What does “definition” mean – “Mean” is the definition of virtue

Virtue as the Mean: Defining the Good Character Trait

I. Recap: The Unresolved Question About the Middle

Instructor: Okay, I hope my mic is connected. The story is, what did I say last week that we have to talk about? I know what I have to talk about, I just don’t know the answer to the question. Or I know a little bit of it. What we said is that we talked about a lot of different things last week. Which were? The main point was that the side point which ended up taking a lot of time was that *midos* [middot: character traits] is based on the actions that you do. So like the sum of the actions that you do and not some internal measurement of your temperature. Something like that. But then you’re saying that the middle means the right, it’s just the right action. I’m trying to figure out exactly how is it even a middle. Meaning, you can have courage. The middle is to have courage. The things that are not… So what we talked about, which were the things that we’re not talking about, is that there’s a whole bunch. Let’s go back, okay?

II. The Full Argumentative Context: From Happiness to Virtue

A. The Starting Point: Happiness as the Ultimate Goal

Instructor: There is a question that goes like this. We already know that we want to be happy. I’ll give you the whole *chazara* [review] and *shevet* [sitting/session]. We already know that you want to be happy, which is the highest, the best thing. The best thing is to be happy, because that’s what people want to be for no reason. Right? That’s the goal. *Nachon* [correct]? Remember? The one thing that you don’t give a reason for is being happy. Which means being the best kind of you. It doesn’t mean feeling happiness, but that’s another whole *derushe* [discourse/sermon]. And the being happy is about doing what you are well, doing what you should be doing well. That’s what makes you happy.

B. Virtue as Human Excellence

Instructor: Which is why the human happiness or the human perfection consists in living according with virtue. Virtue is just another word for excellence or perfection. Like in everything we say, something like the good and the doing well are the same for everything. The camera-ing well is the same thing as being a good camera. So human-ing well is the same thing as being a good human. Right? So therefore, being a good human and a happy human means acting in accordance with virtue. Right?

C. Character Virtues Specifically

Instructor: There are a few kinds of virtue which we’re not very much concerned with right now, the distinctions of them. Mostly distinguished into what’s called character virtue. I don’t like how the camera looks. We have to lower the whole thing. Put the whole thing lower, not that. I have to not wear a white shirt, that’s another issue. Take the whole thing and put it down. This stick, this big stick in the middle, turn the thing and put it down a bunch. Probably that way. Yeah, and then make the camera straight instead of pointing down. So it should actually go on my face mostly. There’s one other thing that you turn somewhere that does it, I don’t know which. I don’t know, I don’t want to mess up.

Student: You’re not going to mess anything up, don’t worry. Have some courage.

Instructor: No, it doesn’t look like it’s that one. It doesn’t turn by itself, you have to loosen it and then turn it, right? Oh, that was not good. That was the one, now you know which one it is.

Student: Yeah. See? Very basic thing to find out how things work. You break them and you see which part breaks.

Instructor: True. Basic rule of debugging. Yeah, that’s good, right? Very good. No, better. Color is still off, but that’s my fault.

Okay. *B’kitzur* [in short], remember, there’s a few kinds of being good, which have to do with a few parts of the soul and all of that. And *b’kitzur*, now we’re discussing specifically what we call character virtues, things that have to do with feeling and action, not with knowledge and things like that, although they’re not disconnected from knowledge because everything needs a kind of knowledge. We went through this a little bit already. Right?

III. What Being Good Means: Action and Pleasure

A. The Necessity of Liking the Good

Instructor: Now, being a good person means doing good things. Right? Is that what it means? Liking to do them, wanting to do them. But, right, there’s this but, which we will elaborate later at length in the discussion of self-control versus being virtuous or having not self-control but liking it. But in short, nobody calls someone good if they’re against doing good things, if it hurts them, if it pains them, if they don’t find pleasure in it, which is why pleasure is a very important thing to talk about, what you like, liking. Right? Which is why being good consists of being a good human, especially a happy human, because also one of the things that you won’t be if you’re fighting with yourself all the time is happy. This is also something that has to do with the whole thing boiling down to happiness, which is one of the reasons why we’re always after liking what we do instead of forcing ourselves to do the right thing. Right?

B. Contrast with Kantian Ethics

Instructor: This is why people like Immanuel Kant were explicitly against Eudaimonian ethics or ethics based on happiness. Also have the definition of ethics as doing something that you don’t like or acting out of duty, out of the motive of duty, instead of out of the motive of what is best for me or subjectively best. But in any case, that’s another whole *drush* [discourse].

C. Summary of What We Know

Instructor: And now we’re in the part where, so there are good things, but it still consists of doing good things and liking to do them, right? And having whatever it means that you like to do the good things. Okay? That’s the kind of thing that being good is. But we still don’t know what kind of thing or what kind of things are the good things to do. Right? Specifically the kind of good things which we call as pertaining to character, because there are other kinds of good things which are higher perfections really, which has to do with knowledge and understanding, which we’re leaving on the side for now, although those are the best things and there’s a whole other discussion about the life of thought, right? Life of contemplation. Now we’re still talking about something like a social life, a political life, an active life.

IV. The Central Question: Which Habits Are the Good Ones?

A. Locating Our Position in the Argument

Instructor: Now, so this is the question. Do you understand how I got you to this question? In other words, we already know what kind of thing virtue is. Why virtue? We already discussed and so on. What kind of thing virtue is or being a virtuous person is? We already know. It’s a kind of having a kind of something we call like a habit or a habit together with a liking, or a habit together with a liking together with a kind of judgment that allows you to see what is good and so on. That’s what kind of thing. But what is it? Right? Or we could say, which sort of this kind of thing is it? Someone’s at the door. Is it that makes things good? We still don’t, that makes actions good and therefore the habits or the character traits that make you want them good. We still don’t know that. Right? No? That’s where we are in the course of the book.

B. The Mean as the Answer

Instructor: And that is where the answer of the middle thing comes in. This is very important to realize, to realize, at least in the source in Aristotle, where this idea of a mean even enters into the discussion. The place where it even entered into the discussion was, and this is how we organized it, precisely this place, after we know what he says, we know the genus, we know what kind of thing virtue is, but we don’t know which of it it is. Right? In other words, there’s many habits, there’s many, people can do many different things, and therefore they can have many different, what we call the *midda* [character trait], not really a good word. We should call it the trait, the character trait, the habit is maybe a better word. Even that is not a good word. Aristotle just calls it a hexis [Greek: disposition/state].

C. Terminology: Kinyan and Its Meaning

Instructor: Now, you have a Greek word to put in place of that, which we don’t know what it means, but some kind of condition, right? Some kind of state of the soul, or habit is the Latin translation, habitus, which gives us in Hebrew things like second nature, which is kind of a nature, right? Or how did the *Rambam* [Maimonides] call it? A kind of *kinyan* [acquisition/possession].

