The Talmud has been discussing leaving the parameters of  food on an oven or stovetop before Shabbat, to keep it warm for the Sabbath meal

In Sura, they leave food on the stove from Shabbat eve, as Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak from Sura was a master of deeds, and they would leave food for him and he would eat it.

Rashi explains Rav Nahman was very careful and exacting in his deeds.  Therefore, since he would be very careful in his observance of the intricate laws of Shabbat, we can rely on his actions as an example.  The actual language is “marey d’Uvda” the master of deeds.
Gentlemen, you may ask, are we not also the masters over our deeds?

No.  So much of what we do is a reaction to others, or a habit, or actions performed to further our thirsts or whims.  Very often people are acting only in response to someone else’s instigation.  Only a relatively small amount of our actions are performed with intellectual mastery and foresight.  Rav Nahman was special since all of his deeds, even something as simple as keeping his food warm, were performed with deliberation and concern for the consequences.

We should be blessed to master our own deeds.

Pirke Avot 6:6

Greater is learning Wisdom than the priesthood and than royalty, for royalty is acquired by thirty stages, and the priesthood by twenty-four, but Wisdom by forty-eight tools :

#3 בַּעֲרִיכַת שְׂפָתַיִם  with arranging of the lips

This tool is put into words your plans and ideas.  This gives them a greater reality and improves your chance of fulfilling your goals.  We have a concept in mystical Judaism (Kabbalah) that thoughts have very little attachment to this world, words have more existence, and actions the most.  When you bring your idea from the world of thoughts into the world of speech, you invest it with more spiritual energy and a greater existence, even though it has not reached an actionable stage.  There is a huge difference between wanting to be great and saying I will become great.  Try it, go to the gym and say “I am going to bust out 20 reps”.  Way more power there than simply planning and thinking it.

In conventional Judaism, our study hall, the Yeshivah, is loud.  Most learning is two boys or two men talking to one another, hashing out what an ancient text means.  Or one man explaining his interpretation to a group, which critiques his approach by comparing other sources.  It’s give and take, and anything but quiet.

Talking out your ideas with other gives you a chance to explore and refine them.  If you don’t have other people working on your particular issue, talk with yourself.  This tool follow immediately after define your terms, and speaking out your definitions is a way to get a sense of if they are reasonable and articulable.  You don’t want to have a great understanding of life and your role in the world hidden away because you cannot put it into words.

When you have problems or difficult choices, speak out the pros and cons, write it down if that helps, but at least speak the words.  If you gained in wisdom from an experience, review it out loud to let the gains sink in.

Again, Genesis 2:7 states that man is a speaking soul.  Our intellectual power is based on language.  Words do have the power to create and destroy.  When you use words to reinforce your plans and goals, you build yourself up.  When you have your terms defined, and you know what you know, other people cannot use words to manipulate and control you.  In addition, you can use speech to give yourself energy to confront a difficult situation.  Give yourself a pep talk.

 

Today* the Talmud begins a critical chapter with far reaching legal ramifications, Perek Cirah: the Oven.  Jewish culture is commonly associated with food, so what could be more vital than understanding how to get our food cooked and keep your food hot to enjoy on the Sabbath.  Cirah explains the intricate laws of using ovens and stove tops on the Sabbath.
[*obviously I don’t write or post on the Sabbath itself, but scheduling a post to occur on the Sabbath is not a problem]

The Gemara brings the opinion of an ancient sage Hananya, that food that has already been cooked to the extent of the food of ben Drusai, who would only cook his food the minimum amount necessary, can be left on a stovetop on Shabbat even though the fuel in that stove was not swept out or covered with ashes.  The logic is that once your food is cooked to the ben Drusai level, you won’t come to stoke the coals to cook it faster, since you could eat it now and know that further cooking of this item is inevitable even without your adjusting the fire (which is forbidden on Shabbat).

