Becoming a craftsman of life

The Torah, according to Ralbag, is “a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success”. A “regimen” is a prescription of behavior, a method or set of skills instrumental to the self being able to effectively operate in the external world. A soldier has a training regimen in shooting running and fighting skills that enable success of the self in war. So too an athlete has a regimen of stretching and practice and the artist works on technique that enable success of the self in the sense of championships or art shows- but is the study of Chumash part of a regimen? This classification of Chumash is a little difficult to understand, our experience of its stories doesn't seem to about ourselves effectively operating in the external world. On the contrary, Chumash seems to be about understanding the external world, not in enabling the self to operate upon it! In what way is asking questions about Yaakov and Esav similar to the regimen of a soldier? In what way is the answering of difficulties about the jealousy of the brothers to Yosef similar to the regimen of an athlete or an artist?

To understand this point, we must have a deeper sense of what a regimen is. Our problem arises from an overly material sense of the interaction a craftsman has with the world. It focuses upon the motor action, the way the craftsman's body interacts with the tangible material world. In reality the craftsman does not directly operate upon the tangible material world. He operates upon the world via his minds educated understanding of the theoretical opportunities for success in the world. The essence of being a soldier is not knowing how to shoot, it is recognizing the theoretical opportunity for victory. So too the essence of being an athlete is not the ability to do motor action, it is to see the opportunity for a play, the opportunity for expressing an idea in a medium. Michelangelo was asked how he created the famous sculpture of David. He responded : I took the marble and hammered away at anything that didn't look like David. To be Michelangelo then is not so much to know how to hammer, though of course skill in hammering is critical. It is to see a theoretical world of marble which is potentially David if properly hammered.

It is in this sense of regimen as fundamentally a perspective of mind that the Torah is “a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success”. We study Yaakov, not so much to know what he did per se, but rather to gain access the world of opportunity as he saw it. We wish to avoid the limiting world that let to the jealousy of the brothers, we want to adopt the world of opportunity that followed Yaakovs teshuva and meeting with Yosef. It is this sense of Chumash that gives us illuminating insights into the world of human opportunities in which Mitzvot technique operate. Like Michelangelo the Torah master does not so much know mitzva technique, as see a world of of opportunities in which Mitzvot are the best instruments. This is what Ralbag refers to when he speaks of the three parts of Torah

It is of necessity that the Torah regimen should be divided into these elements, since human excellence can not be fully realized, except by attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research to the most excellent degree. Now the element that encompasses the study of political /social affairs that are beyond command and prohibition, is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's psychological constitution. The study of the wisdom of the universe is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's soul...

In the development of man we begin the relationship to the world of opportunities via beliefs and Mitzva techniques. As in any craft we begin through the education from our system or mentors. We see a world of opportunity via Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. We gain access to a craft of living via the techniques of Mitzvot. But this is the beginning of our development not its end. Once the craftsman sees the new world opportunity, he wants to delve deeper, to have an independence of understanding his world, free of authority of his masters. He wishes to see the political world, the complete possibility of opportunity not just the stories of the Chumash that exemplify this world. He wishes to become a craftsman of life not just one who follows the example of Masters.

Becoming a mind

The Torah, according to Ralbag, is “a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success”. This “regimen” seems to be divided into three stages- Mitzvot, political behavior and the wisdom of the universe:

A) The first element, mistakenly thought of by many as the entire mission of the Torah, are the Mitzvos which encompass what we have been commanded to believe and do as well as what not to believe or do. This category includes 613 Mitzvos according to the traditional method of counting.

B) The second element encompasses the study of political behavior and society generally. This area is a domain outside of legislative action, because it presupposes a level of human development well beyond the capacity of the standard citizen. To illustrate, let us consider if the Torah were to legislate that we must not be angry except for what one ideally should be angry about, and even then only to the ideal measure of anger, in the proper time and place. Or perhaps that one should not be happy except for what one ideally should be happy about, and even then only to the ideal measure of happiness, in the proper time and place…. All people would be in violation of the law continuously, excluding a minute few...

C) The third element includes what the Torah grants us of the Wisdom of the universe, that cannot be attained through human research, save by exhaustive effort, if a man should fail to avail himself of its prophetic stories that guide us to this hasaga (apprehension)

These three stages seem to be complementary elements of a developmental curriculum as Ralbag states later on. The core of the curriculum seems to be the Mitzvot, which the other two stages “build upon”.

It is of necessity that the Torah regimen should be divided into these elements, since human excellence can not be fully realized, except by attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research to the most excellent degree. Now the element that encompasses the study of political /social affairs that are beyond command and prohibition, is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's psychological constitution. The study of the wisdom of the universe is a next step that builds upon what has already been attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's soul...

1) What does Ralbag mean by “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“ and how is this attainment accomplished through “building upon the Mitzvot” ?

2) In what way is this process of “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“ connected to Ralbag's previous tefilla?

To answer this we must understand something of Ralbag's concept of “becoming”. As mentioned in the previous post, Ralbag's first order of business was to awaken a reader used to thinking of himself as an independent power to the reality of Hashgacha as an external cause of his own ability. This Hashgacha is clearly an outgrowth of Chochmas Hashem that is behind the creation of the ecosystem of Earth of which man is part of

Praised be the Creator, who, because of His desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of Mankind

It is an essential feature of the Earthly ecosystem that all members undergo a “cycle of life”. Minerals become vegetables and vegetables become animals. In due course the living tissue degenerates and returns to being mineral. This cycle of life or “becoming” is not limited to the animal kingdom but extends to man as well,both in terms of his animal character as well as his mind and education.

This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained. It extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone the lowly material of Aretz is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.

The nature of the human condition is to be aware of a system of becoming of which he himself is a part. Unlike a chemical or vegetable or animal that mechanistically undergo a process which they are unaware of and are therefore incapable of controlling, man is aware of the very process he undergoes. As Rambam puts it

Every person is granted freedom. If he wants to steer himself toward the good path and be a Tzaddik-he has the freedom to do so. If he wants to steer himself toward the evil path and be a Rasha-he has the freedom to do so. This point is written in the Torah as its says” behold Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Brayshees 3, 22). What this means is that the species of man is unique in the material world, no other species is like it in the fact that Man himself, through his own thought and judgment, knows what is good and evil and acts as he wills with no one opposing him from doing good and evil...

It is our very awareness of the general process of becoming that gives us a choice of what we will become. We can choose to seek out the causes of the system we are part of and become minds that use our animal nature as a platform-or we can choose not to seek causes and become pure animals. It is this process of human becoming that Torah is an aid to. It is also within this process of becoming that we can understand the three stages of Torah education. In essence, the becoming of man revolves around the issue of re-engineering the animal platform away from being a tool of animal dominance and pleasure and towards being a tool of research. This re-engineering consists of two parts
a) creating a psyche that functions as an able platform for intellectual research b) creating an intellect that actually researches the wisdom underlying the Creations.

