אִם יִרְצֶה הַשֵּׁם
כ״ג חֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ז
The sugya is Sanhedrin 99b. On 99a: No eye has seen.
Neither post nor transcript has been reviewed by Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l nor the Toras Avigdor organization.
The regular wife
No'ef ishah chasar lev.
The Targum: all bodies are bodies of hardships. Happy is the one whose hardships are in Torah.
Rav Miller zt"l: HaKadosh Baruch Hu deducts the Torah hardship from the hardships that would have come in any case. Empty hardship is replaced by hardship that pays.
The plain sense is that a man who flirts with strange women lacks seichel: understanding. The Gemara learns the reverse. Because he does it, he will remain without seichel. Torah is the regular wife. One who neglects her and fools around with other things in the world is flirting with foolishness. He remains a chasalay: a hollow man. Only one who is devoted to Torah receives seichel from her. One who studies only at intervals remains lacking. Devotion, not occasional visits, brings seichel.
Ki no'im... ki tishmerem b'vitnecha.
When is it sweet? When you keep them in your belly. That requires constant review so they remain established on the lips: yikayu yachdav al sefasecha. Use every free hour: mornings before work, Shabbos, evenings, holidays, vacation. Then the Torah recompenses with chochmah.
Against your brother Moshe
The Gemara returns to v'ha-nefesh asher ta'aseh b'yad ramah: high-handedly, with impudence. This is Menasheh ben Chizkiya. He spoke agadot that were dofi: shameful. He ridiculed the Torah. Did Moshe have nothing better to write than "and Lotan's sister was Timna," and Timna was a pilegesh of Eliphaz? He treated the detail as useless information. He also ridiculed the dudaim story: why mention that it took place b'yemei ketzir chitim, in the days of the wheat harvest? The competition of the imahot is needed. The season seems superfluous, like an old woman adding irrelevant facts.
A bas kol rebuked him. You sit and speak against your own brother Moshe. Against a foreigner you may joke, but against your brother give the benefit of the doubt. It is a sickness to kick at one's own nation in order to show goyim that one hates one's heritage. Be-ven imcha titen dovai. If HaKadosh Baruch Hu kept silent, one might think He had written superfluous words. Ochicha ve-e'ercha le-einecha: I will rebuke you and lay the foolishness before your eyes.
Menasheh received the recompense. The king of Ashur put hooks in his mouth and dragged him, then roasted him in a copper box. He called to the idols. Nothing answered. At the last extremity he called to the God of his youth. He was released, restored, and from then on kept his mouth shut.
Hoy moshchei ha-avon b'chavlei ha-shav... ve-ka-avot ha-agalah chatas.
At first they pull the sin with thin strings of vanity. They think nothing can happen. Later the strings thicken until they become like the ropes of a wagon. The yetzer hara begins like the thread of a spider web so that one is not frightened off. Later it is heavy.
Hayom omer lecha aseh kach u-machar omer lecha aseh kach. Today it says do this, tomorrow it says do that. Every day it becomes newer and stronger. Once a man starts and continues, it does not stop unless he breaks it off. Break it off early. Menasheh began by criticizing the chachamim and Jews, then the Torah and HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and then worshipped idols. He is the mashal of a man who did not break it off.
After the harvest
Why write achot Lotan Timna? We must know the pshat in order to answer people like Menasheh. Timna was the daughter of a king, a princess. The chumash lists Aluf Lotan, Aluf Timna. The country was divided into principalities; she held one. Among the nations a daughter inherits with her brothers. She came to become a giyoret. She saw what Avraham was teaching and was impressed. They did not accept her. She went and became a pilegesh of Eliphaz ben Esav. She said it is better to be a maidservant to this great nation than a princess among another people. Because they did not accept her, Amalek came forth from her and caused great sorrow to Yisrael. They should not have kept her away.
They had reasons. Accepting her would bring in her family. Avraham's way was to keep distant from letzim. Still, Heaven judged that the refusal brought Amalek. The verse identifies the pilegesh as the same Timna who was an aluf, so that we know she was important.
Why mention the wheat harvest in the dudaim story? The story itself is needed to show how great is the mitzvah of having a chelek in Am Yisrael. The imahot competed so that their children would be the future of the nation. Rachel and Leah are the model for all women, as the women told Ruth. The season is written so that we learn that tzaddikim do not stretch out their hands to gezel. Reuven waited until after the reaping. When the wheat is reaped the field is hefker and the owner is no longer makpid. Even though the owner never planted dudaim and would not have been makpid on them, the tzaddikim will not enter while there is the slightest possibility of kapeidah. After the harvest people crossed the field as a shortcut. Reuven was not in gezel. Gezel here means going where one is not supposed to go. A tzaddik does not walk across another's lawn. Walking on a place the owner marked against walking is also gezel, like walking with wet shoes on a carpet. The dudaim themselves were not gezel; the owner never wanted them.
The Gemara identifies the dudaim as yavruhei (or siglei, or sabiskei) so that people who need fertility will know what they are. In the time of the Gemara they knew; today the knowledge is lost. Learning Gemara yields things that are good for health and for parnasah.
The palace of below
Kol ha-oseik baTorah lishmah oseh shalom b'famalya shel ma'alah u-b'famalya shel matah.
