Having finished the introductory verses (although Rasag sees verse 7 as part of the introduction, as we’ll see in a moment) we can hopefully move somewhat more quickly through the sefer. Nonetheless, Mishlei is a rich work, as are the commentaries we have chosen to study. I will attempt to maintain reasonable movement in our discussions, but if at some point we seem to be moving too slowly, please let me know and we can consider our options.

The verse reads: "Yirat Hashem reshit da`at, hokhmah u-musar evilim bazu, which literally means "The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, a fool denigrates wisdom and instruction." Rashi and Gra both see this as the beginning of the book itself, and see the word reshit as chronological. That is, they think that the verse is stressing that without fear of God, it is extremely difficult to acquire religious knowledge. As Gra phrases it, fools denigrate such knowledge so that although they may study it repeatedly, it will simply not stick in their minds.

One of the assumptions that underlies this reading of the verse is that it is meaningful to speak of "natural" fear of God, meaning that even a complete ignoramus can have some fear of God. That might seem obvious, except that Rasag did not accept that possibility. Rasag pointed out that it takes a great deal of knowledge to be able to be fully yerei shamayim. Indeed, we all know the Mishnah in Avot that says that a bur, someone devoid of knowledge, cannot be a yerei het, one who fears sin.

Rashi and Gra would perhaps have responded that there are two different versions of yirat Hashem that we are discussing—one in which the person knows nothing but has committed to studying and doing what God wants, while the other refers to the higher levels of relationship with God that stems from study and effort.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: Can you see why Rasag might not deem that first type of yirat Hashem meaningful enough to be the referent of the verse? Do you see the two types of fear of God articulated by Rashi and Gra as similar to each other or sharply different? In what ways? Does thinking about these issues help you formulate the distinction between Gra and Rashi on the one hand and Rasag on the other in a sharper, clearer way?

Another difference between Rasag and the others is that he sees this verse as still part of the introduction. For Rashi and Gra, Mishlei had already made its first recommendation (to begin one's search for knowledge with basic yirat Hashem), but for Rasag we are still giving a broad overview of the work. He therefore explains that reshit here (and in David haMelekh’s better-known formulation reshit hokhmah yirat Hashem) means "the most important" rather than first. Reshit can be either chronological or ideological, and here it is the latter. If that is true, the verse is reminding us that the ultimate goal of our reading of Mishlei (and of our pursuit of knowledge generally) is acquiring full yirat Hashem.

The verse reads: "Shema beni musar avikha, ve-al titosh Torat imekha, Hear my son the instruction of your father and do not neglect the Torah of your mother" and Rasag again wins the prize for most surprising comment. Rashi and Gra agree on the central issue in explaining the verse, that musar avikha is different from torat imekha. For Rashi, musar avikha is the Torah that was given at Sinai (with av referring to God Himself, as it were), meaning both the Written and the Oral Torah. Torat imekha is that which umatkha, your nation (a play on the word imekha), the Jewish people, added to the original Torah, which Rashi explains as the words of the Sages who added and instituted protective ordinances around the Torah (see also this week's Halakhah in Brief, on the mitsvah of bal tosif). In that reading, the verse simply adjures us to follow the entirety of Torah, with God metaphorically considered a father who lays down the law, and the Jewish people (in the persons of Hazal) being the mother, who adds to that law in such a way as to attune it to the needs of the people living it.

Gra offers two versions of the distinction, showing that he is not dedicated to finding a single correct meaning of the verse. He first reads musar as the Written Torah and torat imekha as the Oral. Gra uses the split between Written and Oral often, which we can discuss at greater length when we have more information. For here, we should just note that he divides the categories of Law referred to in the verse based on the form in which they were transmitted, whereas Rashi distinguished based on the giver of the Law.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: Faced with the need to divide Torah into two parts, would you choose Rashi or Gra's division? What does your choice (and theirs) reveal about your fundamental assumptions about the nature of Torah?

