Halakhah sur Avot 2:5

(Bet) In [Parashat] Haazinu (Deut. 32:46-47) it states, “He said to them, ‘Take to heart all the words that I am testifying to you this day […] that they may keep and do all the words of this Torah. For this is not a trifling thing for you, but it is your life.’” And this is that they should not say that they are not able “to keep and do all of the words of this Torah” – in the way that it is stated in Job 10:7, “It is Your knowledge that I am not guilty”; and as it is stated in the first chapter of Bava Batra, “You have created the righteous, You have created the evil”; but their goodness is not in their hands, but rather only that which has been decreed from His heights of holiness, to provide goodness to the good one.¹⁰Bava Batra 16a. Hence it states, “For this is not a trifling thing for you,” – the understanding of [“not… for you”] is from yourselves, with the aspect of a cistern that is not from itself but is instead filled from others. Rather in this matter, you have the aspect of a well which emanates from itself when you keep the commandments of God. That is why it states, “but it is your life,” with the oppositional expression (“but”) – and its understanding is, but rather it is your life and it is in your hands, from yourselves. And so the essence of the creation was that you should ‘all be living today.’ And this is the intention of the statement of the [Sages], may their memory be blessed, “A boor (which can also be read as cistern) does not fear sin” (Avot 2:5). As the fear of Heaven is not decreed upon the drop [that will form the fetus],¹¹See Berakhot 33b. like other virtues that have the aspect of a cistern; as it has the aspect of a well [instead]. And this is why we say about the Torah and the service [to God], “As they are our lives”¹²From the blessing before the recitation of the Shema. – the understanding of which is that they are our actual lives. And this is also the intention of their statement, may their memory be blessed, “The wicked are called dead even during their lives” (Berakhot 18b). As it is for one man in a thousand that the whole world was created, as company for this [one man]. And everything was created for the righteous. As Rambam writes, “Were it not for the group of crazies that travel in wildernesses, etc. [the world would not be settled for the righteous].”¹³Introduction to the Commentary on the Mishnah. According to this, the evil person has no independent life – his life is only the life of the righteous one – and hence, he is called dead.