TALMUD BAVLI TRACTATE DEREK
ERETZ ZUTA.
CHAPTER I.
1. The qualities of the sages are: Modesty, meekness, eagerness, courage, bearing wrongs done to them,and being endeared to every one; submission to the members of their household, fear of sin, and judging every one according to his deeds.
In our last classes, we discussed Modesty , Humility, Meekness, Eagerness , Courage and Bearing Wrongs Done To Us , Being Endeared to Every One and Submission to the Members of their Household. Today I invite you to explore with me the middah, trait, of fear of sin.
Fear of Sin has been discussed ad infinitum in so many of our Jewish texts. The Path of the Just, Mesillat Yesharim , by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746), known as the Ramchal, has a mussar based chapter on yirat chet, fear of sin. Mesillat Yesharim - Chapter 24 . I taught a phone class on this entire text a year ago. In traditional language, fear of sin stems from the fear of Divine Punishment for sinning.
And here lies the rub. Many if, not most , Jews today, deny a God who punishes, and many, if not most , deny an Olam Ha Ba, where God corrects this ''upside down world,'' where good people tend to get the short end of the stick, and arrogant evil people seem to prosper. [Talmud Bavli Tractate Bava Basra 10b]. Some of our sects have truncated God, if they even promote truly believing , trusting, and having experience with the Divine. Hence we end up with people who as Jeremiah says, sin openly, and are not ashamed of doing so, Jer. 6:15: ''Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.''
Or as Isaiah says Chapter One , verse 3: ''The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." And frankly it is pretty sad to watch this behavior in many ''houses of God.'' And I am not in the least bit referring to rituals. I am referring to the basic common decency rules of Derek Eretz, so that gossip, unkindness, unlovingness, and elitism, and sinat chinam, (baseless hatred), are more present than ahavath chesed (loving kindness).
So how to we reach the modern Jew in learning the middah, the trait, of not wanting to sin? It is a matter of spiritual renewal and awakening. One must understand, really understand, that when we hurt another, we only hurt ourselves. When we harbor a grudge, it is an acid eating at the container (us). When we go out to seek revenge, we are told to dig two graves. So we are taught therefore not to hate, not to hold a grudge, and not to seek revenge.
We cannot effectively hold the sword of a revengeful God at the necks of folks demanding that they be good. If we read the TaNaK, it didn't work then, and it doesn't work now.
When we gossip, we kill not only the subject, and the listener, but ourselves. No one trusts a gossip. People know intrinsically, that if person A gossips about person C to person B, as soon as person B leaves, person A will gossip about person B to person D.
Hence fear of sin is best transformed into the affirmative of wanting to live a good and decent life. As the Talmud says:'' Do not be as slaves, who serve their master for the sake of reward. Rather, be as slaves who serve their master not for the sake of reward.'' [Bavli Tracate Pirkei Avot 1:3].
Hence it is up to us to explore our ways, and to do a chesbon ha nefesh, a complete inventory of our souls. We have to find our defects of character abhorrent. We cannot try to please others who tell us what we are doing is wrong. We need to discover this for ourselves. When we do, we can confess it with vidui to God, Who already knows, and our rabbi (if we can trust him/her). Then we ask God to remove our defects via Tashlich, and we need not wait till Rosh Ha Shana. And we must make teshuvah, amends, to those we have hurt over the years with our defects of character, our lack of derek eretz.
''When we live a life without God we are letting our will direct us. The problem with this is that our will is derived from our wants and our desires and leads to a self-serving life. We can rationalize and say that we are doing some societal good when we yearn to be president of the Sisterhood of a synagogue, but if our will is directing us, we will invariably come into conflict with somebody else's will.
In Judaism our selfish will is called the "yetzer ha ra" (evil inclination). If we let the yetzer ha ra direct our lives instead of God, we will find ourselves living like dogs, always having to mark and protect our territory. We'll see the world as a giant pie and ourselves in competition with everybody else for a piece. If we see somebody with a piece of pie we don't say, "Well, good for that fellow. He has his piece of pie." Instead, we look at him and say, "I want that piece of pie." On the other hand, if we manage to get ourselves a slice of that coveted pie, we guard it to keep for ourselves rather than share. '' {from Chapter Two: The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew ,by Rabbi Arthur Segal}
When we live a spiritual life, knowing and experience the Divine in our daily lives, we no longer are in conflict with others, and can share all the 'pie,' that we receive. We live a life being happy, joyous and free. We don't live in fear.
Hence living a life free of character defects, benefits us, as well as our fellows. It is truly a universal win-win.
We discuss exactly how to truly learn to get rid of our defects of character through out the majority of chapters in The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew as well as in most chapters of A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud .
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