(Way#5) THE POWER OF AWE: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] is hey good day folks welcome back to another episode of beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston it's been such a joy he's teaching us the 48 ways and this is our part five in this series so let's just jump right in and see how the rabbi's doing i am so enjoying this class rabbi poston how are you this evening in israel oh thank god she shivohatov to all those who've already come out of shabbat and shabbat shalom whoever is still in shabbat i'm i'm a little exhausted we were talking beforehand most people who probably watch these videos don't know this is taking place at 11 30 at night in jerusalem yeah the you know shabbat is very short so maybe i'm lucky if i get a half an hour a nap in the summer it's much easier i'm a little bit more alive but i'm drinking my cup of joe so thank god for coffee oh well we appreciate you sharing the beauty of torah and the beauty of this course the 48 ways it's been great thus far and our ears are open for more thank you thank you for allowing me to share and i love your audience and i love some of the the questions and as they come in so we are on part five it's five of the 48 ways to wisdom now just for those who are not aware of what this series is about go back it's only five weeks go back to the first introductory uh video and we're talking about well jews are known for their wisdom what can i tell you it's no secret and we spent 49 days leaving with from the time we left egypt until we get to mount sinai the revelation and we are given the secrets right the the pathway to wisdom and it's through the oral torah it's you'll find this in the mishnah the mission of zoral torah chapter six uh mishnah six right so chapter 6 mission 6 there are 48 ways in order to acquire wisdom that one should adopt in their life so whether you're jewish or not i hope to uh carry this message in the name of my review who made it a i would say household name you know as i mentioned he published he had this published her students um after he passed on but this was one of his um earmarks seminars and many people are aware of it but it's not new i mentioned that we have another safer that we're using also major small which was written about 500 years ago but it's both of these ideas are you know both of these books are based on the oral tradition that we received at mount sinai okay so we're talking about ancient wisdom and it's eternal so and it applies if anybody seeks wisdom it applies to you so today is oh or in hebrew it's called emma and i want to make sure that we understand the difference between next week we're going to talk about fear fear as as opposed to all the fear of sin of committing sin of somehow hashem cannot be affected by our sin but we should feel as though somehow we're affecting him now that's not for tonight i just wanted to make sure we're clear that we're talking about awe as opposed to fear so aw is realizing something is so much greater than you and how much how important is this idea in terms of acquiring wisdom because if you think that you're a full cup that you know it all that you have very little room to add to your vessel so i doubt that you will be able to acquire much wisdom in this life but when you realize how small you are that's what we're going to talk about basically and it's going to lead into and this is not a subject that i like to talk about but i see that god presented it to me and that is that you must realize how important it is to honor your teachers okay so this is nothing that i speak to my students about um and it's a topic i really rarely ever discuss publicly because um it's not for me to ask my students or to pressure them or to influence them to give me any kind of honor therefore i really talk about it but i know for myself how important it is for me to honor my my teachers so that's where i'm going to come from so nobody should get the idea that i am trying to influence anybody to give me honor okay it's nothing god forbid so within ravnock's book remember he was a charismatic jolly deep throated i mean like he had such a powerful voice and he could tell stories and i'm nothing like him i i rarely tell any stories so i'm gonna stick to my my own personality and i'm not gonna try to copy him any in anything but i want to mention um some of the highlights of this chapter that's in his book and the highlights in the midgeshmoor so let me begin um so basically the main idea that he tries to express in his way is to talk about nature and looking at the vastness of the universe and with his powerful voice and he's really aminated he can get this message across but the main idea is to sense our own smallness in the face of such a colossal force and he discusses you know whether it's looking at the grand canyon or some kind of majestic sunset going to niagara falls and just seeing the enormous power of the water that's coming down so basically this idea of or is interestingly enough the word wow i don't know if they're related but they certainly in this context are okay so one of the things that he wants to get across to us is that we shouldn't just have this experience by accident it should be a concentrated effort to be wowed right so that takes a lot of i call meditation perhaps you know maybe even you have to go out of your way go to the swiss alps go to the top of the i i think the empire state building is still standing but let's say the world trade towers they don't stand anymore but something else is in its place perhaps going to the highest building you know going out of your way to be wowed by something