The chapter before us continues King Solomon's line of thought in contrasting the wise man with the fool, opening with a continuation of the discussion with which we concluded: what is essential and what is incidental in a person's life, what is primary and what is secondary. From here, the chapter proceeds to describe the way of the fool, whose every step and utterance proclaim his folly.
Essence and Incident: Who Is Truly Engaged in Torah
The Malbim explains: one whose entire aim and aspiration is Torah, and ventures out into worldly pursuits only for his livelihood, is considered even while engaged in worldly occupation to be engaged in Torah. It protects him and saves him from sin just as if he were sitting and studying. If he goes to market day, his Torah engagement stands by him there.
On the other hand, consider a person who enters the Beit Midrash and appears outwardly as an avreich and a talmid chacham, yet his entire intention is to acquire wisdom in Torah in order to earn money through his knowledge and grow wealthy. His sole concern is financial: to attain rabbinic ordination so that he can secure a position and a sizable salary. Concerning such a person, the Malbim says that he was not engaged in Torah at all, but rather in business: his wisdom was his merchandise, and his understanding was the ware by which he intended to enrich himself.
Rav Dessler observes that, baruch Hashem, nowadays one can hardly make money from Torah, and therefore study is virtually guaranteed to be lishmah (for its own sake). In generations where Torah was deeply prized, anyone who studied was immediately sought after. Today, one known as a talmid chacham does not command large sums and is not snatched up in the job market. Even if one studies for the rabbinical court, there are five hundred candidates ahead of him waiting for an open post. Vacant positions sit empty for months without a committee convening to fill them, partly because the municipality must fund part of the salary, and sometimes the local rabbi does not wish to have someone else join and divide the authority. Thus, anyone motivated by financial calculations has far better prospects of making money elsewhere.
From here stems the Malbim's fundamental definition: regarding the first person, who went into commerce while the love of wisdom was his essence, and who acquired great fortune, it is said that fortune came to him incidentally, for with him the essence is the Torah. But regarding his counterpart, who acquired wisdom in the Beit Midrash yet his intention was to acquire wealth, it is said that wisdom is incidental to him. What is the difference between someone who set out to search for pearls and found them, and someone who went looking for river pebbles and happened upon a pearl along the way? For the second person, the pearl is incidental. It is like hot water that even a slight chill cools down. But one who set out with the aspiration to attain wisdom - wisdom is his essence, it is the ultimate purpose, and no cold can cool it, nor can any opponent bring it down.
In the poetic words of the Malbim: the opposite is true regarding the acquisition of fortune, which in general is an accidental attribute and has no root in the soul; He set it as a wheel revolving upon the wind of the imaginative faculty. And even if in one's imagination it seems to become essential to him, both it and its bearers are mere accidents, vanity with no substance. Matters of material fortune are a matter of illusion, an incident pursued for the sake of an incident, the fruit of futility upon a tree of chaos, which vanishes into futility and whose name is shrouded in darkness. But if fortune is sought incidentally for the sake of wisdom, which is an essential acquisition, then the incident of fortune acquires a root in something essential - a firm foundation and a house of stone established in the soul and intellect, something enduring and steadfast that will never collapse.
The Malbim concludes with the words of the Sages in Berachot 35b: Come and see that the later generations are not like the earlier generations. The earlier generations made their Torah primary and their labor secondary, and both were sustained in their hands. The later generations made their labor primary and their Torah secondary, and neither was sustained in their hands. Their intent with the words "primary" (keva) and "secondary" (arai) is essential and incidental, as defined by the Malbim. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious. It is a sorrowful loss that we do not have more such explanations, sweeter than honey, from the Malbim on the Book of Kohelet.
A Wise Man's Heart Is at His Right Hand
לֵב חָכָם לִימִינוֹ וְלֵב כְּסִיל לִשְׂמֹאלוֹ׃ - A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left.
