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Proverbs 5:8: "Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless..." In this episode of Mishlei Musings, Toby Janicki teaches about the importance of guarding our eyes. Sin is attractive and lures us through our eyes. Learn how the Torah and the Master Yeshua teaches us to guard our lives from sin by guarding the gate of our eyes.

One of the earliest words that I was considering for a “Words For Thought” article was philosophy.

Rather than using Merriam Webster I had searched for this word on the Online Etymology Dictionary and found this:

philosophy
from O.Fr. filosofie (12c.), from L. philosophia, from Gk. philosophia “love of knowledge, wisdom,” from philo- “loving” + sophia “knowledge, wisdom,” from sophis “wise, learned.”

Controlling our tempers is difficult. At times anger burns inside us, and it is tough to resist unleashing it on whomever is around. For some, anger is shown by withdrawal and remaining silent. For others, it is expressed by slamming of doors and banging things around. Most of us express anger in our words. Yet, as James tells us, no one can claim to be religious if he cannot control his tongue (James 1:26).

I enjoy rabbinic literature. I am happy to curl up with a tractate of the Talmud the way many people are happy to curl up with a detective novel. As I slog through the obscure and sometimes impenetrable arguments and legal wrangling of long-gone rabbis, I occasionally find a maxim or aphorism that leaps off the page--the wisdom of Torah distilled. The minds of those saintly sages were saturated with scripture, and the wisdom from above was on their lips. For example, yesterday I ran across this gem from tractate Yoma folio 23a of the Babylonian Talmud:

The Zohar, Chapter "Tazria (When a Woman Delivers)," Item 86: “Who keeps his mouth and his tongue, keeps his soul from troubles.” His soul, which used to speak, is now silent because of the evil words that she spoke. Then comes the serpent, for everything has reverted back to the beginning, as before he was rewarded with a soul. And when the evil speech rises by certain ways to being before the harsh serpent, several spirits awaken in the world, and an impure spirit descends from that side, of the serpent, and finds that that man evoked it with the evil speech.

My wonderful bride, Amy, was reading Proverbs and came across this little nugget:

He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, But he who is careless of conduct will die.  (Proverbs 19:16)

When she related that passage I immediately asked the question: Does “keep” mean “retain possession of” or does it mean “guard”?  I examined the Hebrew and found this:

Shamar mitzvah shamar nepheshu botzah derekiv yevamot (transliterated from the Hebrew).

Young’s Literal translates it this way:

The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day for February 23rd was logomachy. (loh-GAH-muh-kee)

1 : a dispute over or about words
2 : a controversy marked by verbiage

They provided this background on the word:

"The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate." - Proverbs 8:13

Pride is one of the biggest hurdles we must overcome in learning to love our neighbor as ourselves. It can also prevent us from heeding the advice of others because we think we know best. let's examine what the writer of Provers tells his child about the important character trait of humility verses its opposite: pride.

"A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother."
- Proverbs 10:1

The book of Proverbs is primarily dedicated to instructing us in the wisdom and knowledge of a Torah lifestyle. It is from the perspective of a father who is instructing his son and imploring him to walk in righteousness. But not only does the writer of Proverbs tell us what to do but He also reveals to us some of the rewards of living a Godly life. These blessings come to those who live upright in obedience to the Father.