Derech Eretz: Da'as Connecting Torah and Mitzvos/Transcript

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Audio: Derech Eretz Is Da'as — Connecting Torah and Mitzvos

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רמט נ פרק. Okay, now he gets down to a definition of derech eretz. We'll have to go wandering around to see clearly his definition of derech eretz is. I'll take a hard Gemara. Gemara Chulin. I don't know why he's rushing through it, it's not so easy. הדברים שהם דרך ארץ הם כל דברי מוסר. Chiddush. We would have thought and the Rambam himself divides that there's derech eretz is things that are mitzad ha'adam and Pirkei Avot is musar that comes from the Torah to protect mitzvos and so. Both the Ramchal and the Maharal and the Zohar all make it that derech eretz is a klalli term of everything we'll see. The derech eretz is a klalli term for what the seichel ha'adam understands should be done. דרך ארץ הם כל דברי מוסר shekoleles masechtas Avos. It's not masechtas Avos is Torah and derech eretz is something else that seichel ha'adam. ודברי מוסר נזכרו בטעם וכל שאר דברי מוסר. Musar and derech eretz are inclusive. והנהגה הישרה ויפה על הבריות, two things. Derech eretz has got to be yashar and it has to be yafe. We'll see later on there's going to be the two words טוב וישר בעיני השם. Tov is in essence the pieces connect together and then there's got to be an aspect in which it's beautiful the people around you have to be socially aware. So there's two parts. There's one part that's got to connect, we'll do it that way, got to connect to the real yesh. There's metzius. You have to connect to the metzius. That's yesh. And then after you connect to the real metzius it has to be beautiful the people around you. We'll get there. Yafe al habriyos. That's why the Pirkei Avot that talks about derech eretz is אומר רבן גמליאל יפה תלמוד תורה עם דרך ארץ. Talmud Torah's job is to make Torah yafe and to bring it out so that it has a beauty in the world. Okay. ויש מהם אשר אם לא ילך בהם הוא חטא ועוון גדול. Sometimes you don't do derech eretz it's a cheit. Vetzarich lehis-haher bahem. ולכך נקראו דברי מוסר. So what's the word musar come from? Musar comes from the word to turn away from. שמיסרים את האדם שלא ילך בדרך רע. It causes a person pain and it pushes him to turn and the word yisar comes from the word pain to be pain and to go not in the bad way. ואותם דברים זכרו במסכת אבות על שם שמע בני מוסר אביך. Why is Avos called Avos? Why is the area of the sefer of middos called Avos? שמע בני מוסר אביך. It's the nature of a son to hear musar from the father. כמו שאמרנו בהקדמת המסכת, like it says in the introduction masechtas Avos. ושאר דברים אשר הם יפים וטובים, there's mitzvas asei of derech eretz, that's tov. The mitzvas asei of derech eretz, ולא נקראו דרך ארץ. They're not called musar, derech eretz. הם הרבה מאוד והם ידועים ונזכרו במסכת דרך ארץ ובכמה מקומות בתלמוד. לזאת אין צריך לתת טעם כי הם דברים שנהגו כמנהג העולם, it's to fit into the way of the world. So there's two things. There's derech eretz as the general klal and we're going to see that derech eretz means whatever your seichel ha'adam tells you to do. He's going to break it up into three parts. In the beginning of Masechtas Avos, which we're gonna go to, he says there's three parts to Torah, and the Maharal chozers on this anytime he talks about it, that there's three things. There's נר מצוה ותורה אור and ודרך חיים תוכחות מוסר. There's ner mitzvah, there's mitzvos, there's Torah, and then there's derech eretz. Mitzvos are the practical way of doing it, Torah is the pnimiyus way of understanding it, and derech eretz is the way seichel ha'adam is miyaches, relates to those two things. Of course that's always called da'as, right? We know that da'as means chibur. We saw last week that the da'as means chibur, means connection. So the derech eretz is how we connect to the Torah and the mitzvos. Let's take a look at the Maharal saying it. It's pages and pages of it, you got to... It's actually funny, he refers to the hakdama of Pirkei Avos to explain שמע בני מוסר אביך. I don't know that's right, I don't think it's anywhere there. I think he explains it in the first mishna, but just so when you're looking around, the whole the overview in the hakdama explains it and later on when he's talking in Pirkei Avos in the first mishna he explains the shma beni part. All right, let's just take it. So you got the one that says Derech Chayim at the top of the page, right? כי נר מצוה ותורה אור ודרך חיים תוכחות מוסר. So he explains what ner mitzvah is. Mitzvos are like a ner in that they're physical. They have an expression in the world of the external world. Torah ohr, Torah is an internal world, you don't see where the ohr comes from. ודרך חיים תוכחות מוסר. So the Maharal wants to know why do we call derech eretz derech and why do we call it chayim and why is it mussar? Just a short answer so we don't get lost in the lamdus in the middle is his answer is going to be derech, well I'm not going to give a short answer, the depth of the answer is that derech is something that connects lots of points, and a seichel, a wise person connects points, a derech is a mahalach. A mahalach is the way you think, it's the way you bring yourself out to the world and you connect one idea after the next. If you don't have da'as, you can't connect anything. A derech is someone who sees mikoach el hapoel how something develops and that's the aspect of having a chain of logic, having an understanding of cause and effect, that's that one leads into the next. He's going to say that leads to chayim because a derech there's two ways to go. The Maharal wants to use a metaphor which is there's two ways of life, there's lines and there's circles, right? Line is a progression that your mind understands. Samech is either at the highest level but the Maharal's not talking about it over here, it's the infinite that you can't understand. Here it's the world of you're not going anyplace, you've got no derech, you're going around in circles. And therefore he's going to bring the Midrash, the Midrash says that you don't find the yetzer hara in the world until the samech was created. So you see that the yetzer hara is the samech, ויסגר בשר אשה תחתיו and you close up yisgor, that that's the essence of the yetzer hara. Satan begins with a samech, from the word to steer away from the straight path, to go in a circular path that gets you on a merry-go-round going nowhere, lots of motion and no movement. Anyone who's ever worked with students knows that this is often a problem, right? Talking about your students not you, right? That they just, you know, like hello, or anyone who's been married also, but and like you know just lots of motion and no movement. And this just keeps going around, you can't get out of the derech, this mahalach that you're going for. So he's got derech, a derech is something that goes from one spot to another spot, it grows. And the Samech is going the other direction. So, if you have a derech, then you're going to have chayim. Chayim is a spiritual world, and in a spiritual world everything is a connection of Aleph to Beis to Gimmel to Dalet to Hey. It's moving on. So if you're in a derech, you're going to get to chayim. Ay, but it's not easy because we're also physical, and therefore it's tochachas mussar. Derech chayim is pushing the body and telling you, you're a kelev, you want to eat your falafel on the street like everybody else, and it's hard not to eat your falafel on the street. Right. What's he look at over here? Derech eretz, tochachas mussar. We're going to have today, right, you know, you want to go for the best part of the onion first, and you can't go slowly through the leaves of the onion. You're