Both of these re-engineerings are begun in Mitzvos and “built upon” by later research. As Ralbag puts it “the Mitzvos ... encompass what we have been commanded to believe and do as well as what not to believe or do”. So long as we relate to our beliefs and actions authoritatively, ie without independent proof grounded in our intellectual understanding of “becoming”, they are rudimentary and need to be built upon. This building goes through two stages. The first stage is grasping the causes of Mitzvot as “political social” phenomena only, as instruments of maintaining order in society. The second level moves beyond, seeing mitzvot as part of order as seen throughout the “wisdom of the universe”.

We can now see the process of “attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research“. But what is the connection to the tefilla?

Man's challenge in recognizing his place in becoming is that we view the world through the lens of our animal eyes and psyche. Prior to re-engineering ourselves we do not see a world of “ becoming” governed by Chochmas Hashem of which we ourselves are part. We see a world of raw materials awaiting our own dominion and design. As animals we take our own internal drive to dominate as a given, an unquestioned premise whose good cannot be reflected upon let alone challenged. It is the Baal Mesorah who awakens us from this belief, helps us consider a new possibility. Ralbag's call to tefilla is therefore integrally involved in the “becoming” of his talmid the reader. To become aware of Hashgacha is not merely to leave a sense of power to know. It is to become aware of the animal material that was the source of our predisposition to believe we had this power and viewed the world as purely raw materials in which this power should be expressed.

One and the same realization is then the cause both of the need for tefilla as well as the order of limud Mitzvot. The special place of man in material becoming, the challenge of choosing to transform animality in the ways needed to embrace mindedness is the source of both.

Ralbag's Hakdamah la-torah: Tefilla or Perush?

A modern "introduction" to a work typically identifies an objective, as well an outline of the plan or method by which the author intends to realize his objective. There is much in Ralbag's introduction to the Torah that is therefore very familiar to us in this regard. Ralbag defines Torah as a tool of attaining wisdom and states a clear plan for helping the reader realize this attainment. What is incongruent in Ralbag's presentation is his interweaving of Tefilla into the introduction.

Blessed and most revered be the tzur ("rock"), foundation of all existence, whose “insight” (T'vunaso) , “wisdom” (chochmaso) and “knowledge” (Daato) bring into being, a system of existing things, whose existence exhibits a wisdom and grace which none but He can completely masig. Praised be the Creator, who, because of His desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of Mankind.

Our first intuition is to uncomfortably ignore the indiscretion of the Master, to interpret it as a vestige of ancient style. This serves the purpose of maintaining our intuition of what an introduction is and puts the burden of breaking convention on the shoulders of Ralbag. But an honest appraisal will not bear out our fervent wish that Ralbag be in agreement with us regarding the nature of introductions. His Tefilla is anything but a stylistic flourish lacking conceptual significance. This can be seen in the introduction to Milchomos Hashem where once again Ralbag begins with Tefilla. At the conclusion he emphasizes what he has done

אמר לוי בן גרשום אחר התהלה וההודאה לאל והשאלה ממנו להישיר לפנינו דרכו, ראינו בזה הספר לחקור

Tefilla is anything but a stylistic affectation, it is clearly a fundamental dimension of the introduction itself. As moderns however we are at a loss to honestly confront this phenomenon in the Master. What function does his Tefilla serve? What do we gain in our understanding of the subject of Torah through the Tefilla? Why doesn't Ralbag just define Hashgacha and its place in Creation rather than share a Tefilla with his readers?

If we look more carefully at the nature of Hashgacha we will understand the problem Ralbag is grappling with, as well as the unique nature of his introduction. Indeed, Ralbag himself paves the way in the continuation of His intro:

This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained. It extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone the lowly material of Aretz is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.

It is vital that we keep in mind that it is impossible for us to completely apprehend the wisdom and grace expressed in the nature of the Torah’s existence. In reality we know but a pittance and are ignorant of much, as is the case with our knowledge of the nature of all existing things with regard to their wisdom and grace. In reality we masig but very little, as is well known to all those who do real research in the natural sciences- and come to appreciate the gap between our models of the of the laws of the Universe and their reality... It therefore follows from the fact that the Torah is divine, [that it’s nature will also only be incompletely understood].

It is intriguing that Ralbag defines the Torah as an instrument specifically designed to facilitate human wisdom, yet emphasizes that it is impossible for us to completely apprehend the wisdom and grace expressed in the nature of the Torah’s existence. In reality we know but a pittance and are ignorant of much. Why the emphasis on the need for humility?

The reader is of clearly one who Ralbag realises will fully expect a complete knowledge of of the wisdom of the Torah. Why is this? The answer goes to the heart of the nature of understanding Hashgacha. To be ignorant of Hashgacha is not just to lack an individual concept. To not understand Hashgacha, is to think that man naturally attains knowledge through his own power. It is to not appreciate the deep anti thinking trends in man that only Hashgacha can overcome.

To follow the modern course,to immediately identify an objective and detail the plan to attaining is wrong-minded. As Ralbag states so well אחר התהלה וההודאה לאל והשאלה ממנו להישיר לפנינו דרכו, ראינו בזה הספר לחקור

It is only after we state our dependence upon Hasgacha and request help through Tefilla that we can honestly speak about Hashgacha. We cannot use the modern introductory tool that presupposes man's intrinsic capacity to know to state that we indeed depend upon Hashgacha!
That would be an inherent contradiction and an incomplete understanding of what Hashgacha is. Rather we must enter the Masters tefilla a la גַּדְּלוּ לַיהוָה אִתִּי; וּנְרוֹמְמָה שְׁמוֹ יַחְדָּו
Hashgacha cannot be something that is talked about, it must be acted upon. To merely talk of Hashgacha is folly. How can we talk about Hasgacha without acknowledging our need for Hashgacha in order to talk about it? Before we talk about hashgacha we must engage in Tefilla with the Master- we must act as people who treat Hasgacha as a reality, and only after begin the stating of problems. Such problems,though superficially sharing an external form with a modern introduction, are essentially distinguished.

The Modern intro presupposes mans intrinsic power to solve the problems he sets out for himself. The Jew sees problems as an obstacle insurmountable by his own power , a basis for requesting illumination from the source of Hashgacha גַּל-עֵינַי וְאַבִּיטָה-- נִפְלָאוֹת, מִתּוֹרָתֶךָ.

Torahs place in redemption and the quest for Malchus Shamayim #4

Yiras hashem reeshis das:
To understand this we must go one level deeper into the story of yetzias mitzraim and the educational role of the makos and of Moshe Rabbenu. The Geulei Mitzraim had a very different life experience than ours as Western Jews. Like most people who have not experienced tyranny, the Western Jew instinctively accepts his group's civilizational vision of reality conveyed by Pharoah without question. This vision is so dominating that it determines the very framework through which he interacts with the external world.

