Shaar HaBitachon Lesson 36 with Rabbi Shais Taub

so we're we're nearing the end of chapter four we have been discussing the seven ways in which one has to have trust in hashem the seven areas of life in which one must trust in hashem we started with purely physical stuff like one's health and then we went to a second category which is making a living and the third is interpersonal relationships the fourth one was we spoke about mitzvahs that only affect us the six were the fifth ones we we spoke with mitzvahs that affect others and then the sixth one was totally spiritual meaning the reward that one gets in the world to come and then we got a whole long uh discussion about why the reward in the world to come is not explicitly described in tereshviksave if you remember that took us a couple of lessons to go through seven reasons that rebena baha'i gives us as to why such an important concept in toyota is not explicitly mentioned in scripture that's where we left off last class okay so now let's continue we just finished listing seven reasons why the reward in the world to come the spiritual reward is not explicitly described in scripture and now let's go into the text the habit of trusting in hashem in regard to what he promised the righteous concerning reward in this world and the next for their devotion that he will grant it to those who deserve it the hain as well as yeshalam to punish those who deserve it it is incumbent upon the believer in other words you have to believe that there is such a thing as reward and punishment and in fact as the neder bakadesh points out that is one of the yud gimul ikrim the rambam tells us that the belief in reward and punishment is one of the 13 tenets or principles of of jewish belief okay let's continue here uh now in regard to this issue this issue of reward and punishment it's essential to perfect faith in hashem perfect faith in hashem must include the belief in reward and punishment kameha kosov like it says dhaka he believed in hashem and he hashem counted it reckoned it to him as righteous as righteousness the ummer and it says had i not trusted that i would behold the goodness of hashem in the land of eternal life meaning it wouldn't be a good would not be a good thing if i had not trusted such a thing entrusted what thing to hashem the goodness of hashem the land of eternal life which means the reward in the world to come let's continue a person should not rely on his good conduct and confidently assure himself that he will be rewarded for it here and hereafter a love he should be active and vigorous in showing gratitude for the creator's favors continuously bestowed upon him but not out of hope for future reward that will be due to him for his actions in other words you have to believe in reward and punishment and at the same time you have to believe that it's not purely tit-for-tat in other words that's sort of the ammuna aspect of it if i may it doesn't require a muna to believe that there's a system of reward and punishment okay that's not a mune a muna is in reference to that which is beyond our ability to understand faith begins where intellect fails eventually intellect fails right there there's an idea that's beyond us and that's where faith begins so to say that i have faith that there's reward and punishment well it's actually very fairly logical that there's a reward in punishment the point here is that there's a system of reward and punishment that is beyond what can logically be relied upon and the reason is that it is disproportionate to what we do to the extent where we have no reason to expect a reward just by virtue of our work okay we have no reason to expect a reward just because well i earned it therefore it requires requires faith that i believe that there is a reward because it's not necessarily quid pro quo where you know this for that cause and effect it's something beyond cause and effect really like we're talking about in a previous lesson if we would really add it all up and crunch the numbers trust me you don't want to do that because you're not going to come out ahead there's no version of the accounting where you're going to come out ahead or any of us are going to come out ahead so the fact that we end up getting any type of payment any type of reward is by definition something that's in the realm of ammuna we have faith that hashem ends up rewarding us but not because we expect it like like we have a sense of entitlement that he owes it to us okay that's that's the point here and that's where bittorchen starts to work itself in because you know it's interesting the past couple lessons we're talking of this whole long discussion about why the reward in the world to come is not in and it like i it was almost like uh like a diversion from the main point where where's the batakin okay here's the battalion the talking is now having established that we must believe in this reward we want you to understand it's not we believe in this reward like something that automatically makes sense that it has to be coming to me it's not like that no there's a certain degree of trust that hashem is going to do this because he doesn't he's really not he's not indebted in any way shape or form to do this okay let's let's continue hey in this regard he should trust in hashem after doing his best to repay the debt of gratitude he owes the creator for his kindness toward him do not be like the servants who serve their master and condition of receiving a reward allah but rather have ukavod and be like the servants of asham they served their master not on condition of receiving a reward v he made a shamayim alayhim and let the fear of heaven be upon you so when we serve hashem we're not doing it because we feel like you know if you put the money in the vending machine and push the buttons then you're going to get the candy to drop because it's not like that it's gratuitous kindness on hashem's part anyways that he somehow decides that pushing buttons should should equate uh a candy so we're certainly not entering this with a sense of of entitlement we understand that it's it's more about a relationship that we're connecting to him and he's connecting to us and what he ends up doing for us is disproportionately greater than what we do for him um but it's not like a business relationship anyway if you reduce