a chasar derech eretz, right? Derech eretz is always a battle between what's the key to me: my body or my soul? And therefore, he's going to explain over here, we're not going to be in the whole thing over here, but he's going to go that derech chayim, tochachas mussar is mitzvahs are in the physical world, Torah is in the spiritual world. Derech chayim is the sechel, the daas that we have to apply to it, and that's going to bring us to chayim, it'll make us less gashmi. Tochachas mussar by being less gashmi is mussar, I have to turn away. These words are all explained in the couple of words we saw over here in the piece we just looked at. I'll breathe and if you have any problems, then we'll go on. We're all good? Same page? Good, Brian? Yeah. Is this idea, question, the idea of the infinite being the Samech, is this the same as the going in circles? Yes. Okay, and can you explain that a little bit more? You want to explain the simple idea? You want to explain the simple idea, and then we'll go to the high-level idea. Right, obviously there's a kedusha to the Samech, but we'll get that afterwards. Okay. Let's first take this in. Yeah. Rabbi, you said that Torah or is the, did I hear this correctly, that Torah or is something that you can see but we don't know where the or is coming from, or Torah is the thing where we don't know where it's coming from? Don't know where it's coming from. Okay. Okay, here we go. So it says, v'omer od, he explains נר מצוה ותורה אור in the hakdama. And now he explains the part the Maharal is referring to, I think, even though the part he's really referring to is the part at the bottom, but we'll get there. Omer od: ודרך חיים תוכחת מוסר. The path of life is to give yourself reproof that moves your neshama in the right direction. רצו לומר מכל מקום תוכחת מוסר הם דברים שאינם מצות התורה. They're not mitzvos of the Torah. רק מה שנותן שכל לאדם. Here's a key definition, right? Derech eretz is that third aspect of what man decides. It's not social norms like perhaps some people learn in the, it appears like the Bartinura learns that way. It's not social norms, not being aware of social norms, the Maharal understands clearly. It's שכל האדם מן המוסר שיעשה אדם וחי בהם, v'nikru derech chayim. It's the mussar that will enable the soul to be alive, and therefore it's called derech chayim. In Midrash Vayikra Rabbah, and we see it's not just this pasuk in Mishlei, but we also see the same metaphor and the same connection. We have על שתי עדים יקום דבר. We have two witnesses the Ramchal or the Maharal wants to tell us. So we've got the idea is not just a serendipitous one-time idea. לשמור דרך עץ החיים. כ\"ו דורות קדמה דרך ארץ את התורה she-ne'emar, like it says in Bereishis Perek Gimmel, lishmor derech, zu derech eretz, עץ החיים זו התורה. Right, so the pasuk says by in Bereishis that Hakadosh Baruch Hu put keruvim saviv lishmor to guard לשמור את דרך עץ החיים. Right, that's actually you can see the whole pasuk in the one that's got the Moshe Dovid Valli's sefer: מקדם לגן עדן את הכרבים ואת להט החרב המתהפכת לשמור את דרך Derech etz hachayim. Right, so of course Rabbi Moshe David Valli's piece at the obvious kasha we'll talk about afterwards is just lishmor etz hachayim. Why does it say לשמר דרך עץ החיים? The word derech is—you're just guarding the tree. Who cares about guarding the path to the tree? Just guard the tree. Why לשמר דרך עץ החיים? So the midrash explains, derech, that's derech eretz, עץ חיים זו התורה. So we see there's always a derech that gets you to chayim. And just for on the side, right, everybody probably knows we say this all the time from the Ramchal that etz, right, Gemara says all over, בבא בתרא דף טו, that etz is always a tzaddik. Right, and over here it's that derech etz—etz is ayin stands for iyun, for thinking, tzadik stands for bringing out the action. Right, so the derech, right, is iyun and maiseh, that brings you to chayim with the same connection that derech brings you to chayim the Maharal wants to say. So recognize that it's not serendipitous, recognize that it's an exact, that having a derech, using your sechel to put one idea next to a second idea next to a third idea next to a fourth idea will naturally make you not do what your body wants to do, just live in the moment, carpe diem, seize the day, because tomorrow you might die, then you're not going to have a derech, you're not going to have chayim, that's what it is. Well, what does it mean that the keruvim are protecting this? What's it say, that they're keeping people away from it, no? They're keeping people away from derech eretz and Torah? We'll get to it later on. We'll get to the Maharal. Good kasha, I'm open for it, but right, if I was not teaching a class in the Maharal, I might do this in a different way and organize it differently, but I want to first get the Maharal, and after the Maharal, we'll get the side yedi'os and we'll go. So yeah, good kasha, but the Maharal's not bothered by it, Maharal's not bothered by it, I'm not bothered by it right now. We're good? Okay, here we go. So be bothered by it later on. ומה שנקרא תורה עץ ודרך ארץ דרך. So why do we see that this is the language, both in Shlomo and in in Chumash and in Vayikra Rabbah? We've got three places now that we've got derech is derech eretz and chayim is Torah. מפני שרצה לומר כי התורה—so first I'm just going to explain, I just didn't want to leave in the middle. So he says, why is it eretz? Why are we explaining it's like an etz? So he's going to say what like an etz, an etz is something that's connected deeply and internally to what's going on, Torah's greatness is its connected deeply and internally to God, and you're not going to separate from it, you're going to get life from it. That's what he wants to say, that's not our key sugya, I just brought a couple lines so you won't lose it. מפני שרצה לומר כי התורה היא נטיעה חזקה כמו עץ הזה שנטוע בחוזק ויש לו שורשים גדולים. It has great, great deep roots. Just a little bit just for entertainment on the side, but kavanah to have, Rabbi Schwab talks about when he when he first met the Chafetz Chaim. So they had this long conversation that's famous. So the Chafetz Chaim was in his eighties, Rabbi Schwab was nineteen. The Chafetz Chaim said, what are you going to think about tomorrow when you make the ברכה אחר ברכת התורה? I'm going to call you up because you're a ben Torah and you traveled all the way to Radin to receive eitzah on a din Torah or machlokis. He says, I'm going to give you an aliyah. What are you going to think about when you when you say a brachah? So Rabbi Schwab's gevaltdike ehrlichkeit temimus was Rabbi Schwab didn't say anything. So the Chafetz Chaim kept pushing him. So the Chafetz Chaim said, give me an answer, any answer, like go. So Rabbi Schwab said he didn't want to, he couldn't lie to the gadol hador. He says, but he said, the only thing I'll be thinking about the whole time I make that brachah in front of four hundred people and the gadol hador is not to make a mistake. He said, there'll be no other kavanos, right? So he said, anything he felt he was going to tell the Chafetz Chaim was a lie. So he refused to tell the Chafetz Chaim anything, because it's what are you going to be thinking, he says, what's pshat in the pasuk? I could have dealt with it, but that wasn't the question he asked. He kept asking me what are you going to be thinking? And I knew the only thing I'll be thinking is not to make a mistake in front of four hundred people and the Chafetz Chaim like that—that's what I can't do. So the Chafetz Chaim said, you know, what you should make the brachah is חיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu by giving us Torah gave us a kesher with the Torah that goes with