Episode 14 BEYOND THE 7 (Fear G-d) with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] oh good day folks welcome everybody back to another episode of beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston who is teaching us so much and lately we've been in the sixth constant mitch vote and it's such a joy that he's taken the time and stays up late in jerusalem to share these classes i hear he's got a real exciting one for us tonight so let's just dive right in see how the rabbi's doing rabbi poston it's so good to be with you sir i'm looking forward to hearing what you've got to share tonight you're alive you've got the microphone sir thank you dan thank you thank you all for joining us too and those who are watching us afterwards the recorded version tonight we're going to talk about the fifth of the six constant mitzvahs which is having the fear of hashem now this is probably one of the most misunderstood mixes right because how do you define fear you would imagine that and most i guess young people children as we all once were have a very quality mature but let's say not yet developed uh understanding of fear of hashem so we're going to have to i guess we'll redefine it and not that we're recreating anything we're just redefining within our brain so that we can understand it better i'm going to begin as i usually do now to find it well i have a lot of papers here um oh i think i misplaced it we were using uh rabbit daniel katz here it is translation of the mitzvah just for those who have just joined us now and have not seen the first i guess i guess the first previous four versions or uh episodes one of the first mitzvahs that are brought down in the book of jewish law the code of law is to place hashem before me always shemitah negdytami so i i propose to you suggest you to go back and watch the other ones the previous episodes to get a better understanding but understanding that king david wrote this and anything in the tanakh any part of the noc part and the prophets and the writings has to be something that was already spoken or taught to the jewish people when they were in the desert at the revelation and so to place hashem before me always we described already knowing god is number one right not having any other gods is number two sounds like the ten commandments but anyway they are but not not necessarily the third one is to unify god know that god is one the fourth okay the first three are intellectual concepts then the following three so we said love was number four and now fear is number five actually four and five are complementary uh to each other it's not like only love or only fear and i i i'm saying this specifically because there are other religions out there that have a um i don't know they have a monopoly they want to they seem to promote that there's only a loving god and it's a big mistake because we're going to find out tonight that this fear factor again i'm using the word fear doesn't really mean fear but to use the word aw but in the meantime we'll use the word fear the fear factor is what enhances the low we spoke a little bit about this in terms of a relationship but let's just say for example you're driving a car so you want the car to go so that you put your foot on the gas okay so that makes things go right there's a a forward motion and we're going to use that synonymously with the concept of love right doing things positive but you also have another um i'll call it a pedal right you have another pedal obviously maybe you might have more than one pedal if you have a uh a manual gear shift i think they call that the clutch but okay we're only talking right now about the gas and the other pedal let's say it's in the middle or just the left of the gas called the brakes now when you're driving i imagine because i i've driven i'm constantly aware of my brake pedal you have to be because i guess you don't have to be but if you want to live and you want to be what we call defensive drive driver which is considered safe driving i'm going to say any normal person i think has in his mind even though he's not touching the brake even though he's not actively doing anything with the break he knows this is one of the most important things if not maybe even more important than the gas pedal so we are going to now talk about this thing called fear okay again we're gonna have to define it but as just as necessary or if not even more necessary than the gas pedal okay so with that little bit in mind let's use um this translation that daniel katz used to um translate the the khofitzheim the mishna brewer who discusses this very first mitzvah of placing hashem before me always he's the one who um brought it up anyway in the uh i guess we called the last century but it was written before that in the say foreign and many others so this is the translation to experience awe fear and reverence of the divine constantly because this is the idea about these six consequences that you can fulfill them every waking moment of the day not only could you you're encouraged to and to the point that the the the sephora says that the reward is so great you have so many opportunities during the day to fulfill these misses and if you fail to do that the ownish the punishment is very great as well okay so to experience all fear and reverence of the divine constantly to protect oneself from sin and spiritually destructive acts that's why it's important this is the meaning of being of hashem if you want to if you want to read for us deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20 for us dan be in all of the deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20. you shall fear the lord your god him you shall serve and to him you shall cleave and by his name you shall swear okay so i'm assuming that everyone who's watching this believes in the bible so when god tells us hashem god right god your lord you shall fear otto ta'avod you're supposed to serve him and to him you shall cleave and in his name you shall swear so these are what god requires this is what god wants of us he even tells us many times to fear him this is not a um a little thing this is a huge matter so we must define what this is we have to make it real okay it's something that is absolutely real i'm still reading okay therefore if the possibility of falling into sin and transgression transgressing some spiritual truth let me just go back sorry therefore if the possibility of falling into sin and transgressing some spiritual truth presents itself one is obligated in that moment to awaken their higher consciousness and draw down to their heart the sense that hashem is aware of all our actions this is where we're going to make it real okay because if you're if you're we're all spiritual beings but if you're spiritually conscious right you want to be able to what to actually keep yourself from sinning right hit the brakes yeah hit the brakes there you go and you want to be aware in your heart the sense that hashem is aware of all our all of our actions when we spoke about knowing how like know that there's a god that's like a general concept no there's a god but when we spoke about how to know there's a god so we said the way to know is to study or look in nature okay and let's go on hashem is aware of all our actions even those concealed from the eyes of others and he will repay us negative consequences in accordance with the negativity we generate with our actions so this is something we have to admit we have to you know one of the 13 general we call them the uh the principles of jewish faith right is to know there's a reward and punishment so this is something you know one would have to meditate on and to learn about this is the meaning of the verse now in jeremiah chapter 23 verse 24. you want to read it yes