The chapter before us continues the path of Sefer Mishlei in teaching man how to conduct himself vis-a-vis others and in relation to his own character traits. In the passage before us, we will examine three verses: the question of when a person is permitted to speak about himself and when he must remain silent, the severity of the fool's anger, and the terrible hierarchy between wrath, fury, and jealousy.
יְהַלֶּלְךָ זָר וְלֹא פִיךָ, נׇכְרִי וְאַל שְׂפָתֶיךָ. (ב) - Let a stranger praise you and not your own mouth, an alien and not your own lips. (2)
The Gemara in Nedarim (62a) states that when a person arrives in a place where he is not known, he is permitted to make himself known. That is to say: in a place where people know him, the rule "Let a stranger praise you and not your own mouth" applies, but in a place where people do not know him, he is permitted to speak about himself. The Gemara brings proof from the verse, "and your servant has feared the Lord from my youth" - Ovadyahu said this about himself to Eliyahu. Seemingly, how could he speak in praise of himself? Rather, this was in a place where he was not known, and there a person is permitted to make himself known so that people recognize his standing.
Based on this, the Maharsha explains the wording of our verse: "Let a stranger praise you" - in a place where they know you, do not speak of yourself, but leave it to others to praise you. "And if not" (ve-lo) - if they do not know you, then "your own mouth" (picha) may praise you, and you are permitted to say: "I know such-and-such tractate; I have learned; you may test me." This applies specifically in a place where he is not known.
Sefer Chasidim adds another layer. In their time, there were no kollels, and talmidei chachamim were supported by the community. When a person arrived in a town where no one knew he was a talmid chacham, they would assume he was an ignoramus (am ha'aretz) and not give him charity fitting his stature and needs. What should he do? On the one hand, "let a stranger praise you" - he should not boast about himself. On the other hand, "and if not, your mouth" - let him open his mouth with words of Torah. Not that he praises himself directly, but rather that he speaks words of Torah before them, and through this people will realize that a vessel filled to the brim stands before them, and they will accord him proper honor and support.
So it is told of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. When he set out to spread the Mussar movement, he would travel from place to place delivering sermons on the obligation to study Mussar, explaining that someone who does not study Mussar can deteriorate and become like "a donkey carrying books" - possessing vast knowledge, yet corrupted in conduct. However, that was a generation of brilliant Torah scholars, and the prevailing perception was that someone who speaks only of Mussar is likely not a great talmid chacham, since anyone can learn Mussar; he was seen merely as an ordinary preacher (maggid). Consequently, his words were not received properly.
What did he do? So that they would accept his message, he would first deliver an entire shiur of profound, intricate analysis (pilpul). He would post a page beforehand listing the sources and Talmudic topics he would address, astonishing the hearts of all listeners. The Rav of Brisk was once asked who the undisputed genius of the generation was - in an era that included the Maharil Diskin, a generation of titans - and he answered: Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. It is recounted that the shiurim he delivered were breathtaking in their brilliance, full of incisive analysis that "uprooted mountains and ground them together." And once the crowd was left speechless by this tremendous display of scholarship, he would say to them: "Gentlemen, we must learn Mussar." Only then were his words heard, coming from someone from whom it was fitting to receive them.
On one occasion, someone switched his sheet of sources. There were those who opposed the Mussar movement, and one opponent took down the sheet posted in the beit midrash and replaced it with a list of sources that had no connection to one another whatsoever: a Gemara in Berachot, then Masechet Sukkah, then Kiddushin, a Rif here and a Rosh there - all completely unrelated. The scholars in the beit midrash who prepared the sources could not understand what connected the laws of sukkah to the laws of a co-wife's daughter to the rule that blessing the primary food exempts the secondary food. They said: "Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is a giant; surely he will know how to tie it all together."
Rabbi Yisrael arrived, saw the sheet, and was dismayed. He realized that someone had swapped the sources. He mounted the podium, stood and studied the paper for a few minutes, and then delivered a deeply analytical shiur based precisely on the sources listed, connecting every single one - a wondrous, brilliant lecture delivered without any prior preparation. Afterwards, the students accompanying him asked: "Rebbe, you paused for five to seven minutes before starting the shiur, yet we know you are capable of doing so much faster. Why the delay?"
He told them: "You are right. After three minutes, the shiur was already fully formulated." Consider the sheer brilliance: three minutes, taking in the page, the topics, and all the matters, and the entire shiur was constructed! "Rather," he added, "during the remaining minutes, I weighed in my mind whether it was proper to deliver the shiur at all. On the one hand, perhaps there was an element of arrogance: 'Look, I am able to construct a shiur in minutes; they tried to bring me down and failed.' On the other hand, if I do not do this, the Mussar movement will suffer. I did not come to promote myself, but rather the duty to study Mussar, and if I fold and walk away, the cause will be harmed." It was this internal struggle that took up the time, and in the end, he resolved to deliver the shiur.