The Westerner's very identity can only be formulated in terms of this vision of the world. If asked what he does the only response is in terms of his function of human attainment - whether professional: actors, professors, accountants, students - or familial: mothers, fathers, children, etc. Of course, we are continuously measuring our own success in these functional roles. The artificial seperation into scientist and humanist makes sense only in this civilization of human attainment. One whose talent lies in abstract reasoning competes for fame and fortune within the artificial vision of the state by competing with others of like talent in science/math departments, universities or industry. Those whose talent lies in aesthetics compete for fame and fortune in the humanities departments or in the arts or theater. Neither seeks the natural development of their soul within the overarching order of Malchus Shamayim. To the contrary, they have contempt for the very notion that they should distract themselves in order to seek their natural purpose - “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and discipline.” We rarely question or even consider the natural basis of this social vision. Is our societally centered vision reflective of man's true place in the universe? Such questioning distracts us from single-minded pursuit of our social vision of success. It feels to us at best boring and annoying, at worst a threat. Socrates paid with his very life for questioning the place of human vision in the natural order. Avraham escaped this fate by miraculous intervention only, as did the Jews during Channuka and Purim. Generations of Jews following the destruction of the Temple have not been so blessed. Millions and millions have been slaughtered fro daring to raise this question. Our animal psyche precludes any shift of focus from the small picture of the world of society seen with the eyes, it will protect itself from this even at the cost of mass murder and genocide.

This would necessarily have been the fate of human civilization for all time if not for a unique observation made possible through hashgacha and the redemptive educational agency of Moshe Rabbenu.

In contrast to the Westerner, the "Yotzei Mitzraim" were more like Holocaust survivors. In accordance with the divinely inspired process of Brit bayn ha-betarim they had observed the dark side of "the state" and the political vision of its Fuhrer – Pharaoh. Like the Holocaust survivor they had seen first hand the transition from a welfare state attending to the material needs of its hungry citizens to a murderous regime. They experienced how the centralization of state power, the dream of Pharaoh aided by the able wisdom of Yosef ha-tzadik, had turned into the nightmare of enslavement of a Pharaoh who did not remember Joseph. What a cynical use Pharaoh/Hitler made of the organization of all Egypt around Joseph's vision! Rather than coordinating his people for their benefit, to rescue them from the divinely decreed famine as Joseph had done, Pharaoh/Hitler used his absolute power to manipulate all of Egypt into the genocidal enslavement of the Jewish people. Rather than using his rhetorical ability to clarify a vision beneficial to Egypt, he convinced his people of the snake oil of a nonexistent threat from Jews for his own insatiable power needs.

The Jews were, therefore, in a unique position to be taught about the terrible danger of a society founded upon visions of Pharaohs rather than upon kabbalas ole Malchus Shamayim. They had felt on their own flesh the fantastical character of such visions.

The makos and Yam suf were designed to create a textbook case of this danger, for the Jews to observe and memorialize for all humanity. Pharaoh led Egypt to ruin, during the makos and then again at Yam Suf. So extreme was Pharoah's fantasy of his own divine right that he could not see what was manifestly obvious to his own magicians: “the finger of God is involved.” So too, he could not stop exhorting his people to his own vision and spin even in the face of utter disaster, even as his own people cried out “have you not noticed that Egypt is lost?” The Shiras Hayam specifies the evil spin of Pharaoh, describing his fantastical belief that he could destroy the servants of God, just as Hitler attempted - to his ruin. “The enemy said, ‘I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’”

The Shiras Hayam was Moshe Rabbenu's education of the Jewish people to the meaning of Malchus Shamayim. Witnessing Pharoah's defeat at Yam Suf, in the height of his rhetorical spin, concluded this foundational process:

14:30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
14:31 Israel saw the great work which the LORD did to the Egyptians, and the people feared the LORD; and they believed in the LORD, and in his servant Moses.
15:1 Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and said, “I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
15:2 The LORD is my strength and song. He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
15:3 The LORD is a man of war. The LORD is his name.
15:4 He has cast Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea. His chosen captains are sunk in the Sea of Suf.
15:5 The deeps cover them. They went down into the depths like a stone.
15:6 Your right hand, LORD, is glorious in power. Your right hand, LORD, dashes the enemy in pieces.
15:7 In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send forth your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.
15:8 With the blast of your nostrils, the waters were piled up. The floods stood upright as a heap. The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.
15:9 The enemy said, ‘I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’
15:10 You blew with your wind. The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
15:11 Who is like you, LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
15:12 You stretched out your right hand. The earth swallowed them.
15:13 “You, in your loving kindness, have led the people that you have redeemed. You have guided them in your strength to your holy habitation.

Such a Jewish people would indeed be in a different position to make judgements about the reality of Malchus Shamayim. Their ability to sustain the fantasy of absolute human sovereignty cast in artificial 'Pharoahic' visions would be shattered. People who are comfortable do not have the energy to seek to understand the place of man in Creation. We do not question the established social order, we are overcome by our snake like psyche. But an oppressed group thinks very differently. As the oppressed Jews of Purim, as the oppressed Jews of Channuka, as the oppressed Jews of the Holocaust, as the oppressed Europeans in Royal Europe, the Jews of Egypt were in an opportune position to question the natural place of man in the Universe and the proper place of the enticing rhetoric of the sovereign. Their bitter experience with tyranny made them ready to wonder: Where is human leadership's proper place in the natural order of Creation? A reality-based yirah of divine power awakens interest in understanding how their own powerful instinct to follow their leader, the very natural tendency to follow an appealing vision, could have led them so astray. Prompting them to ask their parents this question at the seder, as they were told the story of the makos and redemption: How do we find the educational path (mussar) to avoid such disastrous fantasies in the future?

It is just this foundational seeking of guidance from our parents which Shlomo HaMelech intends to build upon in the first pesukim of Mishlei:

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
2 To know the instruction of wisdom; to comprehend the words of understanding;
3 To receive the discipline of wisdom, justice, and judgement, and equity;
4 To give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion;
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and discipline. {P}

The two stories of Creation are the starting point for the formal education of a child whose identity is forged in the civilization of Yirah ( one who has awe) born of vi-higadita li-vincha. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and discipline.”

Such a one is liberated from the artificial seperation “scientist” and “humanist”. The child taught Yiras Hashem realizes that life is not about the pursuit of fame and fortune in Pharoah's state. All talents are meant to naturally develop into one unified pursuit of the beauty of Malchus shamayim! Bichol derachecha daey-hu- in all your ways you should know Him! He pities the slave whose talent for abstract reasoning is wasted on competition for fame and fortune within the artificial vision of the state. He equally pities the humanist whose talent for rich description is wasted on competition for fame and fortune in the humanities departments or in the arts or theater. This perspective of mind is well described by Rambam:
[ב] והיאך היא הדרך לאהבתו, ויראתו? בשעה שיתבונן האדם במעשיו וברואיו הנפלאים הגדולים, ויראה מהם חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ--מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאווה תאווה גדולה לידע השם הגדול, כמו שאמר דויד "צמאה נפשי, לאלוהים--לאל חי" (תהילים מב,ג).
ב וכשמחשב בדברים האלו עצמן, מיד הוא נרתע לאחוריו, ויירא ויפחד ויידע שהוא בריה קטנה שפלה אפלה, עומד בדעת קלה מעוטה לפני תמים דעות, כמו שאמר דויד "כי אראה שמיך . . . מה אנוש, כי תזכרנו" תהילים ח,ד-ה.
What is the proper path to love and awe of Him? When a person gains insight into His actions and His great and glorious creations, seeing in them His wisdom that is without measure or limit, he immediately loves, glorifies and is filled with an enormous desire to know the great name... When he applies these very same principles, he is immediately overwhelmed, is filled with awe and fear knowing that he is but a small and lowly creature...

