As we continue through Chapter 25, we come upon two verses that initially seem to address two separate matters - the parable of the muddied spring, and a warning against eating too much honey - but in truth, each verse complements the other. We will examine the words of Rashi, the explanation of Rabbeinu Yonah, the approach of the Vilna Gaon, and the commentary of the Malbim, and through them we will explore a fundamental question: What happens to the world when the righteous person is brought low, and what happens when the honor of the righteous is revealed and publicized?
מַעְיָן נִרְפָּשׂ וּמָקוֹר מָשְׁחָת צַדִּיק מָט לִפְנֵי רָשָׁע׃ (כו) - Like a trampled spring and a ruined fountain is a righteous man who falters before the wicked. (26)
Rashi explains that nirpas denotes murkiness caused by trampling with feet, as in the verse in Daniel, "and stamped the residue with its feet" (ve-she'ara beraglayha rafsah) - to trample and tread with the feet. "A ruined fountain" means that the source of the spring has been corrupted and no longer produces water. The nimshal is as follows: a wicked person does something improper, and the tzaddik ought to rebuke him. If the tzaddik fails to rebuke him, it is as repulsive and detestable as a trampled spring and a ruined fountain. It is repulsive to see a righteous person who witnesses injustice and does nothing.
One may add to the explanation of the parable: Why, in fact, does he not rebuke him? Because he receives personal benefits from that wicked man, and it does not pay for him to deliver words of rebuke lest he lose out, so he feels uncomfortable rebuking him. Thus, the spring itself has been trampled and the source ruined: the tzaddik, who ought to be like a flowing fountain, is trodden underfoot and filled with mud, becoming soiled and degraded. His source has been corrupted by bribery and favors, and consequently he no longer yields pure, clear water, and no longer speaks what must be spoken.
Rabbeinu Yonah explains that this verse is connected to what follows, interpreting the parable differently: when someone muddies a spring with his feet, the water becomes murky and turbid - but after a while, all the sediment settles to the bottom, and the spring becomes as clear as it was at first. So it is with "a righteous man who falters before the wicked": when you see a tzaddik tottering before a wicked man, do not be distressed by it. It is temporary, and it will pass.
In plain terms, Shlomo is saying: Do not be alarmed to see a tzaddik faltering before a wicked man, for this is merely a temporary collapse. In his essence, the tzaddik possesses true stature, and it is impossible to genuinely diminish his worth. He can be disgraced temporarily, but this does not alter his true standing; in a short time, his clarity and merit will return as before. And even if he is clouded for the moment, as Rabbeinu Yonah notes, "A righteous man falls seven times and rises again." At this moment he may be falling and faltering before a wicked man, but he will rise once more.
By contrast, the wicked man falls all at once. It is like the man who asked a hitman to deal with his wife; when asked how, he replied, "An electric shock." The hitman asked, "How many watts?" He answered, "In one watt [playing on be'achat, all at once]." Such is the fall of the wicked: when he falls, it is over - a fall with nothing left after it. But for the tzaddik, his fall is followed by renewal and rising; the fall does not finish him.
אָכֹל דְּבַשׁ הַרְבּוֹת לֹא־טוֹב וְחֵקֶר כְּבֹדָם כָּבוֹד׃ (כז) - It is not good to eat much honey, and searching out their honor is honor. (27)
Rabbeinu Yonah explains that this verse continues the preceding one. When one extensively explores the honor of the righteous, recounting stories of tzaddikim and expounding upon their greatness, this abundance itself confers honor upon the speaker and the one who delves into it, for it reflects one's own stature. This is because "a man is evaluated according to his praise" - when a person praises evildoers, it is a sign that he is one of them, and when a person praises the righteous, it is a sign that he belongs with them. A person's true stature can be recognized by whom he praises.
This clarifies the juxtaposition within the verse: there are things that are good, yet an excess of them is harmful, and there are things that are good whose abundance is commendable. Eating honey - if you eat too much, it is harmful. But delving extensively into the honor of the righteous brings honor to the one who investigates it, and the more you explore their honor, the greater your own honor becomes.
