At the close of chapter 20 of Mishlei, Shlomo HaMelech reaches the root of a person's inner work: what is placed upon him and what is entrusted to Heaven, how he should examine himself when he fails, and why the Holy One, blessed be He, needs no investigations or inquiries to know what is turning over in a person's heart. Three pesukim lie before us - the snare of a man, the scatterer of the wicked, and the lamp of Hashem is the soul of man - and together they form a single progression.
מֵה' מִצְעֲדֵי גָבֶר וְאָדָם מַה יָּבִין דַּרְכּוֹ׃ (כד) - A man's steps are from Hashem, and what does a man understand of his way? (24)
Rabbeinu Yonah connects this pasuk to the preceding one. There it says "and what does a man understand of his way" - what do you understand and what do you know? We only make an effort; do I really know what is the good path for me? On this the pasuk continues and says: the snares of the road themselves are not in your hands. When you travel in a certain direction, which obstacle awaits you there - that you cannot know. But there are snares that you are indeed able to guard yourself from.
מוֹקֵשׁ אָדָם יָלַע קֹדֶשׁ וְאַחַר נְדָרִים לְבַקֵּר׃ (כה) - It is a snare for a man to blurt out "holy," and after making vows to reconsider. (25)
Rabbeinu Yonah says: the snares that a person can indeed guard himself from are the snares of sin - to be careful and to distance himself from everything that pulls him away from the service of Hashem. And how should he be careful? If a person remembers that at the moment he stumbles into a transgression he is like one who misappropriates and derives benefit from what is sacred, and by the law of one who misappropriates consecrated property - "and that which he sinned against the sacred he shall repay, and he shall add a fifth to it" - that there is still an additional payment to make, he will surely be far more careful. Know this: the transgression into which you stumble, "yala kodesh" - you have misappropriated and derived benefit from what is sacred.
"And after making vows to reconsider" - and a person should further examine himself: did I make a vow improperly? Did I "keep that which came forth from my lips"? Perhaps I vowed and did not carry the vow out, and was late in fulfilling it? For among the snares is also a person who vowed and did not pay, and they treated this with great severity, to the point that dreadful things were said about harm coming to a person's children and wife, may Hashem save us. This is a snare through which a person, in his error, is liable to bring upon himself downfall and damage. Therefore "and after making vows to reconsider" - investigate and check whether you did not transgress a vow, and whether you brought your vows as you obligated yourself. From these snares you are indeed able to guard yourself.
And this is the difference between the two pesukim: "A man's steps are from Hashem" is said about the physical path - which way to go, where there is danger, from where damage might come to me. That you should rely upon the Holy One, blessed be He, for "what does a man understand of his way." But in spiritual matters do not rely on Hashem. A person needs to fulfill a mitzvah and says: "if Hashem wills, I will fulfill it." I asked someone: did you put on tefillin today? He told me: if Hashem wills, I will put them on. I said to him: Hashem wills it, the question is whether you want to. "If Hashem wills, you will earn money today" - that is correct; but that you should put on tefillin, Hashem certainly wants. "If Hashem wills, I will keep Shabbat" - Hashem wants it, do you want it? In all matters of holiness do not cast the responsibility upon the Master of the World.
And so too with tzedakah. A person comes to ask for charity, and you open up a lesson on faith for him: believe me, you have to trust in Hashem, everything is from Him, may He be blessed, trust and you will receive your livelihood from Heaven. About this it is said "Fortunate is he who is wise toward the poor" - when you speak with the poor man, be wise, like those maskilim of the Haskalah movement, without faith and without anything: take it out of your pocket and give it to him. Do not specifically now give him a lesson in ethics and fear of Heaven and trust - that is not what is demanded of you. In spiritual matters act on your own, and in physical matters know that everything is from Hashem, may He be blessed.
And Rabbeinu Yonah adds: if he desecrated his vow and misappropriated sacred things, Heaven forbid he will lose his money through an evil matter; and if there is wrongdoing in his hands - let him turn back from the violence that is in his hands. And the essence of the pasuk, says Rabbeinu Yonah, is to warn a person to "search out our ways" - search out your ways and examine yourself, for the Holy One, blessed be He, measures measure for measure, as we will see in the coming pasuk. Therefore "a snare for a man to blurt out 'holy,' and after making vows to reconsider": examine yourself, distance sin and snare from yourself, and draw close to His service, may He be blessed.
The Vilna Gaon explains: "yala" comes from the language of swallowing and confusing - when a person stumbles into a sin, he confuses his state of holiness. And afterward, "vows are to be examined," and this is wonderful: it may very well be that the trap itself came as a result of a vow that he vowed and did not pay. The Gaon connects the two - did a trap befall you? Check what the cause was. Perhaps you vowed and did not pay, and as a result the trap came.
This is particularly known in matters of money. A person who suffered a "financial blow" should check why. It may be that he did not give tithes or was not careful about them. It is told of the Rav of Volozhin that once they came and told him that the milk had boiled over. He wondered: how is it that the milk boiled over? He recalled that he was supposed to give a certain sum of charity, and when he calculated he found that he had erred in the tithe accounting; and when he calculated how much milk had spilled - it was exactly that same sum. Another time a Torah scroll was stolen from him, and again he calculated and found something he had not included in the tithe accounting. He recalculated and told them: the scroll will return. And indeed, after two days they returned the Torah scroll. This is how he lived, with unbelievable precision. The Gaon says: if you see traps and falls - check whether you vowed vows and did not pay, and it may very well be that this is the cause of that trap.
An additional explanation: "the trap of a man is that he confused holiness" - when a person stumbles in something, presumably he first confused the holy, committed a sin, and therefore came to stumble, as it is written "for you have stumbled in your iniquity." A person stumbles unintentionally - he gets up at night and mistakenly turns on the light in the bathroom. What is his law? A sin offering. On Sunday he goes to the Beit HaMikdash, hires transport, buys an animal for three thousand shekels, wastes a day of work, and in their times the journey up with the animal wasted an entire week, and he goes through the whole process of bringing the offering. For what? Because absentmindedly, in the middle of the night, lost in his thoughts, he turned on the light on Shabbat. There are those who immediately correct and turn it off, but he forgot, and within the span of speech he did not manage to correct it, and the light remained on. And the person asks: Master of the Universe, what happened already? By mistake, unintentionally!
And the answer lies in what the Ben Ish Chai brings: two friends sailed on a ship, the ship ran aground and broke apart, and all the passengers were scattered in every direction. Both of them were cast upon the shores of Spain, but their paths separated in one of the waves, and each one fell from exhaustion onto the shore. Each sought his own way, and by the kindness of Hashem each one found someone to give him food, for they were literally on the brink of starvation, and each was hosted by a different person. After months they managed to return to their city, met with embraces and the blessing of "Who revives the dead," and each recounted to his friend what had befallen him.
The one said: don't ask, someone hosted me, a gentile, I ate pork and other things at his home - it was a matter of saving a life, there was no choice, and I regret it. The second said to him: I too was hosted by a gentile, and I ate because of danger to life, for a person was breathing his last. But then he saw me making a blessing before eating and asked what I was doing. I told him that I was a Jew and this is our custom. He said to me: you are a Jew? I too am a Jew, from the Anusim of Spain. The food you ate is kosher of the highest standard; we have ritual slaughter, everything in secret and concealment, the whole house is kosher and they are careful about meat and milk. To any other person I would not have told, but I see that you are a Jew. And there was no end to my joy that the Holy One, blessed be He, saved me from being defiled by forbidden foods that dull the heart.
His friend heard this and his heart ached: why did I stumble? The two of them went to a rabbi and asked: we both went through the same story, why did Hashem save him and not me? The rabbi asked him: was there ever a time in the past when you willingly ate forbidden food? He said: in truth, yes. Many years ago, when we were children, I returned from Talmud Torah with a gentile neighbor, and he took out a sandwich and ate, and he did not feel like finishing it, and he asked who wanted it. The smell of the meat rose to my nostrils and I was tempted and I ate - a sandwich of nevelah or treifah or pork, I don't know exactly. The rabbi said to him: if so, do not be surprised. Since you once transgressed willingly, from Heaven they arranged for you an unintentional sin.
And so says the Ramban: unintentional sins that a person stumbles in show a lack of fear of Heaven, a lack of alertness and caution regarding sin; one who is alert and careful will not stumble even unintentionally. An example of this: you have not heard of an adult who fell out of bed in his sleep, and if you have heard - it is rare. And how do you know in sleep that you have reached the edge? Once I saw a photograph of a sleeping person, whom they photographed once every minute, and he is like a boxer in the bed - to the right, to the left, up and down. In sleep a person moves all the time. So how does he not fall? And why do children fall but we do not? Because a person knows in his subconscious "woe, one falls from the bed," and when he reaches the edge his inner sense tells him: move aside - while asleep.
And Rav Dessler adds regarding the power of the subconscious: a person decides to get up tomorrow at six in the morning, and he has no clock and nothing - and he gets up at six. He looks at the clock: six exactly. This is the inner mechanism within a person. And when something is painful to a person, important to him and precious in his eyes, he will not stumble in it even unintentionally. And if a person stumbles unintentionally, it is a sign that the matter is not truly in his veins and his blood, and therefore he stumbled. And this is what is said "Return, Israel, unto Hashem your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity" - which seemingly is not understood: "iniquity" is intentional and "stumbled" is unintentional, how can "you have stumbled in your iniquity" apply? Rather, if you found that you have a stumbling and an unintentional sin, know that it is because of your iniquity from the past; you once did such a thing willingly, and therefore they now arrange for you unintentional sins in it. And likewise "the trap of a man is that he confused holiness" - if you see a person stumbling in his deeds, it is because he confused the holy in the past, and that is what caused him to stumble now even unintentionally; and therefore "and after vows to examine" - to examine and to pay, as it is said "my vows to Hashem I will pay."
The Malbim explains that among the traps in which a person stumbles and falls into the snare are transgressions of the lips: lashon hara, false speech, flattery, improper talk, causing distress to one's fellow. Many, many are the sins of the tongue, as it is said "in the transgression of the lips is an evil snare." And as the Chafetz Chaim says: great people - the evil inclination cannot cause them to stumble in a sin. What will it say to him, come and desecrate Shabbat? Forbidden relations? This person is great and holy, there is no way to make him stumble in these sins. So has his inclination rested? No; it entices him to transgress with the lips, with speech. And against whom will he speak? Not against the wagon driver in the synagogue, who is not on his level at all. Rather he has a dispute with another great person, on a halachic or philosophical matter - and there the inclination causes him to fall in transgressions of the lips.
מְזָרֶה רְשָׁעִים מֶלֶךְ חָכָם וַיָּשֶׁב עֲלֵיהֶם אוֹפָן׃ (כו) - A wise king scatters the wicked, and brings the wheel over them. (26)
The Malbim explains: even the wisest man, when he wants to establish the truth and clarify whether the wicked sinned or not, finds it difficult. For the wicked, just as they are wicked, are experts in schemes for how to conceal their sin, to make evidence disappear, and to prevent the exposure of their crime. But there is a tactic: "A wise king scatters the wicked" - first he separates them, placing each one in a holding cell by himself so that there will be no communication between them. And afterward, "and brings the wheel over them."
What is "and brings the wheel over them"? Anyone who has seen drawings from the Inquisition period knows: they had a wheel to which they tied a person and turned him in order to lower him into water, a terrible torture, where each time a little more and a little more, and he nearly drowns and comes up again; or a very heavy wheel that they rolled over him. And the king who wants to track down the wicked rolls the wheel over them, and out of the pain and suffering he is forced to confess.
But the main thing is the separation - "divide and conquer." The most damaging thing to an investigation is coordinating stories, and this itself is a crime on its own: obstruction of an investigation. "If they ask you, say you weren't there; say the money I brought you is only for this and has nothing to do with that" - that is coordinating stories. And therefore they place them in custody, and therefore the police request an extension of detention, in order to continue investigating in a way that does not allow him to pass messages to his accomplices or destroy evidence. And there is a third stage not mentioned in the verse: they go to each one and tell him that his partner has already told everything about him, and said that he was the main one and he was the one who did it. And when he starts to believe it, he understands that if he is the only one keeping silent, the whole case will be pinned on him, and he will sit thirty years in prison, while all the others will receive state-witness immunity and go home. This is how a wise king extracts the truth from the wicked.
And one must remember that the king who punishes the wicked does so in order to know what their wickedness is and to protect the good and decent people so that they will not be harmed by them. And there is no room here for mistaken mercy - we are speaking of Hamas and Hezbollah men and the like, not decent people. Only among us is there a High Court and a B'Tselem. Back then, when they proposed returning territories and giving them weapons, people said: there will be bombs and terror attacks here. They answered: don't worry, they will have a Palestinian police force, with no High Court and no B'Tselem. And it turned out that that very police force "with no High Court and no B'Tselem" is the one that carries out the attacks and gives them backing. How much naivete is required to think that they will guard us and protect us.
And today the High Court is sticks in the wheels. There was a "neighbor procedure": a terrorist barricades himself in a house, and they send a neighbor to knock on the door so that it will open and then they break in, and they do not endanger a soldier's life. The High Court forbade this, because it happened that a neighbor who was sent was harmed by an explosive or by the terrorist who thought a soldier had come. They said it is not moral. And what is moral? That an IDF soldier should be killed. This is the moral standard of the High Court of Justice, where "justice" is merely the name of a star. I read an article by one of the settlement leaders who wrote: I too think the neighbor procedure should be stopped, and in my opinion we should begin with a "judge procedure" - we will bring a judge from the High Court, he will knock gently on the door, ask that they open so the neighbor won't be harmed, and even present a bouquet of flowers. It is very easy to sit in ivory towers and instruct a soldier how to knock on a door; let his honor knock on the door himself.
And in any case they have no problem, because those who always criticize the observant, their sons - if they serve at all - serve in the Kirya. Many of them are pacifists who do not enlist at all, since according to them the IDF is an "occupying army," and many of them are abroad, at Oxford and Harvard and various colleges, and do not get dirty here at all. How many High Court judges do you know whose sons went through combat tracks? At most he killed himself in the tent of Galei Tzahal. We at least know that we sustain the world with our study of Torah. I was told of someone who was asked about the draft, and he said: my son studied in the class of the son of a famous singer - and out of that entire class not one enlisted. And one of the generals said that it troubles him greatly that when they come to deliver bitter tidings to the parents of soldiers, may God protect us from such an experience, they arrive in Dimona and in Sderot, and he does not recall that they ever had occasion to arrive in Tel Aviv. There is a certain public that is at the spearhead, and there are those who merely recite slogans about equality. What equality are we talking about? Of the yeshiva students they say that they kill themselves in the tent of Torah, and they demand gravestones in the cemeteries - and gravestones from that "State of Tel Aviv," are there any? We give ourselves over in the study of Torah that sustains the people of Israel; and in the name of what ideal did so-and-so go to kill himself in the tent of theater, or to serve in Galei Tzahal or in the Kirya which has rates of hidden unemployment? As has been exposed, there are desk-jobbers there whom they don't know what to keep busy with, and yet they tell you that soldiers are needed. It is all a fiction, and it is all meant for one purpose: to strike at the world of Torah.
And the sitra achra in the final generation is in its last convulsions. If you see it raging - this is a bereaved bear that is about to lose everything. So it is written in the holy books, that in the final generation, when the heads of the people will be from the mixed multitude, the sitra achra senses that it is about to lose everything, and then there are troubles and disasters and decrees against the world of Torah. And all that we are experiencing now is nothing but a sign and a wonder that we are already on the final stretch. And in this way it is said also of "and brings the wheel over them": those nations and states from which the people of Israel suffered throughout history, when the Holy One, blessed be He, brings the wheel over them and exacts payment from them for having oppressed Israel - all the better. We bless that both sides should win and succeed above and beyond, and what is distressing is only that the pace is too slow. And this itself tells us that we are at the beginning of the process of redemption.
But the way of a flesh-and-blood king is not perfect: it is very possible that out of the suffering a person will confess to a lie. In order that we not reach this, he scatters them, and punishes several of them separately, and through the comparison he arrives at the investigation of the truth - for this is not the confession of one person alone. They tell that once Gorbachev's watch was lost, and he turned to the KGB to open an investigation. They opened an investigation. After a while he entered the bathroom and saw that while he had showered he had placed the watch on the marble and forgotten it. He called the head of the KGB and said: cancel the investigation, I found the watch. He said to him: impossible. He asked: why? He answered: we already have three who have confessed. When a wicked king punishes in order to obtain a confession, the confession may be entirely false.
נֵר ה' נִשְׁמַת אָדָם חֹפֵשׂ כׇּל חַדְרֵי בָטֶן׃ (כז) - The soul of man is the candle of Hashem, searching all the chambers of the innards. (27)
Rashi comments briefly: the soul within a person testifies against him in judgment. Who bears witness against a person? His soul; it is the lamp, and it searches all the chambers of the innards.
Rabbeinu Yonah explains: just as by a lamp you can see what is in the house - we are no longer familiar with lamps, we have electricity, but in their day people would see by a lamp what was in the house - so too the soul is the means by which the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over a person, to examine and inspect his innermost thoughts. A person's soul is from the upper worlds, and therefore a person is obligated to master his deeds and his thoughts, for if he strays from the path his punishment is far more severe than that of any other creature - since no other creature received the lamp of Hashem within it. Your soul is a portion of God from above, "one who blows, blows from within himself," a part of the Holy One, blessed be He, resides within a person. How careful must a person be not to bring filth into himself and not to place himself in a place of filth, while he carries within him such a holy soul.
And this lamp, which is the soul of a person, is that through which Hashem "searches all the chambers of the innards" - a person's thoughts. By means of the soul the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over a person, to hold him accountable and punish him or to grant him his reward, for you carry within you this awesome thing, which is the lamp of Hashem. And the lamp is sent from Hashem, as it is written "and the lamp of God had not yet gone out" - the lamp that God commanded regarding; and just as "the mountains of God" are the mountains that Hashem created, so "the lamp of Hashem" is the lamp that Hashem created and sent to illuminate within a person's body. And because you have within you so awesome a thing, Hashem searches all the chambers of the innards - He wants to know what is happening with you.
This is also why a gentile does not have the same level of Divine providence as a Jew. For what does a gentile have? An animal soul (nefesh behamit) - a gentile has no neshamah. Whoever wishes may study this at length in the second part of "Mishnat HaGilgulim," where we detail the difference between the soul of a gentile and the soul of a Jew. A gentile has only a nefesh, and an animal one at that; whereas a Jew has nefesh, ruach, and neshamah - two additional higher spiritual levels, and above that chayah and yechidah, which only a few can attain. Not only that, but they are branches of holiness, whereas the gentile is from the sitra achra, from the forces of impurity and from the impure chariot, while the souls of Israel are hewn from beneath the Throne of Glory and are part of His very essence, blessed be He.
Now it is clear why Hashem searches all the chambers of the innards. If I were to bring you my son and say to you: watch over him for me - it would be very important to me to know what you are doing with him and what is happening with him at every given moment. The Holy One, blessed be He, entrusted us with a soul, and therefore He examines what you do with it. This is Divine providence: what did you just think, what did you just say, what did you see. Says the Holy One, blessed be He: My soul, My portion, a portion of God from above, is entrusted to you. And since the honored soul was placed within a person to illuminate and to give understanding, therefore Hashem searches all the chambers of the innards: what are you doing with this lamp - are you guarding it, caring for it, nurturing it, or, Heaven forbid, damaging and ruining the soul?
The Vilna Gaon explains: within a person there is thought, speech, and deed, and corresponding to them we find different expressions of providence. Corresponding to thought - "the eyes of Hashem roam throughout all the earth," to see the thought of a person's heart. Corresponding to speech - we find the language of hearing regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, that He hears every word that leaves a person's mouth. And corresponding to deed - "Hashem sees" and "discerns all their deeds." And a person's soul is like a lamp that searches all the chambers of the innards, the thoughts: the soul within a person, as it were, conducts an internal inspection, and afterward it ascends and testifies on high - this is how the person thought, this is how he spoke, such a transgression he committed. The lamp of Hashem within a person is what ascends and testifies about his deeds.
The Malbim connects this verse to the previous one. By a flesh and blood king it is necessary that "a wise king scatters the wicked and turns the wheel over them" - to disperse, to punish, and to investigate, in order to reach the truth. But by the Holy One, blessed be He, none of this is needed. He has, as it were, a spotlight that requires no method at all: "the lamp of Hashem is the soul of a person" - a person's soul is the lamp of the Master of the World, and it illuminates before Him what is concealed in the darkness within a person's heart, "searching all the chambers of the innards."
This is what our Sages said: and if you should ask, who testifies against me - the beams of a person's house testify against him, and a person's soul testifies against him. And on the verse "guard the openings of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom," our Sages say: who is "she who lies in your bosom"? This is a person's soul, which is found within his bosom. Thus the Holy One, blessed be He, has no need to scatter the wicked nor to turn the wheel over them; He has such a lamp, the lamp of God which is the soul of a person, and through it He searches all the chambers of the innards.
The three verses teach a single accounting of the soul: "it is a snare for a person to declare something holy rashly" - regarding the snares of the body and of the road you have no capacity to understand, but from the snares of sin you have the ability to guard yourself, and in spiritual matters one must not cast responsibility upon the Master of the World. And when a fall comes - "and after vows to reconsider": examine your vows, your tithes, and the sins of the past, for "you have stumbled in your iniquity," and the unintentional act testifies to a lack of caution and to the intentional act that preceded it. A flesh and blood king must scatter and punish in order to reach the truth, and even then the confession may be false; but the Holy One, blessed be He, entrusted within us a lamp of His own - "the lamp of Hashem is the soul of a person" - and through it He searches all the chambers of the innards. And this itself is the immense measure of merit and the great responsibility: one who carries within himself a portion of God from above should guard the lamp, nurture it, and let it shine, and never, Heaven forbid, damage it.