Rabbi Yuhanan Mesilat Yesharim 1.25-1.27

we are on page 114 of his translation and we're in chapter 1.25 the requirement of effort however in order for man to gain this benefit it is proper to First labor for it and attempt with his effort to acquire it we said before that once you find out what is your purpose in the world why did Hashem create the world to enjoy to receive pleasure and the ultimate pleasure is closest to Hashem and the place of ultimate pleasure is the next World how do you earn it by doing mitzvot in this world and we said uh the one of the ways to get the reward in the next World Is by attaching yourself to Hashem being close to Hashem and Hashem made it not so simple not so easy and that is because if we get something easy we don't get so much reward according to the effort we put in that is the amount of reward we're gonna get and that is why uh Hashem made it very difficult to find the truth in this world in order for man to gain this benefit it is proper to First labor for it and attempt with his effort to acquire it achieving closeness to Hashem in your mind requires effort things must be done with the intention to increase closeness the miscellaneous said in his introduction behold the fear of Hashem is wisdom and he explained that our sages said that the word hand behold in Greek the word hen means one meaning as if you we can find a hint in the Torah by applying a different language to a deeper meaning one of the ways to learning Torah is to see what it means in a different language and the in particular Greek because Greek I would say just say is the language that is the closest to Hebrew in its um you can say Advanced um structure and therefore it's Holiness meaning that fear of Hashem is the one and only wisdom when it says behold fear of Hashem is wisdom the word behold is one there's only one wisdom and that is fear of Hashem since wisdom is difficult to acquire then that makes this endeavor a very serious subject what is wisdom fear of Hashem that means fear of Hashem is difficult to acquire it's difficult to acquire wisdom and the ultimate wisdom is to fear Hashem it says that a person who claims I will sin and I will do teshuva later he's not given opportunity to do the Shiva and what we learn now that means fear of Hashem is a very difficult achievement it's a wisdom that requires a lot of effort and if a person says oh it's not a big deal I'll send and then I'll uh Hashem says not so simple a regular person cannot acquire fear of Hashem unless he has Divine assistance you need to have Clarity of mind and you need proper influences and if Hashem doesn't help the person can try all he wants but he's not going to have Clarity his mind is going to be like in a fog he will not be able to understand the idea of Oneness of Hashem of hashem's closeness and as much as he tries to do the shuva his mind is going to be blank he's not going to have a thought of teshuva because it's very difficult to acquire the wisdom of fear of Hashem it doesn't mean that it's impossible but it is a difficult wisdom and it requires time to put in place of course one should not be discouraged any little bit a person acquires is like a little diamond and a significant achievement but in order to succeed one must put in work and then a person will be sure to succeed because Hashem gives success to those who try if you don't get Divine assistance you're not gonna achieve it and you may lose the Divine assistance by treating by treating Divine assistance lightly but you don't have to finish we have to acquire fear of Hashem but what depends on us is not the final achievement what depends on us is the effort we put in the trial the rest is up to Hashem if Hashem helps us a lot we'll be able to achieve Allah if Hashem chooses not to for whatever reason we're not going to be able to achieve but the reward we're gonna get is according to the effort we put in how how much we tried we tried once a little bit or we tried multiple times with a lot of effort Hashem doesn't judge us on the achievement he judges us on the effort and how many try the times we tried and even if we fail we continue trying Hashem gives success only to those who try in the way that a man wants to go Hashem will take him if he sincerely desires it Hashem will help him we have a rule that the way a man wants to go that's the way he is led to if you want good Hashem will help you with it if Shalom someone wants bad Hashem will help him with that as well Hashem doesn't want you to choose bad but if you do choose bad sometimes Hashem will allow you to succeed in bed that this means Miss latishim continues that a man should try to cling to Hashem by means of certain Acts whose results will be that and these acts are the mitzvot what can you do to show that you're trying to achieve fear of Hashem you can do mitzvot I would say just say that mitzvot have a few different um reasons number one is what we're learning now that by fulfilling a mitzvah that means I am listening to God who commanded me I'm showing that I have fear of Hashem I'm listening to him because I'm afraid of him so every time I do mitsuba I am instilling in myself I'm increasing my fear another positive aspect of doing mitzvot is opportunity for us to express our gratitude Hashem gave us so much and we can't give anything back but we find certain things that he mentioned that he would like us to do and we say oh for sure you did so much for us we will be delighted it's our privilege to do something for you so for sure let me keep Shabbat for you for sure let me eat kosher for you let me show that I'm so grateful that you Hashem did so many kindnesses that I will throughout the day remember you and I will send you certain certain uh token thank you cards Hashem I remember you did so much for me I'm happy to serve you I am happy to give something an Hashem in his kindness it's as it says Hashem wants to give to the Jewish people we cannot thank him and