Shlomo Hamelech declares:
A man should rather meet a bereaved bear than a fool in his foolishness.
It is the way of a she-bear bereaved of her cubs to kill whomever she comes upon, in the bitterness of her heart. Still, it is better to meet such a bear than to meet a fool at the time he is speaking his foolishness and inciting to sin.
If a person sees a pack of preying wolves, he can tarry a bit before getting away, but if he sees an agitated bear, he cannot stick around for even a second. It is extremely dangerous, for the bear is liable to kill.
Even more dangerous than a bereaved bear: a “fool”, a Jew with a false outlook on Torah matters. When you see someone like that coming along, you should get away fast because it is extremely dangerous. He is likely to say one word whose influence you won’t be able to throw off. We should be deathly afraid of people like this, no matter how “nice” they may be.
It is recounted that two avreichim once paid a visit to the holy and pious author of Leshem Shevo v’Achalamah. They wished to say over to him a word of Torah that they had heard from a certain Jew known to have a dubious Torah outlook, but the Ba’al Haleshem would in no way agree to listen. He said to them, “The type of soap that can wash off faulty thoughts has not yet been created!”
If he would hear words of Torah said by this person, then along with the words of Torah, a faulty thought of some kind could get inside him. And the soap does not exist that can clean it off.
In fact, this idea is clearly expressed in the verse:
O G-d, create for me a pure heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
When speaking of the heart, the pasuk does not say “cleanse for me,” or “repair for me,” but rather “create for me.” When a faulty outlook of some sort gets into a person, the only way to rectify the matter is by techiyas hameisim – a new creation of a new heart!
