Daily Chidush: Tough Days also have a Purpose - Part 2 (8 Minutes)

0:01So now, why does Hashem ask us to think about the day we're going to die? He says, because if you learned an ounce of Torah in your entire life, you realize that one day is going to come, and you're going to have to pay the bill. One day you're going to come, and that purpose that I told you you were supposed to fulfill, you're going to have to show your homework. You're going to have to show what you've done. And when someone thinks about that, when someone thinks about the reward and punishment that we all are required to think about, remind ourselves, and believe in every single day, as it's part of the 13 Principles of Faith in Judaism, for anyone who wants to consider themselves a Jew must believe and remind themselves of this every single day. It's the foundation of the Torah and the foundation of Judaism.

1:04A person who does not believe in reward and punishment does not believe in the Torah. They cannot convert. You cannot even call them Jewish. Yes, I know there are a lot of confused people out there who don't want to believe in reward and punishment. They want to believe just in reward, like we live in a Santa Claus world, but it's not so. Hashem is telling us here: If you know that there's reward and punishment, then obviously, you know... That by committing a sin, one day there will be a punishment. And that should be just enough to get you to run away from the sin. When you know how much the steak costs, you're going to think twice before you order 10 of them. You may order one. It's an expensive steak. It's $50. If you like it, if you have the money and you want to enjoy it, have a good time. if you didn't know how much it cost, you say, "Oh, this looks so good." You see it on the other guy's plate and say, "This looks good. God, give me 30 of them." When the guy tells you, "Hey, listen, each one is 50," obviously, it's all, "Okay, fine, you know, just give me one." When we know the cost, we act more appropriately. And this is what my student said to me today. He says it worked. I was about to sin a very big sin.

2:27i did those few steps and it worked, but what's the thought? Of course it worked, but why did it work? He gave me an idea that I always thought, but now I know. When did we learn this major idea? We learned it in one of our shiurim that was very, very hard mussar, very deep. To the point type of shiur. No lovey-dovey stuff. Any of you that have seen my shiurim know that, yeah, I say a joke once in a blue moon, and I try to be friendly. But in reality, we see what the Torah says, which, if anyone learns the Torah, sees that more than half of it talks about reward and punishment. It’s not all lovey-dovey. He says, "I remember from the shiur," and then I realized... We always talk about Yirat Shamayim, fear of the Almighty. And we learn from the Torah that after Am Yisrael crossed the Sea of Reeds, Yam Suf, it says that Am Yisrael saw the hand of G-d and they feared Him and they believed in Him and in Moses, His servant. Meaning that as soon as Am Yisrael saw the hand of G-d, destroying the Egyptians, destroying the biggest civilization in history, they immediately feared Hashem. It doesn't say they loved Him; they feared Him. And as soon as they feared Him, they believed in Him. This is where we learn that fear of the Almighty, fear of Hashem, is the ultimate connection that is required in order for us to even think about what loving Hashem is. You cannot love Hashem without first fearing Him.

3:55destroying the Egyptians, destroying the biggest civilization in history, they immediately feared Hashem. It didn't say they loved Him; they feared Him. And as soon as they feared Him, they believed in Him. And this is where we learn that fear of the Almighty, fear of Hashem, is the ultimate connection that is required in order for us to even think about what loving Hashem is. You cannot love Hashem before you fear Him. But then there's another lesson that we learned today. If you don't fear Hashem, if there is no fear of Hashem, then you don't believe in Him. You believe in something else. If we don't fear the Almighty, that means we don't know who the Almighty is. If we don't know who the Almighty is, we have to find out.

4:56Because the God of Am Yisrael, He’s not our friend. He's not our buddy. He's not one of the guys from the schoolyard. He's not one of the guys that we see at work. He's not any of these magical genie-type of ideas that people have. He's Hashem Yitbarach. He's God. He's God. And the God that I believe in, the God of Israel, is capable of everything. He created the heavens and the earth. He created the Torah. He created Am Yisrael. He created everything and anything in between that we know or don't know of. Nothing is beyond Him. Nothing. He was before time. He is after time. He is not subject to time.

5:56he's not subject to nature; He is nature. When we get a small understanding of what that means, then we can start realizing what Moshe Rabbeinu truly said here in Parashat Shemini. He said that we're doing the mitzvot in order to glorify Hashem's name. That's the purpose. fear of the Almighty, then the God that we believe in is not the same God that's in the Torah, because the God of the Torah is everything. When you have everything, when you have this fear, as scary as it sounds or perhaps as unwelcoming as it sounds, the reality of it is that when you have Yirat Shamayim, when you have this fear of the Almighty, and... fear of the Almighty, then the God that we believe in is not the same God that's in the Torah, because the God of the Torah, He's everything. And when you have everything, when you have this fear, as scary as it sounds or perhaps as unwelcoming as it sounds, the reality of it is that when you have Yirat Shamayim, when you have this fear of the Almighty and

7:25You have everything. And this is why, on days like today, I realize Hashem put me in exactly the place where He wanted me to be. Okay, I wasn't able to publicize Torah as much as we try to do every day. We did a little bit. Okay, maybe I wasn't able to learn as much as we usually do. We did only a little bit. But Hashem put me in the place that I needed to be in. just like He puts you in different places that you need to be in. Why? I'll find out one day. But one reason I know is to arrive at this conclusion: it's just because there's Hashem. And He has a purpose for every single move that He makes. Whether we understand it or not is irrelevant. What we need to understand is that He is Hashem. And b'ezrat Hashem, we all Get closer to Him in the right direction, the right path, the real path, the only path. Chazakim ha-baim, b'ezrat Hashem, we'll learn tomorrow.