sir 23 verse 24 says can any hide himself in it in secret places that i shall not see him says the lord do not i fill heaven and earth saith the lord this principle if you're consciously aware that even if you're in the most hidden rooms you're you're in a room inside of another room and nobody can see you that hashem can still see you that he is so great right in the first minutes of knowing who hashem is and but really all of them when you come to this conclusion if a man will be hidden in the innermost of rooms hashem asks in a rhetorical way vanilla you think i can't see you so this would if we're living with this reality we're not looking around our shoulders to see who's looking at us because we already know that ultimately the great judge the great king is is not just seeing because he doesn't have eyes he he knows even what we're thinking before we think it but everything is everything is real to him so that's the first idea here uh amazing keep in mind that we said that according to rabbi mikhail gutmaker the first three parallel to the second three so knowing there's a god right and that is parallel to loving god great but you shall have no other gods which we discussed a few weeks back this is going to be parallel to having awe again putting on the brakes i think you can see the parallel okay we discussed this idea what does it mean to have no other gods that there is only one god it's true but that we put ourselves many times into god's place and this is a big no-no right this is i will call it idol worship right people think underwear is just bowing down to a i don't know some kind of statue or a picture or some entity a deity we make ourselves a deity and so keeping that in mind we have to be honest with ourselves this is going to be crucial and i want to bring up uh in the 12-step program by the way let me bring it out one of the ideas is brought out that people who fail to recover from any type of addiction are usually this is how it's written in the their big book their bible basically are those who are incapable of being honest with themselves so if we want to be able to put the breaks and we have to write on to and not sin we ourselves have to be brutally honest with ourselves so let me just mention what some of these steps are just to get an idea how you have to be brutally honest in order to recover from any type of addiction but i'm going to use the word addiction loosely because i mean to say egypt right you want to leave egypt this is a tight constricted place it's addiction of any sort and we are habitually addicted to many things or i should say we have many bad habits and they destroy not only our lives but other people's lives as well so from steps four through nine i'll include ten and you'll understand why so those who are not familiar with the steps i'm skipping the first three which are actually crucial but in terms of being able to you have to take a moral inventory of yourself and we'll see why shortly so number four is made of searching and fearless that means honest right i know honesty could be very uh very painful yeah uh a moral inventory of yourself number five you admitted to god to others to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs number six we were entirely ready to have god remove all these defects of character these by the way these steps the reason i bring that in and i mentioned rabbi twersky uh wrote a book about recovery and um and and and chuva that the 12 steps do work and they work because they're biblical principles they work because it's from these concepts are all from the bible in fact before the big book was written the people who were in this recovery program i think it's called alcoholics anonymous were all bible carrying and bubble bible thumpers thumpers thumpers um no so so number seven we said you we sorry six you were entirely ready to have god remove them why would you want them removed so you ask god you're willing to have god did we do that number seven is actually asking him because in judaism we say that we need hashem's help he did create the hates of hara but he also created the antidote okay and without god's help you don't stand the chance number eight you make a list of all persons you had harmed and you became willing to make amends to them number nine you make direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others the reason i mentioned 10 is important because it's a continuation you're continuing to take a personal inventory and whenever you're wrong you promptly admit it now why is why am i bringing this up i'll tell you i want to go back to the general principle because we don't know what fear really is we need to define it so everyone is familiar with the concept of yerushalayim the name yerushalayim what does it mean right everyone talks about it it's so holy it's so central to not just judaism but to the world in deuteronomy chapter 14 verse 33 it speaks about coming up to show lion we basically bring what we call the second tithes and it's like um timeshare so i know for those yeah you said 14 deuteronomy 14 deuteronomy 14 verse 23. if you want to read it i thought you said 33 and there wasn't one yeah forgive me you want me to read it no please oh and thou shalt eat before the lord thy god in the place which he shall choose to cause his name to dwell there the tithe of the corn of the wine and of the oil and the firstlings of the herd of the flock that thou mayest learn to fear the lord thy god always so what we're doing is we are taking tides from the agricultural products and we're bringing them or we're transferring them onto money in order to use a new shelian um out of the six year cycle because it's really seven year cycle but one of them i'll say doesn't count we're talking about the shmita year there's no tithing uh on the shemitah year so out of those six years four of those years we're going to come up to shalayam where we're going to use the the money to come up to shalim or the food and eat it there we become like priests in other words normally tides are given over to the priests but we become the priests in other words actually the torah itself says that the jewish nation are the priests we are a kingdom of priests so we get to experience that several times every seven years um but most importantly it is that you may learn to fear the lord your god so fearing here is somehow related to responsibility right because that's what the priesthood is they're serving hashem there's something to do with with service to hashem um the temple itself is in you shalom right that's where the temple should end up being and so even though the name of the city that god will choose is yushalayim the the mikdash itself there's a special mitzvah to have ye ra so if you want to go to uh vaikra that's leviticus chapter 19 verse 30. 