Parshas Eikev: Rebbe Akiva's Shocking Teaching - Who Is Really Closest to Hashem?

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay good morning everyone bruce to the kylo aguer de perka here in kew garden hills new york okay so like we mentioned the shabbos we're going to be laning practice akev by minha time so i figured what better topic than to speak about what we're going to be laying in this week's passion also it happens to be that i'm not going to be here monday they called me to to do thursday i said no problem but i'll switch it for monday um so i'm not going to be here uh akev i'm not going to be a re-a so i got to give you something for a guev and then ray i guess you'll have to come tomorrow to young israel or something okay so uh in parashat we have the mitzvah of shamayim in akev uh paraguay the torah tells us s hashem tyra likewise a little bit earlier in pasha take the to go in all his ways sorry to love him so here we have the mitzvah of okay exactly when it comes to the mitzvah of euroshamayam the gemara says in brachaise let's go to number four first the gemara tells us in brackets everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven in other words god controls everything how much money you're going to make where you're going to go what you're going to do the only thing that hashem so to speak withdraws from and allows men to exercise his own discretionary choice is in the realm of yoroshimaem how do i know shenamah viator yes does hashem your god ask of you only to fear him so what do we see from here that the only thing that hashem asks of you is to fear him he doesn't ask of you anything else because it's not up to you to do anything else what how much money you're going to make what you're going to do where are you going to live how you're going to do it is all preordained the only thing god asks of you is you're ashamed that's the only thing that is up to god that you have a this actually this plastic is uh when it when it says it refers to all the mitsubishi because actually in the past it says five things and then it goes on to save ishmar is called so actually it refers to all of them okay it includes that yeah now the government continues the gemara says directly gemara if the language of the pasta complies that ma like only to fear him that sounds like fear of hashem is a is a small thing it's a cleaner kite all hashem asked of you is the only thing god has in this storehouse is a treasure chest of the fear of god chanema so how can hashem say all i ask of you it's like all i ask of you is to pick up this barbell that weighs 70 billion pounds that's all i ask of you to do what do you mean kim liura says no tacos a piece of cake the martial is like this if i ask you for a million dollars and you have it so it's a cleaner kite if i ask you for ten dollars and you don't have it it's a grocery zach okay so what's the gemara's answer the more's answer is i your shaman is an amazing thing is a very precious thing all hashem has in his treasure house is the storehouse of shamayim say how could the pastor say ki and liura the answer is from it's taka an easy thing so everybody asks everybody in their first cousin asks but wait a second marsha ben is the one talking not telling moshe all i ask of you moshe is telling khali israel all hashem asks of you is to fear him so big deal it's a it's an easy thing but she's talking to claudius and to cloudy so it's a very difficult thing imagine you have an olympic gold medalist swimmer that can mention any names he says the only thing you need to do is swim from one end of the atlantic ocean to the other atlantic ocean yes for you you're a whale you could swim from one end to the other end i don't know how to swim even i'm afraid of the water so you have to know who you're talking to who cares but he has to know his audience for his audience it's a very difficult thing okay so we come to the safeway from the magic of yak of krantz atamet of the going and on this gemara he says adavar nifla he says oi impasses tazria he says the same thing in partial this week's powershell that we lay in by minha okay tash of tira you will see kika just like we say of all the jewish people there are select people who are god's treasure for example and on this i'll say and the governor says what's the meaning of this the meaning of this is like this the magic then goes on to say that one time i visited the city of vilna and i happened to come to mauri who's mairi rabbenu hakadosh and i asked him i have a question for you rebbe how can a person be on somebody else how could ruvin affect shema how could somebody influence somebody else after all everybody has free choice what do i have to do with you if you want to do the right thing you're going to do the right thing if you want to do the wrong thing you're going to do the wrong thing how could anybody influence anybody else what is the manner what is the method what's the methodology he says the dubnamage vilnius how can a righteous person pour out influence with his your shamayim to the people of generation well the going said like this he gave the following martial you have a big vessel and surrounding the big bell vessel are small cops so what do you got to do how's the big cup gonna big cup can't move if you fill up the big cup so much and now the big cup fills up and now begins to overflow that's the only way the big cup will be able to have an effect on the cups around