Rambam Mishneh Torah: Hilchos De'os Chapter 3 - Don't Run Away from the World

the yeshiva.net [Music] rambam the third chapter of the laws of ethics or character development after chapter one and two with iran discussed that the wholesome good life is a life of matter a life of moderation a life in which you're centered and balanced the path which he called the derek hashem when somebody is indeed morally or spiritually ill they sometimes have to go to another extreme to straighten themselves out the rambam also at the end of chapter 2 discussed how a life filled with jealousy addiction seeking glory and self-aggrandizement makes one miserable now the rambam continues chapter three and chapter three is going to be about the other side of things avoiding asceticism and the tendency to run away from the world the rambam is going to discuss how a jew ought to live in the world and engage with everything that is part of our material life a person might say since we have just learned and it's really a mission in purchase of us that jealousy envy and addiction an excessive appetite and craving and the seeking of glory really are a destructive path and they extricate a person from the world they turn your life into a miserable experience so a person might say okay efrish man i will segregate myself i will separate my myself from them intensely and i will i'll i will move i will gravitate to the other extreme ah to the point person will not eat meat anymore will not drink wine like will not marry a woman will not live in a comfortable nice home will not wear fine clothing ella instead the person will wear a sock sackcloth or sammer tsamurkasha coarse wool the cayetzabad and similar garments that are highly uncomfortable with kegoin and he gives an example pagan priests this was the nature of pagan priests you don't eat meat you don't drink wine you don't get married you're celibate you live in a uh you know in a shoebox you do not wear fine clothing this was the custom the tradition of priests of the pagan world i should add that in many manuscripts of the rambam and in some early prints it actually said it would mean roman priests the rambam apparently referring to priests of the roman catholic church who advocated celebrity and the more celibate you were the more segregated separated from the material world it was considered that you're more pristine you're more holy you could be in greater communion with truth with god says derambam i want you to know gam zhu derek rahi from a jewish perspective from a mahalak perspective this is also an inappropriate path for us just like somebody who's indulgent and narcissistic and full of jealousy and addiction and appetites and seeking honor because of a grand narcissistic ego is destructive this extreme is also destructive it's forbidden to follow this path and somebody who follows this path is called the yiddish kite a sinner why shadi wait nazir we find a fascinating passage in particular another was of course somebody who accepted upon himself or herself a vow to live in a state of sanctity which meant no drinking wine no cutting the hair no contact with a debt with dead with the dead in order to become contaminated this was called a nazi what happens if by mistake even by mistake in middle of the term of naziris the nazir the man or the woman becomes impure it could have been completely not their fault not intentional just happened they walked into a house they didn't know that in that house somebody died and therefore everything in that house is impure including the nazar so the terror describes the process that the nazir has to do in order to cleanse themselves and then begin the term again so the expression is the love the nazi has to atone for himself because of his because he sinned with the soul or he sinned regarding the soul the question is where did he sin regarding the soul would he kill the soul he did something to a soul he hurt a soul which soul did he sin with soul that he sinned with he became a nazir and could be by mistake completely not his intentions or his desire it was not volitional by mistake behind us could be forced he became impure where where is the khatta la nefesh that's the question our sages raise in gamora tightness and i'm explaining the question as explained in gurasari over there in tightness so the gemara says the sages said you know which soul he sent towards his own soul he sinned towards his own soul why said the sages of my imagination who did not segregate himself only from wine still needs atonement somebody who refrains from everything in the world he goes to the other extreme and becomes an absolute hermit and ascetic certainly this person needs atonement that's why the rambam says we're calling him a sinner therefore a person should not refrain only from those things that the trader prohibits you from engaging in following one should regularly not prohibit himself concerning permitted things through vows and through oaths which a person says i make a vow or i take an oath that i will not engage in something that's permissible on a regular basis the rambam says it is the wrong thing to do this is what our sages said it's not is what the trader has prohibited for you you have to now impose new prohibitions and new restrictions on you this is not the path and now we have to emphasize in chapter two the rambam said in the beginning sometimes somebody is sick and when somebody is sick they have to in other words they are addicted or gravitating very intensely to one extreme sometimes they have to go to the other extreme a classic example would be where some of us are very familiar with this somebody who has an addiction to alcoholism the alcoholic who's destroying his life because of a complete addiction and dependence on alcoholic beverages like wine this person indeed must go to the other extreme why because there's a constant danger that moderate even a little wine in moderation will