What is ‘to’eivah’ and is it preferable to engage in business rather than gluttony or not (Auto Translated) | תמלול וסיכום מתורגם

The Sense of Touch is a Disgrace to Us: The Reality of Social Evaluation of Sins

Introduction: Thanks for a Gift

Maggid Shiur (Lecturer):

And Rav Yoel donated a bench for the maggidei shiurim (lecturers) in Crown, so it’s lying there. He sends a message that it’s very important. Such a nice bench. He gives a shiur there, R’ Yonasan. So he donated, he’ll buy with such a crown from the rabbis. This is more from the office. Still, quite for me. The bench of the rabbis. In short, a white one.

The Main Investigation: The Sense of Touch is a Disgrace to Us

Maggid Shiur:

We’re still learning everything. We need to go through one important investigation that I need to go through a bit here with the group. I also have some chiddushim (novel insights), but this will be the main thing. And what is the thing? The thing is approximately like this. The thing is approximately… And there’s a bit of a contradiction here, a bit of a problem. And this is the thing I want to talk about a bit.

The Contradiction and the Problem

What is the contradiction with the problem? The contradiction with the problem is like this, that we explained here the statement that appears in the holy books, that is “chush hamashosh cherpah lanu” (the sense of touch is a disgrace to us).

What did we explain? What does this mean? First of all, what does this mean? We said it, so I think it’s true. It’s clear that this is what it means originally. I think that even the drama means this, that besides the disgrace, it doesn’t mean that it’s a shame to be a person with a sense of touch, it doesn’t even make any sense. A person is a person.

What it means is that the person who is… he is, as they say, not good, not fixed, not proper. And the subject of pleasures from the sense of touch, the person is the most looked down upon. This is basically what it means. The most looked down upon? I think this is true.

The Rambam and Aristotle

People even say it’s a strange thing that the Rambam (Maimonides) said, it’s true. Or what I argued, we look at… Yes. It’s a phrase from Aristotle. The Rambam quotes it three or four times. Exactly, under three or four times specifically. I remember I didn’t write down the exact sources, but several times where the Rambam quotes exactly these expressions, whether in the Ta’am HaMitzvos (reasons for commandments), or in… several times where he quoted explicitly the expression.

They talked about the fact that the Sefer Igeres HaKodesh, attributed to the Ramban (Nachmanides) [Iggeres HaKodesh, attributed to the Ramban], is angry at this expression. But… what? As we argued, that one must erase it, it’s not the correct version.

The Meaning of “The Sense of Touch is a Disgrace to Us”

In any case, what it means is this, what it means is that it means the basic thing that can be seen in the language of people, at least today, I mean also in the Gemara, a ba’al aveirah (sinner) means more specifically one who stumbled in… chet hayadu’a (the well-known sin, referring to sexual transgressions), right? Why is it so well-known? Because it’s a problem of pleasures of the sense mentioned. This is the main thing. And this is what it means.

It doesn’t mean that it’s itself a bad thing. It means simply that people who are not raised, not restrained, not reined in on this subject, one looks down most upon those who are not reined in according to what their culture or what their halacha (Jewish law) says is not proper. This is what we learned, I think this is the correct interpretation.

Character Traits Begin from Reality

But it’s based on reality. Many times we learned that the subject of middos (character traits) begins from reality. The educators say how people view it, how one educates, how it stands in halacha, how it stands in the culture, how one views all these things. This is the first step.

Why Does One Look Down More on Sins of the Sense of Touch?

Maggid Shiur:

Now, in order to explain this, in order to give this a bit… give a reason why, why indeed should one look down most upon this? What’s worse, someone who is an adulterer than someone who is a thief? Both are bad people. It means there’s already a reason, the person has some specific way that one looks down on him more than the thief. A thief who… yes, so I argue. I think it’s true.

Whether I hold this way, I think it’s not. No, I’m not talking about our society. Yes yes, in the whole world, but it’s not always the same what is the proper way. One will say that one must have three, in one second, one who leaves his wife is a problem, one who has no problem, he may have three wives. There are different customs regarding what is the proper conduct regarding the sense of touch.

But the summarizing matter is, as the Tanya says… I mean, I don’t see that it should be different. Yes, yes. More in the specific way, that he is more looked down upon as a person, not that it’s a greater sin.

A Practical Example: The Question of Aliyos in Shul

I don’t know, you see people trying very much to do this. Why? Yes, do you want political examples? People try… I’ll give you an example, a controversial example. Why not? There are two people. Ah, there’s a video. Yes? And the… ah, you want a gentile… and they’ve already talked about this, I mean it’s a bit of a review, but you can see that there’s a dispute, there’s such a conversation that goes like this, and you know this conversation?

There’s such a conversation that goes like this. That there are people who feel they’re practicing a leniency, it’s such an “aveirah shenaaseh lo keheter” (a sin that has become permitted to him – a sin that has become permitted in his eyes). Of mishkav zachar (homosexual relations), and these people, and there’s “naaseh lo keheter” is a normal thing, this already stands in the Gemara, and afterwards there are people who hold that it’s actually also a mitzvah. Okay, that’s already a bit too much, you have to hold it’s a mitzvah.

Anyway, so, and yesterday they come to the beis medrash (study hall), and one must say that one doesn’t give him an aliyah (Torah honor). And our beis medrash doesn’t deal with this, because one doesn’t announce. But there are batei medrash where he is such a scholar, that he even announces, and afterwards one wants to give him an aliyah. Even in his name too, he wants to give him an aliyah laTorah for his wedding too.

No, I say this, but here it doesn’t happen, because whoever distributes doesn’t announce, and we moved on. If one announces, a problem begins.

The Arguments and Counter-Arguments

Now, I’ve read many conversations that go like this. It goes like this, if one goes to such a more modern shul, an open shul, the conversation goes like this. Normally you get, don’t know, whatever is exactly the custom in the shul, they won’t give you the honor that you think is coming to you. Why? It’s an outcast.

Someone comes and he says, I understand, the president of the congregation is a thief, he may receive an aliyah. Not only that, there’s a person who I know comes with his car to shul, he also gets an aliyah. Really. But me, you may, why am I so terrible?

So that’s the story. So, my answer is always, one doesn’t give a mechalel Shabbos (Sabbath desecrator) an aliyah either. You’re already davening in some funny place where they give mechallelei Shabbos aliyos. But anyway, a mechalel Shabbos comes for an aliyah.

Student:

Again, you don’t know. I’m talking if someone knows. He already identifies himself as a mechalel Shabbos.

Maggid Shiur:

Ah, very good. Here there’s already a distinction. Let’s say he does identify himself. There isn’t such an identification, there isn’t some movement of mechallelei Shabbos. One doesn’t say. Yes, don’t ask, don’t tell. They give everyone tomorrow already. Also fine. Yes, but it doesn’t disturb. If I was… One says, one says, one says, one doesn’t talk about everything. Understand me. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

But let’s talk, I want this only because I have a custom to use politics. To bring out the philosophy. I can’t really bring the philosophy. So, if there’s a dear one or something… I won’t go. So, no, I still have some call last week. So, uh…

The Argument of “To’evah” (Abomination)

So there’s such an argument. So people argue like this. Since it’s already accepted, so they argue, it’s already accepted by all Jews, that there’s no difference which sin one does, honor one doesn’t receive the same. In a certain sense it’s actually true, a thief, I’ve never heard that a thief doesn’t receive an aliyah. Even last week when one was caught, one seats him, everyone agrees, he stole from the whole congregation, he still receives. Such an aliyah, whatever, not more, not less, it’s not established, it’s not a problem. Being a thief is not a problem.

He asks, he says, let’s say I’m an “ovarian” [sinner]. Okay, well, one didn’t make any “ovarian.” One holds in the old times that one must permit on Yom Kippur to pray with “ovarianim”? One doesn’t need to permit a whole year, true? The permission goes the whole year. The permission, one never forbade it back. One says in the shul before Kol Nidrei, we permit to pray with sinners, and one never makes it back after Neilah, because one must fulfill while, not sinners.

No, it’s always been accepted, there was such a person that all year one didn’t allow, and on Yom Kippur one allowed them. But anyway, today one doesn’t conduct this, one should still conduct this.

Other people come and say, what does it mean? It says in the Torah “to’evah hu” (it is an abomination), so it says, “ve’es zachar lo sishkav to’evah hi” (and with a male you shall not lie as with a woman, it is an abomination – Leviticus 18:22). To’evah, it’s different. It doesn’t say about mechalel Shabbos to’evah.

So the person says, it seems that this is disgusting, it’s not just a sin. I have a sin, you also do sins, what do you want from me? No, you’re disgusting, disgusting people we don’t give aliyos. I don’t know if to’evah translates as disgusting, or something like that, yes, to’evah.

The Counter-Argument: To’evah is Used Broadly

Someone comes, says, first of all, it also says in the same Torah that one who eats the lettuce that wasn’t checked is a to’evah, true? “Ve’achalta kol to’evah” (and you shall eat all abomination – Deuteronomy 14:3). It also says in the Torah to’evah about one who has, if I remember, about one who has false weights and measures it says to’evah, about one who doesn’t have… who is a thief, he cheats. It says, one can check. This is the exact example I need, so I’ll go check it.

Yes, also now the rabbi surely won’t learn about me. It says in Mishlei (Proverbs), well, it’s not Torah. I’ll go check. I’m only using this to arrive at a point, to prove that what the Rambam says is true. This is my whole point. Do you understand where I want to arrive? Yes, and…

Student:

No, really, I have an important word to say here. This is relevant to the simple meaning, I need to check. Today one cannot… one may not catch a Jew with a verse, because he has a concordance in his phone.

Maggid Shiur:

So… yes? It says, I need to show you. This is very important.

To’evah: The Simple Meaning in the Verse and the Inconsistency in Practical Treatment

To’evah in the Torah: Not Only Regarding Arayos (Sexual Prohibitions)

It also says in the Torah to’evah about one who has, if I remember, about one who has false weights and measures, it says to’evah about one who doesn’t have… who is a thief, he cheats. It says, one can check. This is the exact example I need, so I’ll go check it. Yes, also now the rabbi surely won’t learn about me. It says in Mishlei, what, it’s not Torah? This is… it’s… doesn’t count? I’ll go check. I’m only using this to arrive at a point, to prove that what the Rambam says is true. This is my whole point. Do you understand where I want to arrive? I already have much where I want to arrive.

Yes, and… no really, I have an important word to say here. This is relevant to the simple meaning, I actually need to check. Today one cannot… one may not catch a Jew with a verse, because he has a concordance in his phone. So, yes? It says, I actually need to show, it’s very important. Okay.

The Verse in Ki Seitzei: A Perfect and Just Weight

Yes, it says, “lo sochal kol to’evah” (do not eat any abomination), we talked about this, it says in this week’s parsha (Torah portion). To’evah also says this week about… what’s it called? About avodah zarah (idolatry), about all kinds of such things. And there’s also a verse, this is the most important verse, by the way, I want to talk, it’s this week the same. This is the important verse. It says, “even sheleimah”… It says at the end of Parshas Ki Seitzei, right? “Even sheleimah vatzedek yihyeh lach” (You shall have a perfect and just weight) etc., “ki to’evas Hashem Elokecha kol oseh eileh kol oseh avel” (for an abomination to Hashem your God is anyone who does these things, anyone who acts dishonestly).

It comes out, a very Chassidic Jew who in his store isn’t so careful, he should check that the register is exact, the scale, whatever, yes? Today there are registers, he can also add on a few cents, take off. He doesn’t calculate that it’s exactly one hundred percent maintained, he is the same to’evah-ness. That if you hold that to’evah is something a greater sin, it’s not the same as all sins, not every sin says to’evah, but only on some of them, one must also throw out the one who isn’t careful here about his weights and measures. This is the argument.

The Problem with the Argument: Inconsistency in Practice

Now, what is the problem with the argument? The problem is like this. I want to tell you, to teach how to learn a verse, because I think it’s very important. Let’s say like this, first of all, the problem is like this, the fact is that I don’t hold this way. The fact is that the person who says that this is not a sin, about other things, he also holds that one may not sing…

The Shlomo Carlebach Example: A Total Inversion of Morality

The same person, by the way, I’m already talking really politics, okay, I mean. The same person who holds that it means chillul Shabbos, all desires run into shul, I’m also included, the same person has a new crusade that one shouldn’t sing Shlomo Carlebach’s melodies, you know?

When we were children, once there were the frum (religious) ones, they didn’t sing Carlebach, because I don’t know, it wasn’t maintained. And afterwards he himself also held, he said, “What, what don’t you understand? Everyone has their desires, she has your desires, she has his desires, it’s not dangerous, he means ahavas Yisrael (love of fellow Jews) in general, it doesn’t make any… chas veshalom (God forbid) not, lo al da’ato (not according to his understanding).”