Hashem in his kindness wants to give us opportunity to thank him of Torah who has opportunities for us to express our desire our desire is to thank Hashem and we give an opportunity so here we have um two aspects of keeping means what one is showing our fear of Hashem and the second one is showing our gratitude to Hashem now we're on page 115 chapter 1.26 obstacles in addition to putting in obstacles in order to achieve closeness to Hashem and the fear of Hashem the Holy One blessed is he put man in a place where there are many things that distance him from Hashem not only we're judged by effort yes we have to design we have to put in physical effort to get close to Hashem but as if he's trying to stop us Hashem put blockages obstacles on our path why is he doing it doesn't he want us to come close to him Hashem put man into this world which is especially made to contain many obstacles that prevent thinking about God in order that man should have to labor to overcome these obstacles that is the idea of nisayon a test and these obstacles are the physical inclination what is the greatest obstacle in our life that is stopping us from serving Hashem from coming close to Hashem is physical desires what we may also call yet within us not only from the outside world yes outside world has a negative influence and presents a challenge Bad Company bad Community media co-workers billboards everything is a test but the greatest test the greatest obstacle is what's inside of us the voice inside of us the yes that is trying to stop us from serving Hashem to avoid physical desires as used here doesn't mean that what people normally think the inclination to desire certain things here it refers to the way the body naturally wants to behave aha so this is a uh not a negative thing this is like the Instinct this is the nature of the body the body naturally wants to see was to look around sometimes at the inappropriate things sometimes just to waste time he wants to hear things that it doesn't need to hear it wants to smell and taste the body wants to perceive everything in its surrounding environment and this you may say is a survival Instinct that Hashem implanted in us to be able to live in this world but it's not totally harm harmless because if we misuse it if we don't control all our physical desires we will spend our life pursuing them going around the world seeing the world listening to all kinds of things that will not improve our life tasting and all various venues restaurants things that we don't really need to spend our time on and that is because the human being has curiosity he has desired to perceive everything in its surrounding environment as man perceives this world he is then confronted with the reality that the world is planned and designed in such a way that all of the objects in this in the world are intended to deceive him into thinking that the world the world operates by cause and effect from the news the weather uh Channel and everything we see as soon as we step outside our house is trying to convince us that it's all survival of the fittest it's all the power of my hand the more you grab the more you're gonna have the more you take advantage of others the more you advertise Market yourself the greater you're going to become humility is out of the window morality is out of the window this is the obstacle being described here this is implied by the verse in the Torah Asher which Hashem created to do Hashem made the world so that it should appear to function on its own in reality the world does not function by itself at all but by looking as if there is a cycle of uh water in the world there's a life cycle there is a pyramid food pyramid and you think that everything operates There Are Rules of Nature and everything just continues going Hashem is not involved maybe he wasn't there to begin with shalom everything in the world is trying to trick us and who made it it's not the GUI it's not the atheist it's Hashem himself who is trying to hide himself in reality the world does not function function by itself at all every moment Hashem is causing the world to exist and to operate but he made it look like it's working by itself from then on man has to search and discover that it's Hashem who is constantly making the creation it's as if Hashem is our parent who is playing hide and go seek he hid himself and he wants to see how long will it take his children to find him and children may get worried where's our parent they might cry or they might forget about their parent they might say oh the parent is not here so we're home alone let's party let's take out all the chocolate and all the electronics and let's play games and eat Nash or they might say no I want to find my father I want to be close to him I want to spend time with him where is he I'm not interested in chocolate I'm not interested in computer games I'm not interested in entertainment I'm interested in my father where is he and they search and they find so too with us we may forget about Hashem and say oh Hashem is not looking let me go and enjoy myself no Hashem is here I just can't see him so where is he let me uncover every every um curtain open it up to reveal Hashem now we're in chapter 1.27 on page 116. two functions of the world actually the world has two functions one function is as we just said to deceive mankind into believing that the world Works through a system of cause and effect but there is another function which is to teach mankind because if one looks a little more closely she will see in everything evidence of the Miracles of plan and purpose so on the surface the world is a mask that's hiding Hashem but if you're willing to spend time and search and study deeper not a surface but deeper you will see an underlying connection between everything in the world that everything runs like a well-oiled machine in unison every part of creation is fulfilling part of the same purpose for example the fact that something