In his intro to Chelek, Rambam discusses the need to take great care in developing the psyche into an instrument of mind. Educating a child to accept ole malchut shamayim is hazardous. The reality of an all encompassing Malchus Shamayim must be presented honestly, yet in a way that is not too disruptive to the animal psyche. How is this true education accomplished?

It is precisely this education that we see realized in the two introductory Mashalim of B'raishis that introduce the soul of the Yareh to its true place in creation. Each Mashal deals with one of the insights that the soul needs to make. Since the principles are embedded in a Mashal, the psyche can absorb them at the rate it is able. While the general outlines of the story are made known to every Jew, there are many details that are hidden, doled out as the psyche becomes ready to handle them. These general themes are pointed out by the Baalei Mesorah - most potently I believe by the Rambam and his school. Let us use the Ralbag's approach to these two mashalim as a case in point.
Mashal 1) The first story introduces the abstract scientific mind to its intuition of God's design in his Creation. It depicts this design according to the Mashal of an artist who expresses a beautiful design through the medium of a "world" comprising the entire universe (Shamayim Va-Aretz). The creations of God grant us a glimpse of the beauty of the "design" of the divine "craftsman" that is pointed to by the order of His Creation. The Yareh realises that he must not use science and craft in a vain attempt to remake his world into a new product. Rather we must make make a civilized living space instrumental to knowing His craft, His wisdom. Yet how much science is used in this way? How much more is used in never ending pursuit of a divine human dominion?
This point can be seen in the very first paragraph of the introduction of the Ralbag to the Torah:
Blessed and most revered be the tzur ("rock"), foundation of all existence, whose “insight” (T'vunaso) , “wisdom” (chochmaso) and “knowledge” (Da’ato) bring into being, a system of existing things, whose existence exhibits a wisdom and grace which none but He can completely apprehend.

Mashal 2) The second Creation story alerts us to the difficulty of harnessing the animal instincts of the psyche to be instrumental to the research needed for realizing the natural capacity of the soul to gain these glimpses of His Chochma. How difficult it is to direct our ability to observe and describe to mature purpose! How much literature and art is truly honest - creative in the sense of seeking to provide material to the soul seeking a mature vision of malchus shamayim? How much more are we driven to provide art and literature that is merely entertaining, useful for making money and gaining creativity in a fantasy sense of being like “gods knowers of good and evil”, giving people the comfort they desire in an immature attempt to escape malchus shamayim. It is for this reason that the Creation story of Adam is more humanistic, depicting "order" according to the Mashal of a benevolent Sovereign whose coaxes Adam into the ideal educational environment of Gan Eden. It is in Gan Eden that the divine sovereign teaches Adam the Mitzva/law that guides Adam HaRishon through the unique struggle of developing his soul in the face of the animalistic temptation to being “like gods knowers of good and evil” as portrayed by the snake. This dimension of soul is the second point noted by Ralbag in his intro:
Praised be the creator, who, because of the desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of mankind. This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained, but rather extends to guiding man along the path of mental development - the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone lowly material reality is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.

Far from being confused, the Yareh sees a deep unity in the two stories of Creation, a new pathway to Torah through these two dimensions of himself. He realizes that the aim of the Torah is to research life in a way that reconnects his experience of the world to the intuition of Malchus Shamayim. Far from ending, the first theme is omnipresent, ever awaiting man's ability to see himself, his surroundings and civilization as part of the great hierarchy of Malchus Shamayim. This quest begins, of course, with understanding the causation of the fall of man to the force of the evil snake - the ego driven psyche. It moves through the redemption of Egypt where man observed the evil effect of this egotistical world. It then moves on to the prospect of a new civilization of Israel fulfilling man's original promise of living a unified life of mind in a Mitzva governed life in Israel. Far from departing from the first theme, the path of Torah yearns to return to it. The ticket to return is overcoming our psyche's predilection for fantasy visions of grandeur. The measure of readiness to engage in seeing the complete Malchus Shamayim is undergoing the regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success. This is also the meaning of Rambam:

When a person gains insight into these d’varim (first principles), recognizing (the entire hierarchy) of the creations, from angel and galaxy all the way to man (and his environment), and therefore sees the chochmas Hashem in all the creations, he adds to his love of the Makom, and his soul thirsts and his flesh yearns to love the Makom baruch hu. Simultaneously, this person feels a great awe and fear resulting from his smallness and inconsequentiality ...

Now I say that it is inappropriate to tour the pardes except for he who has filled his belly with bread and meat. “Bread and meat” refers to knowing the assur and mutar (i.e. the applied principles) in that which is not first principles. Even though these principles are called davar katan... they come first educationally, since they cultivate (meyashvin) the mind and additionally are the great good by which we develop this world (yishuv Aretz) and attain the world to come.

May we all merit to be redeemed to see the true problem of the pitfall of the psyche and avail ourselves of the one true guidance, the path of Torah by which we remake ourselves to be ohavei shmo! Deracheyha Darchei noam, vichol nesivosayha- Shalom.

Torahs place in redemption and the quest for Malchus Shamayim #3

The nature of ole malchus shamayim:

Man’s development into a rational being begins with a conflict between man’s mind and the immature animal psyche through which that mind operates. We are not born wise, with fully formed minds ready and able to fulfill our potential to apprehend God's design - to see Malchus Shamayim in all His Creation. On the contrary the mind starts off with only the vaguest intuition that the grand design of God exists and must, therefore, spend a lifetime in research if this intuition is to be realized. We must gather data and general principles through long and careful observation and classification. To do this research we must use our psyche, our animal ability to observe with our eyes, remember and describe the world we see. The problem is that the animal psyche of man is moved by a survival instinct that gives it a constant sense of the supreme value of man's personal existence. This situation leads to conflict, a constant competition between two principles of sovereignty by which to govern the powers of the psyche:

1) The mind yearns to fit in to malchus shamayim the light of G’s supreme design. In line with this it seeks to cultivate its psyche and physical environment to be instruments utilized for this research. The Rambam calls this “cultivation” yishuv daat and yishuv aretz.

2)The animal instincts, which seek to be an independent sovereign. Our instinctual makeup pushes man to the belief that as the supreme being in the animal kingdom, he has the right and the power to impose his own design upon the raw materials of Earth, transforming them into a independent new creation, a Malchus Adam. The human animal justifies this fantasy vision by ignoring Malchus Shamayim, the supreme design from which the laws of the universe emerge, focusing instead exclusively on his own preeminence as a mind within the animal kingdom.