And afterwards the creations turned over, and one experienced a total inversion of morality, it’s really wondrous. And one arrived at the level that the more enlightened one is, one may not sing Carlebach. Why? Because it wasn’t with consent, and that one remembered twenty years later that he didn’t want it. Whatever it is, or right then, no difference, I won’t go into lashon hara (slander), it’s about other people. And the point is, therefore this is a desire, it’s not just when you sing it, yes? Do you get it? It’s the same person.

The Inconsistency: Theft vs. Arayos

In other words, and by the way, let’s go back. If one would have caught Shlomo Carlebach that he stole money from someone, he also wouldn’t have thought, even let’s say that he is this week very careful about weights and measures, he still wouldn’t have said that one shouldn’t sing his melodies because he’s some outcast. Yes, certainly, one must be honest. I haven’t yet heard the campaign that one shouldn’t learn books or sing melodies or give honor to thieves. Haven’t heard yet. Everyone agrees, no one disputes that theft is a bad thing, and cheating in business, terrible.

I’m showing you that even after one turned it over completely, what was a mitzvah in the subject of the sense of touch became a sin, what was a sin became a mitzvah, and still everyone agrees that one who does sins on this sin, one doesn’t give him aliyos, one sings his melodies. The one who is just a thief… true, but both, the common denominator between them, once twenty years ago and today, are also the people who are stolen from, true? Yes, but what you call their equal to theft. Theft is always hot. No one is not pro-theft-right, there doesn’t need to be a movement of theft-free, it doesn’t exist. Everyone is pro-theft, true.

Everyone Agrees That Theft is Bad

Purity, Taboos, and Disgust as a Moral Category

The Sanctity of Israel – The Topics of Eating and Sexual Relations

But there are certain topics that every Jew understands, there’s something to it, it’s called kedushas Yisrael (the sanctity of Israel), yes, it says in the Torah, we’ve spoken about this, and the Rambam (Maimonides) placed Sefer Kedushah (the Book of Holiness) as Hilchos Issurei Achilah (laws of forbidden foods) and Issurei Biah (laws of forbidden sexual relations). So, there’s something of a kedushah (holiness), and regarding this one seeks all kinds of things.

The Gentile’s Perspective – What He Understands and What He Doesn’t

So now a gentile comes to you and he tells you, I understand one shouldn’t steal, I understand one should believe in God, I understand all kinds of ideas, basic things in the Torah, I understand. I can say there are three gods, you say there’s only one, wonderful, okay. But the idea why believing should be important that there is a God, one must respect God, one must serve God, that everyone understands, every religious person, at least.

So, but the idea by us in America, especially the Christians have ruined this for us, but the idea that there are types of food that one may not eat, that’s already too much, he doesn’t understand that. He understands that what comes out of the mouth he understands is a problem, what goes into the mouth he doesn’t understand as a distinction.

Student: Yes yes, there’s a point of truth, but Reb Elimelech didn’t say that regarding this one doesn’t accept upon oneself, it’s also important.

Instructor: They came and they abolished these kinds of things, this was already the first Christians, they became Gentile Christians, they abolished this whole kind of thing, there can’t be a type of food that makes a problem. There were other reasons they stopped it, because that actually makes a distinction between Jews and gentiles, they specifically wanted to unite.

The Universality of Food Taboos

By us, where we start with the assumptions, thinking that it’s actually funny. So Jews are crazy people, they sacrifice difficult things, but it’s not something that can be explained at all. Not only can’t one explain why this specifically is bad, one can’t even explain this kind of thing.

Now, if you actually look around in the world, the way how people actually act, not what they say, but what they actually do, you’ll see that they don’t start. There isn’t any society in the world that doesn’t have something called food taboos. Things that one doesn’t eat.

Student: Because you’re talking about the reasons.

Instructor: What do I say is the reason? The Jewish reason is because it says in the Torah, it’s not a reason. It’s not a reason because you can’t.

Student: Yes yes, I’m coming, I’m going, I’m holding in the middle.

Instructor: Yes yes, I’m holding in the middle. So, I want… It’s the most beautiful, everyone understands here. Is it okay? It’s I’m going in.

Student: Does that mean? I haven’t, I don’t know. I have ice here. I have ice. Perhaps really maybe… Is there something about this? I bit off my foot there, I bit off my foot there. I didn’t help.

The Main Point: Every Culture Has Food Taboos

Instructor: So what am I saying here? What I’m saying is you understand the point, the reality is, if you ask actual people, they may not be able to explain perhaps, but if you ask actual people, you should see, and this is what I want to get to, you should see that in every culture, there are certain things that one doesn’t eat. How strict, how serious this is, even pikuach nefesh (saving a life), I don’t know. But there are things that one doesn’t eat.

Student: Is one thing?

Instructor: There are only things one doesn’t eat, I said.

Examples of Food Taboos in Different Cultures

In America, one doesn’t eat any dog, and one tells an American gentile that in China they eat dog, or one tells that the immigrants from Haiti eat cats. Supposedly they’re eating cats. Can you be what’s the difference between eating a cat and eating a pig? A cat is conscious and not a pig?

Student: Seriously?

Instructor: Seriously? Seriously, it’s actually such a smart animal. It’s something smart…

Student: No, it’s the same thing, a smarter bug. They’re called God forbid. A cat is smarter than a pig?

Instructor: Eh, yes. A cat that can have a little bit of intelligence.

Student: You’ll turn around more attached to see that they have a lot of intelligence.

Instructor: No, no, they don’t have.

Student: What will be known? What’s it called?

Instructor: That’s how I know. And it’s called in America, because America has this funny custom to have cats and dogs for pets. And therefore one doesn’t actually eat regarding this, because it has to do with the two weeks. Because they’ve never already… a chicken… I can’t come to a chicken egg, apple already, a cat and a dog…

Student: Cats don’t speak by that, people imagine that they speak. Perhaps dogs, I don’t know.

Instructor: Dogs for sure!

Digression: Horses and Other Animals Also Speak

By the way, all other animals also speak. The farmers speak with their… I was riding on a horse this week, and he spoke properly with the horse, okay? I tell you that the horse understood. Go right, he went right. He has something, he gives him a pull, he spoke with him too. He speaks, he speaks the whole time with the horse. I tell you that the horse driver speaks with the horse.

Student: I don’t know what to say.

Instructor: He actually doesn’t eat any horse either. In America, and in France they eat horse.

Student: Yes.

England Against France: Frogs and Wars

Instructor: Yes. They eat frogs, and the English make fun of the French that they’re frog eaters. You get it? Which Torah says not even to eat frogs?

Student: A story of a question.

Instructor: In England they’ve hated the French for a thousand years already, and to such an extent that for a few hundred years they made wars, and one of the reasons why there were wars is because the French eat frogs. Okay? What’s bad?

Interesting that they don’t have any midrash, that the nations are English, why is it bad to eat frogs? Why doesn’t that answer anything? It answers, that one should behave to think that they’re weird. The whole world people are weird. Exactly why he holds that frogs aren’t good, and you hold that not only frogs, but also other bugs.

The Talmudic Story with Rabbi Akiva – Disgust as Universal Language

And I ask you, which gentile likes to eat bugs? And the Gemara says that one tells the gentiles that they can’t serve with them. Rabbi Akiva said that they sent a prostitute to Rabbi Akiva, and the king… yes, do you know the story? Rabbi Akiva was in Rome, he sent him a prostitute, it was such a honey party. So he made himself unknowing. The king came the next morning early, he asked him, what, aren’t you a person?

He says, I am a person. What should I do that the prostitute that you sent, they send it, they don’t eat small crawling things, I’m disgusted by it. He said. And the gentile understood, you get it? Not so, I say, I’m some kind of crazy creature, I have an obsession, one doesn’t eat pigs. Pigs aren’t the problem. Pigs Jews don’t eat, the gentiles eat yes. And we also hold that it’s disgusting, but everyone didn’t understand. But filth and non-filth everyone understands.

In practice, gentiles aren’t particular, gentiles are a dirty bunch, they eat, they don’t check their lettuce, they eat non-kosher all day. So you get it, what does “I bring you out” mean? Everyone understands that there are things that are disgusting, okay?

Disgust/To’eivah as a Moral Category

So this is one of the things, this which goes back to this. There are things that are disgusting, whether in the topic of eating, whether in the topic of sexual relations. The main thing in this is, there are other things, being clean, generally speaking, bathroom, cleanliness, such kinds of things.

The Seven Moral Categories

Everyone says, ask people if one may sleep with one’s sister. Everyone says that one may not, no one can explain why. That is, certain kinds of people, more liberal people. And he came up with such a theory to say that there are seven different kinds of things, if I remember it’s number seven, different kinds of things that people call morality.

One of them is disgust. Disgust is the negative, the positive of this is, I don’t know, to be pure, some such word we’ll say. And purity, whose opposite is disgust, disgust, or in Yiddish to’eivah (abomination). I think it’s more than one goes a translation of the same word. To’eivah means already disgusting, abominable, it’s a thing that one hates, not one hates because it’s bad, one hates because it’s filthy. It’s a different kind of hatred, understand?

Disgust isn’t the same thing as it’s hate.

Student: What?

Instructor: Aversion is a very general word, but it’s disgusting. I hold that you’re dirty, that you’re something low. It’s such lowness, filthiness.

The Universality of Disgust

Now, it could be other cultures hold other things dirty and other things low. But there is such a thing that a person doesn’t do any dirty thing. It’s a dirty…

Student: What?

Instructor: Now, I can’t go into why the Jews hold that pig is dirty, and the Jews and Muslims, and others hold that pig is quite nice. It’s actually really dirty, but nice I want to do.

Student: Have you ever been at a pig place?

Instructor: It’s dirty, true? The poor thing. You have to overcome it, eat it anyway. But generally speaking you have to dirty, more dirty than a cow.

Digression: Kosher Fish and Non-Kosher Fish

Student: Herring?

Instructor: It depends on whether you put in the… what’s it called? You put in the… the… the… the onions are weak.

Student: And I have pleasure, we’ll soon…

Instructor: By the way, okay. There are kosher fish and non-kosher fish, I have no idea what this has to do with it. In general, fish is dirty. Fish is, what you clean it, whatever. And it could be that the non-kosher fish is actually even dirtier. You don’t know, they have more fat or fishy, whatever, whatever, what makes a fish, something like that, you don’t know.

It depends on which, the kosher types, which are the more refined types. It can’t be the difference, for you everything is the same, but those who eat types know that there’s a more refined type that’s kosher. It must be, again, I’m not saying I don’t want to now prove why that type that has something extra, something extra with him, something extra feet, he’s refined. I’m saying it’s a fact that we look at things as coarse or dirty or low. And not that. And that’s what he called disgust.

Student: What will I come back to this?

The Nature of Disgust and Taboos

Instructor: Now, naturally, these are interesting things. Disgust is very important to grasp. Disgusting things aren’t something that one usually needs to give mussar about not to do. When a culture has a taboo, usually, everyone can sometimes be forced, and when forced he can do it anyway. When a culture has a taboo, that this is disgusting, usually, there are always people who specifically like to do those things, or have some great desire to eat that dirty thing.

Connection to Aristotle and the Rambam – Good Education

But a normal person, this is a good sign why we spoke the whole time about Aristotle and the Rambam, that when one is well educated, a person who is good doesn’t like bad things. Right? The Rambam says one must enter into the discussion of “i efshar ba’atei chazrin” [it’s impossible to return]. But anyway, are there things that are to’eivah [abomination] that are disgusting?

A thing that, let’s say, before the Torah, okay? Naturally, in every culture, there are things that are disgusting, he has no desire, there’s no American goes, I want to taste, there’s one or two, but the normal, a moderately normal person, doesn’t have a terrible

To’eivah, Disgust, and the Natural Foundation of Ethics

To’eivah and Disgust: The Natural Foundation of Disgustingness

Things That Are Naturally Disgusting

Right? The Rambam says, one must enter into the discussion of “i efshar ba’atei chazer” [it’s impossible to return]. But anyway, are there things that are to’eivah [an incomprehensible thing], that are disgusting? A thing that, let’s say, before the Torah, okay? Naturally, in every culture, there are things that are disgusting, he has no ta’avos [desires]. There’s no American exile, I want to taste frog. There’s one or two, but a normal, moderately normal person doesn’t have a terrible desire to eat. How does a frog taste? Or how in China they eat all kinds of reptiles with I don’t know what, with snakes, I don’t know what? Nobody wants it, there’s no desire to eat a snake.

Something happens to a person. You can even write in the book, one shouldn’t eat any snake. Perhaps it’s dangerous, perhaps it’s disgusting, whatever it is. Because a normal person is disgusted. And conversely, you tell him that someone has some desire to eat frog, you say, you’re a strange creature, you’re not a normal person. Right? And we don’t give him aliyos, because he’s low, not because it’s a greater sin. It has nothing to do with how big or small the sin is. It’s something of a different category [geder]. This is disgusting. Right?

