Rambam Yomi: Daot- Chapters 4-7
1/9/15
Daot (4)
To understand H' you have to be healthy. You cannot know H's ways when you are sick. Therefore you have to eat and do that in the most not enjoyable way. Ways to make the eating process less enjoyable, so that you can connect to H’:
Only eat when you are hungry.
You cannot eat while walking or standing, which nixes amusement parks or falafel, which any sophisticated eater knows to only eat while standing by the salads (for constant refilling abilities). This even forbids Kiddush.
No eating decent fast food foods. Those have too much oil and too much happiness. Some say that it only brings immediate happiness, but I have noticed through my understanding of this world that people who eat natural are not very happy.
No eating at restaurants where they serve you too much. That makes me question Jewish tradition as a whole.
It is enough to eat meat once a week. For who?!! But eat it once a week and you will see, eating is not as enjoyable.
4:11- Should even stay away from fruit. Tu BShvat is also not a healthy holiday now. Dried fruits always brought up questions due to bowel obstruction.
4:14- When a person moves, they do not become sick. So be active. I tried this with a fever of 102 and everybody told me that is not what the Rambam meant. Possibly, they do not understand the Rambam’s teachings very well.
4:15- Shlomo said 'One who watches his mouth and his tongue guards himself from tzuris.’ I find this to hold greater truth when you make sure to shut out other people. Not listening to other people talk can cut out a lot of annoyance from one’s life. I am not saying that I am on par with the Rambam, but my teachings are very insightful.
4:16- Important to shower once a week. I find that the people of the Middle East hold strong to this teaching, even to this day. And to call them not righteous?
Check yourself before going into a public bath house. This lesson should be taught to our children, even when they are just going into a public pool.
4;21- Healthy people do this. Unhealthy do not. Next time you see somebody smiling, you know they are not healthy people.
4:23- A city should have 10 things for decent living- doctor, blood-letter (no idea what this means), bath house (JCC suffices, as the discomfort of showering with other people takes place there- a public mikveh also suffices for the greater community discomfort of davening in shule together), bathroom, decent water- like a river (modern plumbing was not taken into account; even so, the Rambam might have agreed to this), shule, teacher, scribe, somebody to collect money (as it is important to have people who knock on your door and make you feel uncomfortable when you are at a pizza shop), rabbinic court with ability to hurt people (the problem with this is that the laws for lashing people who say stupid, are not strict enough)
1/10/15
Daot (5)
Wise men act differently.
They do not live by the ‘eat drink and be marry for tomorrow we will die’ creed. The live by, ‘do not be merry, for tomorrow we will die.’
5:2- They do not eat out, but only in their homes. As we know, you can’t trust anybody’s Hashgacha nowadays. No wise person would be caught eating out and showing their weakness for decent food. They only eat at weddings and other places where you have to give gifts, as the financial liability diminishes the enjoyment.
5:3- They do not drink wine, only to help digest. It takes a wise man to find a way to make it look like you are not enjoying wine.
5:4- You are not supposed to conceive because you were drunk. You are supposed to conceive because you thought it was a good idea to have a another child on a fixed income.
5:5- You act right, you have good kids. You enjoy yourself, you have kids that are going to make your late forties hard, during their teenage years. L: The way you act affects your children, so do not be your drunken abusive self around your family.
5:6- They act modestly in the bathroom. They don’t start rag tailing their buddies.
5:7- They don’t shout. They get mad and they do not express themselves. The lack of expression makes people feel worse. Try it. Just give somebody a look of disappointment. They will apologize. Might have not been anything they did to you, but they will apologize. I was apologizing my whole childhood, as all the grownups seemed to have been dissatisfied with me.
5:8- As learned from Yishayah 3:16, they don’t walk with outstretched necks. You do this, and you look like an idiot, or somebody I want to smack. Even so, I would not shout at you, as that is not what wise men do. And they don’t walk like a lady, with the tinkling feet. Also don’t walk like a hunchback. They don’t prove a point, as an idiot. They walk with their eyes down a bit, which is why so many righteous people in Israel knock into you and don’t even think to say ‘Excuse me.’
5:9- They dress nicely and not too flashy. More like the Ashkenazik Chief Rabbi.
5:10- Acts responsibly and supports his household. That is the least enjoyable thing. The one thing that can promise no drinking and being merry.
5:11- People who know how to do things, first buy a home and then get a married. The men living on the Upper West Side and in the Katamon area of Jerusalem have not figured this out yet. A lady is not interested in a man who has a roommate at 40.
