Before us are two verses from Chapter 11, both addressing a fundamental question: What does a person seek, and upon what does he depend? The first verse - "He who seeks good seeks favor" - teaches the power of seeking good, both for others and for oneself. The second verse - "He who trusts in his wealth will fall" - teaches what happens to a person who makes wealth the core of his identity, in contrast to the righteous person, for whom wealth is merely a leaf. We will proceed in order, citing the explanations of Rabbeinu Yonah, the Vilna Gaon, and the Malbim, along with the accompanying moral lessons.
שֹׁחֵר טוֹב יְבַקֵּשׁ רָצוֹן, וְדֹרֵשׁ רָעָה תְבוֹאֶנּוּ׃ (כז) - One who seeks good seeks favor, but evil will come upon one who seeks harm. (27)
Rabbeinu Yonah explains: A person who prays on behalf of his peers is "seeking good" (shocheir tov) for them. What is the meaning of the word shocheir? It is related to shachar (dawn) and meshacheir (rising early) - he rises early at dawn to seek it out. In other words, he desires it intensely, like someone who arrives early in the morning to seek something, as in "a seeker of knowledge" (shocheir da'at). Therefore, shocheir tov - one who seeks the good of others - thereby seeks favor from Hashem, Blessed be He.
Our Sages state: Whoever prays for his fellow when he himself needs that very same thing is answered first. Where do we see this? "And Hashem restored the fortunes of Iyov" - when? "When he prayed for his friends." You prayed for them, and in that merit, you yourself were granted relief. So too in Tehillim: "And my prayer returned to my own bosom" - when I pray for another person, the prayer returns to my own lap.
The inner explanation for this is as follows: When a person prays for someone else, he draws down abundance from the upper worlds. Because this abundance flows down through you, you become like a conduit. This is similar to what is written: "The entire world is sustained bishvil Chanina My son, yet Chanina My son is satisfied with a kav of carobs." What is bishvil? Through the pathway (shevil) and conduit that Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa forged in the spiritual realms, abundance is brought down to the entire world. When is this possible? On condition that "Chanina My son is satisfied with a kav of carobs." If he had sought to benefit from that abundance himself, it would have stayed with him, remained in the conduit, and not continued downward. The same applies here: You pray for your friend, and you serve as the conduit - and who gets wet first? You. The flow reaches you first, drenches you, and continues onward. One who desires to sustain the entire world must be like Rabbi Chanina, who takes nothing for himself; but an ordinary person who prays for another is answered first. Therefore, one who seeks good for others "seeks favor" - he brings upon himself the goodwill of Hashem, Blessed be He, awakening the Divine will to bestow abundance upon him as well.
People who are capable of drawing down abundance upon others and fail to do so are held accountable. A community leader or a righteous person who can pray and plead for mercy on behalf of the generation and does not do so is punished. Where do we see this? With the Kohen Gadol. It is written that upon his death, all the accidental killers in the cities of refuge would be released. This was a detriment to him, as they all prayed for his death so they could go free. The Gemara explains that he bore responsibility for the occurrence of accidental killings, because he had failed to pray adequately for his generation.
Similarly, the Gemara recounts that Eliyahu HaNavi did not appear to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi because a lion had mauled a man within his district. What did that have to do with him? Had he prayed for the people of his district, a lion would never have mauled anyone; since it happened, he bore a measure of blame and fell short of the required level of perfection. Shmuel states this explicitly in the verse: "Far be it from me to sin against Hashem by ceasing to pray for you" - if I cease praying for you, Heaven forbid, I am sinning against Hashem. We see from here that a complete person must pray for others and implore mercy for his generation.
This is what the verse means: "He who seeks good seeks favor" - one who seeks benevolence and desires only good for others seeks Hashem's favor for the community and the public. Through this, he draws divine favor upon himself, and blessing rests upon him. In contrast, "and he who searches for evil, it shall come upon him": the person who searches for evil - not only does he not seek peace for his generation, his friends, and his relatives, but he actively seeks their misfortune; whoever he sees, he wishes that such-and-such should happen to them, Heaven forbid. He is told: the evil you seek upon others - "it shall come upon him," it will come upon you. Just as when we were children, when one would wish something bad upon another, the other would answer: "Back at you!" That is exactly what this is. From that same principle that one who prays for his friend is answered first - if you seek evil upon me, Heaven forbid, you bring it upon yourself. So too it is written regarding one who curses another for no reason, that the curse will fall upon him.
