Part 5 · Chapter 26

When No Reason Can Be Explained 0:00

וכאשר אינו מוצא טעם בהסבר השגה, and when you do not find a reason that you can't explain it, ומכל מקום לא יוכל לומר בהיפך, but you still can't say the opposite. You see this as being true, but you can't explain it. Happens a lot to people. Not everybody is good at explaining.

Yeah, I feel that this guy is wrong. I feel that it's wrong. Why is it wrong? I don't know, but that's why I I I just see that it's wrong. כי שכלו נוטה כך, because his intellect leans that way. היינו בבחינת חסד וגבורה דאבא קודם שמאיר מאין ליש בבינה. That is the emotions of חכמה before they shine into בינה. כמו עניין שתיק רב וכו', like it says in like it says about שתיק רב, right?

We're talking about נולד on יום טוב. So that's the גמרא in ביצה. ביצה שנולדה ביום טוב, right? That that that's the גמרא where it says שתיק רב. And and so he couldn't explain the difference between why one you know, the the that the two don't the one does not disprove the other, but there's like some distinction between those two הלכות, you know, that that that why you can't learn extrapolate one from the other, but he couldn't find it, he couldn't explain it.

So he was quiet. He didn't retract his ruling, but he did not argue further. And some other guy came and explained it. So that's the משל for the for ישראל סבא, for the מדות of חכמה. Is like this guy, this thing, שתיק רב. ושתיקה סייג לחכמה. And this, why are why is it that that a person is quiet when he doesn't like when you, you know, when when he has a מדה of חכמה and he can't explain it?

So why does it say that he's quiet? It's about It's a fence for the חכמה that protects it. It's a fence that protects the חכמה.

The simplest meaning there there in פרקי אבות is that if you keep your mouth shut, you'll learn a lot. If you sit and listen and observe and learn, then you'll learn a lot. Once you start opening your mouth, then you're going to stop yourself from learning, right? That's the פשוט'ע פשט. But it doesn't fit so well with what it says. Why is that called a סייג לחכמה, that it's like a fence for the wisdom?

It doesn't seem like the right analogy. Fence implies you have something, you just want to protect it. Here, we're telling you that you're going to not going to get it if you keep opening your mouth.

So here, it's saying he's explaining it more that when you have a חכמה, when you keep your mouth shut and you don't say a reason for it, it protects it, because but once you say a reason for it, then it opens it up to be argued with and disproven and stuff like that. And this is what this is this is advice now for for how to have an argument.

Argument Strategy: State Conclusion First 2:59

Yeah, this is it. If you want to have a successful argument, you have to state your conclusion first. And then afterwards, you can open it up into, you know, logic without really making your conclusion susceptible to it.

This is the רבי told like Rabbi Hollander, I think, when he was going to asked to to discuss Judaism or debate it, whatever, with a Reform rabbi on TV or something like that. So he said, what what should he do? He asked the רבי what should he do, because he said he didn't want to give any credence to the Reform rabbi making it like look like he believed in Reform at all or that he considered him a, you know, legitimate rabbi.

So the רבי told him what he should do is the first thing as soon as he gets up there, he should say that, "I do not like

agree with your stance at all, and I do not recognize you as a rabbi. Now, let's discuss the issues." So in other words, he starts off with the premise no matter what happens here today, you should know that that I'm not that it's not open for debate whether for that it's an axiom, you know, it's axiomatic, that you are not a legitimate rabbi and that I do not agree with your whole religion.

And it's not Judaism. You're Jewish because you were born Jewish, but this whole ideology has nothing to do with Judaism. If you want me to try to prove it to you, I can try to prove it to you, but even if I fail at that, that's not up for debate.

So that's in a way the how שתיקה is a סייג לחכמה, that's one example. The other thing is also that when you're trying to get an idea, you're quiet, because when you're looking into the חכמה, you're just seeing the thing itself, and your your it will disturb that when you try to interpret it. You have to just like let it in as it is. That's also why when a person gets like a flash An idea that they're just like they're quiet, and different things like that.

Legal Principle of Silence: שתיקה בתרין 5:07

משתוקא בתרין. Sometimes legally, yeah maybe you have a name for this in like Latin, a principle in הלכה that sometimes a person says a claim, he'll make money. Let's say he claims a certain thing, he'll get $100. But if he would have kept quiet and wouldn't have claimed anything, he would have made $200. Because his claim in some way impairs his rights.

So, he actually ruined it for himself by claiming whatever he claimed. So, there's a thing that by opening his mouth, he got 100, but if he would have been quiet, he would have gotten 200.

That being quiet gets you double. Gets you two. משתוקא בתרין. So, if from speaking he got one, משתוקא בתרין, but if he would have been quiet, he would have gotten two. And what does that mean here? He's saying here that that the ביטול, the silence, in a way gives you better a better understanding. In other words, like חסידות, for example, is really not interpreting anything. It's just understanding as it is.

That's the difference between Godly intellect and human intellect, also. So, it's in a way it's being quiet. It's not like, you know, telling you interpreting it. But that thing really gives you double, that's you understand it better. פירוש העלאת ביטול כח מה דחכמה זה למקור המוציא כל כל השכלים שנקרא חכמה עילאה מקור now. Because this ביטול of the כח מה of חכמה where you just take it, you just experience it as it is without interpreting it, without Yeah, you get it objectively.

