We have a small parsha of the Beis Din Hagodol, which contains a shoreshdik havanah in Chochma, Torah, and Yiras Shomayim.

Questions:

1. The Passuk (17:8) says

   כִּי יִפָּלֵא מִמְּךָ דָבָר לַמִּשְׁפָּט בֵּין דָּם לְדָם בֵּין דִּין לְדִין וּבֵין נֶגַע לָנֶגַע דִּבְרֵי רִיבֹת בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ וְקַמְתָּ וְעָלִיתָ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בּוֹ:

   Devarim 17:8

   When something is a Pelah, when you don’t understand it, you go to the place Hashem chose – meaning to the Beis HaMikdash where the Sanhedrin haGadol sits.

   The not-knowing is described as a Pelah – a wonder. The word Pelah is usually reserved for something that is beyond understanding, like “mafli la’asos” – how Hashem can put neshama and guf together. We see it, we can say the words, but we don’t understand it. That’s taka a wonder! But by court cases, what exactly is a Pelah? If you don’t know or understand something you just ask someone wiser, and once they explain it to you, now you understand it. What’s so “pelah-dik?” The use of Pelah seems out of place.

2. “וְקַמְתָּ וְעָלִיתָ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם” – You should go up to the “place.” Why is this described as going to a place? Aren’t you going to the Sanhedrin Hagadol? So say you’re going to the Sanhedrin Hagadol! It’s true the Sanhedrin Hagadol sits in that place, but is the place the ikkar or is the Sanhedrin the ikkar? Why is this described as going to a place?

3. Chazal explain this court case of Pelah is describing the Zaken Mamreh, a chacham defying Beis Din. The defiance, Chazal say, is a specific type of rebellion. It’s not when Beis din is saying “we have a mesorah of a” and the zaken mamreh is saying “I have a mesorah of b.” It’s not even B”D saying “we think m’svara that a” and the zaken mamreh saying “ I think m’svara that b.” Chazal say it’s a case where B”D say “we have a mesorah” and the zaken mamreh saying “I have my understanding – kach nir’eh b’eynai.” Why is this the specific form of defiance that the Torah says we need to go to the makom of the Sanhedrin Hagadol?

Answers:

The passuk says “Reishis Chochma, Yiras Hashem.” The foundation of wisdom is Yiras Hashem. Why? Why is Yiras Hashem the Reishis of Chochma?

You can say balabatish, that you need Yiras Hashem, because otherwise, all that wisdom is for naught. But to call that Reishis is not accurate. The person is still a chacham, he acquired wisdom, but unfortunately he misuses it. So yirah wasn’t needed to acquire chochma. Yirah just preserves it. That’s nice but that doesn’t seem to be Reishis, the foundation.

Another balabatish pshat – You can say it means Yiras Hashem is needed to acquire wisdom, but again, that simply puts it in the category of a prerequisite. You know, you need a lot of things in place in order to learn. You need a quiet place. You need zitsfleish. And you also need Yiras Hashem. Those may be prerequisites, but they are not Reishis.

The Havana in Reishis means the starting point that everything else is built off of and everything else gets calibrated to.

For example: When someone asks you what’s wrong with doing x? And you say “well, because it says not to do so in a passuk.” They may respond “well, what makes the passuk authoritative?” And you say “because it was given by Hashem!” They may respond “well, how do you know it was given by Hashem?” You’ll say because millions of people witnessed it. They’ll say “maybe they were all hallucinating.” Such a conversation is going nowhere, because there’s no fixed starting point that is accepted as the given where everything else is built off of and calibrated to.

In order to have some sense of knowledge, there need to be an axiomatic beginning that is immovable and everything else finds meaning by being anchored into that axiom. That’s the way of wisdom, to build a consistent worldview, which rest on a foundational point, and everything connects and extends from that foundational point. That’s is the starting point of wisdom and it also gives endurance to the wisdom.

