May We Fear HaShem As We Fear Ordinary Men

0:10When you're learning Torah, you're learning about your Maker. You're not doing it for Him. You're not doing Him any favors. So who do you think you are coming with so many complaints? Hashem, give me this; Hashem, give me that. Why? Why do you think He owes you all this stuff? Now, He may or may not give it to you. But the point is that once you rewire your brain to stop thinking that Hashem owes you anything, everything changes. And the reason why, it's okay, it's okay, don't worry about it. And the reason why is because when you go to somebody who owes you money, someone owes you money, you call the guy, like, "Hey Joe, I need the money." You're not worrying about being so nice. To stop thinking that Hashem owes you anything, everything changes. And the reason why—it's okay, it's okay, don't worry about it—the reason why is because when you go to somebody that owes you money, someone owes you money, you call the guy, like, hey, Joe, I need the money. You're not worrying about being so nice. Guy owes you half a million bucks. You lend to them for 90 days, like the guy I lent half a million dollars to, this Greek guy. Nice guy, wonderful guy. I lent him $500,000. It was supposed to be a loan for 90 days. 90 days. It's been slightly over 10 years. I'm still waiting for the $500,000. But you call the guy. You say, "Hey, listen, Pete, I need the money." I'm not worried about being nice to Pete.

1:35Just like if you lent your friend $500. Same thing. Joe, listen, I lent you the money for two months. You're supposed to return it. Don't worry about, "Hey, Joe, how you doing? How's your family? Did that dog ever die at the end? Oh, he's okay. Oh, Hashem, I was praying for your dog." You don't worry about the whole being nice. The guy owes you money. I want my money. Maybe you're going to be somewhat friendly or whatever. You don't want to attack the guy. But you're not worrying about, like, you know, appeasing him, if you will. He owes you something. It's not that you owe him money. Now, when you call your landlord, on the other hand... because you don't have the money to pay the rent, then you're nice. You're like, oh, hey, Mr. Jones, how are you? How's the family? How are the kids? Oh, the kids are, oh, you don't have any kids. Oh, yeah. But you know what? If you would have had kids, they would have been very happy, I know, because you're a nice guy, Joe. Oh, his name's not Joe, it's Steve. Oh, yeah, Steve, Steve. You know, all of a sudden you're trying to be so friendly. Why? Because you owe the guy money. And you don't have it. So you're extra, extra nice. Why do we act like that with humans? Which makes sense, by the way. But with God, it's the opposite. With God, we call God every day like He owes us something. God, why is my boyfriend not returning my call on time?

2:42Why do we act like that with humans? Which makes sense, by the way. But with God, it's the opposite. With God, we call Hashem every day like He owes us something. Hashem, why is my boyfriend not returning my call on time? God, why is my boss not giving me a raise? God, why did I get a flat tire? Why do you keep doing this to me, God? Can't you just fix it? And we come to Hashem with constant complaints like He owes us something. Now, if we could just switch, switch a little bit. Like Rabban Yochanan said to his students in Gemara Masechet Berachot, When he was on his deathbed, his students asked him for a blessing. He said to them, "The greatest blessing I can give you is: May you have fear of Hashem at least as much as you have of mankind."

3:46Maybe you made a mistake. You're dying. No, no, no. May you have fear from Hashem at least as much as you have from men. We're not understanding. What do you mean? Teach us. What does that even mean? What do you mean? Fear Hashem like men. It's supposed to be the opposite. Give the rabbi respect like you give Hashem or something. Or not even. But this doesn't make any sense. Because even though in reality you're supposed to fear Hashem more than anything else, in reality, you don't. You don't. How do we know? Anytime you make a sin, an accidental sin, not on purpose. On purpose, you have a serious problem. You're driving on Shabbat, knowing that you now have to drive on Shabbat, you have a mental problem. You're pretty much saying, okay, Hashem, I want to go to Gehenom forever. Drive on Shabbat to the Knesset, to the store, to anywhere. You turn on the gas just because you want to hear music. You're telling Hashem, "Hashem, thank you very much for reserving a room called VIP in Gehenom forever for me." It's really stupid. If you actually know what Shabbat is worth to Hashem and you still violate it, you're crazy. So I'm not talking about that type of sin. I'm talking about an accidental sin.

5:06They just started keeping Shabbat, trying to do teshuvah. And you know what, by reflex, even if they're frum from birth, accidentally they turn on the light. You know how sometimes you go into the bathroom and your natural reflex is to turn on the light? Or when you leave the bathroom, your natural reflex is to turn off the light? Naturally, it's not like something you think about too much. It doesn't require much brain space. But then as soon as you shut it off or you turn it on, it's like, oh, it's Shabbat. Now, in the beginning, when you first start keeping Shabbat, that's what you do. Oh, it's Shabbat. A little while longer, a few months. It's like, oh, Shabbat. A couple of years, like, oh, Shabbat. After you get a little more numb, because you get used to Shabbat. Oh, what's the score today, by the way? You stop caring. You stop caring. You become comfortably numb. And it's okay, you just sinned. It was an accident. So Hashem is going to understand it was an accident. In the days of the Beit HaMikdash, that accidental sin, you would have to bring a giant cow as a korban. Now the fact that you lived in Tiberias, or you lived anywhere else, that it would take you three days to get to Yerushalayim, it didn't matter.

