Introduction: To Whom Does Wisdom Call?
In the preceding verses, we saw that Wisdom built her house, prepared her table, and sent forth her maidens to call people to the feast. However, this call is not directed to everyone:
שָׁלְחָה נַעֲרֹתֶיהָ תִקְרָא עַל־גַּפֵּי מְרֹמֵי קָרֶת׃ מִי־פֶתִי יָסֻר הֵנָּה חֲסַר־לֵב אָמְרָה לּוֹ׃ - She has sent forth her maidens, she calls upon the highest reaches of the city: "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him:
Wisdom turns to the simpleton and to the one who lacks heart. For them too, the Torah says, I have counsel, I have aid and assistance. But to the scorner and the wicked person she does not call at all, and the following verse explains the reason for this.
"He Who Admonishes a Scorner Incurs Disgrace" - Mussar versus Tochachah
יֹסֵר לֵץ לֹקֵחַ לוֹ קָלוֹן וּמוֹכִיחַ לְרָשָׁע מוּמוֹ׃ - He who admonishes a scorner incurs disgrace for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man gets a blemish.
The Malbim notes the precise difference between meyaser (one who disciplines) and mochi'ach (one who rebukes). Mussar is related to yisurim (suffering): threatening punishment, pain, illness, or harm. Mussar always stems from fear of punishment. In contrast, tochachah (rebuke) is related to hochechah (proof) - an argument based on rational evidence. I make my claim and you make yours, until one of us proves his case and prevails. This is the concept of tochachah: clarification through reason. Mussar, by contrast, teaches a person "through his back," with a stick that strikes him when he fails to understand through intellect.
Now we can understand what the scorner mocks. He does not mock intellectual proofs - one cannot mock something that can be demonstrably proven. Rather, he scoffs specifically at the laws of wisdom, which, as we explained, lack absolute intellectual demonstrations. The laws of wisdom are not axioms that can be tested in a laboratory like verifying that water boils at one hundred degrees. What is moral and what is immoral - people can argue about that for twenty years without reaching a definitive resolution. Wisdom must be received from the mouth of a rebbe and from the mouth of a prophet. And how is it received? Through fear of Heaven: "The fear of Hashem, that is wisdom." It is fear of punishment that tells a person to accept the laws of wisdom, and to know that whoever veers from the path and acts immorally will suffer and receive afflictions.
The scorner comes along and mocks precisely this point: "Forget about all this nonsense - moral or immoral, just go with the flow, do whatever you feel like, you only live once, enjoy yourself." Therefore, the verse says: "He who admonishes a scorner incurs disgrace for himself" - if someone comes to discipline the scorner, and cannot demonstrate things to him through rational proofs but only through threats of suffering, the scorner will ridicule and humiliate him. What will you gain from this rebuke? Nothing but shame and humiliation.
"And He Who Rebukes a Wicked Man Gets a Blemish"
The wicked person sins willfully, and he too is unwilling to listen to intellectual rebuke. Why? Because in his case, the intellect conflicts with his desires. You prove to him that something is forbidden, but his desire pulls him in that direction, so he refuses to accept it. With the scorner, seemingly one could speak to him through rational arguments, since he only scoffs at what lacks definitive proof. But the wicked person will say to you: "It is all very fine that you proved it, but I feel like doing otherwise; it goes against my desire."
What is the grammatical construction here? The Malbim explains that this is a case where a phrase carries over: an expression appearing at the beginning of the verse also serves its second half. This is like the phrase, "Who did not place our portion like theirs, and our lot like all their multitude" - meaning, He did not place our portion like theirs, and He did not place our lot like all their multitude. So too here: "He who admonishes a scorner incurs disgrace for himself, and he who rebukes a wicked man - incurs his blemish." One who rebukes a wicked man takes the wicked man's blemish onto himself. What is the wicked man's blemish? That he is wicked. And when you come to rebuke him, he will tell you: "Wicked person that you are!" He will cast his own blemish onto you.
And we see this in practice every day. You come to rebuke a person for something bad he is doing, and not only does he double down on his behavior, but he completely turns the tables and says: whoever acts according to your words is the wicked one; whoever behaves like you is the transgressor! Consider an example: you tell someone that abortion is murder. Immediately he answers you - do you know what kind of case this is? A fifteen-year-old girl who became pregnant, and you demand that she give birth? What an evil person you are! She will be left traumatized for life, her life will be ruined, and what will happen to the child, where will he grow up? Look how you are tormenting a daughter of Israel! In other words: you came to rebuke him about murder, yet the wicked person projects his own blemish onto you and labels you as the immoral one.