The Pesikta Zutarta explains: "A wise man's heart is at his right hand," meaning that he directs his mind and his heart toward the path of goodness and life, leaning toward the right, which is the way of life. "But a fool's heart is at his left," meaning that he leans toward folly and the vanities of the world. The aspect of the left is the aspect of the sitra achra (the other side), the aspect of corruption and vanity. Indeed, all your turnings should ever be to the right. The right represents the service of Hashem, the path of those who turn to the right, and the Torah itself was given with the right hand: "From His right hand went a fiery law for them."
Incidentally, someone once observed among the Yemenite community a person taking out a Sefer Torah and holding it to his left side. This aroused wonder, for the man was known to be a scholar. When asked why, he explained that this was the practice of many in the Yemenite community - though not all, as many hold it to the right side like most of the world. The reason for this custom, he explained, is to press the Torah against the heart, like one who devotes his heart to it. Thus, the issue is not the left side per se, but holding the Torah close to the heart. In any case, his intention is for the sake of Heaven, and it is certainly praiseworthy.
Rashi explains: "A wise man's heart is at his right" - his wisdom is prepared to steer him toward the skillful, upright path that is for his benefit. Wisdom navigates him to the rightward path, to the good and reliable way. "And a fool's heart is at his left" - his heart is perverse, leading him astray from the straightforward path that brings him honor and ease. The fool is always searching for crooked paths, looking for schemes and shortcuts. But if you are wise, walk the straight path, and on the straight path you will succeed far more.
"And I Will Bless You in All That You Do"
Whenever people try to take crooked paths, thinking that this is how they will strike it rich all at once, reality has proven that even if one or two individuals succeeded, their success only served to lure in all those who tumbled after them like dominoes. The way to gain wealth, to earn a living, is written explicitly in the Torah: "And the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do." When you engage in honest labor, the Holy One, Blessed is He, comes and bestows His blessing.
People search for real estate investments overseas: prices dropped, now is the time to grab a bargain. Afterwards, people find themselves stuck with properties where they have no idea what is happening; they pay management companies to maintain the property, and it turns out they take the lion's share of the profit, if there is any at all. A case in point is someone who bought a property in Germany through a relative he trusted, and to this day he is still trying to sell it. He traveled there two or three times and cannot get rid of it. When such a deal was once presented, a simple question was asked: why is a property in Germany not being sold to Germans, but marketed to Israelis? The answer is obvious. The local German knows what is really being sold there and would never touch it. A foreign buyer does not know, has never seen the place, relies on rumors, and is easily fed stories. Sure enough, it turned out to be old, dilapidated buildings: constant plumbing issues, heating problems, air conditioning breakdowns. The owner never stops paying expenses, realizes he is losing money, tries to sell, and there are no buyers. They need to find simpletons from another country who will believe they are buying an apartment for a mere hundred thousand dollars, or perhaps even a hundred thousand shekels. There are remote places abroad where the property owner is willing to let tenants live virtually rent-free, because as long as the property sits empty he pays exorbitant municipal taxes, so he is eager for anyone to occupy it just to avoid the tax burden. It is an area with no jobs, no public transport, nothing at all, which is why it is sold for pennies. They show genuine photos, but nobody tells you the real background.
The same happens in the capital markets: "Come join, receive a signup bonus, we will teach you how the big players make money." Consider a former bank manager, an educated professional whose very field of expertise was stocks and trading. He took his severance pay, sat at home with his computer, and eventually sank so low that he had to rent an apartment in south Tel Aviv. He once remarked: "You do not want to know who my neighbors are and what lines of work they are in." An expert in the field, yet he was reduced to poverty. Therefore: "And I will bless you in all that you do." Do not seek luftgesheft (castles in the air); do not chase easy business ventures. There is no such thing as easy money.
