Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. Welcome back everybody. Welcome back to the first chapter of the last chapter in the Orcha Tzadikim. Because you know how the author writes in the Orcha Tzadikim, every part has so many different parts, and I'm going to explain you another part. So I'm introducing this as the first of the last. We are in the gate of fear of heaven, which is the 28th gate.
This is the 28th. You imagine? Kol HaKavod to each and every one of you for being part of this fantastic journey of studying the teachings of the Orcha Tzadikim. Now, we're in the Treasure for Life edition on page 969, day number 186. What is fear? So fear, we typically translate fear as worry or scared. I'm in fear of. But the truth is, when we talk about fear, as we will see in this chapter, cheered doesn't necessarily mean a negative.
Okay, it should be a positive. Fear means perspective. Fear means awe or awareness. There's many ways to see. Yir'a means lir'ot, to see. So when a person understands, when a person understands what's going on in his relationship, for example, we have the fear of punishment. Okay, that makes sense. I'm afraid of getting punished, so I'm gonna do the right thing. There's the fear of a sense of awe, right? Yir'at HaRom HaMut, awareness and reverence for Hashem's greatness and majesty.
So like, wow, Hashem is so powerful, Hashem is so great. That's a different type of fear. You have Yir'at Ahava, a fear of love. When you love somebody, you're afraid of losing that relationship, right? So that's another kind of fear, but it doesn't necessarily mean a fear, which is a worry or concern. So let's see how this, how this plays out throughout this chapter. So Kosov BaTorah, it says in the Torah, Va'ati Yisro'o ma'a Hashem Elokecho, shol mi'imokh ki'im lir'o es Hashem Elokecho. In Deuteronomy, the verse states,
And now, O Israel, what does Hashem your God ask of you, but to fear Hashem your God? V'ek'siv, and it says a little bit further, Es Hashem Elokecho ti'ro, fear Hashem your God. V'ek'siv yir'as Hashem hi'o tzoro, it says that the fear of Hashem is his treasure. Va'amru, ein lo lai kodesh boruchu bo'olamo, we know the verse, the sages teach us that God doesn't have in his world but fear of heaven alone. El yir'at Hashem, yir'at shamayim be'ovad.
V'ek'siv, as the verse states in Job, Va'yomu lo'odom hein yir'as Hashem hi'chokhmo. And he said to man, hein, indeed, the fear of heaven, that is wisdom. Fear is unique in the world. Yechida hi hayir'a ba'olam, fear is unique in the world. Hein, ma'ashma achas. Hein, when it says hein, it's referring to as one. Shek'ein b'lo sh'ni yivoni koron la'achas hein. Just like in in Latin, they say hein is the number one. V'omar rava, rava said in the tractate Shabbat,
B'Shoshem ha'achnis anodim l'din, when a person is standing in judgment in front of the Almighty, O'mrim lo, they say, Nas'ata v'natate v'muna, did you do business honestly? Kavat ha'itim ha-Torah, if you remember we brought this Talmud in last chapter when we talked about Torah, that Torah is meant to prepare us for our judgment day, because one of the questions they're going to ask us is, did we learn Torah? Did we not only learn Torah, did we remember our Torah? Was it real for us? Was it alive for us?
So Nas'ata v'natate v'muna, did you properly do business with honesty? Kavat ha'itim ha-Torah, did you learn Torah the way you should? O'sakta b'feri v'rivya, did you engage in procreation? Tzipisa l'Yishua, did you desire the coming or anticipate the coming of Mashiach? P'lpalta b'chokhmah, did you debate wisdom? He'vant ha-dover m'toch dover, did you understand one thing from another? V'afilu ha-chi ir ha-shmayim yir ha-tsaroy, in ilav lav. And even if he did all of these, if fear of heaven is his treasure,
he emerges meritorious in judgment, and if not, not, because all of these, what do they underscore? A fear of heaven underscores everything, because you do honest business, you learn the manual for living, you will procreate, because that's our obligation, it's not to be alone, but to expand the world beyond ourselves. You desire the redemption, why the redemption? Because if I fear heaven, I realize the pain that G-d experiences when he doesn't have his house built in Jerusalem. P'lpalta b'chokhmah, you'll inquire and you'll invest in wisdom.