From here we can understand how deeply they valued concealment, walking humbly, and avoiding self-publicity; and whenever they did publicize something, it was entirely so that people would learn mussar, good character traits, and proper conduct. And this is what Sefer Chassidim says: "Let a stranger praise you," and if you see that no one knows you, then "and not your mouth" - not that you should praise yourself, but rather speak words of Torah, and thereby everyone will recognize how exceptional and great in Torah he is, and will appreciate him accordingly.
כֹּבֶד אֶבֶן וְנֵטֶל הַחוֹל, וְכַעַס אֱוִיל כָּבֵד מִשְּׁנֵיהֶם. (ג) - Heavy is a stone and burdensome is the sand, but a fool's anger is heavier than both of them. (3)
The Vilna Gaon explains: A stone is heavy by its very nature; even a stone that is not large is heavy. Sand, on the other hand, in an equal amount is not so heavy, but its volume increases it immensely, and carrying it is difficult because of the burden and the vast bulk.
And what is the nimshal? There are two types of trouble, each severe in its own way. There is a trouble as heavy as a stone - a harsh affliction that strikes all at once. And there is a trouble that does not come all at once but drags on over time - this is the bulk, a trouble that is not as heavy as a stone, but bearing it is difficult because of its prolonged duration. And regarding both of these, Shlomo says: "but a fool's anger is heavier than both of them" - for a fool constantly suffers distress from his anger, which combines both: it is both intense and heavy, and also constant, like sand whose nature is sheer quantity.
And thus the Midrash expounds on the verse "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart" - this is what is written: "The heaviness of a stone." Pharaoh's sin, when he said "Who is Hashem that I should heed His voice? I do not know Hashem," was heavy as a stone. And the fact that he continued to harden his heart time and time again - that is "the weight of sand," for sand is composed of many tiny grains that accumulate more and more. That is to say, it was not merely a severe provocation, but a provocation repeated again and again.
Rashi explains that "the anger of a fool" refers to him provoking the Holy One, blessed be He. In summary: according to the Vilna Gaon, the fool's anger causes trouble for himself; according to the Malbim, it causes trouble for others; and according to Rashi, the provocation is directed toward the Holy One, blessed be He - that a person angers his Creator through the sins and futilities he commits.
אַכְזְרִיּוּת חֵמָה וְשֶׁטֶף אָף, וּמִי יַעֲמֹד לִפְנֵי קִנְאָה. (ד) - Wrath is cruel and anger is an overwhelming flood, but who can stand before jealousy? (4)
The Malbim explains: Cheimah (wrath) is internal anger, a person harboring hatred in his heart - "his wrath burned within him." Af (anger/fury) is external anger - "a fire is kindled in my nostril": when a person is enraged, his face and nostrils redden, and steam, as it were, flares from his nostrils. Thus, af denotes anger that is visible outwardly, while cheimah denotes internal anger. (The Malbim explains this in several places, and in Megillat Esther he offers a wonderful explanation based on this distinction as to why both an internal and an external element were present there.)
Accordingly, there can be af without internal cheimah: outward display of anger without internal seething. Such anger makes an impression, meaning it produces a concrete result - leading someone to strike or punish, but without cruelty, because cruelty stems from within, and here there is no cheimah. And conversely, there can be cheimah without af - an inner boiling that is not visible outwardly. There, cruelty exists, for something burning inside a person leads to malice and corruption, but there is no outward action, since af is the external manifestation.
And this is "wrath is cruel, and anger is an overwhelming flood": cheimah leads to cruelty because it smolders inside, while af is the flood, the rushing outward action. "But who can stand before jealousy?" - jealousy, when a person becomes intensely resentful over his tarnished honor and the insult he suffered, contains both of these combined: both the cruelty of cheimah, as the offense agitates him within, and the overwhelming rush of af, as he flares up outwardly seeking vengeance. The same applies to one who is impassioned over an offense to someone close to him, or even plain envy. May Hashem have mercy, one hears all sorts of stories about people far from Torah and the heart aches: a man who heard something about his wife and sets out on a manhunt, kills her, kills him, sometimes commits suicide afterward, sometimes kills his child - utter madness. This is "who can stand before jealousy": both an internal boiling and outward action driven by that same cruelty and fury.
