Introduction: Guarding Against the Strange Woman
Chapter 7 of Mishlei opens with another call from King Solomon to the son: to hold fast to the Torah and the mitzvos and guard them meticulously, thereby being saved from the strange woman and the foreign woman. Later in the chapter, Solomon describes a scene he witnessed from his window: a youth devoid of understanding walking step by step toward the house of the strange woman. The Malbim explains the chapter on two levels: on the literal level, as a warning against forbidden relationships, and allegorically, as a warning against alien philosophies and heretical ideas.
Utterance and Commandment - Guarding and Treasuring
בְּנִי שְׁמֹר אֲמָרָי וּמִצְוֺתַי תִּצְפֹּן אִתָּךְ׃ - My son, guard my sayings, and treasure my commandments with you.
We have already learned the distinction between an utterance (amirah) and a commandment (mitzvah). A mitzvah implies obligation: I command you, I obligate you. This corresponds to the aspect of "the commandment of your father," where the father represents duty and obligation. Therefore, regarding the commandments specifically, the verse says "treasure them with you" (titzpon itach) - to treasure means to keep something continually in one's heart without forgetting, complete preservation. Why? Because by nature, a person wishes to cast off restraints; people dislike being obligated and coerced, and therefore, precisely here, treasuring is required.
In contrast, regarding "guard my sayings" - the sayings (amarim) are the ethical teachings of the Torah, the matters of faith and outlook. These too must be preserved and embraced, yet they require only "guarding" (shemirah) rather than "treasuring" (tzefinah). For as we discussed in the previous chapter, it is easier for a person to accept ethical teachings and matters of belief; the difficult part is practical fulfillment of the mitzvos. Indeed, when a person denies faith, it stems from failing to observe the mitzvos: people tell him, "You are contradicting yourself - you believe in Hashem, yet you do not observe His commandments?" And he responds, "If so, then I do not believe either." Thus, heresy is born of failure to observe the mitzvos. Therefore, belief is relatively easier and requires only "guarding," whereas the commandments are the harder component and require that you "treasure them with you."
"And Live" - Guarding the Torah as the Pupil of the Eye
שְׁמֹר מִצְוֺתַי וֶחְיֵה וְתוֹרָתִי כְּאִישׁוֹן עֵינֶיךָ׃ - Guard my commandments and live, and my Torah as the pupil of your eye.
The mitzvos are described as that "which a man shall do and live by them." As mentioned in previous lessons: where is life expectancy longest in the Land of Israel? In Bnei Brak, even though there is no particular focus there on exercise or organic food. By contrast, the shortest life expectancy is in Haifa, a place with widespread illness and industrial chemicals, which is also among the places furthest removed from Judaism. One stands opposite the other. "Guard my commandments and live" - one who observes Hashem's commandments merits life.
And the Torah is the light of the eyes; it illuminates a person's vision, which is the meaning of "and my Torah as the pupil of your eye": the Torah that I teach you will show you the path, so guard it just as you guard the pupil of your eye. As is well known, the most safeguarded organ in the human body is the eye; the tiniest speck of dirt already impairs vision and causes harm. A person can work with hands covered in grease and mud, but a speck of dust in the eye immediately disrupts and causes injury. In precisely this manner you must guard the Torah, which is the intellectual eye, just as you guard the physical eye.
What is the origin of the word ishon (pupil)? Rashi explains that the ishon is the black part of the eye, named so because it resembles darkness - as in the phrase "in the darkness (be-ishon) of night." Through the black, dark part of the eye, a person sees. According to Metzudas Tziyon, ishon is the small, dark center of the eye, and one who looks into another person's eye sees a tiny reflection of a man; therefore it is called ishon, a diminutive of ish (a little man) - similar to "Amninon," which Avshalom used to diminish and demean Amnon.
