Mishlei #17 Ch5-V10-18

And so Pasuk Yud Alef, verse eleven, venahamta be'achrischa, and at the end, you will groan about it.

Becholos besarcho ushe'arecha, when your flesh and all that's left of you will fall apart.

Uh, the point basically here, I'm gonna read it first the, the way, uh, one of the commentators says it, and then read it the way another one of the commentators says it.

One of the mefarshim says that this refers to people in old age who start to recalculate and regret things they shouldn't have done.

Says this is part of the process as a person gets older.

He says, "We think about all the things when you get older you have to regret.

You should know there's a lot of things which when you're older, you don't have to regret because you didn't do them." So of all the things that you can think of that you should regret, think about all the things that you didn't do wrongly, and therefore you don't have to regret them.

And there's something to think about that.

Shlomo HaMelech is speaking before you've done something wrong, and he's saying, "Think about if you may take a choice to live a life like this, if you're gonna be a, a, a gangster or a robber," to use an extreme example.

You'll end up in old age, you'll be sitting in prison and regretting your life and, and wish that you would have, um, made choices differently.

So now that you're here, you should think about that from that perspective and say to yourself, "How many times did I?" How many times did you not do something, um, ridiculous because it would come out to a bad end, and therefore you're in a good place today.

And so be happy for the things you don't have to regret.

But Shlomo HaMelech is, is still focusing on the what you will.

You will, if you do those bad things, you will end up regretting them.

Another one of the commentators makes the same point but pushes it a little further and says that when it comes to doing teshuva and repenting from your sins, your teshuva means a lot more.

It counts for a lot more if you still want to, if you're still enticed to do those things.

If a person, uh, wants to insult people but holds back, so then that's great teshuva.

But if the person no longer has any friends to insult, and that's why they're not insulting anyone, so to feel bad and say, "I'm never gonna insult, insult anyone again," you don't have anyone to insult.

It doesn't, doesn't really count the same way.

If a person's able to scale walls and says, "I'm no longer going to rob banks even though I'm able to," that's real teshuva.

If the person loses their ability to scale walls and then says, "Okay, now I'm gonna be a righteous person and no longer rob banks," again, everyone fill in whatever the example is real, but that doesn't count as much.

And so that's what we're saying, venahamta be'achrischa, is that you will only groan at the end.

Becholos besarcho ushe'arecha, when your body is worn out, and you're no longer able to do tho- those things.

That's often when the regret comes, and it's unfortunate because if the people would regret what they're doing earlier while, while they're still able to, that teshuva is a much greater teshuva.

And so if, especially at this time of the year, it's something to think about that we should be working on things, on bettering our, ourselves in areas that's hard for us.