This ben Drusai was a notorious bandit, a wanted man, who ate his food on the run, only 1/3 or one half cooked.  There is no indication that he was a religious man, and a likelihood that he had committed severe sins during his criminal career.  But our ancient sages used his behavior to debate an issue with vitally important legal ramifications.  Without the famous example of ben Drusai, our sages may have decided that only fully cooked food or raw meat could be left on a stovetop.  This criminal outcast from two millennia ago has his eating habits brought up on a regular basis by conventional Jews who enjoy hot food on Shabbat.

Gentlemen, be known for something.  Preferably not banditry or the like; it would be better to be known as the man who can fix something, or connect people with something, or bring men together to accomplish something.  Every man has a goal and mission in life, whether or not you are aware of it.  Find yours and develop yourself into the man with a mission.

Today the Talmud discusses the beginning of the Sabbath, which was marked by sounding trumpet blasts to inform the men to come in from the fields, then more blasts to close the stores and stop work, and finally, just before sundown, to light the Sabbath candles.

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: Six blasts are sounded on Shabbat eve. When one begins sounding the first tekia, the people standing in the fields refrained from hoeing, and from plowing and from performing all labor in the fields. And those workers who work close to the city are not permitted to enter the city until those who work farther away come, so that they will all enter together.

Our commentaries explain that if workers in the field trickled in depending on their locations, people in the city would suspect that the workers who came later continued to work after the blast.  Another reading is that the workers lucky enough to be close to the city would keep working after the trumpet blast while the farther workers walked home, which would be unfair to the men farther out.

Similarly:

Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina, said: I heard that a person who was pressed for time and comes to light Shabbat lights after six blasts may light, as even the moment of the sixth blast is not yet Shabbat. He assumed that the Sages provided the sexton of the synagogue a period of time to take his shofar, which he used to sound the blasts on a tall roof in the middle of the city, to his house. Since he was allowed to bring it home, during that time it is not yet Shabbat. He said to him: If so, then you have rendered your statement subject to various circumstances, and it would not apply uniformly to all. Shabbat would start at a different time in each place based on the distance between the site where the shofar is sounded and the home of the sexton. Rather, Shabbat began immediately after the final blast with no pause in between. The sexton had a concealed place on top of his roof, where he would sound the shofar, in which he would place his shofar because the consensus is that one may move neither the shofar nor the trumpets on Shabbat.

This shows the value given to unity in starting the Sabbath.  Our sages did not want each man decide for himself when to stop working, or to make assumptions about when sunset was based on what they thought other men were doing.  The goal was for the last trumpet blast to mean Sabbath is now beginning, not for men to make other plans.

We know that Judaism is individualistic, and each man must forge his own path to his unique divine service.  But when it comes to the communal need of unity in starting the Sabbath, we don’t want variety and clash.  Be aware of when expressing your individuality is appropriate and when your own plans should take a back seat to a broader mission.

 

 

Pirke Avot 6:6

Greater is learning Wisdom than the priesthood and than royalty, for royalty is acquired by thirty stages, and the priesthood by twenty-four, but Wisdom by forty-eight tools :

#2 בִּשְׁמִיעַת הָאֹזֶן Shmi’at h’ozen – listening of the ear

Okay, can you listen without your ear?  (Besides the People hearing without listening, and the People writing songs that voices never share).  What our ancient sages mean is something deeper than listening or hearing, they mean understanding and internalizing.  The famous motto of Judaism is the “Shema Yisrael”, which starts with this same word “Listen” in the command grammatical form.  It does not merely mean listen, but also accept, internalize, and live with this idea.

The necessary step between hearing and understanding is to define the words you are using.  Our mainstream culture throws around loaded words like Love, Soulmate, Desire…without defining these in a clear way.

I taught you the definition of love, the real definition, back in the book of Genesis:

Love is the emotional pleasure of seeing the positive aspects of another person and identifying the person with those positives.