literally bring this person back to the abyss because there is a real disease here there is a real sickness and the rambam called it a disease he called it a sickness that's true but generally from a jewish perspective from a perspective the rambam says the path of forbidden forbading things forbidden things of myself that the toyota permits is not sometimes fasting is fine but to always fast the rambam rejects that a person should mortify himself through fasting is a prohibition all these types of decisions and similar decisions don't be so righteous and don't be so smart why should you become desolate why should you live a desolate life so the rambam here in the in the first half of chapter three really gave a very powerful jewish perspective that one should not run away from the world one should not become an ascetic one should not become a hermit one should not completely disengage from everything material that is not the path of judaism unlike the pagan priests or the roman catholic priests it's interesting that rama mentions this these priests because contrasted with the jewish high priest the king goddell the cayenne goddess considered the holiest jew on the holiest day of the year jim kippur when he went into the holiest place in the world the kardashians says the mission in the beginning of yuma he has to be married the cayenne goddess on the holiest day of the year he has to be married so the holiest jew in the holiest day you see the opposite notion that judaism does not want the person to disengage completely from the world but rather as he's going to say in allah base to sanctify the world base so now that you told me not to be an ascetic not to quit wine not to live in a shoebox to win we can we i should wear fine clothing live in a fine home eat and drink like an ordinary person get married build a family etc now the rambam discusses how a jew engages in the material world halakhal if he told you don't disengage don't run away from the planet lama shimon don't become desolate now the rambam says okay so how do we engage so now that's where allah base continues a person needs to focus and direct his heart and all of his activities laid this hashem to become aware of hashem baruch the sole purpose of it all should be a connection an intimate relationship with hashem to become aware of hashem because as the rambam discussed earlier hashem's wisdom hashem's energy hashem is manifest in everything in the world as he put it there from the highest spiritual form to the tiniest flea and mosquito in the navel of the earth the year shift a person resting or a person rising up or a person communicating meaning all aspects the whole gamut the spectrum of a person's life i'm going to sleep i'm getting up i'm talking i'm schmoozing i'm communicating it should all be directed towards this goal of laid there's hashem to become aware and connected to the divine what does this mean when a person involved is engaged in business a little scar or a person is doing work for a wage lawyer believer the cop looked sole purpose shouldn't only be to gather money more money and more money i should be able to stuff my pillowcases with money ella yasidvarim said volume rather a person should engage in these things so you should be able to have those things that the body needs in order to be able to live mahila to be able to eat she would be able to drink if she was biased to be able to live in a home the csu should be able to get married and have a have be married to a woman when a person drinks and a person eats person eats and drinks and eval is engaged in physical relationships and believe by allah says the sole purpose shouldn't only be physical pleasure and the result of that would be that i will only eat and drink that which is sweet to the palate if it's sweet to the palate i go for it because the sole purpose is i want to be able to have physical pleasure and comfort at this moment and the person will only have relationships in order to be able to satisfy my physical urges and pleasure to this moment that's not the way to live it's a very superficial very narrow small way to live it's ultimately not even the great enjoyment because these types of enjoyments dissipate as fast as they come elio a person has to live a holistic life a full life a life that integrates heaven and earth the spiritual and the physical alias in my libya a person should appreciate he's eating and drinking or she's eating drink de la havre is goofy in order to be able to live i don't live to eat i eat to live so that the body should be healthy all the limbs of the person should be healthy therefore listen to the rambam's words don't eat everything that your palate that your taste buds crave crave because they're partially sweet like the dog and the donkey ella you called him always make sure you're eating things that benefit that build that promote the health of the body imarin whether they're bitter in masukama they're sweet they may happen to be sweet they may not have such a good taste and so appealing to the taste buds but they're good for your body eat them because when a person has perspective why am i eating what's the ultimate purpose of the eating purpose of the eating is in order for the person to be able to be healthy to be able to have a wholesome body which is in itself leading you to the purpose of connection with ultimate truth then the person eats what is good for them that's a whole deeper type of enjoyment it's an enjoyment that is term that lasts for a lifetime and then this person will not eat do not eat things that are bad that are destructive for the body even if they seem delicious and my palate indeed says ooh this is sweet kate's for example misha yep sorry if somebody is hot blooded the warm the hot constitution loyal buster don't eat meat do not eat honey using metaphoric language in michelle 25. eating a lot of honey is really not good for you this is ocean such a type of a hot-blooded