Most of Chapter 26 of Mishlei deals with the fool: how to treat him, how to respond to him, and what happens to someone who entrusts him with a mission. In this lesson, we will examine three verses: "Answer a fool according to his folly," "He who cuts off feet and drinks damage," and "Legs hang limp from the lame." In each of them, we will see how Chazal, Rashi, the Vilna Gaon, and the Malbim open a window for us to understand the paths of wisdom versus the paths of folly.
עֲנֵה כְסִיל כְּאִוַּלְתּוֹ פֶּן יִהְיֶה חָכָם בְּעֵינָיו׃ - Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he become wise in his own eyes.
Rashi explains: If a fool comes to incite you toward evil, make his folly known to him. You do not wish to be enticed, so you tell him: that which you are trying to tempt me toward is negative. And if you do not answer him at all, he will become wise in his own eyes.
The Gemara has already noted the apparent contradiction between the previous verse - "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also become like him" - and our verse, distinguishing between them: "Do not answer" refers to mundane matters. There, if you sink to his level and answer him according to his folly, you degrade yourself to his status - "lest you also become like him." But regarding matters of Torah - "Answer a fool according to his folly."
The Vilna Gaon adds a wonderful explanation: Even in matters of Torah, do not answer him according to your own intellect, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. Rather, answer him according to his question and according to his level, lest he become wise in his own eyes and say that you were unable to answer him. In simple terms: when a fool asks, even in matters of Torah, I might possess a true answer - but I know it will not resonate with him. On the other hand, there is an answer that is not fully precise or complete, but it will resonate with him. Regarding this it is said, "Answer a fool according to his folly": give him the answer that his mind can accept.
We find an example of this in Yalkut Shimoni on Yehoshua 22, Remez 31. The heretics asked Rabbi Simlai: What is the meaning of the verse, "El, Elohim, Hashem, He has spoken" - how many deities are here? El, Elohim, Hashem? He answered them: "He knows" - "He" is in the singular; thus the end of the verse proves the beginning, demonstrating that God is One.
His disciples said to him: You brushed them off with a reed, but what do you answer us? Meaning, you dismissed the heretics with an answer meant only to deflect them, but what is the true answer? He said to them: All three are one name, just as one says Basileus, Caesar, Augustus - three titles for one person. And so too in our day: a person might ask which country this is; one might say Britain, another England, and a third the United Kingdom - and all three refer to the same country. So it is with a person: one can call him the President of the United States, call him by his personal name, or describe him by his formal title - and all are correct. Thus "El," "Elohim," and "Hashem" are all titles for the Holy One, blessed be He.
From this we learn: when they answered the heretics, they answered according to their mindset and way of thinking, for the true answer often does not settle well with their intellect. Therefore, when you answer a fool as well - answer him according to his folly. Do not answer him according to the profound truth of Torah, for then, "lest he become wise in his own eyes": he will not understand the answer nor delve into it, and he will claim that you had nothing to say in response. Answer him with an answer that is graspable at his level.
A story is told of the holy Rebbe, author of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz, who traveled to a resort town, as people used to travel in those days for fresh air and healing. A Lithuanian rav saw him there personally occupied with chopping and mashing eggs and onions on Erev Shabbat Kodesh for the Shabbat meal. The rav wondered: Is this the work of a Rebbe? Surely this is the maid's job! He asked him: "Why does the Rebbe trouble himself with this?" The Rebbe replied: "Does the Rav not know that when chopping onions very finely, there is a halachic concern of grinding (tochen) on Shabbat? In a matter involving Shabbat prohibitions, I cannot rely on the maid, so I chop them myself."
The following Shabbat, a Chassid was a guest there, and he too saw the Rebbe chopping the onions and eggs, and he too wondered and asked. The Rebbe answered him: "Know that all traditional Shabbat foods, in their small gematria (mispar katan), add up to the number seven, hinting that seven is the essence of Shabbat. 'Dag' (fish) has a gematria of seven. 'Basar' (meat) - bet is two, shin in mispar katan is three, reish is two, totaling seven. 'Marak' (soup) - mem is four, reish is two, kuf is one, totaling seven. And so on. But there is one exception: the onion, 'batzal.' In 'batzal' - bet is two, tzadi is nine, lamed is three, which equals fourteen, corresponding to two Shabbats rather than one. Therefore, one must cut it in two, so that there are two sevens. And such mystical intentions (kavanot) - said the Rebbe - I cannot entrust to a maid, which is why I cut it myself."
On the third Shabbat, a simple, unlearned man (am ha'aretz) was a guest there. He saw the Rebbe chopping onions and eggs, was puzzled, and asked. The Rebbe told him: "Look, the maid does not know exactly when the meal will take place - sometimes I begin early and sometimes late - so she prepares it long in advance. And as is well known, an onion cut long before eating dries out, turns bitter, and loses its flavor. I want it to taste delicious, so I chop it close to the meal, and then it is of the finest quality."
One of the Torah scholars who stayed there over all three Shabbats and heard all three reasons came to a conclusion: the Rebbe is not revealing his true reason. At first, he thought there was a halachic reason; then he thought there was a kabbalistic reason; and finally, when he heard the answer given to the simple man, he realized it was inconceivable that this culinary concern was what occupied the mind of that holy man of God. From this he understood that the other reasons were not the exclusive reason either; rather, the Rebbe tailored his explanation to the level of the questioner: an am ha'aretz understands good taste, so he was told the onion would lose its flavor. The Lithuanian rav understands halachic reasoning, so he was told there is an issue of grinding. And the Chassid - he is given Torah appetizers, gematriot, and kavanot, and that speaks to his heart.
