Rabbi Yirmiyahu Ullman - Orchot Tzaddikim: Fear of Heaven - Part 8

the second paragraph on the page the first full paragraph which is the second paragraph on the page starting with the word okay what is the book the book is a a discourse on jewish ethics i think that's probably why it was billed as jewish living and there are attributes called midot in hebrew which are discussed usually in pairs of positive and negative uh one chapter after the next although this very last chapter of the of the book is dedicated to giraffe chamaim the fear of god the awe of god being aware of god on a regular basis in our lives in the most grandiose and also most mundane ways and most most recently in the book he's been talking about the jewish teachings on the soul three levels of the soul although there are five but he discusses three neshama ruach and nephesh going the opposite way nephesh is that part of the soul which is generally associated with our physiological bodily functions ruach is associated more with the plane of emotion and the shum with that of intellect there are different ways of explaining this in more detail this author does it a bit differently than most of the other works that i've seen and from what i understand from what we read it basically presents the position that the nephesh and the ruach are let's say lower or are like not only lower but lowly levels of soul which lead one to indulgence in either physicality or in negative type of attributes the nephesh being the former and the ruach being the latter and if a person puts too much emphasis on the physical and the emotional plane of his existence then he's going to be indulging the nephesh in the ruach and that's going to take him and also his neshama to a bad place spiritually speaking as opposed to the two levels of saul for summer is that of intellect and that was given to us by god to mass to to achieve mastery over ourselves and over the entire world and he elaborates on proofs for all of that but after setting up the stage in that way it makes the obvious conclusion which is therefore that we should be spending our energies and dedicating our talents to developing the neshama the intellect and that will bring the nephesh and the ruach to god as opposed to focusing on the nephesh and the ruach which would bring the neshama down into the indulgences of this world whether it be physical or emotional things having to do with pride and arrogance and would be associated with uh with the ruach but but after you know but after all that he went into a very long elaboration about uh the beauty and the quality and the character and the intelligence and the all-inclusiveness and the the scintillating brilliance of the neshama and when a person considers how wonderful the wonderfully great and grandiose the neshama is it gives a person a feeling much more of responsibility to right to harness and to utilize and to develop that aspect of ourselves that's more or less where we left off yeah so um bringing them continuing then on raised in bet the paragraph starting with the word now that's what ata means now listen to very wondrous wisdom kamosha elokim el yoin um just as god who was on high rules over mankind and over all of creation below and above below terrestrial above celestial or below might be physical to the widest expanses of the universe and above would be the metaphysical spiritual realm just as god rules over all of that ken odom called s so too is true regarding mankind as long as he it she is doing the will of god and in this way maybe he'll elaborate on this further but in this way he's clearly intending to say that this is one of the ways and perhaps the main way in which we were created in the image of god how were human beings created in the image of god god has no physical form god has no appearance and we are physical with an appearance in what way we're creating the image of god soul okay the soul involves free will independence yeah very good he's suggesting here's something which includes both of that and might be transcended as well as well which is that um just as god is the ruler over everything so too our being having created in the image of god gives us the ability to rule over everything not to be maglymaniacs because it was a point that he made previous in this chapter that an intelligent enlightened person when he comes to this realization would not become arrogant and haughty over it placing himself above god but he would actually subjugate himself subordinate himself humble himself before god who imparted within him this ability and and that's really you know that that's really at the pinnacle of this point because we can use all of these god-given talents of ours to assume the divine and place man at the head of creation pushing god out of the picture that's what human intelligence can do it's intended to do that free will who said free will i think i said free will yeah i think you said independence yeah human intelligence gives people the potential to assert their independence from god and that's rooted already back to adam and eve god said don't and they said no we will do and they did right but the true response when we recognize this power is not to become like i said megalomaniacs as a result of it but to humble ourselves before he or it who imparted within us this power and in the hebrew right that god created mankind is familiar with the kind of custom to rather than pronounce god's name elohim we say elokim you know to avoid saying god's name unnecessarily even the context of learning when it's permitted it's still the cost of the practice but god created mankind but selamat the the name that's used there for god is elohim not yud kevke yud and then the letter hey in the letter of in hey but rather the name of god elohim so the fact that this is the name that's used also indicates to us the way in which we were created in the image of god specifically in the image of elohim and what is it about elohim that's particular to that name of god elohim is expressing god's power that's what l means l means a power that's why a god is called an el it's like a power that people at least you know scribe power to a certain thing and god is called the power of powers therefore