Sequence is Critical in Talmud Torah and in all Aspects of Avodas Hashem

The Hovos HaLevavos says that one of his goals through the sefer will be to be מישר המקדים ומרגל המאחר. If you have the Lev Tov edition it is on page Nun Gimmel, מישר המקדים ומרגל המאחר. That in Avodat Hashem the sequence can be crucial. מישר המקדים ומרגל המאחר. Presumably what he is referring to is again as you make your way through the sefer, so the Hovos HaLevavos explains to us why each sha'ar is positioned as it is. So for instance, in the Hakdama to Sha'ar HaYichud, at the very beginning, the opening lines of Sha'ar HaYichud if you take a look,

אמר המחבר כאשר חקרנו על מה שהצורך אליו יותר מפינות דתנו ושרשיה.

What is the most fundamental of the Hovos HaLevavos? מצאנו ייחוד האלקים בלב שלם שרשו ויסודו. The foundation of all Torah, of all our religion, of all Avodat Hashem is Yichud Hashem. ובייחוד ייפרד המאמין מן הכופר. What distinguishes a mamin from a kofer is correct belief in Yichud Hashem. A person believes in God but does not with Yichud Hashem, with multiplicity, so that is not emuna, that is kefira. לא יתכן ומי שנטה ממנו, one who does not have a proper belief, and again ayin in the Hakdama the difference between belief and knowledge, one who does not have the proper belief לא יתכן לו מעשה ולא תתקיים לו אמונה. Everything is predicated upon Yichud Hashem, everything a person does. There is no, if a person's emuna is obviously if it is incorrect, it is not emuna. A person's entire avodah if it is misdirected is not avodah. A person can put on tefillin, a person can davven, and a person can attend on a superficial level to all mitzvot, and if his conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sufficiently flawed, so then it is nothing. There is no avodah. If he is thinking of an old man with a kindly face and a long white beard, and that is his address for tefillah and that is whose mitzvot he is mekayeim, so then לא יתכן לו מעשה ולא תתקיים לו אמונה. That is what the Rambam writes also. The Rambam writes like that also. He says a person can be thinking about Hashem all the time, a person can say be'ezrat Hashem, im yirtzeh Hashem all the time, all of which with the right axiom are very, very important avodahs, but if a person does not have the correct conception of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then... Again, it's really worse than that, but it's meaningless. So that's what the Chovos Halevavos says. So if a person's got a working Chovos Halevavos, so before he he works on - so I'm going to work on that everything I should do should be lishma. I'm going to I'm going to so that that was one of the examples in Chovos Halevavos that Rabbeinu Bachya provides. So that's what he says, no, a person has to go about it in the right sequence. And you look at the hakdama to each of the shearim here in Chovos Halevavos, he explains why after Shaar Hayichud, Shaar Habechina is the natural follow-up, etc. And lichora that's certainly what he means in context when he talks about how it's vital within avodas Hashem that a person follow a correct sequence. But the yesod is true more broadly than the Chovos Halevavos has occasion to be discussing it here. It's certainly very true in let's say Talmud Torah. Maybe to give two examples, two applications of the yesod as applied to Talmud Torah. Ultimately, again, one strives for the havana of divrei Torah. So not just to sort of know the guf of divrei Torah, but the inner core as well. But we can't fast forward to that dimension. To understand the inner core, so first we have to know how to make a laining on the Gemara. You have to just understand what the shakla v'tarya in the Gemara is. And we have to know the relevant yedios in the Gemara. And we have to have straight in our minds what the Gemara's conclusion is. Sometimes if it was a long, winding path in the shakla v'tarya. So like Rashi quotes in the beginning of Sefer Vayikra that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave רווח בין פרשה לפרשה for Moshe Rabbeinu l'hisbonen. So Moshe Rabbeinu who's being lomed mipi hagevura needs to sort of step back and digest. Okay, so what happened here? What did Hakadosh Baruch Hu just teach me? So kal vachomer להדיוט הלומד מן ההדיוט. And lichora we can add another kal vachomer to that kal vachomer when we learn. So it's not even always that we're being taught, you know, we're learning on our own. kal