Someone once noted: Why does a person look into another's eye and see himself small? To teach him: this is how you appear in your fellow's eyes. And of course, the reverse is also true. In a similar vein, halachah states that in a eulogy one is forbidden to fabricate things that never occurred, such as claiming the deceased arose at sunrise when he actually woke at nine or ten; yet it is permissible to embellish his praise slightly. At first glance, what is the difference? Is a large lie forbidden while a small lie is permitted? Rather, by nature a person views himself as greater than he is, and views his fellow as less than he is. Therefore, when you add a little to his praise, that brings it to the exact, true measure; that is his genuine stature. However, exaggerating greatly and attributing qualities he never possessed crosses into falsehood.
Binding upon the Fingers and Writing on the Tablet of the Heart
קׇשְׁרֵם עַל־אֶצְבְּעֹתֶיךָ כׇּתְבֵם עַל־לוּחַ לִבֶּךָ׃ - Bind them upon your fingers; write them upon the tablet of your heart.
Every deed performed with one's fingers should be guided by the Torah, as though the Torah were literally bound to one's fingers. "Write them upon the tablet of your heart" - all thoughts and reflections of the heart should follow the ways of Torah and wisdom. The heart, as explained, symbolizes man's governing power; it rules over the soul, and the concepts of wisdom and engagement in Torah must be written upon it, engraved on the tablets. Why? Because through this, one silences the clamor of the heart - evil thoughts and the attraction to lusts. As the Rambam writes, illicit thoughts are found only in a heart that is void of wisdom. If you write the words of Torah upon the tablet of your heart, all those alien thoughts and illicit desires will naturally be expelled.
The Vilna Gaon offers a fascinating explanation here. When a person wishes to remember something and fears forgetting, what does he do? He ties a thread around his finger, and upon seeing it, remembers what he must do. This is "Bind them upon your fingers": man tends to forget the Torah and Hashem's commandments easily, so he must make reminders for himself that will constantly recall the love and fear of Hashem. And when a person studies words of wisdom, what helps him remember? Writing down outlines. A person who attends a shiur and takes notes - noting that we learned about the love of Hashem, or such and such a topic - will remember it later. This is also why the Rif composed his work: the Rif is a distillation of the Gemara and a condensation of the halachos, omitting the give-and-take and presenting the final halachic conclusions, so that when a person wants to review all he learned, he can review and recall through it. This is "Write them upon the tablet of your heart" - write down the key outlines so that you can review them and remember everything you studied.
Thus, "Bind them upon your fingers" corresponds to the mitzvos one performs through action. Just as a person ties a string around his finger to remember, so practical mitzvos serve as reminders - one wears tzitzis, "and you shall look upon it and remember all the commandments of Hashem." Meanwhile, "Write them upon the tablet of your heart" corresponds to Torah study. Whoever does not wish to forget should bind and write, and through this, he will remember all the mitzvos of the Blessed Creator.
Wisdom as a Sister and Understanding as an Intimate Companion
אֱמֹר לַחׇכְמָה אֲחֹתִי אָתְּ וּמֹדָע לַבִּינָה תִקְרָא׃ - Say to wisdom, "You are my sister," and call understanding an intimate companion.
The Malbim explains that there is a difference between closeness to a sister and closeness to a moda (an intimate companion). Closeness to a sister is by birth - you did not choose her; she is the closest relation, born as your sister. By contrast, a moda - as in "Naomi had a kinsman (moda) of her husband... whose name was Boaz" - often denotes a friend and companion, someone close to the family even without a blood relation. Closeness to a moda comes through free choice: I did not choose who my sister would be, but I did choose who my companion would be.
Based on this, the Malbim explains: we have already learned that man cannot know the laws of wisdom on his own. The laws of wisdom govern the determination between good and evil and matters of character traits - toward whom it is proper to show mercy and toward whom to be unyielding, stinginess and generosity, and the like. A person does not know this independently; rather, he receives it from the Holy Torah and from Divine Providence through a prophet. Therefore, "Say to wisdom, 'You are my sister'": just as the bond with a sister is not of your own choosing but decreed by a higher power, so must you say to wisdom - I accept you as a decree even when I do not understand, receiving it from the hand of a prophet who received it from the hand of Hashem.