However, once you detach from the Reishis, your chochma has nothing to stand on. If I build a whole theory based on an underlying assumption, and that assumption proves false or changes, then all the “wisdom” I constructed collapses.

Real wisdom rests on, is built upon, and is calibrated to a fixed point that exists, and cannot shift or change.

Real wisdom needs Yirah. Yirah as opposed to Ahavah. As wonderful as both of these middos are, there’s a fundamental difference between Ahavah and Yirah. With Ahava, I am the starting point – I relate to something because I want to. As opposed to Yirah, I am not the starting point. I defer to an other. Even if I don’t want to, I can’t ignore it.

For example: If you want to have a relationship with someone, there’s a difference if it’s Ahava vs yirah. If it’s Ahava, so long as you like the person, you’ll hang out with them, but once the interest fades, you’re gone. But if that person is your boss, even if your interest fades, you’re still going to do what he wants, because your metzius rests upon him.

HKBH established a world on a Reishis. In the physical world the Reishis is the makom Hamikdash where the Sanhedrin HaGadol resided. The Mikdash is on the Even Hashesiya. It’s called Even Hashesiya because “memena hushtas ha’olam” “Hushtas” meaning the rest of the world was built on and around and extends and expands from that location.

That is the location of the Sanhedrin HaGadol – for a reason. It’s not that we just needed office space for the Sanhedrin Hagadol and look! What a great, chashuvah piece of real estate, right by the Beis Hamikdash! No. The Sanhedrin Hagadol is the source of Torah for Klal Yisroel. It is the Even Shesiya of Torah for Klal Yisroel. The Sanhedrin is tapped into the Reishis of the world. They draw Torah from the bedrock, where everything gets build on and calibrated to that Reishis. The Torah that comes from that makom is the Reishis of Torah.

We asked: Are people going to the Makom or to the people in that makom? The answer is they are going to the makom – to the point of Reishis. The Sanhedrin draws its authority not from being so smart, but by their deference and connection to the makom as the Reishis. The Reishis that resides there is the level of axiomatic truth. In the level of Reishis there are no questions – it is the givens, the axioms, the starting point where everything gets calibrated to.

We asked: What’s the pelah? Once someone explains it to you, you now understand – what’s pela-dik? The answer is we’re not looking for an explanation to a hard-to-figure-out question. We’re looking for axiomatic knowledge. It’s not a question that gets answered with a svara or applications. Svara and applications come after the givens have been established. No, it’s seeking to clarify whether something has shaychus to the Reishis. Is this shayich to the source of Torah or not? It’s a pelah because it’s not going to be answered with darchei chachma, svaras and applications. We need to see it as axiomatic in the Reishis.

We asked what’s so significant about the specific form of defiance of the zaken mamreh. Remember, it’s not when Beis din saying “we have a mesorah of a” and the zaken mamreh saying “I have a mesorah of b.” It’s not even B”D saying “we think m’svara that a” and the zaken mamreh saying “ I think m’svara that b.” Chazal say it’s a case where B”D say “we have a mesorah” and the zaken mamreh saying “I have my understanding – kach nir’eh b’eynai.” We’re talking about a person who detached the hemshech from the shoresh. We have the Torah she’bal peh which is part of the Reishis. But this zaken mamreh ignores the Mesorah, ignores the Reishis and builds his own understanding “kach nireh b’eynai.” He severed the hemshech from the Reishis.

There’s no chochma when you ignore the Reishis. There’s a gemara in brachos that says this perfectly.

מרגלא בפומיה דרבא תכלית חכמה תשובה ומעשים טובים שלא יהא אדם קורא ושונה ובועט באביו ובאמו וברבו ובמי שהוא גדול ממנו בחכמה ובמנין שנאמר {תהילים קיא-י} ראשית חכמה יראת ה'

Brachos 17a

B’diyuk! Listen to Rava’s words. “He kicks aside his father and mother and Rebbi …” This is exactly the point. The father and mother and Rebbi are his Reishis, his source, and he kicks them aside to offer his unfounded, ungrounded opinion.

