Rambam Mishnah Torah: Hilchos De'os Chapter 1

the yeshiva.net [Music] we begin today the second section of halachus of the rambam's mission of torah the laws of ethics or of character development the first section of halal in which articulates the fundamentals the foundations of tyra and halacha over 10 chapters the second section immediately after that quite interestingly is hilca's deus the laws that have to do with deis and day is here means the mindset of the person and therefore the character of the person it's about personal development character development the rambam will outline here his halachic system of personal development personal growth how a person ought to live their values their ethics their behaviors their schedule including his system of psychology briefly and his system of health physical health emotional health spiritual health nutrition the daily schedule he'll just davis includes seven chapters and we begin the first chapter today so please open up hilah's deus includes all the mitzvahs of the 630 midterms of terror that he will be covering and exploring in this section if you remember he introduced it with ten mitzvahs then he covered over the ten chapters here he says his day is we have included 11 mitzvahs that we're going to be covering five of them are positive ones active ones six of them are things that we abstain from and here they go here we go alef to imitate the ways of hashem to align our pathways in life to the pathways of the divine which you will explain base another mitzvah interiors to cleave to be connected to those who know hashem gimmel lehigh to love your fellow dalai lama to love the stranger the foreigner the convert hey shalom never to loathe to hate brothers brothers it means again your fellow jew to be able to rebuke and communicate with somebody who has done or you feel has done something wrong zion shalom how big never to shame anybody never to oppress those who are misfortune the misfortunate those who are struggling in life to be sensitive to them never to oppress them and manipulate their weaknesses for your advantage tests not to be a tailbearer going around you know telling stories about people which well durable will explain what that means you chilling lincoln not to take revenge you'd aleph shalom tire not to harbor garages toxics not to harbor toxicity the toxicity of grudges in your hearts okay quite a uh list of mitzvahs to implement to be a mitzvah's a little bit practical the elucidation of all these 11 mitzvahs are going to be presented in the subsequent chapters which are seven chapters aleph penguin creation the first chapter of hilha's days day is hard yes very interestingly there are many character traits that every single person has visual and one is very different than another one and often very distant different and distant from each other people in other words around them are saying are complex they're not made out of you know one fabric one material every person balances and contains so many different traits and characteristics and temperaments and very different types yes is a person who's full of wrath he's always angry people by temperament they get angry very fast yash adam the person in the opposite extreme should die to him you shave he'll get a little angry once in a few years yeah we like this guy as they say in english once in the blue moon generally he's a very very calm relaxed serene person he's not hot temper doesn't lose his temper yes adam person who's very full of pride you know self-aggrandizement somebody who's exceedingly humble it's just a very different attitude yeshua baltimore to somebody who's full of cravings full of appetites he could never satiate his soul by satisfying its appetite he wants more and more and more just filled with with cravings for yeshua tahir and there's somebody who has a very pure you know very sensitive very delicate avalanche filled with he will often not even crave for small things that actually the body needs you know the types of people who could forget to eat lunch there's people who have a few lunches and then the types of people they're just very pure hearts very delicate hearts yes baldness recovers places there is a greedy person whose soul is so wide literally wide it will never be satiated from all the money in the world there's always more for me to take nephesh recovers i have the ambition to swallow and get more and more and more kenyan this is described in a possible in chapter five of ecclesiastes oh you've kissed if we use because someone who loves money will never be satiated with money as much as you give there's always more to take the yesh makatsuna shine into somebody the opposite the constant option means he restricts his soul his soul has a doesn't have such a uh desire such a union should die it's enough for him even a small thing shallows because even that is often not even enough for him valerie he won't even pursue to get all of his needs mamish the other extreme yeah somebody who's stingy on himself he will actually remain hungry with kovitz he will collect more money and more money and more money he is so stingy even on himself it's hard for him to squander his money even in his own needs he will literally says he will not spend a dime that was one of the smallest currencies he will not spend a pruta of his own only with a lot of pain but he's forced it's really hard for him to separate from his money the actual mom would call my mind to be a dilight and then you have an opposite type of person he'll just squander all of his money consciously you know he's just completely free-handed he'll squander it and spend it all without any meditation or plan valdra melo shy coladaes and in the same experience you have in so many different temperaments