the plural elokim he's the god of gods he's the god over any force that you could possibly imagine he's the force of over all forces he's the force that rules over everything where does that all come from the creator yud ke vav k the name of god the fourth letter name you'd know is god's name of creation and jewish mysticism talks about how that's symbolized in the name yud and hey invad maybe i should elaborate on that for in a minute but the name yud and hey and vavin hey is describing god's attribute of creator why do i say that because no name can describe god's essence it's beyond our comprehension it's absolutely infinite beyond any quantification and even calling it the creator which is the point you made a few days ago in another class right just calling god the creator seems to quantify yeah so god's essence is above yud kevke it's unquantifiable it's absolutely infinite with no way of our being to comprehend it but god as creator is something that we can relate to that's yud kevavkay that's a name which describes an attribute but not the essence of god and then the name elokim which is below that describes god's ruling over the creation so let's say the one is the creator and the other is the sovereign yud kevke is describing god as creator and elohim is referring to as describing god as sovereign having sovereign control over his creation so it was that mankind was created in the image of elohim just as elohim describes god's ability to rule over the creation that power was given by god to men to rule over creation as well and is that way that we're created in the image of god how do we rule over creation we obviously rule over creation and the ability and the author elaborate on it earlier and the ability that we have to literally do whatever we want with creation on the most microscopic level to the greatest macroscopic level human intelligence gives us control over everything yeah verbally we have a tremendous power of speech you and i spoke about that after class a little bit yesterday yeah you know clearly i can manipulate the physical world that way but telling this paper to move is not really going to help move yeah move not really maybe people have telepathic powers and they could do something it's a term for that what is it called thank you telekinesis yeah but most people can't do that but i can use my power of speech which is more subtle and therefore not coarse enough to do this but i can use the power of speech to move you right i can ask you to get up and leave or i can ask you to make room for another person yeah so i'm using my power of speech to influence the physical world and and good eloquent speakers can move their audiences with their words right that's much more moving than doing this even though the power of speech is is quite much more subtle and in a way it's not powerful enough to do this but it's but but it's subtlety is its power in a way it can move people in ways which is much greater than doing this right the same thing applies with one's thought thoughts processes are much more subtle than physical actions and from verbal communication but just like that subtlety doesn't prevent us from understanding that words are more powerful than physical deeds the same thing applies by extrapolation to thoughts and you can manipulate things in the physical world and even in the non-physical world through thoughts thinking positively thinking negatively thinking about things thinking about a person can actually have an effect right and we've all probably had at least one time in our lives where we've perhaps you know thought about somebody really hard and then they call you know because they hear you calling them that's the point we kind of elaborated on the other day yeah so and basically i don't want to go into too much detail because it's being recorded by our cameraman but we elaborated the other day so therefore in these ways yeah in these ways god gave us sovereignty over creation physical and metaphysical as well things that we do the things that we say and even things that we think have an impact on the physical world and on the spiritual world like god we are god-like in this way and that's why since we are god-like it is people do have the liberty to choose to view themselves as gods act like gods rather than acting with humility they use this power for of arrogant rebellion against god but this is the way in which you created bethel and king i don't think i will elaborate right now um on the way in which the name of god you'd corresponds to god's power of creation let's leave that maybe some other time but going back to our text here um kind of about a quarter way through the paragraph killer moshe regarding moses god said to moses regarding the making of the golden calf mimeni vashmi them stop pleading on their behalf moshe leave me alone let me destroy them what does he want to say from this he doesn't say maybe he'll get to it later but maybe the point is you see that ultimately moshe wouldn't let him go he wouldn't let him he wouldn't let him do it so in this respect moshe had control not only over creation but over god himself god prevented motion excuse me moshe prevented god from destroying the people through his power of speech no god you will not do that we find avraham also went into negotiations with god in order to save saddam yeah if they're 50 40 30 20 10. is it controllers is it influence well if he influences to total that's to a certain extent that's control he's exerting some control over god of course it doesn't mean that moshe has control over god but insert asserting influence is also a degree of control i accept your qualification it's more accurate i mean i was exaggerating and you're very careful with words so i i accept your point yeah but um we find that um jewish teaching states therefore makayam attack decrees and god does whatever you say moshe i'll do it in other words the implication is yeah that right you know that the people have you know righteous people who are connected enough to god can actually force god's hand by saying yes this person will be healed and god says okay healed sadie goes there goes regarding the whole story with korach when he competed with moshe and aaron for the