Dialectic restricting temperance to pleasures of body and to sense of touch (NE III.10) – Transcript

Aristotle’s Restriction of Temperance (Sophrosyne): From Broad Virtue to Specific Definition

Chapter 1: Introduction and Review of Previous Session

Setting the Stage for Today’s Learning

Alright, we’re good. Everybody’s settled now. We’re gonna do something very simple and learn. Yeah, we finished last week like this. I’ll try to tell you, I’ll try to do something—what we’re gonna try to do is read, or at least pretend to do it inside. I can’t actually read words if no one wants to read text. They could do that under private personal time because we don’t get together to read a text, as shown.

But last week we finished off with this historical note which we thought might help us understand some things—also historical in the הייליגע תורה [heilige Torah: the holy Torah], right, which is very important. But let’s save that for the end today instead of the beginning. We’ll try.

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Chapter 2: The Virtue of Sophrosyne and Its Multiple Translations

The Problem of Translation: Cicero’s Four Options

What we finished off with was that there’s such a virtue called in יוונית [Yevonish: Greek] *sophrosyne*, or translated here as “temperance.” And the חכמים [chokhmim: sages]—Cicero, or Kicker, or whoever you want to say his name—wrote that he has four different Latin translations for this word, and he’s not sure which one is correct. And one of them is where we get the word “temperance” from.

Anyways, temperance, moderation, modesty, frugality—those are his four options for translating it, four Latin words. But in English they’re these words. So in essence, it may be all kinds of things—quiet, there’s a lot of different words translated with it.

Hebrew Equivalents: צניעות, פרישות, and קדושה

But there’s—and in Hebrew, as we discussed, translated as צניעות [tzniut: modesty/chastity]. This was how we discussed that, and I remember we discussed it. And the רמב״ם [Rambam: Maimonides] seems to have also translated it as פרישות [perishut: abstinence/separation] in Arabic, or right.

And sometimes, sometimes as פרישות [perishut]. Seems like our sages of the ancient period liked to call something like this פרישות, although פרישות has also a technical meaning for them—a הלכה׳דיקע [halakhic: pertaining to Jewish law] meaning, not a virtue meaning—so it’s more complicated.

What other word do I have for this? קדושה [kedusha: holiness], right? Very important word, biblical word, קדושה. The חז״ל [Chazal: the Sages], the מדרש [Midrash: rabbinic commentary] explicitly translated קדושה as פרישות.

The Dual Meanings: Halakhic and Ethical

And just like פרישות has a technical, halakhic meaning—like the Rambam says נדרים סיגל [nedarim siyag: vows as a fence]—פרישות means if you make an עדה [edeh: vow] you won’t touch things that are טומאה [tumah: ritual impurity]. And the Rambam understands טומאה וטהרה [tumah v’taharah: impurity and purity], the halakhic one, as not the same as the ethical one, right?

There’s קדושה׳ס מצוות [kedusha’s mitzvos: holiness commandments] and טומאה׳ס עבירות [tumah’s aveiros: impurity transgressions], which just means doing bad things. And even many טומאות [tumos: impurities] are just what people nowadays call—how do they call it? No, other people call it the Rambam’s understanding of טומאה. I forgot the word. Purely formal, right? It’s טומאה because the law says that it’s טומאה, right? Nominalistic, nominal. That’s how people say it. The Rambam himself says things that almost say the word “nominal.” But there is real טומאה. The Rambam explains this in a chapter about this.

Summary of Terminology

In any case, what I’m telling you—this is just my list of words so we know what we’re talking about, and then we’ll be able to say, we’ll try to find out what we’re talking about.

There’s something called קדושה in the Torah, and it seems to have many meanings, just like this word that we’re talking about has many meanings. And like it says קדושה in תורה [Torah], and we discussed last week in passing the Rambam’s interpretation of this, and the רמב״ן [Ramban: Nachmanides]’s interpretation of this, which argues with the Rambam’s interpretation of it, is basing itself on a מדרש or ספרי [Sifri: halakhic midrash on Numbers and Deuteronomy] and other many מדרשים that translate the word קדושה as the word פרישות.

And the Torah doesn’t say the word פרישות, I don’t think. להפריש [l’hafrish: to separate], the verb exists, but not in this register, not in this context.

The Multiple Meanings of פרישות

And פרישות could mean, again, the same—it has the two meanings. It could mean just לפרוש מן העבירה [lifrosh min ha’aveira: to separate from transgression], or לפרוש מן [lifrosh min: to separate from]—to separate yourself from something that the law does, the law you.

And it sometimes has also this broader ethical meaning. In this ethical—when I say ethical, I mean the human meaning, right? The sense of an attribute of a human being, being the kind of person called the פרוש [parush: separated/abstinent one].

Of course, it also has a political meaning. There was this group of people called פרושים [Perushim: Pharisees], and there’s many kinds of them. There’s kinds of פרושים that they don’t like. The Talmud itself says that there’s a list of bad פרושים that they don’t like, and so on.

But in any case, it seems they’ve interpreted this as the word קדושה in the Torah, which is why we know that this is a very basic virtue for Jews—unlike someone who would tell you that it’s not. It is. You just have to know the translation, right?

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Chapter 3: The Broad and Restricted Meanings of Virtues

Introduction to the Problem

Okay, so I gave you some words throwing around so you could associate it with things. But now, as we discussed, like many virtues—maybe like all virtues, all virtues that end up having a name like this—but at least many of them, they have both broader and more restricted meanings, right?

The Unity of Virtues: Why Broad Meanings Exist

Broader meanings meaning something like: since all virtues are really about what kind of a person you are, and since all virtues are unified—as Socrates liked to argue, and Aristotle agrees with in some sense (and they’re not, but he still agrees)—everyone agrees all virtues are unified, right? You can’t really have one without the other.

We’ve discussed some reasons for this at different times. You probably know why. Not yeah, you could have—the חזון איש [Chazon Ish: Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, major 20th century halakhic authority] also agrees with this, right? You could have—there could be differences, but you can’t have one perfectly without having all of them.

Reasons for the Unity of Virtues

And that is because—well, one reason would be because you need wisdom, you need φρόνησις [phronesis: practical wisdom] for all of them. And once you have practical wisdom, that means knowing what to do, so you know how to do all the time. That’s the kind of arguments that Socrates used to like to make.

Another reason—what I’m talking about now—is that virtues are all kinds of people, right? And therefore, the kind of person—or which doesn’t—like, you can close my door, that would be nice.

Something like: the kind of being, becoming or being the kind of person that it takes to be a just person, or a chaste person, or a giving person, and so on—sort of means enough to become that kind of person. It’s enough to make you into a fully good person, because it’s the kind of person. It’s not a kind of thing that a person does.

People are really unified things. One of the interesting things about humans is that they’re unified in many ways. Some people are less unified, some more. But that’s—again, let’s go back to where I am.

The Dual Nature of Virtue Terms

So therefore, all virtues have this—like, they become, sometimes start off with—again, we’re not interested in the history—but they have sometimes very broad meanings and sometimes very restricted meanings, okay?

Like, a ליטוואק [Litvak: Lithuanian-style Jew, often associated with strict halakhic focus] will say קדושה means three and a half מצוות [mitzvos: commandments]. That’s a restricted meaning, okay? It doesn’t even have the concept of virtue.

Aristotle vs. Plato on Sophrosyne

But Aristotle, we remember—and this is what we’re going to read today—Aristotle restricted greatly the meaning of *sophrosyne*, of temperance, to mean something very specific.

In Plato, we have more broad meanings. Plato explicitly gave it a more broad meaning in the *Republic* [Plato’s dialogue on justice and the ideal state].

Socrates, in other places like in the *Charmides* [Plato’s dialogue specifically examining the virtue of sophrosyne], which is all about the virtue of *sophrosyne*, goes through six or five or six or seven different definitions of it. But he probably is trying to get it somewhere, although it doesn’t end in a conclusion—exclusion—like the Socratic dialogues. They end in a question. But he seems to be trying to get to wisdom somehow, or to knowledge somehow.

But in any case, if you read that dialogue, you’ll see that it has a very broad reach. It’s a very broad virtue. And that’s one reason. There’s other reasons, as we’ll get to, how we could make it into a very broad thing.

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Chapter 4: Today’s Focus—Aristotle’s Restriction of Sophrosyne

The Task at Hand

Okay, but today we’re focusing on the other side of this. And you have to know this, both in order to understand things that people like the Rambam and everything else understand, and just to understand the reality.

So yeah, you could do everything, you do everything. Now we’re gonna do the opposite thing, okay? Because this is—I have to learn something today. So that’s for telling you stories and speeches. You have to actually learn something, right? Very good.

Aristotle’s Method: Restriction and Distinction

So we have to see how the הייליגע [heilige: holy] Aristotle took this word and very much restricted it.

And you’ll remember that Aristotle’s way of doing philosophy is restricting things, right? He was the first originator of the “two דינים [dinim: legal categories/aspects] theory,” right? Known before they invented the word דין [din], because ליטוואקס [Litvaks] can’t conceptualize any differentiation in the world if it’s not דין, because they’re from the דעה דין [de’ah din: the opinion of strict law]. Otherwise, how do you call it?

How do they call it in חסידות [Chassidus: Hasidic philosophy]? The two דינים? Two בחינות [bechinos: aspects/dimensions]. בחינה [bechina] is a philosophical term. It means literally like a judgment, like a בחינה, like a test. When looking at this aspect—no, but that’s not a—it’s not a measure, a just—okay, it doesn’t matter. The etymology is not important here.

The Concept of “Qua”

Aristotle called this, very famously, *qua*, right? Aristotle didn’t say *qua*—he said it in Greek—but that’s how it gets translated from Latin into English. *Qua* means “as,” right? Or “under the aspect of,” right?

Person as an eating person. A person as he is, not as relates to. Relation is only one—only one of the categories. As he is. Not relate, no. Not as it relates to something.

Relation is one way in which you could separate things. You could say, well, this is about the relation itself. But don’t say—that’s why I think people get—people know—we’re not talking about—it’s not my שיעור [shiur: lesson] either. But don’t say it’s relation, because relation is just only one way we can talk about the world. That’s not the only way. There’s only one—I don’t talk about the world only one part of things, only one aspect of things.

One way of talking about things, or one בחינה, or one category, is right—one statement that we say about other things, right? A predicate is a relation. But there’s other predicates in the world besides relations.