Example of Marriage with Cousins

Yes, the same thing in America, someone married his cousin, he’s disgusting, true? Jews hold that it’s actually a mitzvah. Or Muslims. Yes. It’s disgusting. Eh, it used to happen. Why is it disgusting? There’s a problem, genetics, there can be illness. Okay, there’s today Israel we can take care of that. It’s still disgusting, true?

A true story? It was in the news recently too. Someone, I don’t remember, you don’t get all the racist news that there is, but whoever watches knows it was in the news. There was even someone, there came there somewhere saying that yes, there’s a clinic, and Jews and Muslims came. Two groups that still marry cousins, and you check, if there’s no problem, you can check, there are certain things you check, especially for this, genetic testing. In short, it’s still disgusting, why?

The Connection Between Purity and Forbidden Relations

Because here goes strict, here comes actually the word from Aristotle who says “keshe’mishush cherpah” [when touch brings shame], and they come to explain, why in the arayos [forbidden relations]? I mean there’s no other arayos like things become disgusting. And he says, perhaps nekiyus [cleanliness], one must speak of certain cleanliness, someone who isn’t, but there’s no Torah about this. It’s not a matter, it’s cleanliness? It’s maybe he is, but it’s interesting, there’s like Reb Pinchas of Yoav said cleanliness, we want here, yes, one of their levels must mean literal cleanliness.

And it’s interesting that the Charuv means it’s true, I mean both holidays about cleanliness also usually have to do with… with the matters of ta’avos [desires], therefore there’s the whole topic of tumah [ritual impurity], like keri [seminal emission] and like zivah [a type of discharge] and like…

Why Excrement Is Not Tamei

There’s always a question why excrement isn’t tamei [ritually impure], true? Do you know why it’s not tamei? You don’t need to make it tamei, everyone quickly holds that it’s tamei. Tamei is only things that you don’t know are tamei, he perhaps touched. But a thing that everyone agrees is tamei, you don’t even need to understand the Torah. I mean that’s the answer.

Cleanliness in the Camp

Only in the machaneh [camp], because when you go to war you don’t stand, you don’t stand at home. At home you have a bit… when you’re in a camp, in a war, it happens that then basic cleanliness is neglected. The Torah explains, one should maintain the basic cleanliness that exists. The gentiles it seems they weren’t careful, on the way one doesn’t do, and there are cultures that are less careful, and tribes that are more, more pure cultures, relatively, yes?

But it’s, I don’t know, I can’t say that a person is disgusting, but I mean it’s disgusting enough that one doesn’t need to speak of it at all, perhaps. But it also has a bit to do with love, that when one eats it becomes the… has some connection. There’s the topic of tefilas Ezra [Ezra’s prayer], you see that it’s connected, somehow it’s connected.

The Main Point: Everyone Agrees It’s Disgusting

The main point I want to bring out is that these things everyone agrees are disgusting. There are a few modern creatures, they’ve emerged, and about this comes the holy Rav and he explains it. Now you understand why the person who is a chotei [sinner], everyone, as you say, in every culture, in every society, according to their chata’im [sins], but the one who is a chotei in the disgusting topics, there is such a feeling called disgust. He’s disgusting.

He’s not just the one who sleeps with the wrong thing or eats the wrong thing. He’s not just the… by Jews everything became a lav [negative commandment], it’s a mitzvah and a sin. But there are things, even among, as you say, one must speak of the lev [heart], one can speak of things that are beyond mitzvos and sins. And you see that someone who eats chazir [pig] or who sleeps with the wrong things, he’s not an oveid al ha’lav [one who transgresses a lav], he’s something of a subhuman, something of a low creature. And everyone… and the Torah came to explain this. One must find an explanation for it. I haven’t yet said the explanation, I’m only saying the fact that’s being explained.

The Torah’s Use of Disgust: Idolatry and Other Things

The Verse of “To’evas Hashem Kol Oseh Eileh”

But along the way I want to explain the verse that someone asked the question about. If so, what’s the simple meaning that the Torah places two things that seemingly aren’t disgusting at all, and the Torah says they’re disgusting, true? Let’s speak of the verse at the end of Parshas Ki Seitzei, where it says “to’evas Hashem kol oseh eileh kol oseh avel” [an abomination to Hashem is everyone who does this, everyone who does injustice]. Everyone, this is the strongest verse.

A Rule in Studies: You Can’t Make a Science from an Exception

The truth is, and by the way, one must know there’s such a rule, in limudim [studies], you can’t learn a science you can’t make, certainly according to our data you can’t make any science from a yotzei min ha’klal [exception], true. If I have a machine that can count for me, and I’ll tell you, if it will let me in, it won’t let me in or not.

Statistics of “Ta’avah” in Tanach

I can tell you that in the Torah the root ta’avah [desire] appears one hundred eighteen times, okay, in the Tanach, sorry. But if I can see here quickly, approximately ninety of them are about chush ha’mishush [the sense of touch] or about avodah zarah [idolatry], and two or three aren’t. So if someone will ask why specifically that, there’s a majority, a great majority on this. Okay, but yes there are, as you say, there are many verses, in Mishnah very many times it says ahavas Hashem [love of God] about as you say kol gabei lev [everything by the heart], and about many other things, about even and also, about literally a verse, but many other things.

Verses in Sefer Devarim

No, not only meshalim [parables], I mean simple meaning in Parshas sides, in Sefer Devarim. In Sefer Devarim it says so. I can first speak, one can even speak about avodah zarah, but avodah zarah everyone knows that specifically about avodah zarah one uses language of disgust.

Avodah Zarah Is Not Naturally Disgusting

Everyone knows that avodah zarah isn’t disgusting, avodah zarah is quite tasty, except that they thought up a nice story about the Ba’al Pe’or [an idol], which the midrash about the Ba’al Pe’or is itself part of the zilusa d’avodah zarah [degradation of idolatry], which is called litzanusa d’avodah zarah [mockery of idolatry] in the Gemara.

It’s not true that the Ba’al Pe’or did it, okay, can be sure. It can’t be sure, but it’s not true. We know… no, they didn’t do it. I’m telling you a story, they didn’t do it. This is lashon hara [evil speech] that we say about it. Because Pe’or is simply a place, we know what it is. And Ba’al is the god of that place, this is the Ephrati tav. Ba’al, like there’s Ba’al Hamon. Ba’al and adon mean but series.

If I did the work, the Gemara says limudos. I don’t know. The Gemara did such work. I don’t believe there was such worship. But I’m saying it’s part, and the Torah you see very clearly, yes?

The Torah’s Language of Disgust Against Avodah Zarah

Gelilah [dung], there’s a Mishnah in Shabbos about this. “Tizrem k’mo davai” [you shall cast them away like filth]. The Torah has such a… how do you say a magen me’avir? I already believe. The Torah has such a… the Torah has very strongly a matter to make people “disgusted” by avodah zarah. Although in those times, “at least” people loved avodah zarah, the Torah holds, and it can be by the way that it’s true it was so.

For example, there’s a verse “to’evas Mitzrayim kol ro’eh tzon” [an abomination to Egypt is every shepherd]. “At least” we also say simply, it’s not clear, the mefarshim [commentators] struggle with the simple meaning, but the word “to’eivah” also appears. It can also be that people have a different god, makes the whole people “disgusting” to the other people. It can be that it was already such a “cultural” thing, that you’re the modern person who serves some “bug”, I don’t know what, your idol looks very “puny”. This is disgusting, not “puny”, it’s disgusting.

“Shaketz Teshaktzenu V’ta’eiv Te’ta’evenu” – An Action-Word

And the Torah wants very strongly, as we learned, “shaketz” – an explicit verse in last week’s portion, true? “Shaketz teshaktzenu v’ta’eiv te’ta’evenu” [you shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it]. That means, it’s not “shaketz v’ta’eiv”, it’s a “verb”. Be meshaketz [detest] the avodah zarah, true? And the Torah has already fulfilled the “verb” many times. “Shikutzeihem v’giluleyhem” [their detestable things and their dung-idols] – “giluleyhem” means “lo halu gelalim” [are they not dung], true? So “shikutzim” also means “shikutzim”, disgusting things.

The Torah wants to be meshaketz the Torah. You see, as it says in a verse, you see kesef v’zahav [silver and gold], you shouldn’t be mis’aveh [desire], but you should be mis’a’eiv [abhor]. You should say it’s disgusting, you should say “phooey”. It’s very “puny”, because it’s not disgusting at all, it’s very beautiful. When a Jew passes through the great, he spits, as if he sees a disgusting thing. This is a limud [teaching] that the Torah teaches us, it’s not a thing that’s a fact.

The Torah Builds on Natural Disgust

But it starts from this, they say, it must build on what people naturally have certain things that are “disgusting”, and the Torah uses this and tells you, just as you’re “disgusted” from eating a pig, you understand that, so you’ll look at an idol.

“To’evas Hashem Kol Oseh Eileh” – The Almighty’s Perspective

And the same thing when the verse says “to’evas Hashem kol oseh eileh”, he says it like this: I know that the Almighty is different from you. By you indeed the most disgusting thing is to be a glutton, to be some no’eif [adulterer], these sorts of things, that’s by you indeed. Because the Almighty doesn’t think so, the Almighty doesn’t work any difference whether it’s disgusting or not. Because the Almighty, a ganav [thief], is as disgusting as a no’eif, because that doesn’t work by people.

The Torah wants to make strong, it should be by you desiring someone else’s money like someone else’s wife. As it says in a verse “lo sachmod eishes re’echa… u’veis re’echa” [you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… and your neighbor’s house], right? It’s not the same. Because the Torah wants that libeinu [our heart] should leave the same, because in a certain sense, and according to truth, from the Almighty’s side one can say that in the non-human world it’s the same.

The Verse Proves There Is a Difference

On the contrary, from this verse, not we see in this verse that in the Torah it’s the same, on the contrary, here we see that there are such things that are disgusting. In general we have a re’ayah [proof] that all these things that are accepted in the chush ha’mishneh [sense of touch] are bad, and the Torah wants to use the discourse and expand it to things that are truly bad.

A Prophet Can Say That Theft Is Even Worse

And even a navi [prophet] can even say, this is worse, to steal is even worse than from from from… yes, even what Jesus said doesn’t work if you already don’t think it’s disgusting to eat disgusting things, right? It’s out, don’t just say he’s even more disgusting than eating pig. The one who stops thinking that pig is disgusting, the word won’t mean anything to him.

“Gadol Ha’machti’o Yoser Min Ha’horgo”

“Gadol ha’machti’o yoser min ha’horgo” [greater is the one who causes him to sin than the one who kills him], means that horgo [killing him] is terrible, it’s even greater. The moment one will say in the lach [to you] to kill him is nothing, the words won’t work. Many Torahs work this way, one must always grasp the havah amina [initial assumption] that’s behind them.

The Question: Why Is the Adulterer the Primary Example of a Sinner?

Okay, to return le’inyaneinu [to our matter] right, this is what we began to say. So now, the holy Rav came, the one who entered, the historian, gave him an explanation. This is the important thing, and here we come to the matter.

The Explanation of “Chush HaMishush Cherpah” (The Sense of Touch is Shameful)

An explanation comes for this, what is actually the simple meaning that a ba’al aveirah [sinner] is simply someone who is an adulterer? What does the topic of doing bad have to do with him being the primary example of a sin? Or the lowest person. There are many low things, many bad things. Okay, that was the question he had.

The Rambam’s Favorite Answer

He came with an answer. I know even two answers, perhaps there are minor answers, and there is truly more than one answer. But the one answer that the Rambam loved very much and wanted to repeat several times in other ways, is the answer that has to do with the yesod ha’yesodos [foundation of foundations] of what is ethics, what ethics is to be a person, it comes out

Chush HaMishush Cherpah: The Explanation and Its Problems

The Foundation: “Low” Means “Animal-like”, Not “Bad”

Low means simple, it’s not bad for an animal, a sin, it’s not a sin for an animal to be an animal, it’s a good animal, but it doesn’t have the virtue, the specific virtue of a human. And the sort of things where they are the same by a person as by an animal, like the matters of specifically the chush hamishush [sense of touch].

The Critical Distinction: Animals Only Have Desires from the Sense of Touch

Why? Because we went through the discussion, I don’t remember if we learned it here or didn’t learn it, that no animal has ever watched a movie, and no animal has ever had a re’iyah asurah [forbidden sight]. Did we talk about this discussion here? No?

I need to briefly summarize. Animals don’t have movies, they don’t have forbidden sights, they don’t have bad thoughts, they only have bad, not only actions, also like ta’avos [desires], but in the sense that it wants to fulfill its sense of touch. Mah she’ein kein [by contrast] the three senses, re’iyah [sight], shemi’ah [hearing], rei’ach [smell], it’s certain that an animal has no ta’anug [pleasure] in them.

The Dog Example: Anticipated Question and Answer

Do you understand what I’m saying? You’ll ask a question, and I need to explain it. You’ll ask a question, certainly when you bring your dog a piece of meat he starts dancing already when he sees it, not only when he eats it.