us everywhere. He's about being a Ben Torah, it lasts your whole life. It's a kesher pnimi חיי עולם נטע בתוכנו. I want you to know the greatness of having left Germany and going to to Telshe as where he was at the time. He says it's the fact that you recognize that you don't just put tefillin on but there's a חיי עולם נטע בתוכנו, there's a kesher you always have to a deeper perspective of the world. That's the joy of being a Ben Torah and the bracha goes even the fact that forever and ever for thousands and thousands of years you'll get the schar for this in the olam haba. You have to know that it's netia, it's something you're always going to grow from, you're always going to live with. That's the lashon of your bracha and that's what the Maharal's trying to explain over here. Okay. So מפני שרצה לומר כי התורה היא נטיעה חזקה כמו עץ שנטועה בחזקה כי יש לה שרשים גדולים. It's got huge roots, it's going to keep you alive and always be there. אשר עם כל רוחות שבעולם באים אין מזיזים את העץ הזה ממקומו. You can't leave the spot. כך התורה נטיעה חזקה. It's connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. נטיעת התורה היא עם השם יתברך. You've got Torah you're always walking with God. אשר ממנה אצולה התורה. So Torah gives as being a Ben Torah means you have a constant connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's the beauty obviously of language of calling yourself a Ben Torah. The language is actually used in a couple of midrashim we won't go right now into it. It's used by Binyamin. You'll take a look by Binyamin is where they discuss the geder of being a Ben Torah and it says over there that the lashon of a Ben Torah is what that's what it means. What you're a ben of the Torah. What's that mean? You're connected to the Torah, you're mushrash in the Torah. If you're a ben of your parents that means you have shorashim, you have their own DNA in your parents. When we call a person a Ben Torah it means he's connected anywhere he goes, everything he does is a Ben Toradik ma'aseh. Okay. So he goes and discusses that for a couple of columns, couple of pages and now he gets back to our derech. Avel derech eretz, first line in the start in the middle there, אבל דרך ארץ נקראת דרך כי הוא הדרך הישר. It's a path that's straight שאינו נוטה לימין ולשמאל רק הולך ביושר. It goes with straightness. Like the Maharal explains in Tiferet Yisrael. Yosher is... we know that all words have all three letter words have two letter roots. Just like we have a nefesh and a ruach and a neshama so every word has a nefesh, ruach and a neshama. So just like if I know where your head and your heart is I'll know where your body is, I'll know what actions you're going to do, so too if I know where your head and your heart are I'll have an idea where the body's and the foot's going to go after it. So the root of the word yashar is the word yesh. It's you take reality, right you can't just think any way you want, just obviously, right Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us you know a line, a yesh and our job is from reality to go yashar is to express it forward. So yashar means to take the yesh like we always talk about the word reish is comes from the word ratzon, ratz, desire, it's the letter you move the most in the top of your mouth with a trilling reish, right so it symbolizes movement and motion. So the yesh that you've got you actualize the yesh, that's yashar. So there's only one way you can go you go yashar. It's not like yashar is not does not have options. You're going to say like why is a derech yashar? Maybe a derech's not yashar? But yashar is a derech is you take a and you go straight with it, you go as far as you're going to go, that's that's yashrut. So derech is something that you actualize the potential, that's what your brain does, you figure out where it's going. כי כל דרך הולך ביושר נקרא דרך חיים. If you go straight which I think over here means you've got gashmiut and you've got ruchniut. You're made physical and you're made spiritual. Both of those are reality. You're not just spiritual, you're not just physical, right the people with BTDs want to think that they're just ruchni, the shoteh of Kuzari, the Kuzari's fool thinks that all I am is ruchniut and therefore if I just do תורה תורה תורה תורה I'll be happy. As he says in sha'ar gimel you're going to be very unhappy because you don't recognize all the needs you have inside yourself. It's not going to work. If you go to the smol and you say I'm just a guf, I'm just dam, then you'll be a hedonist and eventually you're going to have those pangs of not expressing my... neshama and that is as Rav Yeruchom very pungently expresses it, you'll find lots of neshama-bound people who are in red light districts. They've had to so express themselves, they afterwards feel their emptiness and they're running around. That's those are the two sides. So if you go yosher, that's what derech eretz is. Derech eretz is not being a space cadet, it's not being a Buddhist monk, it's not being a hedonist, so to yashar you say, \"I've got this much gashmius and this much ruchnius.\" I balance it and I go yashar between the two of them. When I do that, it brings me to chayim. If I don't and I go after the guf, then I'm going in circles because I'm not taking care of my neshama. כי כל דרך הולך ביושר נקרא דרך חיים וזהו דרך ארץ ותוכחת מוסר. For all divrei mussar, what's mussar? שלא ילך אדם אחרי תאות גופו. You can't go too far after your body vechumro and your physicality אשר בו דבק המיתה. That part of you is going to die. So the guf is going to die, the ruchnius is going to live, and you get to express your ruchnius, that's called derech chayim. So he's explained now derech, chayim, tochochos mussar. ודבר זה רמז עליו גם כן במה שאמרו כאשר נברא האשה נברא השטן עמה. When the woman was made, Satan was made with her. שלא נאמר סמך מתחלת התורה, Samech, the letter of roundness, the opposite of straightness of derech, something that goes nowhere. עד בריאת האשה נאמר vayisgor basar tachtennah. The first Samech is when woman is created. Ugmor sham as the Midrash asks, \"Oh, wait a second, כתיב הסובב את כל ארץ החוילה.\" No, it's written earlier that the rivers traveled around the land of gold. ומשני ההוא בנהרות דכתיב. We're talking about people, we're talking about creations. והטעם הוא כי האשה נמשלת לחומר. The reason is that when a woman's created, it's easier for man to get lost in physicality. A person obviously Samech stands for a sense of completion and a person can be happy. The non-kodesh aspect of if Rabbi Orlowick wasn't a tzadik gadol, heard Rabbi Orlowick say all the time, \"As long as my wife's happy, I'm happy.