Highest Level of Fear Is The Beginning of Love

0:11You understand? So to do kiruv, you have to learn Torah. One doesn't go without the other. He sent me a video yesterday, my cousin, he said, the more Yirat Shamayim you have, the more people will listen to your Torah and accept it. Yes, that's Chazal. That's Chazal. The biggest thing, the biggest, most important thing for someone, let's say, someone that teaches the public, someone that wants people to listen to the words that are coming out of his mouth, has to come from Yirat Shamayim. Without Yirat Shamayim, there's no chance for anyone to listen to you. And this is actually one of the biggest problems of this current generation. And this is pure siyata dishmaya. You asked me this because I was trying to figure out how to connect to this lecture. You asked me this question, so I answered it. Now, most people think that the problem with teaching only began in this generation. It's a mistake. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter lived almost 200 years ago.

1:23started the Mussar movement. And even though he didn't write a book, he wrote many letters. His students kept those letters, and one of his main disciples, Rav Yitzchak Blazer, put them all together. It's an amazing book. Unfortunately, it's out of publication, which kind of shows you how this mistake is continuing. It's called Or Yisrael. I had to buy it second-hand because they don't sell it in the market. In this book, b'ezrat Hashem, it may be the next series after we finish Pirkei Avot. So in essence, when someone is telling you don't fear Hashem, he's telling you don't believe in Hashem. That's what he's telling you. Because Chazal here are telling you that without fearing Hashem,

2:25There's no connection. The Rambam in Mishneh Torah, Yesodei HaTorah chapter 1, says the following: He says that there are two verses in the Torah that seem to contradict each other. The first one indicates that heavenly fear brings a person to the performance of mitzvot. As it says in Sefer Devarim, Deuteronomy chapter 10, verses 12 and 13, it says, "Now, O Israel, what does Hashem your God ask of you? Only to fear Hashem your God, to observe the commandments of Hashem and His decrees." So here we learn, Hashem said, what does Hashem want from us? He wants us to fear Him, which Rambam says, after that it says, to serve His commandments. So in essence, fearing Hashem leads us to doing His commandments. But on the other hand, the second verse teaches us that we are only commanded to perform the mitzvot in order to fear Hashem. It's also written in Deuteronomy 6:24, "Hashem commanded us to perform all of these decrees to fear Hashem, your God." So,

3:32The Rambam explains, so how do we explain this contradiction? On one hand, he's telling us, fear Him so you can do the mitzvot. On the other hand, he's telling us, do the mitzvot so you can fear Him. It seems like there are two opposites. Which one comes first? So, he says the following: He says, the resolution to this contradiction lies in the fact that there are three different tiers of fear. The first one is the beginning, which precedes the observance of the mitzvot. This is the fear of the king which prevents a person from transgressing his directives. This is Yirat HaOnesh. This is fear of punishment. Outright saying you're not going to do anything until you're afraid of punishment. We'll explain in more detail in a second. It is concerning this level of fear that we read in Pirkei Avot. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa says anyone whose fear of sin takes precedence over his wisdom. Anyone whose fear of sin takes precedence over his wisdom, his wisdom will endure. The second tier of the end is that this is true fear. This is Yirat HaRomemut, fear of His Majesty, of His Divine Majesty. Meaning that a man cannot attain this level until he first performs all of the mitzvot.

4:50After reaching this stage, a person then shifts to the virtue of love, for a person can only love the Almighty after first coming to fear Him. Explanation in simple English is this. Rambam and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and his disciple are telling us the following. To say that you're going to love Hashem by skipping Yirat Hashem is impossible. Because as soon as you want to love something, first you have to identify what it is. You can't say, "I love her," and you don't know who she is. You can't say, "I love him," but you've never met him, seen him, heard of him, or even anything. You have to know what you're dealing with. There has to be a connection. In order to have a genuine connection with Hashem Yitbarach, obviously, you have to identify Him as the Creator. Otherwise, it's not Hashem. If it's a friend, it's not Hashem. If it's a brother, it's not Hashem. If it's the King of Kings, it's Hashem.

6:13Once you understand that he's the King of Kings, the Creator of all creations, the First and the Last, there wasn't anything before Him, there will never be anything after Him, that He controls everything, that there's no outcome in the world that's without Him pressing the trigger, that there's no leaf that ever gets the ability to fall off a tree without Hashem saying, "Allowed. You're allowed to fall off a tree." There's no permission for your eye to blink unless Hashem says, "Allowed. Allowed to blink." As soon as you understand the significance of this King of Kings, of course you're going to fear Him. He's responsible for everything. Unless you're crazy. And if you're crazy, you're not really looking to fear Hashem. So you're not part of this conversation. But thank you for watching, and please give us more views on YouTube. So, the point here is that as soon as you understand who you're dealing with, of course you're going to fear Him because Chas V'Shalom, He is going to punish you. Human beings were created in such a way that we perform most of our actions out of fear.