19 30 says you shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary i am the lord okay so reverence my sanctuary let me just look up the hebrew real quick and 1930. i got both of them parallel i just don't read it very well rabbi it's no no no problem they shall fear so this idea of fearing obviously it's not to be afraid it's some kind of awe and reverence so we're getting an idea a better idea and so basically what we're talking about like yerusha lyon if you think about the word it's a perfect chalen perfect or complete awe when we're able to have you schleim as part of our and i'm saying this specific because of the three weeks that we're in uh commemorating the the the breaking of the walls of you of you shalom the city itself on the 17th of tamus and the destruction of the temple on the ninth of of which is just a few days away so the so even the name yerushalayim is really a complete awe and where is this place it's a place called mount moriah mount moriah i had a certain verse i wanted to use now i'm not sure i can find it so easily i might have to just go to this book here i'm taking notes rabbi yeah good good good good um yeah i know it's in second chronicles and i wrote i thought i wrote it down yeah second chronicles chapter 3 verse 1 then solomon began to build the house of the lord at jerusalem in mount moriah where the lord appeared unto david his father for which provision has been had been made in the place of david in the threshold so why is this mountain where the temple is going to be built or where it is built where it was built and will be built soon in our days with uncle sham called mount moriah moriah so there's a gamora in tinus 16a and regarding a dispute between would be levi barcama and rebbi the gomorrah mentions another dispute between them so previously there was a dispute and it goes on what is the meaning of the name maria mount moriah which we call the temple mount so we know there's an argument between revlavi berkham and hanina in regard to this we don't know who said what one said the name alludes to the great sanhedrin that was convenient convened there what does the sanhedrin do they do what we call ho ra ah literally means to give instruction right right they set borders that's what fear i mean again we're using that because we don't know what it means yet it's the what happens in that mariah which the root of sphere it's also the same root as instruction because instruction should leave you with borders clear set borders like i said before it's cons it's synonymous with responsibility which is what the sanhedrin that's where they sat that's where they met and that's where they dished out instructions it's called it's also the same word for torah light the other one said it is the mountain from which fear went out to the nations of the world as this place signifies god choice god's choice of the jewish people so you we all know you were shallam i mean i don't know exactly what happened during the crusades but you had basically the jews were not part of it we were just being uh what's the word we were the um the victims on both sides yeah right not just bystanders we were being attacked by both sides basically they were the christians and the muslims were fighting over yerushalayim and uh really it's we all know that this is the place that god chose for the jewish people to be there and this is where the torah it comes from and the word torah is instruction and it's also the same word as mariah is fear so this is where fear should go out to the nations of the world so we're getting a little bit of a better idea it doesn't mean fear as in let me go to i have a website here it's open it's um it's just wikipedia i just simply put in what's fear of god according to christianity uh because i thought that um you know there are people watching this who have a past and it would unfortunately whatever they have in their past uh when it comes to these words fear of god would probably have a very negative connotation and not a truthful connotation in terms of judaism so as soon as i open it up it mentions that in the new testament the fear described in in the new testament is using a greek greek word that greek word is phobos which he has the wikipedia has in parentheses fear or horror so this is why i think part of the reason that we hear the word fear we think of you know this and this is i'm going to have to tell you i'm going to tell you straight out it's wrong okay when we get through this lesson you're going to realize it's the furthest thing i don't know furthest thing but it's clearly 180 degrees 180 degrees different than the word fear and horror okay so i don't know dan if you had experience and if you can oh yeah right here 32 years as a christian educator author and uh you know film producer and all i can say is the phobos is you know that's a word that we in english derive phobia from and you know in christianity what they try to do is they try to actually slot the phobia into its they in their eyes the proper folder and they blame the devil for everything and so they start to see the devil in this person that person this person that person because it's truly a phobia it's part of phobos and their version of fear it's it's incorrect they they interpret fear of the lord meaning i have to fear that something's going to remove me from the lord and in my mind that misses the mark that hashem is sovereign is he not always near and never far off he is able to lead and guide and then they end up putting their trust in a mis mistaken position okay so even though you said it's totally mistaken some of what some of what you said is is partially true because we are concerned that there are obstacles that will remove or um cause a mania some type of a prevention in our relationship with hashem so understanding that there is good and there is bad tobin raw god says you have in front of you good and evil choose good so toe the something which is building blocks they do build and bring you forward like we said about the gas pedal but ra we call it that we have to we have to be real we have to know that whatever is considered raw which will translate as evil is something which is destructive and it can be destructive in our relationship i think but the problem i think what the christians believe and i i don't know that much about so but basically all you have to do is believe that's the problem so if you go back to the original story in genesis with cain and abel so in chapter four this was um obviously before the murder but it was after the the corban after the cain and abel brought uh offerings um it's chapter four in genesis let's say three we're going to read more than that but um we're going to read six and seven but uh let me let me read it okay after a period of time cain brought an offering to hashem of through the ground as for abel he also brought from the first things of his flock and from their choices hashem we know hashem we know turned to abel and his offering but to cain and his offering he did not turn this annoyed cain exceedingly and his countenance fell what did hashem say to cain this is going to be so important these verses six and seven why are you annoyed and why has your countenance fallen this what god then says to cain should be an eye-opener for every believing person on the planet i lost my place here we are surely if you improve yourself you will be forgiven i thought all you had to do was believe there's work there's work and this is what we mean by fear to if you all you had was love and love alone so that's perhaps where the christians get bogged down there's they have this fear but they don't know it's not a it's not a very mature um worked out understanding so they many of the christians that i have met oh god loves he forgives what you do is believe right i mean it's like you don't really have to do any work per se but what does god say to cain if you improve yourself you will be forgiven but if you do not improve yourself sin rests at the door its desire is towards you yet you can conquer it this is the reason i brought in those 12 steps four through eight nine yeah go ahead um yeah this is just such a key point just in case anybody's out there on the bubble and um this this verse that you're talking about you know if you do well or if sin crouches at the door if you do not right uh is so key um that christians get it so wrong they actually have a verse that um uh they talk about uh satan is like a a ravenous lion you know waiting to get you and um in their new testament and they it's a direct misunderstanding of exactly what this verse does in fact read in genesis chapter 4 7. they literally take that phobos you're talking about and they misapply it as though the devil is waiting