It is the very force of this animal need for absolute sovereignty that precludes the mind from focusing upon man as an object of studyand that made it so difficult for the Jews to understand the lesson of yetzias mitzraim. The Jewish psyche then, as ours still does today, wanted Pharoah to win. In large measure Pharoah's victory is our psyche's victory! The psyche drives us to seek out Pharoah's vision as a lifeline to its own fantasy of greatness, for if Pharoah's fantasy vision can be maintained about his great dominion of the empire, then our fantasy vision can be maintained about our small part of that dominion. It is this mechanism that shields the fantasy of sovereignty from our theoretical mind.
Man’s theoretical mind perceives the world through the principle of a universal law manifest in all parts of the universe. This principle is implicit in our expectation that every part of the universe, from the most small in physics and chemistry to the most large in astronomy and cosmology, be subject to lawfulness. Yet the same rational man who expects law in every aspect of the universe, balks when it comes to his own sovereignty. Intellectually, the mind recognizes that man’s interaction with his environment must be a special case of this very same universal law. Man's exemption of his own dominion from the principle of universal law manifest in all parts of the universe cannot be understood in terms of intellect; but rather, in the animal psyche's instinctive aversion to loss of sovereignty. The human animal refuses to allow the framework of universal laws to the topic of sovereignty over the material world, instinctively resisting this kabbalas ole as a wild mustang resists the harness and as the mule resists the yoke. The challenge of civilization is to summon the courage to recognize the resistance to Malchus Shamayim for what it is - an animal aversion to yielding any sovereignty. The civilizational recognition of human sovereignty as a topic fully subject to higher cause, is the essence of kabbalas ole malchus shamayim. So how exactly did the Mitzraim enable this civilizational revolution? How does understanding this revolution show a resolution to the problem of understanding the Torah's introductory themes?

Torahs place in redemption and the quest for Malchus Shamayim #2

The civilizational basis of formal education:

Upon further reflection we see that Ralbag cannot possibly mean that we should read the Geulas Mitzraim story first. The story of Creation is obviously the
first story in the book and must, therefore, be read first. What Ralbag means is that there is an experience of Geulas Mitzraim other than reading that must occur prior to reading the Torah at all.

The Yotzei Mitzraim did not experience the momentous events of Geula through reading a text - they lived through the events and had them explained by Moshe Rabbenu and the Elders. The intent was for Jewish civilization to be built on this story, to be relived, generation after generation through a tradition of storytelling father to son. “Zechor es hayom hazeh. Limaan tizkor es yom tzescha mieretz mitzraim kol yimei chayyecha. Vihigadita libincha bayom hahu laymor.” The whole concept of a reading and formal education began at Sinai and the written Torah, which were actually relatively late events in Jewish development.

No child begins his intellectual development from reading, per se. Reading and formal education always presuppose a prior vision of the world and man's mission in it that is established in earliest youth through informal education – through modeling and sharing the civilization's stories with one's parents. The child who enters school is already deeply imbued with his civilization's vision of the world that the educator must contend with and build upon in the readings of school. So too in Jewish education - the reading of Torah presupposes the view of the world and human mission that arise from “vihigadita livincha.”

How does this experiencing of Geula, which Ralbag points out as the gateway to begin one's reading of the Torah, help us overcome the difficulty of the two contradictory themes of B'reishis? How does being a member of the Geulei Mitzrayim civilization enable us to understand how to use these stories as the introduction to the Torah?

The revolutionary civilization based on Malchus Shamayim:

The objective of the yetzias mitzraim was establishing a civilization based upon the foundational premise of Malchus Shamayim. Malchus Shamayim is the foundational premise that there is a source of universal order that is seen throughout Creation, including Earth and humanity itself. The most revolutionary implication of this concept is with regard to the mission of civilization. The only possible mission in a Malchus Shamayim world is Torah lishma - realizing the natural curiosity of all citizens to know and act in accordance with Malchus Shamayim. The qualification for a leader of such a civilization would also be a revolutionary departure from Egypt - Moshe Rabbenu, a chief educational officer, one able to guide all citizens on an educational path toward Malchus Shamayim. Though this premise is repeated over and over again in the Torah, it is perhaps most clear in the first dibrah, “Anochi hashem elokecha asher hotzesi eschem mieretz mitzraim mibeyt avadim.”

Amazingly, this notion of an all encompassing universal order with its accompanying Malchus Shamayim civilization emerged in the midst of an Egyptian Civilization led by an evil Pharoah who was committed to an opposing foundational premise, leading to a very different mission for man.

Egyptian society does not recognize Malchus Shamayim and its mission of developing man's natural curiosity about real things, but rather seeks to project a comfortable illusion of human divinity based upon the greatness of its design imposed upon aretz. To attain this illusion it is necessary to harness the populace to the production of the dominion through their efforts as a skilled work force. The leader's role is to provide the vision of divine greatness which motivates the populace to the hard work needed to attainment the human dominion. While this vision of dominion can vary greatly in its degree of evil, from the third Reich and communist state of Hitler and Stalin, to the great frontier of Roosevelt, or great society of Johnson, it always shares one thing in common - the vision of an independent human design, imposed by humanity's craft upon the resources of Earth. The leader's job is to rhetorically inflame people's imaginations about his vision, not convince them of its natural place in Malchus Shamayim reality. In true snake like fashion the leader spins the line that his vision is for the glory of all citizens, all the while enslaving them to his own benefit. It is interesting that Kings are always fabulously wealthy, while the citizens do the hard work.

Why Pharoah would want to deny the notion of Malchus Shamayim is obvious. What happens to the notion of visionary leadership, the very lifeblood of Egyptian society, if Malchus Shamayim is true? Malchus Shamayim leaves no room for visionary leaders like Pharoah and his snake like plan. The only basis for leadership becomes knowledge, what Moshe Rabbenu had to offer, not vision production - the only commodity of Pharoah. To know Malchus Shamayim is necessarily to realize the uselessness of Pharoah, and hence the very basis of his absolute rule is undermined and must end. Yet it seems that this lesson was hard to learn, it took shiabude mitzraim to learn it. It is our very inability to reflect upon our social vision that enslaves us, a fact bemoaned by great thinkers, perhaps best by Einstein. To paraphrase Einstein: man's focus is always on the means to his chosen goal, never on exploring the value of the goal itself. Even after a long period of seeing Pharoah bested by maka after maka the lesson was not learned. Indeed it was not until Yam Suf, when the vision of Pharoah led to the complete obliteration of the Egyptian empire, that the Jews “believed in Hashem and His servant Moses.” Why did it take so long?

Torah's place in Redemption and the Quest for Malchus Shamayim part 1

This is a long post so I will present it in sections. Please feel free to comment on any one as we go along

Seeking Unity in Torah:

The educated reader seeking to view the Torah as a unified whole, is confronted with deep difficulty: the Torah seems to defy all expectations of unity. This problem presents itself from the very start in the introduction of the work, the Creation stories.

