The zedim mocked me. They made fun of me a lot, but I never went away from the study of Torah. There’s a song: “The zedim tried to make fun of me; they mocked me, they belittled me, and I never deviated from the Torah.” That means a zedim is a letz, a zedim is a scoffer or a mocker, and a zedim is someone who belittles.
Probably, if you were to ask people who are growing and changing in Torah, the number one enemy they have—the number one fear they have—is not the people who don’t study Torah or don’t grow in Torah. The number one fear they have is the people who make comments about people who are growing in Torah. Take any family in this community that is growing and changing—and there are thousands at this point—and that has made moves where maybe you could tell outwardly that they were growing and changing. They’ll have stories of aunts, of uncles; they’re supposedly friends of this. They have a crew of friends that made a comment, or they were afraid that they would make a comment. And that comment is so weakening and so frightening that it literally makes someone who wants to grow and wants to change so scared.
So you want to know what is the opposite of... It’s the letz. The opposite of the people who are involved in growing in Torah is the person who knocks them. It’s the person who puts them down. It’s the person who makes those comments.