And I said a wrong *pshat* [interpretation] on that last time, I looked it up. *Kinyan*, the reason it’s called *kinyan* is not because it’s something you buy, although that’s in some sense true, it’s because it’s something that belongs to you. And it’s translated by the Arabic, this Ibn Tibbon, I’m confusing you now, right? Any case, Ibn Tibbon back-translated this from Arabic, because in Arabic, what Aristotle called hexis, usually there’s some other words, and in Latin it’s translated as habitus, is what’s translated as something like *malakat*, which is something the same as *melech* [king/ownership] in Hebrew, like originally, something like leadership, or ownership, or belonging. They say it about you could own anything, and it’s like something that you own. That’s how we got the word *kinyan* for this. And of course, I think he’s thinking of the *Mishna* that says things like *kinyan Torah* [acquisition of Torah], and things like that, and he interprets it that way, but he explicitly says in *Be’er Sheva* [commentary on Mishnah Zeraim], that that’s how he got the word *kinyan* for these kinds of things. And he says that it means something like nature, nature and what makes a thing do what it does.

D. Returning to the Question

Instructor: So, anyway, this thing, just to get back to where I am, we know what this is, hopefully we know what this is, because that’s what we spend a lot of time figuring out what that is. But there are many of those, right? You could be good ones and bad ones, right? So we need some word which will distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.

The Mean as Definition of Virtue: Aristotelian Logic and Philosophical Method

The Etymology and Meaning of *Kinyan*

Instructor: They say it about you could own anything, and it’s like something that you own. That’s how we get the word *kinyanim* [acquisitions/possessions] for this. And, of course, I think he’s thinking of the Mishnah that says things like *kinyan Torah* [acquisition of Torah], and things like that, and he interprets it that way, but he explicitly says in *Bepeirush l’mishnayos l’zeraim* [in his commentary on Mishnah Zeraim] that’s how he got the word *kinyan* for these kinds of things, and he says that it means something like a nature, a nature, what makes a thing do what it does.

Distinguishing Good Habits from Bad: The Need for Specific Difference

So, anyway, this thing, now just to get back to where I am, we know what this is, hopefully we know what this is, because that’s what we spend a lot of time figuring out what that is. But there are many of those, right? You could be good ones and bad ones, right? So we need some word which will distinguish the good ones from the bad ones, right?

Aristotelian Logic: Genus and Species

If you know Aristotelian logic, you know that this is called looking for the specific difference, or the species instead of the genus. Remember this? In an example of if we ask what a human being is, first we ask of what kind of thing he is, right? What sort of thing he is? If we say a human being is an animal, then we say, but which kind of animal? And we say he’s a rational animal. So that’s the difference between humans, and in Hebrew it’s translated as a *hevdel* [difference], the difference between a human and a different animal, which is, which kind of animal is he, right?

So first, two ways of saying the word kind, right? The same thing—what thing is, what is he, which kind of thing is he, is an animal, that’s the bigger group that he belongs to, and which group does he belong to in that, that’s what we call the species, usually, that’s the Hebrew translation for these things. So *sug* [genus/type] is the bigger one, and *min* [species] is the smaller one, and that’s what’s defined by the specific difference.

Applying the Structure to Virtue

In the same exact way, we know what kind of thing good *middos* [character traits] are, or virtues are, right? They are habits, but we don’t know which of those they are, right? So what’s the specific difference that makes a habit into a good habit? And for this, Aristotle gives us the answer of the middle way. So now we know what this whole middle way is for, why it exists.

The Nature and Limitations of Definitions

And, of course, this is what we call the definition, right? The definition, usually, is this, is both of these things. The definition in Aristotelianism is *geder* [definition], okay? If you ever went to yeshiva, you heard the word *geder*. *Geder* is a word that Jewish Aristotelians made up, also, probably through Arabic or something, to translate the word, Aristotelian word, definition, and it doesn’t have the exact meaning of definition in English.

Definition has this very precise meaning in Aristotelianism. Definition means giving the genus and the kind and the species of a thing. The definition of a human being is a rational animal. The definition of a *kinyan* is a *ma’aseh shemechayev et hachoshech* [an act that obligates the darkness], and so on, right? The definition of the good activities, or the good human being, is having *middos* which are intermediate. That’s how we get to this definition.

Why Definitions Begin with General Principles

That’s why whenever someone is going to present to you the theory, he’s going to give you the most general definition, always. That’s just how science is supposed to work. That’s why we usually get this, but it’s important to realize that that’s all it’s trying to answer. It’s trying to answer the exact kind of thing that good things are.

Definitions Don’t Tell You Much

But remember that we’re still talking about a kind, right? Remember that this definition, telling that a human being is a rational animal, doesn’t tell you very much about a human being. It’s telling you, at most, something like, OK, I see there’s animals, and I sort of… Animals are things that move under their own volition, or some kind of… That’s also a definition. And there are things that move under… You notice, right? Animals are things, or maybe I should say living things, that move by themselves. I give you what kind of thing it is, and which one of that kind it is, right?

You’ll notice that, naturally, we also give definitions always in this way, but they define it very precisely. In the same way, but that doesn’t tell you much about a human being. All it tells you is how to distinguish a human being from other animals. And therefore, we say this is what is most… Human being of human being mostly is, is most, right? Because that’s what defines him. But that doesn’t give you a lot of information. All it gives you is… His science is about looking for the most general definitions always of everything. And then we can drill down and drill down and drill down and drill down.

There’s a very famous Porphyry’s tree [a diagram showing hierarchical classification from genus to species], which shows you how you can drill down from body all the way to some very specific thing. If you haven’t seen the picture, it’s a nice picture. You can look it up.

The Point of This Methodological Discussion

But the reason I’m telling you all of this is just so you understand how this language works and how saying that the definition of good actions is the middle is not supposed to give you much more than that. Make sense? Is that helpful? And it’s not supposed to give you a lot more than saying a human being is a rational animal.

The Diogenes Story

Famously, the guy, you know, the famous guy that made a joke. What was the… Diogenes or someone came into the Platonic Academy and said he has a man because one day they were playing with definitions and they said that human beings are featherless bipeds and they brought a chicken, or something like that. Right? A plucked chicken. They plucked the chicken and said, here’s your man. Right?

And that’s a joke that’s trying to express… Of course, that’s not the correct definition of a man anyways. But it’s a good joke that shows you how useless definitions sometimes are, especially if you get the wrong ones. But even if you get the right ones, they don’t give you a lot of information. And you might… In the same way, this definition of good things as the middle things doesn’t give us a lot. Or if you want to work backwards and it doesn’t…

Student: To prove that the species is incorrect, because it’s not differentiated, right?

Instructor: Right. Then that was wrong. Exactly. He found an exception which shows that it’s not the correct definition, of course. But it’s still not extremely informative. I can’t tell you a whole lot about a human being. Even the rational animal thing doesn’t tell you a whole lot. Unless it’s worked backwards, right?

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Learning: Rambam vs. Mishnah

The Two Directions of Learning

Just to understand, this is what caused… And you remember that this is really because, as we keep on discussing, the Rambam always presents things backwards. Or really in the correct way, but in the wrong way for learning, right? Remember that Plato told us several times that there’s an up… Remember, right? There’s a top-down way of learning and a bottom-up way of learning, right? The way up is the way down. But they’re different, right? The way up is collection and the way down is division.

When you learn from the principles to their particulars, or from the particulars to the principles, right? Or sometimes you call it induction and deduction. It’s not exactly the same thing.