for them like a ravenous lion seeking whom he may devour when in reality if they believe the devil they're actually removing hashem off the throne in their own minds they take the sovereignty of hashem and they say oh the devil's you know roaming about like a ravenous lion seeking whom he can devour and if you don't pay attention he's going to get you when in reality this is where it originates from genesis 4 7 okay and rabbi poston you're sharing it 100 proper it's just profound thank you so i just want to just recap what we said about you shalom it's about respect we talked about the temple we're talking about respect which we spoke about the sanhedrin is sitting there and they give horaha that setting boundaries and obviously respect setting you know um putting on the break so to speak i mentioned the idea you have to be honest with yourself and basically being honest means being in reality and being humbled knowing and if we could just go back to something we began to read last week but i kind of skipped over it because the rambam in chapter two of us you say so the atara mentions the mitzvah to love and to fear and i wanted to skip over the fear part but i'm going to just read it again because it's important to understand how small we are right that's part of the reality right that we're not god right number two remember mitzvah number two and fear of god are intertwined so i'll go back to what i read and i'll just focus now on the fear part it's a mitzvah to love and fear this glorious and awesome god as we read in deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 you shall love the lord your god but it also says in deuteronomy 6 13 fear god your lord we said what is the path in order to attain both both love and fear when a person contemplates his wondrous and great deeds we're talking about hashems and the creations and he appreciates god's infinite wisdom that surpasses all comparison he will immediately love praise and glorify yearning with tremendous dire desire to know god's great name as david had said we quote this verse in psalms 3 my soul thirst for the lord for the living god but this also now when he says when he continues to reflect on these same matters he will immediately recoil in awe and fear well i think the word respect where being humbled is a better definition as opposed to what was the other word for fear afraid right afraid is not i think it's more phobos right so basically we're going to say let me just read on sorry appreciating how he is a tiny lowly and dark creature standing with his flimsy limited wisdom before he capital he who is of perfect knowledge as david says when he looks at the wonders of creation in psalms chapter 8 verses 4 and 5 when i see your your heavens the work of your fingers i wonder what is man that you should recall him okay so there's another thing i'm gonna hold off on that okay um there's a verse i'll skip that okay just keep in mind so we know that it's not afraid you know people pay lots of money to go on roller coasters or to do all kinds of extreme extreme sports they call them or just watch a movie like jaws or to go to haunted houses right you pay money to go on a roller coaster and you even pay money to have your picture taken screaming your your head out right and so what happens when you scream i mean look a few minutes later when you get off the roller coaster whatever it is you're you're back to normal but you realize how how treasured life is because you're like living on the edge for however few minutes you were so one of the ideas i mentioned that this enhances the love because you hopefully will come out with an idea that life is really worth living and it's worth enhancing the pleasure in other words you're going to be thrilled with life you will be biz hashem even with the fear it's not fear i should say it's respect and awe let's still continue to read to redefine to help us define what exactly is this fear so the first time god called somebody god-fearing man he calls abraham in genesis chapter 22 verse 12. if you want to read it genesis 22 12 and he said lay not thy hand upon the lad neither do you anything unto him for no i am for for now i know that thou art a god-fearing man seeing thou hast not withheld thy son thy only son from me now i want to make a contrast between abraham and noah right noah was righteous narration he wasn't a bad guy but he did not become the father of the jewish nation what did noah fail to do seemingly so in rashi on genesis 7 7. genesis 7 seven and noah went in and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him into the ark because of the waters of the flood okay so we have to look at rashi there for a second but what happened the the flood i mean like the the man was told by god to build this ark and he was hammering away 120 years 120 years how can rashi says there he was a man of little faith how did he have little faith if you were working for 120 years i mean i don't know how he survived obviously hashem supported him he must have had some faith but what was it he i'm going to say seemingly christian he did not come to the full realization of this of the repercussions of this flood he didn't believe it would happen he he lacked some reality that it was going to happen god said i'm going to do it you know abraham and even moses they negotiated with god to save the world or at least let's say abraham wanted to save you know sodom and gomorrah and he negotiated from 50 people down to 10. but you know um he negotiated maybe that's the one of the traits of a jew right to negotiate to be a good negotiator with god in order to save the world moses god said i'm going to destroy the jewish people and start over with you and he says no no and he gives the whole argument why he's willing to even put his own life at risk right what did noah fail to do it doesn't seem that he came forward because maybe he didn't believe that it was going to happen maybe if he really was cognizant of the fact that it really was going to happen maybe he would have stepped forward i don't know but rashi there says that he was of little faith because he didn't believe was going to happen until it was upon him yeah he didn't go in until the rain began um avraham mentions when he's by king avi melech and uh and when he tells his uh why when he tells his wife say you're my sister chapter genesis chapter 20 verse 11 when avi mel says why did you why did you just tell me she was your wife basically so he responds and says if you want to read it for us he says because i thought surely the fear of god is not in this place and they will slay me for my wife's sake what does it mean how did avraham know or how did he think why did he think there was no fear of god in this place so one of the ideas and unfortunately today there is i'm not sure the word um i wish i remembered the word but it's basically it's not absolute morality it's the opposite it's when there's um people just decide let's say for example in nazi germany they said murder was forbidden but they redefined what murder is are moral maybe that's the immoral but um perhaps perhaps that's the word but i'm looking i was looking for something else but it's okay um relative morality i think that's what it is but uh you like even like even today i mean i don't want to go to i don't want to get too um controversial but let's say we all know the bible says homosexuality is forbidden right the act is forbidden so when society will say that a man can marry another man that's we call that's going too far we know that people will sin okay god created us nobody's perfect people have different tendencies we're not condoning it we're not saying it's okay but what we're saying is something is much worse right what someone does in their own bedroom okay we're