The Ladder of Good Character Traits | Eight Chapters, Chapter 4 (Auto Translated) | תמלול וסיכום מתורגם

Two Ways to Build a Beis Hamedrash: Quantity versus Quality

Announcement About the Campaign

Rabbosai, first thing is an important message, that there’s coming a major campaign for our beis hamedrash.

Student: Campaign? What? Campaign? Company? What does our company mean?

Mashpia: Our company.

And it will be possible that we’ll make a mesibah [seudah/party] in honor of the campaign, and we’ll call the cheveirim and we’ll give better kugel, even better kugel. For the money. The person with the money isn’t here, we have to call him. Ah, he’ll hear the recording.

—

Two Ways That a Rebbe Gets Chassidim

We spoke now about the rebbes having a custom to make more chassidim. There are two ways to become a rebbe:

One is to buy chassidim – like “koneh shmuah” [koneh means to buy].

The second thing is “mah esmachei” – “koneh shmuah” means to make. So one can also make chassidim.

How does one make chassidim? Buying means, one says like “kneh lecha chaver” [buy yourself a friend – Pirkei Avos] – when you give something they become your chassidim. Making means, we spoke that you tell the chassidim to bring babies, and the chassidim have more chassidim because the offspring of the chassidim are also chassidim.

—

The Baal HaTanya’s Approach: Making Grandfathers

This is the day of “mefashpesh bema’asav” [one examines his deeds]. Like the Baal HaTanya [Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, author of Tanya] said – they made the grandfathers like dogs starving with chevra, and the children were already artzi [degraded]. The Baal HaTanya said that one must make grandfathers.

—

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s Approach: Go to the Wealthy Man and Scholar

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov asked – Rebbe Nachman of Breslov asked him: “What’s the truth that you have so many chassidim?”

He said: “I think I have many chassidim in London. I go into a room with a check, and the many children who give money for the merit of the rebbe, the children give me that, and it turns out they’re my chassidim.”

He understood that when a child gives, someone gives money, that makes him his chassid.

—

Quantity versus Quality: Which Way Is Better?

Also in the matter of the… okay, so it’s like this: both in our matter of how we appear to the world, and in our way to make money, there are also two ways, like quantity and quality.

If not quantity and quality, the question is only: is quantity before quality, or is quality before quantity?

What does that mean? There’s such a thing called – how do you call it? – such a mass campaign. Like there were once certain politicians who said they don’t make more than twenty dollars per person, but they have twenty million people – it comes out twenty dollars comes out to a lot of money. That’s one way of the rise of Yiddishkeit.

The second way is that you have only twenty people, each person gives twenty million dollars.

Which way is better?

Student: Each person gives a million, yes.

Mashpia: Meanwhile the one who has one person with twenty million won the election, and the other one who had that one lost. And why? Because the masses grab.

—

Rebbe Nachman’s True Way: Go to the Elite

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov said to his chassidim – he said he wants to go make chassidim. That the order regarding our world, that particularly in Breslov the custom is that they make chassidim from all the unlucky ones, the one who needs chizuk. And this comes to look – Rebbe Nachman gives chizuk, and he becomes a Breslover. And so on, other people who are vulnerable who need chizuk. And he says that they go, they need to strengthen themselves, vulnerable people and help them. There’s also a bit of a mitzvah itself when one does that, which we already spoke about in a shiur.

But Rebbe Nachman said that the true way is not that.

He said he wants his missionaries [shluchim], he wants to go to the greatest wealthy man of the city and the greatest scholar of the city – him you should make.

Why? Because every wealthy man already automatically has a hundred people under him, whatever spirit he will be, they will be. And every scholar also automatically has people who respect him – whatever spirit he will be, they will be.

So instead of working on the low level, one must work on the more concentrated, and in the end one has even more chassidim also if one goes this way.

It’s not true what people say that it’s “few in quantity but many in quality,” the elite and so on. If one is a true elite, in the end it takes over the world much faster and much better and much more stable than when one goes first to the masses. The masses usually follow whoever has – whoever is the baal hameah or whoever is the baal hadei’ah, and so on.

—

Application to the Beis Hamedrash

So baruch Hashem our beis hamedrash doesn’t yet have thousands of chassidim – it has hundreds of chassidim. And may it increase, and increase hundreds, and increase. Each shiur is already hundreds of people.

Student: Hundreds of people?

Mashpia: Yes, each shiur over hundreds of people.

Someone tells me now outside, he has a mashpia who gives shiur to people who believe in what he learns there. So he says that the shiurim are on Rambam Hilchos Dei’os, and he’s uncertain – maybe, I don’t know – yes, he’s uncertain there whether he should put it online, Hilchos Dei’os.

Each shiur hundreds of people watch. I told him: yes yes, and the people who learn the shiur are both the great scholars and they have more money – yes yes, yes – it can be a change. They take steps in their shiurim.

—

The Difference Between Our Beis Hamedrash and Others

And here it’s the same thing. When one looks at you it’s not just a belt like comes [just a like], whoever stands at the parentheses.

Many people stand at the parentheses but they don’t understand, they don’t learn anything from the rebbe, they just make themselves chassidim – that one can’t apply.

If the rebbe sells something, then every person who comes here – he learns it out for another hundred people, whether he actually learns it out. I already know many things that I know – people have said this from a second one and that from a third one, and in practice I said it to the first person.

So it’s not just that everyone learns it out for others – something changes here long term things by them themselves and transmitted.

—

The Campaign Structure

And also in the campaign there was the same ratio of how few people there are and how much money there is. It’s not that here there are only one-two wealthy people who give up the money. No, it’s actually not so!

It’s because the twenty, thirty, forty, hundred people who are here – each one of them either gives a lot of money himself, because he understands it. It’s not a thing that one gives money because the beis hamedrash needs money.

It’s a true… there’s an over-used word called “partnership.” But sometimes it’s true – that makes it.

And this is also a mitzvah of being a melamed Torah – not only a mitzvah of learning Torah and supporting Torah, but also a mitzvah of being a melamed Torah.

So naturally it’s concentrated, and this also brings that the next two thousand people either hear it out and either give money and either make it so that one can work.

—

The Verse “Ve’asafta Deganecha” – A Normal Business Order

Baruch Hashem, the last few years we’ve made very successful campaigns. It helped very much that one can a whole year not think too much about money, but think about learning. A little one must think about money also a whole year, but not too much. So one can fulfill the mitzvah of “zos hape’ah” [?]. One fulfills.

So that’s the true order, you know. The true order is that one should send in a person every day to work. The Almighty said “ve’asafta deganecha” [and you shall gather your grain – Devarim 11:14], “adam osef” [a person gathers].

Yes, I’m not speaking of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [who holds one should only learn], I’m speaking of Rabbi Yishmael’s approach: “at the time of harvest, at the time of sowing.”

A normal business has a certain time – a whole year it brings in, and afterwards there’s a harvest, and a campaign comes. And in those days one doesn’t learn, one only works, and afterwards from that one lives the rest of the year. That’s “time of gathering, time of rest.” So that’s the order – it’s a normal thing, a normal business.

—

The Plan for the Campaign

So, im yirtzeh Hashem, we’re going to launch a campaign. We’re going to set a goal of what is two-three thousand dollars for the next year.

And since there are at least twenty people who are the true students, each one can give ten thousand dollars. And afterwards the next two hundred thousand dollars come from the other two thousand people who they give perhaps only a hundred dollars each.

Very simple. That’s the plan.

And next week there will be a mesibah in order to strengthen the plan, and one can give to the gabbaim exactly how much one will pay in honor of the event.

And that’s it, and that’s my drashah about this. Up to here.

—

Mazel Tov

Mazel tov to a brother who had the fifth baby.

Student: Ah, mazel tov! A baby?

Mashpia: It doesn’t say – it’s a secret person, he had a baby, he should have mazel tov. Im yirtzeh Hashem, all children he should have nachas from all children, all children he should marry off. Not revealing. Good health.

—

Transition to Learning: Recap of Last Week

Okay, now we’re going to learn like this. We learned last week about a topic, and this week I’m going to learn a bit more about that topic. And we’re going further with it. So that’s the order.

What did we speak about last week? I’m going to make a new order: at the beginning of each shiur someone must repeat briefly what we learned last week. I don’t have time to speak.

I honor the yungeleit. Like the rebbe – one honors the mekubal side, one honors the speaker. I understand that we have no speakers, but no further.

Okay, one time I’ll do it, next time you’ll have to do it. I’ll send notes, I already sent notes. The yungeleit don’t want to speak, I don’t know why.

—

The Main Topic of Last Week

The main subject was last week – I’ll tell you. Next week I’ll take out how one does it, okay?

The subject was last week – I wrote notes also, I wasn’t finished from last week, but there are notes every week that state the summary of the shiur. It’s on the website. It also says what the next shiur will be, so someone can understand it.

There’s a shiur on Tanya also. I look up on – what’s it called? – “Yisro.com.” There is Shemonah Perakim of the Rambam [Eight Chapters of the Rambam], Chapter 4, and one learns from there the piece.

—

Project for the Students

It’s like this: last week we spoke that we’re going to learn… a project – the world should try to figure out what the shiur will be, and submit. Even better.

First should be what was last week’s shiur, okay? The first project.

—

Recap: Individual Middos and the Question About Laughter

Last week the shiur was about the subject that we’re going to learn the individual middos – each middah that the Rambam brought, we’re going to learn what it is and how one can fulfill it, or whether one is exempt from fulfilling it if it’s a bad middah. The Rambam meant it’s a good middah, and one must have open eyes on it.

The shiur was: whether it’s a virtue or not to laugh [humor].

—

The Introduction to the Introduction

But immediately it comes that one must make an introduction. Everyone knows that one must always make an introduction. One finishes all the introductions, and one knows anyway everything.

And the introduction is: why we speak of the specific middos, we must understand what is the whole matter of speaking of specific middos. True?

There is one foundation that we already learned, and therefore there is what to argue that there’s no such thing as middos at all – rather there’s one thing called “ratzon ha’adam” [the will of man], or to do what the intellect says, and there’s no such thing as middos at all. This we already took care of from last time.

But now we spoke about a more specific question, which is: must one already say that there are true middos, or there aren’t true middos.

We must know what first we spoke about in the first part of the shiur: What is the virtue one has to at all give life to middos?

Two Ways in Dividing the Middos: Sefiros versus Objects

Review and Introduction: Why Does One Speak of Specific Middos?

That was the question: whether it’s a virtue at all to divide the middos.

But since I come here, I must make an introduction. Every time I must make an introduction. When one finishes the introduction one knows anyway everything.

And the introduction is: why does one speak of specific middos? One must understand what is the whole matter of speaking of specific middos, true?