it so too says the going so too says the going if a person fills himself up with so much tyrant someone's your shamayim that he's filled to the capacity he's he's filled to the brims mama it will have an overflow and have an effect on those surrounding him that is what the god explained in other words if somebody just tells somebody else or somebody just speaks to somebody else or somebody gives a big russia what influence does it have zero you can get up at the podium and you can speak to a thousand people and you are not accomplishing anything whatsoever because everybody is it's a free country i do my thing you do your thing what is the fact that i said something can have an influence on you says the going the only way is to fill yourself up so much that you're filled to capacity you're filled to the brim mama there's nowhere else for it to go other than to those surrounding you says the go says the going says the um this is the gemara the gomorrah asks is your shamayim such a small thing how could hashem say to moshe the answer is and if you're living in the generation of moisha rabbenu it will be easy for you also why because since it was easy for moshe and moshe was so filled to the brims and so filled to capacity associating with maestro avenue will rub off on you also meaning meaning as follows meaning ah let's come back to the first passage let's come back to number one so you hear the you hear the shot the shot is it's really difficult for everybody for me and you your shamayim is very difficult so what's the it's how do you get your shamayim the answer is you got to hang out with the right people you hang out with the writer you hang out with the people who are so molly the goddess you're shamayim mama will rub off on you that's what it means all i ask of you is to fear god ah it's a very difficult thing to myself it's an easy thing so therefore you have to know go to the moisture because if you go to the moistures since it's easy for them it will mama be easy for you as well okay i'm not sure they have to make a living i guess huh um the answer is if they have to really mean it it has to be coming from that has to be varma yesterday in other words it's they're they're so to speak that's basically yeah good what your comment is is exactly what the going is saying what does it do exactly it's up and right in other words true so so in that way it's really they're not being mashfia on you they're making available a certain idea and it's you know take it or leave it it's up to you it may not nearly melee it's up to the person to receive it no but that's not the hashbah that the villain is talking about is that no it's not it's the person themself deciding to take in the message but that's not hashba hashball is i'm pouring on t i'm not pouring on to you the only way to be mashmiya yes if you hear a good rasha and you are macabre that's you're doing that's not the speaker's doing that's you're doing it but you have to allow it to be nichnas you have to allow to necklace this is a different methodology this is the methodology of works the way hashima works i'm not i'm not downplaying uh speak speeches now especially you know that's my profession but but uh but i'm i'm focusing on something else this is that concept of hashpal works differently but the way it works is you fill yourself up and the melody overflows to other people okay coming back to the first possibility well there's a famous gemara on this passage know that everyone thinks it's only shimla namsan there's another gersa hayat called he specialized in darshaning sm right they're different specialties in torah his he was an s specialist okay s hashem when he got up to s hashem he withdrew his methodology in other words he was the one who you know if not for him if not for him you you could have said that s is not just an article you can't darshan it however shimon sunni's position was every s is given to darshan so he's wrote he that he would open up the hamish voracious fiesta every s he would darshan until finally he got up to precious acav so just imagine he went through you know voracious and he's been doing it for years he's already a 25-year veteran an s specialist right he will put ads in newspaper if anybody has any issues with the s you go to sunni and then he gets up to an s he doesn't know what to do with it so piresh what did he do he took out an ad by the way just want everybody to know my entire career was a sham it was a scam drop it forget it forget all the drushes he went around he spoke everywhere he gave conferences the s conference every year he held an s conference and then finally now at the end he had to say i just want everyone to know everything i ever told you just forget it scratch that delete what are you going to do with all your farim look you know they have now in in my shiva we have from shalima kluger fat safer on voracious not safe for boraisias parshas voracious and then on and then so you can imagine if shalma kluger could do it i guarantee you shimon ham sunni he had a safer on every ass in the time thousands of swarm this is the time it's a new rebbe what are you going to do with all this farm elohim the same way i got scott for writing them i'm going to get scar from being going until rabbi came vidaras s hashem akiva came along and he saved the day and he darshan s hashem alaika fear hashem what does the s include well amazingly based on this comment of the villenegoin the dum