Relations, okay. So don’t say relation. What it is, okay? So, but that’s not—this is not my point right now. That’s—let’s go. We may restrict from there, right? That’s too broad. We have to restrict a little more and understand that the way Aristotle—and this is called the—

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[Transcript continues in subsequent chunks]

Chapter 5: Philosophical Method and the Inquiry into Temperance

Division as Philosophical Method

The Platonic Method of Division and Collection

But there’s other predicates in the world besides relations, okay? So don’t say relation. What it is, okay? But that’s not my point right now. Let’s restrict from there, right? That’s too broad. We have to restrict a little more and understand that the way Aristotle—and this is called division, right, and it was one of Plato’s main ways of learning called division. Plato said that all of learning is division and collection, right? Or breaking things apart and putting them back together. No, not the same thing. Putting things into categories, finding the unity between things and finding the separation between things, which is the same kind of work. One is going up, one is going down. You should know all these things already.

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The Nature of Philosophy

Philosophy as Clarifying Confusions

The point is that philosophy is about clarifying our confusions. Remember? Remember? I’m doing a bit on its side. Philosophy is about clarifying your confusions—if you’re not confused you should not come, and if you’re too confused then you’re not confused either, you’re just like everything’s a… began. Philosophy is about suffering through your confusions, right? Actually being confused, right?

Philosophy as Parasitic on Prior Conceptions

What this means—that like I say always—philosophy is parasitic on original conceptions. And how do we call it?

Student: Intuitions.

Instructor: Nowadays, philosophers like to talk about intuitions. I have a whole sheet about intuitions and why it’s a weird thing. Come to a different sheet.

Philosophers are, philosophy is, or Aristotle would say, philosophy—or specifically moral ethical philosophy—is parasitic. I’m calling it parasitic. It’s not really, but it’s necessary. It’s a condition for doing philosophy is parasitic on your education, right? And your habituation, on being taught from youth to be habituated and to respect certain habits. Of course we’re all habituated, we’re all live in a culture, we’re not—none of us are monkey people that live in the jungle—so we all respect certain things. I mean all cultures have, right?

Philosophy as Dialectical

And what is—last, for do I tell—the contradictions, right? Like Marx said, all right, all we do is bump into the contradictions and the things we really really really believe and use them to generate truth, right? Remember? All philosophy is dialectical, right? It means we already believe certain things, or already think certain things, but thinking is not about me, right? Thinking is about the world seems to me in a certain way, right? Can’t just run away and say, don’t think, like Descartes thought you could do. You can’t do that, right? You already think anyways, all those things. And what philosophy is interested in is clarifying those things, right?

Everyone agrees if you’re confused I’ll unconfuse you. I’m not talking—I know, I know, wait, don’t get confused, don’t get off track. It’s about—there’s contradictions and we’re trying to undo them—not undo them—use them to generate a more clear view on reality, right? That’s what everyone’s after anyways, right? Instead of being confused and being led astray by the words that we use.

The Problem of Socialization

And us people—most people in most cultures are very good, like being in some sense being cultured or being socialized is knowing when to jump from two contradictory positions and not realizing it, right? I’m not gonna elaborate on that either, you should probably know what I mean already, right? Because they’re very well socialized people, they are good at saying the right things all the time without noticing that they keep on contradicting themselves, sometimes within the same sentence.

People are good at noticing it when it’s on the other side of the political divide, but it doesn’t matter, and there’s things that everyone agrees on that we play this game with. And philosophers are the kinds of people that are not socialized well—but that’s a cynical view—but they’re the kinds of people that think that it’s great that we have all these opinions, great that we have all these small portals into reality, which were given by our education, which were given by our thoughts or innate or taught or beginning conceptions, our opinions, right? And now we’re going to do some process to make those opinions better, right? Or to make them into knowledge hopefully, finally.

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The Purpose of Division

Splitting for Clarity, Not Quantity

Now one of—there’s different ways of doing this, different methods of doing this. One of the methods most loved by Aristotle was splitting things, right? Splitting things is not for the sake of splitting them because we—there’s too many of them, there’s too few of them, so we’re going to split them. There aren’t actually too few of them, just to be clear, right? We’re not given enough words, right? Normal language or day-to-day language, what we can call, doesn’t have enough words for most of the things we need to understand.

The world is more—nowadays people like saying complex—but really it’s more simple than the everyday words are. The ones that are complexing it, right? Things are more distinct, which means more simple, than what we are taught to believe, than what everyday—what the beginning state of human beings generally is. But you don’t see the simplicity of them before cleaning them, right?

Philosophy as Purification

We’re cleaning—it’s about like a purification process. You gotta unite in a similar way to how—in a similar way to how purification, like a chemist, purifies things, right? You purify an element. You’re trying to get at the element in itself, right? Without all kinds of things that it’s mixed in with, that it’s contaminated with, right?

Now our thoughts are contaminated. What are they contaminated with? I’m talking about purification again. They’re contaminated with other thoughts. That’s why they’re contaminated. Whenever we think about something, most of our concepts are dirty. They’re dirty because they are mixed in with other things that we also think, that also are somehow true, but not over here. They don’t belong here. They belong… I don’t have to cut them up. I have to distinguish them in order to get at what we’re really trying to get at.

Make sense? Very nice.

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Interlude on Experience and Knowledge

Instructor: Now we’re going to do an example of this, or a practice of this. Okay? Say there. And we’re going to talk about this thing called temperance. We’re going to use this word for today. And try to think what it’s about.

Student: Some knowledge is not necessarily dialectical, some of it is infertile, no? We sometimes learn things just by observing them take place, no?

Instructor: Maybe.

Student: Or at least we can use that as a foundation for learning more things?

Instructor: Maybe, yeah. Like gathering more facts. Maybe. Yeah. We’re talking about understanding, though. Not about having lists of facts, right?

Student: Yeah, and I’m not talking about fact gathering per se.

Instructor: Yeah, for sure, experience is one of the sources of knowledge. Nobody ever disagreed with that. But experience is also confused, because you don’t know what to see. You’ve got to learn how to see things. The stage after experience is experiencing things better. There isn’t experience that stops thought. There’s only experience that starts thought. Thank you, but that just makes us, gives us more questions, or gives us more things we need to take into account and so on, but it’s not something that stops, not a solution to the problem of needing to think, it’s something that gives you more things to think about.

Okay, so, but it’s true, I don’t disagree, but philosophy is not that, philosophy is the theoretical work, philosophy is not the empirical work. I mean, you could call it philosophy, like natural philosophy or whatever, but still, the understanding won’t be there.

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The Problem of Temperance in Contemporary Culture

Setting Up the Inquiry

Instructor: Okay. So, that makes sense? So, that’s what we’re going to be doing. I want to do something important and I also want to try to show while I’m doing it how this sounds a real problem that we have. We’re not giving you a דרוש [drush: homiletical discourse]. You probably have this problem. I’ll tell you the first problem that you have, okay? Let’s give you the first problem. You can see it says on this first page that I gave you, but I’m not going to read stuff for you. I’m just going to tell it to you by heart, as they say.

The Cultural Deficit

Okay? You have a problem. What is your problem? Did you hear of this virtue? If you know, it’s interesting—nowadays our culture is very messed up, so most people think that—what do most people think? So I’m very—like I said last year, she was very thankful for having received the תורה [Torah], by which we mean growing up in Lakewood, because then we have a habituation to certain virtues that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Like, for example, the virtue of temperance.

If you live in New York City, New Jersey state in 2026, and you go to a non-frum [non-religious] school, you probably never heard of this virtue, by which I mean you never experienced it, right? Like, you don’t have a beginning for ourselves—that would do enough starting points from which to start the inquiry, the inquiry into it, because you never saw it, you were not taught that it’s a good thing.

Isn’t that what your משגיח [mashgiach: spiritual supervisor in a yeshiva] told you, that in public school they just teach you to eat and fress [Yiddish: to eat gluttonously] all day and night? By the way, it’s true. It’s not only the mashgiach told you. I’ve met those people. That’s what they’re taught. For the most part.

The Problem with Religious Education

Which means, like—what are you looking at me like this? I even know—the problem is that growing up in Lakewood doesn’t help enough. Why? Because you get taught that it’s a religious virtue. Which means a fake virtue, as everyone that comes to my class knows. Right? So we don’t really believe that it’s a good thing. If we would have been going, would have been just chasing after peace—of course it’s hard to state peace, although very few people are committed hedonists, you got to work a little bit and so on—but if we would have been, alright, everyone thinks—everyone in Lakewood thinks this—if we wouldn’t have had a גיהנם [Gehenna: hell/purgatory in Jewish thought] to scare—

Chapter 6: The Problem of Pleasure: Religious Education, Cultural Critique, and the Need for Distinctions

The Problem with Religious Education on Temperance

The Lakewood Example: Religious Virtue as “Fake Virtue”

I even know, the problem is that growing up in Lakewood doesn’t help enough. Why? Because you get taught that it’s a religious virtue, which means a fake virtue as everyone that comes to my class knows. So we don’t really believe that it’s a good thing. If we would have been going, we would have been just chasing after peace. Of course it’s hard to just eat pizza all day. Very few people are committed hedonists. You got to work a little bit and so on.

But if we would have been, everyone in Lakewood thinks if he wouldn’t have had a גיהנם [Gehennom: Hell/purgatory in Jewish eschatology] to scare us from it, we would have all been extreme hedonists, right? Is that what your משגיח [mashgiach: spiritual supervisor in a yeshiva] taught you? Your mashgiach? Is that what he taught?

That’s what the Beelzebub believes, right? If not for God, for divine command, what the good would be? Eating pizza. Enjoying pizza. Right? Pizza is a code. Remember Pizzagate? Anyways.

The Consequence: Not Taught That Virtue Is Genuinely Good

Anyways, so, and since, my head is too crazy, but since God gave us a title, so we don’t have it. Okay, so that’s the problem with growing up in this kind of environment, that you’re not entirely taught that these things are good, you’re only taught that you’re actually taught the opposite sometimes.

Okay, but still, I think, it’s still, since virtuous habituation, it doesn’t make so much of a difference. This is theoretical. You still see some beauty in it, or some correctness in it, or some goodness in it, some human goodness in it, I think, depending on—that’s even weirder.

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Critique of “Sophisticated Modern Jewish Teachers”

The Anti-Asceticism Movement

That you know, I know a bunch of teachers—not me, I’m in a big fight with those people, you don’t even know who they are probably, it doesn’t matter—I know a bunch of modern Jewish teachers who’s big thing, because they know that Torah is pro-hedonism. Jewish Jews don’t have to be ascetic. One of the primary matters and beliefs is that asceticism is Jewish.

