PHM #10

The Rambam is giving us an example of how the divrei aggadah of Chazal at first glance are stumim v'chasumim. They seem to have no pshat, but once a person is יורד לעומקם של דברים so then he grasps the profundity of the chochma shebahem. And he's illustrating with a Gemorah in Berachos of

אין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ארבע אמות של הלכה בלבד.

So at the end of the day, what does this ma'amar Chazal mean according to the Rambam? So the Rambam has an arichus. He says that the קדמונים חקרו חקירה נפלאה what's the tachlis of everything? And he says the tachlis of things in olam hazeh is man. The tachlis of man, man does many things, he's multifaceted. So how do we figure out what his tachlis is? So the Rambam says, well, let's see what's unique, what's singularly human to him. And the only thing which is really unique and distinctly human is bakashat hamuscalot. So that clearly is the tachlis of man. And again, obviously ultimately muscalot means yediat Hashem. So how does all that add up to—this is all very beautiful—but lemaiseh, how is that in the words of

אין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ארבע אמות של הלכה בלבד,

right? So the maskana is that the world was created, everything, again talking about what's in olam hazeh, not talking about the planets and the stars and everything else. That's a different tchum. So everything is for man. And all of humanity is for the ish chacham v'navon.

ובדרך כלל כל הנמצא מתחת גלגל הירח לא נמצאו אלא בשביל האדם בלבד.

And then חקרו את כל פעולותיו. What's man here for?

כדי לדעת מה התכלית בפעולות הללו מצא שתכליתו היא פועל אחד בלבד והיא השגת המושכלות וידיעת האמיתות כמו שהן. והחשוב שבמושכלות השגת אחדות השם יתעלה וירומם.

So that's what it's all about. So how was that in the words of

אין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ארבע אמות של הלכה בלבד?

Beautiful ideas, very hard to disagree with, but how does the Rambam see that in the words of

אין לו להקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו אלא ארבע אמות של הלכה בלבד?

There's something very, obviously, there's something very, very profound here in what the Rambam is telling us. So in the Braun edition, we're on page nun-aleph,

אבל עם השגת המושכלות יתחייב לעזוב את הלהיטות לתענוגים הגשמיים.

In the Kapach edition, it's on page kuf-chaf-bet in the left-hand column, paragraph beginning אבל עם השגת המושכלות. Do you have it in that edition? Ayin-zayin. Yehudi, do you have it there? I'll find it.

אבל עם השגת המושכלות יתחייב לעזוב את הלהיטות לתענוגים הגשמיים.

But when a person grasps basic... yesodos. So that is mechayev that he should abandon the pursuit of physical comfort of indulgence. כי במושכל ראשון מושג it's it's immediately apparent שחורבן הנפש בתיקון הגוף ותיקון הנפש בחורבן הגוף. Again we mentioned from Chovos Halevavos that a person can be oriented to devarim ruchniyim olam haba, a person can be oriented to devarim gashmiyim olam hazeh, but you can't really combine the two anymore than you can mix water and fire.

כי האדם אם היה מבקש תאוות ומעדיף את התענוגות החושיות.

If a person is seeking to indulge his taivos and prioritizes physical enjoyment umeshabed sichlo letaavaso and and he uses the incredible intellect that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave him to figure out how to indulge and and satisfy those physical desires and provide for that physical enjoyment. ונהיה כבהמות ובנות יענה. For there's nothing human about that lifestyle

שאינו חושב אלא על אכילה ושתיה ובעילה. הרי שאז לא יראה בו הכוח האלוקי.

The koach eloki that that we have is totally suppressed and and doesn't manifest itself ko mah hasechel. ויהיה אז חומר מנותק שט בים ההיולי. So he's just he's just matter which is adrift in in the in the sea.

הרי נתבאר מן ההקדמות הללו שהתכלית של עולמנו וכל אשר בו אינו אלא איש חכם וטוב.

Now let's pay especially close attention now rabosai.

הרי נתבאר מן ההקדמות הללו שהתכלית של עולמנו וכל אשר בו אינו אלא איש חכם וטוב וכאשר השיג אחד שהוא מן המין האנושי החכמה והמעשה.

