Day #6–Rambam DAILY Sefer HaMitzvos

all right Barack Hashem we are on day number six of our daily study of the Rama Muse uh as explained we're not going straight through safer Mitzvahs because the way that we do it is we study the Mitzvahs in severe Mitzvahs which correspond to the subject matter being studied in the daily study of three chapters a day of Mission to Torah now in the three chapters today of mission Torah we are currently still in the laws are the foundations of Torah and uh specifically in chapters four five and six so corresponding two chapters four five and six of hilcus we have three Mitzvahs in favor mits us to study today the first of which is positive commandment number three you should love the Lord your God now the classic question cited by the rambam is the question of the sifri how can one be commanded to have an emotion you can't just will yourself to experience an emotion of the heart and the answer of this is free cited by the Rama is that the Commandment actually is not to have the emotion the Commandment is to engage in a process that you can Will yourself to engage in that will result in the emotion okay very well what is that process that you can Will yourself to engage in that will result in love that process is meditation and this is this is what the sifri says if you're if you're perplexed by the Commandment you should love the Lord your God so just read the next verse after that these words I command you today you should have on your heart what does it mean to have words on your heart have words on your heart means to focus your mind and to contemplate these ideas and that will bring you to love so the Commandment is actually the Commandment to meditate on matters that will bring you to feel love of Hashem also another aspect of this Mitzvah which drama mentions is that if one loves Hashem one has to tell others about the greatness of Hashem like of Rama Vino the first champion of monotheism he didn't just keep a good thing to himself he went out and he told the world so that's very important as well that we go out and we tell others about Hashem so that's the Mitzvah of loving Hashem positive commandment number three positive commandment number four well it sort of goes hand in hand with the previous mitts of loving Hashem it's the corresponding emotion fearing Hashem fearing Hashem and just like the ramam said about loving Hashem the Mitzvah isn't the emotion the Mitzvahs to engage in the thought process of meditation which results in the emotion so too with fearing Hashem same exact thing to think about matters that will bring you to fear of Hashem now what's interesting is in the Safara mitzvah's really focuses on when he says you should think about matters that will bring you to fear of Hashem it's he basically says you should think about the punishments the punishments for God forbid transgressing God's will um that's actually a low level of fear called there are loftier levels of fear where it's not about fear of anything bad happening to me it's more about the awe that one feels when one contemplates the Grandeur of of God and feels overwhelmed um for that you have to look in the mishna Torah but you'll you don't have to look any further than today's three chapter study of mishna Torah so if you look in chapter four of mishna Toda uh 12. he says over there he's summing up the first four chapters of mishna Torah are what the ramu says is called mice gracious and Maison mercava uh my sir my cover my sebaceous what are these ideas these are basically the natural and the supernatural Order of Things uh these are deep philosophical and Theological ideas uh as well as the the physics and the metaphysics of of God's creation so he says at the end of sort of wrapping up that whole discussion uh as mentioned chapter four 12 that if you'll contemplate on these matters that we've just taught you he says when someone will think about these matters meaning the content of the first four chapters of mishnu tairas it will bring you to all vashem so over there he's not talking about fear of punishment he's talking about an awe that one feels as a result of contemplating how great Hashem is and as a consequence feeling insignificant and overwhelmed uh but not in a sense of fearing negative consequences more just the sense of uh being in awe of hashem's grandeur so it's always good to look in the mishna Toyota and just my conjecture here but uh mishna Twitter was written to be accessible to everyone not just Scholars and really I do encourage everybody to level up and attempt to study the mishna Toyota however having said that safer amitsus is probably even more accessible and indeed um was written in Hebrew and so everyone was written in Arabic to be accessible to people who don't know uh Hebrew so it might be sort of accordingly that the level of awe of Hashem that the ram describes in severe Mitzvahs is the most rudimentary the most basic um level the lowest level whereas in mishno Toyota he gets into higher levels of avisham just a thought Okay the third Mitzvah we have today is positive commandment number nine and that is Hashem now we use the term colloquially to mean um making a good impression that makes people like Jews and Judaism and Torah and Hashem which is a a valid uh way of using the term but the proper definition of the Mitzvah the biblical commandment of kirish Hashem of sanctifying God's name means that if God forbid a Jew is threatened and I say a Jew specifically because a non-jew is not commanded to do this is not commanded to give up his or her life in order to refuse to worship idolatry the non-jew should save his or her own life and and live rather than to um and rather than to uh they should save their life and not reject the idolatry but a Jew is commanded that if he is told or she is told to worship an idol uh or we will kill you the the Jews should give up his or her life um also interesting if you look in today's mishna Torah as I said we're in hell as you say Dad Toyota four five and six so in chapter five of helices uh specifically three he makes it clear that the requirement to give up one's life doesn't only have to be in a case where the threat was worship idols or we will kill you if if there is a situation where there is a a systematic attack upon Judaism what we call a time of gizero a time of organized decrees on behalf of the government or on um orchestrated by the government to bring Jewish people away from Judaism so in such a case like that which unfortunately existed throughout history then a Jew would be obligated to give up his or her life for any Mitzvah not just to resist worshiping idols and unfortunately we have many many cases throughout history where Jews did have to give up their lives um certainly it is more pleasant and uh it is more inspiring I think at least personally uh to live for Hashem than to die for Hashem living for Hashem is something you can do every day for the rest of your life dying for Hashem as a one-off you can only do it once and uh this brings us back to the first Mitzvah today which is if you love Hashem go tell the world about Hashem we can even do that with Messier Snapfish we can make a kidish Hashem by going around and even if it makes us uncomfortable we can put our ego on the side and we could tell the world about the greatness of God okay we'll see you tomorrow