Rabbeinu Yonah explains that these verses complement one another: in the fall of the righteous before the wicked lies a grave stumbling block, whereas in the elevation of the righteous and the exploration of his honor lies great virtue - one corresponding to the other. Let us explain. First, when a tzaddik is disparaged, why is he disparaged? Because he serves Hashem. It follows, then, whom has one disparaged? The Holy One, blessed be He, for one has disparaged a person precisely because he serves Him. Just as the Jewish people say to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, Your Name is desecrated through the humiliation of Israel, and if You will not spare our honor, spare Your own Name and Your honor! Why are we persecuted? Because we are the people of Hashem; thus, our persecution brings disgrace upon His Name. Likewise, persecuting the tzaddik brings desecration upon the Torah, a chillul Hashem, and a desecration of the honor of Heaven.
Second, as a consequence of this, many are drawn after the actions of the desecrators. As long as a person is a tzaddik whose honor is explored, publicized, and magnified, people connect to the tzaddik, draw near to the service of Hashem, and he is held in honor. But when a righteous person falters before the wicked, not only do people fail to connect to the tzaddik, they even despise him.
It has already been explained at length that here lies the greatest and most significant difference between European Jewry and Sephardic and Mizrachi Jewry. In Sephardic Jewry, we see that tradition was preserved far better to this very day, and whoever seeks to understand why - here lies the entire difference. The venomous literature of the Haskalah movement in European countries began by disparaging everything holy: they degraded the tzaddikim, the sages, the Torah scholars, and the Torah itself. Consequently, whenever such an individual saw a rabbi, a righteous person, or a talmid chacham, negative connotations immediately surfaced in his mind, causing immense alienation.
By contrast, in Sephardic Jewry, even an outright delinquent will approach a rabbi and kiss his hand. He could be a major criminal, yet almost every offender has some chacham to whom he feels connected; he needs a talmid chacham, a great figure to feel tied to and revere. A person driving on Shabbat might pull his car to the side, walk up to a rabbi, kiss his hand, and return to his car. One smoking on Shabbat might put the cigarette aside, approach the rabbi, kiss his hand, and go back. Even if the younger generation today is not entirely like this, the parents' generation certainly was, and this prevented antagonism from developing among the children: there was no revulsion toward sages and no revulsion toward the Torah. An institution of reverence remained - even if one was a transgressor.
Conversely, take a typical rebellious individual of Ashkenazic descent - mention Rav Elyashiv to him, mention a gadol hador: "Who is that?" On the contrary, he treats him with cynicism and contempt. But a transgressor from the Sephardic community, even if heavily steeped in sin, treats the gedolim and talmidei chachamim of his community with great respect. Someone once quipped that "the only peace [Shalom] in Netivot is Domrani" - one of the crime bosses there. A person can be a top-tier criminal, yet still be connected to great people, value Torah scholars, and show them genuine respect.
And although one might criticize this and say, "What hypocrisy - you commit sins on the one hand, and kiss a rabbi's hand on the other?" in truth, this demonstrates that deep down, the person retains a reverence for Torah. He admits: "True, I am stuck in the mud, but at least I know I am in the mud." When a person is in the mud and knows he is in the mud, there is hope that he will get out. But a person who says, "What are you talking about? What mud? This is a Dead Sea mud bath; it is luxurious and special!" does not realize he is in the gutter; rather, he thinks he is indulging in prestige, and on the contrary, views everyone else as backward and stuck in the gutter. Will such a person ever return in teshuvah? But one who has respect for chachamim will eventually return; if not him, then his children. One can see people far from observance who suddenly insist that their children and grandchildren receive a Torah education, study, and stay connected to Judaism.
Thus, "a righteous man faltering before the wicked" alienates people from the tzaddik and leads to his degradation; by contrast, "to search out their honor is honor" - when you explore the honor of the tzaddik and the honor of the great, it is an honor to them and an honor to you, as through this you remain connected to the righteous and their deeds.