Do Not Rebuke a Scorner, Lest He Hate You
אַל־תּוֹכַח לֵץ פֶּן־יִשְׂנָאֶךָּ הוֹכַח לְחָכָם וְיֶאֱהָבֶךָּ׃ - Do not rebuke a scorner, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise person, and he will love you.
Here the verse resolves a difficulty. If the scorner mocks only what cannot be proven, but does accept matters that can be proven rationally - why shouldn't I rebuke him with proofs? True, if I chastise him and say to him, "There is Gehinnom," he will mock me; but if I prove it to him intellectually, no disgrace will attach to me! To this the verse responds: do not go down that path either. "Do not rebuke a scorner, lest he hate you." Precisely because the rebuke is convincing, the scorner hates the one rebuking him. As it says in Mishlei 15:12, "A scorner does not love one who rebukes him; he will not go to the wise." The scorner does not go to the wise in the first place, out of fear that they might convince him.
This is exactly what a person says: I do not like going to lectures, I do not like Torah seminars. Why? Because it is dangerous; a person could end up doing teshuvah! I have a different agenda; I feel like doing other things. He fears that he might be convinced, and therefore he hates anyone who comes to prove the truth to him, since the one rebuking him comes to say: sir, you are obligated. And he does not want to be obligated, so he is not willing to listen at all.
This Generation Seeks Desires, Not Proofs
Rabbi Zvi Inbal, one of the senior lecturers in the Arachim organization, once related that they used to present a series of proofs for the authenticity of the Torah at seminars, with more than twelve avenues of evidence. One of them, for instance, was "prophecy upon prophecy," which one could speak about for months: prophecies that came true. At one point they thought: there are people who cannot attend a seven-day seminar, so let us condense the material into three evenings of marathon lectures in an auditorium, allowing working people to attend. On the first night, the hall was packed, and they began presenting proofs for the truth of the Torah. People sat with their mouths agape. On the second night, they were counting flies - nobody showed up. It was not that they had questions or refuted the proofs; these were arguments that could not be countered. Rather, they realized then: people are not looking for proofs, because proofs obligate. If you give me a proof, you back me into a corner.
Therefore, today the focus of lectures at seminars is not on proofs. That is genuinely not what a person is missing, and certainly not in our generation. Forty or fifty years ago there was still an ideological concept of heresy, but today's generation is not heretical; it is pleasure-seeking. This is a generation of pleasures and affluence, a generation that pursues desires rather than proofs. When you present someone with a proof, you compel him to act accordingly, and he is simply not equipped for that - neither emotionally nor psychologically. For this reason, a significant portion of lectures today focuses on emotional building: how to bring the Torah close to a person's feelings, to his inner desires. They speak with him about parenting, about marriage, about subjects that are not proofs for the veracity of the Torah. The proofs are left for the end. At first, they send a lecturer to soften the atmosphere, so that the person opens up and realizes that these are not aliens from another planet, nor the people he saw on television throwing stones, but fellow human beings. Only after he has opened up and softened can he accept proofs with an open heart. But as long as "what I feel like doing" guides him, even if you bring him a proof, he will only hate you, because you hold something that obligates him.
He Overturned the Mountain Above Them Like a Cask
To a certain extent, this is coercion: you have coerced me through the intellect, you proved it to me, and I am left with no choice. According to the Maharal of Prague, this is the very concept of "He overturned the mountain above them like a cask." The simple meaning is that He lifted the mountain and suspended it over them so there was no way out. But the Maharal explains: "He overturned the mountain above them like a cask" means that He opened up for them the seven heavens and the seven chambers of the earth, as the Midrash relates, and they saw and said, "There is none else besides Him." Everyone reached the level of comprehension and prophecy. After such a vision, could a person possibly sin? He was coerced, his free choice was suspended, and they accepted the Torah under duress - there was no longer room for denial, for they saw everything. Yet the yetzer hara still finds room to work, and after forty days they made the Golden Calf. In any event, a person does not want to reach such a state, which is why the scorner does not show up in the first place: "He will not go to the wise," out of fear that they will prove the truth to him.