Let me explain a distinction to you. I know this is a basic thing, I can’t elaborate on this because this is not my lecture for today, there is a lengthy lecture about this.

The distinction is, and this is the lecture to understand what forbidden sights really are, the distinction is like this, I’ll tell you, I need to find the clear statement, the distinction is that no dog likes to see beautiful pictures of meat that he won’t eat. That’s the distinction.

Mah she’ein kein people have, go to movies not only of things that he will eat, or that he can see going to eat, even what he will never eat, he never has, there’s nothing in the movie, doesn’t even have to be about pleasure. It can be a person has pleasure from seeing beautiful scenery, or beautiful, even if it’s moving, whatever it is, but not because he will get it.

The dog that starts running for this, he already smells the meat, what moves him, what he becomes nis’orer [aroused] is the sense of touch, not the seeing. He goes, if he knew that he will never get that piece of meat, you can fool him, if he knows that he will never get it, he will never start to become happy. He becomes happy because it reminds him or brings him the idea of the sense of touch, or that he will get it, he runs after it, v’chadomeh [and so forth].

The Lion and the Goat: Another Proof

The same thing when a lion sees a goat in the desert, he becomes happy, because now he will devour the goat. But what does he think? He thinks about devouring the goat, not about seeing it. No lion watches nature documentaries of beautiful goats. People do watch nature documentaries of beautiful goats. That’s a different thing.

I’m not saying about this whether it’s better or worse. It can be that it’s a waste of time to watch nature documentaries. I want to bring out that it’s not the same thing. The pleasure that, the desire, the pleasure, perhaps one needs to distinguish these things, but al kol panim [in any case], the desire and the pleasure that animals have is always about the sense of touch. That’s the only thing they have.

They don’t have, hagam [although] certainly animals can see and hear and smell even better than people, but the pleasure he has is not from the seeing, only from what it reminds him that he will eat. Right? Is the distinction correct?

The Distinction by People: Smell, Taste, and Sense of Touch

The same distinction exists by people, right? That’s what I’m saying, a person can, we talked in the law of mis’anem [one who fasts], right? A person can taste food, and taste is already more complicated, let’s not talk about taste, but smelling, right?

Smell and Blessings: An Illustration

We talked, smell stands in the Gemara that one needs an extra limud [special derivation] that it’s a pleasure, because smell itself is a different sort of pleasure from eating. It doesn’t go into the body, right? It’s different, although it’s a certain pleasure. Technically something goes in, something at the very least, but it’s not the same sort, not sense of touch, it doesn’t have to touch. That’s what it’s called in the Gemara, and so in Aristotle it’s also called that it doesn’t touch. You think that it’s in the body normally, I don’t have to touch the thing that I smell.

So, I smell, if I smell besamim [fragrance] I make an extra berachah [blessing] on it, true? It can be one can make blessings also on things that one can also eat, but I’m saying that if someone smells a piece of challah cooking in the house on Shabbos, and he says “Ah, I’m now going to eat the challah”, then he doesn’t need to make any blessing for the pleasure of the smell.

He needs to make perhaps a blessing on the… there’s a question, there is in the Rama perhaps there’s a blessing of “nosein rei’ach tov bapeiros” [Who gives a good fragrance to fruits], something like that. But that’s when one doesn’t eat it. When one does eat it, I think it’s clear that one doesn’t make two blessings on the smelling and on the eating, because the smelling… I can’t, I’m using the blessings for an illustration, it can be there are other parameters there. But the smelling, he smells that he will eat. There’s a distinction between smelling that you will eat, and smelling.

The Ba’al HaTanya’s Point: One Doesn’t Hear of Too Much Pleasure from Smells

And about this Aristotle says, we never heard of a person — we talked about this here about the Ba’al HaTanya [author of the Tanya], right? — we never heard of a person who should have been carried away because he had too much pleasure from good smells. He’s terribly “into” perfumes and things.

Where do we hear? We do hear, he’s too much “into” the perfume of people, true? He’s “into” the perfume, not the perfume, he’s not interested in the perfume, he’s interested in the one wearing the perfume. Ah, that’s already further sense of touch. It’s exactly, you can call it bemikre [by chance], just as he is by chance it goes through the sense of smell.

When you smell the thing you love, you remember the thing, or it brings, you go from the “past” to the “future”, you remember, you start to have pleasure from the thing, but the smell itself is not a thing that has the “sort of judgment” of desire about it.

The Same Principle by Hearing (Shemi’ah)

The same thing about looking, and the same thing about hearing. One doesn’t say about a person that he’s a ba’al ta’avah who listens to too much music. One can say that certain music is me’orer es hata’avah [arouses desire], like kol b’ishah ervah [a woman’s voice is nakedness].

Kol B’ishah Ervah: The Problem is Not the Hearing

The problem is not the hearing. Whoever thinks that kol b’ishah ervah is an issur me’etzem [inherent prohibition], he thinks chas v’shalom [God forbid], it’s a problem of the woman, the problem is not the voice. About this it’s clear the halachah that if it’s a “recording” it’s muttar [permitted], etc. and so is the custom.

And if you know in the “sense” that you can, not know that you heard from whom it was read in her “biography”, know who it is means to say that you remember the person, and also the person, I’ve already talked many times here, that the prohibition of hirhurim [improper thoughts] means thinking “that”, not thinking “of”. Just as thoughts of… not any…

Summary: Why Chush HaMishush is “Cherpah”

So this is only to bring out the thing, that what… this is only to bring out the thing, that one comes with an explanation why people look, and perhaps also the Torah, but why people look at the lowest thing, the one who is not restrained in the topic of ta’anugei haguf [bodily pleasures]?

Why? Because this is a thing that is animal-like, and everyone understands that a person must be a person, not an animal. Everyone understands this. But this is the premise. And about this, the thing is the most animal-like. The pleasure a person has ba’asher hu behemah [insofar as he is an animal], not ba’asher hu mensch [insofar as he is human].

Mah she’ein kein if someone for example has too much pleasure from music, it can be it’s an avlah [wrong], but it’s a wrong, it’s not an animal-like wrong. Memeilah [consequently] one looks down on him less. The specific judgment that one has on this person, is less here. That’s the claim of chush hamishush cherpah [the sense of touch is shameful]. Right?

The Main Problem: When the Explanation Goes Further Than the Evidence

Now, here becomes a bit of a problem. This is the problem I wanted to talk about. I don’t have any solution for the problem, I only have a problem. That’s quite good.

Here becomes a bit of a problem. Why? Because this came with an explanation for this, and it’s not an explanation. One started with re’ayah [evidence], evidence, and there is evidence that people say so. People say so is good evidence, bechol kelei [by all means]. Except that one has evidence against it, but by default one must accept what people say has some sevara [logical reasoning].

And one comes with an explanation that is already not only people say, it’s already an explanation, it’s already a certain hechreich [logical necessity]. Now, it becomes here like a bit of a problem, that it can be that the necessity goes a bit further than what the people say. And here becomes a problem.

What Do I Mean That It Goes Further?

Let me explain, what do I mean that it goes further? I mean that there were certainly mefarshim [commentators] and other books that did take this explanation much further than what people think. And this is already a problem, because if you start from explaining what people say, if one goes with this mehalech [approach], with this method of approach, one can never go too far. Because then you’re already saying a thing that no person will agree with, and it’s already a bit of a question whether one can do this ma’alah. It’s a philosophical chakirah [inquiry].

The First Problematic Conclusion: Is Eating Itself Bad?

So what is the thing that people arrive at? People arrive at the exact thing that our Balzac says it doesn’t mean. People arrive and say, if so, there are two opposite things that one can arrive at. Let’s say the first, one thing that one can arrive at, one can arrive and say that if so, eating itself is the problem.

Eating a person eats, why? Because he is a person, his nefesh habehemah [animal soul], his body needs to eat. So if the virtue of a person is that he is not a person, is not that he is not a person. The virtue of a person is, let’s say his cheilek hasichli [intellectual part], the things that are meyuchad [unique] to the person by another person, not the things that are meshutaf [shared] between the person and the animals.

It comes out that not only someone who sins, sins in the topic of sense of touch must be the worst person, but in general someone who eats. If someone wants to be only a person, he must in general try there not, perhaps one cannot completely, try there not as little as possible to eat.

Two Ways to Understand “Derech Ha’emtza” by Eating

I want to say, there are very, we talked about this a bit by the lecture of Rabbi Cheshbon shlita, there are very two other real ways to say this. There are two other ways.

You can say, one can have a chakirah [inquiry], what is the derech ha’emtza [middle path]? The middle path means what is right, okay? One can say that by you, by you in England, I don’t know, let’s say, that the middle path to eat is breakfast bacon, and at night two glasses of beer, and so on. That by you is normal, I look at it as such a rough estimate, a normal person, eats in the morning a piece of bread, and at night half a drink of water, and that’s enough.

This is not a dispute that has to do with the topic of whether eating is bad. This is a topic that says, eating is a thing, it’s a neutral thing, you can say. Certainly, you make it bad, and that’s the worst, but that’s not what we’re talking about now.

You can’t say, I want to make an inquiry, how much is lacking, how much is right. One can say that what you call right is too little or too much. There can be many disputes what is the right conduct. It can be, one needs to know according to what one will determine this, it’s itself an inquiry. But this is one sort of inquiry.

The Rambam’s Position: A Fascinating Observation

I saw explicitly, there are those who say. For example, the Rambam [Rambam/Maimonides] for example, could have said this, he doesn’t say this. Right? It’s very interesting.

The Rambam for example was difficult that the Torah doesn’t allow eating much less than how much the truth came out from the end. According to philosophy one may eat pig. So says the Rambam. How do you know? According to philosophy Aristotle used to eat pigs, it can’t be.

Derech HaMemutza: Dispute of Aristotle, Rambam, and Alternative Approaches

The Basic Question: Who Determines What is Right?

One can say that what you call right is too little or too much. There can be many disputes what is the right conduct. It can be one needs to know according to what one will determine this. There is one inquiry. But this is one sort of inquiry.

The Rambam’s Approach: Pig is Philosophically Not Bad

The Rambam’s Clear Position in Shemonah Perakim

I saw explicitly, there are those who say, for example, the Rambam for example could have said this that he doesn’t say this. Three? It’s very interesting. The Rambam for example was difficult that the Torah doesn’t allow eating much less than how much the truth says that comes from the end. From where? According to philosophy one may eat pig. So says the Rambam. How do I know? According to philosophy they used to eat pigs. It can’t be that the Rambam… I don’t know what is the other proof? Perhaps it’s not correct?

No, I want to bring out a very interesting point, and I’ve learned all of chapter 4. The Rambam says in chapter 7 stronger chapter 6, right? The Rambam says clearly, according to philosophy, on this the Rambam says explicitly. The Rambam has a tremendous explanation, yes?

The Rambam’s Explanation of “Al Yomar Adam”

Al yomar adam [a person should not say], it says explicitly in the verse, al yomar adam, ee efshar yivsar chazir [it is impossible to eat pork]? Says the Rambam, why? Because a Jew must have good philosophy. If someone will say, it’s impossible to eat pork, he’s saying a lie. Philosophically, because philosophically there’s nothing wrong with eating pig. A person can be a healthy person, a good person without eating pig.

But what? Let him say, efshar behatorah asah [perhaps the Torah forbade it], why did the Torah forbid it is another question? But one shouldn’t be confused, one may not be confused. Eh, that which the Torah forbade something, is not yet proof that it’s a bad thing in itself? The Torah has other considerations why it forbids things, because one must go into the extremes, it’s needed to educate the people. This stands in chapter 4, can be other reasons, that which the Rambam says. Right?

Critique of the Rambam: Why Does He Believe Aristotle?

Now, it’s very interesting, I want to bring out the distinction, not necessarily to ask the question on the Rambam. It’s very interesting, because the Rambam, other poskim [halachic authorities], would have actually gone to other people. He says explicitly that he doesn’t agree with this.

Translation

First of all, does the Rambam say it’s philosophically good to eat pig? How does one know? It says in the Midrash, and who says the world says so. Who says the foundations of the world are so correct? Can’t it be that the gentile made an error? I’m almost certain that Aristotle asks if it’s a pig. I don’t have any other… Why? Can’t it be that he’s plainly wrong?

No! What? The perhaps… This is the Rambam’s interpretation, and one can say other interpretations. What? Who? Couldn’t find a way? I can find you a way! If I were to say now, it’s dirty! For that alone, be clean! It’s not a problem, the pig goes into the mud. No, not after that.

The Torah’s Own Reason: “To’evah”

I’m almost certain that the plain meaning of Scripture is not so. It explicitly says “to’evah” [abomination]. The Creator of the world ate pig? There’s something, what’s it called? There’s what someone wrote, a law to try to explain the logic of the Torah. One sees clearly, in the Book of Leviticus it doesn’t say, it doesn’t say that the Torah holds that… Not in Leviticus, in Leviticus there’s one reason, and in Deuteronomy there’s another reason, but nowhere does it say that it’s a chok [decree without reason].

