Introduction: The Letter Mem in Chapter 119
We continue in Chapter 119, with the letter Mem. The verses before us center on the love of the Torah and its supreme virtue: what distinguishes one who studies out of love rather than merely for intellectual sharpening, how one learns even from enemies, why knowledge of the Torah surpasses all other study and all life experience, and what true vigilance against sin entails. We will proceed through the verses in order, explaining them according to Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, and primarily according to the Malbim.
Verse 97: Delight Born of Love
מָה־אָהַבְתִּי תוֹרָתֶךָ כׇּל־הַיּוֹם הִיא שִׂיחָתִי׃ - Oh, how I love Your Torah! All day long it is my conversation.
The Radak explains that "How I love" is not a question, but an exclamation of wonder: to what extent I love Your Torah - so much so that all day long it is my conversation; all day long I speak of the holy Torah. The Malbim emphasizes that the central point in the verse is "Torah." David has already stated several times that the Torah is his delight, but there are people who take delight in a precious thing not out of love - it is an amusement for them, a game for them, but not out of love. To this, David says: With me, it is not so; rather, I take delight in the Torah out of genuine love for it.
After all, there were Maskilim (Enlighteners) who studied Torah - why? For intellectual sharpening. The story is told of a man who decided he wanted to become a heretic. He heard that in the big city there was a man known as "Yankel the Heretic," and understood him to be, as it were, the Rebbe of the heretics. He decided to go to him to bask in his light and absorb his thoughts. Arriving in the city, he asked where Yankel the Heretic lived. They pointed out the house, and at the house they told him: "He is in the beit midrash." He was astonished: In the beit midrash? Perhaps I made a mistake? They said to him: "Not at all, he is right there in the beit midrash." He entered and saw a man wearing a flat cap, dressed somewhat outside the mainstream, sitting and swaying over a Gemara, studying. He said to him: "Excuse me for disturbing, heaven forbid there should be bitul Torah (wasted Torah study), but are you Yankel the Heretic?" He replied: "Yes." He asked him: "What are you doing here?" The man responded: "And who are you?" He said: "I am Shmerel the Heretic." Yankel said to him: "Tell me, have you ever studied Gemara? Talmud Bavli?" He answered: "No." "Yerushalmi?" "No." "Sifra, Sifrei, Mechilta, Shulchan Aruch, Tur, Beit Yosef?" "No." He began questioning him about Rishonim and Acharonim - no and no. Yankel said to him: "Pardon me, you are not a heretic; you are simply an ignoramus (am ha'aretz). To be a heretic, you have to know what you are denying. If someone comes along and says, 'I deny quantum mechanics,' and you ask him what quantum mechanics is and he cannot explain it, he is ridiculous; he is not a denier. You have to know what the other side proposes, and only then say: This is what I reject, and prove the opposite. Therefore, sit down in the beit midrash and learn, and only afterwards will we hear what you have to say; and if you do not know, you are merely an ignoramus - or a media personality, if you will, which is usually an equivalent term."
Returning to our subject: King David says, I take delight in the Torah not because of intellectual sharpening, but because I love the Torah. "All day long it is my conversation" - the Malbim explains that sichah (conversation) refers to casual, unintended speech. Dibbur and amirah represent deliberate speech, what a person consciously intends to say, whereas sichah refers to words spoken casually, by the way. David says: Even my casual conversation is saturated with words of Torah.
And this is what Chazal meant when they said, "The casual conversation of Torah scholars requires study." Torah scholars, even during breaks and in ordinary casual talk, always connect to words of Torah, and a halachic conclusion always emerges. A man once met Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and the Rav asked him where he had been. The man related that he had visited the Empire State Building in the United States. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman said to him: Do you know that the Empire State Building creates a fascinating halachah? It is possible for two women to give birth there at the exact same moment, yet for one of them the brit milah will take place on Shabbat and for the other only the following day, on Sunday. How so? One was on the lower floor, where sunset occurs two or three minutes earlier, so when she gave birth it was still Shabbat, and the brit will be on Shabbat. The second was on the top floor, where sunset is delayed and the sun is visible for longer, so the brit will be on Sunday. He heard "Empire State Building," and immediately produced a halachah. With the sages, ordinary conversation immediately connects to words of Torah, to halachic conclusions, and to matters pertaining to Judaism and the observance of Torah and mitzvot.