\" That can be used in a hedonist secular sense also too. A person can think, \"As long as my wife's happy, I'm happy,\" that's it, I don't care about what's right and wrong in the outside world. That's what we're worried about over here. Once there's something that completes you and you can think you're happy, so you can get lost in that world. Of course, we're not talking anything wrong about women, we're talking about the connection that man can get lost in the physicality that's called woman. כי האשה נמשלת לחומר. A woman's more physical, she brings out the child into the world, she's got a greater connection to physicality. אשר בחומר דבק ההעדר והמיתה שהוא השטן. So and that's death and that's the Satan, it's saten you to go off the derech. דבר זה יתבאר לקמן ואין כאן מקומו זה אבל הוא דבר ברור. The visuality of it should be so clear, you've got lines versus circles, that's what we're going for. Derech is something that goes from one place to another place, it's something that's yashar. It's the opposite of what we're looking for, the Samech is being lost in Be'ezrat Hashem Yitbarach ויסב אלוהים את העם דרך המדבר. That's the other way, not going straight. בדבר זה יתבאר לקמן ואין כאן מקומו זהו דבר ברור. Leficach tochochos mussar. He's back to the pasuk, דרך חיים תוכחות מוסר. If you understand that, hamayisherim adam chomeri שלא ילך אחר תאותו because it's part of his adama physical. אשר בחומר דבק ההעדר והמיתה שהוא השטן. But that side of ourselves, just, I'm only speaking to Rabbi Pilot. Everybody else who's newly married, meaning under five years, you got to take care of your wives, but there's obviously a problem, there's not just a mashal that there's so much you can do of just you take care of your wife and just take... take care of your family and don't worry about the rest of the world and don't worry about ruchnius. There's a problem, right, that you can be living a small life, not the expansive life for klal yisrael that we need. I think that's the pshat of ויחן העם נגד ההר. Right? So כאיש אחד בלב אחד. Rashi says וכל שאר מחנות בתרעומות ומחלוקת. It's only a moment we got together that we were able to stand כאיש אחד בלב אחד. The moment we stood that way was k'neged hahar. K'neged, we were opposed by a mountain. It doesn't say har elokim or torah. When there's a big task and it's hard to get up a mountain, then you know that we have to become כאיש אחד בלב אחד. You can't do it by yourself. But if you think, you know what, all I want to do is my wife should be happy, my kids should be happy, dayeinu, then we're not even going to be כאיש אחד בלב אחד. If you don't see a big purpose that we have to go change the world, go change our community, go try and help people, then we're all going to be worrying about ourselves, not klal yisrael. You need a vayechan ha'am, neged yisrael, vayechan yisrael, neged in opposition to the har. You say oh what is the mountain I gotta climb over there. Can't climb a mountain without an expedition, a lot of people. You have to go up. This is the problem over here that you know I'm not doing a bait and switch on you. You have to work and love your wife, make the relationship to your wife and go for your wife, but there's more than that afterwards after you've been married for a couple of years then you know you can you've done your first job then you go do your the rest of the jobs you have to do. Life is complicated. Okay now back to everyone who's still in their first five years of marriage, okay, or not there yet. You still got lots to do guy. Okay. Okay we good? Yes. The shleimus is a false shleimus or it's... there is a level of completion? Clear level of completion, complete in the physical world, but you're also spiritual. Just like when you have a really good house, that's really really important, but it's... there's a bigger shleimus, you have to be shalem with your community, shalem with klal yisrael and... so every time we see the samekh or the number 60, it's that aspect of a level of shleimus but not all of it. 60 as opposed to 70. 70 is going to be the shleimus of one beyond, right. 60 the six sides in the physical world, the seventh is going to be that nekuda that goes above that. Of course why is there... why the 60 masechtos in shas? Sound like that's completion. Oh oh, wait a second. You got... there's 63, but in the times of chazal there were 60. They broke up nezikin into bava kamma, bava metzia, bava basra and they broke up sanhedrin into makkos. But so the Gra in shir hashirim says wait a second there's 60. So he says, he brings the gemara in שבת דף ל\"א. אמונת עתיך חוסן ישועות חכמה ודעת. ואם בו יראת אלקים, right, einu klum. So that's the six masechtos so he says that's what it says, there's six. Even though you think torah is complete by itself, without yiras elokim the seventh it's also not complete. He says wherever you find 60 it's a false completion. There's got to be a pnimiyus you have to go beyond that to find it. That's that's the idea I think you're saying. Yeah. Is there we start with derech and then we move on to chayim? Is that a straight line connection? Or mussar comes after as mussar is like a fence from what you're saying? Once you get to chayim you're so far on a spiritual path right right? Great question. And actually Rav Wolbe has a shtickel for Rabbeinu Yonah like that in the sefer which might be what you're pointing me to it. But the Maharal and the Gra learned differently. They're learning differently. They're saying derech chayim, derech yashar is my seichel tells me this is what I have to do. Now when I carry that out, it's miyaser it causes yissurim and difficulty to have to shlep my guf to do what it doesn't do. The kelev inside wants to eat in the shuk, I want to eat outside right now. So the yissurim is when I follow what my seichel is. That's the... meyser it pulls my body from the wrong direction. So it does two things. It pulls it from where it wants to go naturally. Right? We always saw the Maharal said in the beginning of the very beginning of the sefer Derech eretz. It's always not natural to derech eretz, it's lemala min natural. And the second of all, when you do that, it's painful. That's what we saw last week: ארבעים שנה תעו וחיזוק. Derech eretz is not natural. It needs chizuk, it's hard, it's mussar. So mussar is to follow your seichel against the natural teva of being a beheima. Ok, the next paragraph I don't really think we need right now. You can look at it yourselves. He just wants to bring from a Midrash and show another source that derech always means derech eretz. Ok. So now he wants to ask why we put Pirkei Avos, which is the source for derech eretz according to the Maharal, why we put it in Seder Nezikin. Why is it in Seder Nezikin? So his answer is that Seder Nezikin is all seichel. It's logical damages. Every country has to have a system of damages and repayment, so it has to be over there because it's the world of seichel. See what he says. So the this paragraph over here. This one just brings a Midrash, we don't have time to do it I see. הסדר הזאת מסכתא זו בין מסכת עדיות ובין מסכת עבודה זרה. Why we put Pirkei Avos between the two? צריך לתת טעם למה סודרה מסכתא זו עם סדר נזיקין ולא בסדר אחר. Why do we put Pirkei Avos in Seder Nezikin and not in Moed? Not in Kodshim? אבל דבר זה כי כל דברי מוסר שמיסר את האדם מיסרו בדין שכך יעשה וכך לא יעשה. It's always telling you what you should do. It's judgment. וכל דבר שהוא דין שייך אל סדר נזיקין. Everything that's relevant to strict justice is in Nezikin, ששם סדרו כל דבר שתלוי בדין. והמוסר גם כן במידת הדין כי אין ספק כי דברי תוכחה מידת הדין. Telling my guf what I can't do, that's din. Ve'od, I'm sorry, this is the one I said over, כי כל דברי מוסר שהיא דרך ארץ השכל נותן. The essence of Avos is mussar and it's a davar sichli ve'hadas mechayeiv, it's what your knowledge obligates you, the key is da'as. davar zeh. ודבר זה במידת הדין ולכך אמר שקודם דרך ארץ לתורה כ\"ו דורות. כי העולם נוהג על ידי דרך ארץ before there was Torah, there was a derech in the world, there was an obligation, your seichel obligates you to do things שלפי שכל האדם. Now I'm not really going to get into it, but of course we're going to know there's a huge, huge, huge machlokes how to trust seichel ha'adam. Obviously the Maharal and Kelm, Rav Yerucham, all are very big on the power of seichel. There's a very big counterforce that wants to make it that seichel really can't mechayeiv us anything, that there's no chiyuv except Torah and that you need Torah for it. It's just clear that this is going against that approach. כי כל דברי מוסר שהיא דרך ארץ השכל נותן והדעת מחייב זה ועל כן אמר שקודם דרך ארץ לתורה כ\"ו דורות. כי העולם נוהג על ידי דרך ארץ, the Torah ran according to derech eretz מן שכל שלפי שכל האדם. ולדבר זה קודם התורה שהיא מאת השם יתברך. You first have to develop your human seichel, and after developing