How does one attain Yiras Shamayim? | Parshas Eikev

00:00 “And now, Yisroel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Hashem your G-d, to love Him and serve Him, and to heed His commandments?” Parshas Eikev. Moshe Rabbeinu is speaking to them. He stands on the last day of his life, and the Torah tells us, in Mishneh Torah, how Moshe Rabbeinu speaks to them, giving words of Torah and words of guidance. This verse in the parsha is an important one. The parsha is foundational to Moshe Rabbeinu’s guidance and instructions. And the question is: What is the point, what is the meaning of these matters? What is the message? What do these words mean? What does Moshe Rabbeinu want to tell them? “And now, Yisroel”—now, Jews; that is, he is speaking to the generation entering Eretz Yisroel. “And you who cling to Hashem your G-d are all alive today.” The generation that remained alive—“you are all alive today”—is entering Eretz Yisroel, and he tells them something further. “And now, Yisroel,” the Jewish people, “what does Hashem your G-d ask of you?”—what does Hakadosh Boruch Hu ask of you? “But to fear Hashem your G-d.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu asks no more of you than “to fear Hashem your G-d,” to fear Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And he goes on to mention several other things. Here the Gemara asks a question, in Berachos and so on. The question is well known: What does the Gemara hear in the verse? It sounds as though He is not asking for anything great. “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” What is He asking of you, after all? Nothing more than “to fear Hashem your G-d.” The Gemara asks: “Is fear, then, such a small thing?” Fear, fear of Heaven—is it such a small thing? Fear of Heaven is hard work. One must toil to attain it, as the Gemara says elsewhere. Fear requires effort; it is something one attains only through effort, and great effort at that. [unclear]

02:17 In other words, when we speak about fear, we are speaking about effort. Yet Moshe Rabbeinu comes and says, “but to fear”—He asks for nothing more than fear of Heaven. That is the Gemara’s question. And the Gemara answers: Yes, “For Moshe, it is a small thing.” For Moshe Rabbeinu it is a small thing. After all, we are talking about Moshe; it is Moshe Rabbeinu who says these words. So “for Moshe, it is a small thing”—for him, it was a small thing. But here everyone asks the question; all the commentators address it, the Maharsha and several others, and ask the well-known question: He is speaking to them! He is not speaking only to himself. Moshe Rabbeinu says, “And now, Yisroel”—he says it to the people; he is speaking to the Jewish people. They know that fear is no small thing. How can he say such a thing to the Jewish people? How does the Gemara’s answer resolve this? This is a well-known question that has been answered many times. We will bring several explanations of this verse from Chassidus—from the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezritch, the Alter Rebbe in Tanya, and several explanations of the verse given by students of the Baal Shem Tov. We will mention just a few explanations. All of these are important, fundamental explanations from which we learn a basic principle in serving Hashem. This verse is fundamental and central to serving Hashem, in the matter of fear of Heaven. From it we learn a cornerstone, and from it we learn the guidance of Chassidus, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov. We learn how to be a servant of Hashem. We will also touch on the story we told about the Baal Shem Tov. [unclear] Students of the Baal Shem Tov. [unclear]

04:31 [unclear] His teachings and holy words—that was the Baal Shem Tov’s concern. There is a story that [unclear] of the students [unclear] the holy Baal Shem Tov [unclear] Torah, and the main thing was that they should attain fear of Heaven. This was a central concern in the Baal Shem Tov’s life. From this we can learn a great deal about the Baal Shem Tov’s fear of Heaven. As is known, the Alter Rebbe said that the Baal Shem Tov’s fear of Heaven was so great [unclear], comparable to the fear of Melech HaMoshiach. The Baal Shem Tov could instill fear of Hashem even in [unclear]. There are the well-known stories that when the Baal Shem Tov brought the students out [unclear], they felt an immense [unclear] because of the Baal Shem Tov’s holiness. Similarly, there is another story about the Baal Shem Tov’s fear of Heaven: [unclear] the students stood there and felt such great fear and awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu [unclear]. But the tzitzis [unclear]. The fear of Heaven of [unclear]