7:39You go to work not because you want to make money. You go to work because you don't want to be poor. People are more afraid of being poor than aspiring to be rich. Proof? Why do people that are making $10 an hour still go to work? They know that tomorrow is going to be the same thing. They're also going to make $10 an hour. They're not going to suddenly make $100 an hour. They're not going to suddenly invent the next Facebook. They're still going to make $10 an hour tomorrow. Why do they go to work? Because they don't want to be broke. They don't want to be homeless. They don't want to starve. They go to work because they fear poverty. Why do people have a partner? Because they fear loneliness. Why do people eat? Because they don't want to starve to death. Why do people get educated? Because they don't want to be called stupid and be... The guy that's cleaning bathrooms at the age of 60 years old making $10 an hour. They want to be the guy that's paying him $10 an hour but owns the building. We operate out of fear. Everything. So anyone that tells you don't be afraid doesn't want to be human. He wants to be something else. So the same thing goes with connecting to Hashem.

9:03has to start with identifying what you're dealing with. As soon as you identify what you're dealing with, it's Hashem Yitbarach, the Creator of all creations. Of course, you're going to fear Him. But your aspiration Your goal should be to get higher, not only to fear punishment but to reach a higher level. Like the relationship between a man and a wife when it's a healthy relationship. What is the relationship between a man and his wife in a healthy relationship? They fear hurting each other; they don't fear punishment from the other side. The wife is not fearing her husband slapping her, and the husband is not fearing his wife stabbing him. As long as it's, again, a healthy relationship. What do they fear? They fear that they will offend each other. They fear that they will hurt each other. They fear that they won't talk to each other or possibly love each other any less. That's what a healthy relationship fears. That is a healthy fear. That's the fear you want to aspire to.

10:12Once you get to that level of fear with Hashem, where you are afraid of hurting the relationship you have with Hashem, you're afraid of Him stepping one step away from you. Because every sin puts a block between you and Him. Every time you make a mitzvah, you push it away. Every time you fix a midah, you push it away. In Shemonah Perakim, the Rambam, he says, what was the difference between Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet of prophets, and all the other prophets? Why does it say that Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to Hashem face to face? Every time you make a sin, it puts a block between you and Him. Every time you make a mitzvah, you push it away. Every time you fix a midah, you push it away. In Shemonah Perakim, the Rambam says, what was the difference between Moshe Rabbeinu, the prophet of prophets, and all the other prophets? Why does it say that Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to Hashem face to face? But all the other prophets, they spoke to Hashem through a trance, through meditation, through sleeping, dreams, and so on. What was the difference? Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rambam says, purified his middot to such an extent that the only thing that was separating him and Hashem was like a blurry glass, whereas all the other prophets didn't purify themselves to that extent, and it was thicker.

11:21Same thing with us. We want to get there; we want to get to a really good relationship with Hashem, fear punishment, and eventually graduate to a point of fearing hurting the relationship. Once you fear hurting the relationship, then Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is telling you, you're going to start loving Him. That is the beginning of loving Hashem, meaning the highest level of fear is the beginning of love. But you can't get this love by skipping fear, because loving Hashem without fearing Him is impossible. It's not me saying it. This is everywhere. Sefer Tzaddikim, Mussar, Gemara, anywhere. So how do you explain so much teaching today of all these people with long peyos telling you, "Love Hashem, love Hashem." Yeah, He loves you. He's your brother. He's your father. He's your sister. He's your everything. Everything makes Hashem sound like a Care Bear.

12:24Oh, he loves you, you're wonderful. Yeah, but he loves you. Yeah, he loves you, but he's going to punish you if you don't do teshuva. You know that, right? It says it in the sefarim. What is this? Where is this coming from? I don't know. That I don't know. What I do know, I know business. I ran a multi-million dollar firm for 16 years. I know a little bit about business. And I know that being nice... telling people what they want to hear, telling people that tzadikim, telling them they don't have to improve, that they're all perfect, they're all wonderful, making them feel good inside, making them feel like Care Bears, opens wallets, makes donations much larger, builds buildings, even though they're Conservative and Reform shuls. So on those they say, When you're not allowed to teach Torah for money, that's what it's referring to. It's not referring to that you're not allowed to collect tzedakah. If you're a rabbi that's teaching Torah, and you're not spending any time working in the regular world, you're allowed to collect tzedakah. There's no problem. You're allowed to live on tzedakah. People will give you tzedakah. No problem. But when you become a kofer, when you change the Torah, and you make it sound like a...

13:42one of these, uh, fairy tale stories just because that's what opens wallets, then, my friend, on you they say, on those such people, they call them, "who is the worst possible curse." There isn't a Torah source—whichever one you want to pick—one is worse than the others.