In his second version, Gra sees the da`at referred to in verse 7 as part of a triumvirate of knowledge in these two verses, with musar here referring to positive commandments (mitsvot `aseh) and torat imekha referring to prohibitions (mitsvot lo ta`aseh). Those three parts of Jewish knowledge—Torah that does not have specific content, positive religious acts, and prohibtions—parallel, for Gra, the three partners that create a person, God, a father, and a mother. If we take the parallel seriously (as Gra did), that means that God provides general principles of life that apply universally, the father provides an awareness of specific positive methods one takes to achieve certain goals, and mothers give a sense of what to avoid as distracting to those goals. Gra obviously recognizes that God gave all the three parts of Torah, he just means that the three partners have functions that parallel three different elements of Torah.

Rasag denies that the verse means to differentiate mothers from fathers at all. He instead points out that in the Hebrew language, two halves of a sentence can refer to two different subjects, when really each half refers to both. Here, that means that we need to follow the musar and Torah of both our mother and father. Similarly, the verse or zarua latsadik, u-le-yishrei lev simhah, a light is ready for the righteous person and for one who is straight of heart there is joy, does not mean that the righteous gets light while the straight of heart get happiness. The verse means that each one gets both. The upshot for our verse is an implicit rejection of a central difference between parents in the messages and contributions they make in their children’s lives.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: Do you think that the two parents in a family tend to give different types of messages? Would your view of those differences help you formulate a meaningful reading of musar avikha as opposed to torat imekha? Does that difference have parallels in the realm of Torah study and knowledge?

The verse reads "Ki livyat hen hem le-roshekha, ve-`anakim le-gargerotekha, for they are a wreath of grace for your head and a necklace for your neck." The general meaning of the verse is obvious, that the various forms of instruction will eventually decorate us if we study them. Gra contributes to our understanding, however, by differentiating a wreath from a necklace in two ways. First, he claims that the custom used to be to give women jewelry based on which of their strengths the giver wished to honor—for intelligence, one would give a wreath, whereas for actions, one would give a necklace (since the body is the locus of actions). Imagine if people gave gifts to each other that way in our times-- the insults that might be given by praising the wrong aspect of a person! (Supposedly, the Beit haLevi once angered a hazzan in a certain town by praising his Torah knowledge; the hazzan pointed out that people hearing that would assume that he did not have a good voice!)

Taking that parallel to Torah, knowledge of Torah serves as a wreath for one’s head, since it is all of one piece and applicable at all times. Observance of the commandments, which Gra sees as applying at specific times or in specific situations, is more like a necklace, since it is composed of distinct pieces. For Gra, then, the two parts of the verse refer to differing elements of the Torah experience, and the reasons to assiduously follow each. Note, since it will come back again, that Gra sees Torah study as always available for religious endeavor, whereas mitsvot are more limited in their spiritual utility, since they are not always applicable.

Rasag does not differentiate between a wreath and a necklace, but he does mention that these decorations will accrue to a person in both this life and in the World to Come, a notion not specifically mentioned by Mishlei, but which Rasag will refer to repeatedly. In general, a Jew referring to Olam haBa is no surprise, but it is in the context of a plainsense presentation of Mishlei, since he is going beyond the simple reading of the text. It suggests that the World to Come was a pressing issue for Rasag, one he saw even where the text did not. This may have been because he had contemporaries who denied the notion (such as the Karaites) or his intended audience did not believe in it as fully as he would have liked, or because he had a personal concern with it. Whatever the reason, the mention of Olam haBa where the text is silent on the issue alerts us to something idiosyncratic to Rasag.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: What are some religious themes that would elbow their way into your interpretation of Mishlei (or any book of Tanakh) with minimal textual support? What does that say about the central religious issues that occupy your thoughts when you open sifrei kodesh? Do you see those as a function of your personal religious experience, or as expressing issues common to many in this generation?

Shabbat Shalom.