It was said of the Chafetz Chaim that he was never silent. Anyone who walked with him saw that he was always talking, and always with words of encouragement, parables, and ethical teachings - matters connected to the observance of Torah and Judaism. Once he explained this, saying: People assume that in order to be meticulous regarding the laws of lashon hara (evil speech), one must be mute, but I want to prove that this is not so. A person can speak all his life - and the Chafetz Chaim testified about himself in his old age that he had never spoken lashon hara, yet throughout his life he never ceased speaking. You can speak permitted words all your days; who said you must speak forbidden words? A person can speak and should speak, but words that are permitted to be spoken. This is "All day long it is my conversation": even in my casual speech, ultimately everything connects and relates to words of Torah and spiritual matters.
Verse 98: "You Make Me Wiser Than My Enemies"
מֵאֹיְבַי תְּחַכְּמֵנִי מִצְוֺתֶךָ כִּי לְעוֹלָם הִיא־לִי׃ - Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
Rashi explains that these words were spoken concerning Doeg and Achitophel - they are the enemies, and through them "Your commandments make me wiser." Chazal say of them that they never succeeded in establishing a halachic tradition in accordance with the true Halachah; they studied Torah, but did not merit aligning with the halachic truth. One must possess spiritual virtue and learn Torah for its own sake (lishmah) in order to merit reaching the true Halachah. David, however, says: The secret of the Torah is mine forever, because "From all my teachers I have gained understanding" - I learned from all of them, a little from this one and a little from that one (after having learned from a primary rebbe). That is, "You make me wiser than my enemies": I am willing to learn even from my enemies, even from those who pursue me; I learn from everyone.
The Ibn Ezra explains "makes me wiser than my enemies" - each one of Your commandments. He is addressing a difficulty here: initially the verse says "Your commandments" in the plural, but concludes with "for it is mine forever" in the singular. Therefore he explains: teach me Your commandments, every single one of them.
Radak brings another explanation stated by the Ibn Ezra: "makes me wiser than my enemies" - You make me wiser than my enemies. Hashem granted wisdom to my enemies, and He makes me even wiser than them. But Radak does not accept this, stating, "and this explanation is not correct," and cites the interpretation of his father z"l: "From my enemies" in its literal sense - from them You make me wise and teach me Your commandments, when I see that they cannot remove Your Torah from my mouth, for Your Torah is a covenant of salt, as it says, "for it is mine forever." That is: through the enemies who try to distance me from the Torah, while I nonetheless cling to it, I have gained the wisdom to see how eternal the Torah is, an aspect of a covenant of salt - something that will never depart and will endure forever. Through this, I become wise to do Your will and desire, which is the purpose of my creation. "For it is mine forever" - because Your Torah is eternal to me; and from where do I learn this? From the fact that my enemies try to make me forget the Torah and do not succeed.
The Malbim explains that the central point here is "commandments": the mitzvah instills wisdom in my heart on how to be saved from enemies, and it stands by me forever to counsel me on the right path. And the deeper meaning, the Malbim says, speaks primarily of the enemies of the soul - the internal forces that pull a person toward evil, toward corrupt character traits: jealousy, hatred, rivalry, vengeance, and bearing grudges. How does one confront these desires and character traits? The lesson comes through the mitzvah, through the Torah. Through the power of the Torah, I learn to fight and battle against these enemies of the soul - anger, hatred, pride, and all corrupt character traits. Through engaging in matters of holiness, I am saved from these evil forces.
Learning from the Enemy: The Passion for Sin
Another way to explain "makes me wiser than my enemies" is based on a well-known idea. Yaakov Avinu says, "I have lived with Lavan" - and kept the 613 mitzvos and did not learn from his evil deeds. The famous question arises: what is Yaakov telling us by saying that he did not learn from Lavan and his evil deeds? Would anyone have imagined otherwise? If we were to hear a great person say, "I was in the company of a completely wicked person and did not learn from his evil deeds" - even regarding a great person in recent generations, it would never cross our minds that he would learn anything from the company of a wicked person, all the more so regarding Rebbe Yehudah HaNasi, the Nevi'im, Moshe Rabbeinu, and Yaakov Avinu! Especially since Yaakov was not a seventeen-year-old youth, but over eighty years old - would he be expected to learn from Lavan's deeds?
