לזכות ידי"נ הרב אהרן הכהן פינקלשטיין שליט"א וכל ב"ב ובמיוחד בנו הנולד לו למזל טוב!
Some notes on the hakdama [cited at length in the previous post]:
1] The Maharal says we live in a cloud of darkness using the imagery סוכתו ענן וערפל. We can all understand how man lives in darkness in this world for what seems so important here is so unimportant in shomayim and what is so important in shomayim is so ignored here. But the pasuk the Maharal parphrases [from Tehillim 18-12] is יָ֚שֶׁת חֹ֨שֶׁךְ | סִתְר֗וֹ סְבִֽיבוֹתָ֥יו סֻכָּתו - He made darkness His hiding-place about Him as His booth which refers to HASHEM!
2] The Maharal writes that the body is מכסה עליו - a covering. We have to remember that while the body is our friend in that it enables to live and serve Hashem, it also veils and hides Hashem from our neshamos because it only senses the physical. So the more our souls dominate our bodies, the closer we will be to Hashem.
3] The Maharal says that if one lives based on his intellect he is a person. As he writes elsewhere [as does the Rambam and others], not to live based on one's intellect makes one an animal. That is very important for us to know. It doesn't matter how important or how rich or how powerful, anyone living based on his bodily desires is on the level of an animal. Actually, lower, because an animal doesn't know any better but a human being should. However, the Maharal adds that intellect is not enough. One needs Torah which is ABOVE human intellect. That is also a very important point. There are a lot of very smart people out there who are living as they should because they make decisions based solely on their intellect [or so they think. In fact most of our decisions are not intellectual as has been proven by many contemporary studies - See the writings of Daniel Kahaneman, Dan Ariely and others]. We need Hashem to guide us and not just our limited human intellect.
4] He notes that Hashem chose us from all the nations. The word for choice is בחירה which has the same letters in its root as חיבור - connection. When Hashem chooses he connects. The Beis Hamikdash is called the בית הבחירה and is the place where we connect most deeply to Hashem [Rav Moshe Schapiro ztz"l].
5] The gemara talks about how mitzvos only protect you temporarily while Torah protects eternally. Mitzvos are done with the body and physical objects which are only temporary while Torah is learned with the seichel which is eternal. But that is only is we are constantly clinging to Torah.
Here we get to a basic fundamental difference between Torah and mitzvos, explicated by the Pachad Yitzchak. If one is not doing a mitzva for an hour - he just loses out on that hour of the mitzva but the rest of the time isn't affected. Torah is different! The pasuk says that we must be constantly involved in Torah בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך בשכבך ובקומך. This means that if we missed out on one hour that we should have been learning it affects all of the rest of the time we were actually learning. It is like listening to a symphony orchestra. One who understands music will tell you that missing out on 10 minutes of the show affects the entire experience.
See this footnote:
6] The Maharal says that
"ויהי האדם לנפש חיה" אם כן האדם מקבל החיות ואפשר שיסולק החיות.
Just as man received his חיות and vitality from Hashem, it could also be taken away. Something that is not essentially part of someone can be taken away with relative ease compared to something that is essentially part of him. This being that case we can understand the Medrash that says [based on the pasuk] "How can man complain? His life is in my hands!!" Meaning, life is a gift that we didn't always have and thus can be taken away from us at any second so we should be FILLED with simcha!!!
I quote from a sefer written by Dr. Avraham Veinrot, a very successful lawyer in Eretz Yisrael and Talmid Chochom who writes about an experience he had when he was ill in the hospital [his brother is R' Yaacov (they are both geniuses) who is Sarah Netanyahu's lawyer but also needs a serious refuah shleima. Hashem should send him one speedily בתוך שאר ח"י] and then from a footnote on the Maharal about the value of life:
בלב בית החולים מצוי בית הכנסת על שם קדושי העיר קרשניק, ובו שורר מנהג כי עם סיום התפילה בליל שבת ניגש כל מתפלל בתורו לארון הקודש ומביע את משאלות לבו. לפניי ניצב אדם שניגש לארון הקודש, לחש באין קול, ואני שמעתי כל מילה, באומרו כך: 'ריבונו של עולם, נותרו לי רק כמה ימים. הרופאים אומרים שזה הסוף. בשבת הבאה אני אצלך'. לאחר הפסקה של בכי התעשת לפתע, דפק עם האגרוף ואמר: 'אז מה! אלוהי, נשמה שנתת בי, אתה בראתה אתה יצרתה, אתה נפחתה בי, ואתה עתיד ליטלה ממני. כל זמן שהנשמה בקרבי מודה אני לפניך'. או אז, עם עוצמת הרגש הבליחה בי באחת ההבנה שערך החיים אינו נעוץ כלל באדם - מקבל החיים - ובמה שהוא יכול לפעול בחייו. ערך החיים נעוץ באלוהים - נותן החיים. לכן, יש ערך רב גם לחייו של הנמצא בבית החולים במצב של חידלון מוחלט. כשמבינים את זה, משתנה כל נקודת המבט שלנו".
WOW!!
7] I encourage everyone to learn the over 200 footnotes on the hakdama in the Machon Yerushalyim edition of Rav Hartman Shlita and you will be all the wiser!!:-) I thank my Maharal chavrusos Rabbi Elie Schwartz and Rabbi Dovid Kram for all they have taught me.
