KMTT - the Torah Podcast
KMTT - Jewish Philosphy #09
KMTT - Topics in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Shiur #09, by Rav Ezra Bick
I think we can wait till tomorrow and if for today's year we'll not be particularly happy. I hope enjoyable. I will be giving the shear. It is the weekly share on problems in medieval philosophy. Last week we discussed the second instalment of the problem of evil and in doing so we began to raise the question of the purpose. The purpose in the way the world is run. One of the differences we pointed out in the shoe between the rambam and in that case the rastai Kresskas. The rambam's attitude towards the rastai Kresska as well as to the problem of evil had to do with justice. In other words there was God's reaction to what people did. Whereas rastai Kresskas' attitude was proactive. It wasn't God's reaction to what people did but God's actions were designed to lead the world, to lead people, to cause a certain effect in the world which was God's purpose in the world. I just want to repeat something I pointed out two weeks ago that that is not necessarily a criticism of the rambam by defining most of God's actions as reactive in the principle of justice. The rambam pushes on man the most important responsibility of what's taking place. It makes man the one who makes decisions as to how the world should look. This might in fact lead to a sorrow, a more sorrowful state of the world I'm sure it does but on the other hand if you want to know then what's the purpose of all this it means that man should take responsibility. It leaves room, leaves a tremendous amount of room for man's accomplishments, for man's accomplishments in finding God and becoming like God. Nonetheless, the question of God's purpose in the world does not arise according to the rambam in that scheme and in fact what we're going to talk about today, the purpose of creation, the purpose of Hashkacha, the purpose of Zatoga is a question of which the rambam has a very very special attitude, of which the rambam has a special attitude. I'd like to discuss two approaches to purpose, to goal in medieval Jewish philosophy, that of the rambam and that of "Bavchas daikraskas" in Sefer or Hashem. The rambam first of all divides the question into two. He says, "If you ask me what is the purpose of the world, I will tell you impossible to answer." Rambam has a simple logical approach. He says, "The purpose in God's creation can be one of two things. It can be either something for the world or something for God, something for the world it can't be because the world didn't exist yet and therefore the world cannot be the end to which God is acting. But for God it also can't be because God is perfect. And therefore there is no conceivable answer, no logical answer in our terms to explain why God created the world. The rambam's formulation then becomes, you should say, "A lad built with sonom, it arose in God's will to create the world." There are contradictions in the rambam about this question. We're not going to delve into the intricacies and the maybe difficult question of what the rambam exactly meant because the rambam expands at length on the absurdity of saying that God does things for no reason at all. So what the rambam has to say is that there is a reason but we can't figure it out. Okay, but that's the first side of the rambam's equation. Why did God create the world? That's not a question for which we have an answer or which we even should seek to give an answer. What is the purpose of the Torah or what is the end of man that the rambam thinks he has an answer? No, so I just asked two different questions and he created them. One question is, what is God's purpose in giving the Torah to man? Another question is, what is the end of man? In other words, what is the goal of human existence? That question, it's important to understand, is asked by the rambam in a particular Greek philosophy context. Everything in existence has a goal, has a final destination. Things exist in order to fulfill something. The question, what is the goal of man is equivalent to the question, what is the supreme form of man? What is the perfect man? The rambam equates these two questions. The perfect form of man is the goal of the giving of the Torah to man. God commands the Torah because it will bring man to his fulfillment. And the rambam's answer to that question, what is the fulfillment of man? And what is the purpose of the Torah? Is, in two words, yi diatashim. The knowledge of God. Knowledge of God for the rambam is a philosophic concept. It means philosophic knowledge of God. What can I know? The word know is a very particular well-defined meaning in the rambam's philosophy. Knowledge is that which can be proven to you through logic. The Middle Ages had a much more optimistic attitude towards the problem of human knowledge. It thought that men can know things. The rambam is relatively a skeptic in the Middle Ages. He thinks man can only know something. So, logic, for instance, thinks that man can know almost everything that can be known. If it's true, then reason, congrats it. The rambam is much more skeptical. And that's why he says there's much which is true, for instance, about God, which can never be known by the human mind. But nonetheless, human mind can indeed know. And to know means to see something clearly, to see its truth clearly, to see that it's true and cannot not be true. In other words, to prove it logically. Imagine the example which the medieval's had in mind was mathematics or geometry, the Euclidean system