Furthermore, the Malbim notes that the human soul is structured to receive the laws of wisdom, and the laws of wisdom are imprinted within the human soul from its creation. To clarify: there is no society in the world that claims it is legitimate to murder, commit adultery, or steal. There may be societies lenient toward murder, but for the law itself to establish that if someone wrongs his fellow in a certain way, it is permissible to murder him - you will find no such society anywhere in the world, not even among the Bushmen in the primeval forests of Africa. In every society, the basic rules exist: do not steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery. A certain society may be rampant with theft - like the parable of the man who walked from country to country with a lantern searching for justice, and upon arriving in a certain country, began searching for his lantern; or as the Gemara remarks, if an Aramean kissed you, count your teeth afterward, and if he shook your hand, make sure all your fingers are still there. Yet that does not mean they made theft lawful and legitimate. This proves that the laws of wisdom are imprinted in the human soul from its creation: if they were mere arbitrary laws, why would everyone accept them? Why is it obvious to all that theft, adultery, and murder are wrong? Rather, this is the aspect of wisdom: man is built to receive wisdom, knowing what is upright and what is crooked, what is fair and what is unfair, what is proper and what is improper. The laws of morality are imprinted in the human soul from the time of its creation, just like a sister who is close by virtue of birth.
Binah (understanding), however, is something a person contemplates and deduces with his own intellect, understanding one matter from another, and this occurs through his own free choice: one contemplated and arrived at a conclusion. Therefore, "and call understanding an intimate companion" - binah has the status of a companion, because one may arrive at conclusions through deep contemplation and study, or one may fail to reach them if he does not delve and study deeply. This is the quality of a companion rather than a sister, for a sister is a relationship of nature.
The Strange Woman and the Alien Woman
לִשְׁמׇרְךָ מֵאִשָּׁה זָרָה מִנׇּכְרִיָּה אֲמָרֶיהָ הֶחֱלִיקָה׃ - To guard you from a strange woman, from a foreign woman who makes her words smooth.
We have already explained the distinction previously: an isha zarah ("a strange woman") is a woman who is not his wife - she is a stranger to him, yet she is Jewish. A nochriyah ("a foreign woman"), by contrast, always denotes a gentile woman, for a nochri is always a gentile, and one would never describe a fellow member of one's own people as a nochri. The Malbim explains: ordinarily, a person is not naturally drawn to love a gentile woman - what does he have to do with a foreign woman? - unless she actively seduced him. Therefore, the verse says simply "to guard you from a strange woman," because toward an isha zarah he might be drawn by nature; but toward a foreign woman he is not drawn by nature unless "she makes her words smooth" - her words contain seductiveness, smoothed by her tongue to draw him close to her.
And what is the deeper allegory? The Malbim explains: external intellectual pursuits - those disciplines of wisdom that are alien to the wisdom of the Torah - are on the level of an isha zarah. With an isha zarah, a situation can exist where one may legitimately marry her according to halachah: if she is unmarried, he can marry her; if she is married, he can marry her once she is divorced or widowed. In other words, disciplines external to Torah wisdom can be "married" under chuppah and kiddushin: one may use them as instruments to attain Torah wisdom. As was said of the Rambam, who studied all the secular sciences as "perfumers and cooks" serving the wisdom of the Torah, as auxiliary and supplementary disciplines. That is permissible.