Rambam’s Top-Down Method

In other words, if I start from a general definition, and then I tell you this is a case of that, usually this is the correct way of things, right? Because reality has primarily, even Aristotle thinks this, that the rules, the classes of things, the forms of things, the definitions of things, are primary ontologically to their cases, right? This is why the Rambam tries always to teach this way, and it also strikes us as a logical way to teach. If you read the halacha, also the Rambam tries to give you the *klal* [general principle] before the *prat* [particular detail].

Of course, you’ll notice that the Mishna doesn’t do this. And people say this is because the Rambam is more philosophical than the Mishna. It’s precisely the opposite.

Why Chazal Are More Philosophical Than Rambam

I’m going back to my same hack as I say always, but I never said it in this way. You have to understand something. The Rambam is less philosophical than the Mishna. This is just because I remind myself of someone saying this week again, the same *shtus* [nonsense] that *Chazal* [the Sages] are not philosophers. They are much more philosophical than the Rambam, that’s for sure.

Why? Because the Rambam gives you the result of philosophy, which is the correct way, right? He starts the tree from the top, like the Rambam starts with the first principle, you know, you saw this, and you go all the way down to *hilchos Sanhedrin* [laws of the Sanhedrin], you know, you realize, right? The Rambam, *Sefer Hamada* [Book of Knowledge], all the way to *Sefer Shoftim* [Book of Judges].

The Structure of Mishneh Torah

The worst, the last thing in the order of reality, is that there is halacha that you have to follow the judges, you know, like *Sefer Shoftim*. It is, because that’s how the world looks. It’s just about managing people down here and having conflict and stuff. The last thing is that *mashiach* [messiah], you know, the smallest thing. You have to do everything else before you have *mashiach*, right? We work the opposite. We work the opposite.

Philosophy as Ascent to Principles

Now, like Aristotle Plato used to say, are we going to the principles or coming from them? Generally, philosophy is supposed to be going to the principles, not coming from them. The goal of philosophy is to get from the principles back down, right? But what we usually identify as philosophy is actually learning, which is we find ourselves in ignorance in this world, we find ourselves in ignorance in this world, we’re starting to think we can see and then we try to ascend to the principles, right?

Example: Hilchos De’os

Now, the Rambam, for example, this is a very good example of the Rambam doing it backwards, right? Actually, in *Hilchos De’os* [Laws of Character Traits], he starts a little bit with the details. But, for example, here in *Hilchos De’os*, where he just started and gave you this definition, it says, let me give you the final result, because he’s making things short and easy for you, supposedly. He doesn’t want to burden you with all the dialectic of how we get to this. He just tells you, well, the middle way is the correct path. Thank you very much.

But the problem is that since we don’t even know how to deduce this, we don’t know how did he get to this. People have very wrong opinions of how they got to this. They just imagine things, which are not in the text or not anywhere. And, therefore, the only way to read the Rambam is dogmatically most of the time instead of philosophically or dialectically.

The Mishna’s Bottom-Up Method

Versus the Mishna, for example, I’m just saying this because I have to finish my thought about that, and it’s very important. Versus the Mishna that, for example, always, even when the Mishna gives a *klal* or a general form or a general definition, it’s always posterior, it’s always after the details, right? The Mishna will always give you a long list, and they say, *zeh haklal* [this is the general principle]. The Gemara will say, *zeh haklal she’omru* [this is the general principle they stated], find one more detail, because what is that *klal*? Is that a *klal*? It’s because it’s a *klal*. No, who cares about *klal*, right? No, of course, there’s a *klal*. There’s always a *klal*. But the *klal* is always after the details.

And it’s true. Even if you read the Rambam and you start something with the definition, you’re going to understand what he’s saying. Only if you’re coming to it after the Gemara, and you know, oh, so this is the general definition that makes sense of everything. Right?

In the same way, that’s why I think that the Gemara and the Mishna are actually a lot more philosophical than the Rambam. Of course, they don’t discuss theology too much, but even when they do, they’re more philosophical than the Rambam is.

Student: Good *pshat* [interpretation], right?

The Common Misconception

Instructor: People always think that the Rambam is logical and the Mishna is illogical. It’s just the opposite. The Rambam gives you the results of a certain logic, and that’s why the Rosh [Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel], and I said it, actually, last Thursday, I think that he’s right now. The Rosh [transcript ends mid-sentence]

The Mean as Definition of Virtue: Understanding Through Examples

The Rambam’s Method vs. The Mishnah’s Method

Why Mishnah and Gemara Are More Philosophical Than Rambam

Instructor: In the same way, that’s why I think that the *Gemara* and the *Mishna* are actually a lot more philosophical than the *Rambam*. Of course, they don’t discuss theology too much, but even when they do, they’re more philosophical than the *Rambam* is. Good *pshat* [interpretation/explanation], right?

People always think that the *Rambam* is logical and the *Mishna* is illogical. It’s just the opposite. The *Rambam* gives you the results of a certain logic, and that’s why the *Rosh* [Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel, major Talmudic authority], and I said it, actually, last Thursday, I think that he’s right now.

The *Rosh* quotes a great man in Barcelona that said that we don’t understand the *Rambam* if we don’t learn *Gemara* [Talmud]. Remember? Very famous statement, because there are some people that say that we have to pass *halacha* [Jewish law] from the *Rambam*. The *Rambam* told us we don’t have to read *Talmud* anymore.

And the *Rosh*, arguing with this, said that it’s all… Firstly, he disagrees that the *Rambam* is an authority, so he thinks that he can say it just like the *Rambam* could. But he says that even if the *Rambam* would be an authority, he doesn’t think that the people that read the *Rambam* understand the *Rambam*.

And he quotes a great man in Barcelona that told him that the parts of the *Rambam* where he learned the *Talmud* for it, he understands the *Rambam*, and the parts where he didn’t learn, like *Kodshim* [the order of the Mishnah dealing with sacrifices], things like the subject of the little reading *yeshiva* [Torah academy] over there. So he doesn’t know the *Gemara*, he doesn’t understand the *Rambam*.

This is also somewhat of an indictment of the *Rambam’s* project, which tries to make the *Gemara* unnecessary and turns out to not actually succeed.

Why Definitions Need Details First

But I think more significantly, it’s a really true point, that you don’t really get… If I tell you a man is a rational animal, you’re like, OK, what do you want from my life?

If you notice, wait, we’ve been going through all the things that men do, and then we’re trying to think what is the essence, what’s the one thing that includes all of these things, and I get to this, then you understand that I helped you somewhat, I’m giving you something. But if I didn’t go through all the details, and I just started with this, you realize that it’s somewhat of an empty… it doesn’t have much meaning.

So *kitzurim* [summaries] and *klalim* [general rules] are very good after the details, not before. There are problems with this, of course. There’s also pedagogical problems, it’s very hard, and most people don’t ever get to the rules. That’s why the *Sifri* [halakhic midrash on Numbers and Deuteronomy] says you should learn Torah, *klalim*, and…

But anyways, the *Rambam* follows that advice of the *Sifri*. But it’s a good way, that’s why we learn *Mishnayos* [plural of Mishnah], teach *Mishnayos* to kids and so on. But even the *Mishna* is not really that kind of… OK, in any case, I’m getting lost in this discussion.