num says a noob shot in this pasta we always read it as hashem that who do you have to fear other than hashem you have to fear tamim based on the going what are the going say the going said like this really for me and you your shamayim is very difficult but if you hang out with the right people then they're going to rub off on you because they're so mali of a god it's going to overflow and have an effect on you as well so says the magic this is the shot s hashem you want to fear hashem is tell me you gotta hang around the tamil because the only way you're going to come to your mind how you're going to come to your shamayim we're too far removed from understanding hashem to have europe the only way is you have to hang around it's the only way to do it you got to hang around the right people no in other words it's not who else you have to fear other than hashem the rabbis you also how are you going to come to fear hashem s you got to associate the tamil because otherwise it's not going to be milsa zutrasa there is a certain capacity of fear in man until it's light is spread to others as well just like every vessel has the capacity from it it pours out to the adjacent calendar la marshall if you put one in a bigger clay and you pour into the inner clay so then so long as the inner one is not filled up it's not going to overflow however once you fill the intercalated capacity then it will overflow to the outer ones so he says kane sheer hair believe hayari sotu is the measurement of fear in the heart of those who fear hashem kikasha nismalu nafshay bitstakov alkane this here's the here's the key boho because it's not a small thing okay it's a very important taj of the pasta you gotta know who to hang out with okay let's go to number eight for a moment and let's just make an observation observation from this kamara let's begin by asking a question now s hashimoto's who do you have to fear other than hashem now it's not like it requires you know some kind of deep understanding to come to that conclusion all we need to do is who else you have to fear other than god who could it be mother-in-law right your aunt you're your boss who else could it be your wife your parents we already know you have the verb so all we need to do is come up with somebody who we wouldn't have known like shimon huam sunni if he was able to come up with thousands and thousands and thousands of drushes of ssss why couldn't he think maybe yes yeah why couldn't he think of that what exactly what exactly was the difficulty what was the problem that he couldn't think of well voice i let's point out something very interesting here let's think about what what shimon ham sunni did there's a clown in chess there's a clown that a person us that a person basically is stubborn and that is if you maintain a certain position you will continue to that may maintain that position forever in other words if i knew you 20 years ago and you were a republican you are you are definitely a republican today you didn't change and if i knew you 20 years ago and you were a democrat you're still a democrat and if i knew you 20 years ago and you were conservative you're going to hey you're liberal you're still liberal and if you used to like chocolate ice cream you still like talking people do not change their opinions there's a kazakh that a person always in fact as much as you were a republican 20 years ago or as much as you're about to 20 years ago you are even more so today why because human nature is whatever position you maintain your mind is constantly coming up with ways to bolster and to to to boost that opinion that's the human nature people don't change what's true what and now you've confirmed it today right i don't know you show me one most people do not change their opinions that's a kazakh the gemara says that's the way humans are where which tomorrow that's human nature in general human nature is people don't really change their opinions so you can imagine shimon huam sunni that what that we darshan every s in the tower so when he got to beresh's world kim s he found an s and yeah and as he's going on and he's mounting drush after joshua and convention after convention and he's developing this mahalak by the time he got up to davarim there's no way in a million years anybody's ever going to convince him not to darshan and s not not by the time he got up to past and yet look at the intellectual honesty of shimon home sunni that he gets up to the s and pastures akev and he says you know what i guarantee you he thought of ravi akiva's drasha and he rejected it for whatever his reason was maybe it's not shy of to be married to somebody other than the god but look at the intellectual honesty in other words his formula worked thousands of times and he comes to one instance now if i were him i could think of a million different deutsche shot him to darshan yes and he didn't you know what he said i don't know what this s teaches me so if i were him i would say you know i don't know there must be a shot sorry but you could definitely still adoption s i just don't know what to do with this one no shimmering hoam sunni said despite the fact that i had a perfect shot for the first couple thousand essen in the torah i'm stumped over here and to me this is magala that my whole mahalak is wrong it's and it's erroneous i drop it tremendous tremendous intellectual honesty who else would do such a thing the answer is nobody nobody in history