We have previously explained the words of the Brisker Rov: How did Yaakov truly distance himself from any influence of Lavan? "I have acquired oxen and donkeys" - I regarded him as an ox and a donkey. If you were in a stable with an ox, would you at some point begin to act like him? Would you one day start braying? No, because you would always say: this is an ox, this is a donkey, what does this have to do with me? The barrier between you is vast, the difference is significant, and you would not resemble him. So too with Yaakov: I viewed him as an ox and a donkey, and therefore whatever he tried to do to pull me after his views and ways did not speak to me at all.
And there is another explanation of "and I did not learn from his evil deeds": I did not learn to serve Hashem with the same devotion that Lavan exhibited in serving his idols and performing his evil deeds. Yaakov says this as a lament: I did not reach that same passion that Lavan has for his sins, that same enthusiasm he has for his foolishness; I did not achieve such passion and enthusiasm in the service of Hashem.
According to this, our verse can also be explained. Dovid HaMelech says: "Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies" - I indeed learned from the enemies how to fulfill Hashem's commandments with that same self-sacrifice and devotion with which they served their idols and vanities. Look how much passion he has for his vanities - learn from this to have that same passion in keeping the Torah and mitzvos and doing Hashem's will.
This is similar to what is told of the Brisker Rov, who once woke his son to get up and pray, saying to him: Look at that, you have not yet gotten up, and our neighbor Ivan has already been on his feet for half an hour! The son replied: Father, that is no wonder, for the one who puts me to sleep is the very one who wakes him up. That is: the yetzer hara, who ensures that I keep sleeping so that I do not go pray and learn Torah, is the very one who ensures Ivan wakes up early for his sins.
All the more so when we ask: what pleasure can he possibly derive, whether from idolatry or from the material pursuits he chases after? At most, only here in this world. And even if you were to say that idolaters draw down certain powers through celestial bodies and the stars, and assume that they receive some imagined pleasure or benefit - it is all strictly in this world. Dovid says: whereas I receive an eternal reward, so how can there be any comparison? If he toils with such passion for something fleeting, for coarse, physical matters, waking up early just to earn another hundred or two hundred shekels - all the more so for me, knowing that with every single action I attain eternity! Certainly I should learn from my enemies: he rises early - I too will rise early; he acts with dedication - I too will act with dedication. And this is the meaning of "for it is mine forever": he exerts himself for vanity, while I exert myself for eternity, and this strengthens me to realize how much I must exert myself in Torah and mitzvos.
Verse 99: I Have Gained Understanding from All My Teachers
מִכׇּל־מְלַמְּדַי הִשְׂכַּלְתִּי כִּי עֵדְוֺתֶיךָ שִׂיחָה לִי׃ - From all my teachers I have gained understanding, for Your testimonies are my meditation.
Radak explains: I learned and drew mussar from all of them, and through them I discerned what the good path is, and they taught me that "Your testimonies are my meditation" - that Torah study should be what I converse about continually, always on my tongue.
The Malbim notes that the central point here is edot ("testimonies"). As we have already explained, edot are the mitzvot and narratives that bear witness to the greatness of the Holy One, Blessed be He, and the miracles He performed. The testimonies teach that no matter how much insight a person gains from all his teachers, he will still not attain the truth on his own. In other words, anyone seeking truth solely through general knowledge, without the Torah, will never arrive at true understanding. It is attainable only through the testimonies of the Torah: there one perceives how Hashem created His world, recognizes the reality of reward and punishment, and acknowledges the greatness of the Creator, beside Whom there is none else. One who seeks this through general disciplines will, at best, reach a conclusion like Einstein’s - that there is a supremely wise entity that created the world - yet that remains an unfulfilled first step. Had he learned Torah, and especially had he grown wise in the wisdom of the Torah of truth, he would have attained far more than a vague, abstract awareness of a wise supreme being. This is the meaning of "I gained more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation": from the testimonies I know how Hashem created His world, the purpose of creation, the fundamentals of faith, and reward and punishment - far beyond anything my teachers could impart.