Love is not a blindfold rendering you blind to her faults.  Love is a magnifying glass.  Love makes you see who a person really is.  Who loves you most in the world?  Your parents!  And who sees your faults more than anyone…?  Your parents!

Isaac saw Rebekah’s positive actions and modest character, the same motherly actions of Sarah.  That was enough to pass his test.  But Isaac made the extra step of identifying Rebekah with her positive elements, so when he looked at her he saw all these wonderful things she was doing and he appreciated and loved her for it.  He never “fell” in love, he used his intellect to think about the proper actions and traits in his wife, and this caused him to feel the emotion of love for her.

To really love requires mind over matter, facts over feelings.  So too when we define our terms, we use our God given intellectual power to separate facts from feelings.  This is the advantage of man over beast.  We are a speaking soul – this is how our sages understand the translation of Genesis 2:7.  Man has the power of speech and language, to articulate ideas and philosophies, not like animals who merely feel them as instincts.

 

To get definitions, my Rabbi of blessed memory had a game:

The 48 Ways has a concept called the “I-You-He” game. It’s based on the premise that we usually describe people on three levels. When we refer to ourselves, we paint the best picture possible. With others, we don’t want be insulting to their face, so we paint them gray. And when someone is not around to defend himself, we paint him black. “I” am white. “You” are gray. “He” is black.

You’re the passenger in a car careening 90 miles an hour down a winding mountain road. As you grip the dashboard in fear for your life, you turn to the driver and say, “Aren’t you being a bit foolhardy?”

“Me? Oh, no. I’m brave. I’m not afraid of anything!”

If you’re lucky enough to live to tell about it, you say, “That guy’s a reckless idiot!”

The driver refers to himself as “brave.” To his face, you call him “foolhardy.” To a third party, he’s a “reckless idiot.”

Which one is the reality?

By working through objective definitions, we can assess the situation without personal feelings getting in the way:

A. “Brave” = taking a necessary risk for a worthwhile purpose (e.g. rushing into a burning building to save the children trapped inside).

B. “Foolhardy” = taking an unnecessary risk, yet with a noble purpose (e.g. rushing in to save the children, but without any protective gear).

C. “A Reckless Idiot” = taking an unnecessary risk, for no worthwhile purpose (e.g. rushing in just to watch the beams fall down).

Back to the car on the mountain road.

You turn to the driver and say, “Why are we risking our lives? What is the worthwhile purpose?”
The driver will have to agree he’s being a reckless idiot.

That’s being an intellectual. Leading with your head, rather than muddling through life based on feelings alone. Otherwise, you’re always stuck on the level of: “I’m brave, he’s a reckless idiot.”

This is a powerful tool, and an impetus for you to start defining your terms.  Stop and think about how you define “Love” or “Attention”.  Then if your woman starts nagging why you don’t Love her or pay Attention to her, you can have an informed response, instead of merely responding to her attacks.  If you want to live an intellectual life, first define your terms.

After he returned to society, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wanted to help.  He was able to determine where dead bodies were buried, allowing Priests to cross through an area they had avoided due to not knowing the location of the graves (Priests cannot walk over where a body is buried).

The Talmud relates how his ability to find the graves shocked some:

A certain Elder said in ridicule and surprise: Ben Yoḥai purified the cemetery (which would be impossible).  Rabbi Shimon got angry and said to him: Had you not been with us, and even had you been with us and were not counted with us in this ruling, what you say is fine. You could have said that you were unaware of my intention or that you did not agree or participate in this decision.  Now that you were with us and were counted with us in rendering this ruling, you will cause people to say that Sages are unwilling to cooperate with one another.  They will say: If competing prostitutes still apply makeup to each other to help one another look beautiful, all the more so that Torah scholars should cooperate with each other.  He directed his eyes toward him and the Elder died.