would ever do such a thing how is it shark for a human being to reach sacha madriga the answer is he was so through and through immersed in midas ms that his mahalak did not work out perfectly in this s he dropped it so comes the mordechai gifter and he says a dhara nifla says there have gifter if shimon huam sunni was not able to come up with abshad in this s say how is ravi akiva like how if he couldn't do it how is ruby able to do it the answer is you know how rob was able to do it rebbi akiva also had no idea what to do with the s how is it shy for a person to have to fear someone other than the abundant islam to fear a human being it's impos it's impossible that the torah is saying fear hashem and fear a human being after all a human being is so full of mali because of so how could you say you have to fear somebody other than god until ravi akiva saw a man by the name of sunni and he saw how a human being after dedicating an entire life to a certain mahala said you know what it doesn't work over here it's just not true how a human being has reached a level of the divine to be so through and through ms rabbi kiva realized that you know what it's shy for a person to be to be so ms that you could have a mahalak your whole life and then at the last moment say you know what it doesn't work perfectly over here let's drop the whole thing goofa it was shimon hum sunnis refusal to darshan the s that inspired rebbi akiva to darshan the s so look at number seven over here we have from a gifter here in a second we have form of gifter shamati memory viral gifters me in the course of his life he made efforts to find the correct russia essence russia the only thing in other words let's say i ask you if you came up with a mahalak and it worked in 4 99 cases in one case it didn't work so what would you say it's a perfect mahala this case it's a little swear no he was ready to drop the whole thing and say ta'isi what are you akiva see from this cause this wasn't just a hobby this was his life's mission this was his life's mission to discover the meaning of the essen tremendous that he could be so fully ms that he's ready to drop his entire life's work says rabbi kiva obviously we need to darshan yeah understand why why would one time he doesn't know what to do with all of the lessons you find many times hazardous yeah the doctrine of the torah of the frenches of new ways sometimes they don't know he says the doctor still tells me what they don't understand it doesn't dilate those brushes you find russia says many times no because one thing doesn't have to do with the other here it was unclear that it was unclear do we darshan asks and do we not darshan essen so if he's able to come up with the drastic fine but he had a place that he felt not he knew he really felt that there's nothing else to be mad about he felt that was an ironclad question and because of that he was playerish he took his notes he ripped him up and he sat down and put his hands in his head because he realized that the entire russia that he had prepared was wrong because of this and even though he probably could have wiggled out of it you know whatever the truth in him also did not allow him to continue yeah so why did he throw me a keyboard he said he said it's okay it [Music] i want to share with you another really amazing shot in this kamara that shimon huam sunihaya dairesh call essen torah when he got to the pasak assassin and he learns this gemara apigee rush sunni had a policy he darshan every s in the tower he gets up to the position what happened he was hija what does that mean he reached the level of assassination what does that mean he reached the level of he was so thoroughly he was came to such a recognition that hashem sees our thoughts and as hashem sees our actions and hashem sees everything we do he reached the highest level of yura shamayim what did he do he said the only way now to live properly is to separate from this world piresh so what did he do he went into seclusion he sort of secluded himself from the rest of society and he was involved only in contemplation of hashem's greatness in his voidudos in his voice like many great sadhikum have done that after they reached a certain level they sort of left mingling amongst society left the influences of society and went into their own dalaramis when he reached the pinnacle of europe pirage so much your shamayim and you are on such a high level do you think what god wants of you is to go into your dalai ramos and become like one of the malacca god has enough angels up there you know what hashem wants of you to go out and make more talmide in the world if you've already so to speak reach the highest level the right mahalakha is not to go into your dalai lama the right mahal is not to be piresh the correct mahalak is tell me they come in to go out and use your abilities use your talents to increase your shanayan take a look this is the the seifer imraedas so he directions is passing very interestingly what does this mean he reached the pinnacle of fear of god what did he do pirage the simple shot is he separated from his mahala of darshan that's no pirage he was separated from the world to his stage not to go hide in the corner but rather to go into rishi sarabim so here's a big question why did rebbi akiva rekiva was the only one who came up with this joshua nobody else nobody else came up with the drasha of la ravis everybody didn't nobody knew to go out into the