vachomer להדיוט הלומד מפי עצמו. So just in terms of learning, so we need to make a laining, we need to get the yedios down. And all those are again, a) keshelaatzmam very important elements, and b) they're also a t'nai kodem l'maaseh to any correct havana as well. We can't run before we walk. And when we try to run before we walk, we - I don't know, I think inevitably fall down. So that's one application within Talmud Torah about מייאשא המקדים ומרגילא המאחר. The other is when, if ever, a person learns nistar. And we're not talking about the nistar which has sort of been mainstreamed. We're not talking about Nefesh Hachaim, something like that, which is something that Rav Chaim Volozhiner mainstreamed for us, agam that it's רוביא דרוביא דרוביא דרוביא דרוביא all quotes from Chochmas Hanistar. But let's say nistar which hasn't been mainstreamed. A person has to be very learned in nigla before he can responsibly turn to nistar. And that's true, you know, from a couple of different angles. Number one, you know, that's the, you know, as the Rambam says, first a person has to be ממלא כרסו בשר ויין, and the basar veyayin is the nigla, the exoteric part of Torah. So given that that's the way Chazal tell us, a person's not going to have the siyatta d'shmaya, which is needed in all Talmud Torah. גל עיני ואביטה נפלאות מתורתך, as the Rambam explicitly quotes from David Hamelech. But secondly, when we delve into nistar without being sufficiently grounded in nigla, there's a danger of misunderstanding, misconstruing what the nistar means. Now, being very learned in nigla doesn't tell you what nistar means, but it tells you what it doesn't mean and what it can't mean. And that's more important than knowing what it does mean. We don't know what it means, we don't know what it means. Okay, so that level is above us, is beyond us. Okay, so whatever we weren't capable of in olam hazeh, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will take care of us later. But when we get ahead of ourselves, again, in the way that the Chovos Halevavos in his context is talking about, so what happens is that people take literally the figurative and metaphorical language of nistar, and you can get very, very messed up that way, very, very messed up in terms of belief. Rebbi, you said you had to learn nigla in order to understand nistar, but if one just knows, like, the introduction to Rambam Perek Chelek very well and maybe does like the first part of Mada in in the Rambam, and they just do that very well, like, does that take that long to know that really well and like is that enough to like go like forward like with it? In terms of the second of the two considerations, it doesn't address the first consideration, but in terms of, so it's not halacha l'maaseh it is, but at least in terms of the second consideration you're asking, it's certainly a very good and important step. It's not adequate, and again, I should have, your question was invited by the way I said it, your question is correct, but part of the way the Rambam explains the need to maqdim nigla to nistar is also he says it's miyashev daato techila. That it's not only sort of the knowing what the nigla-dikke concept of Hashem echad is and that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not a baal guf and therefore not to, you know, repeat these ridiculous leshonos of "we all have a little piece of God inside of us," you know, which is kfira-dikke leshonos. So it's not only, you know, to be rooted in, you're right, you know, the Sefer Hamada goes a long way to address that, but the Rambam speaks at the end of Perek Daled of Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah about מישב דעתו של אדם תחלה, which means... also just the prolonged immersion in nigla also trains a person's mind and that when he'll need to come to think and understand in devarim hanistarim that he'll be better positioned for that reason as well. So that wouldn't be that point which the Rambam makes, which I didn't mention before, your question was correct. I think also requires more than just a, you know, crash course in Sefer Hamada and then bring on the Zohar, you know? Not so poshut. Again, all this is without talking about, you know, the level of yiras shamayim that a person is supposed to have before delving into these inyanim, which is also very relevant halacha l'maaseh. In avodas Hashem outside of Talmud Torah as well, the