Oh, the Christians invented asceticism, right? Being against bodily pleasures. The Torah is for bodily pleasures. Everyone knows a lot of mashgiachs now. Not the mashgiachs don’t, the old mashgiachs don’t say this, but the cool mashgiachs say this, right? נכון [Nachon: Correct/right]?

Diagnosis: Uncritical Absorption of Cultural Values

What does this mean? That these people grew up in this exact world, which taught them, so they believed exactly what they were taught, right? That they were taught that according—they both, they assimilated the values, right? We call it values, or the virtues of democracy. The virtue of democracy is undifferentiated hedonism. We can’t even tell you what pleasure is, right? Whatever floats your boat.

And they were taught that the Torah is against this. But then they decided, wait, the Rambam [Maimonides] told us we’ve got to make the Torah match with what we think, right? Instead of being critical and thinking, okay, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t accept everything your culture tells you uncritically.

The Misuse of Rambam

Oh no, but Rambam accepted everything his culture told him uncritically. That’s what we learned from the Rambam, right? That you could be a modern religious Jew, right? Although he believed other things than we believe, so we’re doing the same thing that he did in our context, right? You heard this direction already, right?

So the Rambam is the one that taught us that you should take some random commands from the Torah, but all your beliefs about reality should be taken from the New York Times editorial page. That’s what we learned from the Rambam. And being a smart, sophisticated modern Jew means making the שידוך [shidduch: match/marriage] between the New York Times editorial page and the ויקרא קדושים [Vayikra Kedoshim: Leviticus chapter “Kedoshim”/Holiness].

Well, that’s nonsense. That’s just dumb. Like, wow, even בתור גוי [b’tor goy: as a non-Jew] I’m offended, not בתור יהודי [b’tor Yehudi: as a Jew], right? Why do you accept everything the culture tells you uncritically?

The One Virtue of Counterculture

So, at least if there’s one virtue in having a counterculture, it’s to not do that, right? The whole reason to be not assimilated is that you should sometimes be able to say, well, yeah, the culture believes this, but I’m not sure I believe it. Maybe it’s correct, I’m not sure. We should think about it, right? Only the one good thing. And these people, these sophisticated cool mashgiachs, they give up on the one reason to be Jewish.

So this is my hack where am I—getting into hacking on some random unnamed people who I’m not even giving you their names is no fun.

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The Actual Yeshiva Teaching on Pleasure

The Traditional Position

Point is, my point is, back to where I’m standing, but we are taught—if you go to a ישיבה [yeshiva] at least, or it’s not too old-fashioned, let’s just see if I—I went to, your total גשמיות [gashmius: physicality/materialism], and the Litvaks, they call it gashmius. The gashmius is not a thing, by which they mean gashmius pleasure, right? Not gashmius money. Money is… Anyways, it’s not a thing. So there’s some virtue against this, right? That’s the important thing.

The Apparent Contradiction

Now, I have to tell you something very interesting. So I’ve spoken to many people that are smart about this. And one of the things that people are very confused. Now, people are very confused. Why are they confused? Because they see this. Okay, they see that it seems like—it’s not—the question is how do we say what we see, right? How do we understand ourself, right? Philosophy is about understanding ourself. How do we understand ourself?

We say we believe, and it’s not good to pursue pleasure too much. This is how people say it. Okay, comes some genius and says, what do you mean there isn’t much? Yeah, yes, that I say—address this is Aristotle and according to 2026 Lakewood.

Yes, today the mashgiach said that it’s against pleasure, you shouldn’t be just living a life to enjoy food and sex. הסלמי [Haslami: possibly referring to a specific rabbi or text] doesn’t say that word because he doesn’t believe in it exists, but it happens to be it does. And other things, and so on.

And then the next day he gave a whole דרשה [drasha: sermon/discourse] about the געשמאק [geshmak: Yiddish – taste/pleasure/enjoyment] of learning. It’s as good as the Rish’s cold seltzer, even better.

And then the Chassidish mashgiach even gave a different drasha about—also like Litvak—that he read, and he read that it said that a person should have pleasure on something about God, I don’t know what.

The Confusion This Creates

And you come to the mashgiach and you say, what’s going on? Should we seek pleasure or should we not seek pleasure, huh? You’re contradicting yourself!

What does it say? What does it say? What does it say?

Or there’s a guy that came to the הייליגע רבי [Heilige Rebbe: Holy Rebbe]—true story—just this confusion. You’re confused, right? There was a guy that came to—I hope you’re confused, or you’re not confused?

Student: Stupid question.

Instructor: Why is it stupid? No, no, it’s really a great question. But when you talk to them, they tell you, very good, it’s amazing. Say that you’re allowed. Okay, but did you solve the problem or did you just hold me the problem again, right? It’s amazing. Oh, it’s a מחלוקת [machlokes: disagreement/dispute]. It’s kosher.

You got there—you got that you’re contradicting yourself. Do you know the מיסער [miser/misnaged: opponent of Chassidism] that was a misnaged that came to the Rebbe and he told me that he needs to—being a rabbi, I feel like all the time is so—the other thought is having his own. I think you’re right. Only thing, the only difference in this time, a lot of times is that for to get this time we have to give up an old other tithes, and then the hunter could have said no, you don’t have to. Anyways.

—

Attempted Solutions to the Pleasure Problem

First Solution (Rejected): Deny the Distinction Entirely

Point is there’s a בעיא [baya: problem/difficulty] here, right? A very simple baya. Okay, very weird thing.

Now what do I think? There’s all—some people, I know some people that said, okay, so therefore we don’t believe in this. This whole חילוק [chilik: distinction/differentiation] that we were taught—this is one silly way of resolving the tension. You shouldn’t seek pleasure. It’s nonsense.

People just decide that they like certain pleasures. Everyone has their pleasure. You like toys. I like pizza. I’m not better than you. You’re not worse than me. I’m sorry. I’m not worse than you.

And sometimes the people that eat pizza, that learn גמרא [Gemara: Talmud], they give up on this problem. They say, yeah, you’re right.

Second Solution: John Stuart Mill’s Higher and Lower Pleasures

But, what’s this guy’s name? The English guy said, it’s true, but there are higher pleasures and lower pleasures. Which philosopher said there are higher pleasures than our pleasures? God, he’s so—no.

John Stuart Mill, who couldn’t imagine anything good besides your pleasures, but he was educated as a good, what was he, Scottish, British, and he was taught that a gentleman doesn’t just, what the guy said—but he enjoys finer things in life. So he came up with this thing.

Okay, look, there’s lack of pleasures, but there’s more complicated pleasures and less complicated pleasures. It’s like there’s some people that are more equal than others [reference to George Orwell’s Animal Farm]. It’s like there’s a lot. בערך [B’erech: approximately/more or less].

So this was his way of saving the traditional thing that there are some pleasures that are bad without having words for anything without your pleasure. And saying this. Okay, so that’s what some people seem to accept. Of course, he tried to justify it and explain it. I’m just giving you why he got into this problem.

—

Preview of the Instructor’s Solution

Scope and Limitations

So it’s a problem. I’m not going to give a שיעור [shiur: lesson/lecture] of pleasure. Aristotle had many more things to say about pleasure than the trace sheet. But now I’m going to see a simple thing. Today we’re going to learn a very simple thing that doesn’t solve this whole problem of pleasure. The problem of pleasure is still bigger and we have to talk about this a lot more.

Student: I think it’s an accident of what you’re doing.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. Aristotle said things like that because super super veins. Well, yeah, it doesn’t—it can be something called a higher pleasure in that regard. It’s not worded by pleasure.

Student: Okay, so then pleasure is not a good.

Instructor: So wait, I’m talking about simpler. I have a simpler תירוץ [teretz: resolution/answer] even than that.

The Method: Making Distinctions

I have a simpler teretz. My simpler teretz is going to be Aristotle. This is the kind of teretz that we said before. We have to make more דינים [dinim: laws/categories/distinctions]. We have one word, and you’ll realize what we’re doing.

What I want to tell you, this mashgiach is that it’s very cute to use the same word “pleasure” for both of these—in both of these mussar [ethical teachings]. Should have pleasure and pleasure and Shabbos. Okay, I know Shabbos we have to worry if I need Shabbos to the gashmius or your own is—they come, whatever that means. And the עונג [oneg: pleasure/delight] of סברא [svara: logical reasoning/insight in Torah study], and we also have the oneg of pizza.

I’m certain that since they’re the same word, it’s a תירוץ [tirutz: answer/resolution], and the—I become them there.

Chapter 7: The Problem of Multiple Meanings and Framing the Inquiry on Temperance

The Problem of Equivocation: Multiple Uses of “Oneg” (Pleasure)

We should have pleasure in Shabbos. We have to worry if עונג שבת [Oneg Shabbos: the pleasure/delight of the Sabbath] is the גשמי [gashmi: physical/material] or the רוחני [ruchani: spiritual] one, whatever that means. And the עונג [oneg: pleasure] of סברא [svara: logical reasoning/intellectual insight]. And we also have the עונג [oneg] of pizza. And since they’re the same word, it’s a סתירה [stira: contradiction].

Three Types of Responses to This Problem

And they say it’s the same thing. A lot of people say, “I don’t know.” And the third kind of people say, “Yeah, but I can’t explain it another way.” Very cute way of escaping problems and not thinking. “Okay, we just believe it.” It still feels different.

The Deeper Consequence: Split from Clear Thinking

So therefore we’re split from thinking and explaining and having clear—a clear access to the world through our thoughts, which is what we are. Actually, people that—things, beings that think all kinds of different ways. You realize that is a very basic problem, and it’s like one of those basic problems that modern people especially, because of their poverty of words and concepts and metaphysics, are really stuck about.

Today’s sheet is not against modern metaphysics. I’m just saying that. It’s too broad. I’m not sure. Not everything gets solved by doing that, but it’s true. Alright?

—

The Linguistic Problem and Its Limits

So even Hebrew words take on many different meanings. The same one word takes on many meanings, obviously. You have to say that. We can just add more words. We don’t have to make up new words. One word would be making up new words, which is not a very useful thing.

No, let’s say the word עונג [oneg], right? You’d have to say that really it is בעונג [b’oneg] and עונג [oneg] and שמעונג [shm’oneg]. We could do that, but that’s not very useful. That’s just a play. You have to explain what you mean. So you have to anyways add more words.