your human seichel, then you can get to God's seichel. לפי כך סדרו מסכת עדיות שכל עדות הוא כמו דין ואחר כך מסכת אבות שכל מילי דאבות השכל והדעת מחייב וזה כמו דין. Ay, you're going to ask me a question about the Gemara in Bava Kamma. Wait a second. If seichel is telling me what I'm supposed to do, what I'm mechuyav to do, how's it say מאן דבעי למהוי חסידא... Nezikin, Brachos, or Avos? Avos. Thank you, that's what I wanted. Avos. Right? What do you mean? So if Avos is what I'm mechuyav to do, you're not a chasid, you're just doing what you're mechuyav to do. Why is it chasidus? Think to yourself. So of course the answer is that chasidus, it's a chasidus in the relation to the natural realm of man. Natural realm is you're not mechuyav to do anything. When you think about it, you're being a chasid. recognizing what my potential, my intelligence is, that's what he says. ואולי יקשה לך אם כן if Avos is just seichel ha-adam. Lama amru מאן דבעי ליהוי חסידא בבא קמא דף ל lekayem milei de-Avos. U-vevada'i מידת חסידות לפנים משורת הדין, to be called chassidus you have to do more than din. So how can I say it's din if to be a chassid you have to be lifnim mishuras hadin? Ve-im ken, if that's the case, lama hu chassid כאשר מקיים מילי דאבות? So why are you a chassid if you mekayem milei de-Avos? Ein zeh kashya. דסוף סוף אינה מצות עשה ולא מצות לא תעשה, it's not that you were mechuyav outside of yourself. Someone didn't walk up, you had to come do it yourself. So you came to do it by middas chassidus. מצד זה אינו משפט רק כי מחייב זה השכל, domeh li-nezikin. It's something you mechayiv yourself because you think. But the fact that you think is already middas chassidus. It's a nice thing. Not everybody's thinking out there, as you noticed. Right. So that's where we're going. Okay. So hopefully we have derech eretz called derech, we have tochacha, we have chayim, we have mussar. So far so good. So far so good? Okay. A little deeper. Rav Moshe David Valle brings a couple of Zohars very beautifully. Yes. Can I ask you, domeh li-nezikin, does it mean that nezikin is also not an asei or a lo ta'aseh, it's the seichel? The last words he added, it's not osek bo. He wants to say, he wants to think nezikin is devar svara. It's outside of aseis and lo sa'aseis. רוצה להחמיר יחמיר דיני נזיקין. The Maharal says nezikin because it's seichel ha-adam. It's, it takes you the next steps. We were talking about why Shlomo was talking about why kadshim is called chochmah. Kadshim is cut off from the world. That's chochmah le-ma'alah חכמה למעלה מן העולם. But nezikin is taking your svara and developing it from where you start. That's why Yeshivas work on nezikin because it starts with seichel ha-adam and moves it up. סברא למה לי קרא. Okay. Just a third place that we find the derech is derech is mussar is in last week's parsha. That why do we need psukim of all mishpatim if it's all derech ha-seichel? It starts with derech ha-seichel, psukim come and add on to that derech ha-seichel. You're thinking, then the Torah directs you here, directs you there. But there's gotta be a forethought beforehand, otherwise you're not gonna get there. The boys from Mechon Shlomo have clear proof this week. I hate to tell you that they said that they have better middos than the Mechon Yaakov guys. And there was a unity Shabbos, and Ezra got up and spoke and started off with a wonderful joke. He said it's good to finally meet the Mechon Shlomo guys that, you know, all the time he goes to people's houses and the first question they ask is: how is Mechon Shlomo different than Mechon Yaakov? So he said, you know, all the Mechon Yaakov guys say Mechon Yaakov is better, and all the Mechon Shlomo guys say the Mechon Yaakov is better. The Mechon Shlomo guys said that they laugh, so it shows that they had better middos than the Mechon Yaakov guys. But Ezra also said that Yisro was his favorite character, which gets us a little nervous over here, right? The places he went we have to work with him later on with Rav Schwab and Rav Yaakov. But if he went over here with the Zohar, we're with Rav Moshe David Valle and the Ramchal, we're in good shape. So we're gonna take a look at what Yisro's role is. So Yisro's role is, according to Chazal, Yisro's role was, he was the, he was the first mashgiach. I'm afraid I might have missed the word, first menahel ruchni, right? In the world. That what happened was, again like we all learned, we've gone to the Ramban together, I'm sure, together in Yeshiva, hopefully we're all not cheder yingelech and we understand that Yisro's major chiddush was not just to have courts of law. His major chiddush was that Moshe Rabbeinu was teaching Torah over wrong, and that Moshe, if you think the major job of Klal Yisrael is to be a shofet, you're gonna mess Klal Yisrael up. And that what you have to do is you have to teach them the importance of parnassah and teach them the importance of mussar. And if you have those two things, we won't have all the litigation we have. Like the Ramban says in Sefer Mitzvos very clearly. So that's clearly the way the Zohar learns, which Moshe Dovid Valli brings it pretty well over here. So it goes, what happens? Moshe Rabbeinu says, Yisro says: What's the job of what's keeping you so busy, Moshe Rabbeinu? My wife asks me all the time, like what's so hard? Like what are you doing all the time? Like you know what's the problem? You know why me-erev ad boker? So he says look my job is הודעת את חוקי האלקים ואת תורותיו. Yisro says you got it all wrong. והזהרתה אתהם את הדרך ילכו בה ואת המעשה אשר יעשון. We understand that the pshat is ha-derech. When you understand, now whenever you hear the word derech, when you hear the word derech in the Chazal, we saw it in Mishlei, we saw it in Derech Eitz Chayim in Bereishis, we saw it in Vayikra Rabbah. Saw it in Vayikra Rabbah. It means mussar, it means derech eretz. So that's what happens. אשר הדרך ילכו בה. He says you have to give the people mussar. You can't just teach them Torah up in the air. It's too rarified. Moshe Rabbeinu, you're teaching them הודעתם את חוקי אלוקיו ואת תורותיו. You're teaching them Elokav. You're teaching them up there, you're teaching them נר מצוה ותורה אור. You're not bringing it down to them. If you don't bring it down to them, of course you're going to have lots of litigation. People are not going to be able to control themselves. Without giving a process to develop, nothing's going to happen. That's the way Moshe Dovid Valli explains את הדרך אשר ילכו בה בעניין מוסר. This is the concept of mussar. כי כל דרך איש ישר בעיניו אבל הדרך דהיה ידיעה לפני הדרך. He's going on, there's many drachim. es ha-derech. ha-derech, right? Moshe Dovid Valli wants to explain, understand הנכון אלא המלומד מהתברך על ידי נביאיו כי הדרך הזאת דרך קודש יקרא לה שמתקנת את בני אדם. It's the derech that we're taught by our nevi'im, kodesh Hashem וגם מתקנת את שורשם שהיא השכינה ששרה עליהם די רזא דמעשה כידוע שעל ידי הדרך הנכון כל השפעות נשמכים עליו. If you walk in the right way, then you resonate down here properly. ואינם הולכים לאיבוד אלא קליפה. You don't walk to externality. והשכינה נעשה ונבנית בבנין גמור על ידיהם וזה שכתב ואת המעשה אשר יעשון כי בוודאי המוסר הוא עיקר לקיים את חוקים ואת התורות. Like we said, mussar is the way that we get to keep the chukim and Toros. We need the derech eretz to get us להרחיק את סטרא אחרא מן האדם. It's always there to ambush us, make us fall. להכשיל במקום שאין מוסר כענין שנאמר והוא ימות באין מוסר. He'll die without mussar. u'berov ivalto yishgeh. And with the greatness of his stupidity he'll make a mistake. ולכן תראה שעניני מוסר קרויים רז\"ל מסכת אבות. Huge chiddush, right, I didn't want to get here yet but okay. He says why do we call Masechet Avos, Avos? You see a different