Yes, our holy sages 2000 years ago were aware of the common business practices, not from partaking of course.  The point Rabbi Shimon was making was that people can work together even when they are in competition, since when each helps one another they both benefit.  When all of the prostitutes look better, they can all charge a higher fee, so even though they compete with each other, having their fellow look better is in their best interest.  This is certainly true when people are not in competition, but are working towards a shared goal.  Men working in a group should not undermine each other but support one another.

When you are working towards a common goal, be aware when people on your team are not pitching in or are even undermining your cause.

Pirke Avot 6:6

Greater is learning Wisdom than the priesthood and than royalty, for royalty is acquired by thirty stages, and the priesthood by twenty-four, but Wisdom by forty-eight tools : #1 By study

The language of our sages is Talmud, translated as study or learning.  The word itself is in the ongoing form, implying by the grammar our sages mean constant study.

How do we achieve constant study?  Don’t waste any time.

Imagine you are taking a bus to a city a few hours away.  Across the aisle there is a man looking out the window.  After 10 minutes, he takes out his wallet, takes out a five dollar bill, and throws it out the window.  You are not sure what you just saw, was that real?  After another 10 minutes, he takes out his wallet, takes out a five dollar bill, and throws it out the window.  This guy must be crazy!  Again, 10 minutes later, out comes the wallet, the five dollar bill, boom, out the window. What kind of fool thing is he doing?

This goes on, until you get to the destination.  The man looks in his wallet. Empty. He looks over at you, in a polite voice says: “Pardon me, sir, could I borrow five dollars?”

Ridiculous. You’re laughing.  You would never throw five dollars out the window.

Brothers, did you ever throw five minutes out the window?

What did you accomplish during your last bus trip?  Looked at some scenery? Read the news?  What did you learn? How did you grow?

You saw some pretty scenery. And did something on your phone. Fine, it was just a few hours you wasted.  Hours add up to days, days to months, months to years, until you look back in horror at the loss of time and wonder what you could have accomplished.

If you want to be student of life, to grow into the best version of yourself, don’t waste a day, don’t waste an hour, not even a minute.  Life is your opportunity to make something of yourself.  And even if you are young and healthy (Thank God), you don’t know when this opportunity is over.

Does this mean you can never relax, never take a day off, never zone out?  No, some degree of unwinding is necessary to keep your equilibrium.  When you are resting or playing in order to have the strength to then learn and accomplish, even those activities contribute to your personal growth.  You can apply this concept to sleeping:  if you just conk out after a long day, your body is, hopefully, maybe, refreshed when you awake.  If you consciously choose to sleep in order to have power tomorrow, power to learn, to grow, to exercise, to build yourself…that is a different level of sleep.  Now you involve the soul, the mind, not just the body.  Your relaxation and recreation can fuel your personal growth if you are mindful.

Another aspect of this is long term planning.  You want to learn to paint? To really paint?   You can’t just decide one day, go buy an easel, canvas, and oil paints, and throw some paint on the canvas and see what happens.  You first study art, the history, the famous painters.  You go to the art museum and see what appeals to you, you ask established painters how they got started.  Maybe you watch someone paint, and think about the process.  You meditate on what makes the great painters great, and how to learn from their art but develop your own unique style.  This can’t be done in a short time, you need to determine the right path and be conscious of your study.  Any worthwhile goal or skill takes some planning and goal setting.

Continuous means when you choose to learn something, you focus on that. Your email can wait. Your life is more important.  Learning for 10 minutes without interruption is better than 2 hours of learning while multitasking.  Plus, you get used to focusing on one subject, and can build your concentration.  This is a lost art today.  Start with 10 minutes of focus, build up to an hour, and you will be shocked how much you can accomplish in one hour.

Continuous also means consistent.  Again, it is better to study something for just one hour a day than to try to cram 8 hours in once a week.  You develop a rhythm and make it part of your routine.  This gives it a power and makes you more likely to continue.  Consistency even works for activities you may not do every day.  Think about lifting.  You wouldn’t lift every day, but your rest days are a key part of the process of building strength.  Don’t take extra days off, but be conscious that your rest days are part of your training.