it to tit-for-tat you know business barter then it doesn't even make sense because the the payoff we receive is so disproportionate but if you understand that it's not tit-for-tat it's not barter it's uh you know we do what hashem wants and then in the end if you know without any expectation on our on our part we end up being being i you know i i wouldn't i hesitate to even use the word reward here because reward has such connotations of you know a return on investment which that's not what it is it's clearly not return on investment because what ends up happening is so you know disproportionate and uh you know we're not we're not entitled to it it's uh it's gratuitous kindness on hashem's part i see uh something here aren't you supposed to say even though i don't deserve it you hashem our bacha in barack so you can please help me with yeah yeah basically yeah even though i don't deserve it but but here what are we talking about we're talking about uh you know we're talking about the reward in the world to come shouldn't we always have amona somebody's writing to me privately no we should not always have a mona of course we should not always have a mona now take that one line and make a whatsapp video of it and send it around okay you say shouldn't we always have them on by because i said before that this is not what did i say i mean i i agree with that statement but what did i say that made you ask me i'm sorry i'm confused shouldn't we always have a munna what did i say where intellect fails yeah that's right that's correct should we should we talk about this i mean i would love to talk about it's interesting to me intellect and faith are two totally separate worlds and that's why for instance when people they try to use intellect to understand that which is fundamentally incomprehensible it's an inappropriate use of of intellect you know when when there's something that's fundamentally incomprehensible okay like a paradox which the human mind can't wrap itself around so if you try to use intellect and you or you try to measure that idea based on how much it appeals to intellect you're measuring it the wrong way because it's not that it's you know illogical it's just it's not something that conforms to logic therefore it'd be inappropriate to try to use intellect you have to use faith intellect's not the appropriate tool faith is the appropriate tool right can we agree on that can we agree on that idea that there are ideas that are fundamentally incomprehensible they are paradoxes that are beyond human comprehension beyond finite comprehension and therefore would be inappropriate to try to use logic or intellect to to um encounter these these ideas okay fine so you agree with me on that well here's the thing just as it is inappropriate and futile to try to use intellect in the area where only faith can rightly be applied it is equally although differently inappropriate to try to use faith where intellect can be applied what do i mean by that there is much regarding hashem's relationship with us and role as creator that can be understood that can be understood if a person were to say well i'm not interested in understanding it because i have faith that's not faith that's just laziness it's intellectual laziness faith is not i don't want to understand faith is i can't understand faith is not well warren buffett said to invest in these stocks do you want to know why now i trust him it's fine i have faith that's not called faith you could understand if you wanted to sit down and have them explain to you why you should invest in those stocks you would be you would be able to understand you just don't want to use up any time or or bandwidth understanding it because you don't feel it's necessary to understand it but don't that's not faith it's called intellectual laziness so the same thing somebody says to you let's contemplate an the the the abundance of hashem's creation and how awesome it is and how uh you know awe-inspiring it is if you say no let's not contemplate on it well why don't you want to contemplate that because i have faith i know god is great no you should have faith that god is great on those levels that your intellect cannot reach that's where you should have faith in hashem but on the levels that your intellect can reach where you can be misbehaving and you can meditate and reflect on ungodly don't say it's faith faith is not appropriate here intellect is appropriate go meditate so does that make sense what we're saying here okay anyway apropos to our discussion here we were saying hashem's reward of us is not just something that can be understood logically because it's not a business relationship ultimately it's his his his love of us and it's his gratuitous kindness so if you just look at it like well i did this and i'm supposed to get that okay you're right then there is no faith it's just it makes sense but if you understand the nature of hashem's reward to us you understand that of course it requires faith because it doesn't make sense that you know that the return the return on investment is just so disproportionate it's just it's like you know you give a guy uh a hundred bucks and he comes back and he gives you a million bucks okay like bernie madoff promised to do for people well the first few people started with him they did that for him right so that that that at least that's proportionate okay a million dollars is what ten thousand a hundred thousand times bigger than a hundred what is it a million dollars how many times bigger than than a hundred dollars ten thousand times bigger yeah i think so all right but at least it's proportionate there's a number for it but you know you you give a guy a a bean and he comes back and he gives you a million dollars like that's that's illogical but but it's not illogical in this case we talk about you know hashem's relation with us it's it's beyond logic it's not logic isn't the metric for it okay all right so let's continue here one of the sedum one of the pious people used to say rebecca knew a pious person i don't know if he knew him personally but he says there was a pious guy who used to say la yagi odam nobody earns the reward in the world to come through his deeds if we're going to be really exact in accounting what the person owes hashem for his goodness to him so if you really want to