Two stops short
of the finish line in Tehillim 145, which we recite thrice daily under the code
name of Ashrei, in verses 19 and 20 to be exact, Dovid HaMelech reveals to us
that we essentially write our own protekzia ticket vis รก vis Hashem, in that the
way He relates to us is dictated by the way we first relate to Him.
In verse 19, Dovid
HaMelech tells us that He (Hashem) will do the will of those who fear Him
and He will hear their cry and save them.
In the eyes of
the Malbim, as brought to us by Rabbi Asher Boruch Wegbreit in his sefer on
Ashrei, it works something like this: Hashem will hear their cry, and only then will He