—

Setting Up the Main Inquiry: Defining Temperance

So listen to what we’re going to do. זאג דע האל לע גרעבע [Zog de haal le grebe – Yiddish phrase]. And the Rambam [Maimonides], it kind of echoes this definition in many places. What this chapter is basically Aristotle deriving the final definition, this definition.

And let’s start, let’s say like this, let’s do this big fat division. We’re gonna do a long process of dialectic here. I’m gonna try to figure out what we even mean when we phrase this thing called temperance, which means—let’s agree, let’s admit that it means the correct כן [ken: measure/standard] or the mean condition, right? Mean condition regarding pleasures, right?

—

How “Mean” Already Partially Solves the Problem

I’m asking: with this, every virtue is a mean. By the way, saying that it’s a mean already solved a lot, right? Saying that it’s a mean already solved half of my problem, or all of it maybe? That would be one solution, remember? Solution, one solution.

So besides for all the solutions to all problems in the world being “stop being modern people,” another solution is to say that everything is a mean and virtue, right? One of the solutions. The Rebbe seems to be very happy with the solution.

Student: Could you explain to me how it’s a solution?

Instructor: Well, it depends on what you’re calibrating it against.

Student: No, meaning not calibration. Meaning is correct.

Instructor: Yeah, correct. Middle way. The middle way means the correct way, right? The right way. In the first place, you have to assume that it’s not an end.

Student: No, no, for sure. I don’t mean that. That’s why I’m saying that.

—

Critical Distinction: Two Different Questions

What We Are NOT Discussing Today

Really, what we’re discussing right now—let’s be very clear. Let’s be very clear. Let’s be very clear. There’s one question that we’re not talking about today, which is: is pleasure the end, the goal of life? We’re not really talking about that.

Or another thing that we’re confused—we don’t think that it’s the goal.

Student: Right, and the reason why… I think the happiness is the goal, not the…

Instructor: If you assume that it’s an end, then you don’t assume that there’s…

Student: Right, right, very good. True.

The First Question: What is the Telos?

So let’s be very clear. When we talk about… This is one… So let’s talk about that also. One thing.

Number one, there is one question which is: What is the end? What is the goal? What is the תכלית [tachlis/telos: ultimate purpose/end] of a human life? One question. What should I dedicate my life to?

Actually, how do I like saying it? What is my life organized around? What judges it? What’s the criteria?

And over there, there’s hedonism. In some sense, all the vices and the virtues can be candidates for that. And to decide which one really is the end is the subject of Book 1 [of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics] and the subject of אגדמות [Hakdamot: Introduction] of Rambam and פירוש המשנה [Perush HaMishnah: Rambam’s Commentary on the Mishnah] and so on.

That’s one subject. We are not talking about that. We’re not talking about that.

Why These Questions Get Confused

Sometimes we confuse these things. We talk about the virtue of temperance and we pretend we connect it—it’s connected, of course it’s connected, because whatever the end of everything is, is going to tell us how much of anything to do based on how to get to it, right?

But when I said “mean,” I meant middle, right? In any case, I also mean—and that’s kind of right, you’re talking about mean as opposed to an end, right? But also, that’s right, we should use a different word because it’s confusing us.

But the point, important thing is: we’re not talking about that, okay? We’re not talking about that. Let’s assume we already know what life is for, okay? It’s for happiness. Question’s just what happiness is anyway.

What We ARE Discussing Today

But our question is about this. Let’s not talk about that. We’re talking about this specific virtue as a virtue, just to talk about a virtue, one of the good מידות [middos: character traits]. As many good מידות—learning Torah as I get as I, and not being a דרשן [darshan: preacher/interpreter], and I get as I—forget, is that not the same? That ultimately they’re all connected to this one big goal of everything.

Okay, but we’re talking about this specifically. We’re not talking about that. We’re not going to solve that question. That question has to do more—

—

Clarification on “Oneg” in Jewish Books

Like, when you ask the question, something like לשנוג לה׳ [l’saneg l’Hashem: to have pleasure in God] is the goal of everything, because that seems—the pleasure is the goal of everything. That has to do with that discussion.

I think that לשנוג לה׳ [l’saneg l’Hashem] is the wrong formulation. It should be to be happy with knowing God. I think that עונג [oneg] is not precise, but that’s different. That has to do with the discussion of eudaimonia [Greek: happiness/flourishing] and all of that. Completeness. עונג [Oneg].

In Jewish books, often they use עונג [oneg] in that sense, but they don’t really mean pleasure. That’s another issue. Then there’s another question: will you have pleasure? Yes, you will have pleasure, but that’s not the goal. It’s just something that comes along with the goal.

—

Restating the Focus: Correct Behavior Regarding Pleasures

Now, what we’re talking about now is the correct way of behaving in regards to this area of life called pleasures. So we already cut it off from one big problem that confuses us. I don’t know.

So, okay. And now we said—remember that we said, I want to get back to what I said.

The Principle: All Virtues Are Means

We said that all virtues are means. All virtues means having the correct. None of the virtues means no virtue. This is like a rule. Really, we’re saying it backwards. We should derive it somehow, right? We gave some reasons to thinking this.

But whenever we talk about and we praise not enjoying pizza too much, we don’t mean not enjoying it at all. All we mean is not enjoying the wrong things, or in the wrong times, or in the wrong ways, or in the wrong amounts—things like that.

—

Student Dialogue: Does “Mean” Solve the Problem?

Student: What does that solve? It doesn’t exactly solve the problem that we talked about. It doesn’t exactly solve… כקשרן [k’kisharon: as appropriate/fitting]. You’re not listening to me. What’s the point? It doesn’t exactly solve the problem…

Instructor: I wasn’t even looking in.

Student: I know, you’re just pretending.

Instructor: No, no, I was thinking what you were saying.

Student: It doesn’t… I don’t know what it means when you say that enjoy it in just the right way, the right time. As we have it there. We’re thinking very practically, not too great.

Instructor: I’m not thinking great, I just want to understand what that means.

Student: It means not eating too much pizza and not too little pizza.

Eating vs. Enjoying: A Clarification

Student: That’s not enjoying, it’s just eating.

Instructor: That is. No, no, no, it’s enjoying. Whenever we talk about enjoying, remember that we remember all virtues are actions. We’re never talking about the…

Student: You’ve been appreciating.

Instructor: No, no, no, that’s the internal, but I can’t talk about all the internal all the time. We’re not right.

Student: That’s what I’m asking.

Instructor: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That already solves one solution. We’re talking about the—no, he is talking about that, because he’s actually talking about not eating too much pizza, right? Not eating too much pizza.

We’re still talking about things that give you pleasure, things that—we’ll say in a second what kind of pleasure—things that give you pleasure, okay?

You’re bringing in a different distinction which is—let’s leave it on the side. It’s not—assume that I already know that, okay? Because it’s not going to solve my specific issue that I have right now, okay? It’s definitely not solving my issue.

Student: I’m trying to only talk about the pleasure that you’re talking about. I just don’t know.

—

Refocusing: What We Are and Are Not Discussing

Instructor: I’m talking specifically about the correct behavior relative to pleasures. That’s all.

– Not: Pleasure in the broadest sense of like, “I hold that this is God.” That’s not interesting to talk about. That’s way too great to talk about.

– Not: Taste buds in the sense that the taste buds are working correctly.

Student: Yes, the taste buds, that’s why we call it pleasure, because the taste buds taste correctly. Or by the way, let’s—

Instructor: We’re not talking about taste. Let’s try to start bigger than that, right?

Student: Who—where did we start talking about taste buds? Forget you. Taste buds is the sense, right? We’re talking about the like. But—but we’re still talking about the taste buds.

Instructor: We’re talking about the behavior in certain years. Remember what defines—what cuts virtues one from the other is the thing they’re about, right? Because all virtues are likings. That’s not interesting, right? When we talk about liking, everything is liking or hating in that sense. Not talking about that. Talking about the kind of things that we’re doing.

Now, this is the correct amount of eating. The correct amount of not eating in the sense of—when you have maybe in the essence of that, but eating in the sense of eating for pleasure. The correct amount of that. That’s all. We’re talking exactly about that. Nothing more complicated than that. Talking exactly about that. Very simple. Talking about or other pleasures.

—

Final Exchange: Practical Example

Now let’s go back to where I was. Okay, either talking exactly about that, not about what you have to talk about. That’s not pleasure, that’s liking. I’m talking about pleasure.

Student: What do you mean you could eat more pizza or less pizza? I don’t understand the problem.

Instructor: You could—a good person, someone that has that, is not—not temperate, that is intemperate, he eats 10 bites of pizza. And someone that is temperate eats only 9 bites. I’m not sure I understand what your problem is.

Student: Or maybe you don’t need it.

Instructor: He’s saying if…

Student: I’m just confused, getting confused by words. I have no idea what the words are in your head, but it’s very simple what I’m talking about. Very simple.

Instructor: But we’re getting off topic, but it hasn’t too many problems. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Chapter 8: Refining the Definition of Temperance: From Pleasure Generally to Bodily Pleasures

Clarifying the Scope of the Inquiry

Instructor: Same thing – how much pizza, how much money to give, how much money to make, how much pizza to eat, how much pizza not to eat. מוצע בשוט [mot b’shut: the mean/middle path]. Nothing more or less complicated than that. Okay? Now, but let me… I don’t know what problem you have. That is what pleasure… Pleasure is the area that I’m talking about. Should I say it a third time? Pleasure is the area that I’m talking about. I’m talking about this area of activities that give you pleasure – things that people do for pleasure. That’s what I’m talking about. Nope, I have no idea what your issue is. Okay.

Student: You still shouldn’t be doing too much of it, right?

Instructor: That’s not the question that I have. That’s not this work. That’s a different problem. That’s not how to do it.

Student: [Inaudible objection]

Instructor: No, because you’re… I am talking about the pleasure. You’re talking about health. I’m not talking about health. I’m talking about pleasure. There is a correct way to bring yourself in relation to pleasure – precisely to pleasure.

Student: I don’t know what you mean. There’s an ענין [inyan: obligation/reason] to eat not because of pleasure.

Instructor: Maybe. Nothing to do with what I’m talking about today. People that… there’s an ענין [inyan] to do other things not because of pleasure – not talking about that today. Today I’m talking about pleasure. What’s the problem? It’s not accidental – it’s what I’m talking about. Exactly what I’m talking about. Talking about the נויא [noyah: the domain/subject] of this automatically. I’m talking about that. Do you like too much pleasure? Do you like too little pleasure? I’m talking about that. I’ll talk about anything else… Everything in the world is complicated. We’re trying to simplify things, right? Talking about one day at a time. Everyone knows what pleasure is. We’re talking about exactly that.