Right koach chochma vemayseh is parallel to chacham vetov in the previous sentence.

וכוונתי בחכמה השגת אמיתות הדברים כמו שהם והשגת כל מה שאפשר שישיג האדם והמעשה המיצוע בעניינים הטבעיים ומיעוט הדאגה להם ולא יסתפק מהם אלא כל שיש בו קיום הגוף ותיקון המידות כולן הנה אדם שהוא בעניין זה הרי הוא המטרה הרצויה.

So something happened here, right? And to us it seems like a shift, obviously it isn't really a shift. In in the previous page, the previous paragraph, so the Rambam said the tachlis of everything in this world is man, the tachlis of of humanity is bakashas hamuskalos. Okay, so it sounds like that a person has to yedia, knowledge. And now the Rambam then says, well, we explained that nisbarer me'hahakdamos hallalu that the tachlis is not just the ish chacham, but the ish chacham vetov. The tachlis is not just that to have אחד מן המין האנושי who's masig chochma, but who's masig chochma vemayseh. Where did how did tov and mayseh enter the picture here, no? He was talking about bakashas hamuskalos. It means he whatever he majored in philosophy and bishvili nivra olam, no? That's what the Rambam seemed to be saying and then eichshehu eichshehu when the Rambam then summarizes what he's explained to us, the summary seems to say something very different than then what we understood initially. So again let let's reread again from where we begin. Again

כ"ב נ"א ע"ז. ואם השגת המושכל תחייב לעזוב את הלהיטות לתענוגים הגשמיים.

The pshat of what the Rambam is saying here is not that he's not digressing, he's not saying something which is a corollary to chochma, he's saying something which is a tnai kodem l'maaseh for the chochma to be authentic. Dahinu, if the chochma doesn't translate, it's not chochma, it's counterfeit chochma. Authentic chochma has to translate, it has to radiate. When we're na'eh doreish and not na'eh mekayem, so it's not the pshat that we have chochma but we're inconsistent and maybe even hypocritical rachmana litzlan. No, that's not chochma, right? אם השגת המושכלות יתחייב for the chochma to be authentic, for it to be worthy of that label, it must, it must translate. Chochma that doesn't translate isn't chochma. איך וייס משל מדבר, I think they once asked the Chofetz Chaim. תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם. So someone once asked the Chofetz Chaim that but we see talmidei chachamim who are involved in machlokes. So the Chofetz Chaim answered, no, there is no such thing. תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם. If you see someone who's marbeh machlokes, then he's not a talmid chochom. So that's what the Rambam is saying that, again, this isn't sort of an aside, it isn't that if you have chochma you should act on chochma. It's more than that. It's that it's not chochma otherwise. Yitachen that on one level that's included in the Mishna in Avos that a person has to be לומד על מנת לעשות, that it's included in the halacha that אפילו רשב"י וחבריו שתורתם אומנותם have to be mafsik their learning to be mekayem. It's not again, it's not something which is a complement to chochma. It's not something that, no, that it's chochma that doesn't translate, that doesn't radiate, it isn't chochma for the Rambam. And that's why on the one hand the Rambam said in the previous page that the tachlis of man is hasagas hamuskolos and then he summarizes that to say that harei nisbareir, again the same word, right? He uses the same word. The tachlis is that הרי נתברר מן ההקדמות הללו from all these premises, so it's been clarified

שהתכלית של עולמנו וכל שבו אינו אלא איש חכם וטוב. וכשישיג אחד מן המין האנושי את החכמה והמעשה.

And again in the next paragraph where the Rambam continues and says

עניין זה לא נודע מאת הנביאים בלבד אלא חכמי אומות הקדמונים מאלה שלא ראו הנביאים ולא שמעו דברי חכמתם כבר ידעו זאת גם כן שאין האדם אדם שלם אלא אם נכללו בו החכמה והמעשה.