Thus we find: do not think that through rational rebuke you will penetrate the scorner's heart. True, no disgrace will attach to you, since he cannot mock logical proofs, but he will hate you, because he does not love rebuke. What, then, have you gained? In contrast, "rebuke a wise person, and he will love you" - the wise person is one who is willing to hear words of wisdom and loves rebuke; therefore, if you rebuke him, he will love you. This is also the reason that the maidservants of Wisdom were sent to invite the simpleton and the one lacking heart to the feast, and not the scorner or the wicked: these latter ones are unwilling to listen and cannot be reasoned with, whereas in the simpleton and the one lacking heart there is room for wisdom.
Two Additional Explanations of "Rebuke a Wise Person"
There is another explanation of "Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you." The guaranteed way to make reproof ineffective is through attack: coming to a person and saying, "What you are doing is grave; whoever does this is a transgressor," even citing the Shulchan Aruch that one is permitted to call him a transgressor, and threatening him with Gehinnom. Who would accept reproof like that? You have just invalidated his entire persona. Even if you are one hundred percent right, he will not accept your words, because his ego has been wounded. But "Reprove a wise man" - when you approach someone and say, "You are a wise person; it is beneath an educated, wise, and decent person like you to act this way," then "he will love you." He will tell you, "You know, you are right, I was actually thinking about that." You made him feel respected, you validated him, you gave him a compliment, and through that, he becomes willing to accept the rebuke.
There is yet another explanation: Do not reprove a scorner in the manner of "If you do this, see how hated you will be in Heaven." There are passages where the Rambam uses very harsh language - "hated, detested, and abominated." Such language does not move people today. But "Reprove a wise man," if you want to reprove someone in a way that allows him to gain wisdom from your words - "and he will love you": tell him, "Do such-and-such and you will be beloved in Heaven; what gratification (nachas ruach) you will give the Creator of the world, what joy!" There is a much greater chance he will accept this than the threat that "Hashem will hate you." That is why today we have become a people seeking segulot: do this and Heaven will bestow bounty upon you, do that and you will receive. Our generation needs blessings and positive promises, not descriptions of a particular chamber in Gehinnom or a furnace of fire. That no longer speaks to people. Tell someone what abundance will come to him through his actions - that resonates with him far more, and it will have a far greater impact on him.
Give to a Wise Man, and He Will Become Wiser Still
תֵּן לְחָכָם וְיֶחְכַּם־עוֹד הוֹדַע לְצַדִּיק וְיוֹסֶף לֶקַח׃ - Give to a wise man, and he will become wiser still; instruct a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
Wisdom, as we noted, is exceedingly broad and boundless. The wise man consistently accepts the principles of wisdom and constantly adds more and more. If someone says to him, "Listen to an insight (chiddush)," he does not reply, "I already heard an insight today." Rather, he says, "Yes, what do you have to share?" "Give to a wise man" - offer it to him, "and he will become wiser still" - he desires more, is eager to hear more, seeks more; there is a yearning within him.
And what is the difference between the chacham (wise man) and the tzaddik (righteous man)? The wise man accepts all the principles of wisdom through tradition, gains deep insight into them, contemplates them, and delves into them until they become intelligible to his own intellect as well. The righteous man, by contrast, walks in the statutes of wisdom even though he does not know their reasons; he does so out of habit - having been accustomed to it from his youth, he walks in his righteousness. If you ask the wise man why he acts as he does, he will know how to answer. If you ask the righteous man, he will not necessarily have an explanation; he will tell you, "This is what my grandfather did, this is what my father did, and this is how I continue in his path."
Therefore, "Instruct a righteous man, and he will increase in learning." The righteous man needs to be informed of the laws of wisdom, something he did not yet know, and through this "he will increase in learning" - he will deepen his grasp and acceptance of what he already possesses. Once he knows the reasons, the rationales, and the halachah behind his actions, what he performed until now merely out of habit - ingrained from his youth in righteousness - he will now do out of knowledge of the reasons and an understanding of the reasons for the mitzvot. The wise man, on the other hand - "Give to a wise man, and he will become wiser still" - will add further wisdom upon his existing wisdom through what you impart to him.
