אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
ג׳ חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
A mother tells a little child that fire burns. He believes her. He can say the words. He still puts his finger in. Then he shouts with a different conviction that fire burns. What he knew before was intellectual. What he knows now is experience. Sensory knowledge is another kind of knowledge.
When a man says Baruch atah Hashem and Hashem is only a word in a siddur, that is chochmah. When he thinks and sees Hashem in the ways of nature, or from the Torah, or in his own life, or from the depths of his personality, the chochmah has been transformed into de'ah. De'ah is to know something clearly and to be close to it,
Between two names
Amar R. Elazar: gedolah de'ah she-nitnah bein shtei shemos. Shenema ki Keil de'os Hashem.
Chanah said it, the mother of Shmuel. The word de'os sits between Keil and Hashem. Rav Miller zt"l: when you see somebody going down the street and on one side is a Satmarer and on the other side is the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who is in the middle? The Mashiach. De'os has that kind of company on both sides. De'os is a form of Hashem too, and it is the closest form. That is how important it is to know Hashem more closely.
The same measure is applied to the Mikdash.
Gadol Mikdash she-nitan bein shtei shemos. Shenema po'alto Hashem Mikdash Hashem konenu yadecha.
The word Mikdash sits between Hashem and Hashem. The purpose of the Beis ha-Mikdash is to teach people closeness to Hashem.
In the wilderness, in the machaneh, somebody asked where Moshe Rabbeinu lives. He pointed to that tent. Where does Aharon HaKohen live? He pointed to that tent. And then: what is that tent over there? That is where the Shechinah lives, where HaKadosh Baruch Hu lives, in the Mishkan. To know the address of HaKadosh Baruch Hu in this world makes a very big impression. That is why the Mikdash also stands between two names.
The kashya that proves more
Rav Acha bar Chanina asks the kashya. If two Names on both sides make greatness, then nekamah is a great thing.
Keil nekomos Hashem, Keil nekomos hofia.
You think you have refuted me? You brought a proof to me. Milsa be-dukhta: when it is in its place, for its thing, hachi nami, revenge is so. The right kind of revenge, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu brings retribution on the wicked, causes such a great awareness of HaKadosh Baruch Hu that it is equal to the Beis ha-Mikdash, and it causes de'ah. When people saw Haman and his sons hanging, and they saw that in the end the truth triumphed, it caused the biggest emunah that is possible to cause in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. That is why nekamah also is between two names of Hashem.
Shtei hofa'os halalu lama?
These two appearances, why are they? One is hofia me-har Paran, when He gave the Torah. One is Keil nekomos hofia. One appearance is for mercy. One is for paying those who deserve to be paid.
The appearance at Sinai made such a deep impression that to this day we are going with the koach that Matan Torah gave us. The Jewish nation will travel till the end of time with that impetus. That is the appearance for good.
There is another way that HaKadosh Baruch Hu appears upon the world: when He brings the great nations down. Egypt became a mamleches shefelah, as it was foretold. Then it was a mighty people, and nobody imagined the prophecy would come true. For five hundred years after Yetzias Mitzrayim, Egypt is not heard from in our history at all, although we were neighbors. Yehoshua was conquering the land next door. Where was Egypt? The Shoftim had trouble with all the neighboring small countries, but not with Egypt. Near the end of Shlomo we finally hear Shishak. Egypt was laid low for five hundred years.
Bavel was the biggest city in the world, and the prophet foretold that it would become a ruin, jackals and scorpions. Today you look for Babylon under the sands of the desert. Tyre was foretold. Ashur became nothing. Persia became nothing. Rome finally disappeared, also foretold by Daniel. HaKadosh Baruch Hu shows His presence by the truth of His prophecies. When the final day will come, when those who persecuted His people receive what is coming to them, that is going to be the great appearance. Revenge, in a sense, is also equivalent to de'ah, because it causes a clarity of understanding of Hashem.
The man is the Mikdash
Kol adam she-yesh bo de'ah ke-ilu nivneh Beis ha-Mikdash be-yamav.
Because he himself is the Beis ha-Mikdash. When a man builds himself up intellectually to understand the great truths of the Torah and of the world, which are the same, this man is a Beis ha-Mikdash. To HaKadosh Baruch Hu he is just as important.
She-zeh nitan bein shtei shemos, ve-zeh nitan bein shtei shemos.
Things equal to the same things are equal to each other. De'ah and Mikdash are the same, so the man who has de'ah is a Beis ha-Mikdash.
That is why, when a great man dies, misas tzaddikim ki-sereifas Beis ha-Mikdash. To build up oneself in these ways is like building a Beis ha-Mikdash. A Beis ha-Mikdash takes many years to build. It takes many years to build a man with de'ah.
Chambers
When a man possesses de'ah, the end will be he will become wealthy.
Im de'ah chadarecha yimalei kol hon yakar ve-na'im.
You can fill the chambers with coal. It costs money. It is not pleasant. You crawl through it to get to the bathroom. You can strew the house with flowers. Pleasant. Not wealth. They wilt. Cases of diamonds: little room, beautiful, worth a lot. Even that, cluttered, is a drawback.