—

The Core Problem: Contradictory Attitudes Toward Pleasure

Instructor: And what our problem was – just that we contradict ourselves. That we sometimes praise certain pleasures. Okay, that is the מקשה [mekasha: the difficulty/question] that I have today. לא פחות ולא יותר [lo pachot v’lo yoter: no less and no more]. There’s both pleasures – things that people enjoy – and some of them are good and some of them are bad.

So what this means is that we should stop saying that pleasures are bad. Or that even… I guess one way of solving this would have been to say something like – that’s why I started talking about the middle term, the mean. So one way of saying this would be like, well, pleasures are neither good or bad. Some pleasures are good, some pleasures are bad. And the virtue exists in knowing which pleasures are good and which pleasures are bad. Make sense?

That was a sort of… We could have sort of done that. I think that that would not be… I think the problem with that would be it’s too broad. It’s not giving us a virtue in the end. We don’t have a virtue to talk about. It’s a very general thing. Yeah, virtue exists of knowing what to live, how to live. That choice is true, but it’s way too general. The whole point is a specific area.

Student: I think the virtue might be the refinement of pleasure. It’s a different kind of…

Instructor: Yes, but let me give you another… Yes, let me give you… That might be true. I don’t disagree with that. That might be true. But I’m still up to a higher level of questioning, right? It might be true because that’s the virtue. In other words, that’s that… And even after we’ll restrict virtue to whatever area. Now we’re just restricting it to an area. After we restrict it to a very specific area, we could say, and then what is good – which, how much to eat, yeah, the refined ones, and so on – that could be. But that doesn’t… but “what to eat” is a conversation about the nature of the virtue, not the… it’s not the science… no, it’s… it’s about the nature of… after we have a very specific one. But it’s not going to solve the question of why isn’t… isn’t there even a question…

—

First Challenge: The Problem of Love of Learning

Instructor: Shouldn’t… let’s say something like this – why shouldn’t you even moderate your love of learning? There isn’t moderation in love of learning. If it’s a virtue, it should have been moderate, for example. But we don’t think it should be moderated about that.

Student: Some people think it shouldn’t. It’s a מחלוקת [machlokes: dispute/disagreement].

Instructor: Aristotle thinks it shouldn’t. It’s a מחלוקת [machlokes]. Not clear. But I can give you a different…

Student: Because that’s how it is moderated?

Instructor: No, because love of learning is not… The answer is… The answer, the way to get out of this problem today, is that when we talk… Wait, wait, let me give you another תעיה [ta’ayah: difficulty/challenge] before I give you a תירוץ [teretz: answer/resolution], okay? Let me give you another תעיה [ta’ayah].

Student: It could be that the mean of that is all the way to one side, but to say that it has… it’s no mean, then it’s an end, right?

Instructor: No, that’s wrong. In any case, it’s not… What you show from that is… we can have a discussion, but that’s not the point. The point is that when people talk about being temperate, nobody that I know… Let’s be clear – our משגיח [mashgiach: religious supervisor/ethical guide] that we talked about five minutes… whenever, a half year ago, I don’t know when – was not… he never would have imagined even applying his framework that he talks about pleasure to the pleasure of learning. It’s a whole different thing. This is בדוחניס [b’dochnias: obvious/self-evident]. That’s the thing.

Student: What do you mean? You said words that contradict each other.

Instructor: Okay, so obviously there’s something going on we’re trying to solve. And we can solve it in a very simple way. We don’t have to make anything complicated. No, they’re both pleasure. We don’t have to make them into different things. I don’t think we have to do that. We just have to refine this. We have to make a word. When we say the virtue of temperance, we have to define what it’s about. And instead of saying it’s pleasure, we should say it’s about a certain kind of pleasure.

—

Second Challenge: The Schmoozing Example

Instructor: I can give you another proof from the other side of it. Okay, I could give you… gosh, this is a crazy, crazily broad word. We should stop here. Body pleasures. Yeah, yeah, that would be better. Human body, not גשמיות [gashmius: physicality/materialism] in the terms of gosh.

I could give you a better way. Let me try to talk something, say something very simple. I could try to do it the other way around. I could say, how about someone that has to take too much pleasure in שמועסינג [schmoozing: chatting/socializing] and hacking? How do they call it in Yeshiva? Hacking. Okay, how about that guy? Is he also a בעל תאוה [baal taiva: person of excessive desire]? When משגיח [mashgiach] says he’s stopping such a בעל תאוה [baal taiva], he also means the guy that loves to שמועס [shmooze], right? Does he or doesn’t he?

He doesn’t. Why not? He just takes pleasure. By the way, I take pleasure in שמועסינג [shmoozing] a lot more than in eating. When I don’t have anyone I want to שמועס [shmooze] with, then that’s when I eat. You come to a סעודה [seudah: meal] with me and I eat, you’ll see I want to… It’s only when you leave that I start to eat. Because it’s a bigger תאוה [taiva: desire]. That’s what I like more. Bigger pleasure. For some people. Right? So…

Student: It’s not really used to describe the…

Instructor: It’s not. It’s not. Even the משגיח [mashgiach], might get confused by my question, but it’s not a גלאט שם [glatt shem: clear/obvious term]. If I ask him this question, he’d never thought of this question even, right? Why isn’t the שמועס [shmooze] said about תאוה [taiva]?

—

Third Challenge: Excessive Grief

Instructor: Ah, the problem is that you’re too into גשמיות [gashmius: physicality]. How about someone that cries about his mother’s death too much? Is he also a בעל תאוה [baal taiva]? That’s גשמיות [gashmius], isn’t it? There’s a big בעל תאוה [baal taiva]. Okay, his mother… his wife… his wife died. And the guy’s very sad. He’s a huge בעל תאוה [baal taiva], right? He said that his wife died. גשמיות [gashmius] – what’s a wife for?

Generally, he wouldn’t… even if the guy could be criticized for crying too much, his problem isn’t בעל תאוה [baal taiva]. Maybe it’s a problem that he’s depressed. Maybe it’s a problem that he doesn’t believe in Hashem’s judgment on him. Nobody would say his problem is that he’s בעל תאוה [baal taiva], right?

Student: What?

Instructor: Of course they would?

Student: They would? Yeah, it’s fun to cry.

Instructor: Exactly, it’s fun. Still wouldn’t say that his problem is בעל תאוה [baal taiva]. He would say that he’s a… that he likes to cry too much – different kind of… not intemperate. He’s not a… I don’t know, whoever you call. In Yiddish, we say בעל תאוה [baal taiva] for this thing. I don’t know if anyone…

Student: It’s not enjoyable.

Instructor: Meaning, it’s not the same… People like it.

—

Digression: The Danger of Conflating Different Pleasures

Instructor: Okay, let’s… Don’t let him be itchy and scratch himself. By the way, that’s a גראבע תאוה [grubba taiva: coarse desire]. That’s the biggest. That’s a big תאוה [taiva]. It’s a גראבע תאוה [grubba taiva] because they made a good show between that and something else. Not really.

No, no, no. The חשבונות [cheshbonos: calculations/reasonings] that said it, they thought that it’s the same thing as something else. That’s why. Also, I think it’s a confusion. Yeah, yeah. It’s because of these kind of חשבון [cheshbon].

I’m serious. What’s the חילוק [chilik: distinction] from the רעבים [ra’abim: the hungry ones] do to the רעבים דר [ra’abim dar]? Tell yourself that. This is pleasurable, that’s pleasurable. Okay, this is a מצוה [mitzvah: commandment], this is not a עבירה [aveirah: sin], but it’s the same thing basically, right? What’s the difference in hugging your friend than hugging your… same kind, right?

No, there is a difference. It happens to be. Human beings are more simple than that. But people that make this kind of חשבונות [cheshbonos], they end up in these kind of places.

Student: No, I’m trying to say that it’s more דחס דיגים [dachas diggim: subtle/refined].

Instructor: Not more דחס דיגים [dachas diggim], it’s different.

—

The Emerging Definition: Bodily Pleasures

Instructor: So we could just solve this by defining exactly what we’re talking about. And we could try to define it even better. But one simple thing we could say is, saying that the נויא [noyah: domain] of מדת התאוה [midas hataivah: the trait of desire/temperance] is not about all kinds of human pleasures. Let’s stop saying that – that’s a mistake, that’s way too broad. גשמיות [gashmius: physicality]. It’s specifically about pleasures of the body. We’ll start here. It’s not close. It’s still not refined enough. But we can start here.

—

Fourth Challenge: The Kavod (Honor) Example

Instructor: For an example, even someone that likes כבוד [kavod: honor/prestige] too much, okay? Let’s forget about bad, good things that we start getting confused about. What about someone who likes כבוד [kavod] too much? Is he בעל תאוה [baal taiva]? No, he’s בעל כבוד [baal kavod: person of honor-seeking]. It’s about קנאה, תאוה, כבוד [kina, taiva, kavod: jealousy, desire, honor]. It’s three different things. Obviously, בעל קנאה [baal kina] and בעל תאוה [baal taiva] is not בעל כבוד [baal kavod], right? Although כבוד [kavod] is very pleasurable. Some people go to great lengths for כבוד [kavod] – like that guy, you give up all your תאוות [taivos: desires] for כבוד [kavod]. Makes sense. But that’s not being בעל תאוות [baal taivos].

Chapter 9: Distinguishing Bodily Pleasures from Soul Pleasures: The Scope of Temperance

Kavod (Honor) as a Separate Category from Taiva (Desire)

Instructor: What about someone who likes כבוד [kavod: honor/glory] too much? Is he about תאוה [taiva: desire/appetite]? No, he’s about כבוד [kavod]. דוקא [davka: specifically], קנאה [kinah: jealousy], תאוה [taiva: desire], כבוד [kavod: honor] – there’s three different things. Obviously, about קנאה [kinah] and about תאוה [taiva] is not about כבוד [kavod], right? Although כבוד [kavod] is very pleasurable. Some people like כבוד [kavod].

יש לאחדים שממונה חביב עליו מגופה, יש לאחדים שכבודה חביב עליו מממונה [Yesh l’achadim she-monam chaviv alav mi-gufo, yesh l’achadim she-kvodam chaviv alav mi-monam: Some people value their money more than their body, some people value their honor more than their money] – whatever. Some people go to great lengths for כבוד [kavod], like that guy who used the רב [rav: rabbi], right? You give up all your תאוות [taavos: desires/pleasures] for כבוד [kavod]. Makes sense. But that’s not being about תאוה [taiva].