and shrinks kegoin you have maholo voila model is somebody who is always elated in a very dramatic and exaggerated way and oin is somebody who's miserable and depressed opposites really is a very stingy person just digi cannot handle giving or sharing with somebody else earlier that emerald spoke about misogynist member of somebody who's stingy for himself also he will remain or she will remain hungry not to spend here the person is actually not stitching on themselves but with other people they are so stingy and then you have sure sure is the contrast of kili somebody who who's free-handed who's a spender and perhaps for good causes also you know very like before i'm gonna talk about somebody who just will abid call my money he'll squander he'll throw out all of his money here it's a person who's actually an extremely extremely generous person they'll share with everybody you have a hazari somebody who's cruel just a cruel person or somebody who's compassionate you have rach levo somebody who has a very soft heart a lot of fear coward amid slave i'm enslaved as somebody who's like a warrior very strong heart a very powerful person their temperament is just very powerful and the list goes on of the extremes that so many people have one extreme or another extreme and the ramen continues between one temperament one trait and another trait that's on the other extreme there are also deus vedanese there are temperaments that are intermediate you know somewhere in the middle and also so many different types where do all these temperaments come from where do these traits come from you spoke about cruel people and compassionate people the list of the rambam you know he he gave us a list he spoke about people are always angry people are always serene people who are very proud that arrogant pompous people are extremely humble people who are great ballet typists their appetite knows no rest and people who are you know their needs are very very small people who always want more money and people who even for their needs they're not so particular people who are stingy on themselves and people who squander everything people who are always elated always you know exuberant and people who are miserable and depressed stingy people free-handed people cruel people compassionate people courageous people cowards where does all this come from says fascinating all these character traits some character traits the person has from the beginning of his creation and it's based on the nature of his body as we would say today it's the genetic makeup the dna the genetic code of this particular organism which basically creates these types of character traits these types of dispositions proclivities yeshua and deus there are other character traits that a person is predisposed to they're not born with it but their nature makes them such that they are much more open they're much more sensitive and open to absorb these types of character traits and certain traits will become integra ingrained in them faster than other ones this says i have certain predisposition certain sensitivities where i become i'm very conducive and open to absorb certain tricks vias mentioned then we come to the whole world of nurture things that are not part of the human nature they're not paramount but i learned them from others either actively consciously or you could say unconsciously but i learned a lot i absorb them from others or perhaps i acquired them because of a certain thought pattern or a certain idea that developed in me that caused me in other words it's not necessarily that people actually taught it to me i was an environment of people and this is what i learned this is how i was educated or this is the school or the community or the home i grew up with the family i grew up with but it's actually a thought that the person developed which of course that thought can also be influenced by others but it's a result of a thought that i developed and as there's therefore these character traits become part of my life it could be a mahava that i developed in my own heart or actually i heard it i heard that this is the right way to live and i actually implemented it in my life i decided to act on it until it became part of my art these are the different ways in which people operate and how they acquire and become the people they are says the two extremes distant from each other in extremes and each one of these above character traits is not the good path it's not appropriate it's inappropriate for the person to follow them or to teach them to them to teach them to himself in other words to follow them emulating others or to teach them to myself and become that person oh this is all good if you come to the rambam and you have a free slate that nothing happened yet and you're starting your life a new and you're one day old and you know you're impressionable so yes what happens if i find that my nature gravitates there this is part of who i am it's part of my dna or even if it's not part of my dna i'm predisposed to it it's just so easy for me to ingrain this type of attitude or i already learned this it's part of my nurture maybe not my nature but it's part of my nurture i'm already living this way what happens now says you're never ever a victim you can turn yourself to the proper way of living the good life the yellow and follow the good path and this is the appropriate path and the rambam says what do we mean by the right path or the correct path let me see how he translates the straight path this is the straight path says the rambam what is the straight path he bananas this involves discovering the midpoint temperament of each and every trait that a person possesses within his or her personality he without being close to either of them this