When the Torah wanted to write to you, something that I really had, I can write such things. It could be that there are places where it explicitly says this, I don’t know if there are, because the Torah does give a reason, it gives a reason, to’evah, because it’s a to’evah, “lo tochal kol to’evah” [do not eat any abomination], yes? To’evah means you also hold disgusting. Okay, could be, I’m expanding a bit, I’m making the boundaries a bit different than they were before. Say the Torah doesn’t say any novelty, but it doesn’t say in the Torah that it’s something strange.

The Rambam and the Issue of Disgustingness

And again, could be the Rambam wouldn’t have agreed with this reason. The jokes about disgustingness, disgustingness doesn’t count. Could be the Rambam was one of today’s liberals, who don’t hold that the issue of disgust is a good reason. But okay, could be. But I’m just saying that it’s not clear why, if we go back to the derech ha-memutzah [the middle path] of the issue of chush ha-mishush [sense of touch], not one hundred percent clear why the Rambam was still so certain that pig is the… I’m only saying this within the situation, in the discussion of this one can say more teachings.

Two Alternative Options to the Rambam’s Approach

And what I just want to bring out is that there are two options open to someone who encounters an approach or a Torah teaching that says differently what comes out to him as the derech ha-memutzah, right? Let’s say, in Aristotle it was about pig. It comes out that in a certain book Aristotle says clearly. It’s nothing, nothing at all, a person who eats pig is a complete adam ha-shalem [complete person]. One can be an adam ha-shalem while eating pig. So says the holy Rabban. Right? How can the Rambam say such a thing? I don’t know. That’s what he says. Except for what, one shouldn’t say such a thing such a… Everyone became pale, right, one shouldn’t get angry. He has a reason. That’s how he learned the Gemara. One can learn the Gemara differently, it’s open to all the other interpretations. Okay.

Option 1: There Is No Derech Ha-memutzah – Only Obedience

What can other people say? Let me just bring this out. Other people can say, no, I’m… That is, there would be two other options. One other option would be to say that the Torah doesn’t have a derech ha-memutzah. You decided that there’s such a thing as derech ha-memutzah. There’s a correct way for everything. There’s ratzon Hashem [God’s will], He says everything. There’s no derech ha-memutzah, there’s no such thing as shleimus [perfection], the whole thing is obedience. One must obey, and that’s the opposite. It’s forbidden because one must obey, not make one’s own reasons. This is the other claim that the Rambam rejects there. And that would be one option.

Option 2: We Disagree About What the Derech Ha-memutzah Is

Okay, even if you say yes that you have a derech ha-memutzah, you can say another side. You can say that we simply disagree about what the derech ha-memutzah is. You’re a glutton. I can even give a reason if you want.

The Distinction Between Olam Hazeh and Olam Haba

You hold, and this is a point we need to talk about, you hold that the perfection of a person to be a healthy, well person ba-olam hazeh [in this world], it’s actually nothing wrong to eat pig. But the Torah came also to be a healthy person, a perfection of a person for olam haba [the world to come], there it says yes to eat pig. So according to our goals, according to our tachlis [purposes/goals], pig changes from a bad thing to a good thing. And according to the second purpose it’s not simple that it’s something against, it’s not against the body. It could be yes, it could be no, it could be plain. You have an error, you think that pig is good or bad.

Christian Parallels

I’ve seen explicitly people who take this path, they say, actually, I haven’t seen any Jews who explicitly take this path, but they say, I’ve seen Christians who say this, and this is that there are certain things in the Torah that Aristotle allows. Simply because Aristotle made an error, he didn’t know what the derech ha-memutzah is. Ta’us be-yado [he made an error]. And the rabbi admits to suffer so, Aquinas says explicitly that this is not derech ha-memutzah, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

There are certainly disputes about this. It’s not a strange thing. Every culture holds it. Everyone holds derech ha-navi [the path of the prophet]. He holds what is derech ha-navi. It’s not so strange. The Rambam for some reason didn’t go in this way. It’s very interesting. What is the whole Rambam? It’s an interesting thing about the Rambam that he goes almost one hundred percent with Aristotle, even the things he doesn’t do. So what would he have said?

The Third Radical Option: The Body Is Fundamentally Bad

This is very different from a third way. He would have said, the third way would have said that the whole thing of derech ha-memutzah, that there’s a derech ha-memutzah in ta’anugei ha-guf [physical pleasures], that’s only for a physical person, for an Esav who lives in the body. The one who doesn’t hold of the body at all, he understands, as Aristotle also said, that the tachlis of a person is his seichel [intellect], his neshamah [soul], his seichel, why does one need to eat at all. Perhaps one needs to eat, perhaps, by force, but willingly, you should understand, you who say this, you’re now talking all about ta’avos [desires], you’re now only talking about actions, you’re now talking all about the pleasures, about the ta’avos, about the loving.

The Radical Conclusion: Loving Is a Problem

It comes out, if we say that there’s a derech ha-memutzah of loving, there’s a certain level that a person should love the food, right? And therein they only argue about what the reason is. But from the logic he said can come out a whole third thing, can come out a whole third thing, that loving food is neutral. A behemah [animal] loves food, a person perhaps needs to eat, but he doesn’t love food. That would be the very different argument that comes out. But that would just bring out, this is very different from what people actually think. The people we started with, they don’t actually think so, right? This is very important to grasp, true?

The Example of a Man Who Doesn’t Love His Wife

I’ll give an example, right? If you meet… This is already the extreme, it’s a couple. And here there’s a real dispute, and there’s still a problem that I need to mention. This is one problem. Right, the problem? One can see the problem from the extreme example. If I tell you about a person who doesn’t love any food at all, if any food is a problem when any, I can bring a better example. Always the wife is a better example that he has.

If someone doesn’t love his wife at all, he has no attraction to her, he doesn’t love. There are people who convince themselves, there’s love that has nothing to do with this. Let’s say it. But you’re not talking about that, you’re talking about love between ish le-ishto [a man and his wife]. He doesn’t love his wife at all.

According to the logic that says that animals love their wives, but people, especially one person wouldn’t love at all, it would be a tzaddik [righteous person]. But most people, not to hold that it’s okay, it’s permitted. As most people think for them taken from derech ha-memutzah, means it’s tolerable. Most people hold something a sin. It’s something wrong, a sin, and one looks down on him, something is not a normal person, you don’t love anything.

The Torah’s Position: Love Your Own Wife

Certainly, someone else’s wife one may not love. It says in an explicit verse in the Torah, lo tachmod eshes re’echa [do not covet your neighbor’s wife], so it’s implied that you may tachmod ishtecha [desire your own wife], yes, it’s derived from the verses, love your own wife. It says in explicit verses, it says, semach be-eshes ne’urecha [rejoice with the wife of your youth], yes love your own wife, don’t love someone else’s wife. This is derech ha-memutzah, this is a mitzvah means correct.

The Question on the Third Way

But someone will come and say, well, what does it mean? I just said, why do we hold worse the one who loves someone else’s wife because he’s touching something animalistic? With one’s own wife is the same problem. What’s the difference? Do you have beli breira [no choice]? Okay, no problem. I admit that it’s beli breira. But it becomes a whole new sort of ethics that fundamentally hates the body. It says that ideally a person shouldn’t love his body at all. This is one problem.

Now, it’s an important question. And it’s not so simple here. It seems that the reason goes much further than what it’s obligated, than what it came to explain. And they came here to explain why people look down more on the glutton or the no’ef [adulterer]. And when they came that one should look down even more than on the glutton on the no’ef, one should actually look down, I can make the problem even worse, one should look down even more on the person who loves his own wife, because he thinks he’s even doing a mitzvah, okay? In any case, the no’ef feels bad. No, there’s a better reason why I can explain this. Let’s say the better reason. Okay, this is one reason. Right? It’s a question. And it’s really here, there’s really… What? There are those who hold, or? Yes yes. That it’s worse. And who says kal va-chomer ba-eshes chaver [how much more so regarding another’s wife]? No, ve-eshes chavero kal va-chomer who says. What’s the kal va-chomer? So, in short, I want to explain how it can end up worse, not really worse, but another way how it can come out worse. One must understand this very well.

Aristotle’s Answer: Not Loving Is Lower Than an Animal

But it seems to me that the answer is here to this, if this is a question, the answer, Aristotle certainly doesn’t go in this way. It’s clear to him that someone who loves nothing will be like an animal, and there are no such people, and not only that, even an animal that loved nothing one would look down on it. That’s what he says. Do you understand?

The Virtue of Preferences

Even an animal, imagine, even an animal loves certain things and doesn’t love certain things, an animal that loves everything one looks down on that animal. And it’s actually, it’s a lower level, a nachash [snake], afar lachmo [dust is his food], and it’s not even… even an animal, the more human it is, how do you say, there are animals that are closer to humans. Why are they closer to humans? Because they loved sugar and not salt. The animal that eats everything is really a goat. A goat is a sign to think about, that it eats everything, do you know a goat? Just as the snake supports the idea that afar rachamo, but actually doesn’t have great taste in its food.

So you understand, this is very the opposite, right? One must find, I say, I’m innovating the problem, there are different answers to this, there are actually people who will take this way, one must understand what depends, but I want to make you an even greater conflict here.

Announcement of an Even Greater Conflict: The Distinction Between Knowing and Loving

The even greater conflict is like this, it seems this is the part of a law, with what he knows what helps. Right, here one must make the distinction. The knowing and the loving is not the same thing.

Ta’avos: General and Specific – The Story-Level of Good and Bad

Sharpening of the Problem: Two Distinctions

So you understand, this is very the opposite, right? One must think, I want to sharpen the problem, there are different answers to this, there are actually people who will take this way, one must understand what depends, but I want to make you an even greater conflict here.

The even greater conflict is like this… It seems the distinction from within with what he knows what he went. Right, here one must make the distinction, the knowing and the loving is not the same thing. No, no, here is the sharpest, I want to have… make more complicated. Okay? It becomes even more complicated here.

What becomes even more complicated like this? That there are more human ways of eating and less human. This is the second distinction. Both are distinctions that stand in the book, and one must reckon with them well.

Two Inquiries: Material and Condition

And they spoke about this, that when we speak about what is good, right? I don’t remember if I spoke about this clearly enough here. There are really two inquiries. What is it about?

Until now we’ve spoken about the chomer [material/substance], about which chelek ba-nefesh [part of the soul] or which sort of thing we’re talking about. But now, if I will speak not, you say that the fixing end spoke until now that we’re not speaking about. If one speaks a minute, about the condition that one wants to light. If one speaks a minute about the thing that one should speak about, how does one know what is a good thing and what is not a good thing?

We said that one must make a hakdamah [introduction], I don’t remember if I made this in the lecture, the hakdamah is enough. One must make the hakdamah, but they spoke around this, one tries to become clear the same thing all the time.

Two Sorts of Ta’avos: General and Specific

The Introduction: General Ta’avos

One made a hakdamah that there are two sorts of ta’avos [desires], okay? Two different sorts of ta’avos.

One is, ta’avos that all people have the same. All people, when they’re hungry, need to eat, want to eat, when they’re thirsty, want to drink, and so on. A ratzo [desire] says, and when they’re young, they want in bed. What’s the language? All people. Okay, this is the klaliyus [universality].

Now, in this it’s not relevant to say good or bad. One can perhaps say more or less. If someone wants it too much, it’s bad. Too little there’s no one at all, it would be almost broken his body. But too much, perhaps there is. I didn’t say here the lecture properly. I still need to say a whole. And this is one level, okay? One sort of ta’avah.

Specific Ta’avos

Now there’s another sort of ta’avah that is specific. What does it mean it’s specific? One person loves this food, or one culture can love this food, or one person loves this woman. This is not something that is shaveh ba-kol [equal for all], it’s not a davar ha-shaveh le-chol nefesh [something equal for every soul]. It’s a thing that each one loves a certain thing.

The Great Inquiry: What Does “I Love” Mean?

The Skeptical Claim

And here I must be very strongly recommend, because most people don’t agree with this, and in this itself depends a great inquiry of this. What I mean that this is to bring like this, there’s a great inquiry, and there’s a gentile who wrote a whole book to prove this, there’s a great inquiry about when people say that they love a certain thing.

Continuation of Lecture on Ta’avos (Desires) and Human Nature

Again, this works much better for a woman than how it works for a woman, or for a reason, because we have no language, because for some reason there is a great desire to have many things, but there is a great thing. Do you understand the chakirah (investigation)? An interesting chakirah.

By the way, the chakirah goes like this: he says I love women and not men, or women and not men, I don’t know. Basically it’s a living chakirah, right? What do you love? What do you mean when you say you love a woman? Even if he says I love a certain type, it doesn’t even have to be a specific one. Sometimes they say I love this sort, this sort, this color, I don’t know, this shape. Yes? That’s what the person is asking.

