It is told of a certain chassid who traveled to his Rebbe. When he returned home, his friends asked him: “What did you learn from your Rebbe?” He answered them: “Before I was with my Rebbe, I thought that due to the extent of my avodah and Torah study, and the reward I deserved, Hashem did not have enough World to Come to give me. But now, having discovered how far I am from fulfilling my obligation to Him, I now give thanks that the ceiling doesn’t fall on me.”
It is written in the holy seforim that the ultimate purpose of receiving the Torah is fear of Heaven. If a person lacks fear of Heaven, then he misses the goal. And in order to understand what fear of Heaven is, we will bring a story about the Rav of Krakow, Rebbe Shimon Sofer, the son of the Chasam Sofer. Once he participated in a welcoming ceremony for the king on behalf of the community. The Rav was honored with reading a letter of blessing to the king from the members of the community. When he took the letter to read it, a great fear fell upon him and the letter slipped from his hands. The king noticed this and said that he is a man of G-d, and through him the name of Heaven was sanctified. When he returned home, he wept greatly and fasted. His family members thought, chas v’shalom, that some mishap had occurred and the meeting had not succeeded. But he reassured them that the meeting had achieved its purpose. However, he made a personal accounting: If I was so afraid of a flesh-and-blood king, who is here today and in the grave tomorrow, to the point that the paper fell from my hands, then what about the fact that three times every day I stand before the King of kings, HaKadosh Baruch Hu—and never has the siddur fallen from my hands out of fear. For this, I weep.
We are now standing to receive the Torah, as it is brought in the holy seforim that every year, on the festival of Shavuos, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the Torah anew. And we must contemplate the goal. For example, when a person buys a car, he knows the purpose is to be able to travel from place to place. So what is the goal of receiving the Torah? After all, a person could study his entire life and still not know the purpose of his learning. And the Tanna already said in Pirkei Avos (3:9): “Anyone whose fear of sin precedes his wisdom, his wisdom endures.” Therefore, we must engage with seforim of awe and study more and more—and above all, to contemplate the greatness of the Creator Yisbarach, as the Rema wrote: “I place Hashem before me always—this is a great principle of the Torah and among the virtues of the righteous who walk before G-d.”
- Tiv HaMoadim - Shavuos