Dahinu again, it's New York City New York State, right? That chochma and maaseh, but really what that means is that otherwise it's not chochma. So two maybe two comments here in Hilchos De'os based on what we're talking about. So first of all in Perek Hei Halacha Aleph, so the Rambam writes as follows: כשם שהחכם ניכר בחכמתו ובדעותיו and maybe like a shtickle mashal. Let's say the sun or I guess any any any lav davka the sun but maybe just as epitomizing this. So the sun is is burning hot and it also radiates heat. So lu yetzuya that you had something that was yellow in color in the corner of the piece of paper but it didn't but it didn't it didn't radiate heat so you would say that's not a sun. That that's a counterfeit because the definition of the sun is not only that it's sort of that it that it has heat within but but it radiates. So the same thing chochmah, chochmah translates. If chochmah doesn't translate then it then it's counterfeit. It's inauthentic. It's not. And in that sense ich veiss the word knowledge it doesn't really doesn't really capture the this this idea. I'm not sure what if if there is one word that that does in in English. So the Rambam writes here in Perek Hei of Hilchos De'os Halacha Aleph:

כשם שהחכם ניכר בחכמתו ובדעותיו והוא מובדל בהן משאר העם כך צריך שיהיה ניכר במעשיו במאכלו ובמשקהו ובבעילתו ובעשיית צרכיו ובדיבורו ובהילוכו ובמלבושו ובכלכלת דבריו ובמשאו ובמתנו.

Everything the chacham does, what how he eats, what he eats, how he drinks, what he drinks, his private life, bediburo how he speaks, what he says, behilucho how he walks, umalbusho how he dresses, bechalkalat devarov and how he measures his his words, umaso umatono how he conducts business, ויהיו כל המעשים האלו נאים ומתוקנים ביותר. So again here too the vort is not not that it's going to be a corollary to the chochmah to to his his chochmah. No, but if he's a chacham then it has to translate. Otherwise it's not chochmah. kayotzei baze, if you take a look in Halacha Daled, the Lechem Mishneh has a has a very very interesting kasha. The Rambam writes in Halacha Daled as follows:

אף על פי שאשתו של אדם מותרת לו תמיד ראוי לו לתלמיד חכם שינהיג עצמו בקדושה ולא יהיה מצוי אצל אשתו כתרנגול אלא מליל שבת לליל שבת אם יש בו כח.

Then later in the halacha the Rambam says לא יהיו שניהם לא שיכורים ולא עצלנים etc. So the Lechem Mishneh has a kasha as follows:

ובפרק כ"א מהלכות איסורי ביאה כתב רבינו אין דעת חכמים נוחה ממי שמרבה בתשמיש

meaning where he's not talking about talmid chacham. He's talking about talking about everyone. ulekach says the Lechem Mishneh

יש לתמוה קצת על רבינו בדין זה וקצת דינים אחרים שבפרק זה הם נוהגים בכל כגון לא יהיו שניהם שיכורים ולא עצלנים וכולי. כל זה כתב גם כן בפרק כ"א מהלכות איסורי ביאה ולא היה ראוי לכתוב כאן אלא הדברים המיוחדים לתלמיד חכם כמו שהתחיל בתחילת הפרק כשם שהחכם וכולי דמשמע דכל אלו הם הדברים המיוחדים לתלמיד חכם.

Lechem Mishneh's kasha that the perek introduces the standard of behavior required of a talmid chacham and then some of the things the Rambam says that follow are a standard of behavior that's expected from all of us. So so mai hai? That's the Lechem Mishneh's kasha. So Lechem Mishneh says that maybe he's not sure

אולי יש לומר דאפילו הדברים הנוהגים בכל שאר העם הנזכרים כאן כתבם גבי תלמיד חכם מפני שצריך להיזהר בהם ביותר.