Let’s bring this into our worlds, because this is a dangerous tendency people struggle with. The tendency to take poetic license and say any pshat they conjure up and claim it as Torah-dik. It stems from how they relate to Torah:

Do you relate to Torah as poetry or as a metzius?

For example – when you see a work of art, or hear a song, or read poetry – if the majority of poets translate the meaning in one direction and you go in a different direction, there’s no foul. It’s a matter of taste and you had your interpretation.

But when it comes to science for example – if the majority of scientists conclude an honest study one way, and you conclude in a different direction, do you dismiss their stance as mere interpretation? Or do you second-guess yourself? You defer to them, not vis versa. If that’s the case by science, then l’havdil elef havdalos, there should be even greater deference by Torah.

Are you allowed to argue with Rishonim and Achronim? Technically, yes. And some gedolim did. But where is this coming from? Is there any loyalty, fealty to the Reishis?

You may say – “Listen, there’s 70 panim to Torah, isn’t there? I have my interpretation!” When someone has that attitude, their Yiras Hashem is suspect. Not just we suspect that this person does aveiros. It’s much deeper than that. This person has nothing keeping them honest! Anything goes!

But there’s more than that. Knowing there’s a reishis drives a person to seek that reishis. If you read a book where it’s clear the authors thoughts are baseless and whimsical, you’ll have no interest in delving deeper, because there’s nothing deeper – it’s all build on mental quicksand. However, if you know the author is a chacham, you’ll be interested in digging deeper and discovering new depths, because the depths are bringing you one step closer to the Reishis, once step closer to the real metzius.

Yehi Ratzon that we approach chochma with yirah, an emeseh Yiras Hashem that allows us to anchor ourselves into the Reishis of the briya, and may Hashem transform our “ki yipaleh” into “hareini nifla’os mi’torasecha!”

The parsha has many mitzvos. Amongst them is the issur to have false, or contradictory weights.

{יג} לֹא יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּכִיסְךָ אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן גְּדוֹלָה וּקְטַנָּה: {יד} לֹא יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּבֵיתְךָ אֵיפָה וְאֵיפָה גְּדוֹלָה וּקְטַנָּה:

Devarim 25:13–14

Seemingly this issur is a variation of the classic issur of theft. If you sell less than a pound of meat and you charge the customer the price of the full pound, that’s theft. However, Chazal detect a degree of severity in this issur more so than we find by classic theft.

1. Chazal say this issur is worse than arayos! Why? Because arayos a person can do teshuva, but here they cannot do teshuva.

   I don’t understand – Why can’t he do teshuva? Just give back the stuff he stole? Just like regular theft, you can do teshuva by giving back the stuff he stole. Why is this different?

   One way of understanding this is that his false weights may have been used with many people so it’s impossible to keep track of everyone affected. But that doesn’t intrinsically make it impossible to do teshuva – let’s say he only had one customer in his store the day he used his false weights. He can simply return it to that one person. On the other hand, if we have a straight-up gazlan who stole from many people, he too should seemingly not be able to do teshuva because there are too many people involved.

   So what exactly do Chazal mean that the one with false weights cannot do teshuva?

2. The Rambam explains that this issur of false weights is not just using them, but merely owning them. Even if you didn’t use them to steal, owning them is a problem. So, clearly this issur is not just a variation of theft, but something more. Let’s explain.

We use conflicting terms when speaking about HKBH. On the one hand we say HKBH is Echad, one. However, on the other hand we say HKBH has different middos, for example the 13 middos of rachamim (h’, h’, kel, rachum v’chanun). We have many different names for Hashem, corresponding to His different middos (H, E-lokim, Shakai, etc).

How can HKBH have these different middos if He is One? The answer is, that even though they are different middos, they are all designed to accomplish one goal.

For example: If you see someone who has mood swings – one moment he’s happy, another moment he’s angry, and then sad, and then pleasant. If these moods have no common goal, then you’ll either conclude he’s an unstable, moody person or he’s got multiple personalities.

