In the first part of Chapter 5, King Solomon warns about the power of speech. After addressing speech between man and God - vows that one makes and fails to pay - he proceeds to forbidden speech between man and his fellow. The verses before us are a complete beit midrash on the topics of guarding one's tongue, taking responsibility for the utterance of our lips, and maintaining the proper attitude toward dreams, vanities, and idle chatter.
אַל־תִּתֵּן אֶת־פִּיךָ לַחֲטִיא אֶת־בְּשָׂרֶךָ, וְאַל־תֹּאמַר לִפְנֵי הַמַּלְאָךְ כִּי שְׁגָגָה הִיא, לָמָּה יִקְצֹף הָאֱלֹהִים עַל־קוֹלֶךָ וְחִבֵּל אֶת־מַעֲשֵׂה יָדֶיךָ׃ (ה, ה) - "Do not allow your mouth to bring guilt upon your flesh, and do not say before the messenger that it was an error; why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?" (5:5)
The Midrash in Pesikta Zutreta expounds: "'Do not allow your mouth to bring guilt upon your flesh' - this refers to one who makes a vow in public and does not pay. 'To cause your flesh to sin' (lachati et besarecha) means to diminish your flesh, as we explained. 'And do not say before the messenger' - this is the representative of the community, the gabbai who comes to collect the debt. A person pledged ten thousand dollars for opening the Aron Kodesh, and now when they come to him he claims, 'It was an error.' Sometimes, especially with small amounts, the claim is: I do not even remember if I vowed at all; and if I did vow, it was long ago, and I think I already paid. Regarding this, the verse says: Do not say before the messenger that it was an error, that I am not sure, or that I do not remember.
Rashi explains the 'error' differently: from the outset, when I vowed, I assumed I had the means to pay - and that was the error. Now it turns out that my financial situation is difficult, and I regret it. Sforno explains that the 'messenger' (malach) here is not the charity collector, but rather the Rabbi, as it is written: 'For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek Torah from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of Hosts,' and our Sages said: If the Rabbi resembles an angel of the Lord of Hosts, they should seek Torah from his mouth. According to this, the meaning is: you go to the sage to request that he annul your vow, claiming that from the beginning your mouth and your heart were not aligned, and that it was a mistake.
To all of this the verse says: 'Why should God be angry at your voice' - at the words you uttered initially and failed to uphold. And what is 'and destroy the work of your hands'? One explanation: your assets will diminish, and you will suffer financial loss. Another explanation: this refers to one's sons and daughters, as Chazal taught that on account of the sin of neglected vows, a person's children die. Thus there is an allusion to both: 'your flesh' is one's wife, as it is said, 'and they shall become one flesh,' while 'the work of your hands' refers to one's sons and daughters. Therefore, a person must be exceedingly cautious with vows, so that he does not, Heaven forbid, bring about harm and divine wrath upon his voice.
The Midrash presents additional interpretations of the verse. Rabbi Binyamin applied the verse to hypocrites who feign Torah knowledge: "'Do not allow your mouth' - do not give license to your mouth to cause your flesh to sin, to bring guilt upon your body through your Torah study. 'And do not say before the messenger' - this is the Rabbi - 'that it was an error,' for he pretends to read Scripture when he does not read, and pretends to learn Mishnah when he does not learn. 'Why should God be angry at your voice' - at the voice with which you spoke. 'And destroy the work of your hands' - even the few halachot that this person possesses, the Holy One, Blessed be He, causes him to forget and deprives him of them."
In other words, this speaks of a person who is disingenuous and puts on a show of learning Torah: he tells others that he studies, portrays himself as devoted to Torah, but ultimately wastes his time. He pretends to study Tanach but does not, pretends to review Mishnah but does not. Through this he brings divine anger upon himself, and even the little he has learned will be forgotten. If you study - study properly, and do not present yourself as a scholar when you are not truly learning.