Continuous requires commitment.  Review what you learned. Keep it fresh, add new insights to old material.  You may have a great insight and lose it the next day. If you learn an important lesson about people, relationships, life, yourself – write it down! Don’t lose it.  You are the product of everything you have learned in your life.  If you learn a valuable lesson from experience, but then go home and zone out with TV or games all night, and forget your lesson, then friends, you never learned.  Don’t waste your life experience, every situation in your life is a chance to learn and grow.  Your study of life should change you.

My rabbi explained the seriousness of personal growth like this:

Imagine a 1 year old baby.  He is crying, crawling, exploring, grabbing things on the floor.  He’s beautiful.  If you came back and the kid was now 3 years old, but doing the exact same thing as when he was 1, you know what that means.  A tragedy.

Imagine a 5 year old bow.  He’s playing, laughing, running, not a care in the world. Beautiful.  If you come back and he is 10 years old, but doing the exact same thing as when he was 5, that is a tragedy.

Imagine a 10 year old boy.  He is reading, playing baseball with his friends. Beautiful.  If you come back and find him 20, doing exactly what he was doing at 10…Tragedy.

Imagine a 20 year old, maybe he’s in college, maybe learning a trade. He’s trying to get somewhere in life.  You come back and find him 30, still trying to get somewhere.  Tragedy.

Imagine a 30 year old, or imagine yourself….if you come back in 10 years and you are doing the same thing, the same people, with the same ideas, the same life as before.  What is that friends?
It’s a tragedy.

Who are you going to be 10 years from now?  It is never too late to reassess yourself and decide to use your time to learn, to grow.

If you choose to be a student of life, you will learn from everything that has happened so far in your own life, and learn from those around you, and from the wisdom of people who came before you.  You will learn in order to apply wisdom to improve your own life.

Choosing to be a student of life means choosing not to waste time. Time is, after all, what life itself is made of.

Sometimes you will make poor investments of your time and energy.  Some relationships are a drain on you instead of a mutually beneficial partnership.  Don’t just keep doing what you have been doing and expect it to magically get better.  You may have to cut your losses and move on.

Your life isn’t a Hollywood movie where of course the good guy wins with dramatic background music.  You have to build yourself into the good guy in order to win at life.  I don’t mean the nice guy, trying to please other people.  The good guy does what is right because it is right, not to make people happy or avoid their wrath.

If you stop learning, stop growing, it means you are giving up on life, throwing away the chance you have to become whatever it is you want to be.  Worse, it’s a total lack of recognition of the gift God and your parents gave you, the gift of life itself.  The gift of opportunity.

My blessing is that you make yourself a constant student of life.

 

An excellent lecture on this same item is here

 

Today the Talmud recounts the famous story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

Our sages were discussing the infrastructure such as roads and aqueducts that the Romans had built in Israel.  Rabbi Yehuda praised the Romans for building markets, baths, and bridges.  Rabbi Yossi was silent.  Rabbi Shimon said that the Romans had built infrastructure for their own needs, to bring harlots, indulge themselves, impose taxes and fees, move their armies.

The Romans decreed death on Rabbi Shimon.  He eventually fled with his son and hid in a cave.  The stayed in the cave for 12 years, learning and discussing Wisdom.

When the Caesar died they emerged, and saw regular people working the fields, and wherever they looked there was destruction.  Their condemning gaze was bringing judgment on others who were not involved in Torah.  They went back into the cave for 12 months, and when they emerged Rabbi Shimon’s son Elazar still brought judgment, until they saw an old man running, bringing two myrtle branches in honor of the coming Sabbath.  Seeing the common man running to honor the Sabbath calmed their mind and they were able to return to society.