The Mean as General Definition

The First Function of the Mean

My point is just that in the same way here, we have to understand that I think that the first thing that the middle thing, the word middle is doing, is to give us a general definition for all the good things. That’s the important thing, the important work that it does.

Of course, this helps us somewhat. Of course, if you find an exception, it will be a problem with our definition. I’m not saying that it’s not supposed to include everything and it’s supposed to be the correct definition. But it’s not supposed to be the most informative definition at all. It’s not looking to be informative, it’s looking to be something like the opposite of informative. It’s looking to find the essence of it.

Now, of course, we have to explain why we think that this is a good candidate for being the essence. And there would be several ways of going about this. Several ways of explaining why we think that the essence of the good habits and the good activities consist of them being a mean. And what I even mean. That’s why I discuss them. We also have to understand what I even mean by saying this.

So the first thing, I will tell you. Should I say that first or should I say first the other thing? Do you understand my point? That’s one point that I’m making.

Student: You’re saying that we should first say what the habits are?

Instructor: Really, we should first. In some sense, yes. That’s not what Aristotle does, so I can’t say that’s the correct method because it’s not what anyone really does. He does do it a little bit. In other words, even *Rambam* did it a little bit.

How Aristotle Explains the Mean

In other words, there’s like four. If you look in his book, in the Ethics, I wrote down exactly where he does this, but I don’t have my chapter numbers and stuff here. But if you look here, you’ll see that he does three or four different explanations of why he thinks that virtue is a mean. He always uses also examples, just to be clear. You can’t do this without examples. Which means that we always assume that you already know something.

If I tell you, for example, right? If I tell you some parts of something, he tried to take always the first two virtues that we talk about are temperance and courage, right? And if I show you that it’s obvious to everyone, if I show you, for example, he doesn’t exactly do this because I don’t think this is enough to show you that virtue is a mean. But it right away shows you, if I told you, look, courage, which you think is a good thing already, of course, if you don’t think that courage is a good thing, like most people in Lakewood think courage is a bad thing, then you’re totally out of the discussion.

But if you think courage is a good thing, you could also see that there’s, that means that being a coward is a bad thing, but also that being rash is a bad thing. Being something like too courageous or being irresponsible, right? That’s not the same thing as courage. You could see that it’s not the same thing and I could show you how, therefore, my best guess, my best bet as getting something that actually explains what kind of a thing courage is is to say that it’s the middle of this subject of courage.

Or the same thing with temperance. You have to assume that you already understand. You might have not noticed it, but I have to show you.

Understanding Courage as a Mean

The Problem with Seeing Courage as a Spectrum

I think courage is actually a very good example. Temperance is a more complicated example. There’s no spectrum of courage. I mean, you could have a spectrum whether you personally have it or not. Courage itself does not have a spectrum. Courage is courage.

The other way to understand it is spectrum. That’s for sure not what we’re trying to get at, that there’s a spectrum and you should be in the middle. That’s what we already went through. There are some mistakes that people have about it. The reason they have these mistakes is because they don’t actually realize how we got to this, why we did it. There are other reasons why people get to ideas like golden means. And the golden means is not what I was talking about. I don’t know if I gave that to *shiur* [class/lesson] here yet. I did talk about it last week. So I don’t keep track. I don’t know the golden means.

Courage Between Cowardice and Rashness

But yes, you can see that, for example, we praise courage. Courage is a virtue. And we can also see that running away from everything or not facing any fears, not facing any, I guess fear is the thing that courage is against, or danger maybe, is not courage. We have even a word for it. We call it being a coward.

And we could also see that that doesn’t mean that courage is the most of that. This is an important thing. I think that this is intuitive to most people when you talk about courage. You could also see that therefore I should just be the one that jumps into every, that always volunteers to go first in the war. Well, no, you shouldn’t always volunteer. Sometimes you’re just being stupid.

And then I ask, okay, so therefore what the virtue consists of is not, and we could show that this works in a similar structure for everything. So this would give me a structure for everything. But I could show you that what the virtue of courage consists of is not jumping into facing dangers with equanimity or something like that. That’s not what it consists of because if it consisted of that, then you would have to always want the most of it.

Why the Mean Concept Emerges

It’s sort of the opposite. The reason why we get this idea of the middle, of the mean as being the correct, is because we assume that you want to be the best. Just the opposite than other people, right? And if what defines courage as a good thing is the courage-ness of it or something like that, then you would want, or in other words, is the facing danger, dangerous-ness of it, then you would always have to be facing the most danger. But you see that it’s not correct.

So I could show you very easily, so I ask you, what’s the difference between courage and stupidity? And you say, well, stupidity is just too much courage. Well, that sounds, in some sense you could say that. If there’s a spectrum of facing danger, then too little is cowardness and too much is rashness or stupidity. I like the word stupidity for this actually. And courage is something in between.

But you understand that this in between is something like a *moshol* [parable/analogy]. It’s an analogy. It’s not the point that you’re in between. The point is that I’m showing you that courage doesn’t mean jumping into the most dangerous. Courage means jumping into the correct dangers for the correct reasons, right?

Being courageous for your country maybe when it’s in a great danger is a good thing, but being courageous for your lollipop is not a good thing. So it’s not about, there’s always all of these becauses and whys and hows and amounts, in other words, measures, that make it into a good thing.

What Makes Courage Good

So therefore, what makes courage good is not that it’s courageous, that it faces danger, that it’s not afraid of danger. What makes it good is that it’s the correct kind. Of course, there are many kinds of correctness. Of course, you have courage and temperance and all the rest of the virtues. Because they have specific subjects and there might be, like we discussed last week, there might be specific sciences and specific habits and specific trainings for each of them.

It doesn’t mean that just having one of them will give you all of them, although in the most general sense, they are all the same kind of thing. But what it shows you is that this is the kind of thing that it is. Does that make sense? This is, I think, in this sense, this is the first sense in which it is useful, right? In other words, it is a definition that you can understand.

Applying the Same Structure to Temperance

Temperance as a Non-Jewish Virtue

Once I gave you this example, I can show you the same thing with temperance. Say something like temperance is something like, not, what is temperance? Temperance is something that we don’t really, especially in Hebrew also, courage I discussed enough, but temperance is the opposite, right? Courage is a noun from virtue. It’s a *goyish* [non-Jewish] virtue.

Somebody would even say, read Aristotle and say, the first thing he talks about is courage, where this guy didn’t read the same Bible as me. By the way, in the Bible, courage is praised many times. In *Chazal* [the Sages of the Talmud], much less. Or none in the same way. Or at least we don’t remember how to read it that way. In *mussar sforim* [ethical/moral literature], there is never a *tzaddik ometz* [righteous courage], is there?

Courage in Jewish Sources

Doesn’t *Shlomo* [King Solomon] talk about having enough courage? Actually, the *Shulchan Aruch* [Code of Jewish Law] of *Rav Yosef Karo* starts with the virtue of courage, if you noticed. People don’t realize, they think it’s about fighting yourself only. They are taught really, right?

That’s what *Yehuda ben Teima* says, the first thing he talks about is courage. *הוי עז כנמר וקל כנשר ורץ כצבי וגיבור כארי לעשות רצון אביך שבשמים* [Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven]. *Az kanomer* [bold as a leopard] is courage.