so what happens like i guess emotionally or psychologically when you put yourself in a position i'm talking about not accidentally of course it can happen accidentally meaning just randomly you're in a position where you're wowed but even to go out of your way to to to to experience this so don't let it pass through your fingers in other words try to um um another word and you know when you you're laughing something and you take it uh not just control but and there's a word i'm looking for anyway it'll probably come to me and like you when you saddle something but anyway let me go on so what you're experiencing is something we call transcendental and that was one of nock's favorite words he would use that word and what does it mean to be experience the transcendental and that's really in a big sense what we're going to go into because torah itself is the name of god it's actually from the first letter of the bible right from the bet in bereshit until the last laminate of deuteronomy which is for the word israel and it's like one i don't know like you know the dna string they look into a genome i i guess that's the best way i can try to explain the name of god is like not like it is the way that the world was created and is continually recreated every nanosecond i don't know if that's a truism uh i i think you can break it down even further but it's probably a very short period of time so he's constantly uh renewing creation if we can just understand that but begin to try to understand it the main idea is to realize how small we are um and that we should be we could be in a in a constant state of wonder just like a child right when you see um a youngster i don't know how young and it could be you know a momish an infant all the way up to you know six seven eight nine ten i don't know whatever age hopefully today we still are like that child we look at things around us with absolute awe right for curiosity beyond curiosity and that we should open our eyes and try to find out what's actually the awesomeness that's right in front of our eyes um so he he suggested we have to pay attention right that we should rise among amma above the mundane right to really tap into the awesome power of life itself and the problem with not doing this is that really people get stuck into the pettiness of everything that there's nothing petty really i mean there's so many important things that that are worth putting your your concentration into your into your you know your guts and moving forward with your psyche so he mentions like this that there's an exalted human potential he talked about the jewish people being a sleeping giant can you imagine i mean i kind of get those antisemites i kind of understand when they say the world's all messed up because of the jews no i don't cuss to show them but the potential the jews have to do the right thing and bring mashiach we're not doing it we're not there yet you know and that's a problem so on a certain level i it's just a very small level uh maybe on a big level but that they're kind of right you know the world is in the state situation that's that it's in because the jews have yet to reach their potential i mean i'm taking a twist on it but that's that's really the truth so knowing that you know we the human being is we are the most powerful thing god created right i mean from god forbid the ability to touch a red button and blow up the world right through atomic bombs to cleaning up the oceans or creating energy out of out of the air i mean we really have so much potential within us and we are creating the image of god so if that gives you a little inkling what really potential there is for god as opposed to i'm just talking about the relativity between us and hashem so i want to go to a pasik a verse from king david that's how i want to start it's in psalms 8 it's verses 4 through 6. would you like me to read it rabbi yeah four through six yeah it's three verses when i see your heavens the work of your fingers the moon and the stars that you have established what is man that you should remember him and the son of man that you should be mindful of him yet you have made him slightly less than the angels and you have crowned him with glory and majesty okay so first of all if you really meditate on this i mean king david had such insight he didn't make up anything new there's nothing in the nach part in the naveem and the ketuvim in the in the prophets and the writings that is new everything there is part of what we call the oral torah the explanation of what was revealed at mount sinai who are we the human being has such potential right and even he has what his man used to remember him and yet at the end at the same time he says you made him slightly less than the angels can you imagine you crowned him with the glory of majesty but when we look at the heavens and we think about how great he is and how small we are and yet you have to understand it's not that we're so small we're so small compared to him okay but yet we have to have a balance right between ego potential and all that so with that in mind he asked us look at man's incredible incredible power with his ingenuity he can send hunks of steel to outer space put a man on the moon in both physical and spiritual realms every person has the power to change the world as well as the power to destroy god forbid don't underestimate yourself see your full potential you can work on solving humanity's problems instead of just accepting them and suffering you can destroy or create the entire world be in awe of your human powers to impact the universe likewise be aware of the awesome power within other