Now, my mind is too poor to try to follow the system of Avraham, to explain it, but in general, we know what he did – he studied nature and thus acquired, slowly but surely, a tangible awareness of Hashem, a real emunah. Now, I know if you say that today, some people might sneer at that, but the Rambam says it. He explains that Avraham busied himself with studying the world and seeing the Hand of Hashem in all the details of nature!
Not just once or twice; not even a thousand times. He never stopped admiring the Handiwork of Hashem. Not like people who see something, a chochmah, and they say “Oh, isn’t that interesting? The seed is this, the seed is that,” and immediately he forgets about it and the effect is gone. No; Avraham wasn’t fickle. As much as he was busy with people he made it his business to spend hours and days and weeks in solitude with himself for the purpose of repeating these great truths to himself. And that’s how he became Avraham Avinu; he became great because of that.
The Great Shepherds
Now the truth is that’s how great people live. Not only Avraham. You know, it’s no coincidence that many of the great men in our history were shepherds. The Avos were shepherds; the shevatim were shepherds. Moshe Rabbeinu was a shepherd for forty years. Shaul Hamelech was a shepherd; Dovid Hamelech was a shepherd. And they all walked in the way of Avraham Avinu.
One of the best examples of someone who lived that way was Dovid. Our Chachomim tell us that when Dovid opened up the Torah and read about Avraham, he understood what we’re talking about now, and he began to think, “Maybe I could aspire to such a thing too?”
Actually, the Gemara says that everyone should say, “When will my deeds reach the level of the deeds of our fathers?” But while we might say that ma’amar, Dovid lived that kind of a life. Remember that Dovid was a roeh tzon, a shepherd, and in those days a shepherd used to go far away from home; for days and weeks he would be alone in the wilderness. And so even as a young shepherd boy he was thinking, “I have so much time alone for myself. Why should I waste the opportunity? Maybe I can mold my life in such a way I could become a thinker like Avraham Avinu, someone whose mind is dedicated to Hashem?”
And it was there, in that solitude where there was nobody there to trammel him, nobody to waste his time chewing off his ear, that’s where Dovid planted the seeds of his greatness. He lived by himself in his own environment, his own mind, and he trained himself to make use of solitude to think, to contemplate, to ponder.
A Different Type of Solitude
And most important, he trained himself to achieve the benefits of solitude even when he would be among others. That’s an ideal that the Chovos Halevavos introduces us to. He calls it ¿ךֹו ̇¿ּב ּ̇ו„¿„ֹוּב¿ ̇ƒה ןֹמוָה∆ה – solitude in the midst of company. It’s his expression but the idea is something our ancestors fulfilled. It's possible to be in solitude even in the midst of a multitude. And it’s an important function because we live to a great extent among others.
And that’s why if we peek into the private life of Dovid Hamelech – in many people's private lives it doesn't pay to take a peek but in Dovid’s life we could do it – if we peek into his life we see how a great man lived in solitude, creating a mind, even when he was living among others.
We'll take just one verse that everybody knows and we'll see what he’s saying there. 'ה י≈נ¿פƒל¿ך≈ּלַה¿ ̇∆‡יםƒּיַחַה ֹ̇וˆ¿רַ‡¿ּב - I wish to walk before Hashem in the lands of the living (Tehillim 116:9). You know when Dovid said this possuk? When he was hiding from his pursuers who wanted to kill him. He was in the thickets, in the forest, and he was praying to Hashem to be saved.
Now, what’s this expression ‘the land of the living’? So the Gemara (Yuma 71a) explains it as follows: “Zeh makom shevakim – a place where there are markets, where there are stores. “Oh Hashem! Please save me and give me the opportunity to once more walk in the marketplaces of Yerushalayim, to walk down the street with stores on both sides.”
Window Shopping
What’s so special about the marketplace? What’s so special about Kings Highway or Thirteenth Avenue in Boro Park? So Rashi explains that it’s the place where various things, many various commodities, are available to purchase. Not because you need things; just to walk on the avenue, in the solitude of your mind, and see the various things that are being sold there and to study them is an opportunity that is unmatched for thought, for creating a Torah mind.
Now that might seem strange at first but let's take it seriously because this is a model for how we can live too. After all, sometimes you take a walk and walking is a form of solitude. Solitude doesn't mean you have to be in a cave on a desert island. When you walk down the street you're all alone; nobody is talking to you. And it's a glorious opportunity to talk to yourself. Only you have to know what to say.