This is precisely what the Gra explains: "Answer a fool according to his folly" - even in matters of Torah, when you are required to answer a fool who asks questions, tailor the answer to the questioner so that it will be acceptable to his mind. If you attempt to give him a true answer that is deeper than his limited intellect can grasp, it will not be accepted by his heart, and he will walk away feeling that you had no answer - "lest he become wise in his own eyes."
The Malbim takes a similar approach. He explains: answer him in a way so that he does not imagine himself to be wise. If he sees that you cannot find an answer, he will say: "Behold, I asked the rabbi a question and he had no answer." Therefore, Scripture instructs you to answer him with simple points - not with profound, sharp arguments according to your own wisdom, but with simple explanations that even his limited intellect can contain. This is akin to the explanation of the Gra.
מְקַצֶּה רַגְלַיִם חָמָס שֹׁתֶה שֹׁלֵחַ דְּבָרִים בְּיַד כְּסִיל׃ - "He cuts off feet and drinks violence who sends a message by the hand of a fool."
First, let us note the spelling: "shoteh" (drinking) is spelled here with a tav, not a tet (which would mean a fool). Rashi explains: one who sends messages through a fool ultimately cuts off the legs of many messengers, wearying them to run back and forth to repair the damage the fool has caused. This is similar to the popular saying: "A stone thrown into a pit by a fool cannot be retrieved by ten wise men." When you send an errand with a fool, you will need many people expending great effort to go and repair the bad impression, the damage, and the ruin he created.
And in addition - "drinks violence." The friend to whom the fool was sent is angry at you, because he heard harsh and unpleasant things from the fool's mouth. And you "drink violence": the expression of drinking here denotes receiving in large quantities, without limit. You absorb the anger and fury of your friend over things you never even said. You might protest: "All I did was send a messenger!" But you sent a fool, and the fool spoke inappropriately, and the recipient understood that this is what you meant, and he became enraged. Thus, you not only suffer fury and injustice, but afterward you also "cut off feet" - you must exhaust many people to go appease him, ask for his forgiveness, and explain that your words were completely misunderstood. And all this because you sent the message with a fool in the first place.
דַּלְיוּ שֹׁקַיִם מִפִּסֵּחַ וּמָשָׁל בְּפִי כְסִילִים׃ - Legs are drawn up high from the lame, and a proverb in the mouth of fools.
In the Malbim here, as well as on the previous verse, the explanation is very intricate, so we will explain it according to Rashi. Rashi explains that dalyu denotes height and elevation, as in "my eyes are lifted up" (dalu einai), from the concept of drawing up (lehadlot). Legs appear high to a lame person: the lame person is low, sitting on the ground, or has no functional legs at all and pulls himself along with his hands - therefore, anyone's legs appear to him like a towering mountain. A healthy person walking on his feet looks at another person's legs as the lowest part of the body; but one who sits on the ground and looks around always perceives legs as something high above him.
And the moral, says Rashi, is this: this is the proverb in the mouth of the fool. The fool claims: "You want to teach me wisdom? You want to teach me Torah? It is far too wondrous and exalted for me, too high and too deep for me." To this he is answered: "Indeed - just as legs are too high in the eyes of the lame." In other words, when a person is a fool and does not want to learn, everything naturally seems too high to him; but if he searches and genuinely wants to learn, he will see how everything is attainable. It is like the modern saying: a poor dancer blames the floor. When someone does not want to learn, he claims the study is too high, lofty, and exalted - but this is only proof that you are lame, not that the study is truly beyond grasp or comprehension.
On the other hand, the Gra, preceded by the Ralbag, offers a wonderful explanation here. A lame person is often someone who walks with an uneven gait: one leg is short and one leg is long, so he does not walk straight but sways from side to side. And this is "a proverb in the mouth of fools": the fool comes to explain something to you and offers a parable to illustrate it. You listen to the parable and try to understand how it relates to the subject at hand - and then you realize the man is a fool, for there is no real connection between the parable and its application; and if there is any connection, it is purely semantic and not a genuine parallel that can be matched point for point.
It turns out that his parable is like the legs of a lame person: one is high and one is low. He tries to compare two things that are not equal, and the result is a lame parable. This is "Legs are drawn up high from the lame, and a proverb in the mouth of fools": just as one leg of a lame person is elevated higher than the other, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools - there is no correspondence between the parable and the lesson. Therefore, do not try to analyze it deeply and make sense of it, for in truth there is no match: there are details he added to the parable that have no counterpart in the lesson, or elements in the lesson that are missing from the parable, so do not expect them to fit together.
We have learned three fundamentals regarding how to relate to the fool. The first: "Answer a fool according to his folly" - in matters of Torah, one must answer the questioner, but adapt the answer to his level and way of thinking, just as Rabbi Simlai answered the heretics, and just as the Divrei Chaim of Sanz answered every questioner according to his own world; otherwise, he will walk away feeling that there is no answer and become wise in his own eyes. The second: "One who sends a message by the hand of a fool" - one who sends an errand via a fool pays twice: he drinks violence from his angry friend, and cuts off the feet of many messengers sent to repair the damage. And the third: "Legs are drawn up high from the lame" - according to Rashi, the fool's claim that the Torah is too high for him is merely testimony to his own lameness; while according to the Gra and Ralbag, the fool's parables are lame like the legs of the crippled, lacking any true correspondence between the parable and its lesson.