of geometry, which today is also not considered to be necessarily logical and proven in and of itself. But in the Middle Ages it was. You simply laid down axioms which are obviously true and then built a system. So, one thought you could lay down axioms which are obviously true in metaphysics. And one of the principles which we then be proven was, for instance, the existence of God. And that God is one. And that God has nobody. The three things which rambam believes can be proven and known about God. Therefore, the rambam begins the second section of the Morendov regime with a list of 25 axioms, similar to the 10 axioms that Euclide begins his geometry. The axioms aren't proven but they're self-evident. So, they're also true. Reason simply sees their truth. And the basis of those 25 axioms, one can, in a somewhat more complicated manner, prove additional things such as the existence of God, which is the subject of the first chapter of the second section of the Morendov regime. The rambam at one point in the Morendov regime says that if you believe that God exists, but you believe because you've been taught it by your parents, by your teachers, but you don't know or see the proof, then you don't know anything at all. Because knowledge is to know that it is true, not merely to believe it or to hold it as a well-held opinion. And he says to believe something because you've been taught it, not because you see that it's true, is to have no connection with reality outside your own mind. In other words, knowledge for the rambam is a real connection between you and the thing you know. I'm not going to go into the theories. It's based on a particular Greek, Aristotelian theory of knowledge, which isn't important because you can hold the theorem of the rambam without agreeing to the particular kind of theory that the rambam is using here, which was basic philosophy in his time. But the idea is that if you know, for instance, one metaphysical truth, it's because your mind has grasped that truth the way one's eye sees that which is in front of one. In other words, when I see the wall that I'm looking at right now as I speak into this recorder, there's a relationship between me and the wall. The wall is creating an effect in my mind, in my sight, in a sense. And to know anything, including to know God, is to have a real relationship with the thing you know. Somewhat more extreme is that in a versatility philosophy, to know something is to have the same form as that thing. My mind has the form of that of which it thinks. And therefore to know God is to have one's mind have the shape, the form of God, because one knows God. And therefore the rambam feels fully confident in saying that the knowledge of God is what in religious terms we would call "duvaikut". It's a kind of wonder. The rambam specifically says that. Knowledge of God is "Akhdut hamaskir vahamuskal", the unity of the knower and the knower. So even though when we read the rambam, we tend to have this sort of attitude saying, well, this is just philosophic abstractness, for the rambam, it was a real, real connection between the knower and the knower. And the rambam in fact believes that that's the basis for a lambam. If you know God, you have some sort of a unity with him, that's why your mental processes, your mind, your soul, according to the rambam, will also be eternal, because it's achieved unity with the eternal, with the eternal truth, with the eternity of God. And the rambam throughout the mind of Bhurim subsumes nearly everything under the category of knowledge of God. This leads the rambam to rather extreme statements concerning the relationship between the purpose of the Torah and the way Jews actually live. Because it's it would seem obvious that if the goal is knowledge of God, then not everybody, including not all those who observe all the mitzvot. In fact, not even most people who observe all the mitzvot will in fact achieve the goal. More than that, there is no direct connection, so direct connection between the performance of mitzvot and the goal. The rambam's theory of mitzvot is that the mitzvot are all prerequisites, preliminaries to the goal itself, but do not participate in the goal. By doing all these mitzvot, we form character, we, we cut ourselves off from distractions, these are all things which we have to do before, but the actual knowledge of God you do when you sit in philosophize and you read the rambam's proofs and you and you think about them and you bring them into your into your everyday existence. And all that takes place after one has performed the mitzvot and molded one's society and one's personality and one's life in such a way as to maximize the ability to know, but knowing and holding a lulav have in fact nothing in common. And then for the rambam has the rather extraordinary statement that "the overwhelming majority of shomeray had Torah, not the overwhelming majority of mankind, but the overwhelming majority of shomeray had Torah, do not in fact achieve the goal of the Torah." There is a bit of a paradox involved in this because since the rambam believes that philosophically doesn't involve a special kind of intelligence. You're dealing with axioms and purely logical proofs and if for anyone with common sense should be able to follow the proof. However, it requires inner discipline, it requires not being distracted, it requires some active effort and if we have the amazing paradox that while anybody, anyone who was intelligent, anyone with cinema or Kim, with human intelligence can achieve the goal, but we know that