leadership of the jewish people ultimately the earth opened up and swallowed he and his cohorts call us show the hymn alpive all of this was done according to the mouth of moshe yes moshe said you can back out of this right we can just forget about the fight make peace and act like it never happened but if you keep pushing this rebellion yes you're going to force you know you're going to before you're going to force me to bring god into the fight and if that happens moshe says may the earth open up and swallow these rebellers and that's what happened i think that's the point is that moshe controlled the world his verbally was able to came the feeds of away and elijah the prophet uh may his memory be remembered for good he swore took an oath that there no reign nor should there be any do except by his word and this is referring to the fact that there was a very wicked king who was prosecuting the jewish people persecuting the jewish people trying to uproot them from the torah he murdered and massacred this jewish king he murdered massacred all of the different prophets and elijah in order to bring this king down humble him before god decreed that there should be no rain a famine and and and that's what happened so another example of where you see that people are created with this selen elokim this ability to control creation for horiz and another thing he did elia was to bring down the fire what is that referring to there's also uh wicked king are you familiar with the story at mount carmel it's still a liar elijah elijah yes yeah it's about this altar uh he has this uh and it's wet and then the fire makes it beautiful yeah yeah beautiful that there was a um uh the the king with his idolatrous jewish priests um challenged him uh to a contest and uh he wanted to make a sanctification of god's name and try and convince the jews who are being led astray into idolatry after the king and these idolaters priests to to extirpate them from that and bring them back to the observant camp and this took place at uh on mount carmel which is the beautiful high mountain range over in haifa area overlooking the sea and they were on the top of the mountain there and elijah basically said to these i believe there were 400 prophets of the baal he said to them we'll make a contest here we'll all each camp will offer up a sacrifice to their god me to my god and you to have deal to your gods and whoever sacrifice is devoured by a flame that comes out of heaven that will be a sign that his god is the true god so they agreed and elias said y'all go first so he let them build a pyre and they put an animal sacrifice on top of the pyre and they started crying out to their gods for fire and of course nothing happened so elijah kind of mocked them and he said you know it's quite early in the morning maybe i shouldn't have asked you to go first your gods are probably still sleeping shout a bit louder wake them up so they shouted and they shouted and of course there was no answer and the guards started to get a little desperate and they started they took out knives and needles and they pierced themselves and uh drew blood in order to um stir up divine favor you know i don't know whether elijah said this or not but he should have you know if you if if letting your blood will we'll bring about more divine favor so please be more religious about it but they were gashing and cutting and and nothing happened so past midday elijah said listen uh i think it's about uh my turn so they had to pass the baton over him and give him this the the front stage so he had a pyre built and then he told people to uh come and dig a moat around the pyre and built the motor on the pirate then he told them to bring barrels of water i think he had asked for 12 large barrels of water to pour over the wood fire and the wood became so wet that it was drenched and the moat that had been done around was full of water and then he cried out to god in a short phrase and fire came out of heaven seared the offering burnt it caught all the fire on wood which was full of water burned all of that wood and then the flames lapped up the last drops of water which were being evaporated from the moat right the whole thing was done and at that point uh earlier the prophet had said to the jewish people who were there washing witnessing this whole you know this whole contest he said how long will you keep straddling the fence literally that phrase straddling the fence comes from the verse yeah until when will you be straddling the fence if you want to go towards idolatry so go full force but if you're going to go to god so you have to go entirely with your god and leave these gods behind when they saw that elijah in just a few words caused fire to come out of heaven and burn up all the sacrifice and last very drop of water so all the jewish people fell on their faces and they said hashem who elokim hashem who eloquem and we say this at the end of yom kippur if you're familiar with them keeper service the end of yom kippur we also say that seven times hashem and then we say declare the oneness of god. and this is because yom kippur is about asking atonement for the fact that we have been straddling the fence all year long and that's what we do all year long we straddle the fence maybe we dive in maybe we don't always maybe when we do dive in we think about other things so we're constantly straddling the fence yeah keep shabbos not keep shabbos davin not tab and keep kosher maybe yeah maybe no sometimes yes sometimes no yeah but yom kippur is a time when we're supposed to after elu and rosh hashanah get ourselves properly connected so by the end of yom kippur after fasting and devoting ourselves entirely to god we finally purify ourselves of all of these doubts which cause us to to drift away and distance ourselves from god throughout the year we gain the type of clarity that was attained there by the eyes of the jewish people by elijah navi at the top of the heart carmel media proclaim hashem who hello we say yud kevke hashem he is the creator of all he is the one who rules over everything and not the god of thunder and not the god of snow and not the god of this or the god of that those are all forces they're not gods they're forces under the