Removing Reason to Access Pure Wisdom 6:25

And so therefore you're able to go to the source which of of all the intellect, המוציא משם השכל החדש וכולי, and you can get out a new idea because you didn't limit it to a certain box. So, you're free to take it out in any way. But once you attach it to a reason or an explanation, then you limit it, and then if that gets disproven, then it looks bad on the whole thing.

Or or makes it hard for you to make a חידוש because you only understand it within a certain context or a certain example, and it's hard for you to see to take it out from that.

ובבחינת נה"י דאבא היינו בחינת מאזני השכל והחכמה איך שיבוא הדבר חכמה לידי השפעה בבחינת כליות יועצות וכולי. The נה"י of the חכמה is figuring out, once you figure out now שכל whether it's good or bad based on the שכל, you have to figure out how to actually apply it. So, it's like the difference between the verdict and the sentence. So, you know, חכמה ובינה חסד וגבורה is like a verdict.

It's like was it good or is it bad? But it's still kind of abstract. Then you have to figure out, well, how can we act upon that? What can what are we going to do about it? How can we bring that out?

So, this is the thing of like the scales of the intellect to weigh out how the thing should come out. And this idea of the kidneys that give advice, when it comes to like actually doing something, should you do it with gusto and gung-ho, or should you do it with, you know, should be scared and have be timid and, you know, restraint? נצח would make you want to give a stronger Well, either good or bad, either way.

נצח would want you to give the full whatever, the full thing maximum prescription, whatever it is, either good or bad. The full extent of the law, yeah.

And הוד would be that you would want to hold a little back because you, you know, consider that it'd be better to do that. Or maybe you're scared it's going to be too much. You know, like let's say you're evaluating how many lashes to give the guy. So, נצח you'd want to you want to try to give him all of them, but הוד is you're scared that you'll kill the guy.

So, you have to weigh out how much you think, because the whole purpose of it is not to kill him, the purpose of it is that he should live and be better, right? So, you have to be scared that you won't give too much, and then it will ruin his opportunity, you know?

The same thing, like in court. A lot of times the first offender, especially if it's like a young offender, they don't want to throw him in jail because they want him to be reformed and have a normal life. They don't want him to just rot away in jail. That's not productive.

The defendant, especially if he's young and it's a first offender, so they try to be lenient the first time. But then if he keeps doing it, then they throw the book at him. So, those are the kidneys, right? That gives advice.

והיינו ענין התוקף שיש במוח שנקרא תקיף בדעתיה. This is also the force of your views, when you are strong-minded, when you're strong in your opinions, in your views.

כמו הרגלים like the legs שיש בהן כח להקים כל הגוף they have the strength to hold up the whole body. כך בחינת נצח והוד אבא מקימין לגוף המוחין, so too נצח and הוד of the חכמה hold up the actual intellect. ולהיפך, and the opposite, כשאינו תקיף בדעתו, a person is not strong-minded, בקל יפול מסברתו, מחוב לזכות, he can easily fall from his his reasoning from guilt to innocence, ומטמא לטהור, impure to pure, וכולי, וכן בנצח והוד דאימא, and the same thing with the נצח and הוד of אימא.

In other words, that if you don't have a strong נצח and הוד, even though it's just like the external thing of it, but you'll be you can always you won't you won't have the guts to like seal it in one way.

Well, yeah, because you could say, you know, you can always be argue the other side. This is like, you know, liberalism and or pluralism, you know, that kind of thing, that they don't have strength in their view, they don't have enough conviction to be able to say that this is to stand up, you know, that's like the משל, like the legs, to stand up for what they believe in, and take a stance, you know, following this all the these English correspondences, this analogy, and say, "That's it, this is it, and you are wrong, and therefore we..."

You know, and that in order to have a legal system, by the way, you have to it's very important, because you have to feel strong enough that this is right and that's wrong to take responsibility to punish somebody for it. So, you know, you have to have strength in your opinion.

That comes from נצח and הוד mainly, because it's true that in theory there's a truth to the different sides, but when it comes to actually doing it, when it comes to actually doing it, though, you have to first of all, one way is the best way to do it, and even besides that one way is the best way to do it, but if you want to actually do it, it does even if it's not the best way, it's more important to do it one way than to to keep finding different possible ways to do it.

So if your focus, if you're if you're if you are proactive and you're like task-oriented person, that's the thing. Like one sometimes when you have a system, it doesn't matter so much whether it's the best system. It's better to have a system and a leader and that you listen to and you follow it, and you get things done, even than than to sit around thinking up which is the best system.

Because then, you know, it's true that you could find always a better way in theory and improve it, but you're never going to get anything done like that. That's why, like, you know, every now and then, you like אלול is a time when you're supposed to stop and take a make a חשבון הנפש, but the rest of the year, you're just supposed to mainly focus on doing, and not keep, you know, you're not supposed to keep second-guessing yourself that maybe I should be doing something else, or you know what I mean?

Focus Over Reflection Except During אלול 12:25

It's not the time for it all you can't do that all the time.