very few in fact will and the famous Michelle of the rambam he describes a great palace of the king which is surrounded by a huge courtyard which is surrounded by a great wall in which there is one gate and most people, including those who observe its vote, are wandering around outside the wall and have not yet found the gate and if those who have found the gate only a minority get inside the courtyard, if those who found the courtyard only minority find the entrance to the palace and if those who have found the palace only minority find the room in which the king sits and if those only minority get to actually approach the throne and see and behold the king. Because the goal of life is intellectual, intellectual unity with God, but intellectual nonetheless. The criticisms against the rambam all feeling believable philosophy by in an earlier period, the rambam, later on by the rambam, by the rambam, by the rambam's critics, most prominently with Rastai Kraskas and Sip ona Shem are varied. There are philosophic objections. The whole philosophic, Greek philosophic basis on which the rambam argues is attacked by Rastai Kraskas. Isn't in fact true that one's mind, one's rationality takes the shape of that which one knows, which is an essential crucial point for the rambam in order to claim that knowledge changes you, makes you one with that which you know. We're not going to go into that. It's a fine point of a very, very, very medieval philosophy. It's almost impossible to grasp today. We've changed so many of our assumptions. But Rastai also has a number of particularly Jewish and mitzvot kind of arguments. This first argument that I mentioned has only to do with Judaism. It's about the idea that the fulfillment of mankind, that man's perfection, is knowledge. Rastai attacks that, the perfection man is not knowledge, nor is the mental processes, the mind, equivalent with the soul. But there are also attacks on the Karrada statement of the rambam, that the goal of the Torah is to foster knowledge of God. For instance, Rastai asks the question which I hinted at before. That means that the goal of mitzvot is not itself a mitzvot. It's not part of mitzvot. Or in the words of Rastai, Rastai says that Kaula or Sam mitzvot are not mitzvot. If you do one mitzvot, that's a very good. And you can't run them, it's not true. If you do one mitzvot, even 613 mitzvot, it's not good yet. Notice we haven't achieved anything. And if you utilize those mitzvot to then do something further, will you have good meaning? I think what they thought of meant was will you get to a lama-ba? Or Kaula is the first mitzvot to come. Or another statement of Rastai, that when there's one merit in the world to come, it says in age of 6, 7, 8. Which quantum mitzvot is because a 6, 7, 8 year old doesn't have for the self-ack knowledge. Can't have for the self-ack knowledge. His mind is not well, is not well enough developed. And if Rastai's alternative to the Ramban is a very simple one, he changes only one word. The goal of existence and the goal of human life, and the goal of the Torah is not idi attashem, but aha attashem, not knowledge of God, but the love of God. If Rastai says this answers, not really the question of what is the perfection of man and what is the goal of the Torah, but also what is the purpose of the world? The world was created so that it would be, it would participate in the love of God. Where Rastai understands the love of God to be itself, de vikr, to be itself union, in a sort of medieval version of what we would consider to be a romantic definition of love. The love of God, if man loves God, he is de vik. And necessarily one, he doesn't use the word ardut, that'd be too strong a word to use, but there's a cleaving, there's a unity, there's a togetherness that's created by love between two persons. And man can love God, and Rastai in fact develops, and develops at length. The idea that God loves man, the idea which is almost impossible to say in my mighty name terms. What does it mean to love God according to Rastai? So, Rastai focuses on two levels. First of all, on the anthropological level. If the random define the soul, the inner part of man, as being basically in mind, Rastai defines the inner part of man as being soul, and souls primarily quality is the ability to love. What does it mean to love? Love in Rastai is the idea of service. To love someone is to want to serve them, to do things for them. And therefore we see immediately the connection between Mitzvah and love. Any Mitzvah, irrespective of its individual reason. And Rastai has a section, not as long as the random number has 14 chapters on Tamayah and Mitzvah, the reason for Mitzvah. The reason for Mitzvah and Rastai has one very long chapter. And who give reasons for every single Mitzvah, why God commanded that. Every Mitzvah has to contribute in some way to the love of God. Just as every Mitzvah quantum random has to contribute in some way to the ability to know God. But aside from the individual Mitzvah, any Mitzvah participates in the love of God because of Mitzvah, you do because you wish to serve God. And serving God is itself love. And if we saw a week ago in Rastai's discussion of the form of evil, that actions create character, then actions of serving God doing his will. Doing what he wants are constantly inculcating love of God because by doing something for someone else, you in fact love them. That's why Rastai says that God loves the world because we see that God does things for the world. He created it. He brings the rain. He feeds everything