There’s one topic that we already learned before Pesach about this, that “davar Torah ein lecha ela chidusheh” [a Torah matter you only have through its novelty] — there’s no such thing as middos, rather there’s one thing called being a person, or doing what the intellect says. There’s no such thing as middos. This matter we already took care of from last time.

—

The Specific Question: How Does One Make a List of Middos?

But now we spoke about a more specific question, which is: let’s already say that there are deep middos, or there aren’t deep middos — one must know what.

First we spoke in the first few weeks’ shiurim what virtue one has from at all giving names to middos, and having in mind a certain list. That was one topic.

We argued that if one doesn’t know the names of a middah, one doesn’t know to do it, because one doesn’t notice it. And certainly one can’t speak of the derech ha’emtza’i shebah [the middle path in it], and one doesn’t have where to go in the extremes. That’s one thing.

—

Two Ways to Divide the Middos

The second thing, more a continuation now, was that we spoke about two ways — and I caught that there are even three ways, and the third way is very important.

We spoke about two main ways how one should divide the middos. That means, let’s say one does make a list — but how does one arrive at the list? True? How does one arrive at the list?

We argued that there are two ways. I’ll explain it a bit differently today, and go further from there.

—

The First Way: According to Sefiros and Yesodos — Finished

The List of “Seder Mesirah Olam”

One list is what’s written in Seder Mesirah Olam [a Kabbalah book that divides middos according to sefiros]. Making such a list we dismissed very strongly, but no one wanted to agree. So I learn that I was right — I don’t know. No, not screaming certainly means I was right. No one objected.

Why Not Make Such a List?

Because we said it won’t help. We argued it’s useless. It’s just a nice Torah, it doesn’t help at all. What will one do with this?

Certainly, I certainly don’t know. I don’t know what it means to have kavanah each day for a different middah. I know certainly what it means to have kavanah for the kavanos, the names — a different name each day, that I understand very well what it means. But I can’t tell you that I feel anything when dancing.

Someone shouldn’t correct me — I say that I’m an oved Hashem in a different way, I’m a simple Chassidic Jew.

—

The Kavanos of the Arizal and What Chassidus Says

I can tell you Chassidically like this: It’s written in the Arizal [Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the great mekubal] that each day one should have kavanah for a different name. The day the name Havayah with the vowel segol for chesed, and tomorrow the name Havayah with the vowel tzeirei for gevurah, and so on.

The Chassidus books say: What does that mean? What do I have from this? Do I have something from what I do?

The first you should have ahavas Hashem, the second you should have yiras Hashem. The first you should do chesed, the second you should do din. That makes sense, you understand?

It makes less sense. I know what it means to have kavanah, I know exactly what it means to have kavanah for the name Havayah with the vowel segol, I know exactly what that means. I mean, I can’t explain it to you, but it’s not more meaningful. I mean, it’s not meaningful.

—

The Question: One Day Ahavah, One Day Yirah?

The fact is that one day you need to have ahavas Hashem [love of God] and one day yiras Hashem [fear of God]? Why? I think it’s interesting.

—

Digression: The Galician Stories

The Custom to Get Angry on Gevurah-Day

There’s a story from the Galicians. Do you know the story? About Reb Dovid’l? Do you know the story?

I’ll tell you, it’s a Chassidic story, it’s very useful.

In Tanz and in Ropshitz and in other places there was a custom that people conducted themselves according to the middah [character trait] of the day. So on the day that was gevurah [strength/severity], they would get angry [get upset].

Do you hear what I’m saying? I’m not saying a joke, it’s serious.

Second Night of Sukkos in Tzanz

You don’t know the story about the Galician rav? The second day of Sukkos, the ushpizin [mystical guests] is Yitzchak [Isaac our forefather, who represents gevurah], and in Tzanz they would conduct themselves to get angry on the second night of Sukkos.

I’m afraid that he conducted himself that every night he got angry — he was a bit… fine.

The Galician Rav Who Prepared Everything

But what happened? And once — do you know the story? — once the Galician rav held that he’s not going on this path, he didn’t like this. He was a bit… you know, an oved Hashem b’chochmah [one who serves God with wisdom].

So he… and every time when he [the Rebbe] got angry, he always found something to be angry about — why wasn’t the food prepared. He [the Galician rav] got up early and made everything tip-top, he didn’t do anything wrong.

And the rav came to the table — everything is good. He was nervous. Huh? Everything is already good?

The Gentile with the Stone

And that’s one good one. And the other good one is that a gentile came — this was a second story — a gentile came and threw a stone on the s’chach [sukkah roof]. So the Galician rav said: “It seems that from Heaven they want us to get angry.”

That’s some kind of rebbe-ish thing.

The Rebbetzin Story

Anyway, that doesn’t make sense. I mean that doesn’t make sense.

Or there was a rebbetzin — I think the rav instituted the custom — and the rebbetzin got upset at the rebbetzin on the second day of Pesach of the year [gevurah-day]. And the rebbetzin said: “Rebbe leben [dear Rebbe], I’m sending you the gabbai, I’m not at all guilty in this.”

—

The Point: This is a Caricature

So, I mean, this is just a caricature, yes, of what happens to this.

But you could tell me: let’s say avodas Hashem [service of God], the first week of the Omer you work… why should you work? It doesn’t make sense. Work this week on the midas hachesed [trait of kindness], and next week midas hagevurah [trait of severity].

Do you know one person who does this? Very good. Because I also don’t know one person who does this.

I know various mekubalim [kabbalists] and Chassidim — they look in the siddur [prayer book], but I understand that they’re going to do this. But to have kavanah [intention] to do this, that makes an interesting bechirah [aspect].

—

Digression: Critique of Siddurim with Kavanos

Even let’s say to bring emotions. There’s a siddur “Keser Nehora” that says you should have kavanah for everything.

No, it says. No, you know the siddur “Derech”… I don’t know from which Modjibozher siddur. What does the Torah scholar not the Torah scholar. What does it mean the Litvaks make siddurim? “Derech Yam”? “Derech Yam”? Something with a “Yam”. “B’yam Dikhal”? “B’yam Dikhal” makes some siddurim.

And he writes in: “Baruch” — it says you need to have kavanah like this, “l’manatzei’ach al kol haberachos [to be victorious over all blessings]”. No. Okay.

In short, “Atah Hashem Elokeinu mimincha umismalcha [You, Lord our God, from Your right and from Your left]” — so he writes there: here you love the Almighty, here you fear the Almighty, here…

Hello? What does that mean? A greeting for the day.

No, you should laugh. Have kavanah for this Name, and have kavanah for that Name. Okay, that’s my critique.

And also for a whole day — what do I mean to the one Name? Does it mean academics? Here’s a Name, the Almighty… wait a minute, and then you should want to be.

—

The Greater Critique: No Reason to Believe the List

He said there explicitly, he takes it Pesach once, or experts from several hours. So once, he takes it is… no. Don’t count the separate kochos [forces], that should be. No. You can reach a whole goal there. That should be, a mentor, has experts, and that should be no one.

I know that many people are mechayev Yonasan [obligate Jonathan], that’s the right thing. Many people will say Mechayim is the right thing. Let’s say it’s BS. It’s nothing, it’s nothing at all.

But you say very well, you say very well. But to imagine that ahavas habriyos [love of people] is a fearful fearful thing — that’s not imagination, that’s actually true. Why is ahavas habriyos fearful fearful? Because both come from both. But each thing, each has…

—

Why Should I Believe in Machshavos?

Why should I just believe in the machshavos [thoughts]? That’s the dispute.

I hold that machshavos are real — not just feelings and not just actions — because each thing is important in its place. I fantasize, I think.

In short, I don’t understand this. And this is the smaller plan, this is not the greater plan that comes out of this when I think.

—

I Don’t Know Anyone Who Benefited from This

I don’t see, I don’t know anyone. I know many tzaddikim [righteous people], I don’t know one of them who had benefit from working on middos according to the order of the sefiros [divine emanations] — not in sefiras ha’omer [counting of the Omer] and not throughout the year. I don’t know anyone.

He used it a bit, he did a quarter hour, that was in chochmas nashim [women’s wisdom]. I mean, it’s a nice joke — what did you get from this? I don’t know anyone who got from this.

You understand, you said a certain order that works, right? We’ll talk soon. When a person works on himself, works on the middos, you said the correct order — I agree. There is a way how a person works, but this is not the way. I don’t know, or I wouldn’t have explained it that way. I don’t see that it works.

—

Summary of Both Critiques on the First Way

This is the second level of the critique.

The first, greater critique was that I’m not obligated at all to believe the list. Someone tells me: “You want to know? You should know that the midas hata’avah [trait of desire] comes from yesod hamayim [foundation of water], or from the midas hachesed, and anger comes from yesod ha’eish [foundation of fire].”

Okay, that’s a nice psychological theory — I have nothing from this.

Just like when Freud said that ta’avah [desire] comes from loving the mother and yirah [fear] comes from fearing the father — did he perhaps say that you can solve with this, true? What can be with this? What can be that you love your mother and you fear your father? It can be imagined, it can be exactly the opposite. These were all theories so that you could solve with this.

But just to say that this is a nice chart — I have nothing from this.

So that was the claim. More, okay, soon we’ll say what is yes.

—

The Second Way: The Rambam’s Way — According to Objects

Student: No, simply he didn’t want.

Maggid Shiur: What should they want? Between.

Student: What is the idea?

—

The Rambam Divides According to Objects, Not According to Sefiros

Maggid Shiur: And we brought that there is another way of reckoning. What was the other way?

The Rambam’s way was not from looking like this. The Rambam doesn’t divide the middos of a person according to the yesodos [elements] or the sefiros or something like that.

And not only that — even more deeply, forget about yesodos and sefiros. What is the idea?

He says: the Rambam does have an idea of chelkei hanefesh [parts of the soul], and middos in general belong to one part of the nefesh [soul] — the koach hamis’orer [emotional power] which he calls the chelek hamiddos [the part of character traits].

But he doesn’t say: in this chelek hamis’orer it divides into twelve pieces, and each one of them has a middah. He doesn’t say that.

—

According to What Does the Rambam Divide the Middos?

Rather according to what else does he divide the middos? According to the objects of the middos, yes? According to the chomer [matter], according to the thing that the middos are about.

And from this comes — with this answers difficult Rambams — that in general whoever learns sees that there are different middos that are the same emotion, the same feeling, and the difference is only about what it’s about, yes?

—

Example: Money on Yourself and Money on Others

For example, we bring an example that on money the Rambam lists two middos, and it’s even similar names — the commentators need to say explicit explanations to explain.

But for instance: spending money on yourself and spending money on others are two different middos, although they are both more or less the same — from being stingy or not stingy.

You also understand that it’s a bit different, but their inner base is perhaps the same.

—

Digression: Reb Aharon’le’s Joke About Polish and Hungarian

Even on people, even on what you say that there are categories to be — sometimes he makes a distinction between two. Even on that.

