Before us is the conclusion of the letter Lamed in Psalm 119. King David continues along the theme he began: the Torah is not an appendage to life - it is life itself. From this perspective, he asks for salvation, describes the wicked who seek to destroy him, and concludes in wonder at the infinite breadth of Hashem's commandment.
לְעוֹלָם לֹא אֶשְׁכַּח פִּקּוּדֶיךָ כִּי בָם חִיִּיתָנִי׃ - I will never forget Your precepts, for through them You have given me life.
The Radak connects this verse to what was stated previously: "Had Your Torah not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction." That same Torah which is my delight is what gave me life; it is the life of my spirit, and it is what saved me from grief. This is an immense point: whoever contemplates how many troubles King David endured will realize that anyone else would have broken long ago and died of depression. David says: the Torah is my delight and my vitality; by its power I survived everything I went through.
The Metzudat David explains this in another way: "For through them You have given me life" - for the sake of the precepts, for the sake of the Torah and mitzvot, You gave me life. That is to say, this is the very purpose of life. This stands in contrast to what many think: that a person was given life to have a good time, and if he happens to have spare time, he can also fulfill a mitzvah - which is also good, also commendable. The Chazon Ish referred to people with this attitude as "people of religion and life": people who have two separate tracks - there is life and there is religion, and do not mix the two. He comes to the synagogue, pays his dues, and from then on, "don't bring religion into this." He has a designated corner allocated for the Holy One, blessed is He: he drops in for Minchah, "Master of the Universe, You got Yours, now let me live." King David says: with me it is not so - "for through them You have given me life," You gave me life for the sake of observing the precepts.
In truth, what is the goal of human life? To eat, to indulge, to have fun - how would a person be any different from an animal? The entire purpose of human life lies in intellectual and spiritual truths, spirituality, and the accomplishments one can achieve here in order to inherit the life of the World to Come. Life in this world on its own is not true life at all, for it possesses no intrinsic end or purpose; its entire purpose is for the life of the World to Come.
The Malbim explains that the verse speaks of the precepts in contrast to what he stated earlier, that they almost destroyed him on earth until he observed the precepts. From here, he arrives at the request in the following verse.
In the sefer Tehilot Shmuel, an incident involving the Chiddushei HaRim is related. An acquaintance came to him and lamented that he forgets what he learns, asking for advice on how his Torah learning might endure. Here it is fitting to preface with the words of the Chafetz Chaim: often the yetzer hara comes to despair a person - what is the point of what you learn, you forget it anyway, what do you have left of it? The Chafetz Chaim says: know that in the World of Truth a person will remember everything. Here, the angel of forgetfulness holds sway, but up there, a person will remember everything he learned. Therefore, one should toil in all parts of the Torah, because what is studied here is studied there as well, and there one does not learn new things. To come and say, "What good is it to me, I won't remember anyway," and not learn because of that, is certainly an error. Yet nevertheless, there is great virtue in this as well: praiseworthy is he who arrives here with his learning in hand.
The Chiddushei HaRim answered him: If you learn with deep understanding and feel vitality in your study, you will certainly not forget. For what does a person forget? Only things that are external to him, superficial matters. But things upon which his life depends he never forgets. A person never forgets how to eat, how to hold a knife and fork, because his vitality depends on them. This is the meaning of the verse: "I will never forget Your precepts, for through them You have given me life" - my vitality depends on them, therefore I have not forgotten them. Something that is your very life, you do not forget.
לְךָ־אֲנִי הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי כִּי פִקּוּדֶיךָ דָרָשְׁתִּי׃ - I am Yours, save me, for I have sought Your precepts.
"I am Yours" - I am Your servant; "save me" - for a master saves his servant, and the servant takes refuge in him. David says before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, they hate me and persecute me because of You, because I kept Your precepts. Therefore, save me now, as they seek to harm me. And when you take refuge in someone, the expectation is that they will save you in your time of need. "For I have sought Your precepts" - my only business is with Your Torah; all my days I have sought Your precepts, so save me. Thus, the two verses connect and explain each other: "I will never forget Your precepts, for through them You have given me life" - and therefore, "I am Yours, save me, for I have sought Your precepts."
לִי קִוּוּ רְשָׁעִים לְאַבְּדֵנִי עֵדֹתֶיךָ אֶתְבּוֹנָן׃ - The wicked have hoped to destroy me; I will contemplate Your testimonies.