in it. "Potech et y aderah, o mazbiyyah, the chol chai ratson." So God is a constant flow of love, meaning service, meaning doing things for the world. And the reason that one can say that about God, the way we answer the random question, "Why would God want to do something for someone else when the thing doesn't exist and God gets nothing out of it?" is a very, very famous expression later on popularized by the "Mamrahal." Wait, what's that? "Tevahatov lahative." God is pure goodness, and goodness is doing good. And since God is good, his goodness is expressed by his doing things for others, including their creation. So the question, "Well, what does God get out of it?" The answer is he doesn't become more perfect because it's also a world. He's not doing it because he wants to help the world, which doesn't yet exist. But he's expressing it. It arises out of the infinite goodness of God, which is an infinite desire to do for others, including their creation, and later on their sustenance. And ultimately, they're bringing them, these other things, these other people, the other persons closer to God, because the greatest good of any created thing is to be close to having a relationship with God, the relationship which we call "Ahavat Hashem." So here is this circle that's close. God is good. Therefore God does good. "Tevahmativ." And by doing good, he creates things, and the best thing he can do for them is to have them love him. Because by loving him, they, in fact, achieve a unity with him, they achieve eternal life, and they fulfill themselves in the greatest sense possible for any created thing. How does God go about after creating the world? How is he going about doing good for the world? Well, one thing he does is he gives the Torah to Anisrael, which is the means of perfecting human existence Every single mitzvah has individual contribution to the love of God, as well as a general contribution to the love of God of that individual who's doing those mitzvah. And by giving these mitzvah to the Jewish people, God is molding the Jewish people into a nation that loves him and achieves its own fulfillment, and ultimately, "Olam Olam Baba." Although the phrase "varvata-shem" is parallel to the phrase "Yidayata-shem" in the manban, there is, in fact, a very important difference. "Yidayata-shem," as I pointed out, is a distinct goal different from everything else we do in our lives. You do all kinds of mitzvah. And then you also have to make sure that you've utilized the benefits of the individual mitzvah in order to basically to philosophize. So ifah-shem doesn't need this mental action of saying, "Okay, now I'm going to... X, have some sort of relationship with God." The relationship is called "varvata," but you don't say, "Okay, now I'm going to love God." You don't have to make a special effort to love God in the contrary. What you have to do is do things, which is what the Torah is all about. And by doing those things, you automatically are engaged in the actions of love of God. And this, of course, is something which many, many people have pointed out, is very, very basic to the Torah as opposed to other forms of religious activity. The Torah is a life of action and not a life of belief and not a life of emotions and not a life of saying how much you have an inner relationship with God, but tells you what to do. And if the Torah is literally focused in on that point, the Torah is about a life of action, but nonetheless if the Torah shows anybody else that the ultimate goal, of course, is an inner relationship with God. It's all about where there won't be any actions. But he explains that actions are personality. And therefore the Torah commands actions because actions are personality. What does every action have? And many, many different traits in me don't. Actions involve encourage. Create courage actions of generosity. Create generosity. But all actions that are done for God's sake, because you're in the Suweber or Seh, because you've been commanded, create the love, the service, the connection to God, which is essential for any human being's ultimate fulfillment and full existence. as they comment on famous mama in piquet avart, which is contradictory, obviously on purpose. It's not the same piquet avart, it's the same. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same. One hour of actions of Mitzvot, a learning story in this world, is better than all the life in the world to come. Via fhescha acha cho korat uach wolamaba, one hour of korat uach, of satisfaction, of the feeling that one has in the world to come, is with more than all of the life of this world. So what's better? This world or next world? So if Christa explains that there's a difference here between God's perspective and man's perspective, love has an inner paradox. To love God is the best thing that can happen to you. But one who loves God is not thinking about himself, and his actions are not directed towards himself, directed by definition, towards God. If one engages in activities which one calls love in order to benefit, it's not love at all, it's love of oneself, not love of the other. I think that's probably true in, I'm sure it's true, in interpersonal human interpersonal relations as well. I think today probably many people search for love because they want to have love, not because they want to love someone else, and that might indeed be one of the factors why they don't succeed. Love is by definition, selfless, and not selfish. So if Christa says, he who loves God wishes not to be Bolamabar, he wants to be Bolamazim. On