In the passage before us, Shlomo Hamelech continues on his path: placing before a person two paths - momentary pleasure versus true goodness, and the way of the righteous versus the way of the wicked. We will go through the verses in order, following the Malbim's commentary, and add the insights of the Ba'alei Mussar who elaborated specifically here.
אֱכָל־בְּנִי דְבַשׁ כִּי־טוֹב וְנֹפֶת מָתוֹק עַל־חִכֶּךָ׃ - Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and dripping honeycomb is sweet to your palate.
It is customary for people to eat honey because it is good - and also delicious. And what is nofet? We find the expression nofet tzufim (drippings of the honeycomb), and the Metzudat Tziyon explains that nofet is related to hatafah, dripping (like noteif, even though one is spelled with a tet and the other with a tav). Similarly, "Your lips drip flowing honey (nofet titofnah), honey and milk are under your tongue" - nofet is something that descends and drips. In other words: eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the dripping nectar will be sweet upon your palate.
The Malbim explains: honey is eaten because it is good. Honey is beneficial for the body and even has antibiotic properties; people used to apply it to wounds and use it as medicine. By the way, it is recorded that when camels carried heavy loads, their backs would rub raw and develop wounds, and they would smear honey there to heal them - and after this honey, that part of the camel was called a dabeshet (hump). Even today, if a person asks whether to take honey or sugar, they will certainly recommend honey. Thus, honey is fundamentally good; whereas nofet is sweet only at the moment it touches a person's palate.
כֵּן דְּעֶה חָכְמָה לְנַפְשֶׁךָ, אִם־מָצָאתָ וְיֵשׁ אַחֲרִית, וְתִקְוָתְךָ לֹא תִכָּרֵת׃ - So know wisdom for your soul; if you have found it, there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
Are these mere dietary recommendations? Rather, this is the parable: just as you eagerly pursue eating honey, so should you pursue knowing wisdom. Wisdom is wholesome nourishment for the soul - it is the best thing that builds a person's soul: wisdom, mussar, and Torah.
And what is the difference between nofet and honey? The Malbim explains: nofet is sweet only while it is on the palate, whereas honey is inherently and enduringly good. One can illustrate this with an example: if a person places plain flour in his mouth and chews on it, at a certain stage it turns sweet as it breaks down into sugars. So too with nofet, which is evidently a nectar that breaks down from salivary enzymes upon entering the mouth and only then becomes sweet. Furthermore: "sweet to your palate" implies not only that it was not sweet beforehand, but that it provides no lasting benefit afterward; it is sweet on the palate, but for the rest of the body, it has no real value. In contrast, honey is truly good and brings a beneficial outcome.
This is the deeper meaning of the verse: through wisdom, "there is a future" - it remains perpetually sweet to the soul. Even when the body wastes away, this "honey," which is wisdom, endures with you for eternity. "And your hope will not be cut off" - even in this world, your hope will not be cut off.
Let us read it again in this light: "Eat honey, my son, for it is good" - even though the nofet is sweet to your palate. Leave the nofet aside and eat the honey. In other words: let go of fleeting pleasures. The desires of this world are like nofet. There is no denying it; whoever tells you there is no pleasure there at all should not be believed. Pork may well be a delicacy, appetizing and tasty; all of that is true, yet the Torah commanded us not to eat it. That is the definition of nofet: sweet, pleasant, but fleeting. And what is genuinely good? "Eat honey, my son, for it is good." Do not focus merely on the momentary, lustful gratification of a transgression. Instead, "know wisdom for your soul" - seek wisdom, and if you have found it, know that there is a future, and it will remain with you forever.
Notice the precise wording: Scripture does not say, "Eat things that are hard to swallow so that you will have a good future." It calls Torah and mitzvos "honey" - right here in this world, it is honey. "There is a future" - here as well; "and your hope will not be cut off" - here as well; and there is a future for the World to Come too. If so, is honey not far better than drippings from the comb? Are Torah and mitzvos not preferable to fleeting pleasures?
We have discussed this at length in the past, but in brief: all the pleasures pursued by the outside world span a very narrow window - ten or fifteen years of chasing after gratification. But seventy or eighty years of a good life - only the Torah promises that. Consider: what are the years in which a person without Torah supposedly celebrates? From age fourteen or fifteen, desires awaken, and he swims in the pleasures of this world, becoming defiled and debased. But a stage comes when the waters calm down; he reaches age thirty, the storms have passed, and he looks for dry land, solid ground, looking to marry. Then he asks himself: what was there until now? We partied. We bounced from place to place, clubs and outings - and very quickly, a person realizes that this is not what real life is about.
