In Pirkei Avos (2:11), R' Yochanan ben Zakkai asks his students what they think is the most helpful trait in serving Hashem. He also asks them what they think is the most detrimental trait in the service of Hashem. Most of the students say the positive and the negative aspects of the same trait. For example, R' Elazar says a good heart versus a bad heart.
The opinion of R' Shimon ben Nesanel needs some clarification. For the positive trait, he says that one must act based on his understanding of what the future of his actions will cause. For the negative trait, he says one who borrows and does not pay back. A person who borrows from a human is as though he borrows from Hashem. Such a person is referred to as a rasha, a wicked person, as the passuk in Tehillim says (37:21), “The wicked person borrows and does not pay back, while the righteous person is generous and giving.” The commentaries try to understand how these two traits are connected.
The Zera Shimshon explains the connection as follows.
The Arizal writes (Shaar HaGilgulim §36) that Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid to smite the giant, Og, the king of Bashan, since Og possessed a portion of the soul of R' Shimon ben Nesanel. This is hinted to in the word Bashan. The letters בשן stand for שמעון בן נתנאל, hinting to the fact that Og, the king of Bashan (בשן), possessed part of what would eventually become R' Shimon ben Nesanel's soul. This is why Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu, “Do not fear him.” In later times, this soul was entrusted to R' Yochanan ben Zakkai to rectify. This soul was the soul of R' Shimon ben Nesanel, who became one of R' Yochanan ben Zakkai's foremost students.
From this experience, R' Shimon ben Nesanel learned how one must evaluate his present actions based on how they will affect the future. This was evident from the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was hesitant to kill Og, being that he possessed a soul that in the future would be a great tzaddik. (In Moshe Rabbeinu's case, he actually saw what the future held. For us, this would mean being careful that we do not place ourselves in situations that could lead to not doing the will of Hashem, or anything similar.) For this reason, R' Shimon ben Nesanel taught that one must act while taking into account how his actions will affect the future.
This is also why he teaches that a detrimental trait in the service of Hashem is one who borrows and does not pay back. A person who borrows from a human is as though he borrows from Hashem. Such a person is referred to as a rasha, a wicked person, as the passuk in Tehillim says (37:21), “The wicked person borrows and does not pay back, while the righteous person is generous and giving.”
This is essentially what Og did. He was lent a holy soul from Hashem and did not rectify it. This is the equivalence of borrowing and not repaying.
This is why R' Shimon ben Nesanel finds it relevant to add that one who borrows from a friend is as though he borrows from Hashem. This addition does not really make it worse of an injustice to borrow from someone without repaying. However, since it was R' Shimon ben Nesanel's experience that directed him to teach this, and this experience included “borrowing and not repaying Hashem,” he added this point into his teaching. Thus, both the positive and negative traits that R' Shimon ben Nesanel taught are in fact connected.
This idea is further brought out by the passuk in Tehillim that he uses as his source. Technically, he did not have to bring the end of the passuk “...while the righteous person is generous and giving,” since his main point is to show that one who borrows and does not repay is called a rasha. He cited it in order to hint at R' Yochanan ben Zakkai, who did not borrow anything. Instead, he went out of his way to help rectify this soul and turned it into the soul of a tanna, R' Shimon ben Nesanel.
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