By contrast, the isha nochriyah symbolizes heretical views and apostate philosophy, which are utterly foreign to the holy Torah. This is no longer an "alien" with whom marriage is possible, but a foreign element with which no connection can ever exist, and which must be entirely shunned and cast away. How, then, does a person ever arrive at the wisdom of heresy and apostasy? "She makes her words smooth." As the Gemara expresses it: Shani minut demashka - heresy is different, for it exerts a powerful pull; once someone begins dabbling even slightly in matters of heresy, his soul is subsequently drawn after it. As a humorous quip on this: someone who starts with a small overdraft ("minus") in the bank also ends up facing massive debts later on, and it is better not to start with it at all - "shani minus demashka." Once, someone walked out of the bank with his statements, saw the deep deficit he had fallen into, and it was said of him: "Books of minus are falling from his cloak."
In any event, the words of heresy - "she makes her words smooth" - are smoother than oil. Thus, for instance, it is the method of Christianity to attract followers with smooth platitudes about love for "that man" and love for all humanity and similar slogans, while in reality all they spread throughout the world was hatred and crusades. Yet they always speak in smooth rhetoric about uniting in love, and this attracts people. Therefore, the verse warned: this is a foreign woman; beware of her "smooth words." But if you remain bound to the Torah - "Say to wisdom, You are my sister, and call understanding your relative" - the Torah will guard and protect you. For if you inscribe the words of Torah upon the tablet of your heart, no empty space will remain in your heart for alien thoughts, and the Torah will preserve you from the smoothness of her tongue. In this way, a person is saved from both dimensions: from the strange woman and from the foreign woman.
The Window and the Lattice - The Revealed and the Concealed
כִּי בְּחַלּוֹן בֵּיתִי בְּעַד אֶשְׁנַבִּי נִשְׁקָפְתִּי׃ - For at the window of my house, through my lattice I looked out.
What is the difference between a window (chalon) and a lattice (eshnav)? We find eshnav mentioned regarding Sisera's mother: "Through the window she looked out, and Sisera's mother wailed through the lattice" (Shoftim 5:28), and there too the Malbim addresses the difference. A window is an ordinary window in the literal sense, through which one sees revealed, external things. But a lattice is a window crafted with specialized ingenuity, through which one can discern hidden things - a form of divination used to know concealed matters, comparable in modern terms to a crystal ball. Thus, she looked through the window and did not see him coming, wondering: "Why is his chariot so long in coming?" But when she looked through the lattice, by means of divination and insight derived from the forces of impurity, she saw that he had fallen and that something terrible had happened to him - and therefore she wailed. So too here: "At the window of my house" - one sees what is revealed; "through my lattice I looked out" - I perceived the hidden matter as well.
וָאֵרֶא בַפְּתָאיִם אָבִינָה בַבָּנִים נַעַר חֲסַר־לֵב׃ - And I saw among the simpletons, I discerned among the youths, a young man lacking heart.
"And I saw among the simpletons" - through the window, which reveals visible matters, I saw the simpletons: those who lack the sense to conceal their actions and who perform their foolishness and transgressions out in the open, which is why I see them with direct vision. But "I discerned among the youths" - this is through the lattice, through which concealed matters are perceived: there I contemplate and discern those who are not simpletons, but rather know how to perform their deeds in the dark and conceal them. And through the vision of the lattice, I saw "a young man lacking heart." We have already explained that the heart symbolizes the faculty of self-mastery in man; this youth behaves contrary to the Torah - this is the state of "lacking heart," deficient in the power of dominion over his soul, failing to rule over his lust and desires, as the subsequent verses will elaborate.
The Stages of Decline: From the Marketplace to the Corner and to Her House
עֹבֵר בַּשּׁוּק אֵצֶל פִּנָּהּ וְדֶרֶךְ בֵּיתָהּ יִצְעָד׃ - Passing through the marketplace near her corner, and he treads the way to her house.
Initially, I saw him passing through the marketplace. The marketplace is not an inherently forbidden place, but an inclination already begins here: he passes near the corner where that strange and foreign woman sits - this is the first stage. And afterwards, in the second stage, "and he treads the way to her house": he is no longer merely passing through the marketplace near her, but is walking directly along the path leading to her house.
