– The More One Wants in Gashmius, the More One is Missing

Let's take a look Perek Chaf Heh Pasuk Ches. Perek Chaf Heh Pasuk Ches Rabosai. So the Pasuk is

ויגוע וימת אברהם בשיבה טובה זקן ושבע ויאסף אל עמיו.

What does it mean that it was Sovea? Says the Ramban שראה כל משאלות ליבו ושבע כל טובה. Vechen u'sva yamim, the description of Yitzchak, ששבעה נפשו בימים ולא יתאווה שיחודשו בו הימים דבר. He was sated and didn't desire that the coming days would provide him with something new.

וכעניין שנאמר בדוד וימת בשיבה טובה שבע ימים עושר וכבוד. וזהו סיפור חסדי השם בצדיקים

on the one hand, but then on the other hand

ומידה טובה בהם בצדיקים שלא יתאוו במותרות. כעניין שנאמר בהם תאוות לבו נתת לו, ולא כמו שנאמר בשאר אנשים אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף. ואמרו בו אין אדם יוצא מן העולם וחצי תאוותו בידו. יש בידו מנה מתאווה מאתיים השיגה ידו למאתיים מתאווה לעשות ארבע מאות שנאמר אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף.

What what did Avraham Avinu want out of life? Avraham Avinu wanted that the Emunah b'Hashem that he had discovered should be perpetuated ultimately in a nation that was devoted to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. As long as something is if if the guardian is only a yachid or yechidim there's always a danger of the chain of transmission being broken. He wanted in the words of the Rambam אומה היודעת את אלוהיה. Rambam says that that was when the Rambam talks about what the nisayon of the Akeida is, so the nisayon of the Akeida for Avraham Avinu went beyond the just extraordinary. sacrificing everything that he had aspired to and everything that Yitzchak Avinu wasn't only a son, Yitzchak Avinu represented the potential future of Knesses Yisrael. And Avraham Avinu from his vantage point when Hakadosh Baruch Hu said קח נא את בנך את יחידך was being asked to sacrifice that as well. So that's what Avraham Avinu wanted. So mimaila when it comes time for Avraham Avinu to leave this world, so he sees Yitzchak. Yaakov Avinu was already 15 years old at this point and Vayigdelu ha’nearim and he already sees that יעקב איש תם ישב אהלים and he sees that continuity of two generations. So he was content, he was sated. That's what the Ramban says, it's mida tova, it's not the in giving this description of Avraham Avinu that he was saveia, it's both describing chasdei Hashem with the tzadikim, but equally it's also describing the mida tova of what the tzadikim desire. Had there been a desire for physical indulgence, so that's insatiable. I mean the Mishna in Avos says that הקנאה והתאוה והכבוד מוציאים את האדם מן העולם. The reason that מוציאים את האדם מן העולם is because they're insatiable. If a person can sort of compartmentalize a chisaron, okay, so it's a chisaron and it has whatever deleterious effect it has, but you wouldn't describe it as being מוציא את האדם מן העולם. But when something is insatiable, so then it just takes over a person's life. It's מוציא את האדם מן העולם. So taiva is one of the three things that is מוציא את האדם מן העולם. When Chazal say in the Medrash that the Ramban quotes that יש בידו מנה רוצה מאתיים, he has masayim, he wants arba me’os, so I guess percentage-wise, you know, the function remains the same. He wants the double what he has, but lechora it's what Chazal also mean by it is that on a certain sense a person is more lacking. The more the person wants then the more he's lacking. Meaning when he had a hundred, so he only needed another hundred dollars. When he had a hundred thousand dollars in the bank, so he was only missing another hundred thousand dollars. That's what his hasagos were, I just need to push it up to I need to push up my bottom line to two hundred thousand. When he has two hundred thousand, now he's lacking two hundred thousand. Ein hachi nami in terms of percentages it's consistent, but in terms of what he's going to have to do to, you know, what he's sort of enslaving himself to, what he's being mishabed himself to, so it's holeich u’misgaber. It's mosif v’holeich. Now there is and when the Ramban on the one hand שראה כל משאלות לבו ושבע כל טוב is the Ramban is casting his net pretty widely, but m’idach gisa, there is in the Ramban even that explanation of kol mishalos libo and sava kol tov, even that there's a certain circumscription. It's not mamash everything. And the pshat in that is, you know, on that pasuk that the Ramban quotes from Koheles of אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף, so Chazal say ואוהב מצוות לא ישבע מצוות. That that if a person's love is for silver, for money, the word for silver, and therefore since it used to be that there was a silver standard for all currencies, then the word for money is kesef, so as many point out, the same shoresh is kissufim, means longing, because again when people are m’gushamdik, so that's what they that's what their kissufim are of for, of for kesef. אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף. But the Midrash says אוהב מצוות לא ישבע מצוות. The famous story of the Gaon on his deathbed that he was crying that olam hazeh such a wonderful place. You have a few kopeks, you buy a lulav and esrog, and you can be mekayeim a mitzvah, and in the olam emes a person can't do mitzvos anymore. So when the Ramban says כל משאל לבו ושבע כל טובו means that to the extent that a person can what a person can hope to receive in terms of spirituality, that's what Avraham Avinu wanted. He wanted a Yitzchak. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted a Yaakov. But it remains true that there is something even by chassidei elyon, there is an insatiable quality. The pshat in that Midrash, again, nothing original in what we're talking about here, but the pshat in that Midrash that the Midrash comments on אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף that אוהב מצוות לא ישבע מצוות. The pshat in that Midrash is not that the Midrash is pointing to a parallel phenomenon, but the Midrash is saying that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us, that there's something inside of us that a person there's a quality of not feeling sated. There's something insatiable. A person can channel that to gashmius or he can channel it for the reason he was given that capacity to ruchnius, to avodas Hashem, meaning and a little bit of the omek of the Midrash is that the pshat in the אוהב כסף לא ישבע כסף is that it represents a misdirected, a wrongly channeled אוהב מצוות לא ישבע מצוות. That lichora is is hinted at in the the Ramban concludes with