is the straight path which is the middle babiness of the whole day of the day to be able to discover the midpoint the center point the midpoint temperament of all of the above and so many other character traits and as he said it's equidistant from either of the extremes the early sages have instructed us that a person should always evaluate himself or herself a person should be introspective shun the ice means i want to always evaluate examine scrutinize my character traits how i'm living calculating them evaluating them and directing them along the middle path that the rampant described and he says kadeshi in order that the person should be healthy in their body some manuscripts take out the word the goofy because he's not only talking about the body he's talking about the body and the mind and the soul so the rama was saying today the person should be wholesome the person should be a wholesome human being and shlamos wholesomeness comes from cultivating the derek so is the middle path what does this mean practically says shouldn't be wrathful who gets easily angry it's just so easy for me to lose my temper and i literally lose it that's not the way to live the lord can make shane and irish share which is subscribe the opposite reaction you know maybe if somebody grew up in a situation where they saw so much intense anger and so much intense emotion they go to the other extreme they don't feel anything the person around them calls them dead dead person walking in marcus i don't feel anything i'm never angry it's great i never raise my voice i never scream i never holler i never lose my temper but there's a price to pay price to pay is dead people also don't scream person is dead there's no feelings alebanonite is the intermediate path don't get angry only if it's a major issue that is really worthwhile to get angry and there's a reason for that cadential you have to display hurt and pain and feel hurt and pain because you really do not want that such a thing should happen again the person whose cravings are incessant they know no end so the rambam says can you cultivate a lifestyle in which you do crave things that the body needs that the body needs in order to live in order to exist i can't live without it he says this you want the craving for you want the yearning for king and shannema like deposit says in michelle proverbs 13 which means the righteous person the person who's living according to the derek yeshara the straight path eats in order to satiate their soul he eats to safety in his soul he doesn't live to eat he eats to live there's a very big difference i want my souls to be satiated so i should be able to live and that's why i'm going to eat vegan he spoke about the nephew that stingy person uh that person whose soul just wants more and more and more money and will never stop as oyev right he called him a nephesh the greedy person who cannot be satisfied with all the money in the world says that's not the way to live do not toil do not become completely immersed in your business in order to acquire those things that you need now in order to live king and successful 37 you know there are people they are so excessively indulgent in their work to make another they don't know what their children look like so the rambam says it's important for the person to want to be able to have what they need but perspective what i want to is i want to work in order to be able to have what i need now don't let it overtake your life you work to live you don't live to work the lawyer fights don't be very stingy the lawyer fazen on my name the opposite don't squander and just scatter all your money and then i said to doctor you give to duke if he misses the other according to what you can afford or malva karaoke and you lend in an appropriate fashion to the person who needs and what does it mean appropriately again it should be in a way that is measured below a high level don't be this frivolous exuberant person who's just elated in a very dramatic way i'd say but not melancholy depressed foreign and miserable eponymous a person all the days of his or her life should be basement should be joyous with serenity tranquility and with a pleasant face and a pleasant countenance but they are the same is true with all other character traits you want to try to find and discover and cultivate what he called the intermediate path which is equidistant from both extremes the derek how you shutter the straight path with derek zoohi derek this path is the path of the wise somebody asked the question what does it mean the middle path is just a little bit from this and a little bit from this you know there's going all the way right it's going all the way left you know imagine a light line one is one extreme and they're always saying you know just like not too hot not too cold is this just a mix is it a challenge of one extreme in another extreme or is it a third quality it's a third quality so it's a good question but it will become clear soon i want to quote a extraordinary teaching from thomas chapter 2 and i'm going to say it in hebrew because it's an incredible quote which may be one of the sources of the rambam one is a path of snow and one is a path of fire and basically you're walking it's it's as though you're saying you're walking on a very very uh tight bridge on one side you have snow a fire i should say and on the other side you have snow hit the bazaar if you gravitate this way he says you fall into the fire and if you gravitate this way you fall into the snow and yourself says if i gravitate this way i die i get burnt in the fire and the other way i freeze to death in the snow mayasa so i have to walk mamas in the middle between these two extremes of fire and snow and your xiaomi is basically telling