The Problem with Overly Broad Definitions

When we talk, right, you could talk about as being about – having a very broad sense – you’re too much about yourself, too much about your body. But our שיעור [shiur: class/lesson] – there is doing שיעור [shiur] – is that always talking, making things broader, hurts us more than it helps us, at least for practical purposes. If you want to work on the מדה [middah: character trait], not either you want to talk about it, you want to have a clarity about it, you should restrict it more.

First Restriction: Bodily Pleasures vs. Pleasures of the Soul

So let’s do restriction number one. Restriction number one is: it’s about bodily pleasures. It’s not about pleasures of the soul.

The Metaphysical Question: Do You Need to Believe in a Soul?

Now remember, in order for this to make sense, you don’t really have to believe in a soul, alright? משכים [Maskilim: Enlightenment-era Jewish intellectuals] – because then you would say, “Oh, this is all just not – you need some metaphysics for this to work,” and we have a problem if you’re an extremity list. Like if you really think that all pleasure – nowadays with people talk about dopamine system, this should think of dopamine – you know, you know that nobody ever saw it? It’s just fantasy that some neuroscience made up and everyone believes that. Bunch of אמונות [emunos: beliefs] – come on, we don’t know that actually that’s what causes pleasure. It’s an invention. Nobody actually knows that. It’s like a weird, half-ways, a quarter-proven hypothesis that doesn’t – not even – explain most of what it’s supposed to explain. Yeah.

Why Reductive “Dopamine Talk” Is Problematic

And it’s crazy that we talk about it this way. Why is it crazy that we talk about it this way? Because this is what causes people to think that liking כבוד [kavod: honor] is the same as liking געלט [gelt: money (Yiddish)]. It’s not the same. כבוד [Kavod] is something that pertains to how other people treat you. געלט [Gelt] is something that pertains to your relation to געלט [gelt]. עשתון [Ashton (?)] has to do with עשתון [ashton], and other things have to do with other things. לימוד [Limud: learning/study] has to do with לימוד [limud]. These are different things. They have different objects and also different parts of the person that enjoy it. It’s not the same kind of thing.

“Yeah, everything is just dopamine.” No. By the way, how do you know that? Nobody knows that. Such as not knowing that, it doesn’t help us to say that. But it’s still more different than it’s similar, right? You understand?

Concession: Physical Dependency Doesn’t Collapse the Distinction

Maybe someone who’s clinically depressed or has like a physical deficiency can’t enjoy learning either. That could be. That doesn’t make – that’s not a problem for me, right? It goes back – we’re not going to have every שיעור [shiur] about questions of body and soul, but it’s not a problem at all. It’s still a different kind of thing.

Therefore, the way more and more people talk about it is: someone that likes to talk too much, takes a lot of pleasure in his faculty of speech, or seeming smart, or things like that – it’s not about his body. We can still talk about his body. Does it need a body? Do you need a body to enjoy כבוד [kavod]? Possibly. Do you need a body to enjoy learning? Possibly. As long as you’re in a body, probably you do. At least I’ve never met anyone – I’ve never learned with anyone that’s not in a body, or that wasn’t ever in a body. That’s for the מלאך אברהם [Malach Avriel: the angel Avriel/Gabriel (?)]. Okay.

Besides for that, the מלאך אברהם [Malach Avriel] obviously could learn. That proves that you don’t need a body to learn. But while you’re in a body, you do need a body. When you’re tired, you can’t learn. Although you don’t learn with your body. Okay, well that’s complicated metaphysics.

The Key Methodological Error to Avoid

But without that complicated metaphysics, it’s still different. But I’m just reminding us of this because one of the reasons we get stuck is because instead of thinking about what things are, we think about what makes them work. It’s like saying all houses are the same because all of them need bricks, cinder blocks on the bottom, or whatever they put on the bottom of houses nowadays. That’s not interesting. It’s true but not interesting, right? Trying to talk about the difference, right? What do you enjoy is the air condition, not the foundation – even if you need a foundation, even if the foundation breaks, the air can stop also to work.

Examples of Non-Bodily Pleasures Excluded from Temperance

So loving to learn, or loving to think, or loving to talk, or loving to have honor, or enjoying anything like that – is not the pleasure of the body in the relevant sense. Do you need a body for it? Metaphysical, physical questions for a doctor. But when we talk about pleasures of the body, we don’t mean those.

Conclusion of the First Restriction

So finish, we solve the problem. Whenever we talk about פרישות [prishus: abstinence/temperance], in this sense – זהידות [zahidas: asceticism], temperance, whatever you want to call it, צוכט [Zucht: discipline (German)], Aristotle – we only talk about pleasures of the body, not pleasures of the soul. כבוד [Kavod] belongs to the soul, not to the body. Or figure it out exactly to where it belongs – not to what we’re talking about. The end. Not to the senses.

Clarification: “Body” Means “Senses”

Student: Wait, we’re going to talk about senses. Not to the senses. When you say body, we mean senses?

Instructor: Yeah, you could say we mean senses at this point. Yeah, we mean senses. Very good.

Extended Discussion: Is Sleep a Taiva?

Student: Sleep would be a תאוה [taiva]? And it’s not – sleep is not a תאוה [taiva]?

Instructor: No. No, I don’t think so. I think that’s a very weird thing to say. Sleep is not a תאוה [taiva] because you’re not – you’re not there when you’re – you don’t enjoy sleep.

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: Firstly because of that. I don’t think it makes sense to say that you enjoy sleep.

Student: No, actually, because reality is that I enjoy – I don’t know, it’s bothering me because of the way –

Instructor: I didn’t say you don’t enjoy it. You see, firstly, especially people who sleep like 12 hours a day – by the way, I don’t think it’s a pleasure. I think it’s – I don’t know. Firstly, like you’re saying, it’s like resting. It’s the opposite of doing something. Pleasure is when you’re doing something. It’s that pleasure. It has to do with like – if you go like in the תניא [Tanya: foundational Chabad Hasidic text] chart, it would have to do with like depression. Is depression a pleasure? I mean, people could say, “I enjoy being depressed,” but that’s like just a weird artifact of language. Being depressed is not enjoying anything. That’s like the definition of it.

Student: No, but sleeping for a half hour – that’s a bodily pleasure.

Instructor: I don’t think it’s a pleasure. It’s like a social pleasure maybe, to sleep.

Student: How about resting? You’re never – yeah, all the guys – the garbage truck has to wake up and I’m here –

Instructor: No, but how about resting on the couch, not actually sleeping?

Student: Maybe it’s a pleasure of the mind.

Instructor: In any case, sleep is for your – very good.

Rest Is Not One of the Senses

So rest – rest is not one of the senses. Rest is like – I’ll tell you why sleep is not a pleasure. Okay, for different reasons. I don’t think – maybe in this context – no, he’s usually associated with the same sort of bad character in the sense that – you imagine the person –

Student: No, laziness.

Instructor: Someone who sleeps too much – let’s be very clear. Someone who sleeps too much, we call them lazy. We don’t call them pleasure seeker. We don’t, right? We call them lazy. It’s a different thing.

Student: But I’m not asking – no, it’s part of the same caricature. I’m asking you to have the five senses. That’s what I’m asking you for. No reserve on how much –

Instructor: Wait, wait. I’m asking you to have the five senses. That’s what I’m trying to say.

The Instructor’s Personal View on Sleep

Ah, sleep, in that sense, I don’t think – by the way, if you ask me, sleep is a pleasure of the mind, just like – how do you call it? Being drunk is – okay, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Brief Digression: Is Dreaming a Pleasure?

Student: Is dreaming a pleasure? Like, is thinking a pleasure?

Instructor: Yeah, it’s a pleasure, but not of the body. That’s what we’re talking about. There’s social pleasures that have to do with other people. There’s – okay.

Analysis of the “Sloth” Character

So how – where’s the pleasure? Someone’s like a sloth – that’s a kind of laziness, like a species of laziness, like extreme laziness. Like he just sleeps and eats all day. The sleeping part is laziness, and the eating is also because of laziness – because nothing, anything else. Okay, could be like bad מדות [middos: character traits] also go together with each other, right? It’s like good מדות [middos] go together with each other. Okay. Like not controlled as well – being uncontrolled leads to all kinds of things.

Methodological Point: Why Restriction Matters

What we’re trying to specify – the virtue of temperance is having to correct – no, no, wait. So our self – temperance is a lot more limited. That’s what I’m saying. If you make it “having the correct and not being – not letting your body control you” or something like that, for physical pleasures, not for other things – that will give them a different name. We’ll talk about them separately. This is what allows us to have a שיעור [shiur] on each thing separately. Otherwise my שיעור [shiur] would finish very quickly.

Student: It’s like saying – like, do you enjoy – okay, no, it seems that analysis to sleep, if you’re applied to eating, would seem –

Instructor: But it wouldn’t seem the same, right?

Student: Oh, it might, it might.

Instructor: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes, yes, yes. Let’s talk about that. Let’s look at that. No problem. Yes, no, no. And there’s nothing with eating, only with the pleasure of eating, right? The טעם [ta’am: taste] doesn’t ever take away –

Student: Wait, exactly. So that’s why – let’s just – falling asleep –

Instructor: Let me, let me – okay, maybe Christmas – I don’t see that it’s pleasurable. I don’t know what’s pleasurable – falling asleep. I don’t have what you’re trying to say. I’m not trying – something sounds weird. Okay, let’s not – this is not a שיעור [shiur]. I’m going to sleep. We got this very important – go to sleep. Not – I was here today. I was here today. It’s about the general concept, okay?

Second Restriction: Which Senses Are Relevant?

So now, let’s talk about more things, okay? So now that we realize that this is just – you could see all of this as just a linguistic clarification even if you want. It just helps us work normally. Instead of pretending that when we say pleasure, we inhale all the pleasure, we know we’re in bodily pleasure, okay?

Now let’s make it even more restricted. Do we mean all bodily pleasures? Like let’s say like this – like all of the senses.

Test Case: Visual Pleasures (Sight)

So I have some things that are not about – I’ve – okay, let’s go back to my מוח גיר [much gear: mental imagery/framework (?)], because in my head I have מוח גיר [much gear] that makes sense. You maybe you have different מוח גיר [much gear] that says different things.

