Chasidut sobre Provérbios 3:6

Similarly, we find in the Midrash Sochar Tov: “How may a young man make his path pure? By serving according to Your word” (Tehillim 119), Shlomo said, “In all your ways know Him.” If you know and are conscious of God in all that you do, He will straighten the paths before you. Thus, it is said (Tehillim, 16), “Make the path of life known to me.” So too, Moshe said to God (Shemot, 33), “Now, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know Your ways.” And also (Tehillim, 25), “Lead me in Your truth, and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation.” And (Tehillim, 86), “God, teach me Your way.” And it is written (Yermiyahu, 6), “Stand on the roads and see, and ask about the ways of the world, and see which is the good way. Then walk in it, and find rest for your soul.” Look at the path that Avraham took, and look at the path that Nimrod took, and see who succeeded. So too did David say, “And you, Shlomo my son, know the God of your fathers, and serve him.”

“Blessings upon the head of a righteous man” (Proverbs 10:6). This is why the Talmud begins with Tractate Blessings (Berakhot), for it is the essence of everything: “Know the god of your father” (Chronicles I 28:9), and afterwards, “serve him,” for you have to know for whom you are serving. This is why a person says a blessing before each ritual act, to dedicate all of his actions to God, as the verse says, “In all your ways, know him” (Proverbs 3:6), as Maimonides wrote. This is accomplished by making the blessing, as the rabbis said the requirement [in terms of necessary age for making a blessing] is a child who knows to whom he is blessing (Bavli, Berakhot, 48a), as opposed to the rest of the mitsvot which have no requirement of knowing to whom one is making the blessing, such as phylacteries or the like. It is clear that the essence of a blessing is the knowledge of to whom the blessing is being made, and blessings were instituted for this purpose. This is the beginning of entering into Torah, as the verse says, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God” (Psalms 111:10). Fear of God is achieved through “I have placed God before me always” (Psalms 16:8), as Rabbi Moses Isserles wrote in a comment at the beginning of Oraḥ Ḥayyim. This explains why all blessings begin with direct, second-person, address (lashon nokhaḥ), because right at the beginning of the blessing God must be present (nokhaḥ) before a person’s eyes, as if God is standing in front of and commanding him. The conclusion is in third-person, because God immediately disappears, as the verse says, “Over his nestlings he hovers” (Deuteronomy 32:11), making contact and then moving away, as is known.

Levitcus 18,6. “none of you shall come near anyone of ‎his own flesh to uncover nakedness; I am the Lord.”
I ‎first wish to explain what King Solomon said in Proverbs 3,6 ‎בכל ‏דרכיך דעהו‎, “in all your ways you are to acknowledge Him.” ‎Solomon means that all our activities should have as their ‎ultimate aim to provide our Creator with satisfaction and ‎pleasure. When man marries a woman this should not merely be a ‎legal means of satisfying his sexual urges, but should be ‎fulfillment of the first commandment in the Torah. When having ‎marital relations with one’s wife, the object should not be to ‎satisfy one’s libido. The words: ‎איש איש אל כל שאר בשרו‎ refer to his ‎wife as being ‎שאר בשרו‎. The words: ‎לא תקרבו לגלות ערוה‎, mean that ‎when you engage in intimate relations with your wife you are not ‎do so only for the purpose of satisfying your sexual urges. The ‎reason why the verse concludes with the words: ‎אני ה'‏‎, is a ‎reminder that even while engaging in the most physical act, one ‎not only legally condoned by G’d but commanded by Him, you ‎should never forget that you are doing so in order to fulfill one of ‎His commandments.‎