06:28 the Baal Shem Tov penetrated even his outer clothing, the physical tzitzis. [unclear] In any case, let us return to our subject, to explaining the verse. There are several interpretations, including another interpretation from the Baal Shem Tov. He says this: What does “And now, Yisroel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear” mean? And the Gemara asks: “Is fear of Heaven such a small thing?” The Gemara answers: “Yes, for Moshe it is a small thing.” The Baal Shem Tov says: We know what the Gemara says about the verse “You shall fear Hashem your G-d,” which appears in Parshas Eikev and concerns the mitzvah of fearing Hashem. The Gemara says that Shimon HaAmsoni would expound every instance of the word es in the Torah. Every es written in the Torah, he would expound: What does this es mean? What does it come to include? But when he reached the words “You shall fear Hashem your G-d,” he stopped. After all, es in the Torah can come to include something. But “You shall fear Hashem your G-d”—besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu, whom else could it mean? One cannot fear anything else, only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As we know, there is the story of the Baal Shem Tov: When he was a child, his father called him over shortly before his passing, and

08:15 the holy Baal Shem Tov was very young then. This happened when the Baal Shem Tov was a small child, and when his father passed away, as the well-known story goes, his father told him: Do not fear anything, only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But there is a difficulty here: What does the word es come to include? Is there an explanation for it? “Until Rabbi Akiva came,” and Rabbi Akiva expounded: “Es—to include Torah scholars.” That is, he understood the word es to include Torah scholars. On the straightforward level, it means that one should hold a Torah scholar in awe—with fear and respect toward him. “Es—to include Torah scholars.” And the Baal Shem Tov explains this. He asks: Why did Shimon HaAmsoni not arrive at this? Because fear is something genuine. Why was it specifically Rabbi Akiva who arrived at the interpretation “es—to include Torah scholars”? And he answered that there is a much deeper meaning here. With Rabbi Akiva, we find that... the Gemara says that before Rabbi Akiva became a Torah scholar, as is known, during the first forty years of his life he was an am haaretz, unlearned in Torah. He even hated

09:38 Torah scholars. The Gemara quotes Rabbi Akiva himself as saying that before he began studying Torah, he would say, “If only someone would bring me a Torah scholar, and I would bite him like a donkey.” In other words, he truly treated Torah scholars with disrespect. That was how he was while he was still an am haaretz. When he saw water dripping onto a stone—“water wears away stones”—and understood that he too could study Torah, he turned to Torah scholars, went to cheder and began to learn. In this way, respect and awe for Torah scholars developed within him. And through this he reached the highest levels of love of Hashem, fear of Hashem and Torah study. Rabbi Akiva became the greatest of the Tannaim. So Rabbi Akiva says, drawing on his own life, “Es—to include Torah scholars.” He explains that when Jews have awe and respect for a Torah scholar, that awe of the Torah scholar leads them to fear of Heaven. This is the meaning of “es—to include Torah scholars”: Through awe of a Torah scholar, one comes to fear of Heaven. How does he know this? He saw it in himself. As long as he treated Torah scholars with disrespect, he was an am haaretz, as he had been before, without love or fear of Hashem. And through

11:02 So once he began to feel awe for Torah scholars, he reached the highest levels in Torah, in serving Hashem, in love of Hashem and in fear of Hashem. That is why Rabbi Akiva says, “Es—this includes Torah scholars,” because through Torah scholars one comes to fear Hashem. And the same thing, he says, is what Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jewish people: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, except to fear Hashem your G-d?” In other words, Moshe Rabbeinu is telling the Jewish people: Since they felt awe for Moshe Rabbeinu—and the verse itself says, “They were afraid to approach him.” It says explicitly in Parshas Ki Sisa that the Jewish people felt awe for Moshe Rabbeinu. “They were afraid to approach him”—awe for a Torah scholar, Moshe Rabbeinu. So Moshe Rabbeinu says: Since you feel awe for a Torah scholar, you will come to fear Heaven. And that is what the Gemara means when it says, “For Moshe, it is a small matter.” Since you feel awe for Moshe Rabbeinu, then “for Moshe, it is a small matter”; coming to fear Heaven will be a small matter for you. That is how we learn it from Rabbi Akiva. And that is the Baal Shem Tov’s interpretation. Because when we see awe for a Torah scholar, awe for a tzaddik, awe for Moshe Rabbeinu—that awe for the tzaddik is genuine fear of Heaven. And the fact that people feel awe

