u’mal Hashem Elokecha es levavcha

We'll probably come back at least one more time be-ezrat HaShem to the Ramban of Ki hamitzvah hazot but for today let's move a few psukim earlier in the parsha u-mal HaShem Elokecha. So pasuk vav

ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך ואת לבב זרעך לאהבה את ה' אלקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך למען חייך.

So what does milat ha-lev mean? So the Ramban says ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך zehu she-amru בא לטהר מסייעין אותו. Right? Chazal say that הבא לטהר מסייעין אותו and הבא לטמא פותחין לו. So the Ramban says what's ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך mean?

מבטיחך שתשוב אליו בכל לבבך והוא יעזור אותך. ונראה מן הכתובים ענין זה שאומר.

So the Ramban now is introducing a second pshat in ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך. The first pshat is that ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך refers is is the same idea as that which Chazal present in in different words of בא לטהר מסייעין אותו. It's as if you know when a person is is walking so you know someone puts his arm around the person and and you know helps him accelerate. That's the ba le-taher idea or puts the their hand under the arm and you know and helps propel helps propel him forward. That's the first pshat. But then the Ramban goes on to say no there's a second pshat here. ונראה מן הכתובים ענין זה שאומר. So this Ramban is very very difficult to get a handle on. So unfortunately I I'm not going to we'll be left with lots of questions but we'll try to comment just on on one main point which is sort of at least somewhat independent of of all the difficulties.

ונראה מן הכתובים ענין זה שאומר כי בזמן הבריאה הייתה רשות ביד האדם לעשות כרצונו צדיק או רשע וכל זמן התורה כן כדי שיהיה להם זכות בבחירתם בטוב ובעונש כרצונם ברע אבל לימות המשיח תהיה הבחירה בטוב להם טבע לא יתאוה להם הלב למה שאינו ראוי ולא יחפוץ בו כלל והיא המילה הנזכרת כאן כי החמדה והתאוה ערלה ללב ומול הלב הוא שלא יחמוד ולא יתאוה. וישוב האדם בזמן ההוא בימות המשיח למה שהיה קודם חטאו של אדם הראשון שהיה עושה בטבעו מה שראוי לעשות ולא היה לו ברצונו דבר והפוכו כמו שפירשתי בסדר בראשית בפרק ב פסוק ט.

The Ramban says that le-atid lavo in yemot hamashiach human nature is going to be different than it is today. Today we have we have desires. We don't just react to circumstances and don't make decisions just purely rationally. There's all kinds of sort of non-rational factors that we experience and it's not It's not automatic that we do what's right. It requires a very deliberate decision on our part. When, I don't know, if your alarm goes off in the morning and you're still tired, so it's not teva to well, but it's time to get up and go daven and v'chulu v'chulu. It's not teva, you know. Maybe we're misgaber, maybe we're not misgaber. But either way, if anything the teva is to throw the alarm clock against the wall and go back to sleep. That's the teva. And l'asid lavo, Yemos HaMoshiach will be like that. The person will be sichli. Again, whereas now sort of sichli is one dimension that kind of competes with other forces, then that will be the force. Now with what the Ramban says now, this is part of sort of what muddies the waters.

וישוב האדם בזמן ההוא למה שהיה קודם חטאו של אדם הראשון שהיה עושה בטבע מה שראוי לעשות ולא היה ברצונו דבר והפוכו כמו שפירשתי בסדר בראשית.