And it says in the *Shulchan Aruch*, *לא יבוש מפני המלעיגים בו* [He should not be embarrassed before those who mock him]. That’s the virtue of courage. Actually, a very important virtue, but people don’t really talk about it enough. Or if they talk about it, they talk about it in funny ways. So courage—

The Mean as Definition of Virtue: Understanding Temperance and Moderation

The Virtue of Courage and Its Misunderstandings

Instructor: People don’t realize, they think it’s about fighting yourself only. The Torah really, right? That’s what Yehuda Ben Teima says, *hevei az kanemer v’kal kaneshera* [be bold as a leopard and light as an eagle]. *Az kanemer* is courage, right? And it says in *Shemonah Perakim* [Eight Chapters – Rambam’s ethical treatise], *v’aizehu gibor hakoveish et yitzro* [who is mighty? He who conquers his inclination] – that’s the virtue of courage. Actually a very important virtue, but people don’t really talk about it enough, or if they talk about it, they talk about it in funny ways. So courage is a great virtue.

And temperance, we think is like a *frum* [religious/observant] virtue, and we think that it means also an extreme. The Rambam is going to go on and on and on about this.

Student: Well, that’s why you might not want to talk about it in certain situations. People might take it to mean a messed up idea.

Instructor: No, no, I just need to take another example so we see that it’s a general rule, right?

Temperance in Classical Greek Philosophy

But in the olden times in Greece, in Athens, everyone knew that there’s four virtues. And two of them are courage and temperance, right? And temperance means something like… By the way, the word temperance, it’s sometimes translated as moderation, right? Or in Greek it’s *sophrosyne* [σωφροσύνη – Greek term for temperance/moderation], which I don’t know what it translates to exactly.

Student: It’s a Greek word.

Instructor: *Sophrosyne* or something like that.

Student: Okay.

Instructor: And sometimes you see it written like that in English also. Or moderation, right? Moderation relative to pleasures, specifically. But we can see from that, the way it’s taken, anyone in Athens at least would understand that when you say that, you don’t mean someone who has no pleasure in his life. What it means is he’s moderate relative to pleasure. He’s not taking more pleasure all the time. He’s not some kind of… How do you call it? I don’t know. *Nintan b’ivrit* [it’s said in Hebrew], I say. How do you say it in English? Pleasure seeker, too much of a pleasure seeker.

Student: What is that, a hedonist? But we don’t really mean that.

Instructor: Yeah, but hedonist is not a good definition. That’s why I don’t want to use that, because that’s really a philosophical stance. Right?

The Common Misunderstanding of Temperance

And we say that, but everyone understands in the same way. I could show you very simply that… I don’t mean… Aristotle himself notes that this is something that he has to explain here right away, and you’ll see the Rambam also quotes it the same way, or literally the same way. I don’t know if I showed you that.

But we don’t really realize this so easily, because when I tell you you should be temperate, you should be less of a *baal taavah* [person driven by desires], right? Less of a *freisa* [glutton/excessive eater]. Then you think that what I mean to say is that the virtue is not to be a *baal taavah* at all. And people make this mistake, and there’s a reason why they make this mistake, and that’s because almost nobody has the problem of being too little *baal taavah*. Even the people that pretend, usually.

Almost nobody has that problem, so it’s not like we really have to get people to have more pleasure in life. Actually, I think that nobody does. I think that some people pretend that they have this problem, but it’s just a question of ideology, not a real question. And we’re not talking about ideology.

Student: You know, I don’t know if it’s relevant to you at this point. Okay.

The Ideology of Pleasure vs. Reality

Instructor: I have a bunch of friends going around that, you know, the teaching in yeshiva that you shouldn’t enjoy life, and gosh, but really you should. And I’m looking at this guy, do you know anyone in yeshiva that doesn’t enjoy life? Why are you giving me this *drasha* [sermon]? It’s just a question of ideology. Who cares about ideology? Ideology is fake anyways. That’s what Marx said, right?

Student: In practice. What I mean to say.

Instructor: What I mean to say is that it’s very simple, that all the people going around and saying that, you know, the world is good, you should enjoy your body and your life, and unlike the *frum*, supposed *frum* people who are against this. Do you know any *frum* people that don’t actually enjoy their life?

Student: No. People who are just tortured souls regardless.

Instructor: They would find a way to be tortured in every society.

Student: No, that’s what I’m saying. They blame it on that, it’s not… Yeah. No, but it’s not like people like the yeshivish *chinuch* [education] is against enjoying life or like Chasidish *chinuch*.

Instructor: Well, it’s true that we talk that way. It’s true that we talk against *taavos* [desires/pleasures], but guess what? I have a teacher who’s very *frum* and very precious, and he told me he doesn’t understand people that give like, you have to give a *drasha* to the Chassidim that they should enjoy themselves more. Like seriously, the *yetzer hara* [evil inclination] does a very good job of teaching everyone to have *taavah* [desire]. He doesn’t think he needs help. If you need help, you need help for the moderation part. Like, okay, don’t overdo it. Keep your mind with you in some sense.

Like, I meet people that seem to think that really nobody’s enjoying life. But I think that the reason is because people over-index on ideology, saying like, we hold that *Olam Hazeh* [this world] is not good. Okay, who cares what you hold? Holding is… it doesn’t make any difference what you hold.

Student: Maybe you’re saying, some people get tortured about it. But really, how many people really take these things seriously? Like five?

Instructor: I was in yeshiva, in a very *frum* yeshiva. Nobody… everyone enjoyed. Okay, so they have… who cares? So they enjoy their pizza instead of enjoying some fancy restaurant. That’s not a big difference.

Student: So what about the literal version of the guys you’re talking about? And they’re always like, oh, so you took it seriously? Literally? That’s weird. Like no one else did.

Instructor: Yeah, like some OTD [Off The Derech – people who left religious observance] people. But they’re also pretending, because even their rebbe… I know the guy. I’m talking to this guy that told me this *drasha*. It’s very funny. He had to give you a fight against this literature, *Chassanim* [grooms] and other people they teach. And *l’maaseh* [in practice], I know exactly what food he likes and he makes sure to buy it for Shabbos and even for the weekdays. It’s not like he’s not enjoying his life. Of course, he’s trying to control himself. But who is against self-control?

It becomes very funny, and I think that people are over-indexed, and that’s why I said over-index on ideology. Like, we hold. Okay, so you hold. That’s why even Aristotle says, we don’t really need to talk about this problem. We don’t even have a name for that person. He makes up a name. He says, let’s call him insensitive, but insensitive doesn’t really mean this. He’s making up a name just so his structure should work, that we have the too much and the too little.

The Rare Case of Insensitivity to Pleasure

Student: Some people are sterilized to certain indulgences.

Instructor: Oh, yeah. Some people are asexual also, supposedly. I don’t believe them. Anyways. Maybe they are. Who knows? No, I mean, certain people just… But not because of the *mashgiach* [spiritual supervisor in yeshiva]. Some of them are like that.

Student: Wait. Yeah, but I know certain people that just aren’t moved by certain, like…

Instructor: Okay. What’s wrong with that? I mean, like… By what? By why they’re not moved? I actually don’t know those people. I mean, there’s some people that are not… They don’t have enough… They don’t have a very developed emotional life or imaginative life or something. They don’t enjoy films or something. Okay.