answer in the Maharal. But what's he say? Avos because they lead to the Torah. You need to have the da'as like the Maharal said. The Maharal said נר מצוה ותורה אור ודרך חיים תוכחות מוסר. tochachos mussar is the way we come to do the mitzvos and therefore we call Masechet Avos, Avos to tell us what? That mussar is the way we'll be able to do the Torah. It's an av, and av meaning the first thing. An av and a toldah. We call it Masechet Avos to tell us you're not going to be able to do Torah and mitzvos without having a path which is what Avos is. ולכן תראה שעניני מוסר קרויים רז\"ל מסכת אבות לפי שהם אבות. They're the ones that give birth אל חוקים ותורות שמי מוסר אין חוקים ואין תורות. So we see how important derech eretz is again. If we think that derech eretz is just a small thing, it wouldn't have been in last week's Gemara. ארבעה דברים צריכים חיזוק תורה עבודה מעשים טובים ודרך ארץ. You see that it's crucial and it's the most crucial, therefore it's called Avos, the creators of the Torah. שמי מוסר אין חוקים ואין תורות. והסטרא אחרא משתדלת תמיד להכשיל את האדם בעניין מוסר. Yetzer hara's always trying to get you not to think about musar, בין באכילה בשתייה בין בקלות ראש בין בשיחה בטלה. All the little things that are musar, כדי להביאם בכך לעזוב את החוקים ואת התורות. כי זה גורם לזה, because this causes it. If you don't worry about the small things, you're going to get lost in the big things. And this is what I just want, here's a closing line: מכאן למדנו שדבר גדול יעץ יתרו. From here we see Yisro gave a huge advice to Moshe, שאמר לו שעניין הוראת מוסר יהיה מוסר בידו. The concept of musar, of sechel, of derech eretz, it's in your hand. לפי שתלויה בו שמירת החוקים והתורה. That's the chiddush that Yisro's got, so to teach them es haderech. Es haderech is derech eretz, and by doing the derech eretz, you'll be able to keep the rest of the Torah. By just teaching Torah upstairs, we're not going to be able to get down and do what's got to be done. It seems like the Rabbi Moshe Valle is combining Ovos and derech eretz together as one, whereas the Maharal really makes a chilluk between the two types. Okay, and I could show you 20 places where Maharal looks like he's combined the two, too. We happened to be at a place where the Maharal's dividing the two up. He says derech eretz includes everything, and we have two, we have Ovos and we have regular derech eretz. Okay, as we got you here, okay now? Good. Okay. We'll work the other parts out afterwards. Okay. Now I guess the part that I just really want is going back to the first time the word derech comes up, is by derech etz hachayim that we saw. I just really want the Chazal's roshei teivos over here, which is pretty apparent, right? Just, let's look. Okay, so let's take the next Moshe Valle. מקדם לגן עדן את הכרובים ואת להט החרב המתהפכת לשמור את דרך עץ החיים. Go the fourth line down on that part. Ulechach tireh, therefore you see, שאמר דווקא לשמור את דרך עץ החיים. A huge chiddush, it's gotta shmor the derech etz hachayim, להודיע שעיקר השמירה היא לטובתן של נשמות למנוע מהן אכילה של עץ החיים קודם גמר תיקונם. If you learn Torah without having derech eretz, it'll be lismolam b'sama d'mosah. It'll be a poison in some way. ולמה אמר לשמור את דרך עץ החיים? Why does it say guarding the derech? היה די שיאמר את עץ החיים. They're guarding the tree of life, שעיקר השמירה היא בשבילו. The key thing regarding is the Torah. כי מה צריך לשמור את הדרך, movil letrachlin echad. Why should I guard the pathway up to the castle? די לשמור את הטרקלין. I can do a better job guarding the castle. Don't guard the whole road, you got too many soldiers. שלא ייכנס בו אלא שאינו ראוי להיכנס. אלא דהטעם הוא לפי שגם הדרך מעלה גדולה וחשובה מאוד. Derech eretz is very chashuv. You can't get Torah without middos tovos. You have to, like we've been talking about, like we talked about the whole time, that the derech is also chashuv. It needs a shmirah. It's not a simple thing. ארבעה דברים צריכים חיזוק: תורה ועבודה ומעשים טובים ודרך ארץ. ודרך קודש ייקרא לה. ולכך הופקדו שומרים מאת השם יתברך על הדרך להרחיק משם נשמות בלתי מתוקנות שילכו באורחות מקולקלות עד שנזדככו מן העבירה. At the end of the piece, I just want what he brings very beautifully, which should be pashut to everybody now, but I think the roshei teivos makes the chumash look beautiful. The third line down. שלטעם זה אמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה דעה קנית מה חסרת. If you've got de'ah, what are you lacking? ולכן תראה שהמילים אלה דרך עץ החיים, right? The first word of derech is dalet, the first word of etz is ayin, the first word of chayim is hey, הם ראשי תיבות דעה. Right? Chazal teach us that derech eretz is da'as. Like we've been talking about the whole time, derech eretz is thinking, having sechel, knowing what the right thing is to do. That's the derech etz hachayim. The only way to get there is da'as and using our da'as actively and connecting properly. Chibur is making a derech, making all the pieces fit together. Chibur is knowing that all my derech eretz has to go to Torah. Chibur is knowing all my derech eretz has to go to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, uleramez al hanizkar, to recognize the fact how important it is to be connected. והשמירה היא להרחיק מי שלא יהיה בו דעה. Kadosh Baruch Hu guards that someone who doesn't have da'as can't get Torah because he'll destroy Torah, he'll destroy the world with that Torah. Right? כל תלמיד חכם שאין בו דעה נבילה טובה הימנו. Anyone who doesn't have da'as, you're a talmid chacham, a neveilah, dead animal is better than they are, lets off less of a smell, is less disgusting. So Kadosh Baruch Hu guards the derech etz chayim. It says בסוד דעה חסרת מה קנית. If you don't have de'ah, what have you acquired? Nothing. וזה טעם שמילת אלו. He goes back, לשמור את דרך עץ חיים. The first word of lishmor is lamed, the first word of es is alef, the rest is the same, lo de'ah. What are they guarding from? They're guarding for people who don't have da'as. Right? Kadosh Baruch Hu is not gonna let a person who doesn't have midos tovos, who hasn't thought about the world, hasn't worked it out, that's the לא דעה שהכל יובן יפה מה שפירשנו. He then wants to explain that why does it say דעה חסרת מה קנית? So mah, of course, is mah is the name of Chayim, mah is Kadosh Baruch Hu's good name. דעה חסרת מה קנית? What have you acquired anything? Mah is the name of Kadosh Baruch Hu. That's off the topic. But what we want to see over here is that what we've talked about is obviously derech is always da'as. Using our da'as, being active with da'as, being proactive with da'as, thinking as much as we can, trying to understand what's going on in the world. That's what the essence of derech eretz is, and that's the essence that's gonna get us going to connect to the etz hadaas, connect to Torah properly. There's a machlokes, I've never worked it out exactly, I don't know exactly what it is, but you'll find there's a machlokes in girsos in the Gemara in Berachos daf samech gimmel. I've seen a lot of people, the Reishis Chochmah, the Alter of Kelm, when he brings it, the Pele Yoetz, when he brings, they all bring a girsa that's different than ours in the Gemara. This I think now you'll see it. Reishis Chochmah. Right? The Reishis Chochmah Sfat. He starts off his perek in derech eretz and he quotes this Gemara different than we do, and he seems to know it's different than we do. He says garsinan and he says: This is the right girsa. Right? Rabbi Chaim Vital brings this girsa. I don't know exactly what's going on. You have to be find one of these professors and I don't know, like, the Gra doesn't have a change, so I don't know. בכל דרכיך דעהו והוא יישר אורחותיך. garsinan b'Masechtas Berachos. We have a girsa in Masechet Berachos. darash