hot-blooded body should drink endive juice endive juice aphopish omar even though it's bitter sir foreign this person is eating and drinking in order to be healthy to maintain your health you should be wholesome and your body should be as perfect as possible because a person cannot live without nutrition without foods and drinks when a person engages in physical intimacy like evil alica de la havre is goofy a person should engage in a relationship in the physical relationship in order to ensure the health and the wholesomeness of the body you could delete zara and of course in order to bring children into the world foreign a person should not engage in intimacy whenever he experiences a craving allah called shayedah whenever he knows sorry that he needs to emit the seed of life from his body which is a part of being healthy oil kayama sazara or in order to maintain the human race civilization in order to be able to build a family and have children the rivet rabino avron bendavid comments here on the rambam that is of course a third purpose and that is a person is married one of the mitzvahs of marriage is aina there's an obligation of a husband to be able to bring satisfaction and joy to his wife unless she's completely not interested or she forgives him which is in itself something that has to be questioned what is going on derivative says that's another reason not only because it's good for his body or in order to have children it's also the mitzvah of aina is a mitzvah to have a relationship with a spouse and that relationship should be joyous and positive and it includes a physical relationship the kessif mission reverse of cairo says that iran doesn't say that because that's a mitzvah that's a biblical mitzvah in the torah that is going to discuss in the laws of marriage here the rambam is discussing things that the person does outside of a clear obligation there's no mitzvah that i have to drink wine every night there's no mitzvah that i have to eat a certain food or drink endive jews these are things that the person is creating a lifestyle based on his own or her disposition and how i understand my life and how i see myself and now i see my relationship with hashem so here the ramen is introducing another two components in addition to the mitzvah why a person should engage in physical relationships gimmel number three halakha three hamane smell for if somebody lives according to the doctor's advice the new the nutrition the nutritionist's advice according to the laws to the rules of medicine foreign if a person thinks i want my body and my limbs to be wholesome sound healthy but that's the sole purpose i just want to be healthy strong as an ox the shield i bound them and i want children you know why they should be able to help me in my work vamps they'll be able to toil i'm going to get older i'm going to need help right traditionally people have children so they can have another set of hands in the field i need people to help me i need kids to help me enzo derektava this is also not a good path we explained that a person should eat and drink and and focus on their health but don't stop here don't stop here elias a person has to realize now the physical wholesomeness must be linked with eternal spiritual true wholesomeness i want that my body should be wholesome i want my body should be strong in order that my soul should be able to be aware of the divine should be able to connect to hashem fascinating words a person cannot have the mental space to understand to comprehend wisdoms and the true wisdoms of the world when a person is hungry or a person is sick or one of his limbs is hurting in pain physical health it opens you up it's a prerequisite it's the baseline it's the foundation that the person should be able to grow spiritually the person should be able to learn to understand to perceive to connect via sima liboy and a person should also take to heart when this person is engaging in intimacy i want children it's not just i want a child so i should be able to have help in the field i should have a son a child hoping perhaps he'll be a great sage and great giant among the jewish people in other words you want a child who will light up the world a child who will bring to people to himself to his own loved ones and to the jewish people somebody who follows this path all of the days of his life as hashem it he is always serving hashem he is not serving hashem only when he's learning territory or observing mitzvahs he's always engaged in available affiliation when this person is involved in business in the midst of a business deal business transaction it's as divorced from religion as anything and as it would be so it would seemingly be so remote from religion even when this person is involved and engaged in physical intimacy because because there's a pervading thought there's a pervading consciousness an underlying theme that pervades this in persons in this person's entire life 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year if he's sleeping and he's drinking and he's eating and he's going to the doctor he's going to an appointment and he's involved in a business transaction and he's a telephone call he's engaged in intimacy or physical relationships there's a thought of a person should be able to have his needs actually to the point that his body should be wholesome in order to be able to serve hashem even when a person goes to sleep in yoshin if a person is sleeping with the consciousness that he wants that his mind should be able to rest and his body should be able to relax the body has to be able to gain its strength and become sick and then you cannot serve hashem when a person is sick it compromises the quality of avoidance hashem says this means shayna shalom avoid the lamak then this person's sleep is a service for hashem it's a service fashion and here i'm going to ask one of my questions the rambam already mentioned hashem and this parikh