The Ta’anug (Pleasure) of Dimyonos (Imagination)

We spoke earlier about the chush ha-mishush (sense of touch), right? They argued to you that the subject here is the chush ha-mishush, here I bring out the stirah (contradiction). What is the ta’anug (pleasure) that you’re going to have from this whole thing?

I once heard from a mashgiach (spiritual supervisor), you explained, Reb Sender, you explained that the whole thing is dimyonos (imagination/illusion). You talk yourself into it, you love yourself, and you start up, you want to grab some little button that you should press in your body, and that’s what people love. The button can generally be bought much cheaper, as someone said, you don’t need to buy a whole period for a bit of milk etc., but… and that’s what you want.

So when you say you love her, you love her, you love her. The whole thing, the sort, the other specific, or the same thing a person says, you discussed the chiluk (difference) between Shabbos challah and weekday bread, right? You love the Shabbos challah. You don’t love the Shabbos challah. There’s no taste. Someone said there’s a taste of Shabbos in it. It’s dimyonos talk.

There is one thing, that is, in the throat, in the taste buds, there is some ta’anug. That you love. You love to be satisfied, there are other ta’anugim (pleasures). All other things are stronger.

The Sevara (Logical Argument): All Ta’avos (Desires) Are the Same

So there is a sevara (logical argument) which I think many even frum (religious) people have spoken about a bit, they have such a sevara, they spoke about it in a different way, yes. According to this it comes out that all ta’avos are the same, right? According to this it comes out that all ta’avos are the same, right? I think so.

The Counter-Argument: It’s Not the Same

And this is the argument. And against this there is an argument, a very important argument, which I think is correct, and they say it’s not correct.

And the argument here is, that to speak about… if one wants to speak, this is actually the point, let’s understand it well, but I want to bring it out like the stirah (contradiction).

The Problem with “How Much”

If one wants to speak of good ta’anugim, it can’t be, of good or bad, of a derech ha-mitzuy (the middle path), it can’t be from the first level, it can’t be from the thing of how much, from the thing that I love, that when I’m thirsty I love to drink water. Because if I love water there, according to this it comes out that every person… There are two opposite theories, this is what I want to bring out.

It comes out that all people love to drink water. Very cold. The one who loves to drink… How does one explain at all the one who loves to drink wine? Do you understand the question? What does that mean? It’s a false thing, not a real thing. I love to drink cold water.

You should explain to me, it tastes better? Okay. It’s a bit of a different taste? Why do you love the different taste? How do you love a different taste? There is one thing called taste, and that you love.

The Fact: People Have Different Preferences

But it’s not true. It’s a fact that people love cold water, warm water, hot water, cold water with a bit of tea, with a lot of tea. There are five hundred types of tea that different people love. There are all these chilukei (distinctions).

And all the chilukei are only explained on the beheimah (animal) level, so I think. I don’t mean that it’s true beheimos (animals), I don’t know the chiluk, I just don’t know. But there is here, therefore there becomes a stirah here. But there is some chiluk of speaking of the two things.

The Main Argument: Good and Bad Lies in the “Story”

The Essential Point

And what we’re saying, what is the argument, I’ve explained enough, that the argument here is that the good and bad ta’anugim, al pi rov (for the most part), perhaps a bit one can speak of not eating too much, but al pi rov when we speak of tov vo-ra (good and evil) in ta’anugim, we’re not speaking of what is meshutaf (shared/common), what everyone has, rather we’re speaking of the ma’aseh (deed), of the story. In other words, not what one sees if one speaks of…

Proof from Torah and Halachah

And the truth is almost like this is how halachah (Jewish law) works. I love this very much, that this thing fits very strongly with the holy Torah. All the people who say that the Torah, the halachah, the mussar (ethics), the many mussar sefarim (ethical works), they have the problem that the mussar fits.

In the Torah, we spoke that the Ramban (Nachmanides) even has the problem, that in the Torah it doesn’t say how much is not correct, because how much is almost not nogei’a (relevant).

Proof from Aristotle

We spoke, Aristotle says that almost no one eats too much. I’m speaking of this here, it’s very funny to me, I don’t know any people who don’t eat too much, perhaps he lived in a different culture, I don’t know, perhaps there’s a different answer.

But also in the same subject, the problem is usually not too much, the problem is the wrong one, or in the wrong way, or too much also, but not too much in the sense of too much literally. Too much means that one shouldn’t love it so much, one should love it a bit less, or a bit more, or in a different manner, or Tuesday and not Wednesday.

The Story Is More Important Than the Action

Other types of things are more, one can, I love to say, it’s more dependent on the story that one tells about it than on the actual action, than on the physical action. In other words, things that for a beheimah wouldn’t make sense.

Beheimos can’t be more or less perush (abstinent). They can perhaps not be healthy, he has some problem with his appetite eating too much or too little. That can be, but he can’t be more or less perush.

Only Humans Can Have Midas Ha-Prishus (The Trait of Abstinence)

In other words more or less, to have the midas ha-prishus (trait of abstinence), whatever you would call it, only a person can have that. Why? Because the havchonos (distinctions) that lie in this, lie only in the subject of which of the ma’asiyos (stories) I tell, I love that one, it always comes with a certain one, with a certain description that one can be mechanech (educate) with this.

Answer to the Question of Chinuch (Education)

Here one can answer the question that all Jews ask, but one can’t be mechanech a person who should love less the tenu’as haguf (bodily movement). That’s because all the Chassidic Jews who think that the problem is the body, struggle their whole life.

But if you understand that we’re speaking of the story level, one can certainly be mechanech. Therefore I already said here, that about this, right, I said here the Torah.

Example of Marriage

That if one has a wedding and loves each other, this must be a solution for all other women. What connection does it have? The answer is that now he has connected his ta’avah with the ma’aseh. Now, when he holds back his ta’avah, he remembers his wife. The wife is a mitzvah to remember. Also, on this there are other hagdoros (definitions), but this is the idea.

The Paradox and Dispute Between Approaches

So, and we understand that here comes to the paradox, to the conflict that I have here. I don’t have a clear… I think there is some clear explanation chiluk, but something I’ll get mixed up.

It comes out here that it can be that it’s also a machlokes al shitos (dispute between approaches), but one has never seen from a machlokes shitos, means that each one has some point, that one must understand how each one is right. Right? There is a machlokes.

Story of Reb Leib Lashlag: The “Slavic Pious One”

The Story

I saw, I told a story, a Chassidic story. I saw a Torah from Harav Rabbi Leib Lashlag. Harav Lashlag said like this: that his Chassidim, if they should sin, they sin very coarsely. Why? The refined ta’anugim they don’t have. I think he’s speaking of the situation.

The Chassidic Jew and the Story-Level

I mean to say, there is such a type of Chassidic Jew, who doesn’t have… the normal ta’avos that a non-Jew has, I don’t know, you can speak of kavod (honor), it’s not such a good example, but you can even speak of ta’avas nashim (desire for women). He wants to have… what? Yes, I don’t know when spoken to. He speaks usually of ta’avas haguf (bodily desires).

This is another whole question, why the rotze’ach (murderer) is so horrible as the no’ef (adulterer)? He is less horrible in a certain way. And I will bring this in many more shiurim (lectures).

The Chiluk Between a Non-Jew and a Chassidic Jew

So, the Chassidic Jew won’t want to go on a date with anyone. A non-Jew has a ta’avah, it’s an extra ta’avah of going on a date as much as sleeping, two different ta’anugim, it makes it more enjoyable. The servant, he can have the same ta’avah from the gufo shel ma’aseh (the act itself), but the date he won’t go, he’ll skip.

The “Slavic Pious One”

Like the Slavic pious one, yes, who is called pious. Why? Because he doesn’t have in his head, it’s true, because he doesn’t have in his head the idea of a ma’aseh, I met, one turned and did. He has a… his body still works, because his body always works, almost always. Except… his body works, he wants to do every thing.

But that he should enter into the whole thing, it doesn’t speak to him, it really doesn’t speak to him. And you can even say, he will be oker (uprooted) in ta’avos. You can ask a question, he needs it yes mitzvah, bimkom mitzvas hamitzvah (in the place of fulfilling the commandment). I don’t know, but he doesn’t live in the culture, he doesn’t have the learned thing. He didn’t learn, he didn’t learn it, he doesn’t have the taste. But his body remains with him.

The Conclusion of Reb Lashlag

Therefore Reb Vashle said, I tore out, one can tear out the chelek (part) of more neshamah (soul), like more people.

The Dispute About Physicality and Humanity: Two Opposite Approaches

The Body Remains Even When the Soul Is Torn Out

His body still works, because his body always works, almost always. His body works, he wants to do every thing. But to enter into the whole thing, it doesn’t speak to him, it really doesn’t speak to him. And you can even say, he will be oker every ta’avah. You can ask a question, he needs it yes, mitzvah, bimkom mitzvat hamitzvah (in the place of fulfilling the commandment). I don’t know, but he doesn’t live in the culture, he doesn’t have the learned things. He didn’t learn, he didn’t learn it, he doesn’t have the taste. But his body remained with him.

Therefore Rabbi Wolf Ashlag said, I tore out… one can tear out the chelkei haneshamah (parts of the soul), like the more human parts. From the ta’avah it’s easier to tear out, to be mechanech, but the chelek haguf (bodily part) is a problem. If he wants, how does he hold himself back? Usually he holds himself back, he does what he does. But if he has a nefilah (fall), he’ll be very coarse, very low in the sense, not… Is what I’m saying correct?

Student: Well, that’s what he says? Teva (nature), what’s it called?

Instructor: Well, that’s what he argues, that’s what the group says. Okay.

First Side: Humanity in Physicality Makes It Better

So, this is a sevara. No, this is an interesting sevara. So, now, here there is a greater chakirah. Do you understand the chakirah? If one is going to say, there are two different things that one can say.

If one will say that the problem, let’s say one thing that I would do a lot, if the problem is that one is not human, that the one who only eats, like the one that the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria) said was someone who prayed that Hashem should make his tongue, his throat, bigger, he should be able to have more ta’avas ha’achilah (desire for eating), or the other thing that people pray to be bigger because they think it should have more ta’avos like that, that one is completely behemish (animalistic), that’s a problem.

If for example someone who loves to have eleven types of dips at his Shabbos seudah (Sabbath meal), that’s already… and if each dip must come from a different country, I don’t know, some whole story that comes from this, some whole complicated thing, it must be organic, it must need two people to mix it on a green Tuesday when the levanah (moon) is full, I don’t know, some whole story that comes with it, he’s some kind of person. It’s a whole seudah, he lives more humanly, true? That’s one way that one can argue.

Just to be clear, even this way won’t say that the more the story turns the more good it is. I think no one said that. A bit it’s more good than to be a glutton. I think everyone agrees on this, that to be a coarse glutton is worse than to be a refined Jew, in a certain sense.

And also everyone agrees, that the more… This was told, one believes the story, it says on the back of the wine bottle, it doesn’t make it better by itself, but there are such stories that make them better, and there are those that are worse, and there are those that make it much worse, right? That it becomes aveirah gorerah aveirah (one sin leads to another), that makes it much worse. This is the chakirah.

Second Side: The Rambam – Adding Humanity to Animalism Makes It Worse

But the… the… the… this is like one side, one thing that comes up. But I understand that from the second side it comes out exactly opposite. Why does it come out exactly opposite?

If one takes the idea that was said earlier to the end, and one says that this is an animalistic thing, one must understand that to add… the Rambam (Maimonides) says the argument in chelek yud-ches (part 18) explicitly, to add a mashal (parable) to a ma’aseh beheimah (animalistic act), he doesn’t make it out to be a ma’aseh beheimah, he makes it worse. Right? Why?

Because a person, so says the Rambam in chelek yud-ches, the Rambam says, he is very against. The Rambam says, that you see people coming together to eat, you must look that people come together to make. This is the same thing, both are tzorchei haguf (bodily needs). There’s an explicit pasuk (verse), “vechol shulchanam malei ki tzo’ah” (“and all their tables are full of vomit and filth” – Isaiah 28:8).

So, that means, people have a tzorech haguf (bodily need). He has a tzorech haguf! You held it in. Reb Yudel Dziker said, he doesn’t understand, the Rebbe conducts tish u’revah (a large public Chassidic gathering). Why? No one should not be bichtav (in writing), until written in Rameder also.

Student: Yes, they were embarrassed?

Instructor: Yes. Not to people. Not together explicitly.

Student: Yes, today also. There’s a small mechitzah (partition).

Instructor: Yes, it’s refined, there was a beis kisei (bathroom), it wasn’t in public. You must understand, even when you did together, doesn’t mean yet that it was in public. Do you understand the chiluk?

Student: Does that mean progress?

