Fear of God is a good thing according to Isaac Blazer. I mean to say it is more than good--it is beneficial. It helps to solve human problems. At least that is the idea I got from reading the first page of his book אור ישראל The Light of Israel.
The idea is that to work on fear of God solves at least some of the problems that people are looking for answers to.
That is it is not just a good thing but that it has practical benefits --even beyond what people would automatically think.
And it is a truism that reality is often different from what common sense dictates. When farmers are interested in fattening their pigs they fed them non fat milk. Who would have thought?
I could bring some further proofs for this but let me say that this is a theme that comes up in the Old Testament also. In the Old Testament it is mentioned a few times that all God wants from a person is to fear him.
But we know that coming to fear of God has lots of obstacles in front of it.
My suggestion is this to create something like Israel Salanter's Beit Musar. That is a study hall that is for learning Classical Musar only. Or even better to have a study hall that is for Musar and Gemara. Nothing else is allowed. Nor is anyone paid to learn. Paying people to learn makes Torah into a business. The worst kind of business because it is based on fraud. We know learning Torah for money is a sin. So because try to pretend there is some mitzvah in this. If you have to pay someone to learn Torah then their Torah is not worth a penny. And not only that but then they will try to get rid of people that are learning Torah for its own sake and say they are not getting paid because they are not on their high level of learning. It is one big disaster. The main thing to know is by giving people money to learn Torah you are just making things worse. If on the other hand you see someone who is learning Torah for its own sake--to them it is mitzvah to help.
The idea is that to work on fear of God solves at least some of the problems that people are looking for answers to.
That is it is not just a good thing but that it has practical benefits --even beyond what people would automatically think.
And it is a truism that reality is often different from what common sense dictates. When farmers are interested in fattening their pigs they fed them non fat milk. Who would have thought?
I could bring some further proofs for this but let me say that this is a theme that comes up in the Old Testament also. In the Old Testament it is mentioned a few times that all God wants from a person is to fear him.
But we know that coming to fear of God has lots of obstacles in front of it.
My suggestion is this to create something like Israel Salanter's Beit Musar. That is a study hall that is for learning Classical Musar only. Or even better to have a study hall that is for Musar and Gemara. Nothing else is allowed. Nor is anyone paid to learn. Paying people to learn makes Torah into a business. The worst kind of business because it is based on fraud. We know learning Torah for money is a sin. So because try to pretend there is some mitzvah in this. If you have to pay someone to learn Torah then their Torah is not worth a penny. And not only that but then they will try to get rid of people that are learning Torah for its own sake and say they are not getting paid because they are not on their high level of learning. It is one big disaster. The main thing to know is by giving people money to learn Torah you are just making things worse. If on the other hand you see someone who is learning Torah for its own sake--to them it is mitzvah to help.