5:12- Not allowed to renounce ownership of stuff, because you should not be a burden on society. There is something annoying about trying to eat pizza while somebody is asking you for money. Which is also why I usually don’t pay for my pizza, when I am at a pizza shop.
5:13- Business dealings of a wise man are straight. They don’t hold payment over people. This is a real character teller. When somebody holds money over you, they are usually people with no pride. And this is why most wise people are not wealthy.
L: Wise people are not jerks.
1/11/15
Daot (6)
Cleave to the righteous. People are affected by their surroundings. This includes people, cities, and the filth that you see on TV and the internet. Oy. And this is why you blame the parents.
You hang around wicked people and bad stuff happens. You have evenings that you do not even remember. You end up having a good time and mocking other people, maybe even getting in some good gossip. You might end up being considered cool.
6:2- You should ‘cling to Him’ (Devarim 11:22)- From here we learn that you should stick to wise people. Rabbis teach that you should also sit by the dust of their feet. For these reasons of infringement on privacy, many would be scholars have chosen gardening and other jobs of the sort, where people do not bother them with questions.
6:3- ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ This commandment does not say to hate others as yourself, which makes it hard for most children growing up nowadays to keep. This also has to do with caring for their money. At least this generation cares about money, so they can keep one aspect of this commandment. B”H, it says nothing about donating money to shule. That would definitely not happen.
6:4- As you shall love H,’ and H’ loves converts, it is a commandment to love converts. This is a double commandment, as we must also love our neighbors. There is a lot of love we Jews are supposed to have. It makes me wonder why other Jews don’t try to make it easier on me, and learn how to keep the Torah as I do. Maybe it would be easier to love, if the average neighbor would say ‘hello’ to me, when I passed them, and didn’t just leave their garbage outside my front door.
6:5- ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart’ means that you can hit him. If you hit not out of hate, but annoyance, that can be fine.
6:6-7- You can’t be passive aggressive. Bring up the problems. (Vayikra 19:17)- ‘You shall surely admonish your colleague.’ Most people take this commandment to mean putting down everything I do at work. From this, we also learn that you should meddle in other people’s lives. You can’t live and let live. This is all for the other person’s good, even if they start wailing on you.
I have recently tried to take this commandment very much to heart and let people know how bothersome they are, as often as I can.
You should also be forgiving, as when Abraham prayed to H.’ After you are told how much of an annoyance you are, you should say thank you.
6:8- The pasuk goes on ‘You should not bear a sin because of him.’ From here we learn that you should not embarrass him. This includes name calling or anything that embarrasses in public.
If it is a sin between man and Gd though, let the insults rain on the heretic.
6:9- If somebody holds back on admonishment, but does not bear a grudge, it is fine. The Torah is concerned with the feelings of the person- ‘In the heart.’ As hard as it may be, you have to not hate the annoying. You have to say stuff like ‘They should live and be well.’ Using curses of the sort makes you a less understood person, and thus more righteous.
6:10- Be careful (Shemot 22:21) ‘Do not mistreat the orphan or widow.’ You must treat them with respect and with real care. H’ also takes up their cause. What kind of a person attacks orphans and widows? People who are annoying and do not say ‘thank you’ for being told how much they suck.
One is not considered an orphan once they can totally take care of themselves. At that point, you can treat them like everybody else, and not respect them too.
1/12/15
Daot (7)
Don’t talk gossip. This is mentioned in Vayikra 19:16, right next to the law of ‘not standing still upon your neighbor’s blood,’ as tale bearing kills. It definitely makes for decent conversation. Lashon Hara is tantamount to the three cardinal sins. It kills three people: the teller, the one who is being told and the one who it is told about. Sins kill, and I will start using this to get out of conversations with people I do not like. I do not care if I am the buzz killer.
I am just happy that this sin is not punishable by the courts.
7:2- Lashon Hara, speaking bad, even if true, is worse. If it is a lie, it is called ‘bringing a bad name on your friend.’ You don’t have to be part of that. He will do that for himself.
It seems like being popular in high school is asur (forbidden). Glee is a show about a bunch of evil kids. Even the losers in high school are sinners.
Speaking Lashon Hara is also a defiance of H’ (Tehillim 12:5)- ‘Our tongues will prevail…who is our Master?’ It is definitely not Elizabeth, as we were just talking about her for a good 20 minutes.
7:4- Dust of Lashon Hara is the stuff that gets people talking about it. This includes saying something good about somebody, to someone who hates them. In my community, this would mean talking about anybody to anybody. I don’t think there is one lovable soul. But that is public knowledge, so that is not Lashon Hara, and I cannot give the community a worse reputation than it already has (see 7:5).