us here there's one extreme of fire where you get burnt up from the heat and there's the other stream of snow where you don't get burnt up but you freeze to death from the coldness these are the two extremes the iran mum is describing and i have to find the derek that perfect equilibrium the balance hey call a person whose character traits are um our intermediate are centered this person is called wives maybe he is somebody who works on himself and is very meticulous with himself and he decides that he wants to distance himself from the intermediate path either to one side or the other side this [Music] somebody somebody who decides that he's going to distant himself from pride to the other extreme and he's going to be extremely humble he's not following here the derek bainen is the intermediate path he actually gravitates to one extreme this is called he's called a chaser this is midas hasidis the attribute of piety a life of piety vimnes if he distances himself from arrogance pompousness self-aggrandizement to the center point this person is called wise a wise person this is the attribute of wisdom versus hasid is the attribute of piety valdere zu sharqa day is the same is true with all the other temperaments and traits the early hasidim the early pious jews would indeed intentionally gravitate and cultivate temperaments and character traits that were not always in the middle but rather to one side or the other yesterday some character traits they would gravitate to one side and the other one to the other side in other words sometimes they would go more to one extreme and that some days they would go to the other extreme this is called le fenim which means going beyond the letter of the law um this is not just interesting discussions about people's nature this is this is a book of we are instructed to follow these paths which are intermediate they are the good life they are the pathways of goodness and righteousness and straightness shannemar the possib you should follow you should walk in his ways in hashem's ways parshas kisaway deuteronomy 28. this is what our sages taught about the commentary what is this mitzvah what does it mean to follow in hashem's ways to walk in his ways what does it mean i'm following his path so our sages said just as he's called gracious you should be gracious just as he is called compassionate you should be compassionate just as he's called sacred you should be sacred holy father and indeed this is why the prophets called hashem with all of these descriptions descriptive names erecha payan slow to anger easy to forgive rav khasid abundant kindness he has abundant kindness sadiq righteous yahshua straight tamim wholesome gibber mighty powerful khazak strong the kayatsuman all of these descriptive names of hashem discussed earlier in chapter six of yasaya torah to teach us that these are the good ways to live ibrahim and a person is obligated to cultivate them in his life to live this way and to imitate to become aligned to become a reflection of hashem according to the capacity of the human being so all of these descriptions that the sages defined hashem by giber and khanon and rachel and kadoish and sadiq and yashar and tamman is what is in order to help us fulfill this mitzvah of imitating hashem of aligning ourselves with hashem telling us that these are the ways in which we become a manifestation of the kedusa of the energy of the divine energy in our lives which i think the rambam is telling us here that the intermediate path then is not just you know a challenge taking a little bit of this and taking a little bit of this how is it what what people are robots what i could get to the point the midpoint there's the midpoint between arrogance and humility there's the midpoint between exuberance elation where i'm delirious and then and depression and misery people are not computers what's this midpoint midpoint and then the cassette says i'm not going to do midpoint i'm going to go a little bit that way there is really a very powerful idea the midpoint the center right of course there's no such a thing physically as the center either you're on this side or you're on this side so the rambam says it has to be equidistant equally distant from this extreme and this extreme what it really means is it's not just a challenge a mixture of one minute another i mean this is the way i understand it what the rambam is really teaching us here is that there is a mitzvah there is a mitzvah that when i can align myself with hashem i became become a manifestation of divine energy in this world and when i could become a manifestation of divine energy in this world then even if i have certain genetic dispositions and even if i have certain character traits that i was born with and things that i acquired through education or through nurture things that i taught myself or things that others influenced me and they may be very deeply ingrained in me but a human being nonetheless has an element of infinity within them so the person now is not defined and stuck in any particular modality ramen doesn't acknowledge the statement this is who i am this is why i must remain for the rest of my life not because we deny nature and we deny nurture he did not do that do that but because we appreciate the extraordinary resources and gifts and power and potential that every single human being has to become a manifestation of divine love of divine compassion of divine graciousness of divine confidence of divine power in this world and then what what type of person are you you're not the person who has to go to extremes extremes basically means i'm lost in it rather the person actually becomes an extraordinary synthesis of the best and the most beautiful in life because you're a manifestation