tutelage of under the power under the sovereignty of god hashem yud kevke he is the force over seeing ruling sovereignty over all other forces and once we realize that then we can properly declare god's unity he is our sovereign he is one it's all the absolute infinity of god so all of this was kind of came about through the word of just of the word of elio he's giving different examples here of precedence examples of how we were actually given command and rule control over the world for haragnaw oh yes he he brought down fire and then it says here he killed the prophets of the ball i didn't remember that that was happened i don't think that happened with the fire but they were put to death i suppose don't remember exactly and elia also brought a dead person back to life he brings a ver he brings the source here i'm not sure which one that's referring to elio bringing a person back to life i don't seem to remember offhand what that was referring to the gaza elisha liyo he elio also did other things he commanded that his disciple elisha should get a twice degree of his spirit to get imagine that twice to give his spirit it's also a very touching story cloud elia was the master prophet at the time and he was walking along the way and there was a farm an agricultural farm worker his name was alicia who was a very earthy kind of a guy the verses talk about his ruling over a plow led by 12 oxen or maybe 12 pairs of ox and an ox is like a ton you know and uh that means he had like you know 12 at least 12 tons of oxen maybe you know 12 pairs of oxen which would be 24 underneath his steering wheel you know imagine that you had a huge platform with iron rudders that were pulled forward by the oxen and he's got like 12 strands of reins of these oxen like this can you imagine that and he's navigating this apparatus through a huge field and then plowing it 12. so we'll make it very wide i was riding on top of this thing imagine how much power he's got underneath his thing and then he turns the whole thing around it goes the other way you know 12 huge furrows at a time yeah ox power yeah exactly this is serious it was serious so you got to be a pretty strong guy to be able to do that type of a work okay so elia the prophet goes walking by the country road and elisha sees him and he like sees this ball of fire he sees this this this prophet that's just illuminating with light he lets go of the reigns he jumps off the plow and from that moment on he dedicates himself entirely to god and to elia the prophet and he becomes his disciple imagine what happened well the oxen start becoming intertangled and the whole rope's a thing and the plow probably breaks apart and the whole thing is just left like that just left work he left the plow he left he just let it all go he just let it all go yeah and and and he and he cleaved himself to alicia the prophet and uh you're talking about an earthly guy who just had this complete change he you know he did he just did chewa like that boom and he became quite a holy a holy disciple of alicia of eliao and and uh this event is talking about how towards the end of eliao's lifetime eliao told alicia that he's going away and he doesn't want alicia to follow he doesn't want him to come but the student wouldn't listen he he followed he followed his rabbi he followed he followed the prophet nonetheless and um as they were going along there were certain in those times academies of prophecy they were called um bineha naveem the sons of the prophets they were students in in in in in in prophecy yeshivas yeah they didn't learn gomorrah that they already learned they knew it all by heart they graduated to the phd level of of prophecy yeshivas and they learned prophecy and so a group of these binay and naveem found elisha going after eliao and they said to him you know your rabbi is going he's going to die today this is his last day on earth and the matter had been kept from halisha he didn't see that and he didn't want to listen to them but they kept going and another group and then a third group or so came and kept saying to him this is your masters alicia's eliao's last day on earth they came to the jordan river and elias said to alicia that's it you're staying here and i'm going on if i remember correctly alicia did not let him do that and what happened was eliao tapped his turban on the jordan river waters which split and they went to the other side and at that point elisha realized that elia was taking his last earthly journey and he said master please confer upon me some blessing what do you want and he asked i want to have a degree of prophecy which is twice as much as that of you kind of an audacious thing for a student to ask but he asked he said i want i want i want twice as much prophecy as you had so he said to him if you are able to gaze upon me as i depart then you then then your request will be granted and what happened at that point was that a fiery chariot led by horse fiery horses made of fire materialized out of space comes swirling down pulls up right by eliao eliao a lights onto if that's the right word he gets into this chariot and the flames envelop him and he's taken into the spiritual realm eliado and they are navi and he never died in human death he just passed on yeah passed into the other realm he he he spiritualized um but uh as he was being enveloped by the flames of this chariot into heaven um his turban came fluttering down through the air and and fell at alicia's feet and he took up the turbine he enveloped himself with with the turbine and from that point on he became a master prophet even greater than his master elio and he had been given twice as much prophecy can you imagine like living in that reality it's amazing but this again this happened because of the words of yes the gaza al-alisha he decreed upon elisha that he should actually be able to receive the osp twice that of the spirit of his own spirit the hen called the qadoshim shahib and the same thing applies to all of the holy men on earth they had rule and sovereignty on high and also below according to the will of god because they did god's will that's his point here we were given the ability to rule over all of these things when we do the will of god therefore