Reb Aharon’le used to say — he used to say why don’t the Polish give tzedakah [charity] and the Hungarians give? Because the Polish don’t begrudge themselves, and the Hungarians begrudge themselves — and they begrudge others.

Yes, yes, yes. People are broad people.

Student: But that’s already just lashon hara [evil speech].

Maggid Shiur: We’re already at the level of lashon hara. I hear.

Student: No, he says that there are three types of Jews.

Four Types of People in Begrudging and the Rambam’s Method in Dividing the Middos

Four Types of People in Begrudging

Maggid Shiur: But not everything must I myself begrudge, I begrudge others too. I understand what you’re saying. In any case, I didn’t say that everyone is like this, I said that there are such people.

But there are three types of Jews, no?

– There are Jews who love themselves and love others — both should have a good piece of challah

– There are Jews who hate both themselves and others

– There are Jews who love themselves and hate others

Student: Yes.

Maggid Shiur: But there is a fourth type of Jew that Reb Berele Yanuver said — that they hate themselves and love others. That was the anavah [humility] that he worked on.

Story with the Vorker Rebbe

Do you know the story? The Vorker Rebbe, Reb Mendele Vorker, he didn’t speak — a silent one, a silent tzaddik. But he would say a word once, and the Chassidim had to explain.

Once he was learning Parshas Kedoshim, and he repeated to himself: “V’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha, kamocha, kamocha [and you shall love your neighbor as yourself, as yourself, as yourself]” [Leviticus 19:18].

Someone came and said that the explanation is Reb Berele Yanuver. So it says, that the explanation is that the Rebbe was joking that a Jew needs to love himself. He asked from the Torah: if you need to hate yourself, you need to love others — that’s already some kind of crazy level. But the Torah says “kamocha” — you need to love yourself and others too.

The Rambam says that you need to love yourself.

Student: After yourself.

Maggid Shiur: But you can understand it that you need to hate yourself — the selfness, the ego, the pride.

The Tzaddik of Monsey — Sigufim with Joy

In any case, there are such people. I saw that Reb Yudele Dzikover said that he met the tzaddik of Monsey, and he said that he holds of him. Why? Because the Rimanuver Rebbe did many sigufim [physical mortifications/ascetic practices] — he fasted and didn’t eat and didn’t sleep.

And he said that he wanted to see if he is… He said that he went to him, he saw that he smiles to people, he is happy. And if someone does sigufim and he is happy — that’s a tzaddik. Because usually a person who does sigufim hates the whole world too. But a Jew who does sigufim and he is happy, he begrudges another — he was a lot of a person, he could begrudge that the other should eat, but he didn’t eat anything.

Student: That’s already a level.

Maggid Shiur: What?

Student: He didn’t say for other people they shouldn’t eat, he said for himself.

The Ba’al HaTanya — A Ba’al Ta’avah Who Controls Himself

Maggid Shiur: Real tzaddikim. The Ba’al HaTanya was such a type of person. The Ba’al HaTanya was a great ba’al ta’avah [person with strong desires], he could eat. He said that he’s ready to eat the whole table, but he said that he’s a tzaddik, he also ate himself. I don’t want to go into this, I’m very brief [on this topic].

—

Back to the Main Topic: The Rambam’s Division of Middos

In short, so where are we here?

The point is: the Rambam’s chilukas hamiddos [classification of character traits] goes according to their object, and not according to the chelkei hanefesh [parts of the soul] or something like that. That was the opinion of the Rambam.

And we argued…

Student: Hello, be quiet.

Maggid Shiur: We haven’t yet explained…

Student: We haven’t yet explained what, how do you make that he should also be quiet?

Maggid Shiur: We haven’t yet explained.

Student: Yes yes, he may be quiet.

Maggid Shiur: We haven’t yet explained. I think there’s a text that you can send him, that you can’t answer.

Student: We haven’t yet explained. I knew that there’s a text that has auto answers in a shiur place.

Maggid Shiur: We haven’t explained that even AI hasn’t yet come to figure out where you are and send you texts from there. The world is still weak in this.

Student: We haven’t yet explained.

Maggid Shiur: Okay, okay. Rabbosai [gentlemen], here we hold, okay? Until here is last week’s class, from here on is next week’s class. This week it won’t be, so I’m not going to start here.

—

The Topic of Middos Haprushus — Puzzles and Difficulties

So it’s like this: we need to struggle here much more, and with this perhaps try to understand the topic of the middos haprushus [the detailed/separated character traits], which has many puzzles in it. Perhaps this will answer some puzzles. I know that you can come with an explanation of what the puzzles are.

One of the puzzles I already mentioned a bit b’remizah [by hint], but it can be explained. We need to better understand what this thing is — how do you indeed learn middos according to something that means “according to how they are”, and what are the contradictions in this, what are the other ways of the contradictions.

The Question on the Rambam’s Approach

Let’s remember like this: I argued that even according to the Rambam himself — I argued that the Rambam has the second way — it’s not entirely precise. It’s not completely precise.

Why is it not completely precise? Let’s say two things.

—

Two Ways to Build a List of Middos: Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up

The First Way: Top-Down

The first thing is like this: how do they make the list, yes? They spoke that the first way to make a list — and we explained this also last week — is very rational. That means, top-down usually, right? You start, you say what is a person in general, you divide him into a half, into a third, and in each one you put in some middah.

We explained last week something of the mechanics — why this is less useful many times. But that’s called top-down.

Kabbalah vs. Philosophy

For this, the chachmei hamekubalim [the wise kabbalists] — whoever heard one of the first shiurim in the series that we learned Shemonah Perakim [Eight Chapters] — spoke about this that Kabbalah is top-down and philosophy is bottom-up.

And whoever understands, understands that about this mekubalim — people who are inclined to this path — very very much like the structure that starts from above and comes down to us. And the Rambam has less of such a thing.

I would say that the Rambam has more of a bottom-up. I would say that the Ba’al Shem Tov — about this the Ba’al Shem Tov didn’t care for structure. There are times when he cared, but the Ba’al Shem Tov loved to have answers.

So, there are two styles of people, two styles of wisdom.

Questions and Answers: Platonism and Aristotelianism

So, let’s say that the…

Student: Yes, correct?

Maggid Shiur: No, I don’t know.

Student: Everything can be put into this.

Maggid Shiur: The question is only this: The people who are top-down, they will also read into this. The other people who are… they will say that there is also a dispute there.

Student: Yes, but two styles of people.

Maggid Shiur: It’s like Platonism and Aristotelianism in a very broad sense. Plato really loved to start from above, or he just wants to start from above – that’s his…

Student: Not only why, I’m saying that one starts from the general principle and then goes to the particulars.

Maggid Shiur: The picture, the picture would go up and down, and what is the… It’s just an interest in this, let’s not get stuck in it.

—

The Second Way: Bottom-Up

But I want to now need to understand how this works. So if one understands that the second way is more bottom-up – in other words, what does that mean?

What does that mean? What does that basically mean? With this is also answered more or less – not more or less, but there becomes an understanding in the problem we had last week: the language of “pnimiyus hamiddos” [the inner essence of character traits].

How Does One Make a List of Middos?

How does this work? How does it work that one makes a list of middos? Not with the purely theoretical approach – what is a person? Divide into so many parts. But how then? What does one do?

Student: But they said that one goes according to the objects.

Maggid Shiur: Tell me an example – how does one do this? What is the other way of doing it?

Student: Not like the Rambam did it?

Maggid Shiur: Yes, like the Rambam did it. How does one do it? How do you produce? What generates? What makes what? What is the idea?

Student: What is the idea? What is the idea? The list is that we will say things about how he conducts himself.

Maggid Shiur: Okay, that’s one way of doing things. But people don’t get up early in the morning… I mean, people do get up early in the morning…

Student: True, true.

Maggid Shiur: No, no, but I mean to say: People, usually when one makes a list one is talking about many people. The Rambam does this for his students or for a group of people.

The Empirical Method: Observing What People Value

So usually what happens is basically: Either one starts from the middos, one starts from the problems, or one doesn’t start from the problems.

One can also do it this way – I can tell you another way. For example, I tried to do this experiment in my shiur in Lakewood. I won’t repeat it, whoever wants can watch the video.

But what we did is: One goes over to a person – go to a yeshiva, to a community, to a Chassidus, to a culture – and look at their list, their…

Go to funerals – that’s a simple way to do it. Or you go to funerals, or you go to sheva brachos, or you go to matchmakers. And one can see which things people talk about more or less when praising a person, or when criticizing a person – what things do they talk about?

I try to make a list – you’ll see that there are approximately seventeen things at most that people talk about at all regarding people.

The Eulogizer and the Badchan

The eulogizer – the job of a eulogizer – I heard from a good eulogizer: What does he do? He has a list of praises that can be said.

Or a badchan – I was at a mitzvah tanz, the badchan has approximately a list of three things that can be said about the praises, and he lays it out: one, two, three. Yes, he’s a ben Torah, he’s a… It’s good.

Student: A badchan can already follow the Ramban.

Maggid Shiur: Okay, could be. I just want to show…

Student: No, not said ideally, I said that one can.

Maggid Shiur: If only all badchanim… True, if only badchanim knew the Ramban.

—

The “Top Three” Virtues in the Practical World

But let’s be in a normal… Okay, there are proud ones, people who learn too much – one can’t prove anything from them, because they will tell the truth. But when it’s not, there is the normal eulogy.

And you see it here, in the culture, in the society – three or four things are respected. And if one can find one of the three praises for the eulogy, to write on the tombstone – then one is set. If not, one finds something: “And from all this, he was a good person.”

Questions and Answers: The Main Virtues

Maggid Shiur: Okay, so I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s good. When one says about a boy that he’s a good one – does it mean he’s a great fool, really?

Because there are two virtues, more or less there are only these two virtues that a person can have:

– He can be smart

– Or good

The main thing is that he should be smart. If he’s good – he’s really not smart, yes, usually.

A third thing: He can have money.

That’s more or less the top three of the world.

Student: Yes, that’s more or less… True, is there anything else?

Maggid Shiur: Good looking?

Student: I’m going to ask the question soon. Personality.

Maggid Shiur: What does personality mean?

Student: Pleasant?

Maggid Shiur: Good? Smart or good?

Student: No, personality is a third thing, a fourth thing, it’s good.

Maggid Shiur: Refinement.

Student: Personality – you know that personality is understood here in the cheder. He speaks with harshness, it’s not good. Even in the Chassidic world it’s not good.

Maggid Shiur: No one said that he’s pious – I don’t want to say pious, that’s another thing.

I’m talking about the first question that’s asked.

Student: What is the last question?

Maggid Shiur: Personality. I don’t want to go too far into details.

Student: Yes, but the details are your details.