Verse 100: Gaining Understanding from the Elders
מִזְּקֵנִים אֶתְבּוֹנָן כִּי פִקּוּדֶיךָ נָצָרְתִּי׃ - From the elders I gain understanding, for I have kept Your precepts.
Seemingly, he already stated, "I gained more insight than all my teachers," which should include the elders as well. Radak suggests that this is poetic parallelism expressing the same idea in different words, in accordance with his well-known approach that Scripture often repeats a concept through varied expressions (an approach Malbim famously rejects). Radak also offers another interpretation: "my teachers" refers to those who instruct by way of intellect and reason, while "elders" refers to tradition (kabbalah) - what they received and heard from earlier generations. The elders transmit the tradition from generation to generation; as the folk saying goes, when people want to know if the snowfall is truly unprecedented, they ask the "elders of Tzfat" - one consults the elders because they are presumed to know more than anyone else. Thus, two types of learning are present here: teachers who teach through intellect, and elders who instruct through tradition. "For I have kept Your precepts" means that from my youth I initially guarded the precepts out of tradition, and later, when I contemplated them, I guarded them through intellectual conviction as well. At first I observed them because that was our received tradition, and later I delved deeper and understood the rationale behind them. This represents an advanced level in Torah study, just as we explained the principle of na'aseh ("we will do") followed by nishma ("we will hear and understand") - we delve deeply and study so that we perform the mitzvot properly.
The Malbim explains that the focal point here is pikudim ("precepts"). Even elders, seasoned by history and long life experience, cannot attain crystal-clear understanding from their experience alone. My perception surpasses theirs because it comes through the pikudim. Precepts, as we have noted several times, are those mitzvot commanded by the Torah to preserve the memory of historical events: the Pesach offering, the sciatic nerve (gid hanasheh), and many other commandments through which we commemorate past events and miracles. Even where the living memory of the elders fades and reaches back only so far, I, through the holy Torah, know a history that stretches far deeper into antiquity. Through this I am strengthened, grasping the acts of Hashem far better than the tales of the elders, for when I reflect on the annals of history I perceive Divine Providence - how the Holy One, Blessed be He, exacts justice from evildoers and rewards those who do good.
Verse 101: Caution Even on the Narrow Path
מִכׇּל־אֹרַח רָע כָּלִאתִי רַגְלָי לְמַעַן אֶשְׁמֹר דְּבָרֶךָ׃ - I have restrained my feet from every evil path, so that I may keep Your word.
Rashi explains kaliti raglai ("I have restrained my feet") as holding back my feet, as in "who has held me back (kelitani) this day from entering into bloodshed." I kept my feet from every evil way. Radak adds: not because I fear people, and not because I worry that doing evil will bring harm upon me, but solely "so that I may keep Your word" - I hold back my feet from doing wrong simply because You commanded against it, purely because it is the will of Hashem. This is service out of love. If I act out of dread of punishment, that is service out of fear; if I act in hope of reward, that is love of the reward, not love of Hashem. Here, however, everything is "so that I may keep Your word."
Indeed, among truly pious individuals, one could witness a profound dread of the transgression itself, not just of the punishment. Someone once recounted being with the Brisker Rav back in Brisk when he inspected a mikveh. After examining it thoroughly, the Rav ruled it kosher. Then someone pointed out what seemed to be a crack, which raised a concern of flowing water (zochalin) - an issue on which halachic authorities differ, some validating it and others disqualifying it. The man related that the Rav looked, and his entire body began to tremble out of sheer terror that he had nearly permitted something forbidden. It was fear of sin, not fear of punishment. He further recounted that years later, after the Brisker Rav had arrived in Eretz Yisrael and the man had also immigrated, he went to greet the Rav. He asked, "Does the Rav remember me?" The Rav replied, "No, who are you?" He said, "From the mikveh." As soon as the Rav recalled what had happened at that mikveh, his body began to tremble all over again. Thirty years had passed, yet the mere recollection set him shivering. When Torah and mitzvot are vibrant realities in a person’s life, every detail is infinitely precious, and the thought of any stumbling block is deeply agonizing.