12:30 for the tzaddik is not because of his flesh and blood. It is because the tzaddik has genuine fear of Heaven. The tzaddik stands in self-nullification and awe before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that awakens awe in those around him. So their awe for the Torah scholar is really fear of Hashem; through awe for the Torah scholar, they come to fear Hashem. That is what he means by “Es—this includes Torah scholars.” Through awe for Torah scholars, one comes to fear Heaven. That is the Baal Shem Tov’s interpretation. There is another interpretation, from the Maggid of Mezritch, who gives a wonderful explanation of the verse, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, except to fear.” This is how the Maggid of Mezritch explains the verse, at least in one of his interpretations. He says there are two kinds of fear, and he gives an example. There is what we usually call fear of punishment, and there is fear of Hashem, or fear of sin. That is, a person’s fear may be of punishment, of what will happen to him. But the genuine fear found among Jews is fear of sin, fear of Hashem—fear of the very act of rebelling against the King, of the very separation from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is not fear of punishment, as he explains [unclear]. A person needs to have fear of Hashem: fear not for his own sake, fear of

13:57 punishments, of Gan Eden and Gehinnom, but fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. He gives a parable for this; two parables are brought in the sefarim. The first is simple and beautiful: In winter, a father tells his child to put on warm clothes and wear good, warm shoes so that, G-d forbid, he will not catch cold or become ill. The child does not want to wear those shoes. Being a child, he wants to feel light and comfortable; he wants to wear light shoes and clothes that feel comfortable, not heavy clothes, a big coat, a warm fur coat and all the things he needs. But what happens? The child is afraid of his father. His father will be angry with him; his father will punish him. So the child wears what his father tells him to wear. There are two different fears here: The child is afraid of his father; he is not afraid of catching cold. The father, though, is afraid that the child will catch cold. These are two separate fears. And a second parable is given: A child went out to play, and a piece of wood—a thorn, a sharp splinter—lodged in his foot, and the spot begins

15:23 to swell. It could develop, rachmana litzlan, into something serious; his blood could become infected, with all that entails. The father is filled with fear. Of what? G-d forbid, the place where the splinter lodged could become infected, and that could lead to a serious infection. What does the father do? He takes a knife and cuts around the spot so that he can remove the splinter, because it has gone in very deep. And the child screams. Why is he screaming? Because it hurts. What his father is doing hurts him. But these are two separate fears. The father is afraid that, G-d forbid, an infection will develop and the child will be in danger, rachmana litzlan. What frightens the child? The pain itself. It hurts, so he screams. And this is what the verse says: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, except to fear.” The Maggid of Mezritch explains: Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to a Jew, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you”—what does Hakadosh Boruch Hu really ask of you? “Except to fear Hashem your G-d”—that your fear should be the fear Hakadosh Boruch Hu has, not your own personal fear. It is as though the father were telling the child: Do not be afraid that your father will shout at you, and do not be afraid of the cutting

16:49 around the spot to remove the splinter. That is an external fear. Your fear should be an inner fear, of the thing that frightens your father. The father sees that this could, rachmana litzlan and G-d forbid, lead to illness. That is what should frighten you, too. What does the parable mean in relation to fear of Hashem? Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jewish people, “And now, Israel.” After forty years of teaching them and instilling fear of Hashem in them, the time has come for their fear not to be an external fear, fear of punishment, fear of what might happen to a person for not doing the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Rather, it should be “to fear Hashem your G-d”—fear of Heaven, fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. And here the question the Gemara asks arises: “Is fear such a small matter?” We are talking about this kind of fear—not fear of punishment, but a demand that the Jewish people have fear of sin: that the sin itself, the very separation from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, should pain them. Or fear of the King, awe of His exaltedness: Hashem is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “For Hashem your G-d is the G-d of gods and the Master of masters, the great G-d”—the greatness of Hashem. That is what one should fear. But if that is the kind of fear we are talking about, the question is: “Is it a small matter?” How can this be demanded of the Jewish people? And the answer is: “Yes, for Moshe it is a small matter.” What is the answer here, according to this explanation,