The מוח גיר [much gear] in my head – let’s say someone that likes the theater very much, or likes art. He likes art museums. He goes – art museums are a very weird way to experience art, but anyways – someone who likes beautiful scenes. He goes on trips to see beautiful views, okay? Buildings – no, views. Nature, something like that, okay? He loves that. Is he about – it’s a pleasure of a sense – sense of sight, I guess.

Test Case: Auditory Pleasures (Hearing)

How about someone who likes music very much?

Student: He doesn’t enjoy the sensation of seeing. It’s not because his eyes feel good.

Instructor: Well, I – by the way, it is. By the way, you don’t hear people saying like, “It hurts my eyes to look at that.”

Student: No, they don’t mean their eyes. I don’t know – seeing beautiful things helps your eyes?

Instructor: No, isn’t it – I mean, help your eyes? It’s – it says in the book – it’s a –

Chapter 10: The Narrowing of Temperance: Why Only Touch Constitutes True Bodily Pleasure

Is Visual Beauty a Matter of Desire (Taiva)?

The Question of Sight as Bodily Pleasure

Student: Is he a baal taiva [בעל תאוה: master of desire/one controlled by desire] too? It’s a pleasure of a sense, sense of sight, I guess. How about someone who likes music very much?

Instructor: He doesn’t enjoy the sensation of seeing. It’s not because his eyes feel good.

Student: Well, I, by the way, it is, by the way. You don’t hear people saying, like, it hurts my eyes to look at that?

Instructor: No, they don’t mean their eyes. I don’t know. Seeing beautiful things helps your eyes, no, isn’t it? I mean, help your eyes. It’s a beautiful thing to see. It’s a beautiful sight.

Student: Yeah, I guess.

Instructor: Well, eyes are not things that have pleasure. So you realize that we’re trying to get—we’re getting at something very weird. Eyes don’t have pleasure? It’s like the mouth having pleasure with schmoozing [Yiddish: chatting, conversing]. It’s like that.

Student: No, no, that’s a tool. That’s what he’s saying.

Instructor: No, schmoozing is not in the mouth. It’s in the give and take. It happens to be that you need a mouth. If it’s in writing, when you post on the internet and you schmooze that way, it’s the same schmoozing. Or fingers. Or if you have some other way to type, I don’t know.

The Irreducibility of Visual Experience

Student: You can’t enjoy scenery without eyes. There’s no other way.

Instructor: In your imagination.

Student: Imagination is just like fake eyes, isn’t it?

Instructor: Maybe. You can argue the fingers. But that’s not the same. Imagination is one pleasure, and seeing things is seeing. You can’t just imagine them and say I have the same thing. That’s not true.

Student: Like, is it akin to—let’s put it this way, I could draw a closer relation between the sensation of taste and touch than I could between touch and sight.

Instructor: Right, there’s a difference. There’s a difference in the way those senses work. That’s true. They work by touch. Mah she’ein kein [מה שאין כן: in contrast to] sight and hearing and smell work at the distance. Aristotle was impressed by that.

Student: Well, smelling, I’m saying, is a portion of it.

Instructor: It might be a kind of taste. Maybe not. Maybe it’s different.

Student: I can even associate that more.

—

The Mashgiach Test – How Religious Authorities Actually Categorize Pleasures

Movies and Visual Entertainment

Instructor: Okay, the point is that for some funny reason, we don’t talk about—I wonder why, I’m making you notice certain things. Nobody, I never, even a Mashgiach [משגיח: religious supervisor/dean of students in a yeshiva] doesn’t say that watching movies, not talking about movies, the only purpose is to make you feel certain sensations. But, like, movies that have any beauty or any information in them or anything like that, no, he doesn’t call them baal taiva. He calls it bittul Torah [ביטול תורה: neglecting Torah study], bittul zman [ביטול זמן: wasting time], goyish [גויש: non-Jewish/gentile behavior], there’s different pronouns with them, but not taiva, right? Like, no, baal taiva that kicks movies. Usually when a Mashgiach says movies, it just means this, but let’s say they were actually watching movies. It’s not that!

It’s about time that you go on trips, you go to look at the scenery. Nobody even says you’re baal taiva for listening to concerts, do they? I love beautiful music.

How Respected Figures Are Described

Instructor: It’s funny, like again, thinking about Mashgiach as an example, the people that the Mashgiach respect. Not all of them appreciate beautiful sites, but some of them do. And it’s not seen as like, if you tell the Rebbe he really liked a kugel [קוגל: traditional Jewish baked dish], okay, you know, he’s allowed to, but nobody says it as a—nobody respects him for that.

If you tell the Rebbe, he would see a beautiful mountain, he would say, “Mah rabu maasecha Hashem” [מה רבו מעשיך ה׳: “How great are Your works, O Lord” – Psalms 104:24], so beautiful. He’s like, that’s a good thing, right? Or if the Rebbe would hear a stickle [שטיקל: Yiddish – a piece/bit] of chazanus [חזנות: cantorial music], because chazanus was invented more than 50 years ago, so he’s allowed to like it.

Student: So, and they would say, classical music, right?

Instructor: They would say, wow, you would want to listen to it another 500 times, right? We don’t think that’s like a sakana [סכנה: danger], general. Some people might. But, right, we don’t say it’s about taiva. We don’t say, you’re too into it. I guess it could be too into it in other sense, like it takes up too much of your time or things like that. But it’s not about—we don’t talk about the pleasure being like too much. I don’t think so. So, have you heard of anyone saying that?

Student: Yes.

Instructor: What?

Student: Yes.

Instructor: Like who?

Student: I can think of a clinical situation.

—

Clinical vs. Moral Situations

Dismissing Clinical Cases

Instructor: Clinical situations don’t count.

Student: Yes.

Instructor: We’re talking about—because we don’t believe in clinical situations, only moral situations. There’s a kind of person who exists, who experiences aesthetic and intellectual and visual and all these pleasures to a point where it harms his life.

Student: Yeah, that’s right.

Instructor: Clinical just means it harms your life, which means you don’t work for capitalism well enough, which is not very interesting.

Student: No, no, I’m serious what I’m saying.

Instructor: No, because again, you’re not talking about—we’re talking about when the pleasure is too much, not when someone is like, he’s too busy doing one thing but you have to do other things also. Okay, that’s the problem. That’s a question of time management or something like that. I don’t think that—okay, the clinical situations don’t count. We’re not talking about Mashgiach and then it could anyway same thing doesn’t matter in any way. We’re not talking about kinds of situations like that. This book, this sheet, or this kind of shiur [שיעור: lesson/class], at least, is about normal people. It’s about only moral situations, normal, normal, normal situations. Everything, you could do everything.

Important Qualification

Instructor: By the way, I didn’t say, just to be very clear, I didn’t—when we say this, right, it says here in the fetish [פתיש: likely referring to a text or commentary] in this book that I’m reading, we’re not saying that you can’t enjoy music too much, or that you can’t enjoy whatever beautiful things too much. Nobody is saying that. We’re saying that when we have that problem, it wouldn’t be an issue of temperance. It would be some other issue which maybe we’ll find a new name for. Maybe it’s not common enough to have a name. It would be a different issue.

Not a question of time. It would be a different question. Like I said, it could be a question of bittul zman. You shouldn’t listen to music too much. It takes away your head from learning. No problem. There’s a competition. Either your head is about songs or it’s about learning. That’s not a question of time. It’s a different question. Different problem has different ways of working. There’s differences in these things. There’s a reason why we, for whichever reason, we separate the virtues into different things. We shouldn’t confuse these things either. Okay?

—

Eliminating Smell as a Primary Taiva

The Challah-Smelling Test

Instructor: Even sense of smell isn’t really about this.

Student: What about this virtue of, this pleasure of touching your phone all the day?

Instructor: I don’t know which one that is. I think that’s a sense. By the way, I have a kiddush [קידוש: sanctification blessing, often refers to a celebratory gathering with food]. You heard my shiur? I think touching your phone has to do with what Aristotle thinks is a problem. Because it has to do with a sense of touch. Do you know that the people who make phones make sure that they feel pleasant to touch?

Student: Okay, so, yeah, of course.

Instructor: Doesn’t work. No, no, no, that doesn’t… Okay, let’s not… That was just a nice way of me… It’s not even…

Student: How about someone that smells too much? He loves to smell the fresh challah [חלה: traditional braided bread]. Is he baal taiva?

Instructor: In some sense, he is, secondarily. Like, he smells the challah, but he wants to eat the challah. He’s not really about the challah [meaning: not about the smell of the challah].

The Animal Criterion

Instructor: Zog der Rebbe [זאג דער רבי: Yiddish – “Says the Rebbe”], this is like, let’s say, an animal. An animal, for sure, only has taivas. One of the definitions of what’s bad about taiva is that’s what animals do. They don’t have shavamos [שבמות: possibly referring to higher faculties/soul levels]. They don’t have shavamos, right?

And a lion smells a cow or a zebra or whatever he’s going to eat, right? Does he like to say, “Ah, good smell”? No, he’s like, “Good meat.” Different. If you say good meat, then you’re a chai [חי: animal/living creature]. If you say good smell, then you can make a bracha [ברכה: blessing] on pleasant smells. I don’t know if people call like a perfume connoisseur a baal taiva.

Student: No, it depends. If it’s about like the person in a sexual way or something like that, then it might be about taiva. But if it’s like—

Instructor: Like, yeah, all the connoisseurs are trying to take the taiva out of it. That’s what the whole chochma [חכמה: wisdom/expertise] of being a connoisseur of anything is. Take the taiva out of it.

Student: No, I wouldn’t say that. I’d say people who like smelling oud and smelling saffron and whatever.

Instructor: No, no, it’s not. It’s not taiva. It’s not what we’re talking about. Let’s just say like…

Student: It’s not the way the taiva is.

Instructor: Right. So you say, I don’t know if you’d call that person baal taiva the same way you’d call somebody who likes to smell taiva.

Student: Right, right, right.

Instructor: We’re not talking about… At least when we talk about taiva, at least when we talk about taiva, I smell an animal that I like to eat. Like what an animal would do. Things like that. Stimmt [שטימט: Yiddish – “Correct?/Agreed?”]?

—

The Final Narrowing – Only Touch Remains

Summary of Elimination

Instructor: So what are we left with? We’re left with like what you people said. We’re left with only two senses. Touch and taste. Okay? Now even taste is not really a problem. So we’re left only with touch.

Student: Why not taste?