i think four times and each time he mentions hashem here suddenly the fifth time the rambam introduces a new name for hashem just the line earlier he said suddenly the rambam introduced a new name for hashem the hashem defined as the space after four times mentioning hashem as hashem which means the name which represents hashem here the fifth time the rambam changes hashem's name he puts in the word lamakham why my dear friends think about it valinians there on this theme our sages gave us a mitzvah they instructed us and they said this is the mission in pirkei of his chapter 2. all of your deeds should be for the sake of heaven for the sake of hashem this is what said in his wisdom this is not only the rambam doesn't say he could have said earlier the end of allah orphan here the rambam puts in the word said it in his wisdom the other thing salemma didn't say in his wisdom other things were also said with the wisdom of slimer but hey their puts in why this is what said with his wisdom in mishlai perigimo proverbs chapter 3 in all your ways you should know him you should know hashem and he will straighten out your ways he will bring straightness and clarity into all of your pathways in life so islam is saying in all of your ways you should know him not only when you're involved in sacred holy jewish religious activities of tyrion mitzvahs behold in all of your travels and journeys and all of the pathways of life meaning whatever path you're on whatever you're engaged in ultimately utilize that as a way of knowing hashem of seeing hashem of perceiving hashem and of connecting to hashem and here i'm going to ask you a question what comes first mishlei or prikayavis mishla is one of the 24 books of tanach pre-kayavas is a mishnays that was authored by rabbi nasi hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later so when the rama is bringing proof from two sources should he bring first from michele or first from pikayavas i would say first from ishley not only that the same theme of this halacha that the rambam says here in alcazepera gimbal is quoted and over there these two sources are quoted in the appropriate order first they used the rambam's theme but they changed the order because tereshabiksav comes before tereshab mishla comes before prakriovis the rambam first says what the hammer says and then he why does the rambam change the order so i'm going to give you a uh a brief explanation on this this is based on an idea that was shared by the laboratory the 13th of tamil's summer 1962. the rebbe said that the rambam perhaps is intimating that there are two states within this concept itself two levels and you have to go in order there's shame the differences as follows means all of your activities should be done for the sake of heaven for the sake of heaven means the mice is a mundane mice i'm eating i'm drinking the shame shamayim i'm doing it so that i have energy to be able to serve hashem i can think about hashem i could learn about hashem i can darwin i could learn i'm making money i'm making money what's making money making money is making money but i have a goal and the goal is i want to use my money for good things i want to use my money to get stuck i want to use my money to help people i'm going to sleep sleep asleep but through the sleep i'm going to have kayak i'm going to wake up a rested person i won't be grouchy i won't be sick i won't be lethargic so therefore i'm going to serve hashem i'm exercising why exercise is something material but the ultimate purpose is the shame shamay that's step number one which is very powerful the rambom is intimating at a deeper step but it's not just my physical engagements are for the sake and for the purpose that later i'll be able to utilize them for a divine purpose no much deeper than this behold you in all your ways you should know him i perceive hashem in all of my ways in other words i find the presence of hashem within the material and physical world within everything i am involved in like the rambam said earlier that hashem's infinite wisdom is present in every bush and every shrub and in every plant and in every in organic matter and inorganic matter and living organisms in the planet and in the tiniest flea in the navel of the earth everywhere there is hashem everywhere i could perceive ellicos i could perceive divine truth divine wisdom godliness a person is involved in business they could see in the business transaction they could find their wisdom the presence the divine providence the protest a person eats i can meditate and realize that the food itself is essentially a manifestation of hashem's energy of hashem's wisdom the food itself in other words is sacred and the same is true with everything in the world there is utilizing the world for a productive path in the future that's step one and then the rambam adds yet a deeper level of hashem i could connect i connect and i see hashem within every single experience i connected to the spirituality of it is a beautiful vote from the after of yeshua asheville of abdo no evie soul that says in paris was telling the jewish people not only this is the animal you should eat this is what you should eat the heroes inside of the food don't just surrender to the outer shell that's delicious to the taste but that's appealing to the taste but look for the kiosk there's there's a pnemonius over there there's a divine energy there so to speak the divine dna that constitutes the very matter it comprises the very matter of the food connect to that see it perceive it so that way this experience itself becomes part of my relationship just like in relationships the man and the woman that was going to say later in the relationship itself is a manifestation and a metaphor for the relationship between a person's soul and a person's body between hashem and the jewish people between heaven and earth as rama is going to discuss in the 10th chapter of hilhais chuva i think