And who is usually duped? Unfortunately, it is avreichim (kollel students), people outside the commercial world who do not understand deceptive schemes and frauds, and they fall into the trap time and again. Someone once asked Rabbi Shafran: "I was offered an investment: I lend them a sum of money and they pay six percent interest, a return unheard of in the market. Rabbi, isn't there an issue of ribbit (usury) here?" He replied, "It is permitted." They asked, "Even without a heter iska?" He said, "Yes, even without a heter iska." Astonished, they asked, "How could that be permitted?" He answered, "You will never see your principal back anyway, and you are worried about interest?" We all witnessed the case of Madoff, who promised ten percent returns. And where did he pay it from? From what he did not have. From the money new investors were constantly pouring in; he took your money to pay someone else, and so forth, until the influx stopped and it was revealed that everything was hot air and he owed billions. Realistically, there is no such thing as a guaranteed ten percent return. People queued up, and he refused small sums, accepting only a million dollars and up, living a life of utter extravagance, and ultimately he was sentenced to around two hundred years in prison. This is "a fool's heart is at his left" - pursuing crooked, slick shortcuts. One who walks the straight path will see true blessing in his labor.
"If You Go Left, I Will Go Right"
The Midrash asks: Regarding Avraham Avinu it is written, "If you go left, I will go right; and if you go right, I will go left" (Bereishit 13:9). But is it not written, "A wise man's heart is at his right"? How could Avraham entertain the possibility of going left? The Midrash explains: Rabbi Chanina bar Yitzchak said, it is not written ve'eshme'olah (I will turn leftward), but rather ve'ashme'ilah, meaning "I will act as left relative to you, but my fundamental essence is always to the right." Avraham said: In any event, I am going to the right, and the term ashme'ilah is only relative to your position. Eshme'olah would have meant that I myself turn to the left, and the left side, as explained, represents something negative. All your turns should ever be to the right.
The Midrash further states: "A wise man's heart is at his right" - this refers to Yaakov, as it says, "Then Yaakov arose and set his sons and his wives upon the camels" (Bereishit 31:17). "And a fool's heart is at his left" - this refers to the wicked Esav, as it says, "And Esav took his wives and his sons" (Bereishit 36:6). For Yaakov, the main priority was continuity, the next generation, since his mission in the world was to establish the House of Israel, the twelve tribes of God; therefore, his sons come first, followed by his wives. For Esav, the primary focus was always women, as it is written at the time of their encounter: "And he lifted up his eyes and saw the women" (Bereishit 33:5). When Esav raises his eyes, the first thing he notices is the women, because that is his entire focus. This is "a fool's heart is at his left."
A Person Has Two Kidneys
The Gemara in Berachot (61a) states: Our Rabbis taught: A person has two kidneys, one counsels him for good and one counsels him for evil. The kidneys are counselors because they filter and separate the body's fluids, determining what is excreted and what remains in the human body. Therefore, Chazal use them as a metaphor for counsel, for weighing one option against another, and for separating the waste from the nourishment. The Gemara continues: It is logical that the one counseling for good is on his right and the one counseling for evil is on his left, as it is said, "A wise man's heart is at his right, but a fool's heart is at his left."
These matters are not to be understood entirely literally. After all, if someone has only one kidney, what would we say about him - that he is entirely inclined toward good or entirely toward evil, depending on which kidney remained? Rather, the kidneys serve as an allegory to help us comprehend the inner doubts and dilemmas a person faces and how he resolves them. Similarly, when Chazal say that desires reside in the heart, this does not refer to the physical organ, which is merely a pump; rather, the heart is used as a metaphor for desire. The same principle applies to all the organs discussed by our Sages.
"Ach" and "Gam": The Wise Person Diminishes Himself
The Chavat Yair, cited in Eretz Chemdah, explains this wonderfully: In the word lev (heart), you can look at the letters that precede it (to its right in the Hebrew alphabet) and the letters that follow it (to its left). The letter to the right of lamed is chaf, and the letter to the right of beit is alef, giving us ach (only / but). The letter to the left of lamed is mem, and the letter to the left of beit is gimmel, giving us gam (also / too). The Gemara states more than once: achin serve to diminish and exclude, while gamin serve to amplify and include. Ach always restricts - "only on the tenth of the month," "only on the Sabbath shall you rest," and so forth - while gam always adds. Thus, "A wise man's heart is to his right": the wise person is like the letters to the right, which form ach, and he minimizes and humbles himself. "And a fool's heart is to his left": the fool is like the letters to the left, which form gam, and he constantly says, "Me too, and I also!" He always needs to mention himself, to glorify and elevate himself: "I said that too!" Furthermore, gam is an acronym for gadol me'od (very great): he is never small, he is always "very great."