human beings so we're going to discuss this tonight how to look at other people and especially your rebbe your your your mentors your role models and how to treat everyone with reverence and respect now i wanted to stop here for a second and talk about the second of the 12 steps of the anonymous the you know the 12-step anonymous programs so number one was after realizing how powerless you were which is in a certain sense a a preamble to what we're discussing here step number two is that you actually come to believe in a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity so i just for those who are not in in maybe they can understand it but they they haven't been involved in a 12-step program that doing the same destructive behaviors over and over and over again we call that insanity right i think it was i don't remember who it was albert einstein albert einstein i was to say to do the same thing and expect different results is insanity right is that is that the exact phrase along that line expecting a different result from doing it repetitively the same way over and over yeah so number one number one was admitting you were powerless but how did you come to the second step i believe it's because of these meetings that people have that they are sharing their experience how they what their life was like meaning unmanageable and destructive and what they went through meaning the 12 steps and then what their life is like today which would be i would need to call a miracle or um instructed that there's hope right there's by someone who is explained like it's called like a testimonial right i was uh whatever the person says i was uh a total you know delinquent or destructive behavior and i did these steps and now i am i'm gonna use the word save now i now i'm healed now i my life is normal right i'm a normal father i'm a normal husband i have a loving relationship with people around me as opposed to what it used to be so this is what would give hope to somebody right it's like a test like you're talking about like just a test the testimonial is staring you in the face so if we look at the nature we look at hashem around us this should bring us awe right i think number two in those steps if you come to believe in a power grading yourselves can restore your sanity it's realizing realizing how small you are and how great there is this external power that can actually help you know this external power believe it or not breathed into you his own will and energy so to speak that you have the tools the tools are there anyway i thought that was an important idea to bring down thank you and i just finish one of the other ideas he says because he basically says the unifying feature that triggers these experience of all is that we're coming in contact with the fingerprints of the infinite source of existence we're getting a width of god's eternal nature his power his unity is perfection and that momentarily lifts us beyond our transient transient finite world and that like if you can only tap into that if you realize that it's possible to tap into that transcendental power be all powerful and there is not just hope i mean there's life itself right so if you were as i mentioned in a 12-step program but most people are not never get to that point right but these steps these ideas that we're talking about should and could help everyone in life if creation contains all these awesome experiences just imagine how awesome the creator himself is god is not only our creator he's our sustainer and our supervisor this means he created us every instant and is constantly aware of us life itself is pulsating with his creative energy and there's never a moment that we're not in his presence he's always paying attention and communicating with us now this is a next topic i'm going to discuss much more right now is when we feel connected to god's presence we feel his unconditional love and experience a moment of transcendence transcendence that gives us greater clarity and energy so with that i want to go to a mishna in perky a vote it's chapter four it's basically it's mission of 15 in most books sometimes it'll appear in number 12. but it's ribby eliezer the son of shamu and he would say the dignity of your student should be as precious to you as your own i mean if you recognize in another human being what potential he has i mean what makes you greater because you're the teacher you're greater than your student how can that be first of all they ask the rabbis of the talmud who do you learn the most from your students your peers you know your colleagues or your own teachers i mean without thinking i would have thought okay probably from his um his teachers right that'd be the i guess the logical answer but that's not what they say they're all in uh unanimous that they learn more from their students now how and why i can i can discuss it but that is a sense of humility i think and it's also seeing the potential in your student because if you're saying that my i owe the sense of gratitude to my students you're raising them up and you're looking at a certain aspect that i guess normally people don't look at it you go to a secular university i'm not so sure i don't know if you would ask the professors this question they would come to the same results i don't know maybe it's it's a it's uh it's worth putting a quiz out there survey the mishna goes on and it says the dignity of your colleague as the all of your master so you look at your own colleagues someone who's on your own level there so to speak as if the the same or as your master meaning your teacher and this last piece is going to flip a lot of people