Rav Huna interprets the entire verse as referring to lashon hara. "'Do not allow your mouth' - do not permit your mouth to utter improper words, to speak lashon hara. 'To bring guilt upon your flesh' - for by doing so, you cause actual harm to your own body. 'And do not say before the messenger that it was an error' - 'I did not speak lashon hara,' or 'I didn't mean it that way,' or 'on the contrary, I meant to praise him,' and all the various excuses a person invents for why it was not lashon hara. 'And destroy the work of your hands' - these are the sinews and bones of the body, which the Holy One, Blessed be He, afflicts with wasting illness and destroys, Heaven spare us. Thus the Midrash teaches that, as it were, a literal curse afflicts a person's very body when he speaks lashon hara.
Rabbi Mana interpreted the verse as referring to Miriam. "Do not let your mouth" - do not permit one of your limbs to bring sin upon all your limbs, causing deficiency to all your organs. For one who speaks lashon hara is stricken with tzara'at, and this affliction harms all of one's limbs. For the sake of one small mouth, you forfeit your entire flesh. And so it was with Miriam - she became afflicted with tzara'at, and her entire flesh suffered deficiency on account of that speech. "And do not say before the angel" - this refers to Moshe, as it is stated, "And He sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt." And what was said before him? "That it was an error," as it is written, "wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned" - "we have done foolishly" refers to folly, and "we have sinned" refers to an inadvertent sin. "Why should God be angry at your voice" - as it is stated there, "And Miriam spoke," and in its aftermath, "And the anger of Hashem burned against them, and He departed." "And destroy the work of your hands" - for all her limbs were stricken.
The Midrash also applies the verse to Elisha Acher. Elisha entered the Pardes and "cut down the saplings," and would kill "rabbei Torah." Some explain this as great Torah scholars, but it is more correctly understood from the word "ravya," as in the language of the Yerushalmi - young students of Torah. He would enter study halls, see young children sitting before their teacher, and say: What are they doing here? This one's vocation is a builder, this one a carpenter, this one a hunter, this one a tailor. In contemporary terms: What a shame they are wasting their time in yeshivah; he could have gone into high-tech, he could have become a top engineer.
But in truth - what would become of him? What will remain of it after one hundred and twenty years? Where will he take it? What will he say in the Heavenly Court, "I was a pilot"? It is told that someone once entered to see Rav Shteinman, and his companion introduced him with great excitement: "Rebbe, he is an airplane pilot." Rav Shteinman said to him: "A pilot? A wagon driver in the sky. There is a wagon driver with a horse and donkey, there is a wagon driver with a Mercedes, and there is a wagon driver in a Boeing - what difference does it make? A wagon driver is someone who transports passengers. One drives a wagon down here, and one drives a wagon up there. What exactly is there to be impressed by?"
And the Chafetz Chaim once asked a young man what he did. He replied: "I am studying medicine." He asked: "For how many years?" He answered: "Seven years, followed by residency." He asked: "And when will you truly begin to earn from it?" He replied: "After about fifteen years, once I have made a name for myself and am considered a specialist, not merely a clinic physician on a modest salary." The Chafetz Chaim said to him: "If so, you have invested fifteen years of your life. And when will you finish? You are twenty-five - you will finish around forty. And how much time remains for you to enjoy it? Twenty, thirty years. For the sake of thirty years, you studied for fifteen years. If so," the Chafetz Chaim said to him, "for eternity - how much must one invest? Life in the World to Come is not acquired for pennies; for eternal life, one must invest from one's very life."
This is precisely what Elisha was saying: "This one could have become a carpenter." Thank you very much, great success in life! Yet that child could have become a gadol baTorah, acquiring eternity for himself and his generation, sustaining his entire generation - and you tell him to build cabinets? Without belittling a carpenter or anyone engaged in honest labor, can you really compare the two? But this was Elisha after he went astray and became corrupted. And there were students who were indeed influenced by his words, for Elisha was regarded and perceived as a great man at that time, and he certainly possessed vast Torah knowledge - to the point that Rabbi Meir continued to follow and learn from him even after he went astray. Some students abandoned their master and departed. Regarding him, Scripture states: "Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin... why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?" - for He destroyed that man's accomplishments. And as the Gemara relates, after his death he was admitted neither into Gan Eden nor into Gehinnom, but wandered, until his disciple had to intervene and exert influences so that he would be brought into Gehinnom, and fire came out of his grave. Behold, you let your mouth cause your flesh to sin - was it worth it? See what you have reaped from the stew you brewed.
