This is a response to Pidaini's post about "curiosity" HERE:

guardyoureyes.com/forum/1-Break-Free/234302-New-Challenges-New-Opportunities-New-Lows

I always wondered if there was any source in the Torah to the old expression
"Curiosity Killed the Cat".

Now I think I have an idea:
The gemoroh in Rosh Hashana (דף ד ע"א) explains the word "שגל" in the posuk
נחמיה (ב,ו) - ויאמר לי המלך והשגל יושבת אצלו -
- [Dog] מאי שגל אמר רבה בר לימא משמיה דרב - כלבתא
Rashi there explains that the king did ZNUS with his Dog.
The Gemoroh there later says:
'חביבה תורה לישראל כשגל לעובדי כוכבים'
The Yidden love Torah Lehavdil as much as Goyim like "shegel" - [having znus with dogs].
I had a big kasha, couldn't the Gemoro [it's actualy the possuk that the gemoro is explaining there, which compares it to that] find any better comparison for the Yidden's love for Torah then the Goyim having znus with a dog??!!
Maybe we can explain it like this:
The source of the Goyim's interest in the above, comes from CURIOSITY. Curiosity to try out "deviations" of normal relations.
This is "Curiosity", constantly looking for something 'new', the 'regular' is too boring.

[I quoted in the other post -"I once attended a series of classes by a famous madrich of chasanim and sholom bayis, on the the topic of 'zivug',(bedroom) - Someone there asked about 'experimenting with different positions' -
The Madrich pointed out [with detailed explanation and sources] that "curiosity is the source of most Znus".]

It's brought in seforim that the there is a special cheishek given to am Yisroel to be 'MECHADESH' Chidushei Torah.
This may be the explanation to the comparison mentioned above. The Goyim satisfy their nature of Curiosity with Deviated Znus, and Lehavdil Yidden use the nature of Curiosity for Chidushei Torah.

So what does this have to do with "Curiosity Killed the Cat" ??
That is alluded to in "CHAD GADYA" -
ואתא כלבא ונשך לשונרא
'Kalba' is a Dog, 'Shunra' is a Cat.
The Gemoro says, אלמלא נתנה תורה היינו למדין צניעות מן החתול - Even if the Torah had not been given, we could have learned TZNIUS from Cats.
So the Cat stands for TZNIOUS - which is the Opposite of the ZNUS of the Dog.
ואתא כלבא ונשך לשונרא
The 'Preetzus' - The CURIOSITY - of the Dog, killed the Tznious of the Cat.

Thus: "CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT"

It's Gevaldig meduyak in the words of the Gemoro, that it is only - 'אלמלא נתנה תורה' because now that we have the Torah we can counteract that (dog's) negative curiosity with curiosity of Chidushei Torah.

beautiful vort.
curiosity definitely killed this cat. But GYE taught me that cats have nine lives. So I picked up and started to live again

I liked that cat that has nine lives We all need to remember that ( inspiration for the day)

thanks for the pilpul

Now a vort like that takes some serious כח החידוש!!
Shkoiach, Shivisi!

But remember, the cat is still limited to those 9 lives. So while we should definitely pick ourselves and KOMT, but we have a set amount on this world so don't assume we have so much time in this world. We just never know. But, I still love the mashal.

Over this past weekend, I came up with a fewadditions to my original vort, based on this past week's Parsha {BALAK}:

The Gemoro says that Bila’m told Balak that if he wants to destroy Am Yisroel, there was only one way to do it:
אלוקיהם של אלו שונא זימה הוא - If you want to turn Hashem against Am Yisroel, so that He will destroy them, the way to do it is through זנות.
The Medrash says that Bil’am was involved in a זנות relationship with his donkey*. [*see above, bestiality=curiosity]
Balak was the king of Moav. Moav was called so because their founding father was the result of, as is written in the Torah, the זנות of Lot’s daughter with her father, and thus she called him Moav, מאב.. So Balak was the leader of the nation founded from זנות.
Thus Both Bil’am and Balak came with their “זנות powers” and used them against Am Yisrael in order to destroy them.
Thus here too we see the idea of the - זנות /curiosity/dog - against the Tznious / שונא זימה /cat /

But we can take this even further,
We mentioned before that Am Yisrael counteracts the “curiosity” of זנות with chidushei Torah.

The Medrash on Parshas Balak that another thing that Bila’m told Balak was:
- "אומה זו אין כוחה אלא בפה- שנאמר הקול קול יעקב, אף אתה תבא אליהם בפה וקללם.
The כח ofהקול קול יעקב of Am Yisrael is the קול התורה.
So here it is clear that Balak and Bila’m were trying to fight the כח התורה, which is Am Yisrael's “curiosity” , by using the curiosity of the Goyim, זנות.
Bila’m Says: מה טובו אוהליך יעקב משכנותיך ישראל
This refers to the two strongholds which Am Yisrael have against the זנות power of the goyim,
1- שאין פתחיהן מכוונים זה כנגד זה = Tznious
2 – משכנותיך ישראל – אלו בתי כנסיות ובתי מדרשות שעוסקים בהם בתורה ותפילה

The Gemoroh says that since Bila’m did not say them with Ayin Tova, all the “brochos” of Bil’am, eventually changed to Klalos, , EXCEPT for מה טובו אוהליך יעקב משכנותיך ישראל.
With the above explanation, we understand this, because this is about what keeps us from being destroyed by the Goyim in every generation, thus is must remain forever.

Curiosity Killed the Cat - the curiosity of Pritzus trys to knock us, but with the power of Chidusahei Torah and Tznious we can stand strongly against them.

I just found another גמרא which shows this idea.
פסחים מט:
תנו רבנן לעולם ימכור אדם כל מה שיש לו וישא בת תלמיד חכם ... ולא ישא בת עמי הארץ
מפני שהן שקץ ונשותיהן שרץ
ועל בנותיהן הוא אומר (דברים כז, כא) ארור שוכב עם כל בהמה

Here again we see these two opposing counterparts - Torah, Talmid chochom
and where there's no torah = Am ha'aretz
you get-
שוכב עם בהמה

gosh you guys are getting to technical for me. I am just a simple old guy here ,the concept helps me .

ewards wrote:


I see it was a good choice to move this thread to the BM section.