Bar Kappara: איזו פרשה קטנה שכל גופי תורה תלויין בה? הוי אומר זו דרך ארץ. We don't have these words. שנאמר בכל דרכיך דעהו והוא יישר אורחותיך. It adds these three words: zu derech eretz. Right? But if we understand the Ramashad Vali properly, understand the Maharal properly, we understand what it is: that בכל דרכיך דעהו, in all of your ways use your da'as, then you're on the derech etz chayim, then you have derech eretz, and then Kadosh Baruch Hu will help you, you'll be outside the shmirah, v'hu yeshayer orchosecha and He'll get you to the right place. So those are the three words, this parsha is בכל דרכיך דעהו. In all your ways know Him, use your da'as. That's derech eretz. And that's a parsha ketana that we now understand. The Ramashad Vali says that's why Avos is called Avos because it creates everything else. The Maharal says it brings us to everything else. That's what we're going for, right? So the kol Torah is toluy on derech eretz according to this girsa. I just forgot to look at Rav Emanuel, I don't know if Rav Emanuel's got it on it. Rav Bernstein has it in his sefer, I don't know. But yeah. Yaakov, did you hear that? Yeah. There are of course people who know Torah and then don't have da'as. Is this referring to people, is this referring to the fact that it's guarding from people who don't have Torah at all from coming in, you know, people who are not ninety percent of Jewish people who have no Torah whatsoever, that people who come to Torah are the ones who have derech eretz? It's not talking once people are in the system, right? Don't know. I hear. I think Rabbi Schwab used to always say that, you know, you see that it's possible. He says if you walk up to a person, Rabbi Schwab used to be provocative, he used to like to be provocative and he would tell a person he thought was over-arrogant, he'd want to know if a person, can a person be a... talmid chacham and not have daas? The person would of course say no and he'd say well look the Medrash says right at the beginning of Vayikra: כל תלמיד חכם שאין בו דעת נבלה טובה הימנו. So you see that you can be Derech Eretz and not have daas. So we see that taka there are two things. Now you're asking if Hakadosh Baruch Hu is putting a shomer on the path, what's going what's happening? I think it gets trickier. I'm going to say I don't know the answer. I know what Rav Schwab would answer and I'm not sure what the shtach whether it's not they don't have real Torah. Right? That people know that it doesn't resonate and ring with them right and it's going on it's just type yedias of Torah and he would say that's pshat of neveilah tovah mimenu, right that a neveilah, what's a neveilah? A neveilah is a carcass, right? Every every square centimeter of the animal is there. What's missing? The life inside of it, right? It looks completely the same. It's a neveilah, right? I once took my kids to the natural history museum, wonderful Yerushalmi kids. So my kids walk up to the saber-toothed tiger, and it's like this, you ever saw this one over there on the West Side, right? It's over at the bank and my lovely son who learns with someone, right, my lovely son looks up and puts his hand in the mouth and says, I don't know why people are so scared of this. Hello, like because it's not alive. If it was alive you'd be running out of the place, right? But so that's neveilah, neveilah means it looks exactly like it's there but it's missing the entire hissaron. But I think the kasha is good enough that you have to think about it a little bit before you can answer. And the second one I think about it is in Safra, the the Gra says that the problem with the generation at the end of time is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives Torah to people who don't have daas. So it might be that the shmira is less right now and Hakadosh Baruch Hu part of our kilkul of our dor is the shmira is less apparent and maybe part of the problem of Galus at this moment. But I have to think about it, I don't know the answer offhand. If the Derech Etz Hachayim is deia, so does that mean the Etz Daas is the Derech Etz Hachayim? Or is that a different type of daas? You must have heard me scream five years ago that only goyim call it the Etz Daas. It's עץ דעת טוב ורע. Right, right, everyone says עץ דעת טוב ורע. It's not Etz Daas, the goyim cut it off at daas. Chas Veshalom, daas is wonderful, it's Derech Etz Chayim we want it. There's a certain type of daas, that עץ דעת טוב ורע, that mechaber tov vera like Nefesh Hachayim says, that's a very dangerous thing. But chas veshalom that we're going to be a Kierkegaardian and throw out daas and just jump for emunah, that's not a regular Jewish position. But weren't we suppose, I mean the Shach says we're supposed to eat from the עץ דעת טוב ורע on Shabbos, right? So and there's a After we've gone through the whole process of Shabbos being Mekadesh. But wouldn't that suggest that the עץ דעת טוב ורע is the derech towards Etz Chayim? No. It's not the derech, it's once you've made it to the Etz Chayim you can go back and taka. Oh so it's the other way. Other way, it's after that always, it's always the eleven. Ten is the ten Sefiros that are complete, and the eleventh is like the sammanim they metaken the eleventh afterwards after the ten you have to do ra. Okay. We're not going into the Gemara. All right, this last one, the part that the Maharal refers to, he said it's in the Haqdama, but it's not in the Haqdama, to the best of my knowledge. It's a long long Haqdama. The only place I know that he talks about why it's called Avos, שמע בני מוסר אביך, go back to the Derech Chayim piece to the piece in the bottom right. It's on page yud-zayin in the long first perek, first mishna over there. He discusses it for a little bit. So he wants to know why is it that Avos is called Pirkei Avos? So he says, פירוש המשנה הזאת כי כל מוסר ראוי הוא לאב. All mussar is fitting to a father. בלא נאה לו להוכיח את בנו. It's appropriate for him to give reproof to a son, for here's the pasuk he quotes over there in Netiv Derech Eretz: שמע בני מוסר אביך. Listen my son to the mussar of your father. ואל תטוש תורת אמך. So when a father and a mother, they can give you mussar. Why? I believe that the Maharal learns because a father and a mother are older, their body is less active. Therefore they have more seichel. Since they have more seichel, they can be madrich you to not listen to your guf as much. So that shma beni mussar, the fact that your father tells you not to go after your guf. כי אב במה שהוא אב כבר סר ממנו הילדות והשכרות. I believe that the two lines he wants over here are overly connected to the physical world. v'chen ha'em, similarly the mother, because it says at the end of the pasuk, אל תטוש תורת אמך. v'heim baalei mussar. לפיכך ראוי לאב לייסר בנו בדברי מוסר. Therefore a father is fitting to give reproof to his son, וחובת האב יותר מן אחר. A father more than somebody else. מפני שבצעירותו של בן הוא מוטל על האב. There's also this halakhic obligation that the father להנהיג בנו בכל דבר בצעירותו, k'mo she'amru chazal אב חייב ללמד בנו תורה ולהשיאו אישה. A father's chayav to teach his son Torah and marry a wife. לכך יראה גם כן שיקבל הבן מוסר מאב שמייסר אותו. בעבור בגלל שנחשב ילד, he's thought of as young b'divrei mussar. He's young and more physical k'neged aviv, אף כי אינו ילד בעצמו. Even though the son might be thirty-five years old now compared to the father who is seventy. Sorry, parents get rights, they can still beat up on you. Right? yeled b'atzmo. ומפני שרצה לדבר במסכת הזאת, because we want to speak in Pirkei Avos מן המוסרים הטובים וישרים. We want to speak about what pushes us away from physicality and moves us to spirituality. התחילו לומר כי יש לקבל מוסר מן האבות. Therefore we say