not whatever that means that's you know that's their choice it's wrong we can say it's wrong but that's the extent of it but when you go out in public where you make a law that we're all beholden to to recognize this as a but it's the fact that they we talked about this before about the word pride when you're when false pride or haughtiness this is something that is just so wrong to make it so public or accepted in in public so i would call that relative morality i mean they say they're moral right they stand for what they you know equal rights or whatever they want to be mark but they redefine the terms so to hear what was avraham afraid that once you're once you have this moral relativism i think that's the word as you say amoral then anything can go you know you could say you could say it's okay not to murder but to kill me under some other banner you know under some other reason okay so when we're talking about the sanhedrin on the temple mount the usha lion they're talking about we're talking about borders so this is so important keep in mind this is one of the six 13 minutes to have yirah on the temple mount so not only do we have a mitzvah to fear hashem but there's an extra fear we go on the temple now i just want to help use that to define our word so we're now making sure we understand it means respect or okay and beautiful stuff rabbi you know i found i found i've been doing broadcast now with rabbis for a couple of years steady and all i can say is you know i i have a have a natural inclination to try to print pr try to be friendly but i realize even with a rabbi i'm not jewish you know i'm a banana and these folks are kind enough to share torah and i need to say to myself hey always treat them with that degree of honor and respect that they are you know ordained rabbis for this purpose and let the fear of heaven or fear of hashem you know be involved and uh you know i'm thankful that you take the time to clarify and i love your definitions here are that you're sharing about uh jerusalem mount moriah and and that all tied in how it's all serious and connected sure okay so in this safer that i'm using here on the six constant misses it speaks about living with a heshbon means an accounting how can you expect to be successful let's say you're a businessman and you had a store and you have an inventory right i mean how do you even know if you're making a profit so obviously you know you have to know your spending you have to know what you're selling and you have to know what sells and what doesn't sell right so this is uh one of the most important uh things in um when you're setting out on a journey even you have a map you want to know how far you've traveled whether you have no dominar dom meter you know how many miles you've traveled not every road has you know the mile markers you have to know where you are you want to get somewhere you have to know where you are so this giraffe hashem this all of hashem it requires you to make a bone and we call this a nephesh a calculation of the soul so every night before we go to bed we have to say who did i harm did i speak well did i you know when i when i spoke to that person i saw his reaction wasn't uh so positive maybe it was me that said so you have to review your your life you have to know uh your your um what's the word your strengths your weaknesses um so he speaks a lot about this idea we we just in general we spoke about the gas that's the love but you have to know when to put on the brakes you have to be constantly aware wow so he speaks a lot about this idea of taking hatchimal and nephesh it's um rabbi i can just imagine those that don't put on the brakes when they need to go on getting a lot of a lot of hot water getting a lot of accidents getting a lot of drama uh it just causes so many issues that should not happen if you just know what the brakes are for and how they operate and i love the analogy and how you're bringing this alive okay i'm so glad you just said that because one of the things you have to know is how they operate you cannot slam the brakes on too fast you know you can get mightily hurt behind you there's a lot of things that can happen so he stresses not to be not to go overboard on the hezbollah you have to learn how to take the nephesh correctly because the yetzer hara wants to paralyze you and this is what we spoke about we talked about christianity they'll just do away with the kashmir and efforts because they know it's going to be paralyzing because they build they believe or they feel that they are born in sin or whatever it's just so overwhelming so one has to learn how to regulate the brakes to regulate the fejabo and henefish i just wanted to mention that as well beautiful okay i wanted to uh quote something from the messily sharim in chapter 9 which is dealing with those things that detract from service of god okay so he says like this another one of the factors that detracts from zerisu's is alacrity is excessive anxiety and great fear i hope that people will understand we're going to define when it says to fear god is to fear only god okay as opposed to other things that we actually fear so when it says the myth is to fear god just like this mitzvahs not to have any other god remember these are connected it means only to fear god and not all these other things that we normally fear because that's also extremely paralyzing so what happens when you have um one of the things that detracts from service of god is excessive anxiety great fear for the changing periods of time whatever they may bring i mean especially now in corona just think about what i'm saying for if one does not free himself from these weaknesses then sometimes he will be afraid of the heat of the cold sometimes of the threat of accidents sometimes the possibility of illnesses maybe even the wind this is not a phobia i don't know what is and so forth and every other factor like these and such fears will deter him from moving with alacrity to seize the opportunity to form a mitzvah meaning to do hashem's will this is what king solomon said in in proverbs 26 13 a lazy person says there is a young lion on the path a lion among the streets he's afraid to uh to do anything here i'll read this um commentary as commentators explain a lazy person naturally rationalizes his inaction and immobility on visualizing or all sorts of imagined impedance the ram khal 2 later in this chapter understands the verse to mean that laziness generates unfound anxiety here however he cites the verse to prove the opposite point excessive anxiety and fear are a cause not a result of inactivity and laziness one can only conclude that both points are true the laziness breeds fear of the unknown and fear breeds further laziness this vicious cycle of indolence and emotional paralysis can be broken by recognizing that the fear is baseless and it's actually generated by the subconscious desire for inactivity wait till you hear we're going to read from the zohar but let me just continue just another short paragraph and then we'll go back into the discussion likewise the sages of blessed memory have already degen denigrated this trace of excessive fear in other words excessive fear is paralyzing and it's not good and it's attributed to sinners having fear outside of god we're going to see soon is actually a savior how it is yeah it's a cowardice to sinners isaiah chapter 33 verse 14 it says sinners were afraid in zion trembling seized hypocrites the fear within zion is considered a sin to the extent that one of the great talmudic sages told his disciple which i'm going to read now the gemara and gamora brachle 60a when he saw that he was fearful he said he lacked faith in god he actually said you are a sinner just to finish this last thing rather concerning this