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Czar Nicholas On Fire
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Czar Nicholas was walking in his garden once and found a soldier guarding nothing
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This Torah class is brought to [music]
you by tora anytime.com.
>> A Torah Anytime original series.
Years ago in the old Russian Empire, Zar
Nicholas II was once walking [music]
through his palace gardens, acres and
acres of beauty, and suddenly he notices
something strange. A single guard is
standing at attention in the middle of
nowhere. There's no gate there. There's
no door there. There's no treasure, just
dirt. So the zar stops and asks him,
"What exactly are you guarding?" [music]
And the guard answers, "Honestly, I
honestly have no idea. My captain told
me to stand here." So the zar calls over
the captain, and the [music] captain
says, "Listen, there are written
regulations. A guard must stand on this
exact spot at all times. It's always
been done." So now the zar is bothered.
[music] He orders the archives searched.
And they dig up the archives, and they
find the instructions for the guards in
the garden. And eventually the truth
comes out. A 100 years earlier,
Catherine the [music] Great planted a
rare rose bush right there. And it was
so valuable that she ordered a guard to
protect it so nothing would damage it.
But the rose bush died. Yet the dirt
remained and the guard stayed for a
hundred years. Men stood there
faithfully guarding nothing. And here's
the fire. Judaism is not about guarding
dirt. Judaism [music] is about guarding
life. Tradition is powerful when you
know what you're protecting and why. But
when mitzvah turn into habits, when
[music] learning turns into routine,
when shabas becomes muscle memory
instead of meaning, then you're not
guarding roses anymore. You're guarding
empty ground. And the tragedy isn't that
people don't do mitzvah. The tragedy is
that they do them not knowing what those
mitzvah are protecting.
Tyra isn't [music] a fence around
nothing. It's a shield around your soul.
It's protecting your marriage, your
family, [music] its discipline,
identity, eternity. So here's the
uncomfortable question that you should
ask yourself [music] from time to time.
Are you guarding tyra or are you
guarding habits? Are you keeping Judaism
alive or just keeping busy? Do you learn
in davin as a sigoula to be successful
in your work or do you work so you can
be successful in your learning and
davining? If you're guarding Tyra
because your parents did, that's not
enough. [music] If you're learning
because that's what we do, that won't
last. But if you know the rose you're
protecting, you'll stand there proudly
even when no one's watching. That's what
we call yiddishkite on fire.
You've just experienced another Torah
class brought to you by to anytime.com.