out because it's it's very counter-intuitive on a certain level the and your all of your master meaning your teacher as your of heaven in other words the dignity or the the preciousness that you have towards your own teacher it should be as the auth heaven that makes sense that your teacher is not god and how can you even put him on the same pedestal so that's what we're going to discuss tonight hopefully a little bit more in depth um yeah so this is how in major small he begins by telling you that when it tells you that you should have awe and we already described it as having this you know how small you are compared to god's magnificence and an awesomeness and transcendentalness if that's a word and the the all you should have of a person's torah teacher should be upon the person learning torah the old divine presence obviously should also be upon him it's actually the divine presence itself is present when your teacher is teaching you torah um there's a mission there's a statement that says when a grandfather teaches his grandson torah it's as if he is receiving the torah from mount sinai itself we know god's presence god taught he was the one giving the teaching over to moshe and and it was filtering down to the people so when i say when i read this i'm wondering to myself who is the subject is it the grandson who's receiving the torah directly from mount sinai because of the chain you know the shell it's called chain and the sora it's the transmission coming all the way down he's getting from his grandfather so it's if he's getting it right from sinai because his grandfather is closer to the actual event is that it perhaps i'm not gonna deny that's a great way to read it but as a teacher i think and i i know this is how other people also read it that the grandfather himself when he is teaching his grandson it's not okay obviously he's teach his own son and maybe he is teaching his grandson through his son in others when you're teaching torah and hopefully you're teaching at the shame shaman you're doing it properly you also get what we call shema we're getting a divine presence that hashem is right there teaching you the torah so that the transmission is fluid and correct and i will prove both of these ideas are are correct as i um proceed so this idea of fearing god and fearing the torah teacher how can they be and i say fear i mean awe how can they be equivalent so when we discuss the idea how you have to realize how small you are so you're in the presence of your teacher if you don't think he has anything to give to you maybe he's not your teacher i mean why are you calling any teacher why are you spending time at his feet right to absorb what he has to say if if you're not in awe if meaning all meaning that he has something to give you he has something to offer you you follow you follow the logic here so but how can you compare to god and that's where we're going to go so i want to prove like this in um in deuteronomy 6 13. what does it say you want to read it in english yeah i'm just pulling it up sir deuteronomy 6 13 it says you shall fear the lord your god worship him and swear by his name okay now when it says in hebrew at hashem it has the word at is usually not translatable it's just the aleph tough it could mean and it could mean the and it could mean not you nothing to be translated so we have the gemara in such in 22b where the truth is it's a discussion about nothing to do with this okay it's a discussion to do with the skin of an animal let's say a cow the gourd a person right the person died and the cow has to be put to death and the skin of this cow nobody can benefit from right you would think okay i'm the owner of the cow my cow killed somebody i lose my cow but at least i get the hides right shouldn't i get the hides or the beast so there's a discussion that the truth of the halacha is you're not letting the the owner because it says naki he he he naki means clean he he's considered innocent that's what it the little translation is the owner of the cow he didn't kill anybody he's not going to be put to death but the word nakey means clean so in this sense he's cleaned of his asset he's he those skins do not belong to him yeah looking wiped out right you you have a a bank account it's cleaned out it's wiped out okay however there's a discussion of how they learn it and there's a discussion about the word at over there okay but now we're talking about this this verse so there's a there's a argument about can you learn these this what do you learn from that so basically this is what we're going to concentrate a little bit on tonight it was it was taught in the breita the chimin some say it was actually they would interpret all the aleph toughs in the torah deriving additional with regard to particular subject matter once this either with shimon or nachemia had reached this particular verse you shall be in awe of the lord your god and you shall serve him and to him you shall cleave and by his name you shall swear this is in deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20. he decided he withdrew he withdrew this method of exposition because he said how can one ever add to god himself what are you gonna say what could it possibly include besides fearing god that's it that's the top of the ladder right we don't fear man like we fear god so you can't equate it or make it equivalent to it so a student said so what you spent the entire i don't know how many years you spent your lifetime going through every at in the torah and you came up he actually came up with a drusha on every single one of them and then he finally got to this one he said you