Typically, a book guides a specific reader to an organic unity. An essay will have a thesis statement that guides the reader through the argument in the body, a textbook will use an introduction to its topics , a literary work will have a theme that guides the plot. As a literary sort of work, we would expect the Torah to present a clear theme at the outset of the book. It is precisely in this core aspect of guidance that the Torah defies our expectations. Rather than offering clear guidance to a specific type of reader, the Torah offers two competing themes whose guidance is suited to two very different kinds of reader.

The first theme, found in the first account of Creation, is “the lawful universe”. This theme is well suited to works of popular science, ones whose guidance lies in understanding theoretical general laws embodied in the harmonious systems and sub-systems of Shamayim Va-Aretz. For instance, a book on physics would discuss how gravity expresses itself in various circumstances, one on biology would show how DNA controls genetic patterns. As such, the first account's focus is the "big picture" of Creation as a whole and is not exclusively preoccupied with man and human life, on the contrary, the emphasis is on man as but another part of Creation. Such presentations demand a detached, objective strategy on the part of the reader. Very much like a star show, we are taken on a tour of the various "days of creation" guided by a detached impersonal narration, typical of a planetarium. The tour describes the universal order expressed in the perfectly calibrated mechanisms of all galaxies including our home, the Solar system. Even when presenting our terrestrial home the star show maintains its absolute universality; one can almost hear the planetarium narrator emphasizing over and over that Earth is but a part of a vast theoretical universe bereft of human drama or emotion. The tour would go something like this:

Scene 1) Separation of light from darkness, heaven from Earth, oceans from dry land. God named the light day and the darkness night and found them to be good.

Scene 2) Orderly Motion of planetary bodies. God found the orderly motion to be good.

Scene 3) Time and seasons. God found the orderly times to be good.

Scene 4) Orderly cycles of reproduction and food supply in the animal Kingdom. God found the orderly cycles of reproduction and food supply to be good.

Scene 5 Creation of man

Scene 6 end of universal creation -Shabbos God found the orderly creation to be very good.

As we have seen in star shows, the sort of reader who enjoys such detached, works is himself a certain kind of personality - known to us as a “scientist”. It is hardly accidental that the narrator tends to emphasize and re-emphasize that man is but a part of a world of universal material order, that we are in fact merely another example of star dust. The “scientist” is by disposition attracted to seeking unity via a universal order expressing itself in various circumstances. He is comfortable living in a world that includes others of his disposition - the hallways of science/math departments or research labs. As such the scientist seeks a liberation from problems that are real in his world- apparent lacks in the universal order. Such a reader is obviously disinterested in viewing the world from the subjective framework of the humanities and social studies departments. He has no problems in this world from which he needs liberation.

Without any warning or explanation, the second account of Creation introduces a theme of disinterest to the “scientist” and of use only to the “humanist” - “human civilization”. Rather than revealing a universal order, this theme reveals a uniquely human world, a perspective typical of the humanities. The focus of the humanistic second story is therefore the "small picture" of Aretz and the life pursuits of its residents, Adam and Chava, in the "irresistibly fascinating qualitative world" with all of its observable detail. Other creations, if they are mentioned at all, are not described independently of their relationship to man, only as instruments of human design. Good examples of this approach are movies such as "2001 A Space Odyssey" or "Men in Black". The orderly planetary system is portrayed as being merely a background for human drama occurring on "the small picture" or stage of Earth. The second account takes a "fly on the wall" view of scenes from the exciting drama of Adam and Chava. In stark contrast to the first depiction of the clockwork universe, we immediately identify with the action of the second account whose scenes would be something like:

Scene 1) A desert-like world without life giving resources of rain and crops

Scene 2) The creation of man as a living creature

Scene 3) The creation of Gan Eden - the ideal home for man

Scene 4) The creation of vegetation pleasant to look at and good to eat

Scene 5) Creation of entertaining animals for man to explore and name

Scene 6) Creation of a wife for Adam as true friend, partner and mate

Scene 7) The snake’s enticement of Chava and the downfall of man

Why does the the Torah not conform to our expectations of guidance? Why does it present two themes appropriate to the problems of mutually exclusive readers? Much as we would like to answer that the Torah in reality offers two separate liberating paths simultaneously- we cannot. After the first chapter of Brayshees “the lawful Universe” theme seems to totally vanish from the scene - there are no more stories that continue the detached scientific motif. From the story of Adam and Chava onward all stories focus on human centered topics proper to the theme of human civilization of the humanist. Why does the Torah raise the hopes of the scientific reader that it offers guidance in finding unity in the world of universal order only to dash his hopes from the second story of creation onward with discussion of interest only to the humanist’s world of man?

Ralbag's approach is that the Torah's presentation is intended for a very specific audience - the Geulei Mitzraim. This approach seems to only add to our difficulties however. He does not seem to show a resolution to the problem of understanding the Torah's introductory themes. Ralbag instead adds to our problem by suggesting that the Torah is meant to be read out of order, with the story of Yetzias Mitzraim before that of Creation. If Geulas Mitzraim is the precondition to understanding Torah then why not make Geulas Mitzraim, rather than Creation, the first story?

Biur 2 of Ralbag's Hakdamah: His Chochma vs Our chochma

The End of Torah is determined by the Soul's process of hasaga
It is vital that we keep in mind that it is impossible for us to completely apprehend the wisdom and grace expressed in the nature of the Torah’s existence. In reality we know but a pittance and are ignorant of much, as is the case with our knowledge of the nature of all existing things with regard to their wisdom and grace. In reality we masig but very little, as is well known to all those who do real research in the natural sciences- and come to appreciate the gap between our models of the of the laws of the Universe and their reality... It therefore follows from the fact that the Torah is divine, [that it’s nature will also only be incompletely understood]. Biur d'varim #2

The end the means and the instrument
The first part of Ralbag's hakdamah formulates the end of the Torah project- attaining knowledge and appreciation of God's Chochma and Tov. Ralbag corrected the erroneous belief that appreciation of D'varim Gedolim is the only means to this end. He focused the reader instead upon the phenomenon of Tuvo, the hashgacha that enables the soul to appreciate Gods ordering of our environment for the excellent man who is seeking God's Chochma. Once the reality that our thought is dependent upon a natural process of illumination is established, the potential for a Torah as a natural instrument becomes clear.

The problems
The next step would seem to be showing us how to use the Torah instrument to satisfy our soul's natural yearning for Emes. Yet this is not the case. The Ralbag first goes into the issue of the gap between our models of knowledge and knowledge itself.

It is vital that we keep in mind that it is impossible for us to completely apprehend (l'hasig) the wisdom and grace expressed in the nature of the Torah’s existence. In reality we know but a pittance and are ignorant of much, as is the case with our knowledge of the nature of all existing things with regard to their wisdom and grace. In reality we masig but very little, as is well known to all those who do real research in the natural sciences- and come to appreciate the gap between our models of the of the laws of the Universe and their reality... It therefore follows from the fact that the Torah is divine, [that it’s nature will also only be incompletely understood].

