In this lesson, we will examine two verses from chapter 19 of Mishlei, verses that deal with two realms that appear distant from one another yet actually intersect: awe of the kingdom on the one hand, and domestic peace (shalom bayit) on the other. We will review the teachings of Rabbeinu Yonah, the Vilna Gaon, and the Malbim, and see how all of Shlomo's wisdom is ultimately directed toward the service of Hashem and the refinement of character traits.
נַהַם כַּכְּפִיר זַעַף מֶלֶךְ, וּכְטַל עַל עֵשֶׂב רְצוֹנוֹ. (יט, יב) - The wrath of a king is like the growl of a young lion, and his favor is like dew upon the grass. (19:12)
First, let us be precise in reading: we pronounce naham with the stress on the nun, as the cantillation mark is placed under the nun. Were the mark under the heh, it would be pronounced differently. Here, it is: "Naham kakfir za'af melech."
Rabbeinu Yonah explains: even if the king seems silent and does not berate you with harsh words, but merely "growls", it is very proper that you fear his wrath. "It is impossible for the king's wrath to pass without harm." For a king to be furious without consequences - such a thing does not exist. The verse comes to teach man awe of royalty, as Chazal said: "Always let the fear of the kingdom be upon you." Therefore, the parable compares him to a young lion: even if it merely growled, without yet roaring, rampaging, or tearing prey, you already know what comes next; you are about to become its lunch. So it is with the wrath of a king: it always brings consequences, so take heed.
A story is told of two young men who were in a forest. They took off their shoes and lay down to rest, when suddenly they heard a bloodcurdling lion's roar. One of them jumped up and began hurriedly putting on his running shoes so he could sprint away. His friend said to him, "Do you really think that running fast will keep the lion from catching you?" He replied, "I do not need to outrun the lion; it is enough for me to outrun you. The lion is not looking for two; one is enough for him. It is enough that I run faster than you." That is how friends who supposedly love each other with heart and soul sometimes act... In any case, this illustrates the point: when a young lion growls, consequences follow - be warned. So too, when a king is wrathful, consequences follow - be warned.
The same applies in reverse: it is impossible for the king's favor to pass without benefit. If the king looks favorably upon you, he will arrange a position for you, grant you tax relief, or bestow privileges upon you. And even if he promised you nothing and made no commitments, know this: dew falls upon the grass and always benefits it. It is impossible for dew to fall without producing benefit. Such is the king's favor toward you - like dew upon the grass.
Notice the wonderful subtlety here: it does not say that the king's favor is like rain, but like dew. Why? Because rain falls with a resounding sound, with great noise. Dew, by contrast, descends in absolute silence: one wakes in the morning and sees everything covered in dew, yet no one heard it fall. In the same way, the king does not proclaim aloud, "You did me a favor, you have found favor in my eyes, I will grant you gifts and look after you." No. The bounty will arrive quietly, without fanfare or declarations, and in the end, this dew will saturate and satisfy.
The Vilna Gaon explains: when a person hears a growl and does not know where it is coming from, it seems to him like the sound of a young lion. Nor does he know at whom it is growling - perhaps not at him at all. Nevertheless, what happens to him? "He trembles and fears, and terror covers him." Walking once in Rishon LeZion past a high metal fence, one could suddenly hear a deep growl from behind it - there were two Rottweilers there. They could do no harm through the fence, yet a dreadful fear gripped the passerby at that moment. This is not an ordinary bark; it is a sound that reverberates from deep within, and fear takes over. Such is a growl: you do not know who is growling, you do not know if it is directed at you, yet the mere sound of the growl makes your heart drop.
And this is precisely "the wrath of a king." You see the king with a sullen countenance - you are not even certain that he is angry; perhaps he simply woke up in low spirits, or perhaps something truly upset him. Nor do you know at whom he is angry: perhaps at a neighboring country, or perhaps at the servant who prepared his morning coffee. Even so, anyone who sees a king in such a sullen state is terrified, because it carries severe consequences. You may have come on an entirely unrelated matter, but he is in a dark mood, and he could just as easily chop off your head. That is why the verse compares it to the growl of a young lion, which fills us with dread.
According to Rabbeinu Yonah, we saw that the difference lies between silence and noise. The Vilna Gaon adds another explanation based on the Gemara: rain is not always good for the world, whereas dew never ceases, because dew is always beneficial to the world. Rain in the summer is a curse - the grain is lying outdoors, the harvest is standing, and the rain soaks and ruins everything. Violent downpours destroy, shatter, and cause millions in agricultural damage. But dew - we have never heard of dew being a curse. We always pray for dew, and it is always a blessing for the world. Moreover, even when it falls upon wild grass, it does not do so in vain; it always moistens, waters, and brings benefit.