world and to be more because so mayor shapiro says it like this we know rivia kiva and i'll bite him like a donkey i know a lot of people who say that right who would give me and we know the sheet of the rambam is that normally a person should go on the the middle road the golden medium right the but when a person once went to one extreme the way to do chuba is to take it the other way kiva who in his youth had this great hatred for tamiya in order to be misaki in that in order to correct that he took it he was the one who was able to take it the other direction i'll tell you an amazing thing the uh there's a biography on rabies cilantro written by none other than his one of his great talmidem ravitzula peterberg and robeso patterberg wrote the safer um he wrote something called koichvayar by the way the orius trial was also written by rabitsa paterberg he also wrote they are he wrote sharyar and he wrote a biography on the ruby so santa and this voice and he writes about the dilemma that rabieswa solanter had in his youth about what mahalo he should take should he become like a sadiq nistar should he become like a more well-known type of person and look at number ten um the question writes kane bialdusa in the youth of revistro cilantro thunder was an absolute genius and uh in fact we saw cilantro once said let's see we'll play a little game fill in the blank uso santa said it's easy to write a safer like the noida bihuda but it's difficult to write even one page of a save for alike well where we start in his youth when he was like brimming when he was with the fire of his youth the toy gift to kazakhstan is in the power of his righteousness he had in mind to sort of speak take the path of separation he's going to go hide in the corner go hide in the caves go hide as a secret person not not doesn't mean to be different than anybody else but so to speak to hide his wisdom to hide his my sim to hide his then nobody should know who he is okay and he started to do this and says the nasi vaisar as is well-known lee de chain mikhail know that the path of prisus is a very direct path to the kind of great shlaimus and hashem to reach the highest madres massive susham himself writes that precious is necessary his voidudo is necessary to reach higher levels if a person takes this path he won't have the ability to accomplish things for the sake of hashem you won't be able to influence other people if a person is a neck by allah if a person only stays in their dalai ramos then yes they could reach very high levels but they cannot influence others alkane some level therefore re-evaluated until he came to the conclusion god does not want that to someone who god gave so much wisdom and your shamayim yeshuan has the abilities and the talents to accomplish hashem doesn't want lay shave betta to sit in your dalai rama's rak lazaku says especially if you know your generation to just sit in your house with your own your shamayim leo is calling iraq man was not created for himself but to benefit others in other words imagine if you have you saw a guy in gas mias what does he do all he does is he makes money all day and then he goes to the store and he buys a 20 course meal and people ask what are you doing what do you mean what i'm doing i'm buying supper for who that's like important for five people no it's all for me and what you can do with all your millions of dollars it's all for me and what are you gonna everything stop asking everything i do is just for me so the guy's a selfish brat the same thing with rochnias says someone who just learns and is involved in their own rookies is just as selfish as somebody who does so in gashmiyas he says leslie you can't just gather your own spiritual wealth i'll have a good gun aidan kiyam lahar boys kvoid shamayim walcott and being every word of shas to get to get the exact text of every word of gamora and every word of madrid and every word of mishnah and all the swarm he wrote and the torah he brought down to the world his kavanaugh must have been to to be matched beyond the whole world but maybe somebody who didn't have that ability had other talents the bottom line is this was the uh this was the mahala cover of israel solanter different okay but that's the idea of the way ramirez shapiro learns this gemara shimon huam sunni when he was in pires he separated from the world ad shabbat akiva vidarash [Music] says i believe in you okay there's another astounding lemur do we learn from this gemara something that if there is ever a time we need to hear it it's and nowadays if i were to ask you what level is more dear to god than any other level you know there are a lot have names out there nice guy throw it out there what else do we got of all these titles which one is most beloved [Applause] the answer is none of the above the title which is most beloved by god think about it akiva fear god fear god and rabbi kiva is thinking what else is there in this world which is most similar to hashem that we could say not only do you have to be ashamed you have to fear this also because this is the closest thing in this world hashem maybe could have picked the unoff he could have picked the balchester he could have picked a nice guy he could have picked about zadaka he could have picked the manig he could have picked the speaker he could have picked the zhou here the zarya's the mashmiya and rabikima picked one thing because knew that this is the closest thing that we