it says in psalms 37 3 trust in hashem and do good dwell in the land and nourish yourself with faith which means trust that hashem will protect you and provide for you and then you will not be afraid to do good by cultivating one's trust in hashem a person banishes the fears that prevent him from performing his commandments so we're clearly not saying fear of hashem is paralyzing fear of hashem is knowing how to use the breaks and having having respect wow beautiful way to put it rabbi this is the gemara in broncos 60a i have some really interesting notes so bear with us learned in the mishnah that if someone is walking along the way and he heard a scream so it's forbidden to say i pray to hashem that it's not my house or it's not my family right you're coming into town over the uh the inter inter um what do you call those highways the the um interchange and you see and you interchange and you see like smoke coming from a house in your neighborhood you don't dive in you don't pray to hashem this i pray that it shouldn't be my house because it either is or it isn't it's called a philosoph a useless prayer it's like using god's name in vain you can't pray for something that already happened in either israelis and you could pray that the rescuers get there quickly unhindered that uh the people who are affected should be uh saved or have a complete recovery that you can pray for but to pray that it's not your family there's nobody you know that's ridiculous so here's the story the sages thought there was an incident revol involving hillel the elder who was coming on the road we when he heard a scream in the city he said now this is very interesting he didn't say i pray that it's not my family he said i am certain that the scream is not coming from my house and regarding him the verse in psalms 112 verse 7. if you want to read it for us 112 verse 7 says he shall not be afraid of evil tidings his heart is steadfast trusting in the lord okay so the hebrew me from evil tidings that he heard rumors something negative happened low yirah he should not fear nacho nibo but if his how do they translate it nachon means proper but here it means uh his heart is steadfast means like it's it's built on a steady stone foundation a good foundation so in other words his heart is established so then he is trusting in hashem that's what the verse means beautiful so we're going to discuss this a righteous person will not be afraid of evil tidings so rather says any way you can interpret this he basically says you can interpret backwards and forwards okay we're not going to go into that but basically the murderer then tells us about a student who is walking after rabbi ishmael who's the son of rabbi yossi in the marketplace in zion rebecca saw the student was afraid you know what he said to him he said you're a sinner now was he sinning because he was afraid or because he was afraid the rabbi recognized he's really a sinner we're gonna we're gonna deal with the commentaries on both both aspects this is a very deep concept so you know what the student says back to him now in other words the rabbi just said you're a sinner and he quotes this verse in isaiah 33 14 the transgressors in zion are afraid okay and he says back to him a proverbs 28 14. happy is the man who fears always now you have a contradiction so the rabbi is calling him a sinner and he's right the verse says it yet the student is also right how can how can they both be right maybe we don't understand what fear is actually the word fear doesn't even appear in either one it's translated sphere but it's another word for fear but that's not the word the torah uses in in the mitzvah of having fear of hashem but anyway so it says happy is the man that always fears surabushma responds and says this verse in proverbs when it says it's happy as a man that always fears is referring to regard to matters of torah meaning service to hashem are you doing a mitzvah correctly you should you should check it out right anything to do with shamai many to do with my relationship with god i should have this caught respect one should and really another idea is that he shouldn't forget his torah learning anything you learn you should be afraid so you might lose it so you have to do review go out and teach it do something to cause yourself to remember it but basically this is the bottom line for everyone else one must trust in god you have to trust in god and okay i'll leave it at that for the moment there's some really crazy ideas here so at first glance we wouldn't have seen it but broke hashem the commentators that know the oral turtle well explained to us about hillary elezakin who um he said right i am sure that it's not coming from my house he's talking about the scream not the negative things the negative things could happen to even every righteous person has negative things happened to him he only was responding about the scream i'll just read the words hillel was not when he said he was sure it wasn't on the sorrow it wasn't on the negative things that were happening however what he was sure about was the screaming that that did not come from his house because we know that even negative things come to righteous people but what is it about righteous people they're macabre malayan at the tarot badaric the way that righteous people receive the negative things that happen to them is different than the way regular people receive it anyone who is a bow a moon who is the owner of complete faith he recognizes the good that is hidden within every bad thing that happens for example what does it mean that this is [Music] that the suffering may be the the cleansing of our sins and therefore he'll receive the assurance he'll receive those negative things with a saver pun in yathos with a happy countenance we spoke about rebbe akiva gam zulatova all these things that happened to him and he understood that this was from my best interest the ainu and he's not going to scream and yell at the time of this pain and not only that we know that hillel educated his own family in such a way that they would never scream and because of this he was sure that the screaming did not come from his house because nobody his own house would act that way um that was by the tifilatum lamosha the the the eretz the explains he says that zucchin was usually means that he forgoes bad things people speak badly to you he'll ignore it but i think it means here that he handed down his character traits to his family which goes along with what we just said we find that somebody who is a righteous person and also his servants remember we spoke about pinchas benier's donkey right that was wouldn't even eat food that wasn't tithed even his servants are going to be righteous if someone's righteous really truly righteous his servants would be also righteous and because of that he knew that all of his the people in this house and his servants everyone were righteous that's why he said i am assured that this is not coming from my house meaning the screaming because whatever pain that that would come to his own house and the people of his house would accept it with love and not with any type of screaming and another idea brought down that is that if pain comes to one person in a very sudden and shocking fashion that will it's possible the person is now in danger in other words god is so loving usually the the pain that we get hopefully would be in um gradually but if it comes too quickly it can actually be dangerous we know people can heart attacks it could be bad for the blood pressure um people won't find remedies right so quickly so basically so anybody this uh type of pain reaches somebody quickly we know this is not what we call usury me ava means the pains that god actually gives us out of his love that he wants