Mishlei 17:16 - The Fool Who Attempts to Buy Chochmah Artwork

The Mishlei Podcast

My name is Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss, and this is the hub for all of my shiurim (classes) on Sefer Mishlei, a.k.a. The Book of Proverbs! Generally speaking we will follow the approach to Mishlei outlined by Saadia Gaon who views Mishlei as a guide for intelligent decision-making in everyday life with the goal of maximizing long-term pleasure and minimizing long-term pain. Each shiur will typically focus on one pasuk (verse), which we will attempt to analyze on our own before turning to the meforshim (commentators). If you have any questions feel free to email me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thanks for listening!

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The Mishlei Podcast

Mishlei 17:16 - The Fool Who Attempts to Buy Chochmah

February 02, 2026 • Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss • Season 20 • Episode 9

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Mishlei 17:16 - The Fool Who Attempts to Buy Chochmah

לָמָּה זֶּה מְחִיר בְּיַד כְּסִיל לִקְנוֹת חׇכְמָה וְלֶב אָיִן:

Length: 1 hour 53 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (2/2/26), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned a pasuk that was NOT so familiar to me. To my surprise and delight, we came up with close to a DOZEN interpretations! We barely had time to learn any of the meforshim, since there were so many original interpretations. I'm sure that if we had time to delve into more meforshim, we'd see them taking similar approaches, but shiur was running late as it is, and we had to stop. At least there's more treasure next time we return to this pasuk!
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מקורות:
משלי יז:טז
תרגום רס"ג
רי"ד
ר' יוסף קמחי
משלי א:כב
מלבי"ם - ביאור המילות
מצודת ציון/דוד
רמב"ם - משנה תורה: ספר המדע, הלכות תלמוד תורה ד:א
רש"י - משלי א:ה
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The Torah content for the month of February is sponsored by the Koffsky family in memory of Adira Rose Koffsky a”h, whose third yahrzeit is on the 11th of Shvat. Adira was a gifted writer, a deep thinker, and an exceptionally kind soul. I am grateful to have been able to call her my student.תְּהֵא נִשְׁמָתָהּ צְרוּרָה בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִּים (May her soul be bound up in the bundle of life.)

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