How is awareness of this gap between our models of laws and their reality relevant to Ralbag's purpose of enabling use of the Torah instrument ?

This very notion of "models" is itself very strange. If our Soul isn't capturing the Emes of the laws of science then what is it actually doing?

The solution: His Chochma vs Our chochma

To answer these questions we must pay close attention to the framework of human apprehension in which Ralbag is operating.

The first step of Ralbag was to show that in external reality the distinction between Chochmaso and Tuvo expressed ie the order of Creation. It is precisely the reality of Tuvo that is the cause of rationality - an order that is apprehensible to man (musag). What it is vital to realize is that the mere fact that there is a cause of apprehension Ralbag's next step is to show the resulting effects of tuvo- the manner in which tuvo enables the soul to apprehend this order in the manner that it can..The mere fact that the Creations are made a cause of apprehension in man does not mean that they will apprehend completely. On the contrary this is not the case at all. A fire may be the cause of heat in a metal, but not the same heat as it itself has.

This point is evident in the Rambam we quoted as well.

When a person gains insight into these d’varim (first principles), recognizing (the entire hierarchy) of the creations, from angel and galaxy all the way to man (and his environment) , and therefore sees the chochmas hashem in all the creations, he adds to his love of the makom, and his soul thirsts and his flesh yearns to love the makom baruch hu. Simultaneously, this person feels a great awe and fear resulting from his smallness and inconsequenciality ...

We must constantly be aware of the fact that our soul is moving toward Emes via the powers of apprehension (hasaga) that it has. These powers of hasaga approach the nature of the musag his Chochma in the manner that they do. It is for this reason that Rambam uses the term d'varim roted in Davar which is speech. Dibra Torah kilshon bnei adam- the torah speaks in the langage of man. The fact that we are materially unable to apprehend the musag intrinsic to the Creation is key to the methodology of Torah. We do not directly approach Emes, we approach the emes via the instruments of soul -the dvarim- available to us. It is precisely this recognition that we are approaching His Chochma via our d'varim that this person feels a great awe and fear resulting from his smallness and inconsequenciality. This distinction between his Chochma and our chochma explains the need for d'varim ketanim as well.

Now I say that it is inappropriate to tour the pardes except for he who has filled his belly with bread and meat . “Bread and meat” refers to knowing the assur and mutar (ie the applied principles) in that which is not first principles. Even though these principles are called davar katan... they come first educationally, since they cultivate (meyashvin) the mind and additionally are the great good by which we develop this world (yishuv Aretz) and attain the world to come.

Man's soul emerges through learning to utilize animal powers to a new end- hasaga of Emes. This demands initiation of the material character of the animal powers into the world of His Chochma. Our soul is, as it were, imprisoned by the attraction to dominance and appetites of the animal psyche it must learn to use. If it is to choose the path of using these powers, rather than being used by them, ie learn how to eat bread and meat as a man rather than a beast, the soul must be become aware of and redeemed from the animal path it is used to. This path is by no means easy as it says it Mishlei 1:4 "Yiras hashem reeshees daas chochma umusar Eveelim bazu". Fear of God is the first step of education,[even though] Chochma and mussar are despised by the sophist. The animal powers desperately resist initiation into the reality of a Chochma external and superior to ourselves. They prefer the fantasy of Human divinity in which we are Creators of Chochma tools by which to attain an impossible eternal dominion on Earth.

This explains why the rest of Ralbag's Hakdamah deals with the inyanim of Torah and the m'komos the methodology by which a person finds the dvarim ketanim of redemption in Chumash.

Translation of Ralbag's Hakdama

This post is the translation of the Ralbag's Hakdama. Thank you R. Rapoport of yehudathoughts.blogspot.com for the m'kmot translation. Finish the rest soon!! I have a general explanation of the whole hakdama in the next post His Chochma vs Our Chochma.

The two expressions of ohr : Tuvo and Chochmaso Derech
Blessed and most revered be the tzur ("rock"), foundation of all existence, whose “insight” (T'vunaso) , “wisdom” (chochmaso) and “knowledge” (Daato) bring into being, a system of existing things, whose existence exhibits a wisdom and grace which none but He can completely masig. Praised be the Creator, who, because of His desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of Mankind.

This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained. It extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone the lowly material of Aretz is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success. Biur d'varim #1

The End of Torah is determined by the Soul's process of hasaga
It is vital that we keep in mind that it is impossible for us to completely apprehend the wisdom and grace expressed in the nature of the Torah’s existence. In reality we know but a pittance and are ignorant of much, as is the case with our knowledge of the nature of all existing things with regard to their wisdom and grace. In reality we masig but very little, as is well known to all those who do real research in the natural sciences- and come to appreciate the gap between our models of the of the laws of the Universe and their reality... It therefore follows from the fact that the Torah is divine, [that it’s nature will also only be incompletely understood]. Biur d'varim #2

Insofar as the objective of the Torah is the one we have just outlined, its topics will, of necessity, be divisible into the following elements:

A) The first element, mistakenly thought of by many as the entire mission of the Torah, are the Mitzvos which encompass what we have been commanded to believe and do as well as what not to believe or do. This category includes 613 Mitzvos according to the traditional method of counting.

B) The second element encompasses the study of political behavior and society generally. This area is a domain outside of legislative action, because it presupposes a level of human development well beyond the capacity of the standard citizen. To illustrate, let us consider if the Torah were to legislate in the following that we must not be angry except for what one ideally should be angry about, and even then only to the ideal measure of anger, in the proper time and place. Or perhaps that one should not be happy except for what one ideally should be happy about, and even then only to the ideal measure of happiness, in the proper time and place…. All people would be in violation of the law continuously, excluding a minute few. Excellences of this variety should not be the domain of legislation, as it will lead to people ignoring all law, even those laws they could have fulfilled. Therefore the Torah merely makes reference to this area of excellence through accounts of the way of the ancient masters, to guide us to walk in their path and conduct ourselves like them. So too have we been informed of certain evils that were done in order to avoid such behavior as well.

C) The third element includes what the Torah grants us of the Wisdom of the universe, that cannot be attained through human research, save by exhaustive effort, when man fails to avail himself of its prophetic stories that guide us to this hasaga (apprehension).

These very same elements comprise the field of Talmud as well, with the one difference being that its stories are not prophetic, but rather are based upon the accounts of great men renowned for their excellence.

It is of necessity that the Torah regimen should be divided into these elements, since human excellence can only be fully realized, except by attaining excellence of both man's constitution and research to the most excellent degree. Now the element that encompasses the study of political behavior, constitutes a further step toward the ultimate excellence that builds upon that already attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's physical constitution. The element that teaches political /social affairs that is beyond command and prohibition, constitutes a further step toward the ultimate excellence that builds upon that already attained by mitzvot in the domain of developing man's psychological constitution... Biur d'varim #3

We decided to present certain fundamental principles based upon authority in this introduction, even though they have been theoretically established in the various fields. This was done because had we introduced all of the needed premises to reduce these fundamentals to first principles, this treatise would become too long, and the reader would be overwhelmed.