Masha l'ma, masha amar l'shluchay, l'adam shamar l'ma shluchay, it's like a man who tells his messenger, halach halaykh ve'he'eleh lo, bring a core of wheat up to my loft. Amar le, eravta li ben ha-kav chumten, when he's done and he brings it up to his loft, he says to him, did you mix with it a kav of chumten, of preservative? Amar le, l'av, he says no. Why would you bring it up to my loft, to my storage unit, if you didn't put in preservative?
What's the point of bringing it up there? Meaning, you have to figure it out on your own, it's a basic though. Ve'amar rav, what does Rav HaSei, Rav HaBar, Rav Hunah, kol adam sheyesh b'ot over, ein be'yura sh'mayim, dor le'giz bar, shemosu l'maftayichos ha-pnimius, maftayichos ha-chitsonius, l'mosu lo. Someone who has Torah, but does not have fear of heaven, it's as if you give the watchman the inner keys, but not the outer keys. What's it going to help?
You have the keys for the inside doors, but not the outside doors, you can't even get in there. That's like someone who's studying Torah, and does not have fear of heaven. Markei, Rabbi Anai, Rabbi Anai called out and he said, Woe to him who has no courtyard, but has made a gate to it. He has no courtyard, but he made a gate for the courtyard. Parish, what does that mean? D'arto, Parish d'arto, sha'ar. Rabbi Anai is asking of what use is a gate if one has no courtyard?
Who needs the gate? There's no courtyard. The Torah is only a gate through which to enter into the fear of heaven. What does it mean? Torah has, there's a purpose in Torah. We talk about Torah a lot, which is why the chapter of Torah was placed before the chapter of heaven. Torah is very interesting. Torah is delightful. Torah is engaging. Torah is a masterpiece. It's like you think you learn Torah, you're like, wow, it's brilliant, it's amazing.
But what's the purpose of all Torah? What is the purpose? Who needs Torah? For what purpose do we have Torah? The answer, Torah is meant to give us clarity of Hashem. What does that mean? Hashem communicates to us through His Torah. Hashem wrote the Torah for us, gave us a Torah through the hand of Moshe, obviously. Hashem gave us the Torah so that we understand how Hashem operates in the world, so that we can know how to become close.
For example, if someone were to tell you, you know, I'm very, very close with God, you know, I talk to God all the time, but I don't observe any of his commandments. I can guarantee you that the person's closeness with God is limited. Not that he doesn't have a closeness, but it's limited. Why? Because Hashem gives us all of the ingredients that are necessary to have that closeness. Hashem gives you the ingredients. It's like, imagine if someone tells you, you know, I'm an extra,
I can bake you that cake that you want, that cake, I can bake it, and I don't need any ingredients. What do you mean? How can you make that cake if you don't have ingredients? How can you bake it? No, I don't need an oven, it's fine. I don't need the oven. What do you mean? The Torah is all the tools you need. So that you have fear of heaven. If you remember, we talked about this and it's very relevant to our Pesach Seder,
that will be in just a couple of weeks. Pesach Seder, what do we say? We sing the great song of Dayenu. One of the phrases we say in the Dayenu doesn't make any sense. If God had only brought us to Mount Sinai, but didn't give us the Torah, Dayenu. The example we give to that is like having, taking your children on an outing and we're going to the ice cream store. Get to the ice cream store, you say, okay, now we can leave. Right?
They're like, what do you mean? We didn't get the ice cream. Like, I didn't say I was going to get you, buy you ice cream. I just said we're going to go to the ice cream store. So we went to the ice cream store, now we leave. What's the point of going to Mount Sinai and we're saying, thank you Hashem, if you only brought us to Mount Sinai, but didn't give us the Torah, Dayenu, that would be enough. That would be enough. It'd be fine.
It'd be sufficient. Are you kidding me? Why bring me to Mount Sinai if you're not going to give me the Torah? Our sages explain very simply. Our sages explain that the reason we went to Mount Sinai is not for the Torah. It's like, it's like you go to Paris. You go to Paris and you come back with a shot glass, right? Like, that's it. I don't need to go see the Eiffel Tower. I went just for the shot glass.