Maggid Shiur: I’m talking about general principles, I don’t want to talk about stories, I want to talk only about specific things. “He gets up at seven o’clock, he does a simple Magen Avraham with the Vilna Gaon” – that’s already details. You need to have middos on some level of generality.

The Virtues of a Boy in Yeshiva

But I’m saying, I’m talking about what you see more or less – what a boy in yeshiva needs to be:

– He needs to either be a lamdan [Torah scholar]

– Or a bit of an askan [community activist], a good one, one who helps other people

That’s basically all – the two middos that are relevant for boys in yeshiva.

And if there’s a third thing which means being a bit of a personality – which usually means it’s a deficiency, but people like it.

Student: Lively, pleasant.

Maggid Shiur: Pleasant, yes.

Practical Middos: How One Builds a List of Middos

The Practical List for a Boy in Yeshiva

That’s already literally – you need to make middos, some level of generality. But I’m saying, I’m talking now more or less what a boy in yeshiva needs to be:

– He needs to either be a lamdan [Torah scholar, one proficient in Talmudic learning]

– Or a bit of an askan [community activist], a good one, one who helps other people

That’s basically the two middos that are relevant for boys in yeshiva.

The Third Middah: Personality

And I would add a third thing – which means being a bit of a personality. Which even usually means it’s a deficiency, but there are people who like this – lively, pleasant, yes. Too much of this is… too much, okay, everyone understands.

Okay, there’s also a third thing: too good a head is also not good. True. Okay, that’s more or less what that is.

—

Methodology: How I Compiled the List

And now, I made a list. I went to the matchmakers I talk to, I listened to twenty calls, I heard more or less – it goes over the three things.

Sometimes there’s someone who suddenly has a certain deficiency, one needs to talk about how to see it. Or some kind of strange custom, he’s a great diligent student. Okay, maybe that’s a trait, I don’t know. I just know that even… It must disturb.

Okay, I don’t want to go into the details, because these are the basic ones, these are the explicit ones, these are the things. Or you can go to a funeral, there are a few more things. When a person has a wedding, a few more mitzvos come, certainly.

What Is Said After the Wedding

I’m not talking about someone who was a scholar, because I found out that he wasn’t a scholar. Usually one doesn’t talk about someone who was in yeshiva. What does one talk about?

– He was orderly, sometimes

– A supporter of Torah

– A lover of Torah

– If it’s a Jewish home, okay, if it’s a Jewish home, it’s a great thing, a totality of many things

– He was a warm Jew, he was warm for Judaism, yes

– He sang zemiros [Shabbos songs] pleasantly, etc.

That’s basically – now you have your list. Your practical list, not your list of what should be, but your list of what is.

—

The Reverse Method: What Is Criticized

And you’ll see, what is what is? What is valued in the street values the three, four, five, six things.

You can also go in reverse – you can also see what is not valued, yes? When one criticizes someone, what does one say? It’s serious to criticize someone:

– He’s bad

– Not generous [one who begrudges others]

– Foolish, yes

– He thinks of himself, he’s an egoist, he thinks only of himself

– It bothers…

Well, what other bad things can one say?

I felt that someone really tore me down well. He said that he’s a thief. Okay, you wanna go so far? No, a thief is a type of person. I mean to say, everyone has stolen sometime. Everyone has stolen sometime.

First of all, you say a thief – he’s wicked. He’s wicked, bad. A manipulator, a swindler. That’s a type of thing. Right?

—

Two Ways to Build the List

So that’s basically how you make your list. You look at a person, you look with a bit of common sense, and you say: “That’s really a problem, and that’s really a problem.” That’s a list of things, a list of middos today.

What? That’s already really illnesses. Could be that these are also bad middos, I can’t know. You know, as Rav Yosef Kara said that a madman just means an arrogant person. He didn’t need to go sign, he knew – all other people, the first sages, they know this themselves from their heads. They have arrogance.

The Textual Way: Learning from Books

Okay, God forbid. So these are basically the way that you make your list, right?

Or another way to say: If someone is indeed a strong scholar and he learns, he looked in the holy books – in Chumash [the Five Books of Moses], in Tanach [the Hebrew Bible], in Mishnayos, in Pirkei Avos [Ethics of the Fathers] – and saw which middos are consistently talked about.

There’s almost a list: “These are the ten traits that every person must practice.” That can’t be found. Maybe in Pirkei Avos there’s a list, but in the next Mishnah there’s another list, so I do something. But one can indeed see certain things that are consistently talked about. These are the middos more or less that are… That’s how one makes a list of middos. Right?

—

Structure of the List: Frequency-Based

So that’s one way of making a list, and the list won’t have any, supposedly, won’t have much structure, right? It will be a list.

The structure will be more like:

– What is more common?

– Or what is more common because it’s a more important thing, therefore one talks about it a lot

– Or more common because it’s more common – it’s not so important, but more people have this problem, one talks about it a lot

—

Sociological Digression: What Mussar Talks Say About a Society

Yes? You could learn a lot about a society by what kind of mussar talks, what things they talk about in their mussar talks. That’s what I think. What’s important for them, yes. Also what’s important, also which problems they have.

A certain approach is that at shalosh seudos [the third Shabbos meal] one talks only about the problems that other people have. Other people, yes. Others, others.

Now, I’m doing this now, aha. No, such – if in a place there’s a proper mashgiach [spiritual supervisor], a liar, he talks about the type – you see what the boys struggle with in that period. If you go to a completely suffocating place, you don’t hear that at all, you hear other things – it’s other people before their military service.

No, what does it mean. Which service one goes to. Besides luck luck, there’s always a tone in Satmar, yes? That’s because other people. Satmar does it. Satmar does it. But talking about Zionists, they’re not Zionists. Actually they are, but they’re deep not miss. But occupied, not everything.

That’s a small problem, but there are other many problems that people have stubbornly that they don’t talk about. The real ones. Research, these are real. Okay, but sometimes when one can find out a lot about this.

—

Middos That Aren’t Talked About: Courage

Or also when you learn a list of middos that aren’t talked about – neither here nor there – and it stands out strongly.

For example, one doesn’t talk about humanity. Last week they talked about courtesy. Do we talk a lot about courage? There aren’t any mussar talks about courage here in Yiddish.

Student: Or what do you call it in Yiddish? Courage.

Maggid Shiur: Courage. Very narrow. Have you heard many sermons about this? I proved this greatly in souls.

Student: Yes, one talks that holiness is more chutzpah.

Maggid Shiur: It’s not courage. It’s a strong connection. No, it’s a strong connection from it. But hold on. Let’s talk about the virtue of courage, not about when one needs holy chutzpah to someone. It’s not the doctrine.

I know, it should have been that. I would have needed. Usually when one talks about azus d’kedushah [holy boldness], one talks about the self-sacrifice being very leagues park. Usually. That’s what is meant.

But what we’ve calculated is that when the neighbor stands boldness no name, it doesn’t mean that.

What Does Courage Mean for Us Jews?

What does courage mean for us Jews? Native Jews? It’s Jews, not Jews. I’ll tell you what it means. And one must talk about it.

Because someone who has no courage – don’t do any business with him, don’t be friends with him. Know why? Know why? You have no support on the foundations.

Courage means after all only that for things that are important to you, or things that are truly yours, or things that you love even – you stand firm on them, yes? You stand by paying a certain price. Not too much – too much is crazy. Not too little either, then.

And people who are cowards – the first thing, someone makes a crooked nose, he disgusts you. What will you do to your enemy? Then.

Courage is a basic thing. You’re a person – if you don’t have courage, you’re not a person.

You say something, but your father-in-law made a crooked nose. Okay, so if you don’t have once, you need to reckon. So that’s the limit of this. But it’s a very basic middah that I think is lacking for many people.

“Lo Saguru Mipnei Ish”

And in Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law], in the verse, the first thing where one talks about a judge it says: “Lo saguru mipnei ish” [“Do not be afraid of any man” – Deuteronomy 1:17].

And people think it’s talking about an extreme case — when someone is standing with a gun in his hand, he’s standing with an axe in his hand. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter when the wicked person stands with an axe in his hand, he’s going to chop off your head — the ruling is about me.

It’s not about that. It’s his whole life, his whole life must be this.

The moment one speaks about someone that he should not be afraid of any person, usually he has done too much. You understand?

Reliability and Courage

When you say about a person that he is reliable, he has to have courage. Being reliable as you said such a thing as reliability — means that you won’t be frightened by something. “Ah, there was traffic, I got scared.” Okay, take another route. I mean, that’s also a bit of courage. You’re driving too fast, you have something important. I don’t know, I’m not saying.

But to fight with someone sometimes — someone who has never fought with anyone, one shouldn’t speak with him either. It can’t be. It’s conflict averse in today’s language, yes?

But this is what you say that the students were in the forest. And not fighting with mine. Ah, that’s already too much. He’s not…

A person who has never done something that made someone angry at him, and he still considers himself a tzaddik too — he’s not a tzaddik, he’s missing the trait.

Okay, that’s the end of the matter. Enough.

—

Back Again to the Methodology

So now, this is the way how one makes the list. The way is clear that it’s a way that one makes.

One can say, for example, if one looks into the Rambam’s list — simply the things that he says first are things that are much more relevant, or were very important, or things that he holds that in the Rambam’s times they were…

When one speaks of what he says that there can be personal failings, it can be that there are people here who have fallen into the daled amos [four cubits — one’s immediate surroundings].

—

Critique of the Rambam’s List: Anger Is Not Relevant Today

For example, one speaks about midas haka’as [the trait of anger]. I hold that if one speaks a lot about midas haka’as today — sure. Anger is the most.

I hold that it’s a waste of time. I don’t see that anger is a problem in our society. I don’t see that this problem exists. It’s not a problem. There’s too little anger, not too much anger.

Okay, that’s my claim. That’s why I’m speaking here. I hold this way. I don’t see it.

One doesn’t speak of anger — when one speaks of anger, someone means: “I yelled at my wife once.” Once? Every week. Every week? Okay, one is exaggerating things.

People have become coddled. Anger means that you’re angry, you’re fighting, you’re not a normal person. One speaks that you see him the next minute he’s back as a true friend. It’s not a problem.

Do you have such a big problem? Yes, the others have a huge problem. I knew old Jews — all were angry, and nothing happened. I never saw that there was a problem. It makes the atmosphere lively, there’s someone you can make a fuss at.

The Rambam Lived in a Different Society

The Rambam knew this. Tzaddik, I don’t know if the Rambam lived…

I want to tell you a true Torah — I don’t know if it’s true, but it can be true, right? It can be that the Rambam lived in a different kind of society than us. Not only that it can be, you know, let’s not get into any racism here.

The Rambam didn’t live in Boro Park, and in Boro Park there’s no problem of anger. In other areas there’s perhaps such a problem.