that's why the rambam uses the word la maka the name hashem has many names one of the descriptions of hashem is makkah say what's hashem constitute the space of the world but the world does not constitute his space in other words makkah represents the omni presence of hashem that he is the space of the world even though the world is not his space because hashem is not defined by the world but the world is defined by him which means every single space every nook and cranny every centimeter every inch of the world essentially is filled with divinity so the rambam says you're sleeping as an avoidant it's an invited to the omni-present one because hashem could be found even in my slumber even in my sleep my sleep is also an opportunity to connect to the divine and therefore the sleeping itself is also an opportunity to serve hashem perhaps that's why he emphasizes the name i'm going to tell you a great story it's a great story that happened with my brother-in-law my brother-in-law was once at a at some gathering and meeting and there was a uh a lot of jews there and a lot of jews who were involved in buddhism and various far eastern spiritual disciplines and somebody confronted my brother and he said rabbi i have a question do you think that uh buddhism is a good path for the jews to engage in because it's very spiritual and it's it's lofty and and it's a very refined path so my brother-in-law said that judaism is the path for the jewish people to connect to god so this man confronts him and says really do you know buddhist monks they are some of the most f they're the finest people in the world they're calm and they're serene and they're happy and they're loving and have this universal love and kindness and they're not grouchy and selfish and i said he says take the dalai lama what's wrong if i could live like the dalai lama i want to pursue isn't he a wonderful extraordinary compassionate happy person how can you say that this is not an appropriate path for the jewish people so my brother-in-law not skipping our hearts beat his clue he says listen you just praise the dalai lama to the heavens we have a jewish tradition for 4 000 years we do not believe any compliments about any single man in the world if we do not first discuss it with the man's wife we believe that the only one who can give us an honest opinion about any man is his wife you talk about the dalai lama in such powerful powerful terms you extolled his virtues adam finay i'm happy to accept it and accept your words about jews following buddhism but there's a condition i have to first speak to mrs dalai lama find out what's her opinion about her husband and then i can agree with you just our jewish tradition so the guy starts laughing he says i knew you were completely completely naive i know you were completely archaic don't you know that buddhist monks are celibate they don't engage in marriage that's the point that's the point the uniqueness of holiness and judaism is a holiness that integrates it integrates the spiritual and the physical and there's two reasons for it number one if i completely become an ascetic i can also fall very hard because the moment i discover my humanness it sometimes becomes so tempting that i actually fall to the other extreme so judaism advocates a life of moderation a life of synthesis a life of integration don't deny that you have a body but there's something even deeper than that and and that also includes the need for a person to be healthy to be able to be physically healthy and wholesome to be able to serve our ship but there's also something deeper than that and that is as an ideal our vision is one in which we believe in integration and synthesis angels the katskaraba once said it says you should be people of holiness he said holy angels god has in heaven enough what he wants is a holiness that permeates the world a holiness that is sin that's integrated within the physical world the ability to be able to turn the whole world into a dwelling place into a conduit into a place of unity with truth with eternity with the absolute ms of godliness hashem a beautiful hasidic interpretation we have aloha and shabbos you have to make kiddish in the place where the meal is i don't make kiddish day in shul and then i come home to have the meal unless i start the meal in seoul you have to do kiddush in the place of the meal of shabbos so one of the spiritual explanations is in judaism there's no kiddish that's divorced from the meal sometimes people in shul in the synagogue in the basement they're very holy i close my eyes and i scream nakadisha but then when i go into the office i can lie i can cheat i can backstab somebody i come to the house and i shriek and i shout and i yell and i denigrate and i'm abusive and i embarrass somebody ain't kiddish in judaism the only kedusha that we really cherish that the reborn of allah wanted is the holiness that enlightens and permeates and penetrates my feast my meal that everything that i'm involved in the physical world becomes permeated with holiness and perhaps that's the difference between means everything i do has to be for the sake of heaven which means you can't run away from this world it's not going to work it's not a path for nor for ordinary people it's not going to be successful it's not going to be productive you have to live in this world but remember don't become indulgent it should be the shame shema has to be a higher purpose a deeper purpose a holy purpose for the sake of god that's step number one and then there's a deeper step and that is that the ultimate vision of judaism is the vision of integration the vision to sanctify the landscape of planet earth and make hashem's presence fill every nook and cranny of our life of our psyche and of our environment that's the beholder you in all your ways you should know him this concludes the third chapter of helches deus this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate