Chapter 6 of the Book of Mishlei opens with what appears at first glance to be simple financial advice - a person who has become entangled in contradictory commitments and must extricate himself from them. Yet, as we will see, all of this is merely an allegory. King Solomon did not come to advise us on financial affairs, dealing with banks, and the ways of borrowing and repayment; although such advice is also needed, Solomon did not write the Book of Mishlei for that purpose. Solomon wrote his book to guide us along the path leading to the House of God, to draw close to Him, blessed be He, to choose the good and spurn the bad. From this monetary allegory, he constructs for us a complete picture of man's relationship with his Creator, and later in the chapter he proceeds to teach us alacrity from the ant.
בְּנִי אִם־עָרַבְתָּ לְרֵעֶךָ תָּקַעְתָּ לַזָּר כַּפֶּיךָ׃ - My son, if you have guaranteed for your fellow, if you have shaken hands with a stranger.
"If you have guaranteed for your fellow" - you made a commitment to him, a kind of pledge to perform something on his behalf. For example, you pledged to your fellow that you would sell him a house or a field, and guaranteeing means that you gave a security deposit: I commit to this, and I put down money on it. And then, "you have shaken hands with a stranger" - you went and shook hands with another person, committing to sell that very same property to him, which means doing the exact opposite of what you pledged to your fellow. Shaking hands is an even stronger commitment than an ordinary guarantee. Thus, we have two individuals here: the fellow, toward whom the first commitment was made, and the stranger, with whom you shook hands.
נוֹקַשְׁתָּ בְאִמְרֵי־פִיךָ נִלְכַּדְתָּ בְּאִמְרֵי־פִיךָ׃ - You have been snared by the words of your mouth; you have been caught by the words of your mouth.
First, "you have been snared by the words of your mouth" - through what you guaranteed to your fellow, by which you became obligated to him; and then, "you have been caught by the words of your mouth" - through the handshake you gave to the stranger. The Malbim explains the distinction between being snared (nokashta) and being caught (nilkadta): capture comes after the snare. A snare (mokesh) is the obstacle one trips over, as with a baited trap - after stumbling upon it, one falls into the trap and is "caught" (nilkad), unable to escape. The initial commitment is the snare upon which you stumbled, and the handshake with the stranger is the entrapment itself: now you are truly trapped.
עֲשֵׂה זֹאת אֵפוֹא בְּנִי וְהִנָּצֵל כִּי־בָאתָ בְכַף־רֵעֶךָ לֵךְ הִתְרַפֵּס וּרְהַב רֵעֶיךָ׃ - Do this now, my son, and be delivered, for you have fallen into the hand of your fellow: go humble yourself and urge your fellow.
What advice does the wisest of all men offer us? "Do this now" - therefore, do this, my son, and be delivered. "For you have fallen into the hand of your fellow" - his guarantee came first, and you are already in the grasp of your first fellow. Therefore, you have only one of two paths. The first: "go humble yourself" (hitrapes) - before the stranger, abasing yourself before him so that he will release you from your handshake. And the second: "and urge your fellow" (rehav re'echa) - entreat and overwhelm your fellow, the first one you guaranteed, with persuasions and by accommodating his wishes, until he is willing to release you from the obligation you made to him. In short, you cannot fulfill two contradictory pledges; you will inevitably be bound to one of them, and you must act to extricate yourself.
Our Sages expound hitrapes by way of notarikon: hatter pisat yad - "open the palm of your hand." Notarikon means taking a word and breaking it into two components, as in avrech - a father (av) in wisdom, tender (rach) in years; or zaken - zeh kanah ("this one has acquired"). At times the term also refers to acronyms, but usually it denotes decomposing a single word. The Malbim adds that we find "prostrating himself (mitrapes) with pieces of silver," which denotes submission, as well as "and trampled (rafsah) the residue with its feet" regarding the beast seen emerging from the sea, which treads upon and crushes everything in its path. Thus, hitrapes connotes trampling, submission, and self-abasement: go humble yourself before the stranger, or prevail upon your fellow.
אַל־תִּתֵּן שֵׁנָה לְעֵינֶיךָ וּתְנוּמָה לְעַפְעַפֶּיךָ׃ - Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
Ibn Ezra explains that after you humble yourself, you must exert yourself and not sleep until you repay the debt. Seemingly, this is a simple matter, but in our generation it is not simple at all: a person is advised to borrow, and then to have no rest until it is paid off. And the difference between sleep (sheinah) and slumber (tenumah) is that sleep refers to deep, regular sleep, while slumber is a light drowse, half asleep and half awake. That is, do not rest and do not be still until you repay the debt.
הִנָּצֵל כִּצְבִי מִיָּד וּכְצִפּוֹר מִיַּד יָקוּשׁ׃ - Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
A hunted gazelle escapes through the strength of its body and its horns, with which it gores to break free from the snare. But a bird - the Gemara recounts that they used to hunt birds using glue, much as mice are trapped today: the bird lands, gets stuck, and cannot move. What gets stuck? Mostly its wings and feathers. Consequently, its only option is to pluck out the stuck feathers and tear itself away. So too here: either you save yourself through the strength of your body, meaning by paying, or you leave your garment in the hand of the one for whom you guaranteed - you strip off your clothes and leave them with him, since you guaranteed and obligated yourself to him. This is just like the feathers the bird leaves behind in the trap where it was caught.
The Malbim explains: all of this is a mashal, an allegory. And what is the nimshal? Every person is like a guarantor to the Holy One, blessed be He, to observe His Torah and mitzvos, as the Tanna teaches in Avos: "And everything is given on collateral." A person also has a pledge to return his soul in purity - the Holy One, blessed be He, placed a deposit in our care: "My God, the soul You gave me is pure," and I am destined to return it. A deposit must be returned in the exact same state and manner in which it was received. And man received yet another deposit: the Torah that an infant learns in his mother's womb, after which he is examined on what remained of it - did you sit and study that same Torah you received in your mother's womb after the angel caused you to forget it? And if a person does not guard his soul in purity, everything is given on collateral: either his soul will be taken from him, or other things will be taken; for one's house, car, wife, and children - everything is held on collateral.
There is a wonderful parable explaining the meaning of "everything is given on collateral," often mentioned before Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, a person comes to make requests, and in the words of the holy Zohar, like dogs barking, "Hav, hav" (give, give): Master of the Universe, give me this and grant me more of that! But what about what I already have? He does not mention that at all, as though it is entirely secure and guaranteed, and he is merely asking for a salary raise. This is foolishness and vanity, for on Rosh Hashanah one is not judged regarding a raise; on Rosh Hashanah, judgment is passed on everything. "This day is the beginning of Your works": the judgment begins from the very start, from ground zero - whether you have the merit to live through the coming year. Life itself is on trial, not a salary increase.
To what can this be compared? A man entered the home of a wealthy person about whom rumors were spreading in town that his financial situation had collapsed. He walked in and was astounded: how could people talk like that? He saw a display cabinet filled with silver and gold Judaica worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, antique pieces and rare items sold at auction houses for fortunes. He thought: this is the man they say lost his fortune? This is the one having difficulties? Baruch Hashem, I see he is living well; he even has an antique brush worth fifty thousand shekels here! He had come to ask for tzedakah, but felt hesitant, so he decided to ask about it. The wealthy man said to him: Lift up the items you see in the cabinet. He began lifting them one by one, and beneath each piece was a sticker with the item's name, an inventory number, and the name of the company to which it was pledged as collateral. The wealthy man said: I own nothing here. Everything you see in this house is mortgaged; tomorrow they can evict me, and even the luxury suits in the closet no longer belong to me. Everything is pledged to creditors. It is merely virtual wealth.
This is what the Tanna in Avos means by "everything is given on collateral." And the Zohar states: a person walks through this world thinking it belongs to him and that he will remain in it for generations upon generations. People tell him: people die! He replies: true, once upon a time... but in our days Moshiach will come, what are you talking about? We are not going anywhere! That is a person's instinct. He represses the day of death, and he also represses the fact that in truth he owns nothing, that everything he possesses is held on collateral, and stamped underneath everything is "the Holy One, blessed be He" - it all belongs to the Master of the Universe. If a person lived with this awareness, his prayer on Rosh Hashanah would look entirely different: he would not come asking for a pay raise, but begging that the factory not be shut down, lest he find himself not merely without food, but without life.
And this is Shlomo's message here. "If you have become a guarantor for your friend" - already from Mount Sinai, you are a guarantor to the Holy One, blessed be He, to observe and fulfill His Torah and mitzvos. And the moment He placed a soul within you, the angel warned it upon bringing it down into the world: "Be righteous and do not be wicked." You obligate yourself to this, and everything is given on collateral. And then, "you have shaken hands with a stranger." Who is the stranger? That is the yetzer hara, physical matter, materialism, bodily desires. You went and struck a pledge with a stranger, acting in complete opposition to what you committed to in your guarantee. Consequently, "you are snared by the words of your mouth" - the guarantee you signed with the Holy One, blessed be He, has turned into a trap for you.
The Malbim explains a fundamental principle here: the mouth (peh) always alludes to chochmah (wisdom), and the tongue alludes to binah (understanding), a motif running throughout the entire book and visible in many places. Therefore, initially, "you are snared by the words of your mouth" - the snare is the words of one's mouth, having pledged to act according to the laws of wisdom; and afterwards, "you are caught" doing the opposite of wisdom, being trapped alongside the stranger whose hand you shook, namely the yetzer hara, physical desires, and materialism.
What, then, is the advice? Once you have fallen into the palm of your companion, having already pledged to the Holy One, blessed be He, to keep His mitzvos and guard your soul from the snares and traps of the yetzer hara, there is no choice but to subjugate matter and desire. This is the meaning of "go, humble yourself (hitrapes)": an expression of abasement and trampling - trample and subjugate the physical. "And urge your friend (re'echa)" - your friend here refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, or to the soul: increase good toward Him, add more Torah and mitzvos. A person must increase his efforts and give no sleep to his eyes, serving the Holy One, blessed be He, constantly, escaping the yetzer hara and running like a gazelle to do the will of his Creator. And against the yetzer hara that grabbed hold of you, the verse tells you: on the contrary, trample it, wrench yourself from its grip, and flee to your Friend.
And if the yetzer hara managed to lure you into its net and temptation, you must save yourself like a bird caught in a trap and like a gazelle caught in a snare, which do everything to break free. Leave your feathers behind: all the illusory possessions and all matters of desire - leave them there! Devote yourself to Torah and mitzvos. This is just like that nazir whose hair was arranged in beautiful curls, who came and took upon himself the vows of a nazir, saying: "By the Temple service, I shall shave you for the sake of Heaven!" In a sense, he stripped away all those external forces that clung to him and sought to drag him toward the yetzer hara; he shaved them for Heaven and afflicted his body with asceticism. So too you: "Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand" - just as the gazelle flees the snare, fighting with its horns and strength to escape the trap, and just as the bird escapes by leaving behind its feathers, lacking the strength to fight but leaving its feathers behind - so too, leave behind all the illusory acquisitions and matters of desire, leave them here, and draw close to the Holy One, blessed be He.
לֵךְ־אֶל־נְמָלָה עָצֵל רְאֵה דְרָכֶיהָ וַחֲכָם׃ - Go to the ant, you sluggard; observe her ways and grow wise.
The Malbim explains: all the powers of Creation are planted within the human soul, and every trait found in any species of the animal kingdom also exists within man. Furthermore, there are many traits in animals that were not placed there for their own needs, but for ours - so that we may learn from them and deduce how to conduct ourselves and what to do. As Chazal said: Had the Torah not been given, we would have learned modesty from the cat, the prohibition of theft from the ant, loving-kindness from the stork, and so on.
Why, then, do we not learn from them in practice? Because learning from them is incomplete. We could learn about theft from the ant - but where does the ant get so much wheat? It is all taken from others! What do we actually learn from her? That once one ant has claimed a grain of wheat, another ant will not take it from her: she approaches, smells that another ant has touched it, and leaves it alone. Very impressive - but these are mafia rules: one member does not steal from another, yet everyone is permitted to steal from the outside world. Similarly with the stork and loving-kindness: Chazal say that the stork (*chasidah*) acts kindly toward its companions. But the Sages ask: if we can learn kindness from it, why is it not a kosher bird? After all, merciful animals are kosher! The Gemara answers: because it shows kindness only to its own kind. And what kind of kindness is that? Showing favor only to one's inner circle is not true kindness; kindness must be extended to all people. Thus, learning from animals is limited, and complete instruction comes only from the holy Torah.
This alludes to what Moshe said to Pharaoh: "Our livestock too must go with us... for we do not know with what we are to serve Hashem until we arrive there." As explained - it seems by the Chasam Sofer - why did the livestock have to accompany them? Because at that stage, prior to the giving of the Torah, from whom did we learn? Theft from the ant and modesty from the cat; all character traits were learned from animals. Therefore, "our livestock too must go with us," since "we do not know with what we are to serve Hashem until we arrive there" - until the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, we were still learning from animals, so they had to accompany us so that we could learn from them how to serve Hashem.
תָּכִין בַּקַּיִץ לַחְמָהּ אָגְרָה בַקָּצִיר מַאֲכָלָהּ׃ - She prepares her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.
What unique trait did the Holy One, Blessed is He, plant within the ant? The trait of alacrity (*zerizut*). The ant never rests: she is constantly walking, running, gathering and gathering. And how much does she gather? Thousands of grains. And how much does she actually eat? A tiny fraction of it all. All this is meant to demonstrate to man how diligently and abundantly he must labor to gather wisdom into himself.
And thus writes Ralbag: "You already observe from her that she prepares her bread in the summer by bringing produce into her holes" - storing what she finds for the entire year within crevices and holes, gathering her food in the summer. "And you will marvel greatly at her ways in this matter, for you will find that if the ant's hole is in a wall, she will ascend along winding paths, so that the climb is not overly difficult under the heavy burden she carries in her mouth." That is, she plans winding paths so that the weight in her mouth does not overwhelm her. Moreover, it appears that she carries three or four times her own weight. Imagine a person weighing eighty kilograms needing to lift two hundred and fifty; a sack of cement weighs fifty kilograms, and when a person lifts it he nearly collapses, yet here it is like carrying five sacks of cement - one would need a forklift for that! But the ant carries many times her own weight, grips it in her mouth, and keeps going.
Another fascinating point: how is it possible that the ant stores wheat and it does not sprout? The Gemara relates that a certain sage examined an anthill and found several *kor* of wheat - a *kor* is a massive quantity, hundreds of kilograms, stored in its tunnels. Rain falls, and what is wheat supposed to do when wet? Sprout! But Chazal explain: why is it called a *nemalah*? Because it *malah* (cuts). What does *malah* mean? As in the verse *amilem*, meaning "I will cut them off," and just as circumcision (*milah*) means cutting away the foreskin. The ant performs a kind of circumcision on the wheat: it cuts off the tip, the small germ from which the sprout would begin to grow. Once that tip is removed, the wheat can no longer sprout.
Ralbag continues: "And you will find among her ways that she bites off the tip of the seed, which contains that which corresponds to the male seed, as mentioned in the book of botany, so that what is buried in the earth will not sprout, and thereby it is preserved from rotting" - so that it neither rots nor begins to germinate. "And you will also find among her ways that if water enters the ants' holes, they immediately carry the seed outside to dry it, and afterward they return and store it away." As soon as dampness sets in, the ants immediately bring all the seeds out into the open, let them dry in the sun, and then carry them back into their storehouses to preserve them from decay.
The opening of the chapter depicts a person who became a guarantor for his fellow and subsequently shook hands with a stranger, finding himself snared and trapped by the words of his mouth. Shlomo's advice is to extricate oneself with all his might - to humble himself before the stranger or shower goodness upon his fellow, without sleep or slumber, like a gazelle struggling with its horns and like a bird leaving its feathers in the snare. The deeper meaning is that man is a guarantor to the Holy One, Blessed is He, ever since Mount Sinai and from the moment a pure soul was entrusted to his care; everything is held as collateral, for man possesses nothing of his own except what was deposited into his hands. If he shook hands with a "stranger" - the yetzer hara, physical matter, and lusts - he must trample and subdue the physical, increase Torah and mitzvos, leave all illusory acquisitions behind in this world, and escape. As for the diligence required in all of this - "Go to the ant, you sluggard": the instincts of the animal kingdom are implanted in man so that he might learn from them, and the ant, which never rests, gathering thousands while consuming practically nothing, teaches us how much a person must labor and store up wisdom within himself. Nevertheless, learning from animals has its limits; complete, perfect instruction comes only from the holy Torah.