It is also told that once matzot were baked on his behalf because he was unable to go bake them himself. He began inquiring into every detail: How were they baked? How many were baked? Who supervised them? Who was present? Someone there became irritated by all these questions and asked, "Why does the Rav ask so many questions? A trustworthy person supervised them!" The Rav replied, "Tell me, if you were walking down the street right now with ten thousand shekels in your pocket, how carefully would you guard it?" The man said, "I’d put it in my pocket and make sure it’s safe." "And what if it were a hundred thousand?" "In the inner suit pocket, perhaps fastened securely." "And if it were a million dollars?" The man answered, "I would walk with my arms tightly crossed over my chest, ensuring that not even an unusual gust of wind could blow my coat open and carry me off with it." The Rav said to him, "To me, matzot are worth more than a million dollars. You would guard money with such vigilance - yet to me, this mitzvah is far more precious." King David declares: "I have restrained my feet from every evil path," not for personal benefit and not out of fear of punishment, but "so that I may keep Your word" - simply to fulfill and cherish Your commandments.
The Malbim explains this based on the distinction he frequently draws between derech (a main highway) and orach (a side path). A derech is the primary thoroughfare, the broad road connecting one city to another, whereas an orach is a narrow, private path. David says: not only did I avoid the evil highway trodden by the multitude, but I even restrained my feet from an evil orach, a small, secluded trail. I was meticulous even in minor matters, with the sole purpose "that I may keep Your word." The Malbim notes an allusion here to the Talmudic account of Rabbi Chiyya and Rabbi Yonatan, who had two paths before them: one leading past the entrance of a brothel and the other past a place of idol worship, and they debated which route to choose in order to subdue their evil inclination. King David says: I would not have taken either path, for "I have restrained my feet from every evil path." For great individuals, the question may be where the spiritual conquest is greater and the reward higher, but David says: I do not take risks. I hold back my feet even from a minor side trail, so as never to violate the words of Hashem and lest, Heaven forbid, I stumble.
Verse 102: "From Your ordinances I have not turned aside"
מִמִּשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לֹא־סָרְתִּי כִּי־אַתָּה הוֹרֵתָנִי׃ - From Your ordinances I have not turned aside, for You have instructed me.
One explanation: "For You have instructed me" - You taught me through the path of reason, and once I understood the ordinances through human reason, they became firmly rooted in my heart. As mentioned several times, when a person studies halachah in a dry manner, it is difficult to remember: if you tell him here one is liable, here exempt, here permitted, here forbidden - how can he remember? A person does not have a binary brain; he needs reasons and clear conceptual markers. The way to remember is when one understands the rationale, and then one naturally knows how to resolve the practical question: if this is the reason, then here it is certainly permitted, and here it is certainly forbidden. One who studies halachah through its underlying reasons remembers it. For example, if someone is asked: When does one repeat the prayer for omitting *Ya'aleh Veyavo*? He knows that generally one repeats the prayer, but there is one instance where one does not repeat it - when the day is not definitively Rosh Chodesh, namely on the night of Rosh Chodesh, since the new moon has not yet been sanctified. For this reason, one does not repeat the prayer on the night of Rosh Chodesh, but only during the day. Similarly with Birkat Hamazon: the guideline depends on when one is obligated from the Torah to eat a meal - on the first night of Pesach, the first night of Sukkot, and likewise two meals on Shabbat - and there one repeats for omitting *Ya'aleh Veyavo*, and on Shabbat for *Retzei*. He has clear guidelines because he knows the underlying reasons of the halachah, and when one understands the reasons, one also knows the practical ruling. David says: Since I know the ordinances rationally, they have become firmly established in my heart; my intellect connects with them and points toward them.
Another explanation of "for You have instructed me": You helped me observe them and opened before me the path of justice. You instructed me how to do things properly, and through this, "from Your ordinances I have not turned aside." As Chazal said: Were it not that the Holy One, blessed is He, helps a person, he could not overcome the Yetzer Hara. You assisted me, and by virtue of that assistance, I did not turn aside.
The Malbim explains that the central focus here is *mishpatim* (rational ordinances), and he raises a difficulty: *mishpatim* are rational laws and logical conventions. If the verse had said, "From Your *chukim* (statutes) I have not turned aside," it would be easily understood - a *chok* cannot be understood through human reason, yet nonetheless I did not turn aside, which is a great achievement. But regarding "from Your *mishpatim* I have not turned aside" - why would anyone turn aside from "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not commit adultery," or any of the logical prohibitions that a person naturally ought to avoid? What is the greatness in that?