remember he started off this paragraph by saying now i want to tell you a very very important piece of wisdom and he concludes with this by saying therefore be very careful to uphold to keep all of his torah teachings and all of his statutes and all of his commandments in order that you should merit having the very wonderful degree of goodness that is hidden there it's waiting for us if we will just connect to us to hashem property with harmony and with serenity a very powerful moving uh moving statement i think we'll have to stop here because um if you know it's a minute too early it's not it doesn't make sense to rush through such important material too quickly so we'll keep it for tomorrow all right very good questions comments um i could how could moshe like speak back to god some some kid in my other previous class asked which was unanswered i mean we do find that that that certainly was the case regarding avraham when god said to avraham offer your son as a sacrifice he did it without question and he did it with speed the alacrity and with the wholeheartedness so you see that uh uh he certainly wasn't lacking you know degree of obedience to god one answer could be that it's one thing when it's for yourself and it's another thing when it's for the benefit of the other people for other people so as far as avraham or moshe is concerned whatever god decreed on them it would affect them in a personal way they were willing with complete obedience to accept that without asking any questions whatsoever but when it came time to defend other people where where it was a matter of life or death for others then they they interceded they certainly interceded on this people's behalf and they said it's one thing if it's for me if it's upon me i'm willing to wholeheartedly accept the judgment upon myself but god these are your children these are your beloved these are the ones whom you've promised all these great promises is that what you're going to do to your people and therefore they're interested in they interceded on god's behalf yeah that's one possible answer um and um that's uh that's true with avraham regarding now regarding moshe the same thing would apply to moshe as well i suppose same to apply to moshe as well um question is always about free will right um we were talking about influence or control that motioned and had but let's say you would have said theoretically you would have not said anything no more say yeah what would have happened then right like was it not like it wasn't like almost like unavoidable that this should have happened because god choose moshe for a reason so yeah that's interesting when we talk about moses interceding on the jewish people's behalf after the golden calf i don't remember the exact wording of the verse but the wording is something like i'm going to destroy them and don't try and dissuade me right and and that was like god's cue or moshe's cue in other words right the the the the jewish sources say that god was like you know i'm going to destroy them and nothing you say is going to help yeah so he's inviting moshe you know to speak up on the jewish people's behalf and he got the cue and therefore he went for it right that's another way of answering your question yeah that uh that god indicated uh our sources suggest that god indicated to moshe that god himself wanted moshe to intercede on their behalf yeah yeah i'm going to destroy them and don't try to persuade me you know one time when um is called upon to go to go redeem the jews why why does moshe say who am i to go out of humility and um you know he the the more actually discusses whether that humility was proper or improper there are two opinions according to one opinion it was proper and according to the other um it was not and uh that's why uh you know when moshe um asks god harrenius show me please show me your your countenance and hashem says low iranian a person can't see me and live says that when god you know god was saying to moses when i wanted when i wanted to show you my face you wouldn't look now that you want to see me i'm not going to show you and uh there's a there's a veiled criticism in there that moshe was uh it was improper for moshe not to it was improper for moshe to act overly humble in that case god appeared to moses and he wanted him to speak to him he wanted him to look at him and he wanted him to communicate and he wanted to do it god said and moses was acting overly humble by the by by refraining from all that and uh later on when moshe asked to receive this type of revelation god's response was when i wanted it you didn't want it now it's too late which needs some explanation because what god is you know saying this out of spite um but you know in a nutshell the point is this is that you know moshe became as great as he was but there's something very pure and something very holy about a person the beginning of a the beginnings of a person's spiritual path and even if later on he becomes very knowledgeable and very spiritual by differently the fact that he's well known many people consult him he's involved in many different types of things and giving people advice in many different ways that can all have effect on on that person's spirituality and in a certain way like a baal chuva at the very beginning of his path or a person who's converting to judaism at the very beginning of his path has a very very high degree of holiness a very very high degree of spirituality and god shows himself to people at that point in ways which they won't be able to expect to see later and therefore when you know in this spiritual game of hide and seek when god goes like peek-a-boo at the very beginning it's worth looking at because you're not guaranteed to see it later god's helping you he's giving you a piece of candy like a child he says here take this just take your first step but once the kid starts walking you never see a parent say oh wow you walk to school today here take a piece of candy he's 12 years old of course he should be running to school right but when he's a kid the parent takes out the candy right take your first step so you got to take that candy now when god's offering it to us because you can't rely on getting it later yeah all right you