29. Where’s The פחדך Guy?

00:16 Hello, Kindlech. It's Aseres Yemei Teshuva, and we just came from Rosh Hashanah. In Rosh Hashanah, we ask Hashem to reveal to us, to make us all feel how He's the King of the entire world. He gives life to everything. And one of the parts of the davening, if you paid attention, we keep saying several times during the whole Rosh Hashanah, and again on Yom Kippur, "Uvechen ten pachdecha." You guys know what pachdecha means? We say to Hashem, "Please give Your fear. People should be afraid of You. You know, there's so many bad people in the world. Make sure that all the bad people are afraid of You." How will they be afraid of Hashem? If Hashem is hidden and nobody can feel Him, they're not gonna be afraid of Him. They're gonna keep doing bad things. But if Hashem opens up to everybody and makes Himself f-felt by everyone, everybody can feel that Hashem is everywhere all the time, then people are gonna be afraid of Hashem, and the bad people are gonna be afraid to do bad things. So we ask Hashem, "Make sure that, that these people are afraid of You. Everybody's afraid of You." I will tell you a story, and the story tells you that the fe- the fear of Hashem, to be afraid of Hashem is very important. Not being afraid that Hashem is gonna punish you or do something bad to you. Afraid means that you have respect for Hashem. You know how great Hashem is. Imagine you're standing

02:02 in front of the Rebbe. The Rebbe's standing right next to you and looking at you. Are you gonna be afraid? Yes, but not afraid that he's gonna hurt you, Chas ve'Shalom. The Rebbe wouldn't hurt anybody. The Rebbe loved every single one of us. But you're gonna be afraid in a different way, uh, be afraid because you're s- He-- You're in f- you're in front of somebody so great, such a great tzadik, such a holy person. And of course, when you're in the presence of Hashem, you feel afraid because it's Hashem. Hashem is next to you all the time. Yeah? You know, in the psukim, "Hinie Hashem nitzav alaf." Hashem is standing next to you all the time, so you're afraid of Hashem. If a person felt that Hashem is there next to them all the time, you wouldn't do any averus, you wouldn't do anything bad. So tzadikim, great tzadikim, when they walk into a room, everybody in the room, because they are so afraid of Hashem, they feel Hashem's presence all the time, so they're always afraid of Hashem. So when they walk in, everybody als- also feels that fear of Hashem, 'cause a tzadik can make everybody around them, everybody around them also feel that Hashem is there and feel fear. And when Rebbe Shule, when the Rebbe would come into Seven Seventy, especially on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, you could feel, like, the fear of Hashem. 'Cause the Rebbe was so full of fear of Hashem that when he walked into

03:28 the room, everybody als- felt that fear also. Here's a story, a great story. Reb Zusha of Anipoli. Reb Zusha of Anipoli came to a city, and he came to... It's a small town, and he walked into a Jewish inn. You know what an inn is? A place where people can stay overnight. It's like a hotel. You can get food, kosher food. It was owned by a Jew, and he sees that everybody, all the Jewish people are hiding. Everybody's going to hiding. There are no Jews in the street. He asked the innkeeper, "Why is everybody going to hide? How come the Jews are running away to hide in their houses? Everybody's going to their houses to hide." And the innkeeper says, "You didn't hear? The Cossacks, the bad, mean Cossacks who hate the Jewish people, they're coming with clubs, and with sticks, and with all kinds of terrible things, and they're coming to beat us up, and they're also coming to steal all our gold, and silver, and money, and jewelry." So Reb Zusha said, "Really? Where are the Cossacks? I don't see them. Where are they?" And the innkeeper says, "Look outside the window. They're coming. They're all the way there, see? That's why everybody's running away. Everybody's running to their houses to hide from the Cossacks, and they're locking up their doors so the Cossacks couldn't get in." Reb Zusha walks over to the window, and he looks out, and he sees the Cossacks coming. And as the Cossacks came closer to the inn,

05:06 to the window where Reb Zusha was standing and looking out, he yelled out to the Cossacks and said, "Uvechen ten pachdecha. Hashem should give His fear to you." And he said the word pachdecha. When he said the word pachdecha, suddenly the Cossacks looked at Reb Zusha. They were, like, so shocked, and they got so afraid that they started running away. They dropped all their sticks on the floor and ran away. In fact, one of the Cossacks, he wanted to run away to hide somewhere. He was afraid. And you know, these Cossacks didn't know what they were afraid of. Suddenly they saw something terrible coming. Reb Zusha, when he said the word pachdecha, he was able to make them feel so afraid- And they didn't know why, but they were afraid of something, and they kept running away. "Oi, oi, oi, our lives are in danger. Something is gonna hurt us. We're gonna get killed." They didn't know why they felt that way, but they felt it, and they kept running away to every possible direction. One Cossack fled this way, the other Cossack fled the other way, and one of the Cossacks fled inside the inn. He didn't realize that Reb Zusha was standing in that inn. He just came into the inn to hide, and he ran all the way up to the attic, and hid in the attic, and closed the door of the attic, and he was so afraid. He was so afraid. And so, the Cossack stayed in the attic a

06:49 whole night shaking. His body was shaking and shaking. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oi vei, they're coming. They're coming. They're coming t- they're coming for me. They're coming to hurt me." And nobody was coming for him. There was nobody coming for him. He was just thinking that somebody's coming. Reb Zusha was such a great tzadik. He was able to make these, these mean, bad Cossacks feel the fear that he felt of Hashem all the time. Reb Zusha felt the fear of Hashem all the time. You see, Reb Zusha would look up at the sky at night and look at the stars, and from looking at one star, he would say, "Wow, who created this star? Who?" And there are billions and billions of stars like that. Each star is bigger than the universe, bigger than the world. They're so big, but the reason they're so small, because they're very far away, so it looks so small, but they're really huge, gigantic. And, and the stars are so powerful. They're full of light, and there are billions of them. And when he would think about it, he would get so afraid of Hashem because he realized Hashem created all these incredible stars, that he would get so afraid of Hashem that he would get, like, sick inside. He would start bleeding inside his stomach. You know, when you get very afraid of something, sometimes you get really scared, you can get bleeding inside. But normally it doesn't happen, but if you're older, you know, you're an older

08:22 person, and you get afraid of something, you start bleeding. So Reb, Reb Zusha would get always the fear of Hashem had in him all the time. So when he said to these Cossack, "Pachad Hashem, Hashem's fear should go inside of you," he was able to take some, a little bit, a tiny bit of the fear that he felt of Hashem should go inside of their hearts, and they all felt fear of Hashem. And this one Cossack ran so quickly to the attic. He was hiding and shivering and shaking. He thought somebody's coming. He didn't know what he was afraid of, but he was afraid of something. Reb Zusha knew that he took a little bit of the fear that he have, a tiny fraction, and gave it to them. The next morning, the Cossack, he, he, when he was hungry, he needed to get down, so he came down from the attic slowly. He was tippy-toeing. Reb Zusha was not there anymore, but the innkeeper was there, and the Cossack went over to the innkeeper. "Tell me, is the Pachad Hashem guy still here?" And he was shaking and shivering. He says, "Is the Pachad Hashem guy, the guy who said Pachad Hashem yesterday, and he got us all so scared, is he still around?" And the Jew said, "No, no, no, he's gone." And the Cossacks all went back to their houses and never bothered the Jews again.