Rabbi Says The UNTHINKABLE about Hell

how much should we be focusing on our fear of God versus our love of God this is a Hot Topic in the world of and in the world of Jewish ashfa at large there's a lot of discussion about loving God about fearing God or revering God what love and what fear actually mean when it comes to Tashua when it comes to repairing our relationship with God there are advantages to returning because you love or returning because of fear or because of reverence and it's true in any relationship there's pros and cons to love and fear like the Zoar says they two Wings you need both of them right in order for a bird to fly you need both Wings you got to flap of both of them in a recent she R spoke based on the about the importance of fear and specifically when he says fear not reverence but actual fear like I'm scared fear of punishment I'm afraid of hell I'm afraid of it's going to of what's going to happen me if I don't return to God it got me thinking what is the approach ofis on this I want to show you the clip and then I'll go through some sources Inus just to compare and contrast take a listen somebody told me the other day they want me to help them overcome a horrible horrible sin that they've been doing for almost their whole life but they want to know if I could help them overcome it without teaching them about G or punishment maybe there's a nice way to do it without Fe fear of punishment you will never be able to have remorse which is a necessary part of chuva this led me down a rabbit hole in the world ofus and you might be surprised to see what I have found let's start with a common source that many people know which is chapter four of Tanya and chapter four of Tanya the AL quotes the Zar the Zar says that the love of God is what motivates the positive Mitzvah that's what motivates somebody to do the 248 positive Commandments year which we often translate as fear of God y motivates somebody to refrain from sinning refraining from violating one of the 365 Commandments and the alternative says that there's two types of fear number one I'm going to read it and I'll translate you're afraid to rebel against God which I understand as respect like God is right here I'm not going to go against him or violate him in front of him right that's that's how the alter deis defines what real Y is if God was right here how could I have sinned how could I possibly sin if I believe that God is present like Rak the G told his students they asked for on when he was on his deathbed and he said that you should Hala you should have the uh the reverence your reverence for God should be like your reverence for people and they're like what yeah people are real to you God should be just as real the AL says then says there's a year of pus M there's actually a deeper level of reverence the deeper level level of reverence is I'm ashamed from how great God is it's a much deeper level of reverence because when I appreciate how great and how real and how awesome awesome in the lital sense of the word is awesome how awesome God is there's no way I could do anything wrong like who am I to do the wrong thing who am I to follow my own agenda that is antithetical to what God wants those are the two definition of fear the AL interprets this me what he does not mention is from what is the perspective the approach to not sin because I'm afraid of what might happen to me from the perspective of the ideals of being motivated by self-interest is not considered to be a good thing is not considered to be a holy thing because one of the biggest Paradigm shifts in and you see this in chapter one T and this is the whole theme of Tanya and many other is that we're not serving for things for reward or for punishment not that reward and Punishment aren't God forbid true they're one of the 13 principles of our faith but that is not the motivation the motivation is more intrinsic and if that's the case if the only thing holding me from sinning against God is what he might do to me what does that say about our relationship right if the only thing holding a couple from respecting one another the only thing that keeps him to that motivates him to respect one another is hey if you don't respect me I might leave that's not a very healthy marriage however fearing from punishment is a reality inra theab writes in he points out that you have many like Inu and others that says fear God this might happen to you if you don't shape up I'm paraphrasing but you got to shape up and you have even in the T that if you follow hashem's rules this is what will happen to you good will happen to you if you don't follow hashem's rules this is what will happen to you good and bad reward and Punishment extrinsic motivation is a reality in where does that fall in the framework of so theab writes in this mimer that it is considered it is considered to be self-interest because it's about the self and although that is not ideal he says this self-interest of a fear of punishment it's not completely bad I mean there is an element of it that is bad because if if what's motivating you is your own self it's about you it's not about God right not sinting because I might be punished isn't has nothing to do with God it has to do with me so that's considered to be a bad thing that's considered to be but he says it's not it's not totally bad the Torah tells us not to do certain things because of punishments it can't be evil it's not completely bad it's from Kipas there's different types of kipa kipa is this spiritual negative energy that hies God it's the reason why we see things very superficially and by default we don't see the divin things we don't see the why the purpose the meaning the soul we see the body the externalities that's kipa and generally cipa is to be rejected negative traits are to be rejected but there is a lighter form of kipa