When you’ll see the candles that were sent for someone… candles, you know that people don’t speak for whole periods? You go to Eretz Yisroel you’ll find it. It’s not there! Because one speaks about it… Could be, could be that one doesn’t speak enough about it. I’m not saying, I don’t know.

—

Questions and Answers: Racism Accusations

Student: The Sephardim also accused us. That they have road rage.

Maggid Shiur: Could also be, everything could be, I don’t know.

Student: Why does one speak about this?

Student: Why did they have him on the boat?

Maggid Shiur: Okay, I only made a statement that one shouldn’t think.

Student: Why are you such a racist?

Maggid Shiur: I didn’t say — I only made a statement that one shouldn’t think.

The Third Way: Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair’s Ladder of Stages and the Question “What Is Everything For?”

—

End of Discussion: Lists of Problems and Their Limitations

He went to Eretz Yisroel and it’s finding… not one, because one speaks about it. Okay, could be, could be, could be that one calculates how much. I say, I don’t know.

Also the Sephardim also mixed up, they have a road trip. Okay, one speaks about it. Could also… everything could be, I don’t know, I’m not saying… Sephardim on the boat. Okay, I only made a statement, one shouldn’t think that I’m a racist. I didn’t say… I only made a statement one should think strongly, I didn’t say practically.

—

Not Everything Written in an Old Book Is a Problem Today

I’m just saying, it’s not everything that’s written in an earlier sefer [book] that this is a big problem today. The Torah, chet [sin]… whatever, enough, let’s not speak. Everyone thinks that we are… not all things. Yes, not all things. It’s not necessarily that this is a problem. I’m not sure. One can’t go with the mesorah [tradition] on this.

I’m just saying, it’s not things… there are things that are in human nature, most people have certain problems, similar. What has been spoken across… they’re busy with other things.

Chet HaYadua – An Example

I mean for example also that chet hayadua [the well-known sin] is not a problem today. Most people don’t have a problem with it. I didn’t say they don’t do it, I said it’s not a problem.

Student: No, because one spoke about it, it’s clear that it was a problem.

Maggid Shiur: Okay, let’s not continue. Again, we have the wrong imagination. We think it’s talking about someone who unfortunately has a few machshavos zaros [foreign/improper thoughts] and the like, or a bit more than that. The pasuk [verse] that speaks “v’lo sasuru” [and you shall not stray – Numbers 15:39] doesn’t speak about that. It speaks about the actual problem. I’m not saying the actual problem doesn’t exist, but that’s not what one speaks about regarding thoughts.

Student: In the 1990’s it was the problem, and now not?

Maggid Shiur: No, in the 1600’s it was a problem, today it’s not a problem. I was a bochur [young man] in the 1990’s, it was a problem in the 1990’s.

—

The Reality of Bochurim

A story that happened, happened thus. What do you think? That’s the reality. One doesn’t speak of a chutzpanik [brazen person] who has no connection. A normal bochur who goes to yeshiva, he’s lazy, he doesn’t learn anything. A bochur can become many things, but one doesn’t speak about him.

Student: Which bochur encounters more bochurim than girls?

Maggid Shiur: Enough, let’s move on. The acharonim [later authorities] who spoke about the big problem didn’t live in Boro Park, okay? It can be that in Boro Park there’s also, one needs to speak there, but not in a regular beis medrash [study hall], such people don’t come there, you’re speaking to the wrong people.

Anyways, let’s not get into it. I’m just saying that from the lists one can’t learn, it’s not a list that is gezeiras hakasuv [Biblical decree], it’s not a list that is… every generation one says something different, or because it’s just a tradition, then one can’t learn anything.

But if one speaks of people who look at what disturbs people the most, what disturbs most people’s progress, one needs to know which thing it is, and it’s not chok v’lo ya’avor [an inviolable law]. From the fact that the Rambam [Maimonides], the whole time changes what he speaks about, during the week he was more involved in people having had these problems and so forth.

Student: So, why are you laughing?

—

“Kol HaKo’es K’ilu Oved Avodah Zarah” – Analysis of the Statement

Maggid Shiur: Just as one doesn’t eat onions, I should understand. The Rambam held that it’s a problem, that it’s a mental problem. The Rambam held that in his time then this is a firmly established work, and the Chazal [the Sages] also. One hundred percent.

Kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah [whoever gets angry is as if he worships idolatry], everything, everything, and so on. Every memra [statement] was known.

One Can’t Generalize from One Statement

And there’s no one memra, attention, it’s not a proof from the fact that there’s an extreme memra somewhere or even an exaggerated memra about a chavrusa [study partner], it’s not a proof that here is the same thing.

The Rambam’s Approach

All the Rambam’s things that are… kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah, the truth is, one didn’t read the Gemara exactly, the Rambam already rewrote the Gemara a bit, not as it says, it wasn’t the derech [way] of the Rambam in such things.

The True Meaning of “Kol HaKo’es”

But I want that the Rambam means this also, that kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah means to say, I can’t get into this now, it’s not a shiur on ka’as [anger], now is a shiur on tefillah [prayer], but kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah means to say that a ragzan [angry person] in the end serves avodah zarah [idolatry].

You know why? I can tell you why. It’s a true gezeiras hakasuv, I don’t want to say why, I don’t want to speak into it, this is a nice Torah’le [Torah insight], because one speaks in which mishbatzos [settings/frameworks] one can bring in a Torah’le from above with below.

The Practical Chain

But what he means simply is, that an angry person, today he’ll get angry at his wife who didn’t make the soup well, he’ll give her a get [divorce]. Tomorrow he’ll get angry at a rabbi who will tell him, “You’re a normal person, you’re divorcing because your wife didn’t make the soup well? I know, but the Belzer said it’s permitted, but still he yells at him.” He says, “Ah, the rabbi is not on my side.” He goes to the galach [priest]. The galach doesn’t let himself go.

Student: What’s the chiluk [difference] between both? The galach is better?

Maggid Shiur: No difference, but the first thing, as he finishes with his rabbi, he goes to the galach. That’s the meaning of “kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah”.

“Hayom omer lecha aseh kach, u’machar omer lecha aseh kach, ad she’omer lecha avod avodah zarah” [Today it tells you to do this, tomorrow it tells you to do that, until it tells you to worship idolatry].

That’s the meaning of the Gemara. It doesn’t mean more than that. It’s a normal derech eretz [way of the world], it happens today also that people get angry about this, and then they serve avodah zarah.

An Example

He comes to shul [synagogue], he sees that there’s anger, he thinks… what avodah zarah can there be? There’s a girl here who went to the Hills for the father. Ah, one girl was found.

Student: What’s a difference? That’s the meaning of “kol hako’es k’ilu oved avodah zarah”. Is the galach sharp? What’s a difference?

Maggid Shiur: He’s angry. Why did he divorce? He didn’t have the patience to listen to what the father says. That’s the meaning of “kol hako’es”, what’s hard to understand about this?

Student: The one story that happened in fifteen years…

Maggid Shiur: No, but an oilam [a group of people] converted in large numbers. I’m not saying the problem went away, I’m just saying one needs to know.

—

The Third Way: Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair – Stages

And now, now it’s like this. I need to tell you the third way.

Student: Do you want me to give a shiur today?

Maggid Shiur: No, he doesn’t know that this… So, like this.

One needs to speak about a third way, and the third way is very important, because one will understand many things.

Overview of the Three Ways

But the third, kushya shlishis [third question/approach]:

– The first two ways are to make klalim [principles]

– The second way is to look at what the problems are, what one isn’t mavchim [discerning] in anyone, empirical, yes, making lists

– The third way is like this: there was Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair

Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair’s Baraisa

The Mesilas Yesharim [Path of the Just, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto] tried to go in that way. I think he’s not explaining the Mishnah well, the Baraisa [Tannaitic teaching], but in his matter of learning Mesilas Yesharim we’ll see if he’s right or I’m right, but I’m not holding there yet.

There’s a very famous Mishnah and Baraisa of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair said… the Rambam brings Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair also in his hakdamah [introduction] to Pirkei Avos [Ethics of the Fathers], it’s true, and he builds on him very strongly.

The Order of Levels

Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair said, and it stands in the Mishnah at the end of Sotah, “mikan lamadnu she’y’hei adam yagei’a b’Torah yomam v’layla” [from here we learn that a person should toil in Torah day and night], and from here one also learns a whole list of midos [character traits].

It begins with zehirus [watchfulness], it ends with ruach hakodesh [divine inspiration] or techiyas hameisim [resurrection of the dead], and in between there’s chassidus [piety], anavah [humility], and there’s a machlokes [dispute] which seder [order] one goes in the Gemara, and other such things. Right.

The Innovation: Stages, Not Just a List

Now, this is a list of midos. One needs to figure out what each one of them means, but it’s a list of midos. And you should work not, I don’t see that there’s a big problem of kinah [jealousy], a big problem of atzlus [laziness] which is the opposite of zrizus [alacrity], let’s say, and the like. No, it’s a completely different thing. He says stages.

Side Note: Sefiras HaOmer

And just to be clear, the one who said that Sefiras HaOmer [Counting of the Omer], if someone… I’m making a new chart in Sefiras HaOmer, there are ten, right? It doesn’t fit. Let’s make a new thing. That would make sense. Shavuos comes the last three, add Yesod, Hod [Kabbalistic sefirot], right.

That would make sense if someone says the first thing is anavah, the second thing is zehirus. Why does it make sense? Because he claims that meivi lidei [brings to]. Right? But this isn’t like the days of the week, it’s not gonna work. Because even in regular Torah it would make more sense, right?

What Does “Meivi Lidei” Mean?

When Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair claims that here there is meivi lidei. What does meivi lidei mean? It can mean many things:

1. Simple meaning: It can simply mean like mitzvah goreres mitzvah [one mitzvah leads to another], such a sort of thing. That’s one… I think that’s the simple meaning.

2. The Rambam’s understanding: But the Rambam and those who understood already that it means a more complicated thing.

What did the Rambam understand that it means?

—

The Fundamental Question: “What Is Everything For?”

We learned that the main question, what is the fundamental question when we want to be a person? What is the fundamental question?

The Question

The question is like this: What is everything for? What are things for? What are we for?

Student: [answers]

Maggid Shiur: Yes, if you say this word you already closed the question, you already have a name for it. Yes, that’s already a name. But let’s ask before that. What is all this for? This is the same question as the question how to be a person. The same question how to be a person, what is good, the same question in a different language, is what is everything for? Right?

Specifically for a Person

If We’re Speaking Specifically About a Person, What Is a Person’s Life For? What is it for?

Student: Kavod [honor].

Maggid Shiur: Whose is it? What? Kavod, what is it? The koach [power], what is it? L’shem mah [for what purpose] is it? Why live?

The Cheder Joke

What we want to get to, I can tell you where we want to get to, we want to get to a mashal yamim [parable of days], not to present it negatively. What is this for? A good question, right?

