בחצי דבורHalf a Word

ba-ḥatzi dibburIn Gamatria ↗

A loving son hears the whole will in half a word.

Piety needs careful explaining, Luzzatto warns, because many practices pass under its name that are only shapeless lumps of it: long prayers and confessions, weeping and bowing, and strange self-torments like immersing in ice and snow. Some suit penitents or ascetics, but piety is not built on them. It needs wisdom: 'an ignorant man cannot be pious' (Avot 2:5). Its root is 'Happy is one who gives pleasure to his Maker' (Berakhot 17a). A son who loves his father, hearing even half a word of something his father wants, does it as fully as he can without waiting to be told again. So the lover of God reads the commandments as a glimpse of His will and widens them in every direction. Piety does with positive commandments what separation does with prohibitions.

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