잠언 7:29의 Musar

“You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14). And we were warned with this not to give a ruling to the Israelites which is not like the doctrine and not like the law (halakha). And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Avot 1:1), “Be deliberate in judgement.” And the ones who are impatient to understand and give a ruling will not save their souls from putting a stumbling block before the blind; and their sin is very heavy, as it is written (Psalms 82:5), “They neither know nor understand, they go about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth totter.” And they also said (Avot 4:13), “Be careful in study, for an error in study counts as deliberate sin.” And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Sotah 22a), “‘For she has cast down many wounded’ (Proverbs 7:26); this is [referring to] a Torah scholar who has not yet attained the ability to issue rulings, and yet issues rulings. ‘And a mighty host are all her slain’; this is referring to a Torah scholar who has attained the ability to issue rulings, but does not issue rulings.”

He who has the trait of impudence commits sins in great quantities and yet considers himself righteous. And it is in this vein that we confess our sins by declaring, "We are not impudent and stiff-necked to say before Thee O Lord our Lord 'We are altogether righteous and we have not sinned.' " And this is a very wretched and evil quality — one who is wicked and yet says "I have not sinned." And for this the Holy One, Blessed is He, judges him and has no mercy upon him, as it is written: "Behold I will enter into judgment with you because you say 'I have not sinned' " (Jer. 2:35). And He has said: "He that covers his transgressions shall not prosper, but who so confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy" (Prov. 28:13). And this path of the hard and impudent is far indeed from the paths of repentance. And of the harlot it is said in Proverbs 7:13: "With an impudent face she said to him…". This quality is very evil, for it brings man to shaming his companion and the poor, as it is said: "The poor pleads but the rich answer impudently" (Prov. 18:23). And how much more evil is it when he shames his teachers and acts impudently towards them, and hardens his neck to those who rebuke him because of his excessive rudeness — then this evil quality can remove him from the world. It is proper that a man should far remove any touch of impudence from his soul.

Included in the same category are those who put themselves forward as halachic authorities although they are not yet qualified to issue rulings. This also causes terrible decrees to befall the “enemies” of Yisroel (i.e., Yisroel themselves). Concerning this was it written, “For she has caused many to fall as corpses and tremendous are all those whom she has killed” (Mishlei 7:26). All this is brought about by one who issues rulings before he is qualified to do so or by one who reveals insights into the Torah based upon false premises and ideas that are not true. For this reason Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said to his disciples (Zohar, ibid.):

ויקח קרח . We would have expected the Torah to write ויקחו, "they took." Another difficulty is the expression קריאי מועד, אנשי שם, "men who had been appointed, men of distinguished reputation" (16,2). Why should these men be mentioned favourably when the Tosaphot Talmud Shabbat 12 says: "Shevna a man from Jerusalem," etc. Rabbeinu Tam crosses out the title "a man from Jerusalem," (or omits his name altogether) of this man, seeing he was a confirmed sinner and we do not dignify such sinners by mentioning their titles or even their names. We have a tradition that "the name of sinners should rot" (Proverbs 7,10), based on Yoma 38b. Even according to the view of Rabbi Yitzchak cited there, that if, say, a sinner is called "Abraham," we surely cannot stop calling everybody "Abraham" on account of the one sinful Abraham, at the very least such a person should not be accorded his title! Here the Torah seems to go out of its way to describe how these people had earned their titles! Moreover, in Sanhedrin 110, we are told that these men had outstanding abilities, knowing when to add an extra month to the calendar, etc. It says there that the expression אנשי שם, means that their reputation was international.

When a man is born he is in his body and in his wisdom weaker than all other creatures. For all creatures from the very day they were born can walk, eat and help themselves. But man requires much in his physical needs. And he needs even more correction in his soul, to adjust his wisdom and to understand the good paths. For man at his beginning, without someone to teach him, conducts himself like one of the cattle, but his heart is like a tablet which is ready to be written upon. If this tablet is in the hands of a fool then he will scribble upon it until he spoils the tablet and it has no further worth. But the wise man will write upon it the correct order of his affairs and his needs and his obligations. And from the information written on this tablet he will be enabled to feed and support his children and attain great worth. Such is a heart of man! The fools draw upon it drawings of falsehood and write upon it engravings of wrong-doing. And they fill their hearts with thoughts of folly and emptiness while the intelligent people write upon the tablet of their hearts, the writing of God, which is the foundation of the Torah and the Commandments, the wisdom of attaining noble qualities, until their souls shine like the radiance of the firmament. And this was the intention and meaning of Solomon when he said: "Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thy heart" (Prov. 7:3).