Instructor: Yes, it was hidden in the plant, there one goes out, like one can go to mikveh (ritual bath) together. It’s a beis kisei, everyone admits that you didn’t do it in dining, and whatever it was then, I don’t know what, the platya gedolah (large plaza) there.

Translation

So that’s what the Rambam (Maimonides) argues. When the Rambam argues, ah, there are people who write poems about this, about wine and about other desires, they write entire poems, and they make a whole writing about it. The Rambam says, this is actually made worse. Why does a person have an intellect (seichel) with a power (koach), an imagination (dimyon) even, with a power, a depiction (tziyur)? So that he should think about things that can only be thought about.

If you use your intellect to think about food, because it’s beneath the honor of the intellect (kevod haseichel). No, so obviously you’re a glutton. The Rambam basically says this argument. So obviously you’re a glutton, they have a tree unfortunately, you’re also a tree. But if you take the human part of a person and you use it for eating, you still have a reckoning (cheshbon) with your eating, you still have a bit of Torah about it, what’s going on with you? You’re actually worse.

The Contradiction: Two Opposite Approaches

It’s very interesting, it really looks like a contradiction (stirah). I don’t see how one can reconcile these two approaches. That is, the first one says that the one who eats only because he must, only like an animal, only what he wants, he is the animal. And the second one says that no, the one who has an action, he is the greater animal.

I can give you another example, another reference for this, in the Republic (Plato’s Republic).

The Parable from the Republic: “A City of Pigs”

But the first one says that there are good foodies and bad foodies. It doesn’t say that there’s too much or too little, but there is indeed a great difference that the argument of saying that adding actions makes it worse is not entirely true. I think one can, but I think it’s clearly somewhat of a dispute (machloket). One must go deeper, I just want to bring out the inquiry.

I’ll give you another reference for this dispute, I think it’s explicitly a dispute. In the Republic it says, and one knows the story from the Republic that appears in the Kuzari (medieval Jewish philosophical work), yes, everyone knows.

In short, Socrates tells a story that he wants to describe how one is a person, as a parable for the soul (nefesh), everyone knows, he tells the story of the small city (ir ketanah), and he tells that they’re going to found a city. He begins, what does a city need? People? Okay. What do people need? Food. Okay, we’ll gather a bit of wheat and a bit of water, we’ll make a bit of bread, and we’ll eat.

The one who’s speaking with him there comes and says to him, my dear rabbi, I want to tell you a story. You’ve made a city for pigs (chazirim), for pigs. You haven’t made any city for people.

He says, what do you mean? You gave bread, you gave water. It’s exactly such a description, pure gold in the king (paz bamelech – referring to a simple, basic existence).

One can live. He says, what do you mean? A person needs to have a bit… a bit of mayonnaise, a bit of horseradish (chrein), a bit of meat sometimes. A person doesn’t live like a pig, like you’re telling, you eat grass.

He says, “Ah, you’re right. You know what? In honor of this we need to make an army, because in our city there doesn’t grow enough that we should be able to also make dips with salt, not salt, with another thing.”

And it’s as if there’s a critique in this. That is, he argues that what people seek luxury, that costs all the problems. Because of this war (milchamah) begins, because of this begins, so obviously one must already educate those who go to war, a whole problem begins.

So goes a story, if it says explicitly that Glaucon’s approach (shitat Glaucon) was that this is a city of pigs, those who don’t eat any dips. He doesn’t say the criticism clearly that no, but he goes along with it, and instead people go eat that.

Aristotle’s Opposite Approach

It seems that… what’s his name? In contrast (mah she’ein kein) Aristotle says very clearly that in the places where he sees, he says very clearly that a person who wouldn’t have any taste and any food and any preference is a pig. He agrees with the one who said that it’s a city for pigs.

According to Socrates, that a person is made only to use his power of intellect (koach haseichel), only without choice (beli beirah) one must take care of the people who don’t hold by this. It seems that what seems to the simple people is a city of pigs, you understand that it’s removed (nistalak) pigs, because they are, and now agrees with the whole reasoning, according to philosophy (al pi filosofyah), according to Plato (al pi Plato), they are actually angels (malachim), not pigs.

The problem is, many times one tries to be an angel and one remains a pig, perhaps that’s certainly not a way. But there’s certainly here something of a real basic dispute to one who doesn’t like any food at all, let’s say it without choice like this, whether he’s a good person or a bad person.

The Practical Question: What Is the Goal?

This already says further in the way of the commandment (al derech hamitzvah), but the question is whether one must love eating means want, right?

Student: Yes, for the simple Jews they knew that… in Lubavitch there’s a tradition (mesoirah) from the old Rebbe’s son Reb Moshe, that all commandments where the body has pleasure (hana’ah) one shouldn’t double. Like Sabbath delight (oneg Shabbat), such a kind of Sabbath. So they say, what?

Instructor: Yes, okay, it’s not a lovely thing, that’s true.

Student: Yes. And one eats little.

Instructor: Fine.

The Unresolved Question

And the question is, is he actually better? The one who goes there, a Hasidic Jew, many Hasidic Jews, not all, many Hasidic Jews, it’s true hold like we said, like Socrates would supposedly hold here, that no, that this is a coarser fellow, the one who goes to that restaurant, than the one who just eats a coarse piece of kugel.

That’s the Rambam. The Rambam in the Guide (Moreh Nevuchim), not in Jewish law (halachah). The halachah doesn’t hold this way, in its simple meaning (peshuto kimashma’o). The holy Torah doesn’t hold this way, true? In the Torah it says that one must eat with salt, because it’s not honor (kavod) to make a blessing over bread (hamotzi) and eat bread without salt, true?

One can always say the answer (teirutz), I don’t know. I don’t know, it’s an easy answer. I think there’s a real problem.

The question is, when you say that the great Jews are simple Jews, God forbid (chalilah vachas), what is the goal, true? I can’t aim from the problem, or how does one aim? One doesn’t aim at all to say without choice I have a body that loves eating, or to say, no, there’s a certain benefit (to’elet), there’s a certain way how to be a person, and that includes loving certain things in a good way.

Understandably, one must know what and when. I’m not saying everything, and I’m not saying that every time one adds a bit of Torah to the eating it becomes better. There are bits of Torah that are better and that are worse, but there’s a certain way. What does a festive meal in honor of a commandment (seudat mitzvah) mean?

Okay, perhaps not.

The Baal Shem Tov’s Parable of Oneg Shabbat and the Problem of Physicality

The Baal Shem Tov’s Parable of the Prince and the Peasants

Instructor:

Like the Baal Shem Tov (founder of Hasidic Judaism), the Baal Shem Tov said, yes? The Baal Shem Tov’s teaching (Torah) for example, this goes with this way, right? The Baal Shem Tov said that for example, it says in Toldos (a Hasidic text) many times, why does one make Sabbath delight (oneg Shabbos)?

You know the parable (mashal) that there was a peasant, not a peasant, sorry, a prince (ben melech). How does the parable go? Yes, a prince was captured in a place of peasants. One day a letter came to him from his father, some joyous occasion (simcha), he wanted to rejoice. But how does one rejoice? The peasants don’t understand what the king is, not what the letter is, not the prince.

So he bought them a bit of drink (mashke), and they danced for the drink, and he danced with them for the prince. He says, understandably, that’s how one makes oneg Shabbat. The soul (neshama) wants to rejoice with the Almighty, the body (guf) doesn’t understand, one gives it a bit of drink so it should dance along.

Critique of the Parable: The Body as Without Choice

What does this mean? Not like you say. You’re saying essentially the whole thing without choice (blit beirah), I’m stuck, I’m unfortunately stuck, in practice (lemaaseh) the body is in jail, I can’t, without choice I must come to the body, because I can’t, I really can’t, I can’t be joyful without the body, I must have it.

But there’s no good (tov), there’s no goodness in the body itself being joyful. Not that someone else should be able to say, no, one must be joyful, not a whole week, all the days of the festival are counted (kol yemei hachag mesupim), Sabbath (Shabbos).

Question: Why Did the Almighty Put Taste in Food?

Student:

Why did the Almighty put taste in food?

Instructor:

Ah, that’s a good question (kashya). Very good.

Reb Berel Letchever’s Approach

About this, my grandfather Reb Berel Letchever didn’t hold this way. He actually writes the question, and he says that it must be that it’s not correct. I don’t know, who among us knows the Baal Shem Tov, one can interpret (mefaresh) everything, but he goes another way.

He says that actually consequently (memilah) he goes with the first way. He says that one must yes, one must find the right, one must have intention (mechaven) the right intentions (kavanos), whatever it is. But there’s an action (maaseh) of the eating, if my answer is that there’s a good action of the eating, and that makes everything opposite. The one who has intentions regarding eating (mechaven kavanos achilah) has a whole action why he must eat, and that’s the… There’s a difference (chiluk) that they eat and that they eat there is not always the same thing. It’s really a dispute (machloket) though.

Discussion: Taste, Animals, and People

Student:

What can’t one say that the Almighty made a taste because otherwise people won’t eat? The action feels for a moment to eat.

Instructor:

Cows eat still. They still have a taste actually. It’s not straw. It’s not straw. It’s not straw.

No, the story is after all in total (sach hakol) that the people… You’re bringing in the Almighty. We spoke about this in the lesson about this. If one brings in the Almighty, you make what’s more complicated. If you hold that the Almighty couldn’t make any… He made straw, yes? You see that you can make a person eat straw, let a cow eat. There’s a reason for it. Why is the reason? Why is the reason? Why is the reason?

Student:

What then?

Instructor:

I think it’s not reasonable that you gave… What did you talk about this and when did they talk about this? I think bringing in the Almighty is not very… I think it’s not very helpful. There’s such a thing. There’s such a thing. There’s such a thing.

Student:

No, the types of food is actually, people made the types of food. The Almighty only made one type of food, people made all types of food.

Instructor:

How did the Almighty already make the types of food? A pear, three, four, see? He can, he can also murder. Can’t he murder. Swallows he actually made. What he knows, he can murder. Why did he make it? He says that sometimes one must murder.

It’s not such a good proof (rayah), after all the desire for murder (taavot haretzichos), that there are people who love murder very much, because of that one should murder. Perhaps one must come to one person sometimes. Don’t say, but…

What can you say why there are so many types of tastes in food? And there’s such a part that one makes here for… Go actually with that other approach (shitah). What was said before isn’t so already, because after all all these types of tastes, are the people, the story that the people tell, that the people took their intellect (seichel), and the taste has a power (koach) also, yes?

Student:

No, not there. No, the cow (ku) feels a difference between straw and other things.

Instructor:

Yes, has yes, has only not the… the… the… for a normal animal (beheimah) there are differences (chilukim). Yes, certainly, there are treats, one even gives treats to the animals when they train them. It’s not different. There are so many types of tastes in food.

Analysis: Two Extreme People on the Street

Instructor:

Let’s understand. The allegory is Rabbi Brown. I feel that one is building this… I know the question is a great question, but the way one has built out the question, the way one builds this… I see how one builds out the question, I think… It’s trying to have an answer by the way they’re bringing it, but they don’t know what the answer is.

Scenario 1: The Gourmet and the Beggar

I want to set up a few scenarios. Let’s take one scenario, there are two people on the street. One goes, and he… I don’t know what, he eats something fancy… he eats really, I don’t know, he waits for it to be under the sun, he pours on a bit of salt, and he eats it, and he… what is he?

The other side there turns some beggar (shnorer), Mendel the pig (chazer), I don’t know, and he eats from the garbage.

I think almost everyone understands that even if these are the greatest extremes, I don’t understand. I can hear that both of these, the greatest thought with the greatest non-thought, has something of an intense bestiality, as it’s called now, animal-like people. One understands this, right?

Scenario 2: Two People at the Garbage

Now comes the next level person. No, is the first person better or worse? I see here two people, one… in the same garbage, one stands and eats from the garbage without thought, and one eats with much thought.

Somehow we, we watching these two people, understand that both of these people are doing something that is somehow not human-like (anoshiyos’dig). They… something is there… even the one uses much thought and the one uses much… I understand that we’re bringing out a contradiction (stirah), the whole conversation (shmues) this is… to show that there’s a contradiction.

Discussion: Where Lies the Contradiction?

Student:

The person who stands there, he would bake there, because he holds his greatest pleasure (hana’ah) to stand next to a garbage can. And the sun shines down on his ice cream then, and something, and he must really, he hasn’t eaten the whole way, and further eat.

Instructor:

I think, one understands, I think one can see that there’s a connection (shaychus), that it’s not a contradiction. I’m saying, one is speaking against, and I think one should build out levels to see how it becomes a contradiction. We take it, and we want to make it so.

One moment, the person adds that the whole thought is bad, and the person has no thought at all, he turns in the garbage like a skunk. By the question, the more that he’s bothered in stirrer is by the other extreme, right? The person who… one turns in stirring.

Student:

No, I can it about in other ways, one will become it’s still relevant (noge), I had a paradigm from the week. The person who… has nothing with the eating only the animal-like part, only that he thirsts and he wants to pour water on the side.