Radak explains that this continues the plea, "save me": I am in need of salvation, for the wicked hope to destroy me, and their goal is total destruction. In contrast, "I will contemplate Your testimonies" - I immerse my thoughts in the holy Torah, and thereby I forget their quarrel and strife, forgetting all the hardships and trials.
Ibn Ezra explains that they sought to destroy him from the World to Come: they wanted to lead him astray from the good path so that he would stumble and fall into sin and iniquity. To this he says, "I will contemplate Your testimonies" - I will continually delve into Your testimonies, and at every moment the endless secrets of the Torah will be revealed to me. I will go on contemplating them further and further, and through this I will not be led astray by the counsel of the wicked who seek to ruin my share in the World to Come.
Metzudat David explains that their method of destruction was by harassing him so that he could not gain wisdom in the Torah. They pursued him constantly and gave him no rest, and how can a person engage in Torah without peace of mind? Nevertheless, "I will contemplate Your testimonies": I did not study superficially like a pursued person lacking tranquility, but rather "I will contemplate" indicates deep reflection - I would delve deeply into Hashem's Torah even while they pursued me and sought to destroy me.
The Malbim explains this based on the distinction between these terms: the precepts (*pikudim*) are the commandments the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded in commemoration of historical events, such as the Pesach offering and the like, through which we remember Hashem's salvation. The testimonies (*edot*) are what appears in the Torah as testimony to the creation of the world ex nihilo and to the reward and punishment that the Holy One, blessed be He, dispenses. The precepts are the actions we perform in order to contemplate the testimonies through them: those mitzvot we observe remind us of the Exodus from Egypt and the Splitting of the Red Sea, and through them we have testimony that the Holy One, blessed be He, created His world, that He dispenses reward and punishment, and that everything is from Him, blessed be He.
The Malbim adds: King David says, once I contemplate Your testimonies, I see that You always rescue the righteous from the hand of the wicked who rise up against them. Anyone who contemplates what is recounted in the Torah sees that ultimately the wicked pays the price and all is well for the righteous. Avraham Avinu - how many hardships he endured, yet in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, brought forth a nation from him, and this nation came to the Land of Israel, and substantial parts of the entire world are his descendants, "a father of many nations." Thus, when a person contemplates the Torah, he sees how the Holy One, blessed be He, ultimately rescues the righteous from the hand of the wicked, with the wicked perishing while salvation and all the good promises are granted to the righteous.
לְכׇל־תִּכְלָה רָאִיתִי קֵץ רְחָבָה מִצְוָתְךָ מְאֹד׃ - To all perfection I have seen an end, but Your commandment is exceedingly broad.
Radak explains: "To all perfection I have seen an end" - for the completion of all things I have seen a limit. With anything in this world, I can perceive its limit, where it ends, and its final boundary. But Your commandment is exceedingly broad and has no end. Ibn Ezra adds that *ketz* (end/limit) can mean both a beginning and an end, as in the term *ketzotav* - its two ends.
Radak asks: After all, the mitzvot have a defined count and limit, the 613 commandments, so why say they have no end? He answers: the branches that stem from them are boundlessly broad. He offers another answer: this refers to the duties of the heart, which have no end, whereas the duties of the limbs have a defined limit. This is also the approach of the *Chovot HaLevavot*: the duties of the heart have no limit, while the physical commandments are the known 613. For how much a person is obligated in his heart - to connect and bond with Him, blessed be He - to that there is no end.
Furthermore, one may note with precision: why does the verse state "Your mitzvah is broad" in the singular (*mitzvatecha*), rather than "Your mitzvos" in the plural (*mitzvotecha*)? It comes to teach that each and every mitzvah on its own is exceedingly, endlessly broad. Rashi explains: "Your mitzvah is exceedingly broad" - to analyze and delve deeply into it (*lesalsel ulepalpel bah*). True, it is only a single mitzvah, yet how much can be written about it, how much one can analyze, debate, discuss, and investigate it! Rav Chaim Kanievsky published a sefer titled Nachal Eisan on the topic of the decapitated heifer (*eglah arufah*), and he wrote that almost no halachic inquiry regarding *eglah arufah* was ever brought before him that he had not already addressed. An entire sefer devoted to *eglah arufah* - so many doubts, "what if it is like this, and what if like that?", "what is the halachah in this scenario, and what in that scenario?", without end. This is the meaning of "Your mitzvah is exceedingly broad."