sequence is, is important. Sometimes you can have in a certain area of halacha that a person is within the same area of halacha is, is again, the point is also valid from one area to the next, but let's it stands out especially sharply when it's in the same area. A person can be meikel on devarim chamurim and machmir on devarim kalim. Let's say lu yehei that one knew, I don't know, that a certain hashgacha on meat was a dubious hashgacha. So for a person to be, ich veis, I don't know, makpid on cholov Yisroel. So Rav Moshe says, no, חלב ישראל מעיקר הדין is not required because you have government regulation to make sure that they don't mix in milk from beheima tameiah. And the fact that there's government regulation means that מעיקר הדין חלב סתם in the United States is muttar, as Rav Moshe said. So a person's going to be machmir on that and he's going to be meikel on this dubious hashgacha eating meat. I don't know, this dubious hashgacha eating meat, you know, is relevant to d'oraisa and cholov stam, cholov Yisroel's relevant to d'rabbanan. To be mehader and machmir when the ikar hadin is tenuous, is shvach. I don't know, it not only it's a compounded problem. It's not only because my ikar hadin is shvach that it's a problem, but lemoshal is this. Let's say a person has a shirt with French cuffs, so you wear cufflinks. Okay, so that's very nice. So a person's wearing a nice suit and he has a nice tie and his shoes are shined and he also, also has cufflinks. Very nice. What happens if the person shows up in shul, not in a nice suit, not in he shows up, he's wearing his pajama bottoms and whatever you can embellish as you like, and, but, but, you know, he's also he's also, you know, he has French cuffs on his pajama tops and has, you know, has these beautiful gold cufflinks on his pajama tops. So not only is it sort of out of sequence in terms of Part of kovod v'oneg is to dress nicely on Shabbos, so not only is it out of sequence to have the cufflinks before he has the Shabbos suit, but it's a choiz l'yuzla, right? It becomes a caricature. Not only doesn't it contribute, but it detracts. It's so here too we need to sometimes there's an allure to the, I obviously don't mean this literally, but in terms of what it represents, there's an allure to the cufflinks and there's not so much interest in the Shabbos suit and whatever the nimshal to that is in different contexts. It's in Shulchan Aruch that a person should, this is I think not, it's not illustrating that exact iteration, but another iteration within this parsha of sequence within avodas Hashem. So the mechaber writes in hilchos tefillin that a person should only put on תפילין של רבנו תם if he's muchzak b'chasidus. If he's muchzak b'chasidus. Okay, so if one comes from a family and among many chasidim, this is accepted, so then okay, so for whatever reason they sort of have a different psak than what it says in Shulchan Aruch. So I think for any individual, I don't think that individual is going against what it says in Shulchan Aruch because they don't have that psak. But if one isn't in such a community, so then that's what it says, that you have to be muchzak b'chasidus. The Rav said once that Rav Chaim why he didn't put on תפילין של רבנו תם, so he said, it says in Shulchan Aruch only if muchzak b'chasidus. I don't put on תפילין של רבנו תם. I think Rav Schachter likes to give the example in this parsha that kyadua the nusach HaGra in kaddish leaves out the v'yisaleh. V'yisaleh and leaves out v'yisaleh, yisbarach v'yishtabach, so the Gra says there should be seven mishanos corresponding to whatever and you don't have the eighth v'yisaleh. So Schachter says, before you follow the Gra on that, you should follow the Gra on learning 20 hours a day. Learning 20 hours a day, then you'll leave out v'yisaleh. But sort of learn 20 minutes a day and then say, no, but I don't say v'yisaleh when the minhag Yisrael is that okay again if a person was brought up on minhag haGra, it's a different story. But if it's not one's personal masorah, again similar to what we just said about the תפילין של רבנו תם, if it's not one's personal masorah, so then it's, there are all examples, again, of what the Chovos HaLevavos was talking about in his context of sequence is important within avodas Hashem. Okay, let's just go on a little bit. I think we left off v'havinosi. I think we were around there. V'havinosi.