Instructor:

Yes, he’s talking about the person who eats there with the garbage, he has nothing with the eating there. He grabs garbage, he’s very thirsty. He grabs food. That one is heavy (koved), I don’t know what it is. It’s not eating culture (tarbut achilah). I don’t know what it is. It’s yes, it’s something of a… it’s something of a funny thing, yes.

Student:

Okay, what that has more with the game.

Lecturer:

Nu, and the person who… you bring the contradiction… from where I stand, when my word stands to my people on the street, from where I stand, that means mine, what I call myself, I am my companion. It’s something too much. It’s something too much.

The Principle: Moving Away from Base Level Isn’t Automatically Better

The one thing, the one thing the Almighty for all the thing is, that it’s not true that the human… it’s not true that the… it’s not true. In other words, one must… I think the technical way must be that it’s not true that moving away from the base level makes it better. That is not entirely true.

What is true is that the better and worse for the most part lies on another level, but there is also better and worse there, and the worse is actually more animalistic. What do I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Connection to Shabbos and Tuesday

I can say it, for example, someone who already eats Tuesday, I hold that it’s an animal. But Tuesday… sorry, I want to ask.

Student:

No, you don’t understand that I mean it’s a carryover from Shabbos, I don’t know.

Lecturer:

One makes physical the two people. Why? Shabbos comes, not any thing that one eats. I mean the drive to have, I ask, I mean that one makes physical here two things with the sharp distinction of sensory pleasure [unclear reference].

Analogy to Courage and Fear

I stand, I see that there are two people, one is fearful of his food, and one eats and devours his. I’ll turn myself to take on a street one side, one is a very scary person, he sits somewhere. Fearful to cross the street, and a second runs through with a fearful whip, and he is a two to animals.

And I also understand that there is a middle ground between two character traits that have a connection. The two character traits have a connection, because we made a shiur now a few weeks ago about the sense of touch.

The Question of Connection

But I ask, what really has a connection the two to say that… okay, the sense of touch is an expression of me as a person here. Just as I will speak about an opposite thing of courage and fear, the two extremes are… these are only two extremes, but these are two different things, right?

But this is not two extreme, but it’s also two different things. But this is not extreme, but this is how to get it. But the thoughts of the mitzvah, it’s also two different things. There are very many ways to be wrong, very many ways. One way is to be a glutton. A second way is to be an overly refined person.

The right way is, you can call it something in between, I guess, you could say something like that, or perhaps in between is not a correct word, but… so, the… It’s true like what you’re saying, the path of the commandments holds, to the extent that not always getting away from one person…

The Conflict Between Two Approaches in Eating: Order Versus Secondary

The Foundation: Two Ways to Be Wrong

Instructor:

Let’s say this, there are two ways to be wrong, there are two ways. One way is to be a glutton, a second way is to be an overly refined person. The right way is, you can call it something in between, I guess, you could say something like that. Or perhaps in between is not the correct word, but let’s say it for example, right?

So, it’s true like what you’re saying, that the middle path holds to the extent that not always getting away from one problem leads you to the solution. One must always still use intellect, running away from the problem. The opposite of foolishness is not intellect, the opposite of foolishness is usually also foolishness. So, like being the least, but it’s still true that both of these things are true. That’s what I think there’s something like this, both of these things are true, that to be like a lion, an animal that tears and eats is not good, and also to be someone who in the middle of the ninth course is thinking about the dessert is not good, do you understand?

That doesn’t mean… there is a certain goodness that belongs to not being a glutton, and there is another goodness that belongs to not being too much of a refined person with the intellect about it. But it’s still true that here is still a dispute, there is a dispute whether there can be any intellect or any love in this, you understand?

The Radical Approach: Eating Itself Is the Problem

Instructor:

This is not gonna be solved by your problem. There is a dispute if someone says, like, being in a… an example, maybe this is not the only way to say it, being in a body is an accident, and loving things of the body is an accident from the perspective of the intellect, and therefore, there is no amount of food that’s good, no amount of loving pleasure that’s good. The only amount that is good is when one does it, as the Tanya says, by necessity, against one’s will. Against one’s will is how good, he says, nursing from a demon. Nursing from a demon, that is the only answer.

This is not a nursing from a demon situation, right? This is not the nursing from a demon approach. The two other approaches, I will bring out.

Student:

What? If there is a… no, by the meal of Torah study, perhaps one loves the Torah discourse, not the meal.

Instructor:

Very good, that agrees with the… very good. I would have wanted to say, if someone is entirely in the “shell of the ox” approach [extreme asceticism], he will say no, because the problem is the eating itself, the problem is not the wrong eating. The moment one says the problem is the wrong loving of the food, then you’re right, then, that’s not a problem, I agree. If you say that, then it can be wrong in many ways, it can be wrong in too much, it can be wrong in too little, it can be wrong in crooked, all kinds of ways can be wrong.

But if the wrongness consists of the eating itself, and this is apparently what comes out from the reasoning that is being brought here, which explains not the wrongness, let’s just be clear, what is being brought explains the wrongness, it’s being brought to explain why one who is wrong in this is worse than one who is wrong in other things. But if one takes it a bit further the reasoning and says that there is a wrongness in loving food itself, then any amount of it should be wrong. It’s like an extreme, but like, we’ll get into a different problem if this is called being extreme, but it’s an extreme regarding this.

The Cynic Problem: Eating Like an Animal

Instructor:

But it’s extreme in the sense that you’re saying that you weren’t born at all for eating, you were born for thinking. So eating at all is a transgression, and what is by necessity, and there is no choice, in order to think one must eat, so one eats.

And now, there could be another question, now, let’s say someone goes on that approach, there is no choice one must eat, now, should he be a glutton or not? Someone could say, might as well be a glutton, or might as well eat like the tearing and eating person, because it goes faster. And here one can, it’s not clear, anyone really believes that, you see? This is where the question…

Student:

No, but I ask you, should that one who holds that he eats only in order to be able to live, in order to be able to learn, should he go be one who eats in the marketplace, as the Gemara says, he can’t, right?

Instructor:

You mean that he eats in order to live like that, and it’s not clear that we think that it’s good.

Student:

What? He’ll go put on a coat too?

Instructor:

Yes, like Diogenes the Cynic, he lived in a barrel, he ate what he found.

Should we go with that? Should we go with the people that we think of as exemplars that do things like that? It’s a cynic, no? Actually the idea of being a cynic, right? He doesn’t recognize humanity in certain ways, he doesn’t eat with a fork, because a fork has with a… a cow also eats without a fork, he is in the category of a cow, right? He doesn’t recognize the cow-ness within him, he does it only because there is no choice, he eats and he eats like a cow. A cow eats without a fork, he also eats without a fork. There is such a concept, no? And this is what you’re saying, eat like a person. What does it mean eat like a person? Eat like a person is worse than eating like a cow. I want to eat like a cow.

Student:

He was a cynic, the same thing. The cynic had the same philosophy. I’m not interested in the whole thing of eating. One must eat. Therefore, a fork and spoon that costs you money, the money I can buy a study partner, the money I can buy a book, the money I can buy another thing that I need to work. Whatever, I’m not enough been in the approach truly.

Instructor:

There is really people that think that. You see, there’s still a conflict. So, if you hold Aristotle, you could solve the conflict. Or maybe there’s a way of saying it.

Two Ways to Understand the Chassidic Approach

The First Way: Order and Table Manners

Instructor:

True, that one must eat without choice, but when you eat with a tablecloth you show that you care less. I actually don’t know how that works. The Chassidic Jews that they… I don’t think they… maybe they are actually only in living in the moment. And perhaps it’s… and you think that you mean that I care too much, and I care less, therefore I take the first and I go further. I don’t put any salt. Nu, that is my example that we’re talking about. Is there such an approach? Is there such an approach? Certainly there is, yes. The question is is this a good approach?

Student:

It’s more a self-affliction from us.

Instructor:

Self-affliction is actually too much. When you’re saying that you’re caring about your body too much. What do you care? Eat yes, eat no, and go forward.

Student:

You told before the thing, you spoke of a festive meal for a mitzvah. You asked about a festive meal for a mitzvah, it’s not the mitzvah in it. Something one says, and one understands that the mitzvah is one comes together, perhaps there is one comes together to sing a melody, or not sing together. One understands that something the meal itself… because one is interested because people have bodies that love to eat meals.

Instructor:

No, no, no, I understand, but I say, it’s not the same thing as to say eat with a tablecloth. It seems that it’s something more.

Story of Reb Shmuel’e Feld: Cholent on Friday Night

Instructor:

I’ll tell you about my great-grandfather, Reb Shmuel’e Feld, he used to say, a Chassidic one, one who eats cholent on Friday night is a glutton. There are some Jews who eat cholent, it’s a Chassidic group, that is what they said. Right?

But there’s two ways of explaining that. That one who is talking about a dish, it’s based on the same theory, it’s just a different idea of what within that is good. Just be clear, there are two ways to say the Chassidic good fellowship. One can say… there are two ways to explain that Chassidic generation. Joke, it means a bit cynical, but it’s still a bit true also.

So, there are two ways to explain. One way to explain is the Aristotelian way to say that there is an order, just as the Gemara, I mean, in Tractate Berachos it never says to eat less. There is an order of the disputes how exactly an order of the order of the Chassidim, such because of cleanliness, because Shammai and Beit Hillel disputed what is the correct table manners.

So, there is an order, a person doesn’t eat like an animal, he washes himself the ritual handwashing which is not the [?], he washes his hands, and so forth. And then you see, one who eats cholent, that is not the order how one eats. Cholent, there is an order, Shabbos comes early.

Student:

Ah, just a regular gathering, one must eat something, a gathering comes with that, one can’t sit…

Instructor:

In Belz they said that one can sit with a coffee. It’s not ready [?], one must yes all lives, true? What is the Belzer sit more not? In short, that a person should eat, it works out. Okay, no problem.

The Aristotelian Approach: Eating as a Good Thing

Instructor:

So, not because it becomes secondary, so because it becomes a good thing. There are laws of proper eating. Good eating looks like with a tablecloth, one puts on a ritual belt, with the belt, with the hat, with the hat, whatever it is.

Then there is another approach that says, no, eating is a dirty thing. If one must come together, eating becomes secondary. Precisely because the bodily need, or even a bit more than that, but the difference from the glutton is… in the Chassidic Jew, by him the eating has become secondary. It’s already secondary, it’s a Chassidic gathering, it’s not a meal, one didn’t go to the restaurant.

What is the difference of going to a restaurant in honor of a holiday and making a big meal at home? That is the whole difference. A restaurant is a place of eating. The Chassidic Jew doesn’t go to a restaurant, he brings the restaurant to you at home, but then the restaurant comes to him. What is the difference?

Student:

But why can’t you tell me that eating is a problem?

Instructor:

By the way, leftovers one may not eat. It says “the modest ones withdraw their hands.” One may not grab certainly. The modest ones withdraw their hands.

Modesty and Leftovers

Instructor:

I forgot, I held a whole shiur about this. Only a part of a previous shiur where one searched for a word how one calls someone who is restrained, what one calls a “sophron” in Greek. So, apparently in Chazal the word is “modest.” As it says “the modest ones withdraw their hands,” Rabbi Akiva said “be modest upon me,” modest is a good character trait. Modesty means the restrained person, a modest one.

And it says by the distribution of the showbread, “the modest ones withdraw their hands.” Modest means those who were not gluttons. So from this one learns, I saw that the Vizhnitzer Rebbe held like us. I used to say to a person who grabs leftovers, it says “the modest ones withdraw their hands.”

The Unresolved Conflict

Student:

Why can’t you tell me that eating is a problem, but sometimes eating is good by a festive meal for a mitzvah? Why must one have a problem with the word “problem”?

Instructor:

Why? It’s greater the verse? Okay, if it’s greater the verse, then how solve everything, because when it comes for a good purpose, a person who will now say over Torah… okay, so it becomes secondary further. It’s not good for itself alone, it’s good for secondary. So it’s not good.

Student:

If one can say it, one can say it. What then?

Instructor:

You are going with the other approaches. You go further to chase that it’s not good essentially. And not only that, but that approach would have been better to devour… to say Torah without any food. But at all, why must one give food? Because today there is a shiur without food, you see? One can still. You see, why does one give food by the shiur? Because the crowd is weak.

If the crowd would have been real pious ones, cynics, one would have given in front of… one must eat in yeshivos, one would have given in front of them a big pot of soup, and they would have gone into the shiur. That would have been the ideal according to you, right? But that is not… I mean, again, some people have that ideal, but it’s funny. I mean that it’s disgusting, so…

Student:

Disgusting, because you are a refined Jew. It doesn’t suit you.

Instructor:

As the Kotzker says, one says that the Kotzker says…

Concluding Remark: The Central Question

Speaker:

What’s it to you? It’s exactly this question.