make an exact accounting nobody's going to come out in the black they're all going to be in the red that's a counting lingo for you elekim allah it's only hashem's kindness i'll cane therefore i say don't trust in your deeds don't have be talking in your own deeds the um indeed governor malek said regarding you reward a man according to his work meaning here beyond his work disproportionate so this is where the talking comes in i know it's very hard to remember the whole histologist we went on a real breadcrumb trail but we were discussing seven areas of life where you need to be talking and the first few were all material and then we had a couple that were material meaning there were physical actions or things you do in a soul in a body in this world but they affect the spiritual and then we start talking about the sixth idea which was completely uh completely spiritual which is the reward in the world to come and like where's the bittachin enter into it so now we finally have clarity the talking is that after you do what you need to do don't view it as trading off don't view it as now he owes me that's not how it works it's not how it works i mean when you learn to see this and you learn i mean it's not unique to this said that shir hashiram is the muscle for hashem and the jewish people that it's a relationship it's an intimate relationship when you learn to see this especially understand it's a real relationship and you know what's a real relationship what's an intimate relationship a genuine relationship genuine relationship means when there's no economy you know a a user relationship is is is not genuine it's false you're using each other so you know people could be using each other for very you know crass things you know uh you know someone married for money they're married for looks whatever hanging around with people because they want to up their you know they're because they're a social climber okay those are obvious ways people use each other but um you know then there's even being a spiritual materialist i spoke about this in an earlier class where you're using hashem for spiritual reward so let me make it very clear there's no way to use him for spiritual reward because he's not a vending machine and it's not like you know torah is the book of you know the cheat codes on the video game how to get certain amount of points it's not how it works in the end when hashem gives you reward it's out of love it's because he loves you not because you pushed certain buttons and now you're now he's bound to you to give you a certain result that's not how it works in other words it's not a it's not a user relationship and you can't even manipulate it into being a user relationship i mean you can fool yourself into thinking that you're using him and he's using you he's getting mixes out of you and you're getting uh scar out of him but you know you could think whatever you want to think doesn't make it so so in the end what you do for him what he does for you it's not barter it's not emotional barter or you know whatever type of user relationship whatever metaphor you want to use for a user relationship in the end you're serving him because you're serving him and he rewards you because he wants to reward you not because uh you know you you made him indebted to you uh uh now you owe me he doesn't owe you nothing but the fact that he gives to us just shows you how much how much he cares you know but it takes a certain maturity you know how many people in the you know in in a marriage they think well if i take out the garbage then that means you have to you know cook my favorite meal right or whatever it is whatever the economy is whatever the you know the exchange rate is it doesn't work that way doesn't work that way you act lovingly toward your beloved without any expectation of reward and then your lover and beloved acts lovingly toward you without any expectations with no strings attached yeah he's not an atm machine that's right okay and that's the sixth thing that we need to uh six area of life we need to have the talking regarding and now that brings us to the seventh the seventh area of life um and we're not going to do that tonight because i don't think we have time to go into it but uh just to sort of preview or foreshadow uh the nether baked explains that the sixth group of needs sixth area of life is the trust that we have in a reward based on our divine service although disproportionate to our divine service and the seventh is about an even higher level of reward that's totally just hashem's grace you hear what i'm saying it's like the sixth one is also detached from what we do because ultimately it's like completely disproportionate but at least it's like in the context of us doing something for him the seventh group from the seventh area of life where we have been talking hashem that's the that's the spiritual reward that's that's completely beyond anything we do for him meaning not even not even connected okay all right anything else when hashem tells you you give your parents much covered why can't you assume you're being rewarded why because even if it's true you're being rewarded for it it doesn't even make sense that that should equal that it's totally just you know it's like somebody's saying you know work for me all year and i'll give you a salary of a million dollars wow that's very generous right but i believe it because i'm working for the guy then you know somebody says um you know can you uh hang up my coat and i'll give you a million dollars it's it's it's totally disproportionate so let's say i even hang up his coat and the guy gives me a million dollars and then the next day i see him against like hang up my cut again i can't even believe it really a million dollars really even if he does it every time each time like i can't even believe it if you believe you're being rewarded for what you do then you open yourself to punishment well you're going to get i don't think you have to worry that once you believe in reward now you're going to open yourself up to punishment because the punishment's real whether you believe in it or not i know you see this we don't dwell on the punishment it's not our you know we're not obsessed with it but punishment's real whether you believe it or not so you know don't worry about that anything else okay