With פסוק ח, we start the first book of ספר משלי. This continues through פרק ט, and is centered around the image of a parent giving advice to their child. בני or בנים is adressed 19 times in this book, and only 6 times in the rest of the ספר.
ח שמע בני מוסר אביך; ואל תטש תורת אמך׃ ט כי לוית חן הם לראשך; וענקים לגרגרתך׃
An important part of this משל is the two types of teaching: מוסר אביך and תורת אמך.
There were two mesoros that Moses transferred to Joshua. One is the tradition of Torah learning, of lomdus. The second mesorah, the hod, was experiential. One can know the entire Maseches Shabbos and yet still not know what Shabbos is. To truly know what Shabbos is, one has to spend time in a Yiddishe home. Even in those neighborhoods made up predominantly of religious Jews, today one can no longer talk of the sanctity of Shabbos. True, there are Jews in America who observe Shabbos; but there are no “Erev Shabbos Jews”, who go out to greet Shabbos with beating hearts and pulsating souls.
What is torat imekha? What kind of a Torah does the mother pass on? I admit that I am not able to define precisely the massoretic role of the Jewish mother…I used to watch [my mother] arranging the house in honor of a holiday. I used to see her recite prayers; I used to watch her recite the sidra every Friday night and I still remember the nostalgic tune. I learned from her very much. Most of all I learned that Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in life—to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders. Without her teachings, which quite often were transmitted to me in silence, I would have grown up a soulless being, dry and insensitive.
We have that model of תורת אמך in the aggadot of Serach, who lives throughout Jewish history.
ושם בת אשר שרח: לְפִי שֶׁהָיְתָה קַיֶּמֶת בְּחַיֶּיהָ מְנָאָהּ כָּאן.
אפילו בדורו של משה, בדור פלאים שיצא ממצרים, שראה מראות אלקים בסיני וקיבל את התורה, צריכים היו לדמות קדומה, סרח בת אשר, שבילדותה ישבה בחיקו של הסבא הזקן והשתעשעה בשערות ראשו וזקנו. בלעדיה הייתה נפסקת רציפת הדורות האישית…אי-אפשר לרנן זֶה אֵ־לִי וְאַנְוֵהוּ, אם אין שירת ההווה מוצמדת לשירת העבר—אֱ־לֹהֵי אָבִי וַאֲרֹמְמֶנְהוּ. רק אֵם זקנה, שחוחת גו וחרושת פנים, שהתחטאה לפני הזקן וקראה לו ”סבא“, יודעת את סוד חיבור הדורות וקישור הימים ההם עם הזמן הזה.
And of course, this is a משל, a metaphor. We are all the “בן”, and the אב and אם represent הקב״ה and the people of Israel as a whole, respectively.
שמע בני מוסר אביך: מה שנתן הקב״ה למשה בכתב ועל פה.
אמך: אוּמתך, כנסת ישראל; כמו (יחזקאל יט:ב) מָה אִמְּךָ לְבִיָּא.
Dr. Haym Soloveitchik calls this תורת אמך, the mimetic tradition.
And a way of life is not learned but rather absorbed. Its transmission is mimetic, imbibed from parents and friends, and patterned on conduct regularly observed in home and street, synagogue and school.
Did these mimetic norms—the culturally prescriptive—conform with the legal ones? The answer is, at times, yes; at times, no. And the significance of the no may best be brought home by an example with which all are familiar—the kosher kitchen, with its rigid separation of milk and meat—separate dishes, sinks, dish racks, towels, tablecloths, even separate cupboards. Actually little of this has a basis in Halakhah. Strictly speaking, there is no need for separate sinks, for separate dishtowels or cupboards. In fact, if the food is served cold, there is no need for separate dishware altogether. The simple fact is that the traditional Jewish kitchen, transmitted from mother to daughter over generations, has been immeasurably and unrecognizably amplified beyond all halakhic requirements. Its classic contours are the product not of legal exegesis, but of the housewife’s religious intuition imparted in kitchen apprenticeship.
…It is this rupture [the loss of the mimetic tradition] in the traditional religious sensibilities that underlies much of the transformation of contemporary Orthodoxy. Zealous to continue traditional Judaism unimpaired, religious Jews seek to ground their new emerging spirituality less on a now unattainable intimacy with Him, than on an intimacy with His Will, avidly eliciting Its intricate demands and saturating their daily lives with Its exactions. Having lost the touch of His presence, they seek now solace in the pressure of His yoke.
ספר משלי is meant to be a fusion of the two. Not lectures of dry law, but not really mimetic. We aren’t seeing or participating in the experiences that shape our moral intuition. משלים are not really observations. We are just reading about them. But they will still serve a purpose.
And the first lesson is about that memetic moral intuition. Our brains determine what is “normal” and therefore what is “right” by observing how others behave. That isn’t a conscious decision; that’s our primitive social primate brain at work. What we can decide is who counts as the others in our social group. Choose your friends wisely.