You remember in cheder [elementary school] they used to say that a goy [non-Jew] doesn’t know why he lives, he works to be able to eat and he eats to be able to work, and then what? Actually, that’s a good question. It’s not a joke, it’s not something to dismiss.

“Living From” Versus “Living For”

Student: He lives for enjoyment, hedonism.

Maggid Shiur: No, then he’s not living for, he’s living from. That’s something else, there is no “for.” Living from is not for. We’re saying there is a “for.” We already discussed this two years ago. If you’re saying there isn’t, then we need to stop saying everything else. So that’s the answer. But this is an important question.

Hierarchy of Goals

Now, what did you ask, a good question? There’s more than one “for.” True, it could be there’s more than one “for.” Let’s say there’s more than one “for.” But what’s certainly there is “fors” that are for other “fors.” Yes, I can use the words “for,” it’s better. Right?

In other words, what’s the main goal?

Example: Working and Eating

For example, the dugma [example] that work is so that one can eat, working is not a good thing just so he can work so he can eat. That’s right? Of course, he does something else so he can work. He needs to do exercise so he’ll have strength to work. He also needs to have a spoonful to eat.

We’re talking about two kinds of eating, you see? The first eating he needs so he can work, and then he works so he can have enjoyment from the peiros [fruits/results].

Means and Ends: How to Make Order in a World of Too Many Goals

The Question “What Is Everything For?” – A Practical Tool to Make Order

It’s something else. Yes, there’s already a level of “for,” right? So this one question of “what is everything for?” is very useful. Besides being an important question in itself – what is everything for – it’s also useful to make order in the world.

A person sees many things, and he’s confused, poor thing, right? He’s in a bekhina [aspect/category] of olam hatohu [the world of chaos]. Every day he has a different ratzon [desire], he wants very many things.

—

The Many Good Things That a Person Can Want

Maybe this, maybe I should be a cleaning man, maybe I should make sure everything should be clean. It’s a very good thing that everything should be clean. You know that actually one should work in the sanitation department. That’s a tremendous thing – everything should be clean, there shouldn’t be any dirt. A tremendous thing, right?

Cleanliness – Physical and Moral

There’s also a tremendous thing – I’m talking now, I’m going to mix midos [character traits] with pe’ulos [actions], yes, midos with work. There’s also a tremendous thing that a person should be clean – yes, he shouldn’t be a ganav [thief], his money should be his, and his wife should be his, and his khaver [friend] should be his. He shouldn’t mix himself up, he shouldn’t steal someone else’s friend. He should be clean. It’s a very tremendous thing, right? Amazing.

More Good Things

There are more things that are tremendous. What else?

The person, this is how a person goes – a ruakh [spirit] has entered him, he wants everything to be very clean, and he goes to figure out how to make everything clean, and he makes everything clean.

Besides that, there’s also a great matter to make a lot of money. A great matter.

There’s also a great matter to look like a strong person.

There’s a great matter to build beautiful things, beautiful binyanim [buildings].

There’s a great matter to be a good friend. He goes and buys a book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” [Dale Carnegie’s famous book]. In the Mishna it says “knei lekha khaver” [acquire for yourself a friend] – let’s become very good.

In short, and this becomes a whole thing – he’s going to use very much time to help friends, to be a good friend.

What other things are good? To be a good friend, he goes and buys a book “How to…”

He needs to be healthy.

He also needs to learn – or we can forget the learning thing.

He also needs to think, know a bit of things, pray. He wants to know things, and one also needs to pray, and one also needs to…

In short, “What do you want to be when you’re big?”, right? All things: an architect, a cleaning man, a policeman, and a talmid khakham [Torah scholar], and a posek [halakhic decisor], and also a ba’al khesed [person of kindness].

In short, there are very many things that are good things. What? There’s more. In short, there are very many good things.

—

The Main Point: Your Problem Isn’t Lack of Purpose, But Too Many Purposes

In short, all these things aren’t bad things. I’m not even talking about the things that people also want to do, right?

So, what are we going to do? We’re very confused, right? We’re much more confused than the one who doesn’t know.

You see, people love not being confused. So what do they say? What do you really want to be? I want to be an architect.

Your Problem Is That You Want Too Many Things

Your problem isn’t that you don’t know what you want to be – your problem is that you want too many things.

I told you, when you have the kushya [question/difficulty], I gave you an answer. What is the terutz [answer]? I told you, that’s not the terutz. I told you that there’s a place where we can talk about this. I told you that there was a shiur about this two years ago.

Student: Tell him quickly what the terutz is.

Maggid Shiur: I told you that the kushya you’re asking is an escape from sur mera [turn away from evil]. Somewhere we talk about this, that the main thing is… somewhere where one can learn in… mahu yehudi zeh? Not nothing at all.

Rabbosai, rabbosai, rabbosai. What is the terutz?

This Is Fake – You’re Lying to Yourself

You… I’m not holding at that step anymore, I’m holding at a different step. I’m saying that this doesn’t bother you, this is fake, you’re lying to yourself.

All people are bothered by “what is the for,” yes? No, no.

What bothers all people is that there are too many “fors.”

Where is the evil? You don’t live for – it’s not true. You don’t live for three things, you live for many things. Friday afternoon you work for Shabbos, and Shabbos you work for Sunday, and so on.

Two Problems of Too Many Goals

And problem number one is that you have a great sekhel [intellect] that doesn’t arrive anywhere – which is one issue. What that means is that first of all, but it is for, and meanwhile you don’t think “I don’t have any… I live in a sekhel.” You think it’s for something, right?

And secondly, that there are stirot [contradictions]. It’s also good – I live to have a lot of money, and also to be a great talmid khakham, and also to be a great tzadik [righteous person] – and all these things are contradictions.

People Don’t Want to Think About the Contradictions

And the whole… because people don’t like to think about the contradictions – what Khazal [the Sages] tell you, when there’s a contradiction, the simple meaning is that there’s some reason.

Yes, you, not me. You think there’s some good reason to think that it’s good to think. Or you think there’s a good reason to think to make money. There’s some for, there’s some “for” that you want to make money – it makes sense to you, and if not you wouldn’t do it.

Instead of Going Into This Mess

And because you live in a contradiction, and you don’t know if this is the good thing or that is the good thing, and you do both – one minute that this is good and one minute that that is good, according to I don’t know what – you have instead of working on this, which then would have been a way…

If you would instead… if you would have gone into the mess and tried to see why is this good and why is that good – maybe there’s some order between the things, maybe one of them is for the other and not the other for that one – you would have started to figure out what the one thing is that everything is for, and then you could have solved it.

Instead, because you have no kheshek [desire] to do it, you say “I’m bothered that I don’t have a for.” That’s not your problem. You have a different problem.

Why are you looking for a purpose?

Student: Ah, it’s true. I understand what you’re saying. You’re not looking for a purpose, you have too many purposes.

Maggid Shiur: The whole thing… I’m not asking this, I’m not worried about this, because this isn’t my problem. This is not a real human being problem. This is an excuse that human beings say instead of solving the problem they have, which is they have too many purposes.

—

The Solution: Means and Ends

Okay. Now, think about what I said, because I can’t now go into a two-hour conversation about this, because it’s already 11:13, and it’s already standing there on the way out.

People are bothered by their purposes, or what they feel. Out, out, out – because their purpose is much more than they feel.

There is an eitza [advice] for this. What is the eitza? This was also a shiur from two years ago. I won’t go into this too much, we’ll continue with what we’re talking about today.

What is the eitza? There is an eitza. What is the eitza? There’s a bit of eitza. Maybe it’s only half an eitza, but it’s half of the problem ekhol panim [at least].

What is the eitza?

The Foundation of Means and Ends

I can think like this: There’s such a thing called “emtza’i vetakhlis” [means and ends].

Besides the fact that things, people live for things, and the things are for things – there are also more levels of this, right?

The Marathon Example

Just as there are times when we eat in order to have strength, and we do exercise in order to be healthy, and we’re healthy in order to run the marathon, right? There are two levels.

When I eat the right diet, I don’t care about the right diet – I don’t want, it’s not what I want, it’s not what I’m against, I’m not for having health. It’s actually a good thing to be healthy, in order to run the marathon.

I’m not now osek [engaged] in that, it’s not my goal. My goal is to be able to run well at the marathon. Consequently I eat well, and I do exercise, and I make hakhanot [preparations], and other things that one needs to do – and it’s all in order to do the marathon, right?

The Chain of Goals

And besides that, I can tell you if you want, I can add another thing: that there’s no point at all to run the marathon, but to get kavod [honor]. And kavod is a tremendous thing. I love kavod, I want to have kavod.

And because I grasped that kavod is the thing I want, I’ve already saved four things. I won’t khalila [God forbid] get confused, I won’t khalila at all even – I won’t khalila ever run too much before the marathon, that I should overexert myself and I won’t be able to run – because it’s for that.

Unless I’m a big fool and I’m very confused. But because I remembered that I’m eating now in order to be able to be healthy, in order to be able to run fast and nimble, in order to win the marathon, in order to have kavod – then it gave me the right amount of how much to eat, how much to run, and how much to run the marathon, and so I’ll get kavod, right? Right?

The Foundation Is Agreed Upon

This everyone is modeh [agrees], there’s no makhloket [disagreement] about this. There is such a thing as things that are for other things.

The fact that there are many things that have many “fors,” it’s not contradictory at all – not only is it not contradictory, it gets solved by grasping that many things are for other things, right?

There are – the lower things are for the other things, there can also be for itself, right?

—

A New Doubt: Which Direction Does the Chain Go?

A person can say: “I don’t want to run the marathon for kavod, I simply love to run the marathon, it’s a davar bifnei atzmo [a thing in itself], I love this.”

Or, even the thing could be reversed: “I hold that it’s good to be healthy, consequently I go run the marathon in order to be healthy.” Let’s say he holds of healthy, right?

So it can go both ways:

– One can be healthy in order to run the marathon

– And one can run the marathon in order to be healthy

Right?

Progress: We Now Know What the Doubt Is

Now we’ve solved – just to be clear, I’ve made a lot of progress now, right?

Because now, the person who is conflicted between kavod and health, he grasps at least what his safek [doubt] is:

– Does he run the marathon in order to be… does he practice in order to have kavod?

– Or the reverse – I don’t want to have kavod?

– Or the reverse, that is, he runs the…

What did I say? He runs the marathon in order to be healthy, or he’s healthy in order to run the marathon.

I’ve made progress, and we’ve said what my question is: what order do the “fors” go, right?

Some Directions Don’t Work Logically

If I can solve – I can say that one of the orders isn’t possible, one of the ways doesn’t work.

For example, what? One can’t get kavod about this, one can’t get kavod in order to be able to run the marathon – that doesn’t work, for example, right? With kavod one doesn’t get strength to run the marathon – interesting fact.

