As we have already seen with Rashi, the fifth verse of the book reads "yishma hakham ve-yosif lekah, ve-navon tahbulot yikneh, a wise one will hear and add knowledge and one of insight will acquire stratagems." Two aspects of Gra's reading stand out-- first, he reads the adding of more knowledge as being a result of the types of lessons to which the earlier verses of Mishle referred.

Rather than Mishlei itself being the source of increased knowledge, it is only the source of the ways of getting to that increased knowledge. While in one way, it is more realistic to conceive as Mishlei of a book of strategies rather than a repository of all knowledge, it is not the way that others had read the verse. Gra's reading also highlights his interest in the process of acquisition of knowledge. To remind ourselves of how important simple study was to Gra, we need only remember the enormous energy he devoted to study (denying himself sleep, reviewing material incessantly, etc.), although his remarkable intelligence should have meant that he could have it come easily to him. According to his student R. Haym Volozhin, Gra once remarked to him that it was impossible to understand any topic in the Talmud unless it had been reviewed a hundred times. It is somewhat interesting, in that light, to see that Gra thought of Mishlei as partially being a primer on how to acquire knowledge most effectively.

The navon of the second half of the verse is the person who, having acquired knowledge, now derives new insights based on that foundation. According to Gra's students, any insights that he recorded in his own hand were written before he turned forty, the period of his life where he saw himself as studying and conquering

The sixth verse of Mishlei (the last in the introduction, in Gra’s reading) notes that the book will also teach readers to understand "mashal u-melitsah, divrei hakhamim ve-hidotam, parables and their underlying meaning, the words of the Sages and their real meaning." Others read the verse as self-referential; Shlomo is promising to teach readers not only the mashal of Mishlei, but its underlying meaning, which includes the words of wise people, both as stated and in their essential meaning.

Gra, however, sees mashal as referring to all of the Written Torah (which may include all of Tanakh). He notes that these texts are all apparently easy to understand, and yet have hidden meanings as well. So, too, divre hakhamim refers to the aggadic portions of the Talmud, sections that seem clear (if a bit fantastic, in that the stories that they tell are odd or wondrous in incredible ways) and yet also have a deeper, hidden meaning.

This interpretation repeats two aspects of Gra’s work that we have seen before. First, he is once again assuming that Mishlei does not see itself as containing all of wisdom, just as teaching the proper way to decipher other repositories of wisdom. Second, it stresses the notion of hidden knowledge, of texts (in general, not just Mishlei) which have an obvious meaning, but are only fully understood when penetrated more deeply.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: Rambam was also fond of the notion of esotericism, of writing (and seeing earlier holy books as having been written) in a hidden style, where a certain level of preparation was necessary before one could fully understand the text. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy? Why would both Gra and Rambam see sifrei kodesh as adopting it? Do you agree that the Torah was written this way?

At the end of this verse, Gra throws in a comment that I will not fully explain, but that is very stimulating. He notes that the introductory six verses gave three general terms—hokhmah, musar, and binah, and twelve specific ones (I won’t list them, but you can go back and count). Similarly, he says, there were three Patriarchs and twelve tribes, and three mentions of God’s Name in the Priestly blessing, with twelve other words.

Aside from the mathematical bent this comment displays (how many of us have noted that birkat kohanim has 12 words other than the Names?), it also suggests a view of a recurring structure in some aspects of Judaism. In wisdom there are three main types, with twelve expressions of those, as there are in the Jewish people (with the Avot as the archetypes), and then (most surprising of all), the blessing that God ordained for the priests to bestow upon the people do the same thing. This also means that each of the words of the birkat kohanim should be seen as an extension of God’s Name in some way.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: In what sense are the 12 tribes extensions of the Avot? Can you extend that idea in some meaningful way to Gra’s two other examples?

Since we have already seen these verses twice, I will simply mention the points I found most interesting in Rasag’s presentation. He ignores the first verse, and reads the next three as referring to the four parts of wisdom he had mentioned in the introduction-- study, remembering, deep consideration, and selection of correct options. Interestingly, however, he does not attempt to put them in the order in which they must occur for humans. For example, he reads the phrase "lehavin imrei binah" as meaning to be able to choose correct from incorrect, which was the last of the four in the introduction. The next three do not follow in any particular order, either.

The natural assumption would have been that Mishlei lists the parts of wisdom in some meaningful order. To see Rasag reading the verses this way suggests that he was faced with contradictory truths-- he was convinced that these verses refer to the parts of wisdom, that those parts were the four he listed in the introduction, and (most problematically) that the phrases could only fit parts of wisdom that made them go out of order. When we see a commentator twist simple meaning in this way, it should alert us to the possibility that factors other than the text itself were shaping his reading. Here, for example, I suspect that it was Rasag's confidence that he knew what the parts of wisdom were (independent of this text) that forced him to fit them into the words of the verses.

One other aspect of his interpretation of these verses worth mentioning is his view that studying pre-existing knowledge (the first stage of wisdom, and the meaning of the words "lakahat musar" in verse 3) involves four types of subjects. These four are: simple propositions (numbers and their simple properties, for example), concepts that extend from those simple ones (such as geometry's theorems), mitsvot that the intellect would have come to on its own (such as anti-theft laws), and those that it would not (such as, perhaps, shatnez). He calls the two kinds of mitsvot sikhliyot-- from sekhel, in that the intellect can derive them without a command-- and shim`iyot, from shema, in that we just listen to God about them. This distinction, by the way, is R. Saadya's, and the terminology became common in Jewish thought.

Note that Rasag has included both Jewish and non-Jewish subject matter in his definition of wisdom-- the stuff we need to learn from teachers in order to move on with our wisdom involves Torah as well as general knowledge. This will come up repeatedly, but it is a breadth of vision worth noting.

Rasag defines the four types of communication from verse 6 (see above) as depending on the strength of the parable. In a mashal, only the hidden meaning has any value. A melitsah is where both the plain sense and the hidden meaning have value. Divrei hakhamim are parables given by God to His prophets, which have the strength of being divine, while hidah are parables whose interpretations are given explicitly in Scripture. While Rasag understands the need for oblique expression, then, he sees the more explicit explanations as providing strength to a lesson rather than weakening it. An interesting contrast to the views of Rambam and Gra we mentioned earlier, and one more piece of evidence to keep in mind in considering questions of exo- and esotericism. Shabbat Shalom.