Here, Rabbeinu Yonah writes a sentence that serves as a key to the entire book: "And this is the way of most of this book, to speak of the furthest extreme of the opposite." In other words, when Shlomo HaMelech presents examples, he takes extreme examples on both ends. On one hand, "he who seeks good" - and what is the opposite? Not merely someone who does not seek good for others; rather, he leaps to the furthest extreme: "he who searches for evil." And this is consistently the case. "A generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will himself be watered" - yet in contrast, the pasuk does not speak of one who simply does not give, but of "one who withholds grain," who has it and locks it away. He does not speak of the middle ground. Throughout the pesukim we continually see this: on one side this extreme, and on the other, the absolute opposite. What is in the middle? The middle ground lies somewhere between the two, but the verses address those at the poles. Such is also the nature of parables: a parable is understood best when it is stark. Just as a caricature, when wishing to convey a message, exaggerates and draws the features in an extreme manner to deliver its point, so too, through sharpening the contrast, the idea becomes far clearer to the mind.
The Gra explains: "He who seeks good" - one who pursues and eagerly takes initiative to do good for others is considered as one who seeks His favor, and a blessing of goodness will come upon him, for through this he seeks Hashem's favor, that the Holy One, Blessed is He, should fulfill His will. And one who seeks to do harm to others - the evil itself will come upon him. This follows the same line of thought explained by Rabbeinu Yonah.
However, the Vilna Gaon adds that the pasuk also applies to divine service: if a person "seeks good" - performing mitzvos, as the fulfillment of mitzvos is called "good" - he is thereby seeking to do the will of Hashem. For when one sets aside his own desire - his desire might be to sleep until ten in the morning rather than getting up at seven to daven - and he sets his own desire aside to engage in Hashem's mitzvos, this exemplifies "nullify your will before His will, so that He may nullify the will of others before your will." And "make your will like His will" - meaning that one's aspiration and desire should be to do Hashem's will, and consequently the Holy One, Blessed is He, fulfills His will. One who seeks good strives to fulfill the mitzvos and thereby subjugates his own desires - for by nature, a person is not drawn to mitzvos; if we were drawn naturally, we would not deserve reward. Why do we merit reward? Because a person might genuinely feel like doing other things, yet he fulfills the mitzvos because that is what he must do. Such a person "seeks favor" - he is like one who seeks the favor of the Holy One, Blessed is He, desiring that Hashem's goodwill rest upon him, and Hashem will fulfill the will of that person, since he nullified his own will before the will of Hashem.
We are friends with the yetzer hara from day one, whereas the yetzer tov arrives only later, and must begin to forge ties with a person who already has extensive connections with the yetzer hara. Therefore, it is naturally very difficult for a person to do good, while doing evil comes far more easily; he drifts toward evil much more smoothly than toward good. Moreover, man is a creature of physical matter, and matter is coarse; where does it naturally gravitate? Toward evil. Matter embodies bodily desires, physical pleasures, and animalistic instincts, and that is its inclination. Therefore, for a person to do good, it is not enough to merely "search" (doresh) for good; he must actively "seek early and eagerly" (shocher) for good - overcoming all the negative forces stirring within him. But for evil, it is enough merely to "search" (doresh) for evil.
One who "seeks good" must first seek the will. How does one arrive at doing good? First and foremost, there must be a desire. A person will not do anything unless he has the will to do so. The very first step is to awaken the desire within oneself: whoever wishes to be a seeker of good, so that his longing will be to do good - must first actually want to do good. If one has no desire to do good, he will not move a muscle, so how could he ever become a seeker of good? But for one who "searches for evil" - "it shall come upon him," and there is no need to seek out will. When a person leans toward evil, the physical cravings are already present, the urges are already there, the negative force within him is right at hand; there is no need to awaken a desire for evil.
Who had to actively awaken within themselves a desire for evil? The generation of the wilderness. There, they ate the manna, and the manna produced purified blood in them, so that they were not drawn to physical cravings. Therefore, "and the riffraff among them had a strong craving" (hit’avu ta’avah) - the commentators explain: they craved to have a craving, for it had been a long time since they had felt any illicit desire at all. But naturally, a person does not need to work up a craving - it comes of its own accord: "it shall come upon him." By contrast, if one now wants to begin learning the Daf Yomi, fulfill a mitzvah, or establish a free-loan fund (gemach) - he must strongly develop the power of will within himself, so that he genuinely seeks that good and truly strives for that virtue. If you do not cultivate that will within yourself, you will never attain it. For evil, however, there is no need to cultivate a will: the moment the impulse arises one acts, since the negative forces within draw him along of their own accord. And this is "and he who searches for evil, it shall come upon him" - why? Because for one who comes to defile himself, the doors are opened for him.