to increase our world to come so he gives us sometimes these things that will increase our world to come and decrease our pleasure in this world but if it came so quickly you can chalk it up this was not from love but most likely to certain types of sins okay i want to go now to this amazing piece the question is if someone is completing their soul matter is their their um you have to understand what this means shalin bin nafsho he doesn't have a blemish in his soul so he has nothing to fear if someone is complete in a really tight relationship with hashem he really is not nothing to fear and you have to know this and live with this so when he turned her when this rabbi turned around to a student and said fact that you're afraid you're a sinner and he gave a verse that those in zion who are fearful are sinners so in the messiah's sasharim in chapter 9 which i just read from he goes at length to explain um what's written in this verse that if someone is afraid that it's a sin it is a sin meaning in a place where the damage is not obvious it's not known if there was a tidal wave and everyone's running uh you know inland or there's an earth people running out of a building that's the damage is known but where the damage is not known and yet someone's afraid so then she ain't lo nira ulivata zamil he should not be afraid and to negate any efforts towards serving hashem which would this paralyzes people we read that it's it paralyzes you it's only when you see evil or let's say a bad instance that a man should make preparation be careful about it and not this is very important and not from what is possible or likely to be possible to come in other words like so many steps removed and you're already preparing and you're fearful of something that may not even come to you this is something that this is very damaging so it's so far away from you and yet you're imagining things that are not even in reality like i said in the beginning to be honest to be in reality this should bring a past a real fear or and respect now the mikta eliahu quotes a zohar now this is a little bit spooky he claims like this i don't know if you know the law of attraction like if you expect to have an open um parking spot expect it and it will be there right this works in the positive i unfortunately it's also true in the negative so i don't know which president the united states claimed there's nothing to fear but fear itself i i don't know who quoted it but i i'm pretty sure that's somebody famous said it anyway any type of fear in this world eno ella de mion it's only imaginatory it's now we have to understand because we already said if it's real it's real but anyway he says anything that's fear of this world is only imaginatory now this is very spooky what i'm going to tell you that a man imagines the man imagines that there's this fear of this world there's something in this world to be afraid of but in truth the real truth is that deep down in his heart he knows his fear is because of the sin that he did because the truth is that he's afraid of the punishment in gehenom that means the the spiritual punishment he's going to receive before he experiences everlasting life is kayem standing in each person deep in his heart when the man sins his soul knows that in ownish some type of a punishment is expected and he's he's filled with pachad in other words we're talking metaphysically here when someone is experiencing pacha this fear it's most likely because he's sinned and his soul knows that there's an expected punishment because of it but what does the yetzer harad do the yetzer hara has the power to create illusions it's it's um it's creating a substitute the real truth is he's afraid of what's going to happen to him after he you know passes on uh because of the sin but the yetzerah it tricks him and it's going to paralyze him from realizing all he has to do is like pain to do chuva to improve yourself to work on yourself to work on your character that's all you need to do is focus on that but no it tran it's like a transference it transfers in place of this fear in other words in place of the true fear of what will happen in the world to come it's transferred into some illusionary fear of this world the charlemagne but if he was actually whole with his soul lopez without any blemish he wouldn't fear at all in fact nobody would do vegas gamora he would come with absolute clinging and cleaving to god that's why i said in the beginning that the fear and the love are in are complementing each other when you feel this fear know that it's coming from sin and push the gas you know get on get on get on the love train get right with god and the truth is when he clings to hashem ain't lo he has nothing to be only the proper on respect which is yirah he has no room for that pachad for that and so look in psalms chapter 1 18 verse 6 18 verse 6 the lord is for me i will not fear what can man do unto me i think that's clear correct correct okay so what i want to do is go to the end of this chapter and do like a summary and um steps practical applications you could do beautiful so in this chapter we defined years hashem as awareness that reward and punishment are not arbitrary arbitrary there are natural real consequences of mitzvos and sins there's something i i failed to mention but i like to translate it like this but basically there's an idea of seeing the consequences of your actions and you know i forgot the exact words in in the mission of perkial vote but it's basically who can see the um you know i wish i i had time to look that one up basically i i translate this someone who's mature right as you grow you mature and you're you're able to see the consequences of your actions not like when you were six or eight you know or younger or sometimes unfortunately much older and think that there's no consequences but as you grow up you realize there are consequences of your actions and hopefully a wise person a mature and wise person we will be able to see the consequences of that before he does in other words he's already learned either from himself or from others right okay so you should know that mitzvahs earn us the measure of ultimate pleasure in basking in hashem's presence which we have seen is the entire purpose of creation and the sins create blemishes on our soul that prevent us from appreciating that pleasure hashem will not allow sins to go unpunished unless we eradicate them through repentance in other words it's our responsibility because if he were to overlook them if we had a god that overlooked our sins our soul could never attain the perfection necessary for enjoying the ultimate pleasure that is the difference between us and those other religions hashem does not contradict hashem it's not a contradiction rather they're both complementary when we realize hashem loves us so much he will not allow us to suffice to the temporal empty pleasures of this world but will ensure that we receive the ultimate reward our love for him becomes even more meaningful and intense we fear only because we are aware of the consequences of acting in a way that is ruinous in our quest for perfection therefore in order to build yours hashem we must take stock of our actions through regularly scheduled that means introspective evaluation of our conduct to ascertain whether we are on the correct path to perfection since hashem's measurement of reward and punishment is extremely precise even taking into account the secondary or i guess means third tertiary motives of our actions we must learn to be honest with ourselves and be aware of our motives that are driving our behavior okay so these are the practical applications one the rambam discusses a form of uranus hashem that defines the word year as or we develop all by studying god's greatness