have in this world to be punished believe me what happened to it it's still there it's still there it's still there though it's a clown of all the things it's like it's kyle it's kyle more mitzvos than something else but if you want to know what madrega is closest to hashem it's yadia satora in other words one who knows torah is the closest thing that we have to imagine one learns torah but isolates himself uh it's not good maybe it's not good but you got to fear that person bigger because you understand what's there is your mind it's an ingredient a lot of ingredients in other words it's an ingredient if you have choline they don't put in salt it has no tam but nobody would say that the the children is the salt in other words you have a bowl of salt you're not eating children they curse the children them it is now changed from the act to the description in other words a person who does mice at sid cus is called a sadiq a person who does called a baal beloved if we could find what title is beloved to god makes god rejoice then we could know the path which is truly beloved hashem and the khazanesh then says we have this gemara that shimon ham sunni could not find the drasha until rabbi kiva said the rabbis the personality which is most beloved and it's the greatest me from the standpoint of the torah and it was only this title that allowed to equate the mirai lamar it's interesting you know the kumara says of all titles now we're not downplaying akase is also great very valuable attacks those are very valuable they're on very great madregos but the highest madrega is plain old what is he is he a rob no he's not a rock is he a rep he's not doesn't have any title he's just a plain old time of but one thing is you got to be afraid of him so why isn't hashem crazy where should i be in the end yeah in the world yeah why wasn't great personality was praised did it bother myself no ishmael it's not a praise not agnai it's the fact he was on a mind no praises in the torah the torah is not it's not a book of praise there's not one praise in the whole torah you want the only praise in the torah is bilaam bilaam's only one who gives praises hashem doesn't give us any praises except at the end of terror one thing mashable that's it no more the torah is telling us the highest majaya is hashem now let me i'll leave just to bolster this idea interestingly the xiaomi in bracha says that actually sunni was the talmud of ravi akiva for 22 years and what did he learn from him gamim akin and rakim ravikiva gave him sure for 22 years what does s teach you what does gam teach you what does ah teach you what does rock teach you they got up to the the pasik s hashem what does it mean fear hashem on my laboratory said the s is marvel listen carefully yes what's the shot why the talmud is that in other words why is the talmud that which is closest hashem so it's the one who knows the torah he is that which is closer than why because he has incorporated da sasha that's it plain and simple it's always i'll leave you with the following question i'm sorry can you please define tommy yes if you know shas that's then you're missing the salt is the knowledge it has to be of course you have to fulfill that 99 percent of humanity he's not thomas foster that's how it's correct there's an elite group yeah what happens to the rest of us what do you mean you're rubbed off there's nothing i'm not capable of being atomic so god gave up on me no then we're not we're not we're not criticizing people or not no we're ready the torah is saying that besides fearing hashem you have that means that echelon is that which is closest to hashem and in other words the madrega which is the highest madriga the madriga that everyone strives for that that is it doesn't say anywhere that one who is not is in any way uh less beloved to hashem and the torah says that that claudius when i but there's something called a mashraf something called an avraham and there's something called just like their kaihanem just like their livium the highest majoriga is the kind god that's that's the highest madriga one second i have a i'm going to end up with a question i end up with a question mando for the question so come to be kiva and ray we keep the darshans s la rava is i have another s that the gemara is not is not uh seems to be ignoring what about the s in this week's parasha via you should love hashem why don't we have the same thing in other words that's that's first what did shimon ham sunni do with that ass nikkimaru doesn't say shimanums to me with darshan like what happened to that one so in other words why was it that shimon hom sunni only had problems with assassination what are you doing with that the first test you answered this is talking about the wealth closest to the bottle okay whatever shimano sunny did this we have this why didn't he do with era right now whatever he did with the viabda what so apparently shimano sunni had no that not only do you have to love hashem you have to love tamil as well that he had no problem with to be afraid of apparently that was much more difficult for him to to darshan to to fear tamiya to be afraid of them so then does anybody say that well the gemara in shabbos says one thing that somebody who loves tamidekh so i don't know if it's a mitzvah according to we're saying it's a mitzvah but it's certainly it's a taiva i'd like to have a good day you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com