ובבראשית רבה אמרו הקדוש ברוך הוא מראה להם לצדיקים מתן שכרם שהוא עתיד ליתן להם לעולם הבא ונפשם שביעה והם ישנים. נסערו החכמים בזה ופירשו הכתוב שאומר ושבע במראה הזו.

So what's the pshat in the Midrash? So again, the Midrash reflects what we were just talking about that in ruchnius, a person who makes that his focus, it's also insatiable. So what does it mean that Avraham Avinu was savei'a? Again, so it doesn't address the Gaon’s example, but what Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the way that tzaddikim are able to depart this world being savei'a, is because Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells them that in terms of their hasagos, in terms of the in terms of the kirvas Elokim that they're going to be given in olam haba. So that's what allows them to feel save'a when they leave now. But you see in the Medrash that again in ruchnius also a person has more to do, there's always more to do. Person always has more to do, he has more, he has more learning to do, he has more maisim tovim to do. Person always has more to do. So in that sense, how is he, how are even the tzaddikim save'a? That's what the Medrash says, no, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells them, no in terms of the kirvas Elokim, so then this doesn't represent an end, it it it represents a type of beginning in terms of the type of kirvas Elokim that exists in Olam Haba, which which can't exist in Olam Hazeh. Veheim yeshenim lakol is an allusion, I think probably Shevo has that in the notes also, yeah, of the fact that the misa of tzaddikim is belo tza'ar. That that's what's conveyed by the metaphor of of falling asleep. I think it says in seforim that the tza'ar the neshama has in leaving this world is a function of sort of how either megushamdig or ruchniusdig a person's life was. Because what a person is, the the the person is not dying, he's sort of transitioning. To the extent that he lived a very megushamdikke existence, so then leaving Olam Hazeh behind is is is an ordeal. And to the degree that he was focused on ruchniyus, so he's transitioning to a an Olam Hanetzchi Veharuchni. That's what the Ramban says that for tzaddikim it's a misa belo tza'ar and then the metaphor is that heim yeshenim. Okay, we'll stop here.