However, it could be this person is a fantastic teacher, and as a teacher he realizes you need to relate to different students with different approaches in order to make the student grow. This teacher may use all the same moods we just described – happiness, anger, sadness, pleasantness – but since they are all methods used to accomplish one goal, we won’t describe this person as moody. Instead, we’d say he’s measured. He uses conscious measure of each mood to achieve his singular goal.

So, too, by HKBH. HKBH has many different hanhagos, which we describe as different middos with different names. However, all of HKBH’s middos are designed to accomplish one goal.

The one goal the all HKBH’s middos are designed for is Emes.

The chosem of HKBH is Emes. What that means is even though HKBH has many ways to express Himself, all expressions are really an expression of one singular middah – the middah of Emes.

Because HKBH has this one central middah of Emes, all other middos and hanhagos are weighed and measured against that central metric. Every hanhaga is essentially a tool of the central middah of Emes, carefully used by and measured against the central middah of Emes.

(That’s how we can say “haShaveh u’mashveh katan k’gadol.” HKBH equates the small and the big. How are they equal – One is small and the other is big? Yes, they look different, but HKBH deals with them with his singular middah of Emes – in that regard, they’re all the same middah.)

More than that.

HKBH’s middas haEmes is embedded in Tzuras Adam. Adam was created b’tzelem e-lokim, and just as chosomo shel HKBH Emes, HKBH’s central middah is Emes, so too, Adam’s central middah is Emes. Rabbeinu Yonah says Emes is the Yesod of the Nefesh.

What this means is that each person has a central middah of Emes, where everything the Adam does gets weighed and measured against a central metric.

Even in halacha, we find there are universal metrics that apply to everyone equally, but there are other metrics which are relative to each person themselves.

For example: We have Amos, and c’zayis, and 40 sa’ah, and beis cur. Those are the same metrics for everyone. But then we have personalized metrics like, malo lugmav, malo kumtzo, malo chofnav which vary from person to person.

Now, you can ask “how could we have personalized metrics, which means different metrics for different people – isn’t that a double standard, ins’t that inconsistent?” The answer is no, it’s one metric – it’s a personalized metric, that gets applied each person according to their own measure. And a personalized measure is no less Emes-dik than a universal measure.

There’s a beautiful gemara that illustrates this:

The Gemara in Shabbos tells a story about a Ger who came to both Shammai and Hillel and asked them to teach them Torah. The gemara describes Shammai pushing them away and Hillel was m’karev them with the famous line “mai d’sani l’ei lo sa’avod l’chavrei” “what you don’t like, don’t do to others.”

This gemera is classically understood as Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel l’shitasam – Beis Shammai was middas HaDin which relates more harshly to people, and beis Hillel is middas haChessed, which is warmer and more welcoming to people. It’s true, it’s l’shitasam, however, it’s not just about their middas hadin and middas hachessed, but rather how their middas hadin and middas hachessed were calibrated to their central middas haEmes.

We find Beis Shammai & Beis Hillel argue elsewhere about what was created first Shomayim or Aretz. Beis Shammai says Shomayim was created first, and Beis Hillel says Aretz was created first. What they’re saying is what is the tchila, what is the primary standard, what is the primary metric that we measure Adam against? Is it the Shomayim metric, or the Aretz metric? Shomayim metric means a universal metric should be applied to Adam. Whatever applies b’derech klal should apply to each individual. That was Beis Shammai’s position.

However Beis Hillel’s position is that Aretz is tchila, meaning we don’t use the universal metrics when measuring Adam, we use a personalized metric l’chol ish v’ish.

Back to the story of the Ger. When Shammai pushed the Ger away, the gemara says he pushed him away with “Amas HaBinyan” “A builder’s measuring stick.” What a strange detail. I didn’t know Shammai was in the construction business that he carries around a builder’s measuring stick. What is that detail doing here?