which we call Kipas NOA which has the ability to elevate to be elevated you can extract the good out of it so something that's not intrinsically holy but it's not intrinsically negative either the good can be extracted from it that's called it's that's what he says it's half good half bad there is bad to it because it's self centered and there's good to it as well and it has its place and here's what he says when it comes to Sur when it comes to not doing the wrong thing it's a very good thing like bottom line it's if it's getting somebody to stop sinting and that's what it takes that's a very good thing that's a holy thing sometimes a person will have to awaken upon themselves fear of punishment if that's what it takes because when a person sees prevailing to do something wrong at that point a person has to awake upon themselves fear of punishment even though it's it's the good part of certainly better than doing sin certainly better than nothing I read recently in a from where he talks about the power of and I think one of the biggest in the T about how we seea is that you're returning from the past but you're not just leaving the past behind and moving forward but in the most ideal of situations your T is so great that you've actually transformed the past you can actually change what happened in the past because when you have from from love this is what thear says that when you have from love so your negative sins become merits because they're part of your journey and that Journey has led you to a positive place so ultimately in retrospect it becomes a good thing not that one should have gotten in that situation God forbid then the RAB says though in this this is from page 55 par of AA where he talks about certain level of tsha from level of tsha from love where tshua restores a person to who they used to be that's what the main part of tsha is changing the past requires it being TOA from love but should simply just restore to who you are that has to be TBA even if it's from fear and the proof is there's the famous R the end of peric Bas where the ram says you have the Prototype who has an obligation Hally to give a get to his wife and he's holding it back the is you're supposed to you got uh you got to take care of him you have to course him to give the get until he says I want it okay I want to do it I want to do it if a person gives a get unwillingly it's not valid so you have to force him to want it and the says well what do you mean you're it's not it's not genuine he doesn't actually want it he's been coarsed the ram says when he says deep down inside he really means it when he says I really okay I want to do it even though he's coarsed deep down inside there is a part of that really means it because he's a Jew and he wants to be part of the Jewish Community he wants to be part of the Jewish people and then gets activated but what we see from there is that Tashua from Fear actually does activate some level of the Nish does have a certain genuine reality and depth to it and then the re quotes from explanations on even if it's which is not just fear as we understand usually as like respect like Del is describing in Tanya but even the more uh if I may the more superficial level of fear which is fear of what might happen to you fear of punishment the true depth of that fear is toua from the Nish even though what seems to be motivating somebody to do Chua is they seem to be afraid of hell they seem to be afraid of what might happen to them they seem to be afraid of the consequences deep down inside there is something genuine to it that's a big over here because theab was saying that T from fear is good if it's not ideal but at least it gets you to stop sinning and that itself is good the Reb is saying even deeper that even that level of tsha from Fear deep down inside is a reflection of the Soul it happens to be manifesting in a less alteristic way although the soul itself is totally altruistic but deep down inside it is the soul however however here's the reason why toua from Fear isn't sufficient if your goal is to stay out of hell if your goal is not to get punished or your goal is just to be on better terms with Goda from Fear might be sufficient however doesn't affect the past even though it is a reflection of your soul it's not an open reflection of your soul and because it's not an open obvious reflection of your soul it's not going to change the past it's not going to elevate the past because [Music] to the person psychologically speaking they've returned because of the punishment that was the motivation spiritually speaking they've returned because they're Jew and they want to do the right thing but the psychological motivation was the punishment and in order to really connect with your soul with your in the most true and purest form it has to be true not just spiritually on a faith level it has to be true psychologically as well when you can align those two the only way to align those two is through love and when you have that level of love you actually Elevate the past so if you're focus is I don't want to get in trouble in this relationship I don't want to end up on the couch right so fear might be sufficient but if your motivation is to have a real impact in your relationship a real impact in your connection that changes the past and goes forward and has a real impact in this world not just in terms of your own personal accountability or Comfort uh toua from Love is the way to go having said that when somebody does do something that seems to be extrinsically motivated it doesn't seem to be most altruistic we have to look at them with a better pair of eyes and and and realize no deep down inside they're doing toua from the right thing even though they don't psychologically align that way deep down inside that's what the Nama wants okay that's my story and I'm sticking to it