This dust of Lashon Hara, is kind of like saying ‘hello’ loudly in the morning. It bothers people and causes people to do bad. Example: Camp. A bunch of juvenile kids in a free range jail…From the good comes bad. From getting rid of your children, comes camp.
How many shootings have happened because somebody was loud in the morning? I think anybody with a gun would have shot their division head.
There are many more laws and ideas of Lashon Hara discussed here, but do to fear of saying the wrong thing, I will not spread them all.
7:5-Stuff said to hurt somebody in any way is Lashon Hara. OK, I am going on with more.
If told in front of three people, it can be assumed it is public knowledge and thus it is now free game. Which is why I always rebuke people in public.
As long as you are not looking to spread the word more, and cause problems, then you can talk about how Frank doesn’t know how to run his business and is nasty to everybody.
7:6- The whole thing in the desert was because of Lashon Hara. Hence, you are not allowed to be around people who speak Lashon Hara. We learn from here that friends and people who are going through hard times are forbidden.
7:7- Vayikra 19:18- ‘Do not take revenge.’ Not we move into your ego. It is because you think you are important, which is why you are getting into fights, you non-scholar. You should look at all things in the world as vanity. If you can see all the people around you as not that important, without talking about that (Lashon Hara), then they will not make you want to take revenge. They will hate you for being a condescending jerk, but you will not feel like you have to take revenge on the simpletons.
Tehilim 7:5- ‘I have rescued those who have hated me, without cause.’ That is what King David did. Why? We don’t know. There was no cause. It says it right there. But, he didn’t feel like he had to take revenge, because it is your actions that make you who you are. And you are somebody who can care less.
(Vayikra ibid) ‘Do not hold a grudge.’ To do the favor and say that I am doing this unlike you, is a sin. And this is why I do not do favors.
Keeping this mindset of understanding that people are idiots is what allows for a society to exist with business. You can’t take advantage of smart people, even if the Rambam doesn’t allow for taking advantage.
L: People are jerks. In order to live with them, you have to not care about them being jerks and still work with them. You have to remove the feelings of hatred from your heart and use curses like ‘They should live and be well.’ Once you understand that your staff and everybody around you are dumb, society can move on.
Daot (4)
To understand H' you have to be healthy. You cannot know H's ways when you are sick. Therefore you have to eat and do that in the most not enjoyable way. Ways to make the eating process less enjoyable, so that you can connect to H’:
Only eat when you are hungry.
You cannot eat while walking or standing, which nixes amusement parks or falafel, which any sophisticated eater knows to only eat while standing by the salads (for constant refilling abilities). This even forbids Kiddush.
No eating decent fast food foods. Those have too much oil and too much happiness. Some say that it only brings immediate happiness, but I have noticed through my understanding of this world that people who eat natural are not very happy.
No eating at restaurants where they serve you too much. That makes me question Jewish tradition as a whole.
It is enough to eat meat once a week. For who?!! But eat it once a week and you will see, eating is not as enjoyable.
4:11- Should even stay away from fruit. Tu BShvat is also not a healthy holiday now. Dried fruits always brought up questions due to bowel obstruction.
4:14- When a person moves, they do not become sick. So be active. I tried this with a fever of 102 and everybody told me that is not what the Rambam meant. Possibly, they do not understand the Rambam’s teachings very well.
4:15- Shlomo said 'One who watches his mouth and his tongue guards himself from tzuris.’ I find this to hold greater truth when you make sure to shut out other people. Not listening to other people talk can cut out a lot of annoyance from one’s life. I am not saying that I am on par with the Rambam, but my teachings are very insightful.
4:16- Important to shower once a week. I find that the people of the Middle East hold strong to this teaching, even to this day. And to call them not righteous?
Check yourself before going into a public bath house. This lesson should be taught to our children, even when they are just going into a public pool.
4;21- Healthy people do this. Unhealthy do not. Next time you see somebody smiling, you know they are not healthy people.
4:23- A city should have 10 things for decent living- doctor, blood-letter (no idea what this means), bath house (JCC suffices, as the discomfort of showering with other people takes place there- a public mikveh also suffices for the greater community discomfort of davening in shule together), bathroom, decent water- like a river (modern plumbing was not taken into account; even so, the Rambam might have agreed to this), shule, teacher, scribe, somebody to collect money (as it is important to have people who knock on your door and make you feel uncomfortable when you are at a pizza shop), rabbinic court with ability to hurt people (the problem with this is that the laws for lashing people who say stupid, are not strict enough)
1/10/15
Daot (5)
Wise men act differently.