Now in our biur of the Mitzvos, and the fundamental principles from which all the dinim are derived in the field of Talmud, our approach will not be to associate these principles to the exemplars pointed to by the chachmei ha-talmud utilizing the 13 midos methodology. This is because when they associated these known truths of the field of mitzvot to these pesukim, it was as a mnemonic device, not because their method demanded that they were truly source material to these dinim. Indeed, it is possible to overturn all the known laws of the torah utilizing such methodologies, even to the point of falsely demonstrating the [ultimately tamei] sheretz to be tahor as our Rabbis have taught us. Biur d'varim #4

Rather [our approach will be] to associate the [biur of the Mitzvos, and the fundamental principles from which all the dinim are derived] to the simple grammatical meanings of the pesukim that could have possibly been real sources for these laws, because this will satisfy the mind. This approach does not contradict Chazal's method, because they never meant to imply that their mnemonic devices were the true source of the laws- but rather they received these laws through tradition going back to Moshe Rabbenu. They merely sought to find a hint [for the dinim] in the Torah as Maimonides taught us in the Sefer ha-mitzvot and the Perush ha-Mishna.

Our objective in associating the dinim to the simple grammatical meanings is to retain their memory traces in our Nefesh, since the Pesukim are easily remembered because we are constantly reading them. Therefore when the biurei ha- Mitzvot are derived from the simple grammatical meanings of the Pesukim, our memory of them will secondarily perpetuate the memory of the biurei ha-Mitzvot as well. It was for this very same reason that we gave the causes of the Mitzvot as best we could, because not only does knowing the causes of a thing consolidate knowledge, it also consolidates our memory of the knowledge. Biur d'varim #5

It is of course vital to remember, that it is impossible in [the kind of topics the Torah deals with] to give causes that allow a derivation of the Mitzvot, in the manner of a Mathematical proof. Neither is it possible to show necessity as in the case of a physical law. This would be impossible to do since it is not in the nature of the Torah subject to allow this kind of proof. This point was already pointed out by the Philosopher in the book of Topics. He pointed out in that work that the rigor of proof possible for a given principle, is delimited by the nature of the subject. This was also explained in Metaphysics. We mentioned this, so that the scrutinizing reader should not be dismissive of the kind of causes we offer in the explanation of the Mitzvot, even if they do not measure up to the proofs characteristic of the sciences whose subjects are by nature able to sustain more rigorous standards than the topics the Torah deals with. Biur d'varim #6

We will now present the M'komot that we will use in the Biurei ha-Mitzvot:

The First Makom

The first Makom [Topos]:
The Torah will cite a particular in place of the general. There are two types:

The first type:
From the particular mentioned in a mitzva the more general category is learned.

For example, we are commanded in the Torah (D'varim 22:10) that we may not plow with an ox and a donkey together. The Torah cites "ox" and "donkey" in place of any two species - one being tamei and the other tahor; "plowing" is cited in place of any craft that would employ a tahor animal with one that is tamei, as is explained in the eight chapter of K'laim and other places throughout the Talmud.

It will be clear when to learn from the particular the general and when not, from the subject matter of the mitzva and the words that are employed - as will become clear to you from our discussion, when we utilize this makom. For example, the subject matter of this mitzva demands this law apply in the case of other animals - meaning to say, that they should not be joined in one craft, one being tamei and the other tahor, as will be explained there, with God's decree.

The Second Type of the First Makom

The second type:
It is learned from a law that is cited in regard to one particular mitzva, a law that rightly should have more general application to another mitzva - to the same degree as it should be applied to the original mitzva or even more so.

For example, the Torah cites the law (Vayikra 7:15; 22:30) concerning the time the todah offering - which is kodshim kalim - may be eaten - namely, for the period of a day and night and henceforth it is notar and must be burnt. Concerning the time kodshei haKodashim - like the chatat, asham and the rest - may be eaten the Torah is silent. This is because this law should rightly be applied to them the same as it is applied to the todah, or even more so. Therefore, the law concerning the time kodshei haKodashim may be eaten is the same as the law that applies to the todah, as is explained in the fifth chapter of Z'vachim (36A). The philosopher has explained this makom in the rhetorical topics.

The second Makom:

When one statement in the Torah is obscure - its explanation is not known - and this statement is elucidated in another place the explanation of this statement is learned from the other place in which it is elucidated.

For example, the Torah demands a chatat (sin offering) from one who accidently does one of the commandments of God that we are forbidden from doing, or an asham (guilt offering) from one who was ignorant of his violation, as is explained in Parashat Vayikra. It is not clear in this place in the Torah which commandments in the Torah are being referred to here.

The explanation of this statement is learned from what is written in the parallel verses in Parashat Sh'lach L'kha. There it is written (B'midbar 15:24), "If, from the eyes of the aida (congregation) it is done accidentally", just as it is written in Parashat Vayikra (Vayikra 4:13), "And the matter is hidden from the eyes of the kahal (congregation) and they do one of the commandments of God (that one may not do)...". There [in B'midbar] it is found that the tzibbur (congregation) must bring a bull [as an olah (elevation-offering)] just as is required here [in the case in Parashat Vayikra], although there [in B'midbar] a he-goat is added [as a chatat (sin offering)]; there [in B'midbar (15:27)] an individual would be required to bring a she-goat, in its first year [as a chatat (sin offering)] just as here [in Vayikra 4:28; 4:32] a she-goat or a sheep must be brought [as a chatat (sin offering)].

Based on this, we learn that the mitzvot this korban [the one in Parashat Vayikra] is brought for are of the same kind as the mitzva cited in Parashat Sh'lach L'cha - there is no difference between them - only, the one cited in Parashat Sh'lach L'cha is equal to all the mitzvot: idolatry. However, the mitzvot cited in Parashat Vayikra would have no equality to "all the mitzvot". This is what is meant when it is written in Parashat Sh'lach L'cha (15:22), "...all of these mitzvot...", and in Parashat Vayikra (4:13), "...one of the mitzvot of God...". It is impossible to say that what is mean when it is says, "all these mitzvot" that only if one accidentally violates all the mitzvot is he required to bring a bull and a he-goat because one is required, based on what is written in Parashat Vayikra to bring a bull on every single mitzva that is violated accidentally.

Now that this has been established, it will be evident that just as the particular that is cited in Parashat Sh'lach L'cha is only in regard to transgressions that if done intentionally would make the perpetrator liable to karet - as is made evident there when it says (B'midbar 15:30-31), "And the soul that act with an uplifted hand... that soul shall surely be cut off (h'karet t'karet), his iniquity is upon him." - so to that which is cited in Parashat Vayikra is a case in which intentional violation would make the perpetrator liable to karet, as is elucidated in Horiot and K'ritot.