The Imrei Shefer explains that King Solomon is enumerating here the various categories of speech. Earlier, he addressed forbidden speech between man and God - making vows and not fulfilling them; and here, he turns to forbidden speech between man and his fellow. Such speech is evil both toward Heaven and toward other people: evil toward Hashem - for He forbade it, "Do not go about as a talebearer among your people"; and evil toward man - for one harms people through lashon hara, falsehood, flattery, and oaths taken in vain. And for the sin of lashon hara, afflictions strike, which is the meaning of "Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin."
And who is the "angel"? The one from whom one learns Torah, as it is stated, "For the priest's lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Hashem of hosts." And why is he called an angel or messenger? Because a mal'ach is an emissary, doing the work of Hashem - to teach Torah to His people. The Holy One, blessed be He, teaches His Torah through the sages of each generation, and they are His emissaries. Likewise, a person who comes to offer rebuke, whether to an individual or to the public, for transgressing Hashem's commandments - is called an angel, for he performs the work of Hashem: whether a prophet or a rebuker in his generation who awakens his contemporaries.
Regarding the matter of rebuke, an incident is told. Rav Nissim Karelitz, as mentioned, was not in the habit of offering reprimands. Once, a prayer gathering for rain was held in the synagogues, and they asked him to deliver words of inspiration. As is well known, his speeches were very brief; he finished speaking and stepped down from the podium. Suddenly, just as the crowd was about to stand up, he returned and said: "Wait, I want to add one more thing." Everyone grew tense - if the Rav returned specially, he surely had something extraordinary to say. The Rav took a letter from his pocket, placed it on the shtender, and said: "Here is a Jew who writes and raises an important matter. This Jew wrote that there are people making celebrations - Sheva Berachot for their children, finishing at one in the morning, with singing and dancing and sometimes musical instruments, and yeshivah bachurim singing at the top of their lungs; while there are children and elderly people who need to sleep early, and this disturbs, harms, and distresses the neighborhood. How can one hold a celebration while causing distress to others?"
Rav Nissim Karelitz said: "And this is precisely what I wanted to speak about. There is truly a major problem here - how can a person see that his neighbor had the merit of getting his son engaged, and yet it bothers him? Does he get a child engaged every day? Does he marry off someone every day? Once in a long while there is a celebration in the building - and that bothers you so much? So you slept two hours less for one night! A good-hearted person thinks: 'I am willing not to sleep all night, as long as my neighbor gets all his children engaged.' Did he open a wedding hall in your building? If he was privileged to make a celebration once in his home - rejoice with him! This is what I do not understand." He finished and stepped down. At first it seemed as though he had come to rebuke those making the celebrations, but in the end it turned out the rebuke was the exact opposite: Why do you not rejoice with your fellow in his celebration? If a wedding hall opened next to your house - fine; but if a neighbor held a celebration once, rejoice with him!
About this Scripture says: "And do not say before the messenger that it was an error." When the sage comes to rebuke you for your words, do not dismiss him with the excuse that "it was an error" and think you have finished with the matter. For one can tell tales to the rebuker - he does not truly know what your intention was, whether it was unintentional or not. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, knows what was in your heart, for Hashem looks at the heart. Therefore, "why should God be angry at your voice," and Heaven forbid, "and destroy the work of your hands?" And the Gemara says: things that fire and water cannot consume, a false oath consumes. Forbidden speech, lashon hara, gossip, lies, and vain oaths can cause a person immense ruin. Do not make excuses; rather, know that there is One who truly knows your intentions, and for that, one pays a heavy price later on.
The holy Shelah dwells on the phrase "to bring sin upon your flesh." One must know that wherever the Torah mentions "flesh" (basar), our Sages expound it as referring to the holy covenant of circumcision and the sanctity of the covenant. "For all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth" - Chazal expounded this as referring to the blemish of the covenant. Likewise, "whose flesh is the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses" - regarding matters of illicit relations. Notice that here he mentions the mouth and mentions the flesh together. And Chazal expounded: "That He see no unseemly thing (ervat davar) in you" - unseemly speech (ervat dibur): idle speech and wasted seed.
