Acquiring Yirah By Avoiding Hesech Ha’Da’as

Discussing a little bit of yiras shamayim and ahava and yirah. We talked about the relationship between the two based on the ramban in parshas yisro and then we began discussing a little bit yirah, yiras haonesh, yiras haromemus, and Reb Yisrael Salanter's yesod that without traversing the stage of yiras haonesh a person can never attain yiras haromemus. Tonight perhaps we'll briefly explore together a very simple but central question, and that is how does a person deepen his yiras shamayim? How does a person inculcate within himself greater yiras shamayim? The torah tells us in parshas eikev

ועתה ישראל מה השם אלקיך שואל מעמך כי אם ליראה את השם אלקיך. סוף דבר הכל נשמע את האלקים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור.

How does a person even at the initial stage of yiras haonesh? What do we do when we look in the mirror and the image looking back at us is lacking in yiras shamayim? So what is our response? So the story is told that a chasid once posed this question to the kotzker rebbe and the kotzker rebbe answered with the following analogy. He said imagine that you were walking through the forest alone in the dark of night and all of a sudden you were surrounded by a group of cutthroat bandits. Would you need to look for some artificial way to arouse yourself to fear or would you just be afraid? If you were walking through the forest and all of a sudden found yourself confronted by a chayous teref, by a lion, by a bear, would you ask teach me how to experience fear or would you simply experience fear? That's what the kotzker rebbe is supposed to have answered. The story doesn't really help us though because we have the same question on the story that we had before the story and that is in one case we experience fear and in the other case we don't. So what insight was he really offering? There is one very very important yesod. It's explicit in the rambam but it can be gleaned from chazal as well. The first rama in shulchan aruch quotes from the rambam in moreh nevuchim. The rama with which we're all familiar

שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד הוא כלל גדול בתורה ובמעלות הצדיקים אשר הלכו לפני האלקים. כי אין ישיבת האדם ותנועתו ועסקו והוא לבדו בביתו כישיבתו ותנועתו ועסקו והוא לפני מלך גדול. ולא דבורו והרחבת פיו כרצונו והוא עם אנשי ביתו וקרוביו כדבורו ומושב המלך.

A person behaves differently depending upon the perceived audience and when a person has a royal audience with the king his behavior is more refined, his words more carefully measured than when he's simply spending time with his buddies.

כל שכן שישים האדם אל לבו שהמלך הגדול הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו כמו שנאמר אם יסתר איש במסתרים ואני לא אראנו נאם השם.

If a person is mindful of the fact that הקדוש ברוך הוא אשר מלא כל הארץ כבודו sees everything we do,

מיד יגיע אליו היראה וההכנעה בפחד השם יתברך ובושתו ממנו תמיד.

And this is from Moreh Nevuchim. What's the crucial word here in this passage in the Rambam is the word miyad. The Rambam says that if only a person will be mindful that Hakadosh Baruch Hu עומד עליו ורואה במעשיו so then immediately, instinctively yagia elav hayirah. That really yirah is a natural instinctive reaction which a person has when he feels himself in the presence of the Ribbono Shel Olam. And the Rambam says and this is everything else we're going to say tonight is just further corroboration of this same fundamental idea and that is that our task is not to instill yiras shamayim in ourselves. That will be a natural reaction. What we have to do is to counter hesach hadaas. And the real problem which we have is that we are masiach daas, that we are distracted from this basic and fundamental truth, ultimate reality of שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is מלא כל הארץ כבודו. And if we would have an acute awareness of this ultimate reality of מלא כל הארץ כבודו in the form of שויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, so then yiras shamayim is an automatic immediate instinctive response and reaction. The same thing you find the Rambam says in Mishneh Torah as well, the same emphasis. Again in a very famous passage but again this one this one small word sometimes eludes us. In Perek Bais of Yesodei HaTorah the famous היכי הדרך לאהבתו ויראתו. So the Rambam says

כשיתבונן האדם במעשיו ובברואיו הנפלאים הגדולים ויראה מהן חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ.

A person sees Hakadosh Baruch Hu's infinite chochmah,

מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאוה תאוה גדולה לידע השם הגדול.

And then he adds

וכשמחשב בדברים האלו עצמן מיד הוא נרתע לאחוריו ויפחד וידע שהוא בריה קטנה שפלה אפלה עומדת בדעת קלה מעוטה לפני תמים דעות.