Rabbeinu Yonah adds another point: one who associates with them, even if he does not act as they do, receives retribution just as they do. When you associate with those who demean the righteous - you receive retribution just like those demeaning them; and when you associate with those who serve Hashem - you receive reward like those who serve Hashem. Furthermore, he says: through this they subdue the honor of the people of truth and nullify divine service, and the honor of the righteous can experience no success except after the humbling of the honor of the wicked, as it is written, "The house of the wicked shall be destroyed, but the tent of the upright shall flourish" - there is no success for the righteous person until the house of the wicked is destroyed.
As long as the way of the wicked is treated as a legitimate school of thought, people say: True, there is the way of the righteous, but there is also another way. You come and prove something clearly to someone, and he replies, "Listen, there are many who would disagree with you; there are those who would claim otherwise." As long as the wicked have a second school of thought, even if it is completely false - it creates ambiguity. And we have mentioned in the past that the method of the Yetzer Hara is ambiguity. You present a proof, and he responds, "Things are not entirely clear, there are sides in both directions, two sides to every coin, one must view things in full perspective" - all kinds of grand words, the main point being not to accept proof and not to accept things as axiomatic, clear, and absolute. Through ambiguity, the Yetzer Hara succeeds in enticing and fooling a person.
This is also how it works in courtrooms. What does a lawyer do to represent his client when the facts are fairly clear? He creates ambiguity: the law is not entirely clear and unequivocal; regarding the defendant's deed, it is not entirely clear that there was intent to kill; perhaps he shot deliberately, or maybe a bullet accidentally discharged - everything is cloaked in ambiguity. That is the Yetzer Hara. The moment there is ambiguity - it is the opposite of truth. Two plus two is always four, and 3.99 from now until the end of time is a falsehood. Even if you say, "Look how close it is" - true, but it is ambiguous; it is not sharp and decisive. Four is decisive. Truth is decisive. Falsehood, on the other hand, can be very close and very similar, but it remains ambiguous and is not the same thing.
Therefore, here too: when connecting to the righteous, the boundary must be clear - the way of the tzaddik is the truth. And how is this expressed? When "the house of the wicked shall be destroyed" - then "the tent of the upright shall flourish." As long as the house of the wicked stands, it is difficult to accept the way of the righteous in an absolute manner, for "there is this approach, and there is also another approach." Only when the house of the wicked is destroyed will the tent of the upright flourish.
We have also discussed in the past the verse, "Then shall the offering of Yehudah and Yerushalayim be pleasant to Hashem, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years." Scripture states that in the future, with the coming of Mashiach, the offering brought by Yehudah and Yerushalayim will be pleasant before Hashem "as in the days of old." Chazal ask: As in the days of Avraham? As in the days of Moshe? As in the days of Aharon? No - "as in the days of old," like the days of Noach; "and as in ancient years," like the days of Hevel. What was unique then? Were they greater than Avraham and Moshe? In one respect, yes: in their generation, there was no idol worship. The moment idolatry exists, there is ambiguity - "True, you have a certain path, but there are other deities, and they too claim to see spiritual influences, and they too draw down influences through various incense offerings." The Holy One, blessed be He, says: An offering mixed with all kinds of alternate methods and philosophies, as if they are viable considerations, is not pleasing to Me. When will it be pleasing to Him? When the house of the wicked is destroyed and the tent of the upright flourishes - that is, when falsehood is entirely eradicated - and only then will the truth stand firmly in its place.
The Vilna Gaon explains that nirpas is not from the expression of trampling with feet, but rather from the word refesh (mud or muck) - even though this is somewhat perplexing, since if it refers to mud, nirpas should have appeared in a different grammatical conjugation. In any case, he explains based on the same principle: the spring is not clear. "And a corrupted source" - the source is wisdom, corresponding to "Cold water to a weary soul" which we discussed above, where the cold water represents wisdom, and wisdom is the esoteric Torah (the secrets of the Torah).