Notice that regarding good, it says "will seek favor" (yevakesh ratzon). What does "seek" mean? The Gemara says that were it not for the Holy One, blessed be He, helping him, a person could not overcome the evil inclination. And what do I need to succeed in overcoming the evil inclination? To seek heavenly assistance, to ask that the Holy One, blessed be He, help me, because naturally I cannot do it on my own. Therefore, one who pursues good must "seek": it requires a request, it requires prayer, to ask that Hashem's favor be with him, and through this, the Holy One, blessed be He, will assist him. But one who searches for evil does not need to ask - the door is opened for him immediately; evil lies wide open before him, come and take it. Only for one who desires good - here one must seek favor, pray, and exert effort so that Hashem's favor will be with him.
בּוֹטֵחַ בְּעׇשְׁרוֹ הוּא יִפּוֹל, וְכֶעָלֶה צַדִּיקִים יִפְרָחוּ׃ (כח) - "He who trusts in his wealth will fall, but like a leaf, the righteous will flourish" (28).
The Vilna Gaon explains: "He who trusts in his wealth" is a person who makes his wealth the main thing. Who are you? How does he define himself? By his wealth - I am a person who has such-and-such, whose income is this and that. But fortune is a wheel that turns in the world, up today and down tomorrow, and what will happen? "He will fall." And when the wealth falls, what happens to the person himself? He falls too, because who are you? You are your money; and the moment you have no money, you are nothing. That is why we see people who, when they collapsed financially, some even took their own lives. Because who am I? I am a million dollars; and if there is no million dollars, I do not exist.
It is like someone whom you ask, "Who are you, sir?" and he answers, "Doctor Anielewicz." What does Doctor mean? Your name is Anielewicz; the title "Doctor" comes later. After all, if you asked someone "Who are you, sir?" and he replied, "Plumber Jacobowitz" - would anyone say such a thing? What does that have to do with anything? I asked who you are, not what your job is. "Attorney Shlomo Malki" - who asked what you do for a living? If I ask what your profession is, then tell me. It has become so strange and even ridiculous that people already write it on their front door: "Law Office" - this is your home, why are you writing "attorney" there? Or someone writes below their name, "B.A. in Genetic Engineering" - who cares? Write your family name and that is all. These are people whose entire essence was to earn the title "Doctor," and once they obtained it, they feel: that is it, this is who I am, and beyond this I am nothing. There are people whose entire essence is how to make another thousand; and once they reach a certain level - that is it, this is who I am. If the money is gone, the person is gone, because he never had an identity of his own; his entire essence was wealth. This is "He who trusts in his wealth will fall" - who will fall? Both the wealth and the person, because when the wealth falls, the person falls naturally as well. Fortune is a wheel that turns in the world; today you are on top, tomorrow the stock market crashes - what will be left of you from all this?
By contrast, for the righteous, wealth is not the fruit, but merely like a leaf. And what do leaves do for a tree? They shield the fruit and protect it; the leaves are not the main purpose, the fruit is the main purpose of the tree. And when the leaf falls during the rainy season - what happens when the sunny season returns? The leaves sprout and flourish anew. Therefore, even if the righteous person falls, it is not a fall that breaks him: to him, wealth is like a leaf, and when a leaf drops, he says - well, it fell, a new leaf will emerge, the leaf will flourish again. But one who treats wealth as the main essence, when the essence falls, nothing remains; after all, fortune is a wheel that turns in the world and it will return, but in his eyes, it is over, he is a zero. The righteous person says: What is wealth? A leaf. It is comfortable, it covers you and provides you with more opportunities to learn; but when the leaf falls away - he still remains, he has his own stature, the leaf will return and grow, and nothing was truly lost.
And this is what is written, "Seven times a righteous man falls and rises," whereas the wicked falls with one blow: the wicked person falls from a single blow, and he has no recovery. The righteous person, on the other hand, falls and does not panic - I fell, well, get up, dust yourself off, start walking. This is the difference between the righteous and the wicked: the wicked person takes one hit and breaks, while the righteous person battles on; he falls - he gets up from the canvas, there is another round; he falls again - there is yet another round. He never despairs.
The Malbim explains: human affairs are comparable to the parable of a fruit-bearing tree. The fruit is the mitzvos and Torah - if a person engages in Torah and serves Hashem, "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree," followed by "and it yields its fruit in its season," this is the aspect of fruit. All external acquisitions are merely leaves that guard the fruit and protect it: so that the righteous person will not be distracted by household concerns and matters of livelihood, he has something shielding the fruit. But the fruit itself is the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos, as it says, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life."