Student: I don’t know. I think my grandfather doesn’t enjoy life enough.

Instructor: Doesn’t enjoy life enough?

Student: No, he won’t turn on the heat in the… But it’s funny… Wait, is he a Holocaust survivor? It’s funny. He’ll literally eat whatever’s on sale. That’s it.

Instructor: Okay, well, what’s the problem with that?

Student: The problem with that is that… Yeah, I don’t think it’s the same thing. The problem with that… By the way, there is a problem with that. I don’t think… That’s a different medium. They’re annoying to us. That’s a separate medium. I don’t think it has the same meaning. Probably has to do with poverty and things like that.

Student: No, he gives $5,000 checks to every grandkid on Chanukah. He’s very generous.

Instructor: Yeah, but maybe he was brought up… I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. Let’s see. Because he was brought up. It doesn’t matter.

Student: No, I think it’s an over… It’s like a stinginess, no?

Instructor: No. No, he’s very generous. He’s not being stingy with himself. I think also he’s just totally unprioritized at all. And he doesn’t realize it, but maybe your grandkids don’t want to come over because you just don’t turn on the heat. Like, at this point…

Student: No, I know what you mean, but I don’t think it’s… I don’t know. I don’t think we could call it over temperance. It’s something… Maybe it is, actually. Maybe it is. Okay, but I think usually these kinds of people who had a hard childhood and grew up in poverty and they got used to that you don’t really turn on the heat because it costs too much money or something like that.

Student: No, he just… I don’t know. Even if that’s why. You’re just telling me the story of why.

Instructor: Yeah, I’m saying it’s not… He’s still doing it, I have to tell you. It’s complicated reasons for why I get angry. It’s not really anger. It’s just insufficiency. I get it. It’s an action or it’s a way of… Could we say that that’s bad? You think it’s bad?

Student: His grandkids won’t come over, so… That’s a different problem. That’s lack of empathy or something. Okay, maybe you don’t turn on the heat, but maybe the other guy needs to do it.

Student: No, he knows you’re uncomfortable immediately. He thinks you like it just as much as he does. Why wouldn’t you enjoy wearing your winter coat in the house?

Examples of Extreme Asceticism

Instructor: I’m not sure. I remember there was a *tzaddik* [righteous person] that was like this. He was like, he didn’t give out cold drinks. There was a guy that I used to invite *bochurim* [yeshiva students] on Shabbos in Yerushalayim and he didn’t give cold drinks in the summer because it’s *taavos* [desires/pleasures]. He didn’t have air conditioning either. So you could have a tea if you wanted.

Student: No, that’s not… That’s different, right? I’m like, you’re a good guy. I’m not sure. He was training us not to have *taavah* [desire]. I’m not sure what was the idea. Not like he drank. He also didn’t drink. It’s fine. That kind of… Even that person. He didn’t enjoy… I don’t know. Weird masochism or something.

What Would Deficiency in Pleasure Look Like?

Student: What would it look like? We’re also saying everything is relative. What would it look like for someone not to enjoy life? What would it look like for someone to underindulge?

Instructor: No, but we could understand that that kind of person maybe is not… I don’t really know. It depends on your picture of the ideal human being. To me, that’s not ideal. Maybe I’m wrong. Is there no *kitzvah acharon* [extreme end]? Meaning, is there no harmful degree of this?

Student: Yeah, yeah. Well, harmful degree of insensitivity? Of not enjoying life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. What would that look like? Maybe these people that we’re discussing are actually in that sense. They seem to be missing a certain human… Experience, yeah. A certain part of being human. They seem to be missing… Yeah, they seem to be missing something.

Instructor: Maybe Aristotle would agree with that. Not only Aristotle. Maybe even a Platonist. Even an extreme virtue person, extreme ascetic person could say that they’re missing something. Because part of being human is to get that people like… But based on what is this? I’m just making this up because that’s what I like. I don’t know. I can say about what I like. I think that it’s normal to like certain… There’s something, I think… There’s something… It’s not about normal. Something in a conversation with someone who doesn’t… You could say it’s something rich. Like we talked about someone that has a rich life. Like something like you know the difference between salt and pepper. I don’t know, like an extreme example, right?

Student: Yeah. They’re both the same, right? They’re both sort of sharp and that neighborhood… Yeah, but it’s not even one habit. Is that… Specifically either. I find that people who are like this… Sure. First of all, they’re not turning on the heat. Second of all, they’re reheating the same food for three weeks in a row. And yeah, it’s fine. Beef and peas. Yeah, it’s all the same habits. I get it. I don’t know… I don’t know what’s so bad about it though.

Student: It’s abundance at a table. There’s so much beef. It doesn’t taste like anything. You’re not participating in a pleasurable human experience. Right?

Discussion on Temperance: The Problem of Under-Indulgence

The Difficulty of Identifying Under-Indulgence

Student: Yeah, it’s all the same habits. I get it. I don’t know what’s so bad about it though. It’s abundance at the table. There’s so much beef.

Instructor: It doesn’t taste like anything. You’re not participating in a pleasurable human experience.

Student: I just think it seems like a different *mida* [middah: character trait] that you’re discussing, not temperance.

Instructor: Why?

Student: It’s the exact opposite of a *fresse* [glutton]. We are talking about, I think, yeah exactly. It’s someone that, if the *gefilte fish* [traditional Jewish fish dish] isn’t—it’s too much cooked or too little cooked—and he’s not going to eat it at all. He’s overdoing it. And someone that, it could be, you know, all these stories that the wife put the tissues instead of the fish in the oven and he ate the tissues. Whatever. Yeah, that’s something is wrong with you.

Instructor: Okay, maybe he’s—I can understand those stories as a beautiful thing in the sense of the life of the mind. You’re so in your mind, you’re not living in this world.

Student: Yeah, because it’s not your life.

Instructor: Okay, *beseder* [alright]. But as long as you are living in this world, which maybe you shouldn’t be—that’s a different discussion, right? That’s why I think, for example, what I personally think, but this is just my personal opinion, I don’t know if it means anything. I would say something like this: if a *Yid* [Jew] is like these stories, he was learning all day and he forgot to put on his shoes or whatever. Okay, so he has a much more pleasurable life because he’s contemplating and he doesn’t really care about his body. *Beseder*.

That has to do with the questions of contemplative life and so on. But there are some people that don’t even do that. He’s not contemplating, he’s not doing anything. It’s not like he’s so into Shabbos and he doesn’t care if there’s food. Okay. He just doesn’t care about the food. So then in that sense, on that level, there might be something weird, something wrong with that. But it’s hard to say what’s wrong with it.

The Problem with Excessive Insensitivity to Pleasure

Student: I think you can figure it out. Is it as bad as the two other practices?

Instructor: The reason why the grandkids don’t want to come over is not because they think that they’re insensitive, it’s just dementia. They feel judged.

Student: No, first of all that. If you get *chas v’shalom* [God forbid], you get takeout, what are you even doing? Why would someone want to do that? They don’t understand why someone would want to do that.

Instructor: Yeah, it’s abundance.