The way it will be in Yemos HaMoshiach is the way Adam HaRishon was kodem hachet. So somehow or other, I mean Adam HaRishon did manage to sin, right? So this is sort of one of the places where it begins to become challenging to understand what exactly the Ramban is talking about when he says doing tov b'teva. He certainly doesn't mean it in a sense of being programmed. ולא היה ברצונו דבר והפוכו, Adam HaRishon wasn't conflicted. L'asid lavo we won't be conflicted either. Again, so how did he sin? So I don't know, let's either temporarily or more than temporarily bracket that question. Again, so we sort of, you know, refer to it as the yetzer hatov points us in one direction, the yetzer hara points us in the other direction, but we're always conflicted and that's sort of how our bechirah expresses itself in, you know, how we resolve that conflict and what we decide to do. And you know, someone provokes you, so do you respond or don't you respond? And a person has a taivah, does he indulge the taivah, does he not indulge the taivah? The person feels tired, maybe a little bit lazy, does the person give into that or is the person misgaber? So we're always conflicted. That's and it's something and we experience both internally, right? We experience both internally. That's the reality that exists now, that we know, that we live. And l'asid lavo that human nature won't be such. We won't be conflicted. L'asid lavo, so I mean the Ramban in Bereishit even compares it to, to you know, the way the sun, he quotes his nusach in Kiddush Levana, that פועלי אמת שפעולתם אמת referring to the, to the. And that's what the milas halev here refers to. So again, this is not explaining what הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו means, that's why it's clear that this is a second pshat the Ramban is giving in the pasuk. The first one says, "No, ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך is talking about what happens in every instance of teshuva, that הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו." And the second pshat, as we mentioned in talking about the previous Ramban, is working off the fact that what the Ramban says in pasuk aleph, that this is talking about the ultimate geula. It's not just talking about a teshuva that happens in the course of history, but a teshuva that happens at the culmination of history. Is it possible that he's just saying the second answer kind of as a follow-up to the first answer? Meaning that the byproduct of being mitaher yourself and what Hakadosh Baruch Hu's ezra look like? It's that le-atid, there's not going to be any of this anymore. So how would they be one? Meaning, the first teretz that he's saying that הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו, then the second answer is almost as a follow-up to it. It's not that he's saying something different, it's that he's saying what is Hakadosh Baruch Hu's help going to look like when he's mesayeya you? Eventually, you're mitaher yourself to such a degree that le-atid, when Moshiach comes, so the taharah is going to be to such a degree that there's not going to be any kind of ratzon to do evil anymore. That's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu's help looks like. That's what it will look like then, you mean? Yeah. But it's not what it looks like now? But הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו is true now also, or no? It's true for what it is now, but the degree in which it manifests itself later on will be to a much more higher madreiga. But either way, it's sort of two pshatim in whether ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך is sort of describing teshuva at any point or whether it's describing davka the teshuva acharis hayamim, you know what I mean? But it remains two pshatim in terms of that formulation.

וזהו מה שאמר הכתוב בירמיה הנה ימים באים נאם ד' וכרתי את בית ישראל ואת בית יהודה ברית חדשה. לא כברית אשר כרתי את אבותיכם וגומר. כי זאת הברית אשר אכרות את בית ישראל אחרי הימים ההם נתתי תורתי בקרבם ועל לבם אכתבנה. וזהו ביטול יצר הרע ועשות הלב בטבעו מעשהו הראוי. ולכך אמר עוד והייתי להם לאלקים והמה יהיו לי לעם ולא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו ואיש את אחיו לאמר דעו את ד' כי כולם ידעו אותי מקטנם ועד גדולם. ובידוע כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו וצריכים ללמד אותם. אלא שיתבטל יצרם בזמן ההוא לגמרי. וכן נאמר ביחזקאל ונתתי לכם לב חדש ורוח חדשה אתן בקרבכם ועשיתי את אשר בחוקי תלכו. והלב החדש ירמוז לטבעו והרוח לחפץ ולרצון.

So it's interesting, both of the psukim that the Ramban quotes, both from Yirmiyahu and Yechezkel. I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were going to be in a regular room. Can you hand me the רמב"ם הלכות תשובה פרק ט' הלכה ב'? So the Rambam writes in tes-vav, Lefi shebe'osan hayamim, referring to Yemos HaMoshiach,

תרבה הדעה והחכמה והאמת, שנאמר כי מלאה הארץ דעה את ה', ונאמר ולא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו.

That's the Rambam's, those are the Rambam's psukim from Yirmiyahu,

ולא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו, ונאמר והסירותי את לב האבן מבשרכם.

That's in the same parshah as the psukim the Ramban is quoting from Yechezkel.

מפני שאותו המלך שיעמוד מזרע דויד בעל חכמה יהיה יתר משלמה ונביא גדול הוא קרוב ממשה רבינו. לפיכך ילמד כל העם ויורה אותם דרך ה' ויבואו כל הגוים לשמוע.

So this is... and then the Rambam says,

אבל ימות המשיח עולם הזה ועולם כמנהגו נוהג, אלא שהמלכות תחזור לישראל. וכבר אמרו חכמים הראשונים, אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכויות בלבד.

So how did the Rambam learn pshat in the Ramban's psukim that the Ramban understands to be depicting that in Yemos HaMoshiach human nature is going to be totally transformed? So lechoreh, the yesod is as follows. I think the Radak comments, the Radak in Tehillim,

עיני כל אליך ישברו ואתה נותן להם את אכלם בעתו.