The answer is this is Shammai l’shitasam. Shammai’s middas HaEmes was Shomayim-dik, meaning we don’t approach people with a personalized measure of Emes. We use a universal metric that everyone must live up to. Whatever applies b’derech klal should apply to each individual.

However, Hillel’s approach was not based on a klaiyas-dik metric, but rather it was very personalized. “mai d’sani l’ei lo sa’avod l’chavrei” “what you don’t like, don’t do to others.” Meaning, be consistent with yourself. If you don’t like it – don’t do it to someone else! The starting point was be consistent with yourself! The Omek of Hillel’s shitta is that so long as you are consistent with yourself, from that one small emesdik starting point you can calibrate around that point and build an entire emesdik edifice. Every chelek of Torah can connect you with kol haTroah koola, so long as you are consistently applying emes. However, if you do not apply a consistent metric, if you have a double-standard, then there’s no central point for you to calibrate everything to, and you’ll end up with an edifice of nonsense where anything goes!

Let’s return to our questions:

1. We asked what do Chazal mean that the one with false weights cannot do teshuva? Why can’t he do teshuva? The answer is, if the person has one standard that he can hold himself to, then he could at least correctly identify right as right and wrong is wrong. He can recalibrate himself and get back on track. But when you have contradictory weights, that means you have different ways of measuring rights and wrongs. How can you do teshuva when you have a part of you saying “I’m not wrong?” How can you recalibrate yourself? What is going to be your point of calibration if you have two conflicting metrics?

2. We asked why owning the weights is assur, even if you didn’t use them to steal? The answer is because just having the double-standard, just having two conflicting metrics is a hashchasa of Tzuras Adam. There’s no longer a single middah of Emes governing the person. You have uprooted the Yesod of Emes in the tzuras Adam!

We are standing on the cusp of Rosh Hashana, the Yom Hadin. We envision the whole process of Din as HKBH taking out a giant Shulchan Aruch and going thru every siman and seeing if we kept every halacha.

As intimidating as that sounds, we don’t really feel fully accountable. Because these are HKBH’s standards. It’s a little unfair holding us to HKBH’s standards.

L’mashal: If you say to someone “how come you don’t give as much tzedakah as Reuven?” That’s not a tayna on the person because there may be many reasons why he’s different than Reuven – Reuven has more money, the charitable cause is more meaningful to Reuven’s family, Reuven has a more giving personality, etc. Holding them to Reuven’s standards is not a real din. The only way you can judge a person is against their own standards. Were you consistent with yourself?!

Chazal say “oy lanu m’yom hadin, oy lanu m’yom hatochacha.” The ultimate example of rebuke was Yosef to his brothers. The reason why it was so powerful is because he wasn’t comparing them to other people, but rather he used their own standards against them.

They said “How can we return to our father without his son with us?” We really care about our father, and we know he loves his son, and we can’t do this to him. Yosef’s response was “Oh really? I am Yosef, your father’s son.” Where was your compassion then? He used their own standard against them. That is Real Din, that is Real Tochacha!

Rosh Hashana is the Yom Hadin on your middas HaEmes. Were you consistent, did you have a single metric, or did you apply double-standards?

When someone spoke Lashon Hara about you, it pained you. And yet you go and speak lashon hara about someone else? HKBH doesn’t need to bring the sefer Chofetz Chaim against you. It’s your own double-standard that brings the rebuke!

You’re studying in Yeshiva. You say “ki hem Chayeinu.” You’d think you would be as diligent in Yeshiva as you are in college. Yet in college you take notes, you studied for hours, you did chazarah. Did you do the same for Talmud Torah?

On the Yom Hadin, who’s going to testify against you? Chazal say it’s not malachim, it’s not even the walls of your house, but rather “Chosem yad kola dam bo!” A person’s own signature is what damns him.

Our parsha is telling us that each person needs to hold himself accountable to himself. Tzuras Adam is not a multitude of middos but rather one central midda of emes. That is the Yesod of our nefesh. And applying that middah singularly and consistently is what will make us zoche on the yom haDin.