These concepts already appear in the writings of the Kabbalists, and the Magen Avraham mentions them as well: the blemish of the covenant and the blemish of the tongue are bound together. If you see someone unrestrained in forbidden speech, know that this person is also unrestrained, Heaven spare us, in blemish of the covenant - the two go hand in hand. And the Kabbalists say: if we take a person's body and fold it, right hand to right foot and left hand to left foot, the mouth corresponds directly to the sign of the holy covenant - one parallel to the other. One who guards his tongue in sanctity also guards his covenant in sanctity; and if not, Heaven forbid, one who is flawed in this is flawed in that. Therefore, the way for a person to preserve his sanctity is to be exceptionally careful with the sanctity of speech, and through this he will not come to blemish the covenant. This is the meaning of "Do not let your mouth bring sin upon your flesh" - by speaking improper words and blemishing your mouth, you blemish your flesh as well.
In light of this, one can also understand a defense of Yosef. The brothers suspected him of bringing an evil report about them to their father - meaning they suspected him of being a slanderer, and a slanderer deserves to be cast to the dogs; therefore they said, "Come, let us kill him." But the Torah teaches us that Yosef was pure, pristine, and innocent, and his entire intent was to correct them and guide them onto the straight path. The proof is that Yosef was exceptionally holy regarding the sanctity of the covenant; he faced an immense, grueling trial in the realm of Yesod and withstood it - which proves that in the realm of the mouth and the tongue, he was completely unblemished as well.
כִּי בְרֹב חֲלֹמוֹת וַהֲבָלִים וּדְבָרִים הַרְבֵּה, כִּי אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִים יְרָא׃ (ה, ו) - For in much dreaming and vanity and many words, rather fear God. (5:6)
Targum Yonatan explains: "For in much dreaming" - the dreams of false prophets; "and vanity" - that of sorcerers, who performed all kinds of tricks to draw people after idolatry; "and many words" - the endless talk of the wicked. And the Targum says: do not believe them and do not be impressed by them. Look, he dreamed a dream and it came true; look, he performed magic and pyrotechnics - do not be swayed. Rather, "fear God" - attend upon Torah scholars and righteous men, seek instruction from them, and revere Hashem.
There is an immense message here for our generation. Who are these "dreams, vanity, and many words"? These are the charlatan "babas." In the past there were sorcerers, and today there are these babas who make an easy fortune, unfortunately, off the gullible, the naive, and the simple-minded. And specifically from the poor souls who have nothing, they extract enormous sums: "If you give such-and-such an amount, the baba will heal your sick father in no time - but you must pay. Take out loans, make installments, ten thousand from this one and fifteen thousand from that one." And the unfortunate person does not know any better, but because "the baba said," in absolute naivety he goes and gives. And "the baba had a dream," and "the baba performed such a wonder for me," and all sorts of things of this nature.
And what does the Targum advise? "Attend upon righteous scholars, and seek learning from them, and revere Hashem" - first and foremost scholars (chachamim), and then righteous men (tzaddikim). The Gemara states that one who has an ill person in his home should go to a sage (chacham). It does not say "baba" - it says "sage." With a baba one can spin tales, put on a show, find a robe in some attic, and tell stories about a saintly grandfather he had; one can play many games there. But with a sage there are no games: you can ask him a question - "I have a passage of Gemara in Yevamot, explain this section to me; take a Schottenstein and explain." A Torah scholar either knows or does not know. They told you: let him go to a sage. If you want a blessing, go to Rav Chaim Kanievsky, go to Rav Ovadia, go to a sage! Why go to a baba - who is he and what is he? Do not be impressed by dreams, sorcerers, or empty talk; instead, attend upon righteous sages. This guidance is profoundly necessary in our generation, where - as the popular saying goes - suckers never die, they only get replaced, and each time new ones arrive to feed and sustain these various "babas." May Hashem protect us.
Chacham Ben Tzion Abba Shaul once said regarding such individuals: I can find many sins in them, but it is written that theft prosecutes first and foremost. The sin at the forefront, resounding above all others, is theft. For a person came to you, you extracted money from him, and he was certain that his salvation would come through you - yet you sold him an illusion. You are entirely a fraud, you sold him an illusion, you robbed him. And how could you ever return the money to him? This is theft that cannot be repaid. How will you ever repay all those people who believed in you and were certain you were going to save them, when you are entirely a lie?