The Gemara relates:

Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir, Rabbi Shimon’s son-in-law, heard and went out to greet him. He brought him into the bathhouse and began tending to his flesh. He saw that Rabbi Shimon had cracks in the skin on his body. He was crying, and the tears fell from his eyes and caused Rabbi Shimon pain. Rabbi Pineḥas said to Rabbi Shimon, his father-in-law: Woe is me, that I have seen you like this.

Rabbi Shimon said to him: Happy are you that you have seen me like this, as had you not seen me like this, you would not have found in me this prominence in Torah, as the Gemara relates: At first, when Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai would raise a difficulty, Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir would respond to his question with twelve answers. Ultimately, when Rabbi Pineḥas ben Ya’ir would raise a difficulty, Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai would respond with twenty-four answers.

You see, it was the wounds and raw skin that made Rabbi Shimon who he was.  It was the long exile focused on learning wisdom in the cave, with zero attention paid to his comfort and body, that made Rabbi Shimon a spiritual powerhouse.

Gentlemen, it’s not the pleasures in life that define you, but the adversities, the scares, the wounds.  How you respond to suffering and grow from it makes you a man.  Be prepared to take the pain which is the price for personal growth. In this world, nothing truly valuable comes without cost.

We have discussed the story of the Exodus from Egypt from a Red Pill perspective.

Most memorably how the Jews retained their individual culture among the dominant ancient Egyptians, and how our righteous women used desire and sexual intimacy as a holy tool for maintaining Jewish life.

We have our children ask during the Passover Seder (Seder means order, it is the ritual meal that describes our redemption from slavery) “Mah Nishtanah haLaila haZeh?”  How is this night different?

This year we have a global pandemic with extreme precautions, many are under orders to stay home.  Our leading Rabbis have instructed us not to join together to have a Passover Seder, as we would normally do.  Not to travel to see family, not to invite friends to share in Passover. This situation would have been simply unbelievable a month ago, when we celebrated Purim together, eating, drinking, singing, praying en masse.

No we are living through an echo of Exodus 12:13 “And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood I will pass over you, so that no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”

We have discussed how Judaism is in a real sense a decentralized religion that emphasizes individual authority, exercised within proper limits.  But our rituals and worship, especially for holidays, are decidedly communal.  This year we are cut off from one another.

As an interesting point, the very first Passover had a quarantine “None of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. For when the LORD goes through to smite the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and the LORD will pass over the door and not let the Destroyer enter and smite your home” Ex 12:22-23.  The concept described in the Bible is that when vengeance is set loose upon the land, there can be collateral damage.  Innocent people may die along with the guilty.  I have seen this happen already.  This should truly scare us.

That first Passover the Destroyer was outside, as long as the Jews remained behind their blood stained doorways they were safe.  Today the Destroyer may already be in your house, on a box someone just delivered, or God forbid growing unnoticed in a member of your family.  We face a new danger, compounded by the spiritual danger of isolation.  God has given us some tools to connect despite our precautions, among them is blogging.

 

God willing, I will begin the day after Passover a new daily series of learning wisdom.  We will study the Wisdom of Fathers, Pirke Avot.  This coincides with the Counting of the Omer for 49 days from Passover to our next Holiday, Shavuot.  My time is greatly constrained and it will be only through His Divine mercy that I may succeed.

We pray for a freedom to again pursue our spiritual goals together, and the freedom from fear of death unleashed on the whole world.  God willing, this is the worst of it, and by Shavuot we will be back to what passes for normal.

Today’s Talmud learning touches on profound psychological concepts, including destiny and free will.

Our sages note that when someone is in danger, during childbirth for example, or crossing a bridge or on a ferry, their misdeeds may be called against them.  The Gemara brings that some of the ancient sages would not want to be on a ship with others who may be spiritually vulnerable.  We see from here that there can be collateral damage to innocents on a spiritual level.  This informs us that even if we are positive, healthy, and growing in life we are in danger if we associate with negative people.  For a modern interpretation of this idea our sages revealed 2000 years ago, see Greene’s 48 laws of power, #10: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.