In other words: if you see that the spring is full of mud and mire, lacking clarity, and you do not attain wisdom at its highest level, and concepts remain vague, and the source - which refers to the allegorical and esoteric layers of Torah (remez and sod) - is corrupted, what causes this? "A righteous man faltering before a wicked man." The wicked puts the righteous in "checkmate," borrowing from the world of chess. And the tzaddik and rasha here represent the Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Hara: the tzaddik is the Yetzer Tov, and it collapses and falls before the wicked one, the Yetzer Hara. When the Yetzer Hara overpowers the Yetzer Tov, a person studies but the halachah does not become clear to him; he tries to delve into Torah, but the concepts do not settle upon his heart.
For Torah is not like algebra, where a sharp mind and brilliance are enough to succeed. Torah cannot exist without good character traits and without fear of Heaven. In the words of the Gemara, this is like one who builds a storehouse without a gate; a person must have a gate, and the gate is fear of Heaven. To acquire Torah, one must have fear of Heaven and one must possess good character traits; otherwise, the righteous falters before the wicked, the Yetzer Tov collapses before the Yetzer Hara, and instead of having a wellspring of living water of pure and lucid Torah, the entire Torah becomes obscure, its concepts do not settle upon the heart, and they are difficult to digest.
We once mentioned an insight of the Holy Ari. He points out that the Gemara often raises a severe difficulty and then resolves it with: "Tevra [broken], he who taught this did not teach that" - a seemingly superficial resolution: there is a contradiction, but one Sage taught this and another Sage taught that; "Gavra agavra ka ramit?" (Are you raising a contradiction from one person against another?). This is an answer the Gemara typically resorts to only when there is no other choice, since the preferred approach is to reconcile the contradiction: what is written there as "liable" applies in one case, and what the Baraita states as "exempt" applies in another case - and thus the contradiction is resolved. Only when the Gemara has no other resolution does it say, "He who taught this did not teach that," meaning it is fundamentally a dispute - and in the Gemara, we always prefer to minimize disputes as much as possible.
And he further notes: often, immediately after declaring "Tevra" (a break / contradiction), the Gemara does find smoother resolutions and plausible answers - "and if you wish, you can further resolve..." - offering several genuine resolutions. The question arises: why didn't it present them from the start? And furthermore, what is the meaning of "tevra" at all? Let it simply say, "The one who taught this did not teach that," and that would suffice!
And he explains a marvelous concept. It is written in the sacred books and in the Zohar that whenever there is difficulty and a lack of comprehension in words of Torah, it stems from a kelipah (an impure shell) hovering over that matter of Torah. This impure shell blocks access to it - it cannot be cracked open, and the subject remains obscure and unclear. And what do the Sages do in their study? They shatter the shells, and by breaking the shell they extract the fruit within; then the halachah is clarified, the matter becomes lucid, and the words rejoice as on the day they were given at Sinai.
At times there is a tough shell - a hard nut to crack, a subject so difficult to understand that the Gemara finds no resolution for it. What does the Gemara do? First of all, it declares: "Tevra" (break it!). Is that a good resolution? No. But "tevra" means: let us at least crack the outer shell, and afterward we will see how to dismantle it completely. For a contradiction in Torah words is a shell, the sitra achara (the other side), and therefore first we break it: "The one who taught this did not teach that." What was accomplished by this? The difficulty was weakened - this is no longer a contradiction within the words of Torah itself, but rather a dispute between two Sages, and we have a resolution. Once the shell has been loosened and is no longer so unyielding, a divine flow suddenly arrives, and it becomes possible to find far more satisfying resolutions - and immediately the Gemara begins: "And if you wish, it can be resolved this way; and if you wish, that way." The flow opened up because we weakened the force of the shell; but as long as the shell held sway with full strength, it was impossible to find an answer and an explanation for the matter.
And this is what is said here: if you see that the spring, which is the source of wisdom and the holy Torah, is muddied and ruined - we lack comprehension, the matters are unclear, and the source, which represents the inner secrets, is entirely corrupted; one learns and derives no pleasure. And when does a person enjoy his learning? When the concepts sit well upon his heart: "Ah, wait, this means this, and that means that" - the moment he understands and it resonates within his heart, he experiences delight. But when the matters do not sit well upon the heart, it is a sign that there is a problem in the heart. And what is the problem? Your righteous one is tottering before your wicked one - the yetzer hatov (good inclination) is collapsing before the yetzer hara (evil inclination).