Yet he himself harbors no such dilemma, because he believes in himself; he is convinced that he is a holy man of God. A person can shout in prison for twenty years that he is innocent, and if you test him on a polygraph, he will come out innocent, because he managed to convince himself, even though there is video footage of him stealing. It is autosuggestion, self-persuasion. This "baba" convinced himself that he is a tzaddik, began to believe it, and started selling it to others - selling holy water, selling everything. And as someone once quipped: the Baba Sali was the "Baba Batra" - the final Baba. Do not seek babas after him; rather, go to Torah scholars. If someone is wise in Torah, approach him; if he is not wise in Torah, stay far away from him.
Midrash Zuta states: "For through a multitude of dreams" - if you have seen bad dreams and harsh decrees, leap toward three things and you will be saved. These Midrashim are cited extensively in Mishnat HaChalomot regarding how to address dreams. For Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: Three things annul bad and harsh decrees - and not only a dream, but all decrees - and they are: prayer, repentance, and charity. All three are written in a single verse: "And My people, upon whom My name is called, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways." "And pray" - this is prayer; "and seek" - this is charity, for they would ask people to contribute; "and turn from their evil ways" - this is repentance. And if they do so, what is written there? "Then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." Rabbi Ami says: Fasting as well, as it says, "May Hashem answer you in the day of distress." Rav Acha said: Also a change of name, a change of deeds, and a change of place. All of these save a person from bad dreams.
Yet foremost among all means of deliverance from bad dreams is charity, and for this we have explicit verses. Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: "Redeem your sins with charity" - and as long as he gave charity and showed mercy to the poor, the dream was not fulfilled. The moment he stopped, "at that very hour" - immediately at that moment, the dream was fulfilled upon him and he was cast out like a beast of the field. Here we see the power of charity, which is the primary force to rescue one from a bad dream. A person who had a bad dream should give money to charity. And Moroccans say "A good dream, a peaceful dream," which has significance, so that one interprets the dream for good and not for bad; through this, he will trust in Hashem and all distress will depart from him.
Rashi explains: "For through a multitude of dreams" - whatever dreams, false prophets, and many words tell you, prompting you to withdraw from the Omnipresent - "rather, fear God," where the word ki functions in the sense of "rather." That is to say: despite all the dreams, vanities, and abundant words that entice one to abandon Hashem, do not listen to them; rather, fear God.
And the Midrash says: When Chizkiyahu, king of Judah, fell ill and Yeshayahu said to him, "Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live," Chizkiyahu said to him: I do not heed your words, and I hold only to what my ancestor - Shlomo - said: "For through a multitude of dreams and vanities and many words, rather fear God." That is to say: you heard prophecies, yet nonetheless I fear God and pray to Hashem. "And Chizkiyahu turned his face to the wall and prayed," and Hashem added fifteen years to his life. Similarly, the Gemara in Berachot (10b) states: "Fear God" - Rav Chanan said: Even if the master of dreams tells a person that he will die tomorrow, and you think there is nothing left to do, one should never withhold himself from mercy. Fear Hashem - and Hashem has the power to overturn the decree.
The Imrei Shefer explains this verse as a continuation of the preceding one. Following the warning that one should not open his mouth with forbidden speech, he asks: might a person say, if I restrain my mouth from speaking while the people of my generation open their mouths without restraint and speak recklessly, I will be viewed by them as odd - some recluse, some pious figure who does not mingle with people; everyone is talking and only I am silent, appearing disconnected and out of place. Regarding this, the verse says: "For through a multitude of dreams and vanities and many words, rather fear God." Speech is divided into three categories, and early commentators have already discussed these divisions of speech.
The first category is business matters, which he terms "dreams." For in business affairs, a person is primarily dreaming: I will do this, and sell here, and strike it rich, and this is a startup that will take over the market. Very often, a person's business talk is merely dreams, things that lack substance. As the Ben Ish Chai cites regarding "And you shall make a parapet for your roof": the roof is a person's head, the seat of intellect and reason, and one must erect a parapet so that dreams do not breach boundaries and exceed limits, but rather remain within the realm of reason and logic.