The Vilna Gaon elaborates further. The yetzer hara (evil inclination) is initially called a "traveler" (helech), then a "guest" (ore'ach), and finally a "man" (ish). Where do we find this? In the parable of the poor man's ewe lamb that Natan the prophet told David: first, a traveler came to the rich man; then, he spared his own flock and took from the poor man's lamb to prepare for the guest; and finally, he gave it to the man. The Gemara points this out: at first, he is merely a "traveler", a passerby; then he is a "guest", already lodging here; and finally a "man" - as in "the man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us" - he is now the master of the house, the one who dictates and decides. This is the way of the yetzer hara: initially he just drops by for a brief visit, then he becomes your guest, and ultimately you are one hundred percent under his control. If you opened your door to the "traveler" - be prepared, he will become the master of the house.
We once explained "sin crouches at the entrance" through the parable of a man who sold a house to his friend, except for a single nail. He said: "The nail will remain mine, and I will have the right to enter and use it as I wish." The buyer was thrilled - a house at a bargain price, let him have the nail in good health! They drew up the documents and signed a contract. One night at eleven o'clock, the buyer heard a knock at the door: What happened? "I need to hang up my coat." He hung his coat on the nail and left. At four in the morning, another knock: "I am going to Shacharit, I need my coat." He came in, took his coat, and left. And so it continued morning, noon, and night - until that man abandoned the house and said: "Take the house, take the nail, take everything, I want nothing to do with it." What happened? The seller became the master of the house, all because of one small nail. So it is with the yetzer hara: give him a nail, give him a small foothold - "sin crouches at the entrance", he waits, crouches, and bides his time for you to crack open an entrance, and he immediately wedges his foot in and enters. But if you keep it closed, there is no way he can get in.
Therefore, says the Vilna Gaon, the yetzer hara starts small, which is why it first says "passing through the marketplace." The yetzer does not begin with an overt act - would someone immediately go out and commit a transgression, steal, or desecrate Shabbat? That is out of the question. Rather, it begins in thought. Once an idea enters a person's mind, it gains legitimacy: it seems permissible to think about it, he no longer outright rejects it; it crosses his mind and seems plausible. This is "passing through the marketplace" - merely passing by; he does not settle there, but only passes through. But "if you leave Me for one day, I will leave you for two": the further he moves away from the Torah, the closer he draws to the yetzer hara. Then comes "near a corner" - the space vacated by Torah; who sits there in that corner? The yetzer hara, which has already found hospitality with you. And finally, "and he treads the way to her house" - your house has already become her house; this strange woman, the yetzer hara representing the power of impurity, now rules and has become the master of the house.
In summary:
Shlomo opened with a dual demand: one must safeguard the sayings, beliefs, and moral teachings, and treasure the mitzvot in the heart, for it is specifically with mitzvot that human nature tends to cast off the yoke, and from neglecting them, heresy is born. Observing the mitzvot prolongs life, and the Torah is the intellectual eye that must be guarded like the apple of the eye. "Bind them on your fingers" - mnemonic signs and practical mitzvot that serve as reminders; "write them on the tablet of your heart" - fundamental principles and concepts of wisdom engraved upon the heart, leaving no room for foreign thoughts. One must accept wisdom like a sister, as a decree from Above, for the moral laws are ingrained in the human soul from its creation; and acquire understanding like a trusted kinsman, through toil and free choice. All this is "to guard you from a strange woman, from a foreigner": from foreign disciplines of wisdom that can be rectified to serve as perfumers and cooks to the Torah, and from alien doctrines of heresy whose entire power lies in "her smooth words." Finally, Shlomo peered through the window and the lattice, openly and concealed, beholding the lad lacking understanding descending step by step: from the marketplace to the corner, and along the path to her house - for the yetzer begins as a traveler, becomes a guest, and ends as the master of the house.