No, you went to see the environment. You went to go see the architecture. You went to go see all of the famous places. That's what you went to Paris for. You came back with a souvenir. That's, and now that's enough for you. That's not enough at all. Sages tell us we didn't go to Mount Sinai to come back with a souvenir called the Torah. We went to Mount Sinai to develop our relationship with God. The Torah is the memorabilia bringing us to that point.
The Torah is the memorial of that bond. And every time we observe a mitzvah, it brings us back to that memory of that bond. Every time a person puts on tefillin, what is the purpose? Every time a person recites the Shema, all biblical commandments. Every time a person avoids eating foods that are non-kosher, what's the purpose? It's re-establishing that bond between us and God. Which bond? The bond that we made with God at Mount Sinai.
Ah, if God only brought us to Mount Sinai and didn't give us the Torah, Dayenu, it would be enough. And we say thank you for that. You know why? Because we would have the bond. We may not have the souvenir, the Torah, but we had the bond. We have to remember the purpose of the Torah is to bring about our relationship with God. Now we understand why Yirat Shemaim, fear of heaven, doesn't necessarily mean fear. We shudder in fear. That's not the idea.
The idea is that the relationship is real through the Torah. It's real. When we study Torah, we're making that relationship real. I don't know about you, but I have this all the time. After learning Torah, I sometimes feel like I'm walking on the clouds. It's like, it's amazing, the Torah that we study. It's like, wow, that's a feeling, I believe, of a closeness to God. Do we feel like, ah, we just spoke God language. That's what we spoke. That's the language we spoke.
Yirat Shemaim, the Torah is just a tool through which we enter into fear of heaven. He says, listen to this amazing prayer that Rava said. I pray for you, sages, you rabbis. Listen to his prayer. I pray for you that you do not inherit two Gehennams, one in this world and one in the world to come. Exerting yourself and laboring in Torah in this world and not fulfilling its laws, heaven forbid, in which case you will inherit Gehennam upon dying and during your lives not enjoying
the world because of your preoccupation with learning and losing the world to come upon dying. That means there's supposed to be a joy and a delight in our closeness with Hashem that comes as a result of studying Torah. The result of us studying Torah is to bring us closer to Hashem. That's the result. Bring you closer to Hashem. And after we see that everything hinges upon fear of heaven, that the whole Torah is worthless
without fear of heaven, and this is the foundation that everything rests upon, and it alone serves a man forever and ever. As King David says, the fear of heaven is pure. It endures forever. King Solomon, the wisest of all men, what did he say? And Hashem has acted so that people should stand in awe of him. You want to know why God does things? So that we stand in awe. We mentioned this recently.
You see these miracles that we're hearing about every single day of ballistic missiles with thousand-pound payloads of explosives, a thousand kilo, can destroy an entire city block. And what? One percent made it through, landed in open fields. Few did damage. And what does it say? It's better, our sages say, a little of awe, a little with awe of Hashem than a great treasure with much turmoil. A little bit with fear of Hashem is worth more than unbelievable success, financial
success, worldly success, but there's a lot of turmoil. Seeing all of this, we must inform you that there are three types of fear. You see what I'm saying, Lauren? Now you understand the first part, first chapter of many chapters, because now he's going to start elaborating what these three different fears are. One is extremely defective form of fear. A fear where God has, where a person has no fear of God. When he does a good deed, however, he has fear of people. No fear of God.
I don't care what God says. God is in a different planet. God is in a different world. But you know what I do fear? I fear my neighbors. I fear my friends. I fear my classmates. I fear those who pray in my congregation. I want them to think that I'm really righteous. I'm going to do good things so that they judge me right, so that they judge me nicely. They treat me properly. One second, you're doing it for mankind?
You're not doing it for God? You're what? That's one terrible type of fear. You fear people. You don't fear God. I'll give charity because I don't want my neighbor to know. You tell my neighbor, I've seen this so many times. You know why I'll learn? I'll learn so that my neighbors, my friends, the people in the community, they see that I'm studying in the study hall. They see. For them, I'll do it. But for God, who's God?