The Malbim explains that the "source" (makor) lies in the depths of the earth. Every spring issues from a subterranean source, and that is the difference between a spring and a river: a river consists of water flowing from place to place, whereas a spring is water welling up from within the earth, like the mikveh of the Arizal. The source of the water is situated deep below, and the spring is the surface point where it bubbles forth - but the point of emergence is not the source itself; the source is deep in the earth, and it bursts forth and emerges through the ground at the site of the spring.
Accordingly, when a righteous person totters before a wicked person, even if the spring becomes spoiled - and the spring signifies divine bounty, wealth, and livelihood - and you see the righteous man collapsing because the wicked man overcomes and humiliates him, know that the source has not been corrupted. For what happened here? Someone came and trampled the spring with his feet, so the spring became murky and tainted. But was the source spoiled? The source of the water continually produces pure water, and the source remains unchanged.
Therefore, he says: even if the flow of abundance, wealth, and sustenance has been disrupted, let us ask - what is the source of all abundance, sustenance, and wealth? It is from Hashem. What, then, did you actually harm? You harmed the visible outcome, but the Source remains, and the Holy One, blessed be He, continues to bestow His bounty. And the righteous man is clinging to Hashem, meaning he is connected directly to the Source. Thus, even if you fouled the spring issuing from the source - by shutting down his shop or firing him - you did not harm the source of the water, for the tzaddik remains bound to the Source through his steadfast faith (emunah) and trust (bitachon) in the Holy One, blessed be He. And what supplies bounty to the spring? The source - and the source has not been corrupted; it remains just as it was.
However, "a righteous man tottering before a wicked man" - if he genuinely collapsed before him, it means he lost his faith. When he saw his livelihood cut off and himself cast aside, he began to protest: "Master of the Universe, I serve You, why do You not provide for me?" - his trust faltered and his faith weakened. That is already a state in which the source itself has been corrupted, not merely the spring muddied. If only the spring was muddied, it means the source remains pure and clear, the tzaddik's faith endures, and his trust in Hashem is absolute - and there is no need to worry. But if the source too has been corrupted, that is truly "a righteous man tottering before a wicked man": he has, as it were, withdrawn his trust from Hashem and collapsed before the wicked, reflecting a very low level to which the tzaddik has fallen, thereby casting doubts upon the divine providence of the Holy One, blessed be He.
And therefore we cry out, "Why do You remain silent when the wicked swallows one more righteous than he?" (Chabakuk 1:13) - we plead that Hashem not remain silent, for when people see the righteous fall, trust in Hashem is undermined, and the tzaddik himself may waver in his trust - and then it truly becomes a case of "a ruined fountain" and not merely "a muddied spring."
These two verses are two sides of the same coin. "A muddied spring and a ruined fountain is a righteous man tottering before a wicked man" - here lies a rebuke of the righteous person who refrains from reproving others due to personal benefit; here lies comfort that the fall of the tzaddik is temporary, like stirred-up water that clears once again, for "seven times a righteous man falls and rises," whereas the wicked falls all at once; here lies a warning that as long as the good inclination falters before the evil inclination, the spring of Torah is muddied and its words do not sit well upon the heart; and here lies encouragement - that even if the spring of livelihood and honor is damaged, the Source from Hashem is not corrupted, and as long as the tzaddik's faith endures, he remains linked to the Source. And corresponding to all this - "and the search for their honor is honor": there are things whose excess is harmful, like eating too much honey, and there are things whose abundance is glorious, namely delving into the honor of the tzaddikim, for "a man is praised according to his praise," and whoever magnifies the renown of the righteous binds himself and his children after him to the Torah and to those who fulfill it, until the house of the wicked is destroyed and the tent of the upright flourishes.