the assumption which is shared by most thinkers, we won't discuss that in Allah, there is no more service, nothing more to do. So Allah is the place one achieves the reward, so to speak, one is able to then luxuriate in the existence of the love, in the devotee, in the oneness, in the cleavage with God. You are so to speak, embraced with God in Allah, in Allah, you made it feel, you won't feel in fact that closest to God because you're busy running around the world doing things that he's asked you to do. I imagine, although the book was written after Christa Echreskas, that the idea of nightly service that's partially, it's parodied in Cervantes, in Don Quixote, is what really, when Christa is talking about, the night loves, in the case of Don Quixote, he loves his lady. Or one loves God by running around the world, you don't even see God, you don't see the lady, in Cervantes' case she doesn't exist. But you serve her by doing things in her name and for her, so that Sadik wants to stay in this world where you can serve God, he doesn't want to go to the next world, because what's he going to do there? He wants to serve, that's what his love demands of him. God wants you to love him so that you can have the love, so you can feel the love, so you can feel the closest to God. So God wants you in all of my back, but man wants to be in all of my back. As I said, when the point of view of man of the Sadik, one hour of actually doing things is with more than all of the next world, no man should wish to die. He who serves God does not wish to die, he wishes to live and do more. However, Yefescha Achacha Khorat Ruach, the state, not the activity of love, but the state of love, being in love, we would say today, in Olam Habah, where one is not bothered by extraneous circumstances, there is no divider between one and God. So that one is in fact luxuriating in the embrace of God, as Yefescha Achacha Khorat Ruach, of satisfaction, of the feeling of the Spirit, the presideness of the Spirit, Olam Habah, we call Ha'olam Hazah. We will continue this discussion, this dichotomy, in this case between the knowledge of God and the love of God. There are other versions of Ha'estai, when one goes back 150 years to the Vambhan, he was a very different thinker than a Ha'estai, but I think the roots of what Ha'estai is saying is apparent in the Vambhan. He doesn't speak about Abba Tashan, he speaks about the way he could of the soul. He speaks about a unity of the soul that's not based on thinking per se, only on thinking. By the way, Ha'estai is not an anti-rationalist, he says the soul thinks, but that's not what defines it. So we can find a number of other thinkers, starting with the Vambhan, who will say things that are similar to Abba Tashan, at least in contradiction to the Vambhan. It's not intellectual knowledge of God, but being one with God, in a mystic manner perhaps, in the Kabbalah, in the Vambhan, and in an emotional manner, according to Abba Tashan. The difference between that and thinking, we will continue to explore in other areas in the next couple of weeks. Starting next week with an idea which might not be the most obvious step forward, but I think for this period of time, and as you've shown it, in fact was. And that's one of the topics we're going to discuss why it was, and that is the topic of prophecy, of Nivu'a. And there's a philosophy of Nivu'a in the Middle Ages, something which later Jewish thinkers stopped thinking about to a great extent in the last three, four hundred years. But in the Middle Ages, this was a major topic, and we will examine it in light of the distinction we made today between knowing God and loving God. You have been listening to the sheer in problems in medieval philosophy, issues and problems in medieval philosophy, and now we turn to the Al-Aqayomit. Now, for today's Al-Aqayomit, continuing from yesterday a closely related prohibition, to yesterday's prohibition. Yesterday we spoke about the Isor to do milachah, to take care of your one's matters or to go on a trip, and the shokano continues in the very, very same sieve, same sentence even. He continues to a different Isor, below the al-Haul, below the shtund. One cannot take care of one's own matters or go on a trip before davening, nor to eat or to drink. A val nayimutah, but the makhabapascans, it's permissible to drink water before davening. If it's for its medicine. Although the makhababings is together in one another, I think that indicates the thought is a similar idea, but the basis in the gammar is a totally different gammar altogether. You might be heard under fear, says that there is a Isor to eat, or drink before davening, because of a pasuk in the Torah, "lo toklu al-hadam". So, difficult pasuk, and different places, the grammar gives different explanations, this explanation is "lo toklu al-hadam", "lo toklu kodim sht paslu al-dimram", you should not eat on blood. As I'll say, you should not eat before you have prayed for your blood, in other words, prayed for your life. Eating on blood means eating before taking care of the more important basis for life, food is a minor point in living, davening is more important. The gammar then mentions a different pasuk in the viem, in the l'achim, "pouti ha'is schlachte rege verra, ar'te kege verra elegae verra". God complains, "You will throw me over your back", and the drasha says, "Over your pride". It is an act of pride to first stuff yourself, and then, and then to pray. The second pasuk sounds closer to yesterday's idea, taking care of yourself before you take care of