Czar Nicholas On Fire

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.