But through this you can understand what they said, “The tzaddik rules [through] reverence for God (2 Sam. 23:3) … [I rule over humans, but] who rules over Me? The tzaddik, [for I make a decree but he annuls it]” (Moed Katan 16b). For at the hands of the wicked the world collapses and remains in contraction and judgment, God forbid; but at the hands of the tzaddikim the king’s anger is settled, as if it were possible. This can be compared to the child of a king, who when he enters into his father’s [presence] – even at the time of his anger – since the king’s will is to draw very close to his precious child, the characteristic of love is awakened within [the king] toward his child; and then that characteristic expands to all those who are in the king’s gate as well. So it is at the hands of the tzaddikim, who bring themselves closer – along with all things – to their Father in Heaven, giving [God] a restful spirit: [God’s] mind settles, as if it were possible, and the judgments that were awakened at the hands of the wicked are sweetened. And that is [the meaning of] “to collect from the wicked, who destroy [a world created] through ten statements” – for even though the Creation happened through ten statements for their benefit, in order that even there in their lowly place they should be able to hold onto [God’s] characteristics, and similarly [God’s] characteristics and divinity were contracted for them in order that they should recognize [God’s characteristics], as was stated above – and even still, on the contrary, on account of [all] this they distance themselves further. “And to give good reward to the tzaddikim, who sustain a world created through ten statements” – as we have stated above, by way of [the world] being created through ten statements, through contraction; for without this it would not have been possible, and understand this.

‎Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, (231,1) states that a ‎human being when eating or drinking or performing other ‎‎“human necessities,” must keep in mind that he performs all ‎these acts in order to enable him to better serve the Lord, his ‎Creator. By doing so he performs the commandment (Proverbs ‎‎3,6) of ‎בכל דרכיך דעהו‎, “know Him in the process of performing all ‎your activities.” Man is not to concentrate on the physical ‎satisfaction he experiences as a result of performing these ‎activities. The statement in the Shulchan Aruch may be seen ‎as similar to that of our sages according to which G’d created four ‎categories of creatures, in ascending order. The lowest ranking is ‎the ‎דומם‎, mute and inert, followed by the vegetation, creatures ‎only mobile in a vertical direction but still mute; this is followed ‎by all living and vertically and horizontally mobile animals, ‎capable of some form of communication with one another by ‎means of sound. At the top of this pyramid is the human being. ‎When the human being consumes lower ranking living creatures ‎as his nourishment, every one of the lower creatures experiences ‎a “spiritual” promotion by becoming an integral part of the ‎highest form of living creature, man. When man eats such ‎creatures or even fruit, he “elevates “ them to a higher level, a ‎form of “creative” activity, appropriately referred to in the use of ‎the present tense for the word ‎ברא‎, i.e. ‎בורא‎, as we explained ‎about Adam making fire for the first time. The benediction is an ‎act of gratitude for the pleasure experienced in the process. ‎When a person eats he automatically converts lower ranking ‎‎“creatures” to his level as through not only ingesting them with ‎his mouth, but converting them to his bloodstream, blood being ‎described by the Torah as the essential of man’s life-force, ‎נפש‎. ‎‎(Deut. 12,23). The conversion of man’s food intake to become one ‎with the highest category of creature, man, certainly justifies our ‎referring to the creative process commenced by G’d when these ‎creatures were first created to their being alluded to in our ‎benedictions as being part of an ongoing creative process.‎
There remains only fire as something that though man had ‎been endowed with taking part in the creation by means of his ‎intellect, has not been ingested by man and thus not become an ‎integral part of him, so that the word ‎בורא‎, instead of ‎ברא‎ would ‎not be an appropriate description of what Adam did when he ‎struck two pieces of rock together. On the other hand, the fact ‎that we perform a commandment every week by lighting the ‎‎havdalah candle, fire which is another one of the creatures ‎that is subordinate to man, becomes “spiritually” elevated by the ‎use man makes of it. It therefore is perceived as if it were a new ‎creation. This, at least is the view of the school of Hillel, who ‎therefore feel that this idea be reflected in the formulation of the ‎benediction we recite when performing this mitzvah.‎

We have been taught that cleaving to G’d is something that ‎can be accomplished through fear of the Lord, in the words of ‎Solomon in Proverbs 3,6 ‎בכל דרכיך דעהו‎, “endeavour to become ‎intimate with Him by means of all your activities,” In other ‎words, if all our activities are based upon the teachings of the ‎Torah and in compliance with it we will gain ever greater insights. ‎Moses used the opportunity to teach us this great principle in a ‎nutshell when he said: “Hear O Israel;” as a result of doing so, ‎‎“the Lord our G’d will be One, i.e. His unity will be demonstrated ‎to all.”‎