והבינותי כי הנפש תתאוה תאווה רבה להשיג תכלית הרע ומשתדלת לעסוק בדרכי החסד ומתעצלת להקדים אל הטובות והולכת תמיד בדרכי השחוק והשמחה. ואם נראה עליה מדעת תאווה שיגרה אותה, בודה דברי שקר להתעסק אליו, ותסמוך את טענותם להאמין נטיותיה.

We come up with rationalizations for indulging.

ולחזק אודותיו ולחבר פירודיה. ואם יאמר להם נר אמת לקרוא אותה, בודה דברים בטלים להימנע ממנו. וטענות עליו ומחטיאות שבילו וסותרות עניינו להפריד חיבורו ולהיפרד ממנו. ובכל אדם אויבו בין צלעיו אלא אם יהיה לו איזה מלאך ומוכיח מזומן לנפשו ושלטון גובר אשר יקשור אותו בחבל העבודה ויבלמנו ברסן הצדק ויקמנו בשבט המוסר וכאשר יחשוב לעשות טוב אל יאחר ואם יסור לבו לדרך אחרת יגע בו ויגבר עליו.

So what's I think reflected here is something which is maybe more explicit and and therefore easier to recognize in Messilat Yesharim, but kimedumeh it's here as well. Chazal tell us, you know, bechol levavecha, bishnei yetzarecha, the yeitzat hatov and the yeitzat hara. The yeitzat hara is is the the inclination to devarim gashmiyim, taivos, etc. and the yeitzat hatov is the the netiah towards devarim ruchniyim, devarim sichliyim. Okay, so from the lashon shnei yetzarecha, so we could imagine that, you know, it's sort of, you know, if you, you know, imagine you're in a in a in a boat in the in the middle of of the river, so you know, the yeitzer hara is a current that pulls in one direction, and the yeitzer hatov is a current that that pulls in the opposite direction and okay, so as long as a person is kind of neutral, so then he's sort of gonna be in the middle, I don't know, maybe at times the yeitzer hatov will will prevail and at times the yeitzer hara will prevail. And when you look in Ramchal's Hagdamah, so Ramchal makes a crucial point. And he says it's not like that. He says if a person is not making a conscious concerted effort, so the yeitzer hara prevails. He speaks of how all the yesodos which he's going to talk about in Messilat Yesharim is נשכחים מבני האדם בטבע. He talks about how the yeitzer hatov is not something instinctive and reflexive the way the yeitzer hara is. The yeitzer hara is is an instinctive visceral reaction. When when something is meoreir taiva in us, it's not that a person makes a deliberate premeditated decision to be misaveh, no, it's an instinctive reaction. Ma she'ein kein the yeitzer hatov is something that needs to be activated, it's something that needs to be you have to you have to turn the on switch. The yeitzer hara is set on the on setting, that's where it is because it functions reflexively. Ma she'ein kein the yeitzer hatov only functions reflexively. Now ultimately the yeitzer hatov is stronger than the yeitzer hara if a person lives reflexively so then he'll end up doing the right thing, living the way he should. But if a person just sort of goes through life on automatic pilot, so it's not going to be that he's, you know, you know, the cross currents of the yeitzer hatov and yeitzer hara will affect him equally. And and that's what again, it's not as it's easier to to understand this Chovot HaLevavot, you know, with the benefit of of Ramchal, but that's what he's saying

כי הנפשות תאוותן רבה להשיג תכלית הרע ומתרשלות לעסוק בדרכי החסד.

One's natural reaction when when we wake up first thing in the morning is not gevaldig! I can get up and run to the Beis Medrash. It's let me turn over and sleep another hour. Not gevaldig, not gevaldig, not; that's how we react when we wake up in the morning. Hanefesh taavatan raba

ומתרשלת לעשות בדרכי החסד ומתעצלת להקדים אל הטובות והולכת תמיד בדרכי השחוק והשמחה.

There needs to be a very consistent, concerted effort. If there is, that prevails unquestionable. But it's an important, very very fundamental, very very fundamental yesod. Okay, we'll stop here.