So here too and again it's a consistent emphasis within the Rambam, the key word here is the miyad. Again the Rambam says if only a person is mindful וכשמחשב בדברים האלו, if only a person is mindful, so then the immediate reaction מיד הוא נרתע לאחוריו. And again nirtah l'achorav to recoil is the motion which is associated with with yirah, with yirah. The same the same explanation that yirah is really a natural reaction, an instinctive reaction. You find it again somewhat more subtly in the Rambam in Hilchos Tefillin. The Rambam says in Perek Daled of Hilchos Tefillin Halacha Chaf-Tes that

קדושת תפילין קדושתן גדולה היא. שכל זמן שהתפילין בראשו של אדם ועל זרועו הוא ענו וירא שמים.

There's a special segulah of tefillin that as long as a person wears tefillin, almost as an automatic consequence consequence he experiences and he feels yiras shamayim. Lichora what the Rambam means here is that this is in light of the Gemara in Yuma which he quotes earlier in the same פרק הלכה י"ד that

חייב אדם למשמש בתפיליו כל זמן שהם עליו שלא יסיח דעתו מהם אפילו רגע אחד שקדושתן גדולה מקדושת הציץ

that since the kedushas tefillin are ossur behesach hadaas, right, the chiyuv lemashmesh betfillo kol sha'ah vesha'ah which is rooted in what, in kedushas tefillin? So the Rambam says since kedushas tefillin ossur behesach hadaas, so mimeila that's why kedushas tefillin result in

שקדושתן גדולה היא שכל זמן שהתפילין בראשו של אדם ועל זרועו הוא ענו וירא שמים.

The same cause and effect between the lack of hesach hadaas and the immediate attainment of yiras shamayim. And be'emes this lichora is a meforash Gemara. The Gemara in the beginning of the fifth Perek in Berachos:

רבי ירמיה הוה יתיב קמיה דרבי זירא חזייה דהוה קא בדח טובא.

He thought that he was too lightheaded, that there was an element of kalus rosh. So he rebuked him. So amar leh, he defended himself and said ana tefillin manachna. You have no need to give me mussar about the issur of kalus rosh because ana tefillin manachna. So what's the pshat? So lichora this is where the Rambam, one of the mekoros from which the Rambam infers his halacha that tefillin when worn properly with proper attention to the issur hesach hadaas automatically result in yiras shamayim because those two go hand in hand. Lack of hesach hadaas allows the natural instinctive reaction of yiras shamayim to occur. Lichora that's the pshat in this story with the Kotzker Rebbe. That's what he was trying to communicate, that the question is misplaced and what he was trying to answer was that if only a person would have the same awareness of being in the presence of the Ribbono Shel Olam שמלא כל הארץ כבודו the way lehavdil elef alfei havdalos he has that awareness when confronted with danger. So if he would have that same awareness, so then there would be no question. Then the reaction again, it would be immediate because it's instinctive. Perhaps this is also the pshat, not sure if this is pshat or perhaps a little bit of beyond pshat. The Gemara says in a couple of places on that same pasuk in Parshas Eikev ועתה ישראל מה ה' אלוהיך שואל מעמך. So the Gemara says אטו יראה מילתא זוטרתא היא? That the Torah seems to be downplaying. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want so much from you. All He wants is yiras shamayim. So the Gemara says אטו יראה מילתא זוטרתא היא? It's such a trivial affair, such a trifling that the Torah dismisses it as מה ה' אלוהיך שואל מעמך? So the Gemara answers אין לגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא. Yeah, for Moshe Rabbeinu it was takka wasn't a big deal. So the obvious kasha which everyone deals with, while it's true that Moshe Rabbeinu is addressing Bnei Yisrael here in saying מה ה' אלוהיך שואל מעמך, is the Gemara simply telling us that Moshe Rabbeinu was sort of imposing his own personal experience and speaking to Klal Yisrael that way even though it wasn't relevant to them? What does it mean that אין לגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא? So perhaps in light of what we've been discussing, the Gemara can be understood as follows. What was the mailah of Moshe Rabbeinu? So we know that the Gemara tells us in Yevamos, Shabbos, that of the gimel devarim that עשה מדעתו והקדוש ברוך הוא הסכים על ידו. And one of them was peireish min ha'ishah. Peireish min ha'ishah why? That he should be constantly ready to receive nevuah. That he should be able to receive nevuah at any moment. Right, and that's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu explains to Miriam and Aharon that it was necessary because he appears to them when they weren't in a state to receive nevuah, explaining to them why Moshe Rabbeinu had to do what he did. So Moshe Rabbeinu prepared himself to receive nevuah at any moment, or in other words, his awareness of being in the presence of the Ribbono Shel Olam was as sharp and as acute as is humanly possible. So much so that he felt that at any moment the Ribbono Shel Olam might be about to address him. So what the Gemara is answering is אין דגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא doesn't mean that the Gemara is telling us, well the Torah dismisses it as a milsa zutrasa because for Moshe Rabbeinu who was one of a kind it was a milsa zutrasa. The Gemara is saying no, if only we will emulate that middah of Moshe Rabbeinu, that bechinah of Moshe Rabbeinu of the acute awareness of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, so then takeh the yirah is a milsa zutrasa as the Rambam says here with the emphasis of miyad. The Rambam in the Moreh Nevuchim which the Rama quotes in Siman Aleph, the Rambam in Perek Beis of Yesodei HaTorah that it's miyad a person is nirtah leachorav, miyad hu yarei and he has a sense of hachnaah and pachad because it's a natural and instinctive reaction. Kemidomani, think I once saw in the Maharal, think it was in the Maharal, I'm not sure. He says pshat in the Gemara of כפה עליהם הר כגיגית that at Maamad Har Sinai Hakadosh Baruch Hu kafa aleihem har. So the simple pshat seems to be that there was coercion and intimidation that Klal Yisrael should be mekabel Torah. So he says that's not what it means. It doesn't mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu threatened them. But what it means is as follows. At Maamad Har Sinai when Klal Yisrael were asked to accept the Torah, so it was right after the entire experience of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Krias Yam Suf. In Krias Yam Suf is

