פרשת אחרי מות – קדושים
At the end of Parshas אחרי מות , the verse says, “One must guard My commandments and do them and live by them”. The Gemorah learns out from this positive language of “doing” that anyone who has a chance to transgress a commandment in the Torah, but holds himself back, gets the reward as if he “did” a Mitzvah. This Gemorah requires explanation. Why did the Gemorah feel the need to compare such a person to one who did a positive commandment? Would it not have sufficed to merely say that he gets a lot of reward? After all, which positive commandment did a person who keeps his passion at bay perform?
Rabenu Yonah, in chapter three has a very interesting answer to this difficulty. He explains that from this Gemorah, it is apparent that the Mitzvah that one performs when one holds himself back is that he possesses a fear of Heaven, and that this Mitzvah is indeed the prerequisite to perform all Mitzvos. This is the “positive commandment” that the Gemorah referred to as the Torah says, “You shall fear your God”. He goes on to explain that when a person is faced with a temptation, the only thing that could possibly help him is if he has fostered a fear of Heaven and this alone will prevent him from sin. This is especially true about sins that nobody else would ever find out about as we will soon explain.
The Rabenu Yonah demonstrates that fear of Heaven is the primary motivation for keeping all of the Torah. There is a verse which says, “Israel – what does God ask of you other then to fear Him and to go in His ways and to love Him”. Although the verse has many commandments in it, the first one is to fear Hashem because this is the primary attribute necessary to serve God without which, proper service of Hashem would be impossible.
The Rabenu Yonah concludes by saying that not only is fear the means to serve Hashem, but it is also an end in and of itself as the verse says, “God desires those that fear Him”. In other words when a person becomes one who fears God, he has completed himself and becomes a person who is loved by his creator and recognized as a good person.
How does one demonstrate his fear of Heaven? Generally, this is done by taking every precaution to ensure that he never comes close to transgressing any sin. The verse in Shir Hashirim says, “כי טובים דודיך מיין” . The Gemorah learns out from this verse that the Rabbinic enactments which keep a person away from sin are more pleasing to God then the actual Torah commandments. This is because nothing demonstrates one’s fear of Heaven better that his willingness to accept upon himself additional limitations and safeguards in order to never come to sin.
From the second half of this week’s Parsha, there are two commandments which also teach us about the fear of Heaven. The first one says, “Do not put a stumbling block in front of the blind because you shall fear your God” and the second one says, “One must stand up before a wise person and fear God”. What do these two verses have in common? Rashi explains that they are both examples of commandments in which if one didn’t perform them, nobody would every know. If a person gave another person a bad piece of advice, (placing a stumbling block), he can always say that he didn’t think of a better solution. Or if a person doesn’t stand, he can always say that he didn’t see the wise person approaching. However, only a person who fosters a true sense of fear of Heaven will not attempt to use these bogus excuses.
One might ask on this Rashi, doesn’t every Mitzvah require a fundamental fear of Heaven as a motivator just like the Rabenu Yonah said and furthermore, don’t the Mitzvos between man and God require more fear of Heaven then the Mitzvos between man and his fellow? One could answer in two ways. One could say simply that although all of the Mitzvos require a requisite fear of Heaven, as we explained, Rashi is teaching us that when it comes to Mitzvos which are between man and man, it is much more difficult to truly feel fear of Heaven. This is because when a person is doing a Mitzvah such as keeping Kosher or Davening, he knows clearly that the only reason he is doing it is to serve God. In this scenario, he certainly won’t forget to have fear of Hashem. But when it comes to one’s intrapersonal relationships, there is a tendency to forget that God is in the picture and that every word he says must be well thought out and in accordance with Halacha. Many people approach a Rabbi about which Hechsher is the best to purchase, but how many people approach that same Rabbi to ascertain whether their words are completely clean of Lashon Hara or Sheker or insult and receive a “Hechser” on their mouths? Indeed in Kelm, they had a Mussar Peulah to actively contemplate before any conversation what Hashem wanted them to say. Another possibility to resolve our difficulty is to say when it comes to the commandments which are between man and God, one could always have in the back of one’s mind what other people are thinking about them. For example, what would people think if a person started buying meat with a bad Hechsher? This might be one’s motivation and not solely the fear of Heaven. But when it comes to the Mitzvos that Rashi mentions, nobody could ever know whether or not I saw the wise man approaching or whether I gave the best advice possible, only me. So specifically in these Mitzvos, our fear of Heaven is discernable because it exists only in the depths of one’s heart and no one will ever know about it.
May Hashem bless us to foster a genuine fear of Him!