Except that at an older age, it is far harder. It is hard to find a match, and when one is found - she is also thirty, and each of them already has set opinions, an established daily routine, and fixed habits, making it very difficult to compromise. The best approach is to marry young, around age twenty, before rigid mindsets set in, when there is readiness to be flexible and a far greater chance of building a faithful, lasting home. That is why Scripture states: if you "acquire wisdom for your soul" - not only is there a future, a world of ultimate good, but your hope will not be cut off, and your life here will also be far better.
It is a mistake and foolishness to think that the Holy One, blessed be He, says to a person: keep the Torah so that it will be good for you there, but here you must suffer. Anyone who reflects will see that the people who genuinely have a good life in this world are God-fearing individuals who walk in the way of Hashem. They see children like olive saplings around their table, derive immense nachas from them, and live to see grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Rav Chaim Kanievsky was privileged to serve as sandak at the bris of his great-great-grandson - a great-great-grandson! Thus, a person merits to see an upright, blessed generation.
There is a story told: one of the leaders of the secular movement once remarked that what troubled him was that he was the same age as the grandfather of one of the chareidi Members of Knesset. They were the exact same age, yet he himself had about six descendants - while that grandfather had around six hundred. Think about it: families of six, seven, eight children, each bringing six or seven of their own, and soon there are great-grandchildren. It is said of Rav Elyashiv that he had over a thousand descendants. You thought "it will be good for you there"? Here, too, you have a home filled with joy, with simchos surrounding you constantly.
By contrast, there are people left utterly lonely. Where is his son? In Nepal, and who knows what he is going through there; sometimes a search party has to be sent just to pull him out. He does not see his son, does not meet him, receives a photo from him once in a while with dreadlocks, and desperately hopes he will finally get married so he can see a bit of nachas. And he has a daughter whose whereabouts he barely knows, and a third son whose life is just as unsettled. Is the way of the Torah not infinitely better? Is it not better to raise children as the Torah directs, in shalom bayis and wholeness? That is what Scripture is telling you: "Eat honey, my son, for it is good." The life I am offering you is honey. I am not telling you to eat bad things so that you will have a good future, nor to suffer here so that it will be good for you there - today, right now, it is honey. "Acquire wisdom for your soul; if you find it, there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off."
אַל־תֶּאֱרֹב רָשָׁע לִנְוֵה צַדִּיק, אַל־תְּשַׁדֵּד רִבְצוֹ׃ - Do not lie in wait, wicked one, against the dwelling of the righteous; do not despoil his resting place.
If you see that the tzaddik's financial situation is deteriorating and collapsing, you, the wicked one - do not lie in wait for him, anticipating when the receiver will take over his house so you can seize it for yourself. "Do not despoil his resting place" - if he was exiled due to poverty and destitution, do not plunder his resting place (teshaded comes from the root of pillaging, as explained by Metzudas Tzion), and do not say: do not worry, he will never come back here, he will never return.
The Malbim explains that there are two kinds of ambushers here: one who lies in wait out of covetousness for money, and one who lies in wait out of envy. Regarding the lust for wealth, it says, "Do not lie in wait, wicked one, against the dwelling of the righteous" - when my motive is to take what is yours so that I may possess it. And regarding envy, it says, "Do not despoil his resting place" - where I do not even seek to gain anything for myself, but merely to deny him rest; the mere fact that I deprived you makes me feel good, because your well-being causes me pain, and so I am willing to plunder your resting place even if I gain nothing from it. Concerning both of these, Scripture warns: do not do it.
כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם, וּרְשָׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְרָעָה׃ - "For a righteous man falls seven times and rises up, but the wicked stumble in calamity."
King David, of blessed memory, says, and Rabbeinu Yonah cites this: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all; He protects all his bones, not one of them is broken." The tzaddik falls seven times - and gets back up, and Hashem protects his bones. By contrast, the wicked stumble through calamity: a single evil, and as we have already said, "he will stumble and never rise again." But the tzaddik will fall and get up, fall and get up. As King David said: "Evil shall slay the wicked" - a single calamity already crushes the wicked person.
Our Sages say, "When the ox falls, sharpen the knife": the moment the ox collapses, its owner says, "Call the shochet! There is no need to make the effort to cast it down and bind it; it has already fallen, hurry!" So too, when a person falls, the danger becomes tangible and immediate, as if Heaven is saying: "He has fallen, this is the opportunity - sharpen the knife." Therefore the Gemara says that a person should pray intensely before he falls, for once he has fallen, they tell him: "Bring advocates of merit and be spared" - and that is not simple; one needs proofs, advocates of merit, and justified grounds to be saved. Under normal circumstances, however, while a person is still healthy and doing well, let him pray, and his rescue from falling is far easier.