It also states, “Write them upon the tablet of your heart” (Mishlei 7:3). A person must be well rounded in his learning. That is, he must be fluent in all four levels of interpretation: peshat [the plain meaning], remez [hints such as numerical values], derush [application of the various rules of interpretation] and sod [the esoteric meaning]. The acronym for these four levels is the word pardes [the “orchard”]. If one fails to study even one of these levels one must return in another incarnation to complete the task.

The symbolisms expressed by the use of בת-אחות-אם "daughter-sister-mother" relationship between G–d and the Jewish people, or the matriarchs and G–d, which we have described on page 137 and later, may be alluded to in the way the Torah divides the number of years Sarah lived into three distinct periods, i.e. "one hundred years, twenty years and seven years" (Genesis 23,1). Bereshit Rabbah 58,1 explains that Sarah was as beautiful at twenty as she had been at seven years of age, whereas she was as free from sin at a hundred years of age as she had been at twenty. The number seven may allegorically be explained as referring to the seven days of Creation (including the Sabbath) before the original light was withdrawn. This association gives Sarah the אם כל חי, "Mother Superior" image. When the Torah was given to the Jewish people and the serpent's pollutant was neutralised, the world was restored to a state when כתנות אור, garments woven of light, could have been worn. The passage dealing with the creation of light in Genesis 1, 3-5, mentions the word אור, light, five times, an allusion to the five Books of Moses, as pointed out in the Midrash. The Zohar sees in the verse commencing with Hashem Hashem in Exodus 34,6 an allusion to the number twenty, i.e. the Ten Commandments and the ten directives by which the universe was created. These complemented each other. When you spell the two letters Yud as words, i.e. יוד, their combined value is also 20. This idea is reflected in the "twenty years" the Torah here speaks of. Although the universe did not actually revert to the condition it had been in prior to withdrawal of the אור בראשית, the original light, the precondition existed, and, but for the sin of the golden calf, Israel would have achieved that status through Torah study and observance, and the original light would have been revealed to them. At the moment the Torah was revealed, the light appeared to them just as it had been during the seven days of Creation. This is the deeper meaning of Proverbs 7,4: אמור לחכמה אחותי את, "Say to wisdom 'you are my sister.'" Israel, due to the Revelation and Torah study, was on the level we have described as אחות. Afterwards, when the people made the golden calf, they ruined even that level of closeness to G–d with the result that the כ in 23,2 became reduced in size. When the Temple, which was one hundred cubits high, was built, this provided some degree of rehabilitation for the opportunity lost through the golden calf. [The Temple the author refers to must be the one of Herod; Solomon's Temple was only thirty cubits high. Ed.] When Bereshit Rabbah 58,1 on our verse next compares Sarah's innocence at one hundred to her innocence at twenty, this is an allusion to the partial rehabilitation during the period of the second Temple. There were public offerings which achieved atonement for the people. Nonetheless, the people were only on the level of בת, (the lowest of the three levels described on pages 137/138). This is why we find Israel referred to as בת ציון, בת ירושלים in Isaiah, Lamentations and elsewhere. The small letter כ in the word ולבכותה is a clear allusion to the aforegoing. When you remove the letter כ completely, you are left with the word לבתה, "to her daughter," i.e. the word בת, daughter. When the Temple was destroyed, the letter ק was also reduced in size, as pointed out by the Baaal Haturim in his commentray on Genesis 27,46 where Rebeccah expressed disdain for her own life if Jacob, too, were to marry a Canaanite girl. The cause of Rebeccah's desperate outcry, according to Baa l Haturim, was that in her mind's eye she saw the destruction of the hundred-cubit high Temple. When the Temple was destroyed the Jewish people forfeited even the status of בת in their relationship with G–d. For some time after that the most they could achieve in the way of direct communication with G–d was the בת קול, an echo of their former relationship. Nowadays, due to our sins, we do not even experience that form of communication with G–d. This situation will not improve until the Messiah will come, hopefully very soon. At such a time, אור חדש will shine over Zion.