They do not live by the ‘eat drink and be marry for tomorrow we will die’ creed. The live by, ‘do not be merry, for tomorrow we will die.’
5:2- They do not eat out, but only in their homes. As we know, you can’t trust anybody’s Hashgacha nowadays. No wise person would be caught eating out and showing their weakness for decent food. They only eat at weddings and other places where you have to give gifts, as the financial liability diminishes the enjoyment.
5:3- They do not drink wine, only to help digest. It takes a wise man to find a way to make it look like you are not enjoying wine.
5:4- You are not supposed to conceive because you were drunk. You are supposed to conceive because you thought it was a good idea to have a another child on a fixed income.
5:5- You act right, you have good kids. You enjoy yourself, you have kids that are going to make your late forties hard, during their teenage years. L: The way you act affects your children, so do not be your drunken abusive self around your family.
5:6- They act modestly in the bathroom. They don’t start rag tailing their buddies.
5:7- They don’t shout. They get mad and they do not express themselves. The lack of expression makes people feel worse. Try it. Just give somebody a look of disappointment. They will apologize. Might have not been anything they did to you, but they will apologize. I was apologizing my whole childhood, as all the grownups seemed to have been dissatisfied with me.
5:8- As learned from Yishayah 3:16, they don’t walk with outstretched necks. You do this, and you look like an idiot, or somebody I want to smack. Even so, I would not shout at you, as that is not what wise men do. And they don’t walk like a lady, with the tinkling feet. Also don’t walk like a hunchback. They don’t prove a point, as an idiot. They walk with their eyes down a bit, which is why so many righteous people in Israel knock into you and don’t even think to say ‘Excuse me.’
5:9- They dress nicely and not too flashy. More like the Ashkenazik Chief Rabbi.
5:10- Acts responsibly and supports his household. That is the least enjoyable thing. The one thing that can promise no drinking and being merry.
5:11- People who know how to do things, first buy a home and then get a married. The men living on the Upper West Side and in the Katamon area of Jerusalem have not figured this out yet. A lady is not interested in a man who has a roommate at 40.
5:12- Not allowed to renounce ownership of stuff, because you should not be a burden on society. There is something annoying about trying to eat pizza while somebody is asking you for money. Which is also why I usually don’t pay for my pizza, when I am at a pizza shop.
5:13- Business dealings of a wise man are straight. They don’t hold payment over people. This is a real character teller. When somebody holds money over you, they are usually people with no pride. And this is why most wise people are not wealthy.
L: Wise people are not jerks.
1/11/15
Daot (6)
Cleave to the righteous. People are affected by their surroundings. This includes people, cities, and the filth that you see on TV and the internet. Oy. And this is why you blame the parents.
You hang around wicked people and bad stuff happens. You have evenings that you do not even remember. You end up having a good time and mocking other people, maybe even getting in some good gossip. You might end up being considered cool.
6:2- You should ‘cling to Him’ (Devarim 11:22)- From here we learn that you should stick to wise people. Rabbis teach that you should also sit by the dust of their feet. For these reasons of infringement on privacy, many would be scholars have chosen gardening and other jobs of the sort, where people do not bother them with questions.
6:3- ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ This commandment does not say to hate others as yourself, which makes it hard for most children growing up nowadays to keep. This also has to do with caring for their money. At least this generation cares about money, so they can keep one aspect of this commandment. B”H, it says nothing about donating money to shule. That would definitely not happen.
6:4- As you shall love H,’ and H’ loves converts, it is a commandment to love converts. This is a double commandment, as we must also love our neighbors. There is a lot of love we Jews are supposed to have. It makes me wonder why other Jews don’t try to make it easier on me, and learn how to keep the Torah as I do. Maybe it would be easier to love, if the average neighbor would say ‘hello’ to me, when I passed them, and didn’t just leave their garbage outside my front door.
6:5- ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart’ means that you can hit him. If you hit not out of hate, but annoyance, that can be fine.
6:6-7- You can’t be passive aggressive. Bring up the problems. (Vayikra 19:17)- ‘You shall surely admonish your colleague.’ Most people take this commandment to mean putting down everything I do at work. From this, we also learn that you should meddle in other people’s lives. You can’t live and let live. This is all for the other person’s good, even if they start wailing on you.
I have recently tried to take this commandment very much to heart and let people know how bothersome they are, as often as I can.