Primary and Secondary: Where Attention is Directed
The Imrei Shefer explains that the right hand is a person's primary, dominant hand, while the left hand is the weaker hand. "A wise man's heart is to his right" means that the wise person always focuses on the primary aspect, the core of the matter. But the fool looks to his left, fixating on what is secondary, on the weak side. Two people can witness the exact same event: one immediately grasps the main point and the central idea, while the other gets hung up on a marginal, meaningless detail. That is the fool, who takes the weakest part of the story and makes it the center of attention.
A person makes a wedding, and some mishap occurs, whether with the catering, the photographer, or anything else. "A wise man's heart is to his right": Baruch Hashem, we were privileged to marry off our child! What a joyous wedding it was, so many people came, how wonderful! And he rejoices. But the fool says: "Unacceptable! We will not let this go, we are taking him to court, he ruined my entire evening!" That is a fool. To fixate on a petty detail - who will even remember what was served at the meal? Your child is married, Baruch Hashem! There are people who wait years to find their match, and you were privileged to marry off your child. The fool takes the minor, marginal, weak detail and turns it into the primary focus.
Great wisdom lies in always knowing what is essential and what is secondary, and accordingly assigning each thing its proper weight and place. This is profoundly important throughout life. One who lacks this discernment remains governed by raw emotion. This is the difference between someone who acts rationally, weighing everything on the scales of intellect, and someone who weighs things on the scales of emotion. Emotion incites him: "How could he?! Why did he do that?!" He ruins himself and his life, getting angry over things that should never have occupied his mind at all. Instead of focusing on the core, saying Baruch Hashem, all is well, people seize upon a secondary issue and make their own lives miserable. That is the way of a fool.
The Sforno explains: "A wise man's heart is to his right" - the wise person places his intellect on his right and physical desire on his left. This follows the very same principle, that right and left represent the strong and the weak. The wise person places his heart on the right, in matters of thought and Torah, and for him that is primary; physical desire remains on the left, on the weaker side. With the fool, the opposite is true: his heart is on the left, the realm of physical desire, and desire overpowers his intellect.
Sleeping on Shabbat or Talking on Shabbat
There is a famous story told of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, who once entered the yeshivah study hall on Shabbat afternoon and saw several young men wasting time in idle chatter, sitting around and schmoozing. He said to them: "Even if you are not learning, at least fulfill the acronym of Shabbat (שב"ת): sheinah beShabbat ta'anug - sleep on Shabbat is a delight! (There are those who fulfill this above and beyond, sleeping from the onset of Shabbat until their soul departs, and good luck waking them for Havdalah!) In any case," he told them, "at least fulfill 'sleep on Shabbat is a delight' instead of chattering." One of the students replied, "Rebbi, we are fulfilling Shabbat as sichah beShabbat ta'anug - conversation on Shabbat is a delight!" Rabbi Chaim said to him: "Concerning you the verse states, 'A wise man's heart is to his right, and a fool's heart is to his left.' The wise person reads the letter shin with a right-hand dot - sheinah (sleep) on Shabbat is a delight - while the fool reads it with a left-hand dot (sin) - sichah (idle talk) on Shabbat is a delight."