Instructor: Because animals don’t taste their food. Did you know that animals don’t taste their food? They might taste them in the sense of like if it’s sweet, they eat it or something. But they don’t have taste as a kind of judgment, which is a human thing, right?

The Fresser vs. Taster Distinction

Instructor: When you—a taster—there’s a difference between a fresser [פרעסער: Yiddish – glutton/one who devours food] and a taster. You have a taster, he likes the judgment of the food, like, “This is—I get the stickle” [the subtle point/nuance]. There’s an issue as I get the stickle. That’s his pleasure. So that’s not a pleasure of the senses, the pleasure of the judgment. Now is it good or bad, another question.

But the problem of—do you know that if you taste, if you take the people that taste the—can not eat too much, eat too much, you lose your sensitivity. You can’t taste the thing.

Student: Right, it’s like you really taste wine and spit it out.

Instructor: Right, you have to spit it out because it’s the ta’am [טעם: taste/flavor/reason]. That’s what I was telling you all the way in the beginning. It depends on the second bite and the next bite.

Student: Right.

Instructor: Yeah, but that’s the taste. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Taste as Judgment, Not Sensation

Instructor: So taste is exactly the thing that animals don’t do. Distinguishing flavors, it says like here. Like when you taste wines and people actually baal taiva don’t like that. That’s not what we call baal taiva. Some Mashgiach might call it baal taiva. The Rambam [רמב״ם: Maimonides] might call it baal taiva for other reasons, but the Aristotle didn’t call this baal taiva.

—

Aristotle’s Definition of the Baal Taiva

The Rambam’s Characterization

Instructor: What is the baal taiva? He gives an example of baal taiva. It’s what the Rambam said. Rambam said that he thinks that taiva sechila [תאוה שכילה: foolish/stupid desire] is very dumb. Why? Because he made it for himself. Then I see that Aristotle made it up.

He said, why is it very dumb? Because where do you have the taiva sechila? How big is it? It’s like 3 inches, like from your tongue until here [gesturing to throat]. Once it’s here, it’s very small. It doesn’t make sense.

Student: The kasha [קושיא: difficulty/question]—no—

Instructor: His kasha—it—no, no, but what he’s getting at, you see, you remember that philosophy is about figuring out what people mean when they say funny things, which is all of us, right?

The Story of the Crane

Instructor: So Aristotle says—he says a mashal [משל: parable/story]—listen, listen, no, I’m explaining what he means. Aristotle said that he heard a mashal of a person who was exactly the kind of bad person that we’re talking about, but he had a tefillah [תפילה: prayer]. He said, “Can you please make my tongue as long as like the long—” how do you call the crane, like a bird that has a very long tongue that sticks out all the way?

Student: Yeah, something, yeah.

Instructor: Why? Because he’s like, that’s my pleasure. So it’s a shiur [שיעור: measure/amount] that’s too long. I could only—only a little, thought of a lot. The whole pleasure is in the like touching of the food on the—on the taste was—this is where the pleasure is. Like, so he’s—his tefillah was—

And Plato would say that he would become a gilgul [גלגול: reincarnation] in a crane because…

[Recording ends]

Chapter 11: The Sense of Touch as the Defining Domain of Temperance and Its Animal Nature

The Anecdote of the Long Tongue: Illustrating Pure Touch Pleasure

The Story and Its Meaning

He said, “אנא ה׳ [Ana Hashem: Please, God],” can you please make my tongue as long as like the long—how do you call it—a crane, like a bird that has a very long tongue that sticks out all the way.

Why? Because he’s like, “That’s my pleasure.” So it’s true that it’s too long, like it’s only a little. The whole pleasure is in the touching of the food on the taste buds—that’s where the pleasure is. I’m like, hmmm.

Platonic Reference: The Myth of Er

So his תפילה [tefillah: prayer] was… and Plato would say that he would become a גלגול [gilgul: reincarnation] back in a crane, because everyone gets a גלגול in what he really wants to in his life. That’s what it says in the Myth of Er [from Plato’s *Republic*, Book X]. You should read it.

So if you eat, right? So if your pleasure isn’t that, that’s what you’re going to become. So that brings out what we mean when we say intemperate.

Talmudic Support

Or in the same way, like the גמרא [Gemara: Talmud] says on the פרה [parah: cow/heifer], “הא מאוה ואמש טעמה” [ha amaveh v’amash te’amah] and so on. Which means to say that this יד [Yid: Jew], his hope is—his whole pleasure wasn’t this like ever cut and this like three inches or whatever, if my inches—that his thing was this, this touch.

That’s the kind of pleasure that we’re against. That’s at least that this מדה [midah: character trait] is talking about. That’s all the pleasure of the sense of touch, and that’s the exact pleasure that only animals have.

—

The Core Argument: Touch Pleasure as Uniquely Animal

Why Touch is Problematic

That’s why it’s a problem. Not only animals—that we share entirely with animals. Because even taste we don’t share with animals, because animals don’t drink old wine that like special—”I taste it”—that only people do that.

Animals, they have the sense—the pleasure of taste you could call it—of the touch of the taste, not the taste of the taste, not the judgment of the taste, only the touch of the taste.

The Animal-Like Quality

So that’s what is animal-ish—stick—that’s why this is there. That’s why… let me… yeah, we just… we just playing because all food is about touch, that’s why.

Well, sex is more directly about touch and food is more directly about taste, but it’s really the touch of the taste, not the taste of the taste.

So that’s why the people—the kind of people that we… the kind of people that have the bad מדה [midah]—that they are the most animal-like, that we’re like the most מוסלמים [Musselmen: a term used here] and philosophers, is precisely the people that are slaves to the sense of touch.

—

Aristotle’s Famous Statement on Touch

The Quote and Its Context

This is where we get the famous quote from Aristotle. This is the chapter—it doesn’t literally say in this chapter, at least not in our version—that said that you should be ashamed of the sense of touch. I understand, very famous quote from Aristotle, wrote a few times: “The sense of touch is a disgrace to humans.”

Correct Interpretation

By which it means it’s a disgrace for humans to live by the sense of touch, or to be too much into the sense of touch—by which we mean pleasures of the sense of touch—because that is precisely the kind of pleasures that animals have.

And humans, of course, going back to the function argument from Part One, from ספר א׳ [Sefer Aleph: Book One], humans are the kind of things that do specifically human things.

Pedagogical Purpose

So now you understand. This whole sheet was in order to get you to understand that statement that you probably read quoted somewhere. And if not, then it’s kind of a שוה [shaveh: worthwhile/appropriate] that you don’t know it, but anyways, now you do. And that is what it is.

—

Objection: What About Human Touch Pleasures?

Aristotle’s Own Question

Then Aristotle was like, wait, but I have some touch things that are human. Like for example, doing exercise or having a massage—that might be a human pleasure of the sense of touch, not an animal, because animals don’t give massages.

Nobody said you’re a בעל תאוה [baal taiva: one controlled by desire] if you like massages too much.

Methodological Clarification

The kids at חמס [Hamas—likely a place name or institution]—everything when we say “animals don’t do that,” we don’t mean that you can’t go on some website and say, “Do animals do this?” and say, “Yeah, we found the animal do that.” That’s not what it means.

It’s like when we say, “Does the body do it or does the mind do it?” We don’t mean to say, go make an x-ray of your brain and see if the neurons light up. That’s not what I mean.

Now, in the same way, why not think about yourself at night?

—

Summary: What Has Been Gained

Restriction of Domain

So what we gain by all of this is to realize what exactly we mean when we talk about bad pleasures. Or we talk about—bad pleasure is not the correct word. We talk about the virtue of having the correct amount, or the correct relation, or the correct amount, or the correct time, and so on, of pleasures.

Or we mean it’s precisely bad pleasures, and more precisely pleasures of the sense of touch—or neither get food and sex. Those are basically the pleasures of the sense of touch.

What Is Excluded

There isn’t really—I know all the ones that I’ve heard of—like you said, scratching yourself. Aristotle said the scratching yourself isn’t the problem, or at least not in the same kind of way. Like things like enjoying a massage, or exercising, or enjoying the exercise, or enjoying this wedding, or things like that—come to the shirts, Mr. Problem. Eating—that’s the problem.

Not this problem. There’s might be problem. Nobody said there’s no problem with any of those things, just to be clear. Just that’s not what we’re talking about. All we get to gain from this whole thing is to restrict it so we shouldn’t get confused when we talk about—

—

Student Challenge: Isn’t Pleasure Still Pleasure?

Student: But you said something else. No, I didn’t say—I meant exactly this, but I can’t—just one second. The taster that’s tasting it, right? Yeah, right. He has a question. The taster that’s tasting it—it’s the pleasure of just the pleasure, right? The… I know you’re calling it figuring it out, but it’s that pleasure, pleasure per se.

Instructor: Nothing is wrong with pleasure. You see, now you could change it. We’re not talking about pleasure. Our problem is not pleasure. Our problem is really more being like an animal. Not about pleasure. It’s sort of up to animal that pleasure.

There isn’t something wrong with pleasure. Not even wrong. We’re not even like talking about this. We say the word “pleasure,” but we don’t mean that.

—

Why Categorical Distinctions Matter

What This Sheet Is NOT Saying

All of those things are different. This sheet is not saying that everything we just excluded is a good thing, or there’s no mean about it. There are מדות [middos: character traits] for כבוד [kavod: honor]. There are מדות for schmoozing too much. Those are important things.

But don’t talk about them under the same heading as פרישות [perishut: abstinence/temperance].

Why Separate Them

Why not? Because you just get confused. You try to apply the same rules here and there. They need different rules, or they need different wisdom to see the situation correctly morally. That’s the whole point of us splitting all the מדות.

Otherwise we could just do Socrates’ thing and say there’s only one good מדה, which is being a good person and knowing what to do—which is true. But the point of all of this is like every learning.

The Cars Analogy

Like Aristotle says, by knowing what the Good is, you’re not going to make any car. Although what makes good cars good is the Good—the idea of the Good could be—but you have to know about cars.

The same thing. But you already heard my שיעור [shiur: lesson] about cars and motorcycles and everything. I don’t know, everyone has to listen to the other שיעור also because it’s the same thing with different משלים [meshalim: examples/parables], and I can’t repeat.

—

Concluding Statement

Point is, you have to learn. You have to learn about this specific thing. So, and otherwise you get confused. And they get—like I said in the beginning of the sheet—by not having correct words, you also mess up your life.

So therefore you got to know exactly what we’re talking about. And what we’re talking about is exactly this.

And that’s all. השם [Hashem: God] should help us.