Rather, there are also *mishpatim* in the Torah that we do not necessarily understand, and that are not accepted in conventional society today. For example: if your young child threw a stone and shattered the neighbor's window, the neighbor comes immediately with the incriminating evidence - and in the past, he might have dragged the child by the ear as well - and he refuses to leave until he gets paid. Go take out the Mishnah and Gemara and try to explain to him that a deaf-mute, an insane person, and a minor are categorized as "an encounter with them is harmful" (*pegiyatan ra'ah*) and damages caused by them are exempt from restitution; you will only get entangled with a neighbor whose encounter is truly harmful! Yet that is what the Torah says: a person is exempt when the damage is caused by a minor child. Thus, when we come to evaluate Hashem's judgments with the scale of our own intellect, we do not always agree, nor are all the laws perceived as logical in every generation, and a person might think that it would have been more fitting to rule differently. Regarding this, David says: Nonetheless, "from Your ordinances I have not turned aside," even when it seems to me more logical to judge otherwise. And why? "For You have instructed me" - who can follow after God's wisdom and His instruction? If the Supreme Wisdom has instructed so, what room is there to argue or say, "I understand differently"? Surely what the Holy One, blessed is He, understands is far truer than anything human intellect can grasp. We have already cited several examples in the past, from the Ibn Ezra, the Brisker Rav, and others, showing how things may seem logically one way on the surface, but once our eyes are opened, it becomes clear that true logic dictates the exact opposite - precisely as the Torah says. Thus David says: I observe the ordinances, even those I do not comprehend, because it is Your will.
The Greatness of the Mitzvah - The Greatness of the Commander
This can also be explained based on what the wise man said: Do not look at the greatness of the mitzvah; look at the greatness of the Commander. A person sometimes weighs mitzvot - thinking this is a greater mitzvah, and this is small and less significant. Someone once said to the Chazon Ish: Why does the Rav make such a great fuss about Shemittah, when today it is only rabbinic (*miderabbanan*)? Some say he replied that for rabbinic commandments there is a rabbinic Gehinnom - and there is not necessarily any difference in temperature! He also answered him: Most of the mitzvot you perform today are rabbinic. Think about it - all *terumot* and *ma'asrot* (tithes) today are rabbinic; refraining from poultry sausage with cheese is rabbinic; taking the lulav for six of the seven days is rabbinic; and one can point to many more mitzvot that are rabbinic. So many mitzvot are rabbinic, and suddenly you belittle specifically this mitzvah? Would you refrain from drinking the Four Cups at the Seder because they are rabbinic? Would you not eat maror because it is rabbinic? Would you eat deli meat with cheese because the prohibition is rabbinic?
The principle is: Do not look at the greatness of the mitzvah; look at the greatness of the Commander. The very same great God commanded both the great mitzvah and the minor one, and there is no room to belittle a lesser mitzvah. This is the meaning of our verse: "From Your ordinances I have not turned aside, for You have instructed me" - I have not belittled any ordinance or any mitzvah. Why? Because of the greatness of the Commander: "For You have instructed me." Since it is You who instructed it, even the smallest mitzvah becomes immense and profound, for it issued from the word of the Supreme King.
In summary: In the section of the letter *Mem*, King David teaches us an entire ladder in the love of Torah: studying out of love and not merely for intellectual sharpening, to the point that "all the day it is my conversation" - even casual speech connects to words of Torah. He learns even from his enemies, whether as a force that reinforces the eternity of the Torah, as a weapon to battle the enemies of the soul and negative character traits, or as a moral lesson, learning from the passion the wicked invest in their vanities just how much passion we ought to invest in eternity. From the testimonies he attains more than all his teachers, and from the precepts more than all the experience of the elders. From every evil path, and even from the narrowest trail, he restrained his feet - not out of fear of punishment, but out of devotion to the word of Hashem. And finally, even from ordinances where human reason would have judged differently, he did not turn aside - for "You have instructed me," and every mitzvah, even the slightest of the slight, issued from the word of the Supreme King.