Fig Facts
And now we see what Dovid said. As he was walking down the streets, let's say, of Yerushalayim, and he saw a market where they were selling potatoes – well, they didn't have potatoes in Yerushalayim in those days. Potatoes are an American invention, South American, so we'll switch from potatoes to, let's say, figs. That he surely had in Eretz Yisroel. And when Dovid saw baskets of figs in the bazaar he was thinking; he wasn’t hungry, he just finished eating his meal in the palace, but now he wanted food for the mind. And so he was thinking, “What a sight! What a chessed Hashem!”
They weren't the figs that we buy that are on a string, shriveled by smoke. No. They were fat figs, bursting with syrup and Dovid was looking at them and he was thinking, “How luscious those figs are. What a great gift Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving us. They're bonbons that grow on trees. And they’re healthy too. Figs are full of energy, they’re nourishing; and they’re good for digestion too.”
The Fig Factory
Now as he was walking there - as much as possible he walked alone, in the quiet of his own mind – he was thinking, “How is it that the fig came out of the wood of the fig tree?” He remembered how when he was a shepherd in the wilderness he had thought about that too. “Maybe if I made an incision into the branch,” he had wondered, “into the twig just underneath where the fig comes out, maybe I’ll find little tiny figs there inside of the branch; and these little figs finally extrude from the hole someplace, a pore, and they swell and become a big fig.”
So he took his penknife and cut into the twig but there was nothing but liquid, a little bit of sap. How is it that sap turns into that?!
So Dovid is in the marketplace and he’s thinking to himself, “There must be something in the tip of the twig, a factory that's able to take the materials of the juice and transform it into a fig!”
Now a fig is not simple at all. A fig is a very complicated product with very many components. And they’re all encased in a skin that protects it. And inside when you get through eating the fig you find coupons for more figs! The seeds! You spit out the seeds, the seeds fall to the earth, and the miracle begins again.
Now, Dovid had thought these same thoughts hundreds of times already. But that’s exactly it. Time to think means time to review all of these great ideals of emunah and yiras Hashem. That’s called living! That’s called ‘walking in the land of the living’.
Moving Along In The Bazaar
And so Dovid spent his time in the marketplace thinking about the miracle of the fig until his eyes were attracted to some woolen cloth that was being displayed in a different place in the bazaar. And so he shifted his thoughts now: “What a wonderful thing this is, the wool. Where does it come from? It's produced on the backs of sheep.”
The backs of sheep are able to produce wool? Does that mean that the sheep are feeding on wool and therefore the wool comes out through their backs eventually? No. They eat nothing but grass and water.
“Oh,” you say, “it's not from grass and water. It comes out of materials on the sheep's back.” Where does a sheep get its back though? It got its back from its mother. Where did the mother get this sheep's back? It ate grass and water. The mother ate grass and water and produced a sheep, and this sheep ate grass and water and it's producing wool from its back.
“What a wonderful system”, Dovid was thinking. “A brand new material that results from grass and water. It means I’m looking at the Handiwork of Hashem now, a miracle just as big as Kriyas Yam Suf; bigger even!”
Emulating Dovid
Now we have to know our poor little minds are not catching up with Dovid. He's walking very rapidly through this marketplace. He's thinking so fast that we are only picking up a few crumbs of his thoughts. I'm certain that he thought much more and much more deeply than my poor words. But whatever it was, in the solitude of his mind he was becoming greater and greater with every thought.
You should try it yourself. As you pass by the stores and you see a shoe store – you don't need any shoes. Despite what your wife has been telling you that you need to have three pairs or four pairs. You have one pair for the weekdays and one pair for Shabbos and that's all you want. If you're a poor man you have one pair for both but you polish it for Shabbos; that’s good too. And so you're not buying any shoes. But as you pass by the store you see a window full of leather shoes. Now sometimes today you'll see plastic shoes but the best material, even today, is still leather. Leather is unbeatable so far for foot gear. And where does leather come from? From the back of a cow!
Leather comes from grass and water because the cow was eating grass and water and its hide was growing because of that – at the same time that it was using those same ingredients to produce milk. And after a while it produced calves and the calves turned into oxen and cows and that's how we get skin, leather, and more milk.