Fill the chambers of the mind with daas and you have furniture that can never go lost, only a beauty and an adornment to your character. That is the plain meaning. Here we learn something else. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants to encourage the man who possesses daas. He will make life easier so this man can pursue it. It does not mean he has to become a millionaire. In some way he will be relieved of toiling always. The man with empty chambers can only harm himself by leisure. Better to keep him busy earning a livelihood.
When the chambers are empty
Kol adam she-ein bo de'ah asur le-rachem alav.
If his mind is empty of de'os, it is forbidden to have pity on him. That is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells His ministers. Human beings must have compassion on him too. HaKadosh Baruch Hu will not.
Ki lo am binot hu, al ken lo yerachamenu oseihu ve-yotzro lo yechunenu.
Understanding means to look into things. A people interested only in fads, imitating the goyim all around them, is not a people who look into things. Even though He created him, and therefore He should have most cause to pity him: when He sees that he is devoid of understanding, He has no interest at all. Man was made to use his mind properly. The purpose of a man in this world is to acquire emunah, to become aware of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to live with penimiyus. Once he fails in that, his entire existence is superfluous.
Kol ha-noten pito le-mi she-ein bo de'ah yissurin ba'in alav.
It does not mean you should not feed somebody who does not have seichel. It means if you have the option of using your resources to help those who further de'ah, a ben Torah in your house, an idealist pursuing the truth, and you give that bread to those who are not headed in that direction, you misuse the trust. Any wealth we have, even a loaf of bread, is given to be used properly.
Rav Miller zt"l's own sample, from the years he was in the yeshivos in Europe: when Rosenwald, the Jewish millionaire in 1930, gave twenty-nine million dollars to further the education of black boys in Chicago, the boys in the European yeshivos did not have enough money to buy bread. They were starving. A fraction of twenty-nine million could have supported all the big yeshivos of Europe. He took it, and in order to buy some cheap publicity, he gave it elsewhere. HaKadosh Baruch Hu said that this man has not been faithful to the trust.
Lachmecha yasimu mozer tachtecha.
Those who eat your bread will put poison in your place. The same ones you cater to become your persecutors. Ein tevunah bo. Ve-ein mozer ela yissurin.
The end will be he goes into exile. Tranquility is for the pursuits of the mind. That is why Shlomo HaMelech, the chacham of all men, was granted peace no king before or after ever had. He was named Shlomo: there would be shalom in his time, because chochmah needs tranquility. When a man misuses that quiet, HaKadosh Baruch Hu takes it away. Wandering, he looks back and understands what he possessed and misused.
Al ken galah ami mi-bli daas.
The same if people live in Borough Park and Flatbush and Williamsburg, good Jewish neighborhoods, and do not use them to pursue de'ah, and start longing for the imaginary glories of Tucson or Florida. Then they wander, and they look back, and they see a glorious opportunity they lost. It was put into their heads as a punishment, because they were not utilizing the places where they were.
The house
Any house where you do not hear the words of Torah at night is a house being misused. The purpose of a house is that a sefer be opened there. A working man has the evenings, and Sunday. Eish tochlenu. When he says fire, he does not mean only what we call fire.
Kol choshech tamun li-tzefunav.
Hidden places means the privacy of his home. Some people open a sefer in the beis ha-knesses and put out a good show. At home they never do. All he has there is darkness: the newspaper, the radio, maybe a television.
They will consume him a fire that was not blown up. One fire is depression and unhappiness. A home without the idealism of Torah sinks to bickering. What else do you do? You have nothing to do. You fight. A man with a Gemara tells his wife he is too busy to fight, some other time. Besides, he is too happy. People do not fight when they are happy. There are also fires of wickedness fostered by ignorance, children looking at wicked things on television and wanting to practice them at home. When there is a vacuum, all kinds of wickedness comes in. Sometimes a fire comes because the house is not needed anymore.
Yeira sorid be-ohalo.
What is a house? A house is a future. When the parents pass on, the children carry on the name. Ve-ein sorid ela talmidei chachamim. Do not think merely decent children, ignorant of Torah, are a remnant. That is not called a remnant. The end is nothing remains of them either. Only children talmidei chachamim, growing up with penimiyus, concentrated attention on the Torah, are a remnant to the tent.
U-va-seridim asher Hashem kore.
Among the remnants Hashem is being called. Among the others, even when they mention the name in prayers said by rote, they are only living by habits.
If a man does not help talmidei chachamim from his property, he will never see a sign of blessing in all that he has. Even if he remains wealthy, he will not enjoy it. Wealth is only a means. HaKadosh Baruch Hu never gives property for itself. Give even a fraction for a good purpose, and the rest is permitted as encouragement. Give nothing, or not enough, and it is a waste of encouragement.
Ein sorid le-ochlo, al ken lo yochil tuv.
No talmid chacham eats from this man's possessions, therefore his happiness will not succeed.
De'ah is the knowledge that has become real. It stands between the names. It builds the man who has it into the Mikdash. It is the purpose for which the quiet, the house, the resources, and the years are given. When it is present the chambers fill. When it is absent the Maker withholds pity, the quiet is removed, and the house is left without a remnant.
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