משלי, פרק כ״ז, פסוק כ״ב

The process of crushing grain with a mortar and pestle is a violent one, designed to forcefully strip away the outer husks and leave the pure kernel behind. This agricultural process serves as a powerful metaphor for the immense difficulty, and often the complete futility, of trying to correct someone deeply rooted in bad habits or twisted views. The primary approach among commentators is that even severe hardship, physical punishment, or endless correction will not cure a deeply foolish person of their foolishness [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ].

For an ordinary person, suffering can act as a wake-up call, helping them shed past mistakes just as the heavy blows of a pestle remove the shell from the grain. For the fool, however, foolishness is not merely a superficial outer layer that can be peeled away. Instead, it is a fundamental part of who they are, completely mixed into their inner being. The root of their problem is not a passing desire but a deep flaw in how they think. They constantly doubt the rules of wisdom, settle for shallow thoughts, and attribute everything that happens to them to random chance rather than learning from it [רלב״ג, מלבי״ם].

Even if the fool experiences hardship alongside other people, watching the blows of life successfully strip away their sins and lead them to improve, he will remain trapped in his own doubts and learn nothing from the shared experience [מלבי״ם]. Another perspective suggests that suffering will never affect the fool as long as it occurs amidst a life of plenty. As long as he has wealth and food, he remains stubborn; only extreme poverty might finally humble him [אלשיך]. Furthermore, even when completely surrounded by troubles or lying sick in bed, he will not use the pain as an opportunity to abandon worldly nonsense and draw closer to God. Instead, his mind will remain fixated on his money and business affairs [אלשיך].

Despite this grim picture, one should not conclude that offering moral guidance is entirely pointless. The idea is not to reject the value of correction, but rather to recognize that a person can sometimes sink to such a profound depth of foolishness that no amount of warning will help. On a deeper, allegorical level, this stubborn fool represents the evil inclination itself. Because its very inner nature is to desire what is wrong, any attempt to change its core essence is ultimately doomed to fail [עמנואל הרומי].