And what did King Solomon come to teach us here - merely rules of royal palace etiquette? The Vilna Gaon explains, in his characteristic way, that all of Solomon's wisdom comes to teach us guidance and ethical conduct in the service of Hashem: the matter refers to the King of kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He, before Whose wrath who can stand? The moment He shows a sullen countenance, so to speak, even though we do not know for certain that the anger is directed at us, one must immediately fear that the young lions are roaring for prey and growling like the surging sea.
How do we know that the King is in wrath? We see troubles in the world: a tsunami here, an earthquake there, a disaster here, a fatal car accident there, a family whose lives were cut short, Heaven spare us. There is a growl. Do not say, "This has nothing to do with me" - the wrath of a king, whether you know its cause or not, whether it concerns you directly or not, is like the growl of a young lion that strikes terror into your heart. You must enter a state of trembling awe even now. This is what Chazal meant when they taught that in a time of Divine wrath (*idana deritcha*), a person is held to account even for "why did you not wear a *tallis katan*?" - but was he strictly obligated? After all, he was not wearing a four-cornered garment! Rather, in a time of wrath, obligated or not, one can lose his head even over the smallest matters. Therefore, beware: "The wrath of a king is like the growl of a young lion" - the King of the Universe.
And to what does the phrase "and his favor is like dew upon the grass" correspond? The Vilna Gaon explains: this refers to Gan Eden, to the righteous. In the holy Zohar on Parashat Pinchas, it is explained that the souls of the righteous are compared to grass, as it says, "and they shall blossom out of the city like the grass of the earth" - those who are in the city, in Jerusalem, will come to life and rise through the dew of resurrection of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Thus, the goodwill of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is like the dew of resurrection descending upon the grass. Beware, therefore, of His wrath, and see how wonderful is the dew of His favor.
The Malbim explains in several places that there is a distinction between a young lion (*kefir*) and a mature lion (*aryeh*): the way of the young lion is to lurk in its den and wait for someone to draw near, and then it pounces upon him and devours him. So it is with a king when he is in sullen anger and gloom - do not approach him; that is, do not go near his lair, do not enter his palace, do not come anywhere near where he is found.
The Malbim further notes with precision: there is a difference between *noham* (growling) and *sha'ag* (roaring). A growl occurs when it has no prey, whereas a roar occurs when it already possesses its prey - a roar of triumph. Therefore the verse says, "like the growl of a young lion": the king growls from within his den like a predator that lacks prey, and the growl expresses anticipation of a victim. It follows that if you approach, you are likely to become that prey. If you arrive and are caught, he has found someone upon whom to vent his fury: a ravenous young lion crouching in his den, waiting. That is why it does not say "like the roar of a young lion," for once it has caught its prey, one can breathe a bit more easily.
However, in a time of favor - "like dew upon grass." Just as dew moistens the vegetation and imparts vitality to each and every blade on its own, so too a king in a time of goodwill bestows goodness upon each and every individual, and everyone draws near to seek shelter in the light of his countenance. In contrast, it is said elsewhere, "The wrath of a king is messengers of death" - when the king is in blazing fury, he sends out messengers of death, a literal danger to life, and how exceedingly careful one must be never to be found in the presence of a king at the hour of his anger.
I read of a person who was walking along the way, saw a sapling, and plucked it just like that. One of the early Rebbes saw this and was horrified. He asked him: What have you done? The man replied: What is it, after all? Just a flower, so I plucked it. The Rebbe said to him: Is it not written that over every single plant stands an angel that strikes it and says to it, "Grow!" - the angel tells it to grow, and you cut its life short? Are you undoing the words of the angel?
It is well known that the holy Ari, of blessed memory, would always say that one must not pluck any plant, nor kill any living creature, nor do anything without a purpose. For a genuine need - everything is permissible. But there are people who walk in the street and casually pluck leaves from a tree out of boredom, without gaining anything from it. Or they see a cockroach on the street and step on it - what did you gain from that? Did you eliminate all the cockroaches? If it is inside your home, that is understandable: a person is permitted to do whatever is necessary to keep pests away or remove anything frightening or unpleasant. But simply walking in the street and killing ants accomplishes nothing. The holy Ari says: The Holy One, blessed be He, created them and breathed into them a soul, an animal soul, and you are not permitted to go around killing or destroying something that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world.