know what i didn't waste my time but i'm stopping i'm stopping i'm not going to continue and uh so the student said what will you do with all the olive tusks that you interpreted he said just as i received reward for all the interpretations i did i'm still going to receive a word for withdrawing for withdrawing from continue from continue trying to interpret until rabbi akiva for those who don't know who rabbi akiva was he was a shepherd who was an amarette he was ignorant and he knew no torah and when he was 40 his wife rachel convinced him and pushed him in the right direction and he became besides the fact that he was the child of converts he became the leader not just the leader of the generation but the leader of jewish people in the sense that all the oral torah is owed to him he went ahead and he interpreted every ed in the torah including this one to include what torah scholars now again we're stuck with this queer this hard thing to equate god with a torah scholar how how are you taking a torah scholar and equating him with god so that's where we're now going to um go down the rabbit hole should i say it's a real rabbit let me just put this paper away so i don't get confused okay so there's a few ideas in the tour itself where we equate arguing with moshe we're arguing with the leaders and it's like arguing with god okay so hear me out have some patience let's go to numbers chapter 11 verse 27 and 28 this is where yoshua ran and told moses you want to read it 27 27 says the lad ran and told moses saying eldad and medad are prophesying in the camp joshua the son of nun moses servant from his youth answered and said moses my master imprison them now i understand the hebrew is not the same as the english right imprison them in hebrew it's means destroy them destroy them big difference so yeah look even a a a prison is called a beta keller so the keller could mean a prison but the claim means to destroy but look at numbers chapter 26 verse 9. this is about dot-com and aviram one second verse 9 says the sons of eliab and were numel dathan abraham they are dathan and abiram the chosen of the congregation who had sighted against moses and aaron in the assembly of korah when they incited against the lord so inciting against moses and our own is the same as inciting against the lord you understand that it's yeah yeah look at numbers chapter 20 uh i want to go through two different verses verses three and then thirteen three says the people called quarreled with moses and they said if only we had died with the death of our brothers before the lord okay before you go to the third so they called with moses and they said before the lord in other words the way to read it is lyft hashem when they're quarreling with moses it's as if they're quarreling with hashem okay go on in 13 17 these are the waters of dispute mayhem where the children of israel contended with the lord and he was sanctified through them okay so we're talking about the argument they had with a motion iron as if they contended with the lord okay now go into exodus chapter 16 verse 8. 16 verse 8 says and moses said when the lord gives you in the evening meet to eat and bread in the morning with which to become satan when the lord hears your complaints which you are making the people complain against him but of what significance are we not against us your complaints are your complaints not against us are your complaints but against the lord remember they came to moses and iron and complained so the complaint against the leadership is against the lord i hope i'm making this this very no it's there in the text and and um yeah i mean okay go to um numbers 21 verse 5. 21 verse 5 reads the people spoke against god and against moses why have you brought us up out of egypt to die in the desert for there is no bread and no water and we are disgusted with this rotten bread okay it's really the first few words the people spoke against god and against moses when you're speaking against moses you're speaking against god okay and look in rashi right there he says against god and against moses they equated the servant uh with his master in other words they equated equated the word of music with with moses who's the servant with his master who's god and then they said why have you brought us up who were they talking to both of them they were considered equal okay as you know i'm not interested in honor okay maybe i am maybe i'm not i'm trying to be a teacher and you're doing great based on based on this we we were we have a big problem because how could rabbi akiva take the word at and say you have to have this all for your torah for your torah teachers so the truth is he wasn't really worried he knew that people are not going to worship their teachers like a god he himself was an amma artist i mentioned where he came from and he knew the potential and the positive potential he was like you know in the 12-step program someone who was absolutely powerless and downtrodden he was like i don't want to you know what he was like before he became a turn scholar but it says he hated the rabbi so much that he felt like he was a donkey that would just want to bite them and break their bones okay he hated the torah scholars and for him to come around full circle right he's the one who says you have to honor them because he knew how powerless how else are you going to get this transmission how else you're going to get to the truth because these are god's agents on the planet but more than that it's the torah itself that it's like when we say god spoke through moses it was god's voice that was spoke through his throat okay we we're not gonna