ראתה שפחה על הים מה שלא ראה יחזקאל בן בוזי.

The giluy Shechinah to which they were zocheh at Krias Yam Suf was unparalleled. So he explains that to be mekabel Torah when hesech hadaas is impossible because the giluy Shechinah is so overwhelming and so powerful, that was the kfiyah. And the modaah rabba lOraisa is that kabalas haTorah happened on the heels of the most overwhelming experience of giluy Shechinah ever, when hesech hadaas was impossible. And yet the entire nisayon of our avodas Hashem is to combat hesech hadaas and not to allow ourselves to be masiach daas. That's what the Gemara means that מכאן מודעא רבה לאורייתא that ledoros what are we called upon to do? We're called upon to prevent and combat this hesech hadaas and to struggle 24 hours a day to have an awareness of Shivisi. So we can have this natural instinct of yirah. But at Maamad Har Sinai, that's not what we bargained for, because at Maamad Har Sinai the giluy Shechinah was so powerful and so overwhelming that it was impossible to be masiach daas. Can a person be masiach daas? He's sitting at a table. Can a person be masiach daas from the table? You can't be masiach daas from something which is so immediate and so vivid that it just overwhelms you. So too at Maamad Har Sinai they were overwhelmed by giluy Shechinah. That's what it means kafa aleihem in that sense. And that's why the הדור קבלוה בימי אחשורוש. Achashveirosh was a time of ester astir, of hester panim, where on the contrary, so the shem Hashem is not mentioned in the Megillah. So there it was at a time where hesech hadaas was possible. On the contrary, then they had the nisayon of hesech hadaas. So that was the optimal time for hadar kibluha, for hadar kibluha. So that's the yesod that our task is not to look, you don't have to search for yiras Shamayim. Yiras Shamayim is natural and immediate and our task is not to be masiach daas. Not to be masiach daas means that periodically throughout the day, Rav Chaim Volozhin has this in Nefesh HaChaim, that periodically throughout the day a person is supposed to stop and remind himself of what the context is that what he's doing. A person can't spend all day studying sifrei yirah and sifrei mussar. That's what Rav Chaim Volozhin says, that the Gemara in Shabbos says that יראת ה' היא אוצרו. It's the treasury house, but it's not but the treasury house has to be filled. So the hesech hadaas can't be avoided by spending 24 hours a day in sifrei yirah and sifrei mussar. We have to be busy. We have to be busy with talmud Torah and we have other responsibilities, we have to discharge those also. So how do we ensure that we discharge those without being drawn into the abyss of hesech hadaas? So the answer is what Rav Chaim Volozhin says in Nefesh HaChaim, that simply periodically a person has to stop and remind himself of what the context is of what he's doing, why he's doing it, and l'shem what he's doing it. And that applies even in learning, על אחת כמה וכמה it applies when a person is going to college classes, when a person is in the office working. It certainly applies there that a person has to constantly remind himself of why he's doing what he's doing and דע לפני מי אתה עומד. But even when a person is involved with talmud Torah, even there a person has to constantly remind himself of what he's doing and why he's doing it and that he's not just learning but he's learning the Ribbono Shel Olam's Torah. And with that constant vigilant mindfulness, so that's what the Rambam, based on these maamarei Chazal, is telling us that that will produce yiras Shamayim as an automatic consequence. Continue next time.