Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: What Sefer Mishlei Is

Just a head's up.  My chavrusa and I have started learning Sefer Mishlei according to the explanation of the Gr"a; therefore you're going to be reading more about that.  Well, to be precise, you'll get the emails, but whether you actually read them or not is up to you.  HaMeivin Yavin.

The Gr"a begins by giving us a lesson in managing complexity.  Any matter, he says, has four components that need to be appreciated in order to understand/utilize the matter.  Those four are: the material out of which it is made, who is working with that material, the format into which that material is being placed, and for what purpose.  For example, one could take trees, pine needles, rocks, etc and make them into a forest.  It could be done by the US Parks Commission in order to provide a national recreation facility.

The point is that one needs all four of these categories of information before one can even start to be effective in understanding and utilizing the system.  Unless you know what is building material and what is the format, you will have trouble seeing the forest (format) for the trees (material).  Unless you know the author's intent, you will keep stumbling in understanding why things are the way they are.  When all is said and done, though, the competence of the author speaks to the quality of the execution and the probability of achieving its purpose.

Sefer Mishlei begins:
Mishlei Shlomo ben David, Melech Yisrael.  La'da'as chochma u'musar, l'havin imrei bina.  La'kachas musar haskeil, tzedek u'mishpat u'meisharim.
The construction material: mashal.  Translation: adage, parable, dictum.  Ok, ok... proverb.  In other words, everything in this sefer is to be understood as stating universal truths by way of example.  It is not the example itself that is important, but the truth behind it.

The author: Shlomo ha'Melech -- the wisest of all men.  'Nuff said.

The format: To know wisdom and discipline, to understand deep concepts.  Shlomo haMelech will weave mashalim into vignettes that speak to wisdom, discipline, and the deepest concepts of our reality.

The purpose: To become a perfected human being by responding intelligently to all of life's challenges, acting in all ways with righteousness and piety.

Oh... is that all.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more