profess that we're not gonna say that's what's happening today with but god is there it's an amazing statement i'm about to make let me get to the verses go to psalms 94 12. scriptures psalms 94 12. fortunate is the man whom you yah chastise and from your torah you teach him okay so it's true when bad things happen to good people to righteous people they're afflicted so they'll hopefully learn their lesson but we all know that a wise person can learn from every person and this goes back to the idea of the teacher himself should give honor to his students of course he is to give honor to his colleagues and of course he has to make sure to give honor to his own torah teachers what does it mean and from your torah you teach him you're teaching the righteous man hashem himself is teaching us yes you're looking at a human being not a not a god a human being who's your teacher who's giving you instruction this is the word of god coming through his lips so to speak you get the idea where i'm going with this oh yeah oh yeah but i know it's nothing like christianity uh rabbi and just for us verbaneno that are listening or even those that might be coming out of you know i think what you're punching out is the heart of a matter that is real and genuine that some idolatrous behavior has twisted and skewed and um i think what you've just brought out is bringing up the clarity of the matter so i want you to go to deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 2. oops sorry deuteronomy i'm sorry sir which chapter it's chapter verse 2. verse 2 and you will return to the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with and you will listen to his voice according to all that i am commanding you this day you and your children okay this is not the verse i don't know why i am looking for a different verse it's a beautiful verse that was chapter 30 verse 2. yeah i know but that's not i'm just saying that's not the verse i was actually looking for let me just uh google it real quick and i will tell you the exact verse in a second hopefully i'll come to it sorry one second um let me put it okay hopefully this is it yeah is it i'm not sure let me look it might be deuteronomy 4 verse 4. four deuteronomy four verse four but you who cleave to the lord your god are alive all of you this day okay so i'm not sure if this is the verse but there's a concept called the vague means to cling okay so one of these verses i'm not sure if this is the exact verse but this idea that we're commanded to cling to hashem it's more than one place that how does one cling how do you have this relationship with god how can you build that relationship with god in judaism we don't have crosses we don't have buddhas we rub their tummies and we don't have idols thank god we have i'm going to say an invisible god right a god that has no body has no you know figure and yet you're supposed to cling to him how right so we're going to discuss this a little bit more in the time we have left is through your teacher is through your mentor and hopefully you'll have enough sense to pick up when you have a true teacher not a true teacher you know the way he behaves the way he speaks so you'll know this is a learned person who is righteous as opposed to you know someone who might look the part but doesn't really have uh something to you know something to really like changing uh in from you know um torah for you so i'm going to go through some of the comments that i found in the gemara 22 and b that discussed this idea of the at because we want to get into rebecca's mind a little bit and as well as either it was rabbi shimon or who did not he he stopped he stopped and there was a reason he stopped according to this there's some ideas that he also knew this was the truth but he didn't want to tell people because he thought this would be a nick schall and nick shaw means a stumbling block again similar to this idea that he mentioned in christianity and other religions where it's a real stumbling block but he he thought it would be a stumbling block and therefore he didn't want to reveal it and let's get into his mind also what why he was hesitant okay but rebecca kiva was not hesitant so i'm going to spend a little bit of time on that the gamora actually said when he reached this verse of at hashem tira the lord your god you shall fear or have awe he he stopped he did not continue he he retired from this uh project okay so the question was why wouldn't he um why wouldn't he think about the idea that maybe this is talking about you're honoring your parents in other words we have the mitzvah to honor your parents uh and i'm sorry to fear your pe there's two misses by the way one is to honor your parents and one is to fear your parents i just want to explain the difference honoring is kavod is an active way of behaving which means to feed them to clothe them to greet them at the door to put a smile on your face to stand up when they walk in the room honor fear is ceasing not doing something you're not allowed to argue and you can this is you can argue with um honor how do you how do you your father tells you something is you can say uh father uh i remember you taught me the opposite right father what did you mean when you taught me the opposite as opposed to saying father you're wrong right there's a there's a an honorable way but anyway so not to argue with them not to disagree with them at least in public there's a way to do it honorably in private uh not to sit in their chair not to stand in their place when they meet and greet uh other honorable people and so there's things that so that's you have two separate missiles one is