Student: And the other thing is, yeah, in some sense I think they just don’t realize that this is a part of being a human being. To them it’s like they don’t even understand why. They’re sensitive to things that they understand. They’re very sensitive people. They’re very sensitive to things that you understand, they can understand are worth being sensitive about. This just doesn’t occur to them that pleasurable things might be something that you even want or gravitate towards or at least avoid its reduction to a minimum.

Instructor: So you think he doesn’t enjoy his beef?

Student: No, he does, but he should be enjoying more.

Instructor: Yeah, if he enjoys it very minimally. Let’s put it this way: that beef could look like many things and he doesn’t seem to be moved by those changes. But usually these things are very relative, meaning the person who has much more simple food enjoys them, seems the same amount.

Student: Yeah, could be. Would you say that that person would enjoy it—would you say something’s interesting if that person enjoys it equally if it’s too salty and not salted enough?

Instructor: No, you’re not, you’re not, right, yeah, I’m saying. You’re talking about too salty and not salty enough, and the person’s unmoved.

Student: No, no, I’m saying less options essentially, you’re saying…

Instructor: No, no, no.

Student: Yeah, a way of saying this would be something like, I saw someone, someone said, there was a *machlokes* [dispute] between two Chassidishe Rebbes or something, if you should put salt on your food or something like that. And I think Rabbi Nachman said that he thinks that someone who doesn’t put salt on his food is just like an animal. So cows don’t salt their food. You’re not being a bigger *tzaddik* [righteous person], you’re just being more cow.

That’s a way of saying this. Humans are people that do have some judgment about which food is good. Now, if you overdo that, then you’re a *fresse*, but if you underdo it, you’re a *chamar* [donkey], you’re a *chamar*. Just a *chamar*, when you say a *chamar* is a grass—but also a *chamar* is a big food, he eats grass every day, the same grass, right?

The Case of Ketchup: Determining Proper Limits

Instructor: So how do we know the difference? There’s this guy in Lakewood who is not alive. He had a whole speech against ketchup. Ketchup’s *stam* [just], you don’t need it, it’s just *stam* for pleasure. Ketchup is *gayva* [pride], go to *gehenom* [hell] if you eat ketchup. Right.

Student: Well, we could also say that ketchup is vulgar, it’s this American replacement of whatever. I’m saying you could make such a case.

Instructor: It’s an absolute flavor bomb. Whatever you’re eating it with, it’s just gonna nuke it.

Student: Right, that’s a different—that would be a different argument. That would be, but also you could say that’s too much, who cares, it tastes good, who cares.

Instructor: Right, you’re being too refined already.

The Rarity of Under-Indulgence

Instructor: Okay, so I don’t know, it’s still true for the most part, again, but really, how many of those people are there? Very rare, I’ve only seen it once. You see, there’s lots of people, but usually it’s not. And also I think even those people usually have material conditions that cause this. I don’t know many people that are—I don’t know many people in my generation that are like this. Yeah, yeah. Do you?

Student: It’s only one person I know from all the people I’ve ever met that suffers from under-indulgence. I know people that try to aim at that. Okay, I’m pro-aiming at that, because we’re mostly too big *fressers*. That’s what I’m trying to get at, but if you would get to that level, okay, then we’ll worry about turning it back or something. Right.

Instructor: I’ve seen this.

Student: What?

Instructor: I’ve seen this. Yeah. It happens to be Jews that will have a hard time doing this, because we all have a lot of *seudos* [festive meals]. That’s just a great way to just sit around and enjoy the food. It really does the job of making sure that it’s better.

Student: So we’re all managing to be big enough *fressers*. We shall have too big *fressers*, but we’re not too small *fressers*.

Instructor: I think so, yeah. Okay. Yeah, if you go to rural America, I think you could maybe find some of this. Or people that just don’t have good food in their whole *shtut* [area]. Yeah. There’s no good restaurant in 300 miles. Yeah, and not because they’re doing anything better with their lives. They just spend a lot of time being disinterested in food.

Student: I hear. In other words, a lot of people like that are very big *fressers*, because they eat just little garbage.

Instructor: Maybe in some sense it’s just some kind of depression or something.

Student: Maybe, yeah. It’s depression. It seems like the downside is somewhere else. It seems like the downside would be somewhere else. And then we’re… I can understand. Maybe it’s empathy, maybe it’s some sort of depression.

The Problem of Translating Temperance into Hebrew

Instructor: No, but we’re trying to get a—again, remember, what I’m trying to show you, I’m just—this is where I am. I’m just trying to show you that we have this virtue called temperance. We know what it is: moderation. And we don’t have a good Yiddish word for it, because Yiddish word for it tends to be the extreme word, like *prishus* [asceticism]. And that you try to translate this as *prishus*, people don’t understand.

Or sometimes translated as *zehirus* [carefulness], by the way. *Zehirus* is the Rambam’s translation. The Rambam himself translated as *zehirus*. Sometimes *zehirus*, sometimes *yiras chet* [fear of sin]. Weirdly. Temperance is *yiras chet*. *Yiras chet* doesn’t mean being afraid of doing an *aveira* [sin]. It means not being too big *fresse*. There’s a Rambam himself translated this way.

So we have these three Hebrew words that correspond to the virtue of temperance sometimes in our sources. That it should have been totally misunderstood. Until *zehirus* means being careful. I think that that’s wrong. At least in the Rambam, in the Mishnah, I don’t know. The *middos* [character traits] of *zehirus* means temperance.

Understanding the Correct Amount of Pleasure

Instructor: And it seems to be easy to understand that temperance is a limit to not being too much of a—taking too much pleasure. Or something about having the correct amount of pleasure. That’s how we’re trying to get at. And you could see that person that we’re describing now who just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get that there’s such a thing as being in a comfortable temperature. He seems to not get it. That’s not what we’re talking about.

People would say something else. He doesn’t have an *asan* [foundation/nature]. He’s just born without—he’s a *suras* [eunuch]. He doesn’t have a feeling for that kind of pleasure. But I don’t think that’s the idea. We would say something like he’s not having the correct amount of pleasure. He’s having too little pleasure. Just that usually we don’t really have this problem. And most people don’t have this problem. Most people don’t have this problem.

Therefore I think it’s overrated to talk about it. The Rambam talks about it a lot. But also for different reasons. It’s another question. Why does the Rambam talk so much about—against this *prishus*? How many people did the Rambam know that were over *prishus*? I have no idea. You should be very worried about it. Don’t be… How many people are fasting too much? Seriously. Who is this person? Three weirdos. The Essenes.

Student: What?

Instructor: Yeah. The Rambam says Christian priests. But also how many priests are there? There are thousands of Christians and a few of them become priests. It’s a big thing.

Student: No, there is this thing of the ideology part, right? You think that that’s what the ideal is and everyone is falling short.

Instructor: Maybe they have an outsized influence, those people. And whatever downside there is, they don’t get those *mailos* [virtues/advantages]. Meaning—the other people also don’t? And as much as the ideal people don’t get *mailos*, it affects all of them, yes. But the point is if your ideal people are *prushim* [ascetics], they’re going to be missing something, right? Because they’re not…

The Christian Ideal and Its Consequences

Student: People sometimes make this case. For example, anti-Christian polemics or Jews who are having polemics with Christians make a case something like this. So Christians traditionally, Paul almost explicitly says this, say that the best thing to be is celibate. But we’ll give a concession to the normal people and let them be married. And then when they’re married they should act with chastity and the correct ways. But they’re really—make it afterwards.