But one who trusts in his wealth and believes that wealth alone is the essence - he will fall like a leaf dropping from the vine. Vine leaves have no significance on their own; after the leaf falls, it dries up and has no utility whatsoever. The righteous, by contrast - "but like a leaf, the righteous will flourish": the righteous person has foliage that leads to blossoming, and when there is a blossom, fruit emerges from it - the blossom falls away and the fruit emerges. It is not just an ordinary leaf, but a leaf upon which the beginning of the fruit depends. But for one who is entirely a leaf, when the leaf sheds and dries up, nothing remains. And for the one to whom the leaf is an instrument for the fruit, that is the righteous person: the leaf fell, and that merely shows that now the fruit will begin to emerge. "But like a leaf, the righteous will flourish" - the righteous are like a leaf that is the beginning, the sign, and the mark of the fruit's growth.
Along these lines, one can suggest as an allusion: the falling of the leaf is a sign that the fruit is beginning to develop. This connects wonderfully to the lesson. It was customary in Europe that for diligent yeshivah students - the great talmidei chachamim and prodigies of the yeshivah - a wealthy patron would come and seek one as a match for his daughter, providing him with "kest" - a commitment to sustain him at his table for ten years, for instance, so that he could learn undisturbed (as there were no kollels at the time), while also arranging a very large dowry for him.
Yet there were instances where precisely those prodigies, from whom so much was expected, received a large sum - say, a hundred thousand dollars - and wanted to earn a comfortable living, so they went to invest the money in some business venture in order to establish an enduring principal. Sometimes, as a result, they became consumed by commerce, and that was the end: gone was the talmid chacham, gone was the Torah, gone was everything. From a person destined for sublime greatness and glory, he became an ordinary laborer, submerged in materialism - from the highest roof to the deepest pit.
A person once came to the Chafetz Chaim and related that he too had been such a prodigy in yeshivah and had received a large dowry, but unfortunately, after a few months, he lost all the money - he invested it in a poor venture and lost everything. He came to the Chafetz Chaim to receive a blessing. The Chafetz Chaim told him: Look, one upon whom the blessing of Hashem rests loses his father-in-law's dowry immediately after the wedding, and then what does he know how to do? To learn. He goes and immerses himself in the beit midrash, sits and learns, and truly emerges as a great person. But one upon whom the blessing does not rest - it takes a long time until he loses the money, five or ten years, and in the end nothing remains of that dowry. And then what happens? Money he has none, and how to learn he has already forgotten, because for ten years he has not learned and has become disconnected from Torah - so he is left without money and without Torah. He told him: It is Hashem's kindness upon you that you lost the dowry immediately; now return to the beit midrash, and indeed a great man will emerge from you. And so it is told, that this person indeed became one of the Torah giants of Israel, and he himself later recounted that this is what the Chafetz Chaim told him - that Hashem had mercy on him by causing him to lose the money right away.
This is what the verse means: "and the righteous shall flourish like a leaf." Wealth to a righteous person is like a leaf; and if wealth falls away from him - on the contrary, it shows that from this point forward something good will flourish, fruit will emerge, and a truly great person will blossom. But if a person's entire essence is merely a leaf, possessing no fruit and nothing else, being wholly defined by wealth - when the leaf falls and withers, nothing remains. These are the wicked: "One who trusts in his wealth will fall," like a falling leaf from which nothing at all remains.
These two verses teach us about the power of petition and proper priorities. "He who seeks good seeks favor": one who seeks good for another draws down abundance and is consequently answered first, drawing upon himself the goodwill of Hashem; every person of stature is obligated to pray for his generation, as proven by the Kohen Gadol, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, and Shmuel HaNavi. In contrast, "and he who pursues evil, it shall come upon him" - the evil you seek for others rebounds upon you. We also learned that for good one must be a "shochar" (diligent seeker) - to awaken goodwill, to ask, and to pray for siyata diShemaya (Heavenly assistance), for without the Holy One, blessed is He, helping him, he cannot prevail; whereas for evil it suffices merely to "doresh" (pursue), for one who comes to defile himself is opened up to do so. Finally, "One who trusts in his wealth will fall" - one who makes wealth the core of his identity falls along with it; while for the righteous person, to whom wealth is merely a leaf protecting the fruit, even when the leaf drops off he flourishes anew, for "a righteous person falls seven times and rises," and sometimes the shedding of the leaf is itself the start of the fruit's growth.