Have I solved – that doubt I don’t have at all, I didn’t have it to begin with, right?

I can have a doubt whether I’m healthy in order to run the marathon, or I run the marathon in order to be healthy.

Kavod – A Special Category

But kavod is an interesting thing. Kavod I can’t have in order to do something else of this sort of things, right?

From having kavod – as that one said, it says “a rav a rakhmana nitzlan parnasnihu bikhvod” [a Talmudic expression: God save us from those who pay with honor instead of money] – that instead of giving him money they gave him kavod. Does that mean it’s parnasa [livelihood]? It’s not parnasa!

With kavod one can’t buy in the market. Consequently there can’t be kavod… one can a bit yes, I’m not saying, but let’s say the end goal of kavod one can’t, you understand? It helps a bit.

I can’t say that I need kavod, I need to have money, I need to make deals, I need to make money. One thing helps the other, I’m not saying. But let’s say the body of the mara shekhora [melancholy/depression] one can’t become healthy with this, right?

Conclusion: The Chain Only Runs in One Direction

Between the things there’s no doubt. It only works – the chain of the refua [healing] only runs one way.

The Structure of “Lishma” and “Shelo Lishma” – A Framework for Character Traits

The “Chain of Goods” – Kavod Versus Parnasa

Maggid Shiur: If we need to give him money, one can give him kavod [honor], and consequently he doesn’t need parnasa [livelihood]. With kavod one can’t buy in the market. Consequently there can’t be kavod for the purpose of… one can a bit yes, I’m not saying, but let’s say the end goal – kavod can’t be. A bit yes – one can’t be able to say I need kavod so I’ll have friends, I’ll make deals, I’ll make money. Even without this, I’m not saying. But let’s say the groceries from the market one can’t become healthy with this, right?

Translation

So between these things there is no doubt. It only works, it only runs one way – the “chain of goods.” The chain of the kavod [honor], of the greatness, of lishma [for its own sake], runs only one way. Right?

—

The “Puzzle” – Three Categories of Things

Maggid Shiur: And similarly, but above, and similarly… Now, there’s another interesting question. If there are things, if we find one thing that no one does – it’s not possible to do it for its own sake lishma atzmo [for its own sake] – you know what that makes? A puzzle.

First one finds the pieces of the end, right? There I know that it doesn’t go further. So, then we try to put everything into the puzzle. They want to make order here.

The Method: Sorting According to Lishma and Shelo Lishma

Maggid Shiur: Let’s say I find a thing. I say, most things are both – they work both ways. They can be lishma, and they can be shelo lishma [not for its own sake]. They can be good for themselves, and they can be good for something else.

Bottom Floor: Things That Are Never Lishma

Maggid Shiur: There are things that, let’s say, I find a thing that is never good for itself. For example… let’s take a parable of a thing that no one does because they love it: eating bitter things. Taking medicine. You know, it’s a thing that hurts, but one does it only for a benefit. This is a thing that only does the benefit, yes? It’s not only… it’s only doing the benefit. Right? It’s not a thing that…

This I know, this I put down in my puzzle. I’m on the way to solve my problem – I already know what lies on the bottom of the puzzle.

A bunch of things that hurt, or that are bad even – not only does it hurt, it’s also… you can even say things that are morally bad, right?

Killing a person. Killing a person is never… assuming, you know what I’m talking about. Killing a person is never a thing that one does lishma. Sometimes one must, like here with a rodef [pursuer – one who threatens life, whom one may kill in self-defense]. But it’s always so that something else should come out of it, right?

No one says: “Why did you kill him?” “What do you mean why? Killing is a good thing!” I know already, even the murderer would complain if you don’t say that. “I killed him because he was in my way, because I want his money, because I’m angry at him.” You always have a reason why you killed him, right?

These things you can put on the bottom. You can put it on the bottom of the list. These things are the things that they can only be for something else – they cannot be things for themselves.

Middle Floor: Things That Can Be Both

Maggid Shiur: And in the middle there’s a bunch of things that they can be both. There the things are mixed, one doesn’t know what to do with the puzzle.

—

Top Floor: Things That Can Only Be Lishma

Maggid Shiur: What are there things that one cannot do for a second reason? One can only do them lishma. For example? What are the things that one can only do lishma?

Think the right way.

Student: Working?

Maggid Shiur: What? Not working lishma. All things one can do lishma. I’m saying things that one cannot do shelo lishma – it’s not possible.

Student: Working.

Maggid Shiur: Working is shelo lishma? One can only shelo lishma. Usually – there are people who enjoy it, but usually you do it because you want to have something else from it.

Okay, so that’s the thing. So that’s the thing you’re saying that it’s not lishma.

Student: What?

Maggid Shiur: We must already start landing, arriving.

—

Happiness as the Ultimate Goal

The Aristotelian Foundation

Maggid Shiur: If you have a thing that’s called avodah shelo lishma [work not for its own sake], then you have a thing like… by the way, I can say something simple, afterwards we’ll go into the matter.

Aristotle said – when he says this it means that I don’t have a clear way to explain, and one must remember a shiur from three years ago.

There is one thing that all people in the end almost say, and the other one says it in other ways. What’s the problem? But there are things that no one says “I do this because I want to have something else.”

What is the thing? I’ll tell you what it is: being satisfied.

What Does “Satisfied” Mean?

Maggid Shiur: But you must differentiate. Just so it makes sense you must say: not being satisfied in the sense of being psychologically healthy and not being anxious. Being satisfied means being mirtze [satisfied] with my life. Nirtze [desired/willed], yes? Nirtze is the last makah – not the last makah, what’s called the last sign of the seder [the Passover seder].

That’s why one does another thing? One doesn’t do another thing like that.

Student: What?

Maggid Shiur: Being happy. He calls it happiness, yes? To have a good life. It’s almost the same thing as having a good life – therefore it’s a bit circular. But if there are things that are only that, then put them on the top. You know, the thing that everything is for.

Why Happiness Is the End of the Chain

Maggid Shiur: Being happy – it doesn’t make sense for someone to say: “Why should I be happy in life? I want to have a good reason that I should be happy.”

I mean, I convince myself that it will make me happy. If it won’t make me happy, it turned me off. But did it turn me off that I don’t want to be happy? I want to, yes. “Why do I want to be happy?” “Because that’s what I want.” That’s a tautology. Even the picture isn’t right that one must have it – it’s not a feeling, and that’s another whole discussion.

The Declaration of Independence

Maggid Shiur: But I’m just saying, you understand there are certain things that even us in our life, it’s even in our language – that we don’t know exactly what “happy” means, and we should forget the shiurim from two weeks ago – very many people who want to be happy, happy in the broadest sense, not happy in being satisfied and one has a feeling that doesn’t make you depressed. Happy in the broadest sense – the pursuit of happiness.

No one – so it says in the holy book, Declaration of Independence – that all people seek happiness. Why does he say they seek? They seek very many things, but everything they seek in the end, simply everything. You can afterwards do things that don’t bring happiness, but they’re not… simply, but this is certainly a thing that lies on top of the puzzle. Because here it ends, right?

—

The Rambam’s Application – Simcha, Ta’anug, Devekus

Maggid Shiur: Now we have a nice way, does my Torah make sense? This is my Torah – these are devarim yeduim u’verurim [known and clear matters].

Chapter 8 – “From Hilchos De’os”

Maggid Shiur: According to this we have a nice way how to make a list of midos [character traits].

This is the meaning, the Rambam’s meaning in Chapter 8 of Hilchos De’os [Laws of Character Traits]. From Hilchos De’os means he’s saying it’s for – not only that it brings that each midah [trait] digs midah, which was one part. The Rambam seems to learn that from Hilchos De’os is for [a purpose].

But in any case, one can learn this way. I mean that the Rambam learned this way – so it appears from his introduction. One can argue with me as much as one wants. But he looks at another word: What is everything for? What is your life for?

One of the things that they’re not for something else. That midah is called – they call it simcha [joy]. Okay? Everything is for simcha. Happiness. Yes. Simcha.

Simcha, Ta’anug, Tov – Connected Concepts

Student: Isn’t simcha a lashon kodesh [Hebrew] word?

Maggid Shiur: Or tov [good] or simcha. Or lema’an yitav lach [so that it will be good for you] – it says in the Torah. Why is the Torah? It should be good.

And also, simcha goes together: same’ach v’tov lev [joyful and good of heart]. Yes, it goes together.

Student: And what does one do? Or ta’anug [pleasure]?

Maggid Shiur: Sometimes one says yes. That… one can go into these distinctions. There are other places, shiurim about this… many times one says going in yes – that which one says about the end that one will do in the end. One will be happy. One will be ta’anug. Simcha, ta’anug – these are all very closely related things. One can go into each one separately, but they’re very related.

And that’s the end.

The Rambam’s Tachlis

Maggid Shiur: The Rambam says a lot… that the tachlis [ultimate purpose] of everything… those who say, those who mean that the Rambam had a literal strength with himself – the Rambam says: The tachlis of everything is yedias Hashem v’hasagaso v’hasimcha bo [knowledge of God, apprehension of Him, and joy in Him].

The Rambam already interprets the verse – and the simcha, it’s Olam Haba [the World to Come]. And the simcha…

Student: That’s the other simcha, no?

Maggid Shiur: Ta’anug – that’s the best simcha. That’s already another investigation. What is not the simcha to say… there it’s not to look, “Aye, does everybody write!” This is right, yeah. It’s more another sort… or what is from the nefesh [soul] and from the da’as [mind/knowledge].

But it’s the same idea – structurally the same thing. It’s the simcha as a thing that all things are for.

“More Real” Not Just “Greater”

Student: Isn’t it greater that takes the space?

Maggid Shiur: It’s greater, but what it’s greater – is more real, not just greater. Is more real. Other things aren’t true last things. But that’s already a minute, and we won’t prove this now.

—

The Structure of Floors – Practical Application

What Does “Bottom Floor” and “Top Floor” Mean

Maggid Shiur: Right, so now we have a way how to organize things. True, all midos that have to do with… I know, the first thing – how to do the pe’ulos [actions] that one must, on a regular midah. What that means, I know which midah it’s called – figure out – belongs in the first floor.

The midos are closer to the end, the thing that everything is for that, and it’s not for something else – they’re on the tenth floor, but the highest floor. Like chassidus [piety] – one wants a ruach hakodesh [divine inspiration], dispute chassidus or a navi [prophet].

Student: Yes, ruach hakodesh means simcha, the same top thing.

Maggid Shiur: And the thing simple and ma’aseh chassidus [acts of piety], and so on. And all these things are things that they’re not lifnei atzman [for themselves] – one doesn’t need them for themselves alone, one needs them because through them one comes to a second thing, it comes to a third thing, it comes to a fourth thing, which in the end one comes to devekus Hashem [cleaving to God]. Right?