In the continuation of Rashi's words, the phrase "and likewise You loosed my bonds (*pitachta lemoserai*)" appears, and it is difficult to understand its relevance here. Upon examination, we find that the Vilna Gaon notes in a responsun that this addition does not appear in old manuscripts of Rashi, nor does it appear in other early printings, and it seems to have entered the text erroneously. Nonetheless, in the sefer Zichron Sofrim, an explanation was offered: Rashi came to provide an example of in-depth analysis (*pilpul*) and nuance in Torah. On the surface there is the literal meaning (*peshat*), but when one delves deeply and analyzes, one discovers inner layers not apparent in the literal text. If we were to ask whether an Ammonite or Moabite may enter the congregation of Hashem, we would say they are forbidden. And if we were to ask whether there is a difference between a male Ammonite and a female Ammonite, we would say there is no difference, for just as "a *mamzer* shall not enter" includes both a male and female *mamzer*, so too "an Ammonite and a Moabite" would seem to include both male and female. This is the simple reading of the Torah. But when one analyzes deeply and inquires why the Torah forbade them - because they did not greet you with bread and water, and whose way is it to go out and greet? The men, not the women - one arrives at the halachic conclusion: an Ammonite man, but not an Ammonite woman; a Moabite man, but not a Moabite woman. And this is "and likewise You loosed my bonds": You, Hashem, loosened the bonds by which I was bound, by revealing in the Torah that a female Moabite and female Ammonite are permitted. This understanding did not emerge from the superficial reading of the verse, but through the power of analysis and deep study. While it is somewhat forced to say that Rashi wrote things simply while intending such a deep derivation, it nonetheless provides a meaningful explanation of the text.
The holy Alshich explains this based on what we said earlier, that the precepts are divine forces from Hashem that are greater than angels: the mitzvos the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us are a power from Him, and this power is far mightier than an angel. And the proof that the Torah is not of a natural order is: "I have seen an end to all purpose" - every physical thing has length and breadth, and whether to the end of breadth or to the end of length, I have seen a limit; it has dimensions, it has a boundary. Even in a mitzvah there is "length": so many verses deal with the burnt offering (*korban olah*), so many with the decapitated heifer (*eglah arufah*), so many with the wayward and rebellious son (*ben sorer u'moreh*) - this has a boundary and an end. But "Your mitzvah is exceedingly broad": the verses of Scripture are the length, while the expansion into minute details, homiletic expositions (*derush*), deep halachic analysis (*pilpul*), and the mystical secrets (*sod*) - days would end before they could ever be exhausted.
Consider: on *eglah arufah*, an entire sefer was written in *peshat*, analysis, and depth. Based on the homilies of Chazal, another entire sefer could be written on *eglah arufah*. And in *sod* (Kabbalah), yet another complete sefer could be written - what is the mystical secret of this ritual, why specifically the elders of the city, why do they measure specifically from the corpse's nose, and so forth. In every single matter, one can uncover mystical secrets. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov has a work in which he explains the matters of the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat - such as "an ox that gored a cow" - in terms of higher spiritual realms: what is the spiritual force of the ox, what does the ox represent, that the ox corresponds to the attribute of severe judgment (*gevuros*), the 280 judgments (*par dinim*), and the like. One can take the literal studies and learn them through the lens of esoteric wisdom. And of the holy Arizal it was said that when he studied Gemara, he would study five approaches according to the simple meaning (*peshat*) and one approach according to *sod* - meaning, an entire *sugya* can be understood through *sod*, at a depth far beyond what appears on the literal surface. This demonstrates that the Torah is entirely spiritual, and divine wisdom cannot be contained by human intellect. However much a person learns, understands, and attains, he will still realize that he has not even touched the outer edge of it.
It is related that the Baal HaTanya once hired a *maggid* (preacher) to deliver words of rebuke (*mussar*) to him. The *maggid* said to him, "Who am I to offer rebuke to the Rebbe, who is holy of holies?" He answered him, "Nevertheless, speak." Consider this: when someone comes to give us *mussar*, we say, "Who are you to give me rebuke?" Yet there, they would pay money for someone to give them *mussar*, for elevated people know how to value rebuke. The *maggid* then said to him: "The distance between what I know and what the Rebbe knows is vast and immense, but it pales in comparison to the distance between what the Rebbe knows and what the Rebbe still does not know." When the Baal HaTanya heard this, he began to weep and said, "This is penetrating *mussar*." Indeed, the distance between what I know and what you know has a limit, but the distance between what I know and what I do not know is boundless - for "I have seen an end to all purpose, Your mitzvah is exceedingly broad."