He Gives Wisdom to the Wise
And this is the meaning of the verse, "He gives wisdom to the wise": precisely to the wise man, who seeks wisdom, does it make sense to give wisdom. But someone who does not seek wisdom - what can you give him? What would he know to do with it? He will invent another system for filling out lottery tickets. Is this why you were given wisdom? Is this why the Holy One, blessed be He, endowed you with intellect, so you could devise strategies for athletic competitions? A deer runs faster than you. The physical body is not what matters most; it is what lies inside the mind: the knowledge, the intellect, the divine soul from Above. The wise man knows how to value the laws of wisdom and will not squander it on trivialities. In contrast, you give an ordinary person brilliance and he invents dynamite - killing a quarter of the world, only to regret it later and establish the Nobel Prize.
The Beginning of Wisdom Is the Fear of Hashem
תְּחִלַּת חׇכְמָה יִרְאַת יְהֹוָה וְדַעַת קְדֹשִׁים בִּינָה׃ - The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem, and the knowledge of the holy ones is understanding.
Here the verse explains why Wisdom sends out her maidens to call out to the simple and the devoid of heart, rather than calling to them herself. In terms of the allegory: why the principles of wisdom can be attained only through the prophets and the sages, and why man cannot naturally arrive at the correct conclusions regarding the laws of wisdom on his own unless someone teaches him.
The answer is that chochmah cannot be attained through pure intellect alone, especially since it contains matters that contradict a person's physical desires. Desire pulls in one direction, while chochmah - which is musar, the discernment between good and evil - pulls in another direction. Therefore, the initial way a person begins to walk in chochmah is by accepting it from the sages of the generation and from the prophets who proclaim it in the name of Hashem, and by accepting it through the power of one's yir'at Shamayim (fear of Heaven). Without that, why would anyone accept it?
For morality is not something demonstrable by logical proof. One person will argue that a certain thing is moral, while another will argue that it is immoral. The debate between the political right and left is nothing other than a debate over morality: is it moral to rule over a million Palestinians or not? The debate between the opposing camps is fundamentally an argument about morality, and morality cannot be mathematically proven. Therefore, for a person to accept the musar of the Torah, he needs something that will discipline him and compel him to accept it, since with intellect alone he will not understand why not. Try explaining to a secular young man why it is not moral to be with a woman without a ketubah and kiddushin - he will have no idea what you are even talking about.
And this is what the Chazon Ish said when he was asked to facilitate a dialogue between the observant and the non-observant, as discussed in previous lessons. He told them: How can we conduct a dialogue when the conceptual frameworks are completely different? What is called love to them is karet (spiritual excision) to us. So how can one even begin to converse? And when it comes to morality - who gave you a monopoly on morality? In order to accept the Torah's authority over morality, one needs yir'at Hashem: knowing that it comes from Hashem, and that musar is related to the word yisurim (chastisement and consequences) - that one who deviates from the path incurs punishment. This is what provides a person with the opening to walk in Hashem's Torah.
Yet certainly, at the second stage, one who delves deeply into the laws of chochmah will ultimately conclude that all the laws of wisdom and the musar of the Torah are true justice, true uprightness, common sense, and sound reason, and that this is truly how one should act according to the ways of wisdom. Initially, it must be accepted as an axiom; then, at the second stage, after profound contemplation, one suddenly sees in everything its beauty, its righteousness, and its morality. This is the meaning of "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem": the starting point through which we accept chochmah is through the fear of Hashem - one is told that this wisdom comes from Hashem; fear Hashem Who gave this wisdom, and through that, you will accept it.
In summary: We learned that chochmah calls out to the simpleton and to one lacking understanding, but not to the scoffer and the wicked. The scoffer mocks the laws of chochmah for which there are no empirical proofs, and therefore one who disciplines him invites disgrace upon himself; while the wicked person does not accept even intellectual proofs because they contradict his desires, and therefore one who rebukes him incurs his blemish - the wicked person will project his own wickedness onto him. Even intellectual rebuke is ineffective for the scoffer, for precisely because it is convincing and demanding, he hates the rebuker, nor will he go to the wise. The effective path is "Rebuke a wise person, and he will love you": approaching a person with respect and dignity, offering love and abundance rather than threats and hostility. The wise person adds wisdom to his wisdom, and the righteous person, who walks in his path out of routine, increases learning when shown the reasons behind things. And the foundation of it all is yir'at Hashem, which is the only gateway to accepting the laws of chochmah - laws that lack intellectual demonstrations - and only after deep contemplation are their true justice and uprightness revealed.