Maybe. maybe that's what the the the the Rambam's intent is. But my shver told me a very beautiful pshat from the Rosh Yeshiva in Passaic, from Rav Meir Stern, he said, said very nice teretz on Lechem Mishneh's kasha, that what the Rambam means is, ain hachi nami, these, some of the hanhagos that he mentions here in Perek Hey, are taka universal standards. But by the chacham, if the chacham doesn't comply, so it's a hafka'ah of the shem chacham. And that's why the Rambam repeats it. Not everything, even a chacham isn't perfect. No one is perfect. And and the fact that that there may be a misstep or or a miscue, isn't mafki'ah the shem chacham, it's not, it doesn't mean that that that the person is aus chacham. אדם אין צדיק בארץ אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא. So a chacham also has some, okay. The bigger the chacham, so the the more powerful the magnifying glass one is going to need to to recognize that that miscue, but there's epes. Now the Rambam's saying, no, but these things are not just a misstep or a miscue. This is a hafka'as shem chacham. So that's exactly the same idea that that was saying here in in the Hakdama to Perush HaMishnayos. That's what the Rambam is saying, that on the one hand, again, he seemed to be saying initially something more narrow, that the tachlis is yedi'ah, and then when he summarizes it he said, no, we explained that the tachlis is adam chacham vetov, that the tachlis is chochma umayseh. No, cause he had a sun. It's not a sun if it doesn't radiate heat. He he's not a chacham if the chochma doesn't translate. It's it's counterfeit, it's not, it's not it's not genuine. Maybe the maybe the pshat is is as follows, maybe a little bit of the the omek is as follows. When when you say the Ani Ma'amins in the morning. So the tenth one, אני מאמין באמונה שלמה שהבורא יתברך שמו, yodeia kol ma'aseh... how's it go?

יודע מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותיהם שנאמר היוצר יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם.

Something like that. I'm not sure I got it verbatim.

יודע מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותיהם שנאמר היוצר יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם.

And then what's the next one?

שהקדוש ברוך הוא שהבורא יתברך שמו גומל טוב לשומרי מצותיו ומעניש לעוברי מצותיו.

So the tenth is that

הקדוש ברוך הוא שהבורא יתברך שמו יודע מעשה בני אדם ומחשבותיהם,

yedias Hashem. And the eleventh is schar va'onesh. So where's hashgacha? Where's hashgacha? Hashgacha's not in the yud gimmel ikkarim? Again, obviously a major element of hashgacha is schar va'onesh, but but hashgacha means more than just schar va'onesh. It means more than schar va'onesh. So where where is it? It's not there? So when when you when you learn how again how the Rambam himself presents it, so the Rambam writes as follows.

והיסוד העשירי שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם ואינו מעלים עינו מהם ולא כדעת מי שאמר עזב ה׳ את הארץ אלא כמו שאמר גדול העצה ורב העליליה אשר עיניך פקוחות על כל דרכי בני אדם ואמר וירא ה׳ כי רבה רעת האדם בארץ ואמר זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה הרי אלו מורים על היסוד העשירי הזה.

Nachon? והיסוד העשירי שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם ma'aseh b'nei adam

ואינו מעלים עינם מהם ולא כדעת מי שאמר עזב השם את הארץ.