You should also be forgiving, as when Abraham prayed to H.’ After you are told how much of an annoyance you are, you should say thank you.
6:8- The pasuk goes on ‘You should not bear a sin because of him.’ From here we learn that you should not embarrass him. This includes name calling or anything that embarrasses in public.
If it is a sin between man and Gd though, let the insults rain on the heretic.
6:9- If somebody holds back on admonishment, but does not bear a grudge, it is fine. The Torah is concerned with the feelings of the person- ‘In the heart.’ As hard as it may be, you have to not hate the annoying. You have to say stuff like ‘They should live and be well.’ Using curses of the sort makes you a less understood person, and thus more righteous.
6:10- Be careful (Shemot 22:21) ‘Do not mistreat the orphan or widow.’ You must treat them with respect and with real care. H’ also takes up their cause. What kind of a person attacks orphans and widows? People who are annoying and do not say ‘thank you’ for being told how much they suck.
One is not considered an orphan once they can totally take care of themselves. At that point, you can treat them like everybody else, and not respect them too.
1/12/15
Daot (7)
Don’t talk gossip. This is mentioned in Vayikra 19:16, right next to the law of ‘not standing still upon your neighbor’s blood,’ as tale bearing kills. It definitely makes for decent conversation. Lashon Hara is tantamount to the three cardinal sins. It kills three people: the teller, the one who is being told and the one who it is told about. Sins kill, and I will start using this to get out of conversations with people I do not like. I do not care if I am the buzz killer.
I am just happy that this sin is not punishable by the courts.
7:2- Lashon Hara, speaking bad, even if true, is worse. If it is a lie, it is called ‘bringing a bad name on your friend.’ You don’t have to be part of that. He will do that for himself.
It seems like being popular in high school is asur (forbidden). Glee is a show about a bunch of evil kids. Even the losers in high school are sinners.
Speaking Lashon Hara is also a defiance of H’ (Tehillim 12:5)- ‘Our tongues will prevail…who is our Master?’ It is definitely not Elizabeth, as we were just talking about her for a good 20 minutes.
7:4- Dust of Lashon Hara is the stuff that gets people talking about it. This includes saying something good about somebody, to someone who hates them. In my community, this would mean talking about anybody to anybody. I don’t think there is one lovable soul. But that is public knowledge, so that is not Lashon Hara, and I cannot give the community a worse reputation than it already has (see 7:5).
This dust of Lashon Hara, is kind of like saying ‘hello’ loudly in the morning. It bothers people and causes people to do bad. Example: Camp. A bunch of juvenile kids in a free range jail…From the good comes bad. From getting rid of your children, comes camp.
How many shootings have happened because somebody was loud in the morning? I think anybody with a gun would have shot their division head.
There are many more laws and ideas of Lashon Hara discussed here, but do to fear of saying the wrong thing, I will not spread them all.
7:5-Stuff said to hurt somebody in any way is Lashon Hara. OK, I am going on with more.
If told in front of three people, it can be assumed it is public knowledge and thus it is now free game. Which is why I always rebuke people in public.
As long as you are not looking to spread the word more, and cause problems, then you can talk about how Frank doesn’t know how to run his business and is nasty to everybody.
7:6- The whole thing in the desert was because of Lashon Hara. Hence, you are not allowed to be around people who speak Lashon Hara. We learn from here that friends and people who are going through hard times are forbidden.
7:7- Vayikra 19:18- ‘Do not take revenge.’ Not we move into your ego. It is because you think you are important, which is why you are getting into fights, you non-scholar. You should look at all things in the world as vanity. If you can see all the people around you as not that important, without talking about that (Lashon Hara), then they will not make you want to take revenge. They will hate you for being a condescending jerk, but you will not feel like you have to take revenge on the simpletons.
Tehilim 7:5- ‘I have rescued those who have hated me, without cause.’ That is what King David did. Why? We don’t know. There was no cause. It says it right there. But, he didn’t feel like he had to take revenge, because it is your actions that make you who you are. And you are somebody who can care less.
(Vayikra ibid) ‘Do not hold a grudge.’ To do the favor and say that I am doing this unlike you, is a sin. And this is why I do not do favors.
Keeping this mindset of understanding that people are idiots is what allows for a society to exist with business. You can’t take advantage of smart people, even if the Rambam doesn’t allow for taking advantage.
L: People are jerks. In order to live with them, you have to not care about them being jerks and still work with them. You have to remove the feelings of hatred from your heart and use curses like ‘They should live and be well.’ Once you understand that your staff and everybody around you are dumb, society can move on.
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