The Chafetz Chaim once said: whoever feels even a slight tinge of pride over what he knows - and I am not speaking of us, but of those who truly possess knowledge - let him look at a bookshelf and reflect on how much of it he really knows. A tractate? Could one test you on it? Not a tractate - a single leaf of Gemara? A section (*siman*) in the Shulchan Aruch? Sometimes a person walks away feeling knowledgeable. It is like the villager who owned a calendar; the people of his small village would ask him: "Which Shabbos is it this week? What do we read? Which Haftarah do we chant?" He was able to answer, so he became their rabbi; he even donned a rabbinic robe and everyone consulted him. At the level of the village, that was as high as it went. One day he traveled to Vilna, the great city, entered the *beis midrash*, and saw tremendous scholarly debate, with scholars arguing passionately and grinding mountains together. He approached someone and asked, "What are you discussing here? Perhaps I can help?" They replied, "We are discussing *tzaras habas* (the co-wife of a daughter, a complex Talmudic topic in Yevamos)." He said to them, "I know what a daughter is, but what kind of troubles (*tzaros*) does she have? What is the problem?" In short, it became clear that the man was completely ignorant.
Rav Eliyahu Lopian once related in his great humility that he was traveling on a train and was told that the Rogatchover Gaon was aboard. In those days, it was customary when in the presence of a great Torah luminary to present a novel Torah thought or a halachic analysis before him and see what he would say. The Rogatchover asked him, "Who is your honor?" He replied, "A simple layman (*baal habayis*)" - not revealing his true identity. The Rogatchover asked, "And what does your honor wish?" He answered, "I would like to share a novel insight (*chiddush*) before the Rav and hear what the Rav says." He presented a profound analysis of a complex *sugya*. The Rogatchover, who was exceptionally sharp and quick-witted, listened and remarked: "Fine, nice insights for a layman." Rav Eliyahu Lopian later said: "This was the *chiddush* I had prepared to recite in the World of Truth, after one hundred and twenty years!" When he saw that the Rogatchover minimized it, he said to him, "Yet in my town, even the laymen are great *talmidei chachamim*." To which the Rogatchover replied, "Even laymen are great *talmidei chachamim*."
Another story is told of Rav Eliyahu Lopian: he was once heard reciting Eshes Chayil, and a tear was seen trickling down his cheek. They asked him why he was crying, but he did not wish to say. Yet when his Rebbetzin asked him - and when the Rebbetzin asked, he would answer her - he said to her: "נוֹדָע בַּשְּׁעָרִים בַּעְלָהּ בְּשִׁבְתּוֹ עִם זִקְנֵי אָרֶץ - Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land." Here, a person is accorded honor - I enter the yeshivah, everyone stands up for me, they set up my shtender, they take care of me. But that is here in this world. When I arrive Up Above, will they suddenly say: 'Who is this? What is he doing here?' 'When he sits among the elders of the land' - what connection does he have to the true elders of the land? I thought about this, and I began to weep.
From all this we see what is meant by "Your mitzvah is exceedingly broad," and how careful a person must be never to imagine that he knows anything, and what it truly means "to know." In every mitzvah there is *derash*, there is *pilpul*, there is *sod*, and it is exponentially broader than it appears. And no matter how much a person knows, it does not even represent an iota of what he has yet to know, which comprises the lofty, exalted, and sublime heights found in the engagement with Torah.
In the four verses before us, Dovid HaMelech teaches us three fundamental principles. First, the Torah is not merely a "corner" of life, but life itself - "for through them You have given me life" - and therefore it is never forgotten, for a person does not forget that upon which his life depends. Second, by virtue of this devotion, he is entitled to plead, "I am Yours, save me," like a servant taking refuge in his master. Even when the wicked hope to destroy him - "I will contemplate Your testimonies" - delving into the Torah is his refuge, and it also shows him that the Holy One, Blessed is He, will ultimately deliver the righteous from the hand of the wicked. And finally, "To all perfection I have seen an end; Your commandment is exceedingly broad": everything in the world has a boundary and a limit, whereas the Torah - in peshat, derash, pilpul, and sod - has no end at all. Therefore, a person must always recognize that the distance between himself and what he does not know is incomparably greater than all he has already acquired.