as just as we did with love and we realize how overwhelmingly insignificant we are in comparison to him so remember number five is related to number two number two meaning two in the the six constant misses right you shall have another god number two consider the spiritual consequences of your actions as seriously as you consider their physical consequences number three identify the sources of your fear try to eradicate eradicate fear of events or circumstances that will affect you in the physical world but have no effect on your true purpose of your existence instead be fearful of the destruction that misdeeds will bring upon you for all eternity number four this is the implement implement the system of what we call hanefesh careful accounting of your deeds the following is a summary in the steps so this is what you need to do when you make a nephesh be certainly be certain that you have crystallized your world view that's what you have to start with knowing the truth of the world and your purpose that you only live for a true purpose of the world to attain slainness shlamus is is spiritual perfection yerah we want to see the rebuilding of yerushalayim and it starts here in our hearts with yira shalem do not just live with torah mitzvahs but live for them number b set specific goals towards attaining schlemmus track your progress regularly to assure you're moving in that direction at its highest level this step of nephesh will have you acting only after you consider the implications an action will have on your quest for perfection at the very least you should periodically examine your past actions to determine whether they were in line with that quest number c when you find that you have acted in a way that will interfere with your advance towards perfection examine the circumstances remember you have to be honest you have to be in reality you can't be in some kind of illusion here examine the circumstances that led you to act away that way and determine how to prevent yourself from repeating the error in the future number d question your questioning ascertain your that your introspection is leading you toward growth and not towards paralysis in other words don't don't overdo it [Music] okay five be honest with yourself examine your motives both primary and secondary that fuel your actions and number the last one is effect safeguards to prevent yourself from acting in a way that runs counter to your understanding of the purpose of this world now there is an additive effect in other words there's in the plus effect of this year years hashem and that is in ahavis hashem we learn that love of hashem means to love the god that we came to know and understand in the first three mitzvahs yira fear we learn that love cannot be shallow it must be based on the awareness that hashem will cause us he's actually the cause to help us attain perfection in one way or another and that may mean cleaning us of our sins through suffering and when we accept that we'll have a we'll be much much better positioned in the practical realm years hashem manifests itself as a constant awareness of god's omnipresence which prevents us from risking our spiritual success no matter how significant of the perceived perceived benefit okay so next week we will touch on the sixth of the sixth constant which is not to follow after your heart of your eyes and um i think we we're we we covered a lot of ground but it requires a lot of homework these last five points that you brought up these last five points that had to do with the true fear of heaven um if one does the exact opposite that would be the definition of cognitive dissonance if you just think of somebody who has cognitive dissonance in this world they literally try to hide their eyes from really what's going on and check their brain at the door and pretend things aren't the way they really are uh just do the opposite of those five points that you just finalized with and that's the way animalistic behavior functions the opposite of exactly what you were just stating those last five points i encourage everybody go back and just re-listen to how he read those if you did the exact opposite of what he's saying you should do uh for fear of heaven you you become more and more and more like an animal it's totally shutting your your blinders on your on your eyes and walking through this world as if it it's not what it really is and that's what cognitive dissonance is you get you get mind gets ideas that are in conflict and so it shuts off and just acts like an animal and keeps functioning i think what you brought out here today is so alive especially for those that are of the 70 nations of the world it might be a lot easier for those with the hebrew roots or the hebrew tradition behind them and being raised because i'm getting comments from a lot of people on on youtube in the sense that i know that it's it gets heavy on their shoulders not that it's difficult rabbi but it's a lot a lot quick and and we uh we need to decipher we need to discern what is the depth of what he's really saying and you said so much so fast in there that we're like okay do you re-watch this i actually had people say i is last week's up because i want to rewatch that again in order to understand some context of what you were sharing here it's beautiful stuff rabbi yeah okay thank you dan once again i just want to mention to the audience next week is number six but then i think we're going to take a break and until you come back also i think towards the end of august or middle end of august and then we're going to start a series this is what we're going to be doing when we come back we're going to go through i don't know i don't know if it's going to be one per week because that would take a whole year to do okay we'll see i'm try i'll try to uh new of the 48 ways to wisdom in each class but there's a lot to speak about each one so we'll see there's some you could spend three four weeks on i'm sure um it's a beautiful beautiful course but all i can say is this section on the six constant mitzmas is a very very very refreshing ray of light and i'm just glad to hear it shine out of israel china out of jerusalem i love the definition you brought out about mount moriah about jerusalem today it's just all that complete ah i really think you know the world needs to understand and and and learn more and i love this this leg this six constant miss for your sharing rabbi i want to thank you personally for it it means a lot to me and i know it means a lot to those that are listening so we're tentatively on for next saturday then hashem willing and i know you got kishba this week so you've got a long week yourself and any final words rabbi i just really want to thank you for uh initiating this whole uh opportunity for me to share and um i'm enjoying every moment of preparation and as well as giving it over i have to say even though i'm sitting in this un-air-conditioned room it's okay and i have to close my windows because i'll wake my neighbors up if i eat oh we don't want that and it's so late there and i know it's in the cool of the morning there now it's like almost one am in the morning but how's the heat been i know last week it was hot for you was it hot this weekend we had it was very hot i don't i don't even look at the um at the weather man i don't look at the temperatures i just prepare myself emotionally psychologically spiritually and enter whatever i have to enter um well you know i think you have some fear of fear fear of heaven yourself because you're shining the light of torah and it's clear and yeah beautiful lesson today so till next week rabbi let's uh let's hang it up for now and then hashem willin we're all good for next saturday so till then folks have a wonderful wonderful week [Music]