הַוֺּת לְאָבִיו בֵּן כְּסִיל, וְדֶלֶף טֹרֵד מִדְיְנֵי אִשָּׁה. (יט, יג) - "A foolish son is ruin to his father, and the contentions of a wife are an endless dripping." (19:13)
What is havot (הוות)? One explanation: that which happens to a person, what transpires (hoveh) with him - a person's experiences and occurrences are called havot. Everything that happens to the father, who brings it about? The son. And if he is a foolish son, all the experiences he brings upon his father are unpleasant. Another explanation: havot is an expression of ruin or calamity (shever), as in the verses "calamity upon calamity" (hovah al hovah), "speaks destruction" (medaber havot). According to this: when a person has a foolish son - he brings ruin upon his father, causing the father great crisis and sorrow.
Midyenei (מדיני) is an expression of strife and contention (medanim) - referring to the contentions of the wife, the quarrels she stirs up with her husband. And what is tored (טורד)? The Targum translates "and drove them out" (vayegareshum) as utardinun, and similarly in Arabic, tarada means to drive out or expel. It follows that the term tored carries the meaning of expulsion.
And so Ibn Ezra explains: the contentions of the wife drive the man out of his home. There are people you always see outside the house - one time at this celebration, another time at that one, and he even merits to come to the beit midrash. In whose merit? In the merit of the endless dripping of a wife's contentions. The bickering at home, the constant search for something to fight about, the unending drip - these harass him and drive him from the house, and he goes looking for activities, friends, and places to be. Then she asks: Where are you? We never see you at home all day! If only the hostility were toned down, the husband would be home more - though sometimes even that is no longer enough.
Another explanation in Ibn Ezra: tored means something that relentlessly disturbs, in a ceaseless manner. Something that never rests is called tored; therefore, delef tored is an incessant dripping that constantly pesters.
Rabbeinu Yonah examines the comparison in the verse: a foolish son is ruin (havot) to his father, causing heartbreak and sorrow. Yet the contentions of a wife are even harder to bear. Why? Because despite all the anger and distress a father feels toward a foolish son, it does not drive him out of his home. But the contentions of a wife - in his words: they drive the man from his home, for he cannot contain her words of strife. He cannot endure the daily quarrel, each time about something else, each time searching for something to argue over, and this drives him from his home. It is like an endless leak: when a person's roof is full of holes like a sieve, and rain pours down until the whole house becomes one giant puddle - can he sleep there? Can he remain there? The leak drives him out of his home, and so too the contentions of a wife drive him from his home.
The Vilna Gaon explains: each time a foolish son displays his folly, he breaks his father's heart - this is "a ruin [havot] to his father", from the expression of breakage and ruin. And what does "a ceaseless drip" come to teach? Noise outside a person's home is neither constant nor unbearable, whereas noise inside his own home is a continuous and harsh affliction. Therefore, the quarrels of a wife are far worse: they occur inside the home, and just like a leak dripping drop by drop all day long, disturbing him so that he cannot rest, so too her strife is unrelenting and heavy at all times, leaving him with no peace.
There is a well-known method of torture once practiced on prisoners in China: the prisoner's head is shaved completely smooth, and above him they suspend a bucket or pipe set to drip water - drip, drip, drip. It sounds harmless enough, like a bath at most. But after a period of time, a person feels that he is losing his mind, especially when the water is ice cold. This is acute torment. This is the "ceaseless drip" of a contentious wife: a constant dripping, drop by drop all day, giving him no rest.
These two pesukim teach us about the power of seemingly small things. "The wrath of a king is like the growl of a young lion" - a single growl, without a roar and without tearing prey, is enough to make a person tremble and realize that the king's wrath always brings consequences; and in the deeper meaning, the wrath of the King of kings, where in a time of divine anger (idana deritcha), a person is called to account even for minor matters. Conversely, "and his favor is like dew upon the grass" - the king's favor arrives quietly, without noise and proclamations, like dew that is never a curse and always saturates, and like the dew of resurrection that will revive the righteous. In the second pasuk: a foolish son breaks his father's heart, but the quarrels of a wife are even more painful, since they are inside the home - a ceaseless drip from which there is no respite, driving a person from his own home. From here comes the broader moral lesson as well: to be careful with the dignity of everything the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, and never to destroy or damage anything unnecessarily.