The Malbim notes a precision in the wording: "A righteous man falls seven times and rises up" - even if he falls seven times, with Heavenly assistance he will rise. "But the wicked" - in the plural - "stumble in calamity": through the very same harm that they plan for the tzaddik. The wicked plot to cast the tzaddik down, and into the very trap they devised against him, they themselves fall, like Haman who built the gallows to hang Mordechai. Whatever you planned to do to the tzaddik will itself recoil upon your own head.
The masters of Mussar speak frequently about this verse. There is a famous letter from Rav Yitzchok Hutner to a student who wrote to him that his situation was difficult, that he was constantly struggling, falling and getting up, falling and getting up, and was already thinking of giving up in despair. Rav Hutner replied to him: "If you had told me that you have no struggles, I would be worried. But if you tell me that you do have struggles, on the contrary, it shows that you are alive, that you are breathing, active, and fighting. A fish swept along with the current is a dead fish; a duck swept along with the current is a dead duck. A living duck has the strength to swim against the current, and a living fish can swim against the current. The very fact that you are struggling is a good sign, a sign of vitality, a sign that you are still laboring in the fear of Hashem."
He added: "A righteous man falls seven times and rises up." Some mistakenly think the verse means that even though a tzaddik fell seven times, he manages to rise. But that is not the plain meaning of the text. The true meaning is: How is a tzaddik built? Through "falling seven times and rising." This is not an afterthought, nor is it merely a description of someone who happened to fall and knows how to get up; rather, it means that to become a tzaddik, falls are inevitable, and it is from that very process that the tzaddik is built.
And it is an error, he says, what people do in books: they describe the Gedolim and their path of growth and greatness in Torah, quoting, "A squash is recognized from its first blossom" (botzin botzin mikatfei yedya) - meaning that sparks of greatness were evident in them from early childhood. And what does a person say to himself? "Look at the stories told about his childhood, while no such stories exist about me - this means I have no chance whatsoever of reaching his level; there is no point in even trying." Concerning Moshe Rabbeinu it is written that the entire house was filled with light; about another gadol it is written that the river parted for him; and a person says, "When I was born, the sewage got backed up, that was all. What do you want from me? Where am I and where are they?" And this breeds despair.
What books should actually emphasize are descriptions of the struggles those tzaddikim faced in their youth: the difficulties they endured, the trials they underwent, how hard it was for them - and how, in the end, they fought and overcame. A person must know that "a righteous man falls seven times and rises up," that it is impossible to grow without struggles and battles. Then he will realize that the battles he experiences are natural, that this is the way it must be, and that ultimately, this is how one grows.
In his youth, the Chafetz Chaim was an orphan, and in those days the Haskalah movement was raging through Europe. Those who championed "progress" and openness to the sciences mocked the Torah and mitzvos, claiming they were unenlightened and archaic, and argued that Jews must open themselves to European salons and the universities welcoming them with open arms: "Stop acting like ghetto exiles." They specifically targeted yeshivah students whose minds were inclined toward sharpness, analytical pilpul, and depth. Today, to draw someone to the secular world, it suffices to hand him a smartphone; the appeal is simply to base desires. But in the generation of a century ago, when they wanted to lure someone away, they spoke to him of enlightenment, scholarship, and openness to the sciences - that was the lure, and sadly, many were swept away.
The Chafetz Chaim recounted: "There was a man named Adam HaKohen - may his name and memory be blotted out - who sought to destroy me in both worlds." The Chafetz Chaim would preface his remarks with these words whenever he mentioned his name. The Chafetz Chaim never spoke lashon hara, yet whenever he mentioned that enticer and misleader, he added this particular "blessing." Baruch Hashem, we hardly know who he is today, except that some insisted on naming streets after him, apparently just so that in the Chafetz Chaim's story we would recognize who is being discussed.
That man invited the Chofetz Chaim, who was still a youth with a deep love for books and study, to peruse his library. To understand the context, the maskilim of that era possessed vast Torah libraries - they valued literacy and scholarship, yet not as binding authority. The Chofetz Chaim related: I was intensely drawn to it, and it appealed to me greatly, but at the very last moment I stopped myself. And I know that had I gone, in all likelihood I would never have returned; through their smooth talk and the persuasive methods of the maskilim, I would have been drawn after him and never returned. It was only by Hashem's kindness that I stopped at the last second.