to give honor and one is to fear so he wonders the question here is brought up actually by tostos he wonders why revie when it says to have fear of god that should have to do with perhaps your parents so we the truth is we do find that there's an equation there already is of fearing your parents and fearing heaven and he says that the the the ptosis actually says it's not really logical to explain the passage this verse in this fashion why because we already have the torah already commands you to have or for your parents in a different place as already mentioned you already have a separate mitzvah for that and there is another gemara in bracha where um pushes off this answer by the way and that's because you can there is to say that the torah itself commands you regarding and let me just read this like this it's interesting because if the term already tells you you wouldn't tell you again okay that's that's one idea he brings down but he wants to answer by saying that this verse itself infers that there is a an increase like to additional type of fear that one should have for his parents similar to the way you do have um you do have towards hashem but he wants to say that it's not logical to establish this for your parents though why because and that's why rabbi keith explains the verse by uh okay let me just go back and try to explain what i just said that yes it's already true that you have to have or for your parents you have to but not in the same way you would have for hashem and i think this was the idea of the vakus the actual clinging to hashem and that's that's where i put again i have deuteronomy 30 verse 2 but that's not the verse um so it's called devacus vegas means clinging in fact a parent a person is supposed to leave his parents and cling to a woman right so the vegas does not really apply to your parents but the vegas does apply to a talmud is a sage atomic is a learned righteous person and that is something that you want to do you want to have that i'm not going to say intimate relationship but the vegas means to cling in in a um in a different sort of way you wouldn't do that with your parents okay so that's one idea brought down another idea asking another question is there's another verse that says that you shall love the lord your god and which also has an et now that comes before that's in chapter 6 of deuteronomy verse 5 whereas the verse we're dealing with is in deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13. so when he came to and you should love the lord your god why didn't he understand that to me shouldn't you love talmud is the word for the for the rabbis so the answer that's given this is in the tosa rush that the truth is that regarding love it's very logical to include your parents or atomic because you have a statement in the torah it says you have to love every jew you have to love every jew so why should it be more for atomic than anybody else it says if you have to wreck it you have to love everyone so why would you infer that this was a foreign so now it is true there is actually the torah does want you to love them a little bit more than everyone else but but regarding fear regarding love i get but why should you fear so the fear is a problem because and this is where when we feel we're going to talk about this next week the fear of god includes the fear of punishment and the talmud hakam does not have the ability to reward you or punish you so you would have thought that the time of hawking is not included in fear i don't know if everyone's following me but there are two interesting i am sir yeah so there's two interesting verses i'm sorry i don't have them in front of me so if you want to read them please it's going to be in 118 verse 6 in psalms psalms 118 verse 6 verse 6 says the lord is for me i shall not fear what can man do to me okay so you see that man does not have the ability to do the punishment that god does okay of course we have an earthly court and if you're caught and you you're punished the earthly court will will punish you but in terms of you know the the you shouldn't fear man because he doesn't have within him the ability to give you that will be called reward and punishment so i'm going to just read this in hebrew and translate it as i go now if shimon would have included the the sages into shiitly you remember should have fear from that remember he didn't he stopped short and then quit the job so to speak um he was so afraid that people would think to make a human being like a god like you would have more than one god so that's why he stopped short to say the word at has anything to do with anything equated with god because that would bring people to the idaho worship very good but then you would put let's say like these sages on a pedestal and worship them that's why he stopped and he didn't want to make this drusher in order not to bring a stumbling block to the jewish people however rebbe akiva he did darshan he did he did include the word et as we said to include the fear or i should or of because he didn't suspect ain't that people would make this mistake and think that their god since you're including you're adding from the word it's that is the word at is not the same as god it's just a word and it's called like secondary and if the talmud khakim is secondary to god you would never make that mistake he's not the same there's an equation there's some kind of equivalency but it's not a full-fledged equivalency because one is secondary and one is primary god is primary and the time is secondary now let's read the words kevin chariboy failing that the truth is you're forced to say that the fear you