6:34The fact that you're gonna miss out on two weeks' worth of work just to bring this one korban. You have to get there, you have to stay there, you have to wait in line, do the korban, and eventually come back. By the time you come back, you're off of work for two weeks. It's a big, big money loss for one accidental sin. Accidental, on purpose, on purpose they give you the death penalty. There's no korban, there's no teshuva for a sin that's on purpose. If it's an accident, you bring a korban (sacrifice). If it's on purpose, they say Kaddish. So if it's an accident, you go bring a korban. Today, we make sense. Hashem's going to understand it's an accident. But, if you finish your lecture at 3 o'clock in the morning, And you're driving 100 million miles an hour to get home as soon as possible because you don't really feel like being outside at 3 o'clock in the morning. You want to get home already. So you're driving 150 miles an hour and a cop turns on the light right behind you. What happens? Immediately your heart drops. Immediately you're like, oh, he caught me. Oh, I'm going to get a ticket. Oh, $300, $400 to take my license. You start saying "Hashem, Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu." You start repeating Mishnayot, Tefillot. All of a sudden you became Chasid L'Mot HaOlam. You became the best in the world. All of a sudden, all the Tefillot that you've ever learned, you remember them now. Why? Because a little light is chasing you now. And that's what Rabbi Yochanan was saying.

7:54Oh, $300, $400 to take my license. You start saying Hashem, Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu. You start repeating Mishnayot, Tefillot. All of a sudden you became Chasidei Umot HaOlam. You became the best in the world. All of a sudden, all the Tefillot that you've ever learned, you remember them now. Why? Because a little light is chasing you now. And that's what Rabban Yochanan was saying. You make sins with Hashem, you get used to it. You're not really scared of Him. But you see the cop with his little lights. He just turned the light on. You don't even know if it's for you. You don't even know if he's actually stopping you yet. Just the fact that you saw the light, you already got a heart attack. May you fear Hashem as much as you fear man. And that's us. When we question Hashem and act towards Him like He owes us something, it's even worse. Because we're putting ourselves in a scenario that it's almost the opposite. The same hand that feeds us, we're complaining to it. So now if we switched, we did teshuva, just by now thinking about it a little differently. We say, you know what? Let me thank Hashem.

9:13Let me start thanking Him instead of complaining to Him. Let me start being more grateful instead of being ungrateful. Everything changes, and the reason why is because the next time you pray to Hashem, you're not going to come like one of these little complainers. Say, "Hashem, why this, why that, why this, why this, why this, I did this for You, I did this for You." No, all of a sudden you're like, "Hashem, look how many things You've done for me already." The conversation changes tones. Because now you're calling the Landlord. Now you're calling the Boss. Now, when you learn Torah, it's like, "I'm doing what I'm supposed to because I want to get the job. I'm learning Torah so I know who my Maker is." I'm praying to Him because I want to have a conversation with Him. Everything changes completely. Your entire life changes completely once you realize Hashem does not owe you anything. Rabbi Ephraim said a good story in a short chiddush he gave a couple of days ago. He said a woman came to Rabbi Auerbach...

10:30And she came to him and cried to him that she hasn't been able to have kids for 20 years. For 20 years she's been trying to have children. Unfortunately, no success. Now, Rav Ovadia Yosef was soft-hearted, a loving, amazing soul. A huge, giant Talmid Chacham. He says to her, you know, he cried with her. He felt her. He understood the pain she's dealing with. That was one of the amazing traits of the Gedolei HaDor, that they could connect to people, not just by words, but with feelings. You cry, they cry. Even though they've never met you in their life. You know how many stories I've heard about Rav Ovadia Yosef and many of the other tzaddikim who would start hysterically crying with complete strangers. we barely are able to cry with family; they're crying with strangers. Why? Because another Jew is suffering for them. That's painful. So he started crying with her. But then, at the end, he said to her, "You know, Hashem doesn't really owe you anything. He doesn't owe you a child. He structured the world in a way..."

11:50where nature looks like it's taking its course, things look natural, even though Hashem Himself is nature, and that's why the word Elokim, with a hey, has the same numerical value as HaTeva, which means "the nature." In Hebrew, both equal 86. Hashem is telling you, "I am nature, but in hiding." And He operates the world in a natural way. But nonetheless, there are certain things, and He says, "Listen, this person will have... 10 kids, this person won't have any. This person will be rich. This person will be poor. This person will have a husband. This person won't. This person will have a wife that's loving and caring. This person will have the Satan's ex-wife, because even he couldn't deal with her as a wife. You understand? The point is that Hashem decrees all these things based on our actions, based on our gilgulim, all different cheshbonot, all different types of accounting and calculations that only Hashem knows. Nonetheless, Hashem runs the world the way He wants to run the world. It's not according to our tune. What He wants to do, He'll do. So Iyov tells him, everything that you're doing, you're saying you're doing, you're modest, you keep Shabbat, you keep mitzvot, you're a wonderful, amazing person, that's all you're really supposed to do.

13:16Everything that you're doing—keeping all the mitzvot, keeping kosher, telling people that Hashem is great, praying, crying when you pray—all of those things that you're doing, you're supposed to do anyway. There's no extra credit for coming to work on time; you're supposed to come on time. There's no extra credit for completing your job; you're supposed to. If you don't, you get fired. Now, we have an understanding of this, most of us, that are logical human beings, with our job. But we have a misunderstanding of it with G-d. We think that every time we learn something that's connected to G-d, we're supposed to get, like, the lotto, minimum. Minimum, we win the lotto if we read Parashat HaShavua. So, in essence, the first thing we have to understand is that there are things we're supposed to do. We get rewarded for them, but nonetheless, we're supposed to do them. Meaning that even if there was no reward, we'd still have to do them. Why? Hashem said so.