Who would have known that the Chofetz Chaim faced such a struggle, and that we nearly lost him! "And one sinner destroys much good" - that man, the kohen, could have caused Klal Yisrael to lose the Chofetz Chaim. Who can imagine what it would mean to lose the Chofetz Chaim? What a revolution he brought to the world! Is there any halachic work today more central than the Mishnah Berurah? And who would have even heard of the laws of lashon hara were it not for the Chofetz Chaim? One could speak for hours about his achievements in saving Judaism in recent generations without exhausting the topic - yet a single sinner could have destroyed all of this. And that is what we are taught: the righteous also faced struggles, they too had trials.
Rav Elyashiv related that in his youth he loved cantorial music dearly and took great pleasure in listening to chazzanus. When he was a boy, one of the cantorial giants of that era came to Jerusalem and gave a performance at the Great Synagogue or somewhere similar. Rav Elyashiv recounted that he was already on the verge of going, and perhaps had even stepped outside to hear him, but at the last moment he stopped himself and thought: It is a pity to lose this hour of Torah study. He overcame the urge and turned back. From this one can understand how Rav Elyashiv was formed. People imagine that such leaders had no struggles or hardships, but when one hears what they went through and the difficulties they faced, one stands amazed that despite it all they grew and flourished.
People who knew Rav Ovadia Yosef knew him at the age of seventy, when he already lacked nothing. His son, Rav Moshe Yosef, was studying in yeshivah at the time and would arrive in a Volvo 740, which was considered top-of-the-line then - a donor bought a car every year, and in the spirit of "clearing out the old before the new," each time the previous car was passed along to someone else, and so one came to his son. A person observes this and says: Rav Ovadia is well-settled, Baruch Hashem, he has everything. But do you know that in his youth, as a newlywed, he could not even invite his in-laws for a Shabbos meal because he and his wife had only two forks, two spoons, and two plates, and nothing more? Can anyone fathom such a thing? Do you know anyone who owns just two spoons and two forks and nothing else?
And consider this: he would sit and learn at home, and his house was bitterly cold; he recounted that his feet would freeze from the cold and he suffered greatly while studying, yet despite everything he sat and learned for hours on end. That was Jerusalem, not Bnei Brak - and in that biting cold he sat and persevered ceaselessly. Anyone who reads of his early years sees that greatness is forged out of "seven times does the righteous fall," out of hardships and struggles - and from that comes "and rises again."
With the wicked, however, one minor blow and he collapses: Leave me alone, I'm broken, I can't do this, it's not for me. And if you ask what happened, he will tell you: So-and-so said this to me, the rebbe in yeshivah said that to me, and the mashgiach said that as well, so I walked away from it all. And what if he did say it to you? Does that make the Torah any less true? Does it make Moshe any less true? "I want neither Moshe nor his Torah" - he stands up and denounces everything. You went through a crisis, so what? "To every single wave, bow your head" - one lowers one's head until the fury passes, and then keeps moving forward.
Yet today we have become a fragile generation, like cotton candy: a single drop of water, and it melts away. That's it, I can't do it, I'm incapable. Much of the blame lies with the parents: they never challenge the child, never allow him to face difficulties; everything is met with, "No need, it's too hard for him, I will do it instead." And what have you accomplished? At the slightest crisis, the child shatters to pieces. Why? Because you never tempered him, never allowed him to cope, never accustomed him to the reality that there are situations where he must stand firm and handle the challenge. You always shielded him, always spoke on his behalf, always acted for him - and this is how he grew up.
A person must learn: "Seven times does the righteous fall and rise again." Nothing is ruined; even if you fell, shake off the dust and rise. But "the wicked stumble into evil": a single knockout finishes him, he lies flat on the canvas, they count to ten, to a hundred, to two hundred - and there is no voice, no answer, no one to speak to; he is broken, has no motivation, and cannot go on. May Hashem help us not to fall, and if we do fall - may we know how to rise again.
We have learned two fundamental principles from these verses. The first: "Eat honey, my son, for it is good" - wisdom and Torah are the honey, the true good, accompanied by a future and an everlasting hope, in this world and the World to Come, whereas worldly desires are merely honeycomb whose sweetness is fleeting. The second: "For seven times does the righteous fall and rise again" - do not lie in wait for the ruin of the righteous, neither out of greed nor out of jealousy, for the righteous man falls and rises, never destroyed, while the wicked man stumbles into the very evil he plotted. And this is how the righteous man himself is built - through the falls, the struggles, and the subsequent rising. From the Torah leaders of Israel, from the Chofetz Chaim to the sages of recent generations, we learn that there is no greatness without struggle, and that it is precisely out of hardship that one grows.