Instructor: What?

Student: Make it afterwards. Afterwards, before, whatever. So—but he still has this idea that really you should be totally celibate. And people would make the claim—it’s not—I don’t know if it’s true. People could make a claim like the claim that you’re trying to make. That’s something like that because of this, there isn’t a good Christian ideal of being happily married or being temperately married.

Let’s talk about to talk specifically about this thing, because you’re—ideal people are not married. And sometimes people say if you go to the priest for advice on marriage, he has no advice to give you. There’s actually I saw a priest says the opposite because people—he says people come to you with problems, their girlfriends. Such nonsense. You see right through it. You just guy is never stuck in this nonsense. But I’m not. I’m just get over it, move on.

So it’s not entirely always true that if you’re out of it, you don’t have good advice. But people sometimes say this. *Birchas Shmuel* [Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz’s work] was—he’s the one. No he’s not the same one. He had the similar opinions of I think he was on the side of being moderately pleasures in life. And he said that he doesn’t understand the importance of—

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The Virtue of Moderation: Asceticism, Human Experience, and the Middle Way

The Problem of Asceticism and Human Understanding

Instructor: Such nonsense. You see right through it. The guy is stuck in this nonsense, but I’m not. I’m just, get over it, move on. So it’s not entirely always true that if you’re out of it, you don’t have good advice, but people sometimes say this.

Reb Pinchus Kuritzer was also—he’s the one, no, he’s not the same one, but he had similar opinions of, I think he was on the side of being moderate in pleasures in life. And he said that he doesn’t understand why people go to the Mezritcher Maggid. The Mezritcher Maggid is a *parush* [פרוש: an ascetic], he’s celibate, and you can’t talk with such a person. How are you gonna talk to the guy? He’s not living in the same world as you.

Student: That’s why Shlomo Maimon got divorced.

Instructor: No, no, that’s not why. Different reasons. There is such an argument. I don’t know how true this is, but people say nowadays maybe something like this, but that’s a much broader thing. To talk specifically about this thing of moderation and pleasures, you don’t have a mouth for that, and therefore you end up going to the other extreme. I don’t know how true this is.

Does Asceticism Affect Other Virtues?

Student: Why wasn’t there more? You would imagine that *midos* [מידות: character traits] all affect each other, so it would affect some other thing, and you lose somewhere in other places as well.

Instructor: What do you mean? What do you lose?

Student: Ultimately, it should be that you’re going to be lacking in your knowledge as well.

Instructor: Like you were saying before, that if someone eats too little or doesn’t know the difference between good food and bad food, then when he does *hachnosas orchim* [הכנסת אורחים: hospitality], he’s not going to be a good *machnis oreach* [מכניס אורח: host] either. Something like that. This is the story that we’re talking about. Is that what you mean to say?

But that’s back to the problem of living in this world, and then you say it’s true. So living as a human being in the fleshy world, maybe you want to be a Buddhist, then you should never come out of your monastery. But if you ever come out, then you have to learn what good food and so on is, because otherwise you’re going to not be able to deal with people correctly. There’s such an argument to be made.

Student: Someone could say something like, if you’re an ascetic, then you shouldn’t ever be a *dayan* [דיין: judge], because you don’t realize how important money is.

Student: Maybe there’s something universal that you’re missing. Maybe there’s something more universal that you’re missing.

Instructor: Like what?

Student: I don’t know, you won’t really understand a human and an animal. There’s something universal about a human that you just won’t understand, because you don’t partake in the human action the way you should.

The Question of Human Experience and Virtue

Instructor: I’m not in that, it’s hard for me to say, but it’s exactly what you’re saying. I don’t know, the way a human eats… But this is the question, is the person that we’re imagining in some flyover country, *chas v’shalom* [חס ושלום: God forbid], who has never had a good restaurant or anything, is he a better person in any sense?

I’ll tell you the opposite argument. The opposite argument is something like this. What’s the difference between romance and porn, right? Romance is just a higher level version of the same thing. And there’s an argument that the Rambam [Maimonides] himself makes in *Shemona Perakim* [שמונה פרקים: Eight Chapters], and he says that he thinks that people who write poetry about sex are worse than people who just have sex. Because if he’d have had a cushion, he’d have… You know the Rambam? It’s just dressing up this very bad thing in some fancy way.

But the opposite argument is no, that if you just have sex, then you’re just being an animal. If you give it words, you write some poetry about it, then you’re having some kind of human level of it. The same thing can be said for food and for all these things.

Redefining Moderation: Not Distance from Pleasure, But Right Relationship to It

Instructor: And that’s where we get this idea that it’s not actually… When we talk about temperance or moderation, we’re not talking about… We don’t think of someone getting as far away from pleasure as possible. We think of someone having pleasure in the right way and not in the wrong way.

And this is what leads us to see… Okay, I’m going to stop here. I don’t know what the *halacha* [הלכה: Jewish law] is about all these things. We do see from this very simply… I think if we agree on some level that that’s bad, we can see in some sense right away that the virtue of moderation doesn’t consist in an extreme in the sense of pleasure. Therefore we have to give it a more abstract definition, right?

And this more abstract definition is going to be shared with the other virtues. Because all virtues are a kind of knowing the correct one between options which are more and less. But we also see from this that the more and less is something like an analogy or something… It’s not… We’re not saying… It’s very clear. We see very clearly that we’re not trying to find the correct amount of pleasure and say it’s the middle amount. We’re trying to understand what moderation is. And we say, I can show you that there’s a too much and a too little in that. And therefore you can see that whatever moderation is and therefore whatever most other virtues at least would be, would consist of knowing the correct amount. That’s all.

Conclusion: Moderation in All Things, Including Learning

Instructor: That’s enough for today. There’s a moderation in how long a *shiur* [שיעור: lesson] should be.

I already told you last week that Aristotle explicitly and the Rambam don’t believe in moderation in the intellectual virtues. But it’s not that we don’t act in moderation in them. And I read more than one person saying, and already early people saying that in reality if you see the way we discussed already how Aristotle uses authority versus questioning in general, he does seem to always try to be in the middle even intellectually.

And there’s even Aristotle in the beginning of this book says that even how much to learn is something that ethics has to tell you. That politics has to tell you. Which is the same thing as ethics, right? Because the politician, the king will decide—this goes back to our discussion earlier and this is a weird thing that he says if you think that the contemplative life is the highest thing. He says the king will have to decide how many philosophers there’s gonna be. It says in the ethics and I think that the Rambam would also agree with that in some sense. It doesn’t mean that it’s higher to be a king than to be a philosopher but it does seem to mean that in reality in the city the king is going to decide who should be a philosopher or how many philosophers he needs and maybe there’s too much and too little in that also. Okay. That’s the story.

And also I have to finish… What’s his name? Rav Levy ben Avraham. But therefore there’s two extremes you can be only a philosopher and only a *ma’amin* [מאמין: believer] and the answer should be in between. That’s why you should be more like a philosopher who also is a believer.

Okay. Can I shut up?

Student: Yeah.