Halakha Pengkhotbah 10:8: Sefer Chasidim, Sefer HaChinukh & Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim

God created three things in man: ears, eyes and tongue. Ears to hear with, eyes to see with and a tongue with which to speak. These are the means through which a man’s activities are performed. If he did not have ears he would not hear vain matters. There are numerous transgressions which he commits which come about as a result of hearing. He hears that somewhere there is a woman, or money that he can steal. If he did not have eyes he would not gaze at indecency and lust for it and for numerous other things. If he did not have a tongue he would not speak evil or commit other sins of vanity which result from the tongue.¹J. T. Shabbath 1:2. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He prepared for each and every one of these faculties, a fence and wall for their separation to remove the individual from transgression. For the ears He prepared fingers which are shaped as pegs, also the broad earlaps to plug them and serve as a fence for the hearer lest he hear something sinful.²Ketuboth 5b. He prepared eye-lids to cover his eyes from seeing evil. And for the tongue, He prepared two walls; a wall of bone and a wall of flesh, to keep him from speaking evil or any other transgression. And puny man, when he turns his ears to hear and his eyes to see for purposes of transgression and his tongue frames deceit, what does he do? He breaks the fence of the King of the World. (And so) many sinners were thus punished. Take a lesson from a man who breaks the fence (law) of a king of flesh and blood, his sentence is death. How much more is he doomed when he breaks the fence (law) of the King of the World who appoints him as watchman. Concerning this it is said, “And whoso breaketh through a fence, a serpent shall bite him” (Eccl. 10:8).

And there are a few limbs in the beast [with] much blood, which all of Israel is accustomed to extract the blood in them with the power of fire before they cook them in the pot, and they did not want to rely on salting alone for them — and these are the brain and the liver. They roast them a little on the fire and afterwards cook them — whether they wanted to cook them on their own or with other meat. And the custom of Israel is Torah. If he transgressed and cooked them with other meat after salting alone, it is all permissible — and [that is] so long as he did not plan to do so at the outset, so that the matter return to [be permitted] for him ex post facto after the cooking. As with regards to anyone who does this with prohibitions, we forbid it all for him, as if it were at the outset. And I read upon him, “one who breaches a fence will be bitten by a snake.”

And this commandment is practiced by Torah writ in every place and at all times by males. And by females, it is a doubt among our Rabbis whether they are obligated by Torah writ or not. And a man that transgresses this and eats [nourishing] food but does not recite a blessing after it has nullified this positive commandment. And a woman who transgressed and did not recite a blessing has violated a rabbinic commandment, and maybe a Torah commandment. And so [too,] anyone who read Torah in the morning before he recited the blessings that were fixed over the Torah or the blessing “Everlasting love” (which serves a substitute) has violated a Torah commandment. And therefore one who forgot if he recited the blessing over the Torah in the morning or not goes back and recites the blessing. And one who transgressed and did not recite any of the other blessings in the world besides the ones we mentioned has only violated a commandment of the Sages, but “one who breaches a fence will be bitten by a snake” (Ecclesiastes 10:8). And He, may He be blessed, warned about it, “measure for measure.” And one must be very careful from mentioning a blessing in vain; since there is a severe punishment in the matter, as he mentions the name of [God] for no reason. And the Sages associated (Berakhot 33a) the thing with the negative commandment of “You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” And come and see how careful the early generations were with this, as behold, Shimshon the Nazirite of God married a Philistine woman that he loved in the stream of Sorek. And [yet] he was so careful in mentioning the name of God, not to mention it at all — whether it was necessary or not necessary — that Delilah recognized that he told her everything [in] his heart, by his mentioning God in his words, when he said to her (Judges 16:17), “because I am a nazirite of God” — and as it is written after it (Judges 16:18), “And she saw that he had told her everything that was [in] his heart.” And they, may their memory be blessed, said (Sotah 9b), “And from where did she know?” And there were those of them that [answered that] words of truth are recognizable, and some of them that said [it was] because Shimshon mentioned God among his words — and even though he did not say it by way of an oath, but by way of a narrative.