Definition of the Floors

Maggid Shiur: Bottom floor doesn’t mean anything – it only means that this falls out for everything else, and everything else doesn’t fall out for this. Right?

The same thing – the top floor means that everything else falls out for this, and this doesn’t fall out for everything else. That’s what the floor literally means.

Can One Skip Floors?

Student: And what is if I want to go up to the second floor – I can skip? I can take an elevator and wait?

Maggid Shiur: No, one cannot. Because if you can skip, then it’s not on the bottom floor.

Student: Maybe there’s more than one ladder?

Maggid Shiur: I’m not saying there’s only one ladder.

Student: We were asked how you call yourselves chassidim, and it’s the highest floor?

Maggid Shiur: Ah, that says there’s a ladder.

Student: Ah, such a fine point, do a thought down.

Maggid Shiur: But, okay, maybe, I don’t know. Then those things are still from the things that are in the middle. Between the top and the bottom there’s certainly a ladder. Exactly each step one must think. Right?

—

Comparison with Previous Divisions

Maggid Shiur: This is another way how to understand the topic of dividing midos.

The two divisions, just to be clear, don’t match with the other divisions that go up. It’s a whole other dimension almost, right? It’s another way of cutting things up.

Either the first option of dividing according to chalakei hanefesh [parts of the soul] – in a certain broad sense yes, I can say that the highest chalakei hanefesh belongs to the highest thing. But not more, not vertically – not the yesod ha’esh v’yesod hamayim [element of fire and element of water], or seven sefiros [seven sefirot] – it doesn’t work with that, right?

At the very least, it certainly doesn’t work with just our list of what falls out most. It can even be that that whole list will be from the first step, or one of the first steps.

If he’s really there, he must go that. If he’s really that, he must go that, right?

—

Final Note: Midos with More Than One Meaning

Maggid Shiur: What I want to argue, and I don’t have time now, is that it can be that there are midos – it can be two, it can be this way, it can be that way – it can be that there are midos that have more than one meaning. And it turns according to what one counts.

Three Meanings of “Midas HaPrishus” in the Rambam

Introduction: The Practical Starting Point

You certainly cannot work with just our list of what falls out most. It can even be that that whole list will be the first step, or one of the first steps. If one is floor here, he must go that. If one is floor that, he must go that. Right?

—

Main Argument: “Prishus” Has More Than One Meaning

What I want to argue, and I don’t have time now, is that it can be that there are also midos… it can be two things. It can be this way: it can be that there are midos that have more than one meaning, and it turns according to what one speaks about.

It can be for example, we saw that the Rambam [Maimonides] loves very much to speak about the midas haprishus [trait of abstinence/separation]. Very much he speaks about this. And we saw that the midah has several three meanings in the Rambam himself. Several three interpretations. And they have to do with other ways of structure in the whole picture.

—

Prishus #1: Not Being a Glutton (Ben Sorer U’Moreh)

The First Meaning

The first meaning of midas haprishus means not to be a glutton. Which means not to be a ben sorer u’moreh [rebellious son]. What this means is, the Rambam explains that there’s a prohibition to be a ben sorer u’moreh, yes? This is a lav [negative commandment]. What is the lav? To be a glutton. Yes?

Side Digression: Rambam Against Ramban Regarding “Kedoshim Tihyu”

The Ramban [Nachmanides] says that the world is completely mixed. Last week in Kedoshim we already spoke about this a few times, I think I’m clearer.

The world thinks that according to the Ramban one may not be a glutton, it says “kedoshim tihyu” [you shall be holy], the Ramban says it’s a mitzvah. According to the Rambam, if you think that the Rambam holds that there’s a general mitzvah, you don’t mean that.

The matter is exactly opposite:

– According to the Rambam there’s a prohibition “lav” to be a ben sorer u’moreh, to be a zolel v’sovei [glutton and drunkard].

– According to the Ramban there isn’t a real mitzvah of “kedoshim tihyu,” because the Ramban doesn’t rule it in Sefer HaMitzvos [Book of Commandments]. “Kedoshim tihyu” only appears in the commentary on the Torah. It can be that he wrote it later, he reviewed, I don’t know. But it’s not that the Ramban really means it’s a mitzvah, he means it’s a derech mussar [path of ethical guidance].

Back to the Main Point: What Does “Zolel V’Sovei” Mean

So, according to the Rambam it’s a greater prohibition to be a zolel v’sovei. But the Ramban, let him be the Ramban.

What the Rambam calls being a zolel v’sovei means, what is that speaking about? That is the lowest level. Why is that the lowest level? He’s speaking about the first thing.

Why? Because, we already spoke about this brichos [fleeing/avoidance] here once, he speaks about a thing that ben sorer u’moreh, what?

– He doesn’t honor his father and mother because of this

– He doesn’t honor the zaken iro [elder of his city]

– He destroys the society with his gluttony

English Translation

He’s not a tzaddik (righteous person) because of that, his problem isn’t that he doesn’t go learn, it’s not because of that that they kill him. They kill him because, as Rashi says, he’s going to steal.

The Parable of Drug Addiction

And apart from that, someone who is not controlled, a drug addict, let’s go into our parable in general, he has no control, he is so addicted that he’s going to steal to buy it. There’s no choice, one must imprison him, the Torah says one must kill him, but at least imprison him, yes? He has no choice.

The Lowest Rung of Humanity

The first thing before becoming anything else, is at least to belong to the first rung of humanity. Right?

He has such a strong desire that he’s going to kill someone because he wants to take his purse to buy a drug, which is something that happened, he’s not a normal person.

This is one meaning of perishus (separation), and the meaning of perishus is the foundation of the Torah, the entire Torah speaks of this. Also in the Rambam it is one of the great categories of taamei hamitzvos (reasons for the commandments), the mitzvos that bring to perishus, this is what he means.

—

Perishus #2: Not Being Idle from Wisdom

Afterwards there is another completely different thing that means perishus. What does perishus mean? It can mean, at least, I already have four things.

It can mean another completely different thing, which is as it says, and we’ve already spoken about this, in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah), that:

> “ein machsheves arayos mis’aleh ela b’lev panui min hachochma”

> (thoughts of forbidden relations only arise in a heart empty of wisdom)

In other words, the problem of machsheves arayos (thoughts of forbidden relations) is that one thinks of foolishness, one is idle from wisdom, and the Almighty gave us intellect to think of wisdom, not of foolishness. Right?

The Difference Between Perishus #1 and Perishus #2

This is not the problem of ben sorer u’moreh (the rebellious son). This is the problem of… the trait belongs in general to a higher step on the ladder, it belongs in general to:

– The trait of ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration) almost

– The trait of chochma (wisdom)

– The trait of understanding reality

– Of understanding the Almighty

And there perishus is a contradiction to that. Whatever, not the aspect of perishus that we call zolel v’soveh (glutton and drunkard) is a contradiction to that. And perhaps many other things that are not a contradiction to being a zolel v’soveh are a contradiction to that.

Different Standards for Different People

For this there are in the other laws for other levels of people, right?

– A talmid chochom (Torah scholar) should not be a maachal taavah (one who eats for pleasure)

– And a simple person should be

– Not only may he be, he must be

Because he didn’t think that he’s speaking of zolel v’soveh. “kol ma sheyirtzeh ha’adam la’asos ya’aseh” (whatever a person wants to do, he may do)? It’s a dispute, it’s a contradiction in the Rambam, it speaks of two different people. Right?

This is the second midas haperishus (trait of separation). In a certain sense one has the first thing.

—

Perishus #3: The Broadest Meaning – Going Up the Ladder in General

Afterwards there is a completely third thing that is called midas haperishus, which one can call a very general thing, and in a certain sense it includes all traits.

Connection to Plato

And so it also says in one of Plato’s dialogues, that the true trait is the trait.

The Principle of All Traits

And because we’ve learned a few times, that in a certain way the principle of all traits is… derech ha’emtza’i (the middle path). Derech ha’emtza’i.

And another way to say the principle of all traits, one of the ways that the Rambam has to say the principle of all traits is to do what is good and not what you want.

Truly what that tzaddik said, the first Jew doesn’t do what he wants. Not what he wants doesn’t mean not what he wants, it means to say simply following the desires, or following the things that are not truly good. It’s only good specifically when it comes to something else. In other words, Chapter 8 of Shemoneh Perakim (Eight Chapters, Rambam’s introduction to Pirkei Avos) which we learned.

The Difference Between Perishus #2 and Perishus #3

What is the difference between number two and number three? Well, it’s very different.

Because number two, when I spoke of number two, I spoke specifically that you are a person who can contemplate, and instead you go to a pizza store and you are serving the “kedoshim tihiyu” (you shall be holy) of that life.

But number three I speak in general, even which kind of… sometimes I talk about which kind of life you have. But I can say in general:

– There is a person whose life is in general not directed toward being wise. His life is built on the first level.

– There is another person whose life is built on being the second level.

Other Traits Become Part of Perishus

And not only that, I want to say that according to this, the third type of perishus, when one does another mitzvah, when one does another trait, for example midas haka’as (the trait of anger), is also part of midas haperishus.

Because perishus just means in this sense, go up on the ladder. The trait of going up on the ladder is called perishus, in the broader sense.

“Ha’alas Halev Poneh L’ma’alah”

Sometimes the Rambam speaks of this explicitly in this way. The trait of going up on the ladder, the Rambam calls it “ha’alas halev poneh l’ma’alah” (the elevation of the heart turning upward).

And we will learn in Sefer HaAhavah (the Book of Love, a section of Mishneh Torah), you will see that the intention of every mitzvah in Sefer HaAhavah is this. That one should go up, one should be pointing up and not pointing down.

The point is, this is called perishus. There is such a kind of perishus, like the perishus of the gedolei parshonei haMishnah (the great commentators on the Mishnah), and this we will, God willing, see further inside all these things eventually.

Summary of Perishus #3

It’s a third thing:

– It’s not the trait of kovesh es yitzro (conquering one’s inclination) literally with Talmud study

– And it’s not simply, I’m not speaking here about a problem, that if he holds that the evil inclination is a problem

I’m speaking of the advice regarding being in ascent, not in descent. Of being, in other words, of realizing this whole arrow that I described to you, that:

– There are things that are top

– And there are things that are bottom

– And there are things that go only one way

– Not everything turns in a circle

– There is something like fire, that all fires are fire

Right? The trait is called something perishus, and we need to see inside with time all these things in the details.

—

Conclusion

I don’t want my shiur (lecture) for today to go too long.

—

Questions and Answers

Student: He speaks about this? About the contradiction? Who says like him? He says it’s his Torah?

Student: I mean to say, a source for all these things.

Rav: Ah, a source. Yes, yes, okay. But the third one he didn’t speak about.