The Vilna Gaon explains that the verse alludes to what a person undergoes after 120 years. Three harsh judgments pass over him when he is gathered from the world. The first is death itself, which is in action: the person actually passes away. The second is when he is placed in the grave; there is great wrath against him in Heaven, he is judged and his sentence is decreed, and this is in speech. The third is in Gehinom, where he is tormented. And who torments him? Those who are zealous against him, who are zealous with the zeal of Hashem because he provoked the Master of the World, transgressed sins, and rebelled against Hashem.
This is what is written here: "Wrath is cruel" - in death, which is in the realm of action. "And anger is a flood" - in speech, when he is brought to judgment and tried through words, and wrath floods over him. "And who can stand before jealousy?" - these are the zealous ones who hold zeal against him: How could you transgress, and how could you anger the King, Hashem of Hosts? And they torment him in Gehinom. As it says, "And before His indignation, who can stand?" (Nachum 1:6), about which Chazal said: This refers to Gehinom.
The Ralbag explains that wrath leads a person to cruelty, for an enraged person shows no mercy. This is an undeniable reality: as long as a person is calm and in control, he possesses mercy and compassion; but when he is engulfed in anger and wrath - as people say, "he sees red" - he is capable of doing the harshest and most terrible things. The man of wrath will show no pity to the one who angers him. And anger - "anger is a flood", like a tsunami that washes away and obliterates everything, seeing no one and pitying no one, destroying everything in its path.
And yet, all of this is minor compared to the envious person: "And who can stand before jealousy?" Why? Because the envious person is pained at the sight of another's good fortune. The envious person literally suffers when he sees someone else doing well. Some people put a bumper sticker on their car saying, "May the jealous die!" while someone more creative wrote: "Let the jealous live and suffer!" Why should they die? Let them see him driving a luxury car, let them be jealous, and let them suffer. Two exemplary character traits, without a doubt!
The fundamental difference is this: the person of wrath and anger destroys and wreaks havoc - but on others, not on himself. The envious person, by contrast, is willing to harm even himself. The Ralbag cites a famous parable (and one might not have realized how ancient it is): A king who knew the natures of an envious man and a greedy man told them he was prepared to bestow royal bounty upon them. One of them would make a request and receive it, and his fellow would receive double. The greedy man did not want to ask first, because he wanted to receive double whatever the envious man received. And the envious man did not want to ask for any good for himself, out of distress over the good his fellow would receive: "Shall I ask for one thing and he will be given double?"
So both stood there deferring to each other: "Please, you go first, your honor is greater and worthy of praise." Like two prospective in-laws who met to agree on how much each side would contribute to the wedding, and one of them, who was wealthier, said: "Whatever you give, I will give double." Now the other does not know whether to say four million dollars or two hundred thousand, and each waits for the other to start: "Go ahead, you begin."
And what happened in the end? The envious man hurried to request of the king that one of his own eyes be gouged out, so that his fellow would be left completely blind in both eyes. That is the envious person: he is willing to suffer, provided that the other person suffers twice as much. Thus we see that jealousy is far worse than cruel wrath and flooding anger; in those cases, you harm someone else, but in jealousy, you are willing to gouge out your own eye just so your fellow has two gouged out.
This is horrifying, and we see it today on all sides. A political party is slated to receive something, but because the rival party will also receive it, they say: "No, no, do not give it to me, so that you do not give it to them." A person is in line for a promotion, but since his coworker will also be promoted, he says: "Never mind, leave us both as we are." To any observer, this is appalling, but this is the nature of the envious person: he is willing to deprive himself, provided he does not have to witness any good fortune or advantage given to his fellow. Therefore, Shlomo HaMelech said: "Wrath is cruel and anger is a flood" - one can still withstand them somehow; but "who can stand before jealousy?" - that is a harsh and terrifying reality against which no one can stand.
We have learned three concepts. "Let another praise you and not your own mouth" - in a place where people know you, do not praise yourself, but where you are unknown, one may make oneself known, and according to Sefer Chassidim, specifically through opening one's mouth with words of Torah, as was the custom of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who preceded his lectures with brilliant Talmudic discourse so that people would accept his mussar. "A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty" - there are two types of burdens: one that is intensely heavy all at once, and one that drags on over time; and the anger of a fool encompasses both, being heavy and enduring, whether he torments himself, torments others, or angers his Creator. And "Wrath is cruel and anger is a flood" - internal wrath breeds cruelty, and external anger breeds a flood, whereas jealousy encompasses both and is even worse, for the envious person is willing to harm himself just so his fellow will be harmed - and before it, who can stand?