So the yesod ha'asiri stands in contradistinction to this heretical view that the Navi Yechezkel describes as עזב השם את הארץ. So I mean the peshuto shel mikra is clear but just leravcha d'milsa, if you look in the Ramban at the end of Parshas Bo, the famous Ramban where he explains עתה אמר לך כלל גדול במצוות רבות why we have so many mitzvos zecher litziat mitzrayim, so the Ramban says from the time of avoda zara came into the world and nishtabshu haemunos, so he describes three schools of kefira. There were those rachmana litzlan who became atheists, they denied Hakadosh Baruch Hu. There were those who acknowledged the Ribbono shel Olam but said that Hakadosh Baruch Hu can't know and doesn't know anything that's changing. He only knows things which are eternal and stable. So he doesn't, by definition, he doesn't know what we're doing and that's always something different. And then the third group says no, there is a Ribbono shel Olam and Ribbono shel Olam knows but he's not mashgiach. He's not mashgiach. To illustrate that third school of thought, and then the Ramban goes on to say of course that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu performs miracles and he performs miracles bedavka and they target they target reshaim and they and they benefit bechirav, so then that that refutes all three of those schools of thought, and im zeh, and when it's then predicted ahead of time by a navi al pi nevuah, so then עם זה נתקיימו כל פינות התורה. Okay, so that's the tamtzis of the divrei Ramban. So in that context, when the Ramban is illustrating the third school of thought, those who acknowledge metzius Hashem and acknowledge yedias Hashem but deny hashgachas Hashem, he quotes the pasuk of עזב השם את הארץ because עזב השם את הארץ doesn't imply that Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't know what's going on, it just means that he doesn't get involved, he abandoned, right? A person can know what's going on and and still not be involved, that's what עזב השם את הארץ is. Again, it's we're mentioning the Ramban leravcha d'milsa, that's the peshuto shel mikra even if we weren't zocheh to have the Ramban's citation of the pasuk. So how is ולא כדעת מי שאמר עזב השם את הארץ how is that the counterpart, how is that the antithesis of what the yesod ha'asiri is? If the yesod ha'asiri is just yedias Hashem without hashgacha, so then the antithesis of that needs to be a pasuk which which denies yedias Hashem. עזב השם את הארץ doesn't deny yedias Hashem, it denies hashgachas Hashem. So klar, klar, so that's indication number one. Indication number two is what are the two phrases in the Rambam: A שהוא יתעלה יודע מעשה בני אדם, two אינו מעלים עינם מהם? What are those two phrases? So it's clear there too that A Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows and B he doesn't, in in Yiddish there's a phrase, you know, ער מאכט נישט וויסנדיק. He doesn't act as if he doesn't know. Sometimes a person knows something and you don't want to get involved, so you pretend you don't know. There's, I don't know, there's someone over here who needs help and you really should help him, so you sort of pretend you don't see them. That you know, like the Torah says, when right it's the same idiom in the Torah when you see an aveida is לא תתעלם והתעלמת מהם, you can't you can't pretend that you don't see what you see, you have to act on. So it's clear that what יודע מעשה בני אדם means there is yedia and אינו מעלים עין מהם means and he doesn't pretend as it were kaveyachol not to see in the sense that there is hashgacha. But it's a funny thing then that that again we always and even the Rambam does also we sort of we separate out these into two two different yesodos, right? We talk about yidias Hashem and hashgachas Hashem and the Rambam combines them into one. So just to formulate this is not really gonna explain anything and if you don't understand it you didn't miss the explanation. What it means is that by the Ribono Shel Olam His yedia itself translates into hashgacha. It's not there is no bifurcation between the two. The yedia is the entails yedia entails hashgacha yedia entails hashgacha. And that's why the Rambam doesn't that's why the Rambam doesn't make yedia and hashgacha into two different yesodos. Yedia itself entails hashgacha. Ich veis a one percent mashal is let's say imagine you have a proctor who's proctoring an exam. So again so we sort of think of it as A he's aware of what's going on and B if he catches someone about to cheat so then he does something about it. But lema'aseh right you can see how those two become one and the same let's say he sees someone about to cheat and he just gives them a look. So the look is the yedia right he's looking at the person so there's the yedia but that gufeh is also the the involvement. That okay so that's a maybe a one percent mashal maybe less than that. If it doesn't help forget the mashal. So al kol panim the Rambam does have hashgacha in the yud gimmel ikkarim it's just that he doesn't list it separately from yidias Hashem. Again however we do or don't understand that but them's the facts. The Rambam has hashgacha in the yud gimmel ikkarim but it's not distinct from yidias Hashem. Lema'aseh what what is the Rambam telling us in Hakdamos Perush Hamishnayos? He's telling us that authentic chochmah translates. So the vort is that's our v'halachta bidrachav right? The same way not the same way but whatever by Hakadosh Baruch Hu there is no gap. You can't even speak of it as two different things between yedia and hashgacha. So kivyachol to describe that in human terms the yedia translates into into the hashgacha if you describe it anthropomorphically in human terms again which by definition obviously isn't really the correct description. But lema'aseh the yedia you can't separate there is no there is no space there is no daylight between Hakadosh Baruch Hu's yedia and His hashgacha. So what that is mechayev us on the human level mi'ta'am v'halachta bidrachav is that authentic chochmah has to translate. And therefore once you know that the tachlis of the beriah is hasagas hamuskalos you know that the tachlis of the beriah is chochmah v'tov. Once you know that the tachlis of the beriah is yedia so you know that the tachlis of the beriah is chochmah u'ma'aseh. I'm already quoting the past about the thirteenth ikkar about techiyas hameisim is really fundamentally belief in miracles, right? So isn't that just an entire ikkar devoted to Hashem doing in the world, not what, but what he is about? I guess on one level, but with a very different emphasis, no? Dehainu, I don't know whether it's exactly this distinction, but it's close enough to use it as a moshal if it's not exactly this distinction. So take the Ramban's distinction between a nes nistar and a nes nigleh. So the yesod, the thirteenth yesod is about nissim gluyim. Hashgacha doesn't necessarily entail nissim gluyim. The Rambam gives an example. Let's say you have a person who's mushgach and he plans on going on a sea journey, but the boat is really not seaworthy at this point, and it's going to sink at sea. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu epes orchestrates that the person misses the boat and doesn't get there in time. But it's not davka that it's a nes nigleh. And the yesod hashlosha asar is to know that the no, there's the ultimate nes nigleh is techiyas hameisim. Okay, just a little bit more here. Ve'inyan zeh, again so we're now on page nun alef. I guess we're on עין ח' כ"ג, I don't know where we are, whatever, somewhere.