He then cites the famous parable of the man who had a basket of eggs and carried it to sell in the market. He began to think: Why should I sell? I will set hens on them to brood, and from fifty eggs I will have fifty chicks; they will grow and lay eggs, and brood again - and in his imagination he reached tens of thousands of chicks, roosters, and eggs. Then he thought: I will be extremely wealthy, I will have connections with the government, I will appear before the king, and I will bow before him. With the basket still on his head, he bowed, and in an instant the basket crashed down and all the eggs were smashed, one giant scrambled mess, and all his dreams vanished into thin air. "And when they awake, their soul is empty," in the words of the Imrei Shefer. Do not indulge in a multitude of dreams and vanities - make a parapet for your roof, set limits and boundaries, and do not be swept away by your fantasies.
The second category of speech is idle tales. In our generation, this requires no explanation: everything is talk. This one said that, that one did this, there will be a government, there will not be a government, that person insisted under no circumstances, a third claimed it was unthinkable, and a fourth said it should not even be considered. Whom does this interest, and who truly cares? Do you have anything left from yesterday's chatter or the vanity of the day before? It is all futile and empty. If a person had true understanding, he would turn off the radio entirely, listen only to Torah shiurim, and make genuine use of his life. You would see how many hours of Torah you could accumulate in a single day - traveling from here to there, walking from place to place, listening to words of Torah on an audio player. These idle stories consume several hours for most people, and a person squanders hours of his day without any benefit.
Incidentally, in the past it was 'idle tales,' whereas today a person reads vanity. A story is told of a man who decided to disconnect from his smartphone. When asked what prompted this, he explained: 'The WhatsApp application allows you to see how much time you have spent on it. I checked and discovered that on average I spend two hours a day on WhatsApp, and I simply could not believe it. And it is not two consecutive hours: three minutes here, two minutes there, someone said something, a message arrived.' He thought to himself: 'Am I burning two hours of my life every single day?' And even if it were twenty minutes, would that be any better? After all, everything there is vanity. What do people send? Utter nonsense. It distracts you in the middle of a shiur, in the middle of tefillah, before and after. At times, it even includes outright prohibitions - lashon hara, rechilut, forbidden sights, and what not. All of these are 'many vanities' on which a person spends hours without the slightest benefit. And this is without even mentioning television and the internet, but merely someone occupying himself with vanities or reading a newspaper and squandering his time in vain.
The third category is forbidden speech, and here we are dealing with a grave matter, not merely bittul Torah or futility, but an outright prohibition: lashon hara, rechilut, falsehood, mockery, false oaths, and the like. The Malbim explains: a righteous person detests the company of evildoers and cannot bear sitting with them. The Gemara teaches that the Sages of Israel do not sit in the company of the unlearned (amei ha'aretz) - and why? Because immediately the chatter begins: what happened in politics, what the score was in soccer, and all sorts of nonsense and vanity. And he sits there wondering: 'What am I doing here? This is not my place.' 'They are abominable and detestable in his eyes.'
This is the meaning of the verse: 'For in many dreams' - this is the first category, business affairs and dreams of how much wealth one will amass; 'and vanities' - this is the second category, nonsense, politics, and futile chatter; 'and many words' - this is the third category, grave and severe matters, forbidden speech. For none of this does the wholesome person harbor any desire at all, 'rather, fear God.' On the contrary, when you observe the vanities and the mire in which they are sunken, it makes them repulsive in your eyes. And if you should ask, 'Should I truly remain distant from people?' - on the contrary: fear God, keep your distance from them, and reject the company of people whose entire preoccupation and focus are matters of vanity.
These two verses teach us how immense the weight of the mouth is. 'Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin' - whether through an unfulfilled vow, through the flattery of one who feigns being a scholar, or through lashon hara, which brought sin upon Miriam throughout her entire body and upon Elisha Acher throughout his entire world. Do not excuse yourself with the plea, 'it was an error,' before the one who rebukes you, for the Holy One, Blessed is He, knows the heart. And 'For in many dreams, vanities, and many words' - do not be swayed by dreams, sorcery, and empty words, and do not squander your life on business fantasies, idle chatter, and forbidden speech. Instead, attend upon righteous Sages, seek instruction from them, and cling to prayer, repentance, and charity, which annul harsh decrees - 'for you must fear God.'