י בני אם יפתוך חטאים אל תבא׃ יא אם יאמרו לכה אתנו; נארבה לדם; נצפנה לנקי חנם׃ יב נבלעם כשאול חיים; ותמימים כיורדי בור׃ יג כל הון יקר נמצא; נמלא בתינו שלל׃ יד גורלך תפיל בתוכנו; כיס אחד יהיה לכלנו׃
Jonathan Haidt demonstrated that our moral decisions are made, not by logical reasoning, but by intuition. And that intuition is socially determined.
This article reviews evidence against rationalist models and proposes an alternative: the social intuitionist model. Intuitionism in philosophy refers to the view that there are moral truths and that when people grasp these truths they do so not by a process of ratiocination and reflection but rather by a process more akin to perception, in which one “just sees without argument that they are and must be true”…
The social part of the social intuitionist model proposes that moral judgment should be studied as an interpersonal process. Moral reasoning is usually an ex post facto process used to influence the intuitions (and hence judgments) of other people. In the social intuitionist model, one feels a quick flash of revulsion at the thought of incest and one knows intuitively that something is wrong. Then, when faced with a social demand for a verbal justification, one becomes a lawyer trying to build a case rather than a judge searching for the truth…
Because people are highly attuned to the emergence of group norms, the model proposes that the mere fact that friends, allies, and acquaintances have made a moral judgment exerts a direct influence on others, even if no reasoned persuasion is used.
Call it memetic morality. That can work, as long as we are only apes in small clans, and we know where we fit in the hierarchy of the clan. But once we have larger societies, we need more formal structure, to say “this is right”, “this is what people do”. That structure is called government. In the absence of government, the pasuk says, נבלעם כשאול חיים. The Mishna borrows that image:
רבי חנינא סגן הכהנים אומר: הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות, שאלמלא מוראה, איש את רעהו חיים בלעו.
חיים בלעו: דכתיב (חבקוק א:יד) וַתַּעֲשֶׂה אָדָם כִּדְגֵי הַיָּם; (עבודה זרה ד,א) מה דגים שבים כל הגדול מחבירו בולע את חבירו, אף בני אדם אלמלא מוראה של מלכות כל הגדול מחברו בולע את חבירו.
The Maharal connects this image of “swallowed whole” with the idea that every human being is uniquely significant. But we have to realize that this is true not only of us (and our in-group, our clan), but every other human being.
לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי, ללמדך, שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל, מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא. וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל, מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו קיים עולם מלא…
ולהגיד לד גדולתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד וכולן דומין זה לזה, ומלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון לו ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו.
לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר, בשבילי נברא העולם.
Maharal points out that animals, other species, are all the same; there is no moral worth to the differences between individuals.
שהרי כל אדם אומר ”בשבילי נברא העולם“, והוא בלבד ראוי בעולם, ולכך היה בולע את רעהו חיים, עד שהוא נשאר בלבד. ולכך אמר ”הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות, שאלמלא מורא מלכות“, שהוא מקשר האנשים הפרטים עד שהם מתחברים. ואם לא היה זה, כל אחד בולע את רעהו חיים…שלא יהיה נמצא רק הוא.
The way out of this paradox is called ענווה, humility.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.
Yet there is no getting away from our own vantage point…It’s hardwired into the fabric of creation…The anav…too says, “The world was created for me”, because this is engrained within all of us, yet his statement has a spin. He is actually saying, “The world was created for me to give”.
And then the משל tells us that joining a bad crowd will not end well.
טו בני אל תלך בדרך אתם; מנע רגלך מנתיבתם׃ טז כי רגליהם לרע ירוצו; וימהרו לשפך דם׃ יז כי חנם מזרה הרשת בעיני כל בעל כנף׃ יח והם לדמם יארבו; יצפנו לנפשתם׃ יט כן ארחות כל בצע בצע; את נפש בעליו יקח׃
The Gra emphasizes that just hanging round with a bad crowd will lead to a bad end.
מנע רגלך מנתיבתם: כלומר, לא מיבעיה ש”אל תלך בדרך“ שהוא הדרך גדול עצמו שהם דורכין והולכין בו אִתָּם, אלא ”מנע רגלך“ בפני עצמך בלא הם ו”מנתיבתם“ הקטנים שמהן באים להדרך הגדול והיינו הדברים המביא לידי זה.
And then we have a metaphor within a metaphor. The נארבה לדם; נצפנה לנקי חנם won’t catch anything: כי חנם מזרה הרשת.
And והם לדמם יארבו; יצפנו לנפשתם: their traps will only trap themselves. Only they will be hurt.
כן ארחות כל בוצע בצע: גוזל גזילה נאה ונחמדת היא לו וחנם היא לו וסופו.
את נפש בעליו יקח: נפש עצמו שנעשה עכשיו בעל הממון שגזל מחבירו.
Rabbi Morris notes the יקח in נפש בעליו יקח. That expression is used in the Torah for creating divisions, tearing down society.
ויקח קרח בן יצהר בן קהת בן לוי; ודתן ואבירם בני אליאב ואון בן פלת בני ראובן׃
ויקח קרח: לקח את עצמו לצד אחד להיות נחלק מתוך העדה.
In the end, the מוסר אביך and תורת אמך aren’t about the crimes of stealing and murder. Everyone knows that’s wrong. It’s about the value of community, of having community standards that support one another rather than tear each other down.