of the divine in life which is the goodness in every single situation the truth of every single situation zion the kate easier said than done how does a person begin to live according to these character traits until they become part of him i was born differently these are my struggles these are my challenges there's only one way you do it and you do it again and you do it a third time three times you basically understand what these character traits are and they become habits that you do you don't talk about them you don't only think about them you actually do them you practice them constantly tum it perpetually you know what happens every time these actions become easier and at some point they're not even a burden anymore because they become part of your song now it's fascinating these words because today we know that when we do things over and over and over again we create what we today we call neural pathways literally new highways in the brain new wires in the brain connecting cells and it becomes part of our nature it becomes part of how my brain responds to things and maybe this is one of the reasons the rambam calls this hill his deus somebody said why is it called it's talking about midos talking about dispositions emotions temperament because by the rambam your das is so critical and so vital here and since these names are the names by which the yoitser the creator is called as he said before hashem is called all these names khanon and eric sadiq in other words these pathways these temperaments are names that we use for the ribbon of shalayalam and here i'm going to leave you with a question the word yoitzer the rambam does not use in mishna toyota ever again he only used it once in hil terra and this is the second and last time he will call hashem yitzer he could have said nick barron he uses the word the eight so why does he choose this phrase to describe hashem this is the second and last time in the whole mishnah question so since these are the names with which hashem is called and this is the intermediate path by which we are obligated to live and follow nikras derek zhu derek hashem this path is called the path of hashem this is the divine path because these are the names that hashem was given and this is the path that he wants us to live this is called the divine path in life the he shall limit of rama it's the path that avraham avinu taught his children shannema the passage says in valeria hashem says kia daity because he's going to teach his household and his family and his children to observe the path of hashem which path is he talking about the shamroot there which path is he talking about he says this is the path that avraham who taught his children living a divine life being a manifestation of the divine qualities in your own life and when you follow this path this is not just a path i'm telling you to do it because it's the path that we say you have to live the rambam says the reason you have to live this path is hashem wants us to live this path is realize that this is the path that brings the greatest goodness and the greatest blessing to your life shannen as the pastor continues in order for hashem to bring to avram that which he promised him this derek hashem allows you to become a vessel and a conduit for an extraordinary great life of goodness and of blessing this concludes the first chapter of rambam hillchris so it's interesting that calls hashem the former the way i understand it is what the rambam is telling us here is these are the names in which the yoytzer was called the former was given these names what does it mean the former the one who formed the life the one who formed the physique of every person and every organism and everything and the one who formed my mind the one who formed my dna the one who formed every cell the one who formed every neuron the one who formed every nerve cell the one who formed me who formed my life physically psychologically emotionally spiritually chemically atomically the one who formed the on a cellular level the one who formed me genetically he formed me if these are the names by which the yoitzer is called this is how he formed he formed me by these names in other words he gave me the potential to be able to become a reflection of these names i was formed by the one who has these names so i can become a manifestation an embodiment of the one who formed me of the youtu there's a beautiful expression also brings us [Music] i think that's the key you want that that surah should become aligned with the yaitzer that surah is the form the yoyo is the one who formed it when i live a certain way that surah becomes a mirror of the yetzer it becomes a reflection of the former of the creator what he created becomes a manifestation and the human being due to his or her power of choice and soul could become that surah that reflects the uh sir and that's the middle hampshires he's talking about sometimes there's also midas hasidis which means i manifest something of the divine in even a more intense and powerful way that's called midas hasidis versus midas that's how i understand it does he mean middle because it means that you have to keep balanced and not go to extremes about anything yeah of course that's what he says clearly that the middle means there's a balance you're not this extreme that's basically what he means there's the middle path you're not extreme my point was can you really pinpoint the middle the middle is really the essence it's the essence that perfectly combines both why does it combine both because it transcends both because it's not fixed in one or the other and that's what he calls the derek hashem this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at 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