sokhe-shamaim. The first idea, it's taking care of yourself in both ways, just indicates a total lack of understanding of what it means to take care of oneself. Taking care of one's gastronomical needs before one takes care of one's basic life. One's blood is in God's hands, first praying and ask for God's assistance, ask God for life. And afterwards, do that little act a bit of feeding yourself. Despite the fact that the gmarkhatsa pasuk in the Torah, pasuk is in vayyikr, in pasukh-shat-kit-sham, l'otuhu-al-adam, nearly all we show in him say that it's only the rapanan. The vamim in the sefam, it's vaht, says that it's, in fact, the derided. It's the explanation of the pasukh. But even the vamim in the ad-hazaqah doesn't mention this again. It would appear that he thinks it's the rapanan, and almost all other we've shown him. Mihiri in the writfa, and Vibenu Yona, and the rash, they all say that the isu is only the rapanan. Why does the makhabah say you can drink water? This is based on the end of the gmua. The gmua said that the second pasukh was, "O tihi schlach tih achare, ke vera, you have put me after your own pride." So the vavira says, this only applies to eating and drinking, which is a matter of pride. But something as basic as water, it doesn't have any, it's not, you drink only because you're thirsty. Not because there's any other value. It says that doesn't count. And based on that vavira, the makhabah pascans, that it's permissible to drink, to drink water. That leads to the famous makhloket, where water's mean water. It begins with tea and coffee. Coffee was the original shaythar. And then continues with the allow to add sugar in your, to your coffee. The, uh, the red vaz, who says that we can drink coffee, talk about himself. We drink coffee rather than water. He might, that's just the basic drink. No one drinks water. You drink coffee. But he says, you know how to put any sugar in it. Because sugar's a very gheri. It's a, it's a food with a flavor. And this, in fact, is court of allow, achare many, many years later. It's, it's, it's, the bsaka lachayada, and the bsaka the mission of bur. However, there are many, many pascam who say that if people don't drink coffee without sugar, they find it almost impossible. It's just not drunk anymore because it's too bitter. So adding a little bit of sugar to make a drinkable still leaves it basically as being basic drink. And not a food or a drink with the kind of symbolism that, that would indicate pride. It would indicate, um, an activity which undermines the priority of addressing God. First thing, first thing in the morning. So, a la chalamisa, uh, although again, the, the pascam basically still debated. But I think a la chalamisa most pascam permitted. However, you won't find in mitten pascam, permissibility to drink other, other beverages. Uh, al-pydin, coffee and tea are considered to be basically water. We're in a number of different halachic areas. Adding a little sugar just makes it drinkable. Uh, more complicated drink, surely not alcohol drinks, which is the rafia, who's the father of this entire, uh, direction in a la chalamisa specifically, not alcohol drinks. But also other important drinks, drinks that have real substance to them. Uh, the pascam are not, they're not, uh, permit. And surely, they do not permit eating. You have your spoke of water because water doesn't have, doesn't really have the, the aspect of being food. But, but real food, eating food, there's no written paucek who will, who will permit. I know people do eat before davening, especially on Shabbat when davening is long and you're hungry. Some pascam would say if you're weak, if you don't think you can make it through it. But you have to really be serious about this, if it's really very difficult. I'm not talking about someone who's actually sick. Someone who's sick, the doctor says he has to eat, so let's be corgnefish. But, uh, you might be able to, some pascam would say, a person who is very weak, needs to eat, or else he'll, he'll just not be able to daven. So, maybe he could eat a little bit. I'm not sure you'll find that bit in pascam, either, but ha-la-la-la-la, I said that might be true, but for a healthy person, it's very difficult to find a header to eat before davening. And although, as I said, the Easter might be du-la-la-la, but the language, the grammar he uses, it may be du-la-la-la, but it indicates something that's really terrible. Or, tok-la-la-la-da, you're undermining the basis of your life. You've thrown me over your backs, over your pride. Put me aside to take care of yourselves. It indicates a basic moral failing to get up in the morning, eat, and only afterwards go, afterwards go to, go to daven. For children, the person is going to say that they should eat before they daven, until they get to, basically, 12 or 13. But it might be a good idea if they have to have them say "Brahat" first. Again, similar to the idea we said yesterday, that maybe you don't need someone, that's right. Just some approaching God is very, at least to some extent, addressing the issue involved in this myth. Even someone who does have to eat should, or a child, or say a person who's sick, does have to eat, it will be best if he said it is some of the "Brahat" first, so that he's not totally ignoring God before he takes care of himself. That's it for today. We'll be back tomorrow with a share in the weekly Mitzvah by Harav Benjamin Taboi. Until then, this has been EsriBek, and this has been KMTT. Your Torah podcast, kimitzian, tezeit Torah, wudwah Hashem miyushalaym. [BLANK_AUDIO]