What does God have to do with this? It turns out that everything he's doing, why is he doing it? Only to find favor in their eyes. The friends, the neighbors. Not to find favor in the eyes of Hashem. He says a person who's living his life like this is living a futile life. Because he's not having anything in mind for the Almighty. I'm doing it so that my neighbors and friends judge me nicely. That they treat me properly and they think highly of me.
That's why I'm going to give the charity. That's why I'm going to go here or there. That's why I'll do this and I'll do that. I want everybody to know. Can you make an announcement about it? Can you tell everybody thank you for, you don't thank me for my service? I volunteered at the JCC and you didn't acknowledge me. I can't believe it. Because now my neighbors aren't going to know. Why do you think I do this?
It's very important to realize what the motive is behind what it is that we do. Hasheni, what is the third, the second thing? So the first was fear of our neighbors, not fear of G-d. The second is fear of G-d, fearing Hashem. But for the wrong reason. Only because I fear the retribution. I fear the punishment that he will smite me with. I'm afraid I'm not going to get the Garden of Eden. I'm not going to get rewarded. So that's what I'm afraid of.
Therefore he does good deeds only so that he not feel the retribution if he doesn't. He says this is terrible for a person to have such a kind of fear. Because why is he doing it? Because he's afraid of punishment. So he only cares about himself. How about doing it for Hashem? This person doesn't have that in mind. He's afraid of the retribution. He's afraid of the punishment. And that's why he's doing things. It's a very personal desire. That's not okay.
Person has to do things because it's the will of Hashem. Because this will bring joy to G-d. G-d, do you know why I'm going to daven today? I'm going to daven because I know happy this makes you. I'm going to do this for you, not for me. Not because I enjoy it. We shouldn't give charity because we enjoy it. We give charity because we talked about this in our lunch learn. Why do I keep Shabbos? Oh, I love Shabbos.
Is that the reason you observe Shabbos? No, that shouldn't be the reason. We observe Shabbos because G-d commanded us. And this makes G-d happy. And this builds our relationship with G-d. Oh, you know the sin. You know the punishment for someone who desecrates the Shabbos. That shouldn't be the reason why we do it. The reason we observe is because this is the will of Hashem. I'm doing it as an offering to G-d. Now, if I enjoy it also, that's an added bonus.
But that's not why we do it. It happens to be Shabbos is the most delightful thing in the world. The greatest gift on planet earth. But that's not why we do it. Okay. And what is the third? The best pearl. He does it for the sake of G-d, not because of anything else in the world. He says, when a person does it out of the fear because he recognizes G-d's awesomeness. G-d's greatness. The love that G-d has for him.
And the love that we try to reciprocate. We recite this in our Shema. Why should we love Hashem? Hashem gives and gives and gives and gives. Why should a child love their parent? Why should a child love their parent? Because you realize how much your parents do for you. You can't help it. But feel a sense of respect, of admiration, of love. When we look into the world and we see how much Hashem does for us. Hashem gives us air to breathe.
I said this. I once went to a weekend retreat. And one of the guests who was being rolled in on a wheelchair. They had someone else behind him with an entire crate of oxygen tanks. This person needed to have oxygen 24 hours a day. So he had his wheelchair with all of his connectors. With his mask for breathing. He had this big tank behind him. And he had a guy schlepping in all these tanks. So that for the whole Shabbos he has oxygen.
Mark, where's your oxygen tank? Where's our oxygen tank? We never had to think about it. Hashem gave us a built-in perfect system that works so beautifully. That inhales our lungs with oxygen. We exhale our carbon dioxide. It gets distributed to our extremities. It's unbelievable. You ever think about that? I never had to pick up the oxygen tank for myself. Hashem gave it to me built-in. Built-in feature. It's amazing to start with that.
Then do you ever visit people who don't have the ability to see? And you get to see colors. You get to see a sunset. A sunrise. You get to see the sun and the moon. The stars. You just get to see great beautiful views. Ah, thank you Hashem. You have the ability. You have hands. You can touch things. You can feel things. You can hold your parents hands. You can hold your children's hands. What a treat. What a delight.
You get to eat and taste food. You have taste buds. What a gift. You look at the beauty. If we start enumerating all of the gifts Hashem gives us, we'll be busy all day all night. We'll be drunk from joy. That's what we'll be. Drunk from joy. So this concludes day number 186, my dear friends.

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