have or the all you have for god is certainly way above the fear you have for them so rabbi akiba was not so worried marshall answers that shimon he knew he knew that there is to include regarding this idea of equating the love when it came to love you should have love for them like you have for hashem however regarding fear he said that would um that uh basically you have this fear of punishment and i already mentioned this already that you can't relate to the fear of punishment to the rabbis it's only uh only only hashem er the husband so fair he answers by explaining that the verse hashem you shall love the lord your god so yo he knew shimon knew you know what this includes the sages but you know what he also knew that it also includes for fearing god that you include the word you also have to fear them elisha low rothsall legal rabbins russia zoo he didn't want to reveal this to everybody why interesting so let's talk this out a little bit most people never reach that level of what we call roma moose roma moose means how unbelievable great god is they're still in this low level where they think about the fear of punishment so he knew that a lot of people would would stop there and never get beyond it so he didn't want to reveal this truth i'll just read the words again there's two levels and that's what we're going to talk about next week okay there's two levels of fear in god or all of god there's yira yeshua mahmoud greatness of god and that is really the true icker of voda sarah when we talk about serving god with fear that's the true ideal state of service to god but most people in this world lo yes they never reached this level of or initiation therefore he was afraid they were going to relate the exact same level to the sages as they would to god that's not good aina leger is ownish and they wouldn't have intent they wouldn't be thinking about the idea of the lower level that they have to have um fear of punishment is that low sheikh damn elolyrius romelus and that's the level they will be on and they wouldn't be able to distinguish because they're not on the level of row of this highest level therefore shimon did not want to reveal this russia in other words he didn't stop because he didn't have an answer he knew the truth like rabbi kiva did but ruby was comfortable in his own skin because he experienced this lowliness this this knowing he doesn't know he came from you know the other side the dark side so to speak so he this is what this is going to be the key to the all to know your position where you are and how great he is and be awed by it and be uh i don't know just like we spoke about in the first few minutes to look at the wonders and how great and wonderful this magnificent creator of the universe is beautiful so that was um that was for rabbi kiva so according to the hustle sulfur ruby shimon felt that if they never reached this level they would abandon their um trust of the sphere entirely whereas rabia akiva piracha sadhavari explains caveman he explained the word at to to refer to the to the sages kevan because he was an ignoramus before he became baltruva let's say and he hated the with alan madrega kolkata and we learned from him that we should never give up hope he realized most people are never going to reach that level they may not reach that highest level but loyal at the eures ownish but at least they won't leave and abandon the lower level elie jalen madrigal la madrega ancha but you know what in his own life are steps there are madre god means steps there are levels this is a life experience at least start on the lowest level and and slowly climb up like he did he set the the path right he is the sign and the example for all who serve hashem he was able to then give over this beautiful drusha okay so that is way number five oh oh but it's relating specifically to the all that we remember how do we acquire wisdom okay there are very unique and special people that can go out into the desert or into the forest and meditate but how far are they going to get right you need to have that relationship to vegas hashem how are you going to cling to hashem you have to cling to the people that would who were the witnesses of mount sinai whose children who who taught their children and taught their children until this very day and that is the jewish people and how are you going to get the wisdom you have to realize that this person has something to offer you right that's the bottom line how are you going to get wisdom if you think you know it all forget it oh man anyway that was my presentation i hope you enjoyed it oh rabbi posted that was so beautiful you know may the whole world start to tune their ears to listen to such wisdom i mean this is just a beautiful class today i think there's so much there that the rest of the world could just listen to and adopt how could it be any different i mean you brought it out and laid it out in such a plain fashion and i think ah i just wish more people would get on board and understand that the jewish people are sharing truths that um will completely alter your life and um i can't okay i think it you knocked it out of the park today with this beautiful lesson on awe and heaven knows i could always use more i mean yeah thank you so much for sharing with us today so are we going to wind it down till next week sure time to get to sleep gotta get up right donuts so hashem willing folks we're going to be back next week thank you so much for staying up so late live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston beyond the seven the 48 waste we'll see you next week folks have a wonderful wonderful day [Music] yes