Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back Day 43 in the Orchos Tzaddikim, the Treasure for Life edition of the Ways of the Righteous. We're on page 247. We're in the middle of talking about love and the importance of understanding that. Or we can do that same exercise with the intention of being healthy so that we can serve the Almighty. The same with food, the same with drink, the same with everything else sleeping, vacations, everything that we do. If we don't have the right balance of love for the Almighty and the service of Hashem, then we can be doing all of that for the wrong purpose. Here we continue on the top of page 247.

00:48
It is clear and well known. We all know that it is very difficult to embed the love for Hashem in a man's heart unless one constantly occupies himself with it properly and abandons everything else in the world besides it. As the verse commands us and says you got to love Hashem with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your means. You need to immerse yourself in it, and only when we immerse ourselves in that love for Hashem are we able to succeed in attaining that love. Even if it's just a little bit, it should be fully a little bit, and if it's a lot, it should be fully a lot. Therefore, the love will correspond to the knowledge. The less knowledge, the less love. The more knowledge, the more love. Therefore, one must devote himself to the extent of his capabilities to comprehend and to perceive wisdom and understanding which acquaint him with his Creator. According to his ability, sheyesh ba'adam lohavino lohasig is great of an understanding, as we can possibly connect to Ho'el anechpad vehanoyra.

02:35
Mitzvah le'ava liyira isay, our God, creator of heaven and earth. It is a mitzvah for us to love and to fear him. She nemar ve'ahavta es Hashem al-kech, you shall love Hashem, your God. And it says es Hashem al-kech. Hatira Hashem, your God, you shall fear. V'zo hi aderech la'hasig ba'ahavas Hashem baruch Hu. This is the way you attain the love of Hashem V'isho she'izbon. So, if you comprehend and you contemplate the greatness of the wisdom of Hashem, look at His creation, look at His world, look at the magnificent, look at a beautiful sunset. You look at the magnificence and you realize with awe the brilliance of Hashem.

03:23
We have no way of comprehending God's greatness immediately. You'll be overwhelmed with love for the almighty and you'll praise Hashem and you'll give glory to Hashem and you'll only come to desire knowing Hashem greater, greater and greater. As King David said, my soul thirsts for Hashem, for the living God. And when a person thinks of this, okay, so what happens here? When a person contemplates all of this, he'll be suddenly overwhelmed with a fear and a trepidation, knowing and recognizing how small and how feeble we are as creations of Hashem, that we are so infinitesimally smaller than Hashem's great awesomeness. Like King David said, when I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, followed by what is man, that you are mindful of him, it's unbelievable. The awesomeness of Hashem. And even greater. Hashem has such an infinite ability and we have such a limited, finite ability, and Hashem still cares about every single detail in our lives. And when a person recognizes all of Hashem's grandeur and sees all of the creations of Hashem, you see all the, you comprehend the masses of angels and the simple man as well, and you will identify the brilliance of Hashem in all of the creations that Hashem created. For example, someone who has a child. It's so easy to see godliness in your child. You see how beautiful they are, you see how sweet they are, how perfect of a creation each and every creation is is. His soul will thirst and his flesh will long to love Hashem and he will fear and be awed by his own lowness, littleness and insignificance in comparison with any one of the great holy bodies created by Hashem. Imagine the angels, the high-ranking angels, that are so lofty which is you know, we have this in our prayer every morning that are so lofty which is you know, we have this in our prayer every morning.

06:56
We talk about, you know, in the blessing of the Shema, right preceding the Shema, we talk about all of the different amazing angels. What are they? Ve'olfanim, ve'chayos, ha'kodesh, virash, godom, misnasim le'umas, urofim le'umasa, mishabchim ve'omim. These are all of the heavenly. The olfanim, the chayos and the great noise raise themselves towards the seraphim, facing them. They give praise, saying Hashem's praise. So you're talking about unbelievably incredible creations of Hashem and in a different place we see, by Job.

07:38
It says Fearing Hashem. And our sages clarified what does this mean? They explained Fearing the punishment of heaven's judgment and Gehenna and punishment of this world. And this is a distant. When someone is dealing with fear of Hashem. It's very different from love of Hashem. It's very different. It's very distant when one from love of Hashem. It's very different. It's very distant when one has fear of Hashem than one has love of Hashem.

08:29
When someone has fear of Hashem, when someone loves his wife and his wife loves him back, and yet he still has a fear, a trepidation, of doing something that will hurt or offend her. Pen ye'abed ahavos, he doesn't want to lose her love. Ken ha-dover, hazeh rishofeho, rishfei eish avas haborei yis'aleh. The love we have for Hashem should be also simultaneously embedded with that fear, because we don't want to lose the love of Hashem. You're alive, or, amit Fosav, we'll fear transgressing Hashem's commands. Pen yafsid, ava sabore yisborach. Because we don't want to lose God's love.

09:16
V'zehu ivdus Hashem b'yira hi, yira sa'ava. This is, serve Hashem with fear, meaning fear of love. V'gilu b'ro'ada, b'rov pachad ha'boreh and rejoice in trembling. We have this from the verse in Psalms Out of awe of the Creator, rejoice in doing His will. The fear of heaven, the fear of Hashem, this is His treasure. Why? Because we love Hashem so much, we don't want to lose that love and we fear losing that love. Someone can love their job but also be afraid to lose their job.

10:01
So the author now concludes with the following paragraph this love endures only for one who undertakes and performs all the mitzvahs according to halacha. For if one does not know the mitzvahs commanded by Hashem and cannot be called a complete lover, because the mitzvahs are just vehicles to express our love for Hashem. L'chein yohev ha'odom kol ha'mitzvos. Therefore, a man should love all the mitzvahs and perform them to the best of his abilities Ashi yivyehu la'avas ha'boru, because that's going to bring him to the love of Hashem. Baruch hu uvaruch Shema. Blessed is he and blessed is his name. Ve'oseh chein tov le'bo'olam hazeh u'olam habo'. And one who indeed is fortunate to do this, to fulfill the mitzvahs of Hashem, will be very, very rewarded in this world and in the next world. And this concludes my dear friends day.