exactly when it was, the Rav zichrono livracha met with a group of talmidim and they were able to ask questions. So one of them asked, how can it be that the yeshiva in Volozhin closed down because they refused, the Gedolei Yisroel refused to accede to the demands of the Czar's government to introduce secular studies, and here we are in ישיבת רבנו יצחק אלחנן with a dual program, with a dual curriculum? I don't know I guess that maybe the shoel was sort of expecting a long elaborate explanation and the Rav just said, times are different, and okay, let's go on to the next question. Times are different. That's one story. Another story. This story I think you'll find in the biography of Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the late Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir. So one of the strategies he employed to try to increase Talmud Torah is he would offer incentives, financial incentives, for talmidim who finished the masechta with bechinas. Lots of financial incentives. So someone challenged him, like what kind of, what is this? The yeshiva should be promoting Torah lishmah. So what do you mean, finish the masechta and you'll get so many so many shekalim? So he answered by telling the following story that when the first cheder opened in, I don't know if it was in Bnei Brak, Yerushalayim, I don't know what it was, and the language of instruction instead of being Yiddish was modern Hebrew. So certain individuals came to the Chazon Ish, the Chazon Ish should assur that cheder. What kind of pirtzah is this to be speaking Hebrew and not to be maintaining the language of instruction should be Yiddish? So the Chazon Ish, this is Rav Nosson Tzvi telling the story, but the Chazon Ish telling a story. So the Chazon Ish told him the following story. That there was a country where they had had a general who had been in charge of their armed forces for decades. And then finally he got older, he retired. Several years after his retirement, the country was faced with a very real national security threat. It seemed like a neighboring country was getting ready to attack and try to invade. So the king said they should go back to the general and ask him to come out of retirement to be the chief strategist as to how they should be able to repel the attack. So they go to him and he starts telling him, yeah, you have to take all the cavalry, you have to take all your soldiers on horses and put them over here and you have to take the foot soldiers and put them over here and that's the way you should organize your force. And they say to him, no, but they're attacking with tanks. And they're going to try to send planes overhead to bomb. So when they go back to the king, so the king realizes that the retired general is fighting yesterday's battles. He doesn't know what today's battles are. Yesterday's battles, huh? He's still fighting yesterday's battles. So the Chazon Ish said to them when they wanted an issur, when they wanted a cherem on the Hebrew-speaking cheider, he said that was yesterday's battle. It's not today's battle. And didn't go along with it. So Rav Nosson Tzvi said, maybe that was yesterday's battle to induce people to learn lishma without any incentive. It's not today's battle. What does that mean? It means that, of course, of course, צאי לך בעקבי הצאן. We're supposed to follow in the example of ovosaynu hakedoshim. But if a person is only a tam, so then that can actually end up creating a distortion. Because to follow in the footsteps of earlier generations doesn't always mean to literally do what they did. It doesn't necessarily mean that because in 19th century Russia and haskala being what it was, it doesn't mean that secular studies in the second half of 20th century America represents the same thing that secular studies represented in the 19th century in Eastern Europe. It doesn't mean that maybe at one point Lashon Hakodesh was associated only with maskilim. But if the world changes and that's no longer the case, so then that's not today's battle, that was yesterday's battle. To recognize that, a person can't just be a tam, he has to be a yosher. A person has to be a tam in his commitment. The commitment has to be simple and pure. That אין חכמה ואין עצה ואין תבונה נגד השם. When it's clear that this is what the Ribono Shel Olam wants, מה השם אלוקיך שואל מעמך, a person has to be a tam. And that's it. I do it. But a person can't only be a tam, he has to be a tam in his commitment, but he has to be a yosher, he has to be a chacham in terms of discerning and identifying what it is the Ribono Shel Olam wants because otherwise a person can end up fighting yesterday's battles. When people who are living in 21st century America, there's a different way of relating to the government and governmental laws than our great-great-grandparents who lived under the oppressive, corrupt regime of Czarist Russia. And to sort of maintain the same, in Czarist Russia, so the way you survived, and this was correct, it was appropriate, you resorted to bribery, you resorted to everything. You were just surrounded by corrupt and oppressive regime and that's the way you deal with such a regime. When you live in a country, obviously far from perfect, but אף על פי כן, a country which is based on law and has a dina demalchusa and not a chamsanusa demalchusa, so obviously the approach is different. The approach is different, the approach is not to try to subvert and v'chulu. A person needs to combine the middah of tam with the middah of yosher. And it's only when we have the middah of yosher that we know what the tmimus entails. Because otherwise a person ends up fighting yesterday's battles. A person ends up in a misplaced literalism instead of being faithful to Torah, a person can end up distorting Torah. There's a Yiddish joke which captures this very, very beautifully. A tmimusdike, I don't know, young adult son, but not overly intellectually endowed or blessed. So he comes home one morning from shul, tells his mother Oh, there was there was a Bar Mitzvah in shul this morning. Ah, she says, wonderful, did you go over to the family and say Mazel Tov? Says, no. She says, ah, you see an event like that, you have to say Mazel Tov. Okay, okay, I'm mekabel. Next morning, comes home from shul and says, you know, on the way home from shul, you know, there was there was a Levaya, I saw going down the main street. But don't worry, Ma, I did like you told me, I went over and and I saw the family walking right behind the Aron and I wished them a hearty Mazel Tov, I wish you a hearty, hearty, hearty Mazel Tov. She says, Gevalt, Gevalt, you wait until after the Kvura and then you say Hamakom Yenachem Eschem. He says, oh, okay, I hear. Next day, comes to his mother and says, you know what, he says, after, after davening today in the chatzer of the shul, there was there was a Chuppah. So I did like you told me, I went over under the Chuppah, went over to the Chosson and I said המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים. So a person needs to be, a person needs to be not only a tam but a person needs to be a yosher also. Okay, we'll stop here for now, בלי נדר אם ירצה השם we'll continue with the next sugya at, at around 12:30 בלי נדר אם ירצה השם. Have a good productive morning Rabbosai, everyone should do well, be safe.