시편 112:1의 인용 해설

A song of ascents. Praiseworthy is every man who fears the Lord All of these are admonitions and disciplines. Because it is written, “Praiseworthy is the man,” “Praiseworthy is a man,” it therefore says here “every,” to include a woman.

Place it in your mind that when a they bring a young boy to a teacher to teach him Torah - and that is the greatest good for him as to what he can attain of wholeness - but due to his few years and the weakness of his intellect, he does not understand the level of this good and that which will come to him of wholeness from it. And therefore it is necessary perforce for the teacher who is more whole than he to encourage the study with things that are beloved to him due to the smallness of his years. And [so] he says to him, "Read and I will give you nuts or figs; and I will give you a little honey." And through this he will read and exert himself; not for the actual reading - as he does not know its value - but rather so that they will give him that food. And the eating of these delights is more precious in his eyes than the reading and great good - without a doubt. And so he thinks of the study as labor and effort; and he labors in it so that he will receive through this labor the objective that is beloved to him, and that is a nut or a portion of honey. And when he grows and his intellect becomes stronger, and that thing that was (that will be) weighty for him before becomes light in his eyes and he goes to loving something else, they encourage him and arouse his desire for that thing that is beloved to him. And his teacher says to him, "Read and I will buy you fine shoes or lovely clothes." And through this, he makes efforts to read, not for the actual study, but rather for that garment; and that clothing is more weighty in his eyes than the Torah. And that is for him the objective of its reading. And when he becomes more whole in his intellect and this thing becomes negligible in his eyes, [his teacher] will also place his mind on that which is greater than this. And then his master will tell him, "Learn this section or this chapter and I will give you a dinar or two dinars" And through this, he reads and exerts himself to get that money - and for him, that money is more weighty than the study, since the objective of the study for him is that he get the gold that they promised him for it. And when his intellect is greater and this amount becomes light in his eyes and he knows that this is something insignificant, he will desire that which is weightier this this. And his master will tell him, "Study so that you will be a leader and judge, and people will honor you and rise in front of you - like with so and so and so and so." And he will read and exert himself in order to achieve this stature and the objective will be the honor; that people will honor him and raise him up and praise him. And all of this is despicable. And, nonetheless, it is necessary because of the smallness of the human intellect that he make the objective of wisdom something else besides wisdom, and say for what thing he is learning, and that is that honor will come to him. And this is [making] a laughingstock of the truth. And about such study the sages say it is not for its sake, meaning that he does the commandments and studies and exerts himself in Torah, not for that thing itself, but rather for the sake of something else. And the sages warned us about this and said, (Avot 4:5), "Do not make it [the Torah] into a crown with which to aggrandize yourself, and not into a spade with which to dig into them." And they are hinting to that which I have explained to you; that there is no [ulterior] objective to wisdom - not to receive honor from people and not to earn money - and [so,] one should not be involved in the Torah of God, may He be blessed, to earn money, and there should not be an [ulterior] objective for him in the study of wisdom, except only to know it. And so [too,] there is no objective to the truth except that he knows it is the truth, and that the Torah is the truth; and the objective of its knowledge is to do [what is in] it. And it is forbidden for a whole person to say, "When I do these commandments, which are good character traits; and I distance myself form sins, which are bad character traits - that God, may He be blessed, commanded not to do - what is the reward that I will receive for it?" As this is like that which the child will say, "When I read this, what will they give to me?" And they will say, "Such and such a thing." As when we see the smallness of his intellect that he doesn't understand the size [of what he is involved in], and we see that he asks for another objective, we answer him according to his foolishness; as it is stated (Proverbs 26:5), "Answer a fool according to his foolishness." And the sages have already warned about this as well; that is to say that a person should not render any thing of the [various] things to be the objective of his service to God, may He be blessed, and the performance of the commandments. And this is what the whole man who grasped the truth of [these] things, Antigonos, the man of Sokho, said (Avot 1:3), "Do not be as servants who are serving the master in order to receive a reward, rather be as servants who are serving the master not in order to receive a reward." And indeed he wanted to say with this that one should believe in the truth for the sake of the truth; and this is the matter they call, 'one who serves from love.' And they said, may their memory be blessed (Avodah Zarah 19a), "'His commandments desire greatly' (Psalms 112:1) - Rabbi Eliezer said, 'His commandments; and not the reward of His commandments.'" And how lucid is this and it is a clear proof for that which we have [written] above in the essay. And even greater than this is what they said in the Sifrei on Deuteronomy 11:13, "Lest you say, 'Behold, I am learning Torah so that I will be rich; so that I will be called, rabbi; so that I will receive reward in the World to Come'; [for this reason] does the statement teach, 'to love the Lord, your God' - everything that you do, only do it out of love."

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya--happy is the one who gave birth to him!: The undifferentiated expression, 'happy' is a category that includes all of the virtues through which a person is happy. And when it mentions the trait [with it], it is [referring only to] a particular [trait]. And we have found it stated about fear as in "Happy is the man who fears the Lord" (Psalms 112:1). And also about the designation of a fixed place for Torah [study], as it is written (Proverbs 8:34), "Happy is the man who listens to me, coming early to my gates each day, waiting outside my doors," and it states (Psalms 84:5), "Happy are those who dwell in Your house; they will still forever praise You." And about devotion, as it is stated (Psalms 65:5), "Happy is the man You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courts." And about faith (Psalms 84:6), "Happy is the man who has refuge in You." It is also stated about one who prevents himself from [involvement with] evildoers (Psalms 1:1), "Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the evildoers, or taken the path of sinners, or joined the company of the scorners." It is also stated about those that keep the Shabbat (Isaiah 56:2), "Happy is the man who does this." It is also stated about those that walk in the Torah of the Lord (Psalms 119:1), "Happy are those whose way is blameless, who follow the Torah of the Lord." It is also stated about those that keep the commandments (Psalms 119:2), "Happy are those who observe His decrees, who turn to Him wholeheartedly." It is also stated about one who benefits from his toil (Psalms 128:2), "You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors; you shall be happy and it shall be good for you." It is also stated about those that keep the law and do justice (Psalms 106:3), "Happy are those who act lawfully, who do justice at all times." It is also stated about trust [in God] (Proverbs 16:20), "he who trusts in the Lord is happy." It is also stated about wisdom (Proverbs 3:13), "Happy is the man who finds wisdom," and it is also written (Proverbs 14:21), "he who shows pity for the lowly is happy." And about this is it said, "happy is the one who gave birth to him" undifferentiated; meaning to say he is happy with all of the happy traits - great in his wisdom and refined by his traits and in all of his affairs.