Our sages, who were aware of unseen spiritual forces, were also deeply practical regarding the risks attendant to everyday life:

Rabbi Yannai would examine the ferry and cross.  Rabbi Yannai acted in accordance with his reasoning, as he said: A person should never stand in a place of danger while saying that they (on High) will perform a miracle for him, lest in the end they do not perform a miracle for him. And even if they do perform a miracle for him, they will deduct it from his merits. Rabbi Ḥanin said: What verse alludes to this? Jacob said: “I am not worthy of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which You have shown unto Your servant” (Genesis 32:11). Meaning since You have bestowed upon me so much kindness and truth, my merits have been diminished.  Rabbi Zeira would not go out and walk among the palm trees on a day when there was a strong southern wind blowing due to the danger that the trees might fall on him.

You have to be practical – you check the boat out before the trip, you check your brakes.  This applies to all areas of life: jobs, houses, business deals, relationships…  You have to check it out before you commit.

However, we also have a concept that every man has a certain life destiny and role to play in this world…

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught:  What is the meaning of the phrase (Deuteronomy 22:8) “If the faller falls from it”?  This man was destined to fall from that roof from the six days of Creation, it was destiny, since even though he did not yet fall, the verse calls him ‘faller’.  Nevertheless, the owner of the house (that did not fence his roof or balcony) is considered guilty for causing the fall, as merit is increased by means of the meritorious and guilt brought about by means of the guilty.

Woah.  You need to check for danger, even though there is fate.  Some people are destined to quite literally fall off a roof.  Make sure they don’t fall off your roof!  So we balance the concept of destiny with the duty to take reasonable precautions for yourself and others.  Even though there is fate, that doesn’t mean you blindly stumble through life, being a pawn for someone else.  God also gave you a brain and the capacity to learn and grow in wisdom, and figure out a proper path.

 

Our sages also note that even at a time of danger, we have advocates of our own: our repentance and good deeds.  We can avoid disaster and improve our destiny.  In conventional Judaism we are keenly aware, through analysis of the books of the Prophets, that a prophecy for the good is never negated (though it can be delayed).  A prophecy for evil can be changed by our own actions and return to the proper path.  That is the whole point of sending prophets to inspire change.

Still, the concept that there is a “faller” someone literally destined to fall, is difficult to understand, since we know men are created with free will.  The Torah tells you even though this man is destined to fall, don’t be the cause of his fall.  Don’t put another man in danger.

This is an approach to life: you do whatever you reasonably can to avoid disasters, but when something goes wrong, you don’t blame yourself and fall into self pity.  On one level, you have to treat you fellow man as a walking representative of God in this world – since every man is made in the divine image.  Whoever saves one life gets credit as if he saved the entire world.  But on the flip side, this other man has his unique destiny, and you can’t change it.  It’s not up to you to save him from himself; but don’t be the cause of him falling into his fate.  If you can help him reach his positive destiny, his self actualization, that is great.  That is what our sages mean by שֶׁמְגַלְגְּלִין זְכוּת עַל יְדֵי זַכַּאי וְחוֹבָה עַל יְדֵי חַיָּיב “merit is increased by means of the meritorious and guilt brought about by means of the guilty”.  If you are worthy, then you steer people towards positivity and growth, to help them to reassess their lives and improve their destiny.  If you are guilty, you help other men fall, and are considered blameworthy for this, even though they were destined to fall.

 

 

The end of today’s learning brings the verse in Amos 4:1, referencing the cows of Bashan that oppress the poor.  Rava says an example of this is the rich women of Mechoza, who ate more than they produced.  The normal expectation was that a wife would work with weaving, sewing, etc to supplement the household and help feed the children.  These ones just ate.  Their husband resorts to theft or unfair business practices to keep her fat and happy.  He is coming to spiritual damage to fulfill her physical wants.  We touched on this concept, see Daily dose of wisdom, Shabbat 25: Your woman can make you or break you