18:16 and what does “for Moshe it is a small matter” mean? Here we need to turn to the Alter Rebbe’s explanation in the Tanya. In chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe cites the entire passage from the Gemara. In chapter 41—and chapter 41, as we know, is a foundational chapter—the Alter Rebbe opens by saying that “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root,” is that a person must have fear of Heaven. The Alter Rebbe explains there that every Jew, whoever he may be, has fear by nature: a Jew does not want to rebel against the King. What is needed, then? To reveal and awaken that fear through “For this, he should take to heart.” The Alter Rebbe explains that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King of kings, that He “fills all worlds, encompasses all worlds, and is above all worlds,” and that He establishes His kingship over His people Israel as a whole and over him in particular—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King over every Jew. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu seeks out every Jew and sets aside His entire kingdom for him. The whole world was created for one single Jew, so that he should serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. By contemplating this, he accepts upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven. And when he contemplates that “behold, Hashem stands over him,” that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present everywhere, wherever one goes and wherever one stands, and that He sees and hears—it awakens fear of Heaven in a Jew in every movement, in every

19:41 thought, word and deed. In chapter 41 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains this, and then, in chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe goes on to say that only after the lengthy explanation in chapter 41 can we understand the Gemara. He asks the same question: Moshe Rabbeinu says this—and what does the Gemara say? “For Moshe, it is a small matter.” What is the meaning of “for Moshe, it is a small matter”? What does the Alter Rebbe mean? That within every Jewish soul, every Jewish heart, there is, deep within the soul, a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu is called “Raaya Mehemna.” There is an entire section of the Zohar called “Raaya Mehemna.” When Moshe Rabbeinu is called “Raaya Mehemna,” it means that he is the faithful shepherd of the Jewish people. And the Alter Rebbe explains what it means to be a faithful shepherd: Just as a shepherd feeds his flock, so too is he Raaya Mehemna. Moshe Rabbeinu is a shepherd who gives the Jewish people nourishment, and that nourishment is daas—knowledge. Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul is on the level of daas. That is Moshe Rabbeinu’s level according to Kabbalah, according to the inner dimension of Torah: Moshe Rabbeinu is daas. Not merely daas, but daas elyon, higher knowledge. The level of daas elyon shone in Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. The highest level of knowledge of G-dliness was present in Moshe Rabbeinu. And every Jew has within him a part, a spark, a part of Moshe Rabbeinu deep within his soul, and this is the level of daas that—

21:22 It exists in every Jew. And this is what the Gemara says: “For Moshe, it is a small matter.” The fear we are speaking about here—the fear that is the beginning, the essence, and the foundation of divine service, the fear of accepting the yoke of Heaven—is a fear that is a small matter. It is something every Jew can attain through the power of Moshe Rabbeinu’s daas. Why was it a small matter for Moshe Rabbeinu? What explains the words “for Moshe, it is a small matter”? As explained later in the chapter, there are many levels of fear. Broadly, they fall into two categories: a level called lower fear, and a level called higher fear. We are not talking about fear of punishment. Fear of punishment is not relevant here. We are talking about fear of Heaven, awe of G-dliness, reverence before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But even within reverence before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there are two levels, as far apart as one extreme from the other. The first and lowest level, which is the foundation—as the Alter Rebbe calls it, “the beginning, the essence, and the foundation of divine service”—is what we spoke about earlier: fear that comes from the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King. I stand in the kingdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King of kings, and I am a servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose me, as the verse says, “I am Hashem your G-d, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” and as Rashi says, “The act of bringing you out is reason enough for you to be subject to Me.”

22:52 Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought the Jews out of Egypt so that they would be subject to Him. That is what accepting the yoke of Heaven means. And this disposition of accepting the yoke of Heaven is the beginning, the essence, and the foundation of divine service—lower fear. But there is a deeper awareness and fear: awe of His exaltedness, a sense of reverent shame. One reaches it by sensing His transcendence, His greatness, His exaltedness. It does not come merely from the fact that He is King. Here one must already know and feel much higher levels of divine understanding, and grasp the greatness of that greatness. Through this, one comes to a sense of reverent shame. That is not fear of a king; it is a kind of awe, for example, [unclear] toward a tzaddik. When you stand before a great tzaddik, a great Rebbe, it is not fear of a king. It is an awe born of shame when standing before a great and extraordinary person among the Jewish people. [unclear]. It is a different kind of awe. Moshe Rabbeinu’s level was higher fear. Therefore, for Moshe, lower fear—the fear involved in accepting the yoke of Heaven—is called a small matter. And because every Jew has a part of Moshe Rabbeinu in his soul, Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jews, “It is a small matter.” In terms of daas, in terms of fear, of daas, Moshe Rabbeinu [unclear] the Jews through the power of daas. So every Jew has the ability, by contemplating and sensing the greatness of Hashem, to...