ועניין זה לא נודע מפי הנביאים בלבד אלא חכמי אומות הקדמונים מאלה שלא באו הנביאים לשמוע דבריהם חכמתם ובקיאותם גם כן.

I think we mentioned last time, that meaning, a lot of the chochma of the umos hakedonim takeh they got from us. But the Rambam says, no, this they takeh figured out on their own, because the Rambam wants us to know that this is something, again, which sevara dictates on so. So you can only bring a raya from the umos hakedonim if it's something which they didn't get from us. If it's something they got from us, so maybe it's also it has its maybe it wasn't it wasn't that a person can figure it out mitam hasechel. ודי לך דברי הבולט שבפילוסופים. I don't know, usually the Rambam quotes him by name, or sometimes he quotes him by name, but here he just sort of emphasizes Aristotle's preeminence amongst philosophers. המטרה הרצויה של השם בנו שנהיה נבונים וטובים. Again, that same couplet. You find it also the Rambam in the Yad consistently has this also. So for instance, in פרק ט' של הלכות תשובה, so the Rambam has as follows: אלא כך הוא הצעת הדברים a lot of different nuschas here, but Frankel prints hatsaya hadvarim. They very helpfully give you the nekudos for that, well, hooray.

אלא כך הוא הצעת הדברים. הקדוש ברוך הוא נתן לנו תורה זו עץ חיים.

Now listen carefully, rabbosai: וכל העושה כל הכתוב בה ויודעו דעה גמורה, right? That same peer, right? וכל העושה כל הכתוב בה, A; ויודעו דעה גמורה, B. נכונה זוכה לחיי העולם הבא. And again, in case we missed it, ולפי גודל מעשיו וגודל חכמתו, again that same pairing, hu zocheh. That same pairing that he has here. In perek yud dalet of Hilchot Issurei Biah, when Beit Din is talking to the prospective ger:

וכשם שמודיעין אותו עונשן של מצוות כך מודיעין אותו שכרן של מצוות ומודיעין אותו שבעשיית מצוות אלו יזכה לחיי העולם הבא ושאין שם צדיק גמור אלא בעל חכמה שעושה מצוות אלו ויודען.

So it's not the pshat that ba'al chochma and yodan is repetitious. No, the Rambam says ba'al chochma, and then the definition of ba'al chochma is עושה מצוות אלו ויודען, which is mamash mamash what we're seeing over here. Because otherwise it would seem to be, it would seem that he's repeating ba'al chochma, but no, that's not the case. Ella ba'al chochma, dehainu, right, i.e.,

עושה מצוות אלו ויודען. והיינו שאם היה אדם חכם נכון מבקש תאוות,

so again the Rambam says it again beferush, eino chacham be-emet. No, that's a counterfeit chacham. He's masquerading as a chacham.

כי ראשית חכמה שלא יתאוה מן התענוגים הגשמיים אלא כמו שיש בו קיום הגוף ובפירושנו למסכת אבות נשלם עניין זה כראוי וכנדרש וכך מצאנו את הנביא שהוכיח את מי שטען שהוא חכם היה עובר מצוות התורה

umevakesh ta'avat nafsho הוא אמר איך תאמרו חכמים אנחנו ותורת השם איתנו. Okay, we'll stop here, so maybe note the page al ze.