can grow out of the ground and provide sustenance to people is a miracle the Gamora Compares that Miracle to the spleening of the sea and just like the PESA says that there were 250 Miracles at the splitting of the sea so too there are no less than 250 miracles to bring forth bread from the Earth the world contains wisdom that is so complicated that only the greatest designer's mind could conceive it and if you would like to learn more about it Miller has a pamphlet that was published Gathering these ideas from his writings and putting it into one pamphlet called the universe testifies it is probably out of print but um you can still you can still find it and maybe you can borrow it where he goes through various phenomena in the world and shows how it was planned and how there had to be knowledge of many other parts of the universe in order to create that for example he says and and uh a fruit like an apple or an orange whoever created it had to know that they exist people who like color and that is why the the skin of a fruit has a pleasant color and whoever created the tree must know that people have a sense of smell and therefore it gave the apple or an orange Pleasant Aroma to attract and whoever created Apple knows that people like sweet so it put sweet sugar in to the apple or on orange otherwise the Apple doesn't need the fruit doesn't need the sweetness doesn't need the color and the order in order to reproduce the Apple might drop the seed just like a pine trees drop the seeds or Maple or an oak just drop the seed it's going to go into the ground and it's gonna Sprout you don't need to provide the fruit for people the seed is not benefiting from the Apple must be whoever created the Apple knows that there are people who have eyes to see the color who have nose to smell the odor to have who have a tongue to taste the sweetness and the sour Pleasant um and then when you think about it you realize that the purpose of creating fruits was to give pleasure to people and not only sustenance because it could have been done with a potato but to give pleasure pleasure of beautiful sight beautiful Aroma and beauty and delicious taste this is what David amelick tells us all of your works praise you what Hashem made is his praise they all speak of the glory of your kingdom why to let people know about the mightiness of Hashem The Apple Tree Praises Hashem and apple tree speaks of the glory of God's Kingdom in order to let people know about the mightiness of Hashem every time we look deeper into the world every part and if we study how amazing it is and how it is interconnected with everything else in the world we will see hashem's greatness so instead of hiding Hashem from us the opposite every part of creation will reveal Hashem to us earlier the author explained that our most important function in the life is to get close to Hashem they could here however the mislative explains the Holy One blessed is he put man in a place where there are many things that distance him from Hashem this is a paradox our chief function is to get as close as possible to Hashem but the god intentionally planned this world such that many things in the world are intended to keep us as far away as possible from him this highlights for us the important principle that this World Is Not What It Seems that's why the world in Hebrew is called Ola Olam from the word which means hiding hidden the world is what hides Hashem Hashem in order to hide himself created a complicated world so that if we look on the surface we might say yeah the world the world functions by itself there are all the Cycles there's everything necessary for life to form by itself and therefore everything formed by itself and everything functions by itself so Hashem created the complicated World in order to hide himself you can't hide in an empty room you have to first populate the room with a lot of furniture and then it will be easy to hide behind the furniture The World Is A Place full of snares and traps which are planned by the master intelligence of Hashem and if he makes a trap it's an efficient trap must be Hashem created such a good world that it's successful in deceiving majority of the world population billions and billions of people throughout Generations have been misled by the world this is what the mislati sharim means when he says everything in the world whether things that are happy for him or the opposite they're all for the purpose of testing man everything in them in the world is a test the ultimate purpose of all these tests is to keep our minds occupied so that we are prevented from thinking about Hashem and that makes it thinking about Hashem so much more precious and rewarding not only do the tests keep us occupied but they can even take us to the wrong direction however it is important to know another principle that is connected with these principles that everything in the world has two sides there is falsehood which is planned to divert our minds away from the truth but those very things are also planned to teach us the truth everything in the world we can use as a proof that there is no God has a Shalom and that same thing we can prove that there is God that is the genius of Hashem he wants to give us freedom of will the so that we can choose do our own research and make a choice depending on our bias if we choose to disprove Hashem everything in the world will be a proof for us that there is no God if we choose to find Hashem everything in the world will prove to us that there is Hashem Hashem if we can say such a thing he knows how to plan a test the same test which is apparel for the mind and can lead someone Into Darkness it can be a golden opportunity to eliminate the mind and to acquire closeness to Hashem the very things that distance us from Hashem if they are utilized properly can be the means to bring us closer to him we are stopping here because we'll continue tomorrow thank you for listening have a great day