When is it sweet? When one takes hold of My strength, the Torah. Ya'aseh shalom li, shalom ya'aseh li. The first is above, the second below. All the hosts above and below do the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu completely except human beings who have bechirah. There are two kinds of shalom. One is when they unite to bring berachah and happiness; then yismechu ha-shamayim ve-tagel ha-aretz. The other is when they must unite to bring punishment; they do it, but it is not shalom of joy. When a man learns Torah lishmah he causes the hosts to do everything with simchah. Learning turns the second into the first.
Chayiv adam lomar bishvili nivra ha-olam. A man must understand that the whole briah was created even for one man. The koach of one man is so great that he sets the koachot of the pamalya of above and of below into motion. One who sits in a corner and is osek baTorah lishmah draws shefa above and below so that the heavens and the earth are happy in what they do.
If a man learns Torah lishmah it is as if he built the palace of above and the palace of below. The palace of below is the whole briah. The palace of above is the higher world, not the stars. Learning sends a shefa of strength that builds the whole briah. Tzaddikim make light and happiness in the whole briah; resha'im make darkness.
Va-asim devarai be-ficha... u-ve-tzel yadi kisicha... li-nto'a shamayim ve-lisod aretz.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu put the words of Torah in the mouth, covered with the shade of His hand (His hashgachah), and thereby the learner can make a foundation for the heavens and the earth. This is ki-pshuto, not exaggeration. We do not grasp the koach of even one man. Ma'aseh tzaddikim is greater than ma'aseh shamayim va-aretz. One who learns Torah is the protection that covers the entire world. When people do not learn, the protection is withdrawn. The learners elect that covering for Am Yisrael and for the world.
You make yourselves
One who teaches Torah to the son of another is considered as if he made him. Ve-et ha-nefesh asher asu be-Charan. Aharon and Moshe made the people by giving them a new seichel. Giving a new seichel is more important than giving a new body. The seichel is the man. Taking an am ha-aretz who keeps mitzvot and making him a yode'a da'as Torah is like creating a new man from the beginning. It is more than a father and son.
Not only does one create people; one creates Torah. Va-asitem otam. Even repeating a pasuk or a plain mishnah is considered as if one made Torah. The Torah is without end. Those who are capable become like a fountain that never ceases and produce Torah from their own minds. The sevara of the gedolei Yisrael is Torah. Lema li kra, sevara. One must make a berachah on learning kol yomai gadalti bein ha-chachamim. Even when one only repeats, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives that Torah the zechus that it is one's own child.
A mitzvah is not merely an act; it is a briah. Oseh mitzvah achat koneh lo peraklit echad. One creates a being, a malach, that lives forever and will speak for him. When a man is mechadesh Torah, that Torah is his child and will be melamed zechut on him. Even teaching a pasuk or a mishnah to one who would not have known it is like creating that Torah. According to the printed girsa this applies to teaching ben chaveiro. According to the Gra the girsa belongs earlier and applies to anyone who is osek baTorah lishmah: it is as if he created the words of Torah, and the Torah is his child.
Al tikri osom ela atem: do not read "them" but "you." You make yourselves. One who learns Torah lishmah is as if he made himself. A new seichel is more important than a new body; he is considered his own father. The best child of Noach is Noach himself. Chanoch la-na'ar al pi darko: train the youth so that he becomes the father of himself. Later that self will be the closest relative and will be melamed zechut with more force than a son.
Anyone who makes another do a davar mitzvah is considered as if he did it himself (printed girsa) or as if he made that person (Gra). All the mitzvot the other will do are credited to him even while he sleeps. Teaching a mitzvah changes the person and gives one a chelek in him.
Apikores has no chelek le-olam ha-ba. Rav and R Chanina: one who is mevazeh a talmid chacham. R Yochanan and R Yehoshua b Levi: one who is mevazeh chaveiro in the presence of a talmid chacham is already apikores; mevazeh a talmid chacham is the greater, megaleh panim baTorah. Even insulting an ordinary person before a talmid chacham shows such ga'avah that it is already apikores.
One who says mai ahani lan rabbanan, what do the learners help us, is worse than apikores; he is megaleh panim baTorah.
Im lo brisi yomam va-laylah chukot shamayim va-aretz lo samti.
The bris is not only keeping the dinim. The most important part is learning Torah, Torah keneged kulam. The learners uphold the world. Also ve-nossi la-kol ha-makom ba-avuram: the place is given in the merit of the learners. One who denies the benefit is going against the verse.
An example of apikores: a student sitting before his rebbe and saying amrinan, we said over there, instead of amar mar, the rebbe said.
In the family of a certain doctor they used to say that the rabbanan do nothing new; we already know what is mutar and asur. That is not megaleh panim (they do not deny the zechus), but it is apikores. A later descendant who was a posek would show a terefah and say: I am permitting you to eat this raven; I made it a chicken. Or the reverse. To demonstrate that the chachamim do mechadshim.
One who speaks of the learners in a tone of disrespect is apikores. One must be careful in speech about any Jew, and especially about those who learn.
Rav Nachman: one who calls his rebbe by name is apikores. Gechazi was punished because he called Elisha by name even when not in Elisha's presence: this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha revived.
How the two girsaot (teaching ben chaveiro versus anyone who is osek lishmah) sit with the din that even repeating a known mishnah is considered creating Torah, and how calling a rebbe by name outside his presence remains apikores when the mevazeh chaveiro case requires the presence of a talmid chacham, is left open.
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