24:29 contemplate His greatness. Through contemplation, “His spirit descends upon them,” and at the very least this fear is awakened: fear of Hashem, the fear that comes from truly standing before the King. We find this in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch and in Tanya, as stated in the opening laws of the Shulchan Aruch: “I have set Hashem before me always.” When a Jew gets up in the morning, he must immediately think that the King of kings is standing over him. This awakens that fear and acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, and with it the Jew begins his service throughout the entire day. This is the fear, and this is the meaning of the verse and the teaching of our Sages, according to the Maggid of Mezritch’s explanation and the Alter Rebbe’s explanation in Tanya. And here another point, another explanation, is added by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. He cites a teaching of our Sages found in the Midrash: “And now, Israel”—“‘And now’ always denotes teshuvah.” “And now” specifically means teshuvah. The Midrash cites a verse: What is the source for saying that “and now” means teshuvah? Yes, it says [unclear], “‘And now’ always denotes teshuvah.” In Chassidus, in Chabad maamarim, this Midrash is cited with a number of explanations. But here Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev offers a beautiful interpretation: What does “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you” mean? What does “‘And now’ always denotes teshuvah” mean? He says that teshuvah is “and now.” What is the essential thing about teshuvah? That—

26:06 a person must live in this moment. That is “and now.” When he sets out to begin his divine service, he should not look at yesterday or the day before. A person begins, and then the yetzer hara comes and says to him: What about yesterday? “Who am I, anyway?” And it starts listing all sorts of things, all sorts of memories of his sins and transgressions, and so on. This leads a person to fall into despair. The Berditchever says: The verse says, Moshe Rabbeinu says, “And now, Israel”—“‘And now’ always denotes teshuvah.” Do you know what teshuvah is? Teshuvah is “and now.” Now! At this very moment! Do not look back, do not look ahead, do not make calculations, come up with theories, or philosophize. At this very moment, devote yourself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is true teshuvah. He says that the opposite of this is what is written in the previous parsha. In the previous parsha, Vaeschanan, in the passage read on Tisha B’Av—how does the Tisha B’Av reading from Parshas Vaeschanan begin? “When you have children and grandchildren and grow old in the land.” What is the greatest destruction? The greatest destruction is “when you have children and grandchildren and grow old.” “Grow old” is the exact opposite of “and now.” “Grow old”—it becomes old, a thing of the past. That is, a person [unclear] what happened and how things were before, and all sorts of things he carries with him from there. But that is “grow old,” and that leads to destruction. What is “and now”? Freshness. Today, now, stand up

27:44 with all your vitality. “‘And now’ always denotes teshuvah,” and then we emerge from this exile. As the Berditchever explains, this is the meaning of the Gemara’s account of “today”: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked Moshiach, “When will you come?” And he answered, “Today.” What does “today” mean? That is the whole point. “Today”—you want to bring Moshiach? Live the “today.” A Jew must live the “today,” the sense that “each day they are truly new.” Today is today! And then we emerge from our inner exile and devote ourselves to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, but to fear Hashem your G-d?” This is fear, fear of Heaven. And fear of Heaven is “the beginning, the essence, and the foundation of divine service,” through which a Jew serves Hakadosh Boruch Hu all day long. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us fulfill this “And now, Israel.” And “and now” also refers to this present time, to the divine service a Jew must perform; through that, we will reach what is said about the future. There are verses in the parsha—verses of comfort and blessing, the verses of the weekly parsha, what the Torah says. All these blessings, the praise of the Land of Israel, and all the verses later in the parsha, from “And it will be, if you surely listen” through “so that your days and the days of your children may increase upon the land that Hashem swore to your forefathers to give them.” And may we merit the true and complete Geulah,

29:10 and then there will be true fear. Chassidus explains that when Moshiach comes, true fear will be revealed—higher fear, the great awe that Moshiach will reveal. That is why it says of the future, “To enter the clefts of the rocks and the crevices of the cliffs, for fear of Hashem.” As explained in Chassidus, this refers to the true awe and bittul that Jews will feel then, in the future. The King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, will be revealed in all His glory, and the verse will be fulfilled: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.”