And so we read the pasuk, so we imagine Hakadosh Baruch Hu's running a soup kitchen and the animals are lining up and the bugs are lining up and all the fish are lining up and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's doling out the whatever the soup du jour is in the soup kitchen. So the Ibn Ezra, the Radak says no that's not what it means, that in Tanakh we find, I think the Rambam has this idea in another context also, I don't know offhand if he says it about this pasuk directly, that in Tanakh when things are attributed to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it can mean either of two things. Either it means Hakadosh Baruch Hu did it, the way we think it always means, or what it can mean is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the first cause, but it doesn't mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is doing it in an immediate sense. What does that mean? Let's say when it rains. So when it rains, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not standing there with buckets of water and pouring the water down on our fields to make the crop grow, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a world, He created a world in which there are natural processes which generate rain and in that sense Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the first and only voluntary cause, everything else is just acting as a machine. So in that sense it's attributed to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but it doesn't mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sort of in an interventionist sense doing it now. So the Radak says

עיני כל אליך ישברו ואתה נותן להם את אכלם בעתו

that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a world where everything that exists has its food. You know there's grass for the animals to graze on and that's true for everything in the briyah that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world in such a way that there's that everything finds ochlam ochlam be'ito. Right? You never... So the Rambam clearly is understanding the pshat here as follows. When it says והסירותי את לב האבן מבשרכם, so it doesn't mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is intervening and changing human nature. What it means is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu again as a first cause by sending the... elevate ourselves to an entirely different different level. And that's what he's describing there that that the way these nevuos materialize is because the Melech haMashiach is his chochma surpasses that of Shlomo haMelech. His nevuah obviously cannot and does not equal that of Moshe Rabbeinu, but but even even the phrase karov l'Moshe Rabbeinu is an extraordinary depiction. And in that sense, so this great you know again leaving Moshe Rabbeinu aside, incomparable Chacham haTorah is going to have such an influence, again and that's but that's a natural process. So what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is doing it? Again

עיני כל אליך ישברו ואתה נותן להם את אכלם בעתו.

What does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is feeding the cats? What does it mean that he's that he's feeding the goats? It means that he's responsible for the process. In that instance the process is entirely natural. In in our process again it's also natural, not natural to the exclusion of of our bechira and functioning as we ordinarily do. So so for so for the Ramban let's say

ומל ה' אלקיך את לבבך והסירותי את לב האבן מבשרכם

means Hakadosh Baruch Hu is changing human nature. Okay, Ramban says it's reverting back to what it was kodem hachet, but in in terms if your frame of reference is the way we exist now, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is changing human nature. And for the Rambam, A, it doesn't mean he's changing human nature, and what does it mean? What what does the lev chadash mean? What does the milas halev mean? No, what it means is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu by sending the Melech haMashiach is the first cause in a process that that results in ומלאה הארץ דעה את ה' and that's why ולא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו. One now we have to teach each other because one person knows more, one person knows less, one person has has yiras shamayim, the other person's deficient. But then because of ומלאה הארץ דעה את ה' because of the the influence from the Melech haMashiach so then all that will be unnecessary. But it's not it doesn't represent a this wholesale change in human nature. Does the Rambam learn that after in his pshat of והסירותי את לב האבן מבשרכם that we'll get to a point of shinui hateva? I I think it that can't be because again because

אין בין העולם הזה לימות המשיח אלא שעבוד מלכויות בלבד.

What is true according to the Rambam is that you know the spiritually not physically but spiritually the world we live in whereas the world we live in today helps besides our own internal psyche the world we live in today helps create and generate nisyonos so the spiritual climate in Yemos haMashiach will be one that on the contrary gives chizuk. But that's not a change in teva, it's not a change in teva adam, it's not a change bechlal. It's more like saying you know I don't know what happens if if you I don't know move from some crazy city where everyone's poritz to a city where the where people are all yirei shamayim. That's not a change in teva, it's not it's not something supernatural. That's what the Rambam is describing. And that's what it means the mamash the same pesukim that the Ramban quotes, the same pesukim. And and in what sense so if it's not this supernatural so what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's responsible? No, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's responsible as a first cause in in sending the Melech haMashiach which which who who stands at the who's responsible for that spiritual climate that that will exist. Okay.