How Much is Left or How Much Have I Accomplished
Homiletic commentators note that when a person reads a book or learns, this dynamic is often clearly visible. There are those who say: "What a long Gemara! Look how much is still left until we finish it!" And what happens? He does not show up to the next shiur, saying: "It is too much, it is overwhelming, it is discouraging." That is "a fool's heart is to his left" - he constantly looks at how much remains on the left side of the book, and thereby breaks his own spirit, leaving himself with no energy to continue. But the wise person, though aware of what remains on his left, focuses his gaze to the right side: "Look how much I have accomplished! We learned all of this! Baruch Hashem, we already mastered an entire tractate, Berachot, and now we are in Shabbat and have already finished most of it!" And if someone tells you there are sixty tractates - true, but step by step, "He who gathers little by little shall increase." The one who despaired has not even begun, while the one who did not despair is already on daf 129 and daf 150 of Shabbat, progressing page by page and achieving. "A wise man's heart is to his right."
"And Tells Everyone That He Is a Fool"
וְגַם בַּדֶּרֶךְ כְּשֶׁסָּכָל הֹלֵךְ לִבּוֹ חָסֵר וְאָמַר לַכֹּל סָכָל הוּא׃ - Even when the fool walks along the road, his heart lacks understanding, and he tells everyone that he is a fool.
The Pesikta Zutreta explains: The fool believes that everyone is foolish like him. Since he is a fool, he does not understand that true wisdom exists in the world, and therefore he is convinced that just as he is foolish, so is everyone else, and he tells everyone that they are fools. Yet he does not realize that by doing so, he is actually announcing his own foolishness to all, for had he possessed understanding, he would know that knowledgeable people also exist. And Rashi comments: "He tells everyone that he is a fool" - through his gait and his speech, everyone recognizes that he is a fool.
The Imrei Shefer explains similarly: in all his actions and movements, the fool is recognizable. He does not need to go around announcing, "I am a fool"; he simply behaves naturally, and people immediately notice. He acts in a way of foolishness and folly, and with every step he takes his foolishness is visible, as if he were telling everyone that he is a fool.
And there are foolish people who assume everyone is as foolish as they are. A certain public figure once claimed that rabbis today do not display enough flexibility, bringing a "proof": back in the days of Ezra and Nechemiah, many people arrived with complicated problems, having married gentile women abroad and fathered non-Jewish children - as the verse describes, half speaking the language of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab - and they found a solution for everyone, so rabbis today should likewise show more flexibility. But does this fool imagine that just because he never opened Tanach, no one else has either? Did it not occur to him that there are people who actually studied it? Some studied for the Bagrut in Tanach, and some learned Tanach in yeshiva! These are explicit pesukim: they compelled everyone to divorce their foreign wives, the people sat and wept, and they obeyed Ezra and Nechemiah and sent all their foreign wives away. How can someone take a clear fact and turn it completely on its head? People invent fabrications, spin stories, and count on everyone being an ignoramus without even access to Wikipedia. That is the system: state things with utter confidence so people think you are making sense, relying on listeners not checking the facts and being swept away by the speaker's unwarranted arrogance. And what did you actually reveal? Only how foolish you are. You speak about historical facts while people can refute you to your face: you never studied history, you never studied geography, you never learned anything at all, and your only strength is in mass media. Thus we see that a person devoid of wisdom is convinced that everyone is equally ignorant, failing to realize that there are people far more educated than he, who know far better than the nonsense and foolishness coming out of his mouth.
In summary:
We learned the great foundational principle of the Malbim: everything depends on what a person considers essential and what he considers secondary. For one whose very essence is Torah, even his business dealings become an endeavor of Torah; but for one whose essence is money, even his time spent in the beit midrash is regarded as commerce. From there, we moved to "A wise man's heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart is at his left": the right represents the path of life, the primary, and the strong, while the left represents futility, the secondary, and the weak. The wise person directs his mind to the right, walks upon the upright path, trusts in the blessing of "in whatever you do," diminishes himself like "ach," focuses on the essential rather than marginal details, places intellect on the right and desire on the left, and looks at how much he has already accomplished rather than how much is still lacking. The fool does the opposite: he seeks crooked shortcuts and schemes and stumbles into them, amplifies the attitude of "me too," turns the secondary into the primary, and thereby embitters his own life. Finally, the fool is so completely absorbed in himself and unaware of the world that he presumes everyone is as foolish as he, and through his very walk and speech, he publicly proclaims his own folly.