you should accept mussar from people who are more spiritual, people who are older, people who are less in the experiential ephemeral moment. ואלו הם אבות העולם בוודאי. These are the avos ha'olam. כי נחשב משה אב לעולם בוודאי, Moshe is one of the fathers of the world, v'nechshav Yehoshua, etcetera, etcetera. So that's what he wants over here I believe when he says in arba, back to where the Tzivas Olam... ועושים דברים זכר למסכת אבות על שם שמע בני מוסר אביך. The father's older, the father's more spiritual. כמו שאמרנו בהקדמת המסכת. I think he means in the first mishna and that's where we're going. והדרך מוסר הוא שכל האדם. Fine. Okay. And next week, right after the night we'll do Chullin next week. You got the Gemara in front of you. I think the Gemara is a little tricky. We'll try to explain the Gemara next week. Yeah? What job does a... erliche talmid chacham? Like a real talmid chacham? What? Is there a specific thing of an overwhelmingly amount of da'as in no Torah? Oh you're saying someone who has da'as without Torah. Correct. What does that look like? There are a couple of gemaras that call people baalei maaseh, baal maaseh, or baal maasi, who do all the right things but you don't know Torah enough to explain it deeply. Where was it? Lamed-hey there in Kiddushin talks about it. Berachot Daf-chet talks about baal maaseh. There are people with a certain level of derech eretz without Torah. That's what you're saying, to call them baalei maaseh? He's asking me what would Torah call a person... Dale Carnegie? Maybe? I don't think so. What, he had politeness, he had maybe the Rambam's derech eretz which is bin sadi, but not our derech eretz which is mechaber to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, מחבר אותך לחי עולם. If it's just to fit everything into this world then for sure it's not what we're... Rabbi Sacks maybe? Lord Sacks? Rabbi Sacks, Lord Sacks? Yeah. What about him? Maybe that's an example? Maaseh without Torah? Maybe. I thought he was asking not for names, I thought he was asking how do you categorize? I... you'd have to see how he davens to say that that's true, but the Maharal... Look, there's a Derech Eretz. You have to be a spiritual person to even, it's not, it's not Dale Carnegie. Somebody on the path, not necessarily there yet. Yeah, but you have to be on the path that's, that's balanced. You have to recognize a Ruchniyus and Ruchniyus is deep part of yourself. This is not stam being a nice guy. No, this is not it. That's why you're Miyased yourself, you have to work to become more and more spiritual. That's osek in שבע מצוות בני נח ke'kohen gadol davka something like that. Yeah, but that's Lechayim. Yes. When we say Chaim is the spiritual aspect, so what's the plurality of Chaim? That's not the discussion right now, but I mean everybody says it's Chaim is Olam Hazeh and Olam Habah. There's no Chaim singular in the Torah, right? Chaim is always this world and the next world. You can't be talking about life just of this worldly life, right? Chaim's got to be a life of this world and the next world. Much much longer conversation, but oh, this is just this one point. I've got five minutes on this. This is right, exactly, right. So someone do the Gematria of Derech Eretz for me. Got a piece of paper in one second. 515? 515? No, I think it's, Derech is, it's gotta be 224. Derech is 224. Derech. Aha. So I got it wrong. Derech is 224. So Derech is 224. So if you understand, so what's a Derech? Derech is something that's makes, doesn't go too far to above nature, doesn't go too far in the nature, cuts the two together. Or it's why to walk, to be in a Derech you have to use your right foot and your left foot, your right foot and your left foot, your right foot and your left foot. You have to be going on a path that's, that's balanced. So the Arizal says in Hilchos Tefillin, he wants to say that a Derech is always, is always a connection of putting Chessed into Din and Din into Chessed. Putting above the world into this world and this world into above this world. I'm trying to answer your question, right, like in other words, it's got to be always connected. So the Gematria of Elohim is 86, the Gematria of יהוה is 26. Work it out for me now, that's 112, right? 112. 112. Right. 112. Half of 224 is 112. Right. So it's 112. So when you put the Chessed יהוה in the Elohim, that's one completion. You put the יהוה in the Elohim, that's other completion. He says so when you balance both of them together, you recognize how to live a world of Elohim in Olam Hazeh, יהוה in Olam Hazeh and you know how to live a world of יהוה with Elohim and you put it together, then you're in a Derech and you've put the two together. That's what you're looking for. It's that mesh of Mituk Hadinim and Mituk Hachessed back and forth on the two sides. That's what Derech always got to be. We're talking about something that's mammash every act, right, you're above the world and you're in the world, you're above the world and you're in the world. It's, it's recognizing that spiritual aspect everywhere you're going. That's, that's what Derech is. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Over here the Maharal explains that Mussar is one level, Derech Eretz is another level. They're both Derech Eretz, there's two types. There's a universal Derech Eretz and then there's a term that's compared to others you call Derech Eretz. So when we go back on the very first piece, we brought the מוסר אביך תורת אמך and we talked about Toras Imecha as being Derech Eretz in the way the Maharal did and we called Mussar sort of the level of Torah. So it doesn't seem to match up. That's what we're going to say next week. That's what we're going to say. We're going to say right that there's the lower level of Derech Eretz which is the... But both of them are still not in the world of Torah, of Derech Eretz, right? Okay, so I misunderstood, I thought back here we were talking about Musar being on the level of Torah. A higher level than the world of Derech Eretz, but not Torah. In between. Still in the level of Derech Eretz. But so when you said a higher level than Derech Eretz, or it's a—it's the higher level of Derech Eretz. It's just two things that got to be. Fine. Which part is the yashar and which part is tov? Since both of—we'll get there. Okay. That's—that's going to be a—we'll be working on it. Okay, next we'll do Chulin. And if anybody here, anybody—I actually am embarrassed, I tried Motzei Shabbos to do it, I have no clue what they're talking about about leaves of onions, eating the top of the onion, eating the bottom of an onion. I tried to get on Google, some picture of an onion with leaves, an onion without leaves. I was unsuccessful. If anyone's a naturalist and can explain that halacha to me by bringing a picture of an onion in these two different forms, please talk to me. You saw the next piece, the next Gemara in Beitzah? Yeah, I don't know what in the world he wants. I'll explain to you all the philosophy of the plant. I have no clue what—I asked my wife, she has no clue. You don't get them with the leaves on. You need some kind of real out there onion. Doesn't it mean the outer covering? Onions have leaves. I don't know. I guess. Either the outer covering or—leaves. Yeah, the covering has it or the onion itself you can peel it off in pieces. I think they're talking about leaves, but maybe if you're right, you're right. I don't have a pshat. I don't know what's going on. I looked at Wikipedia on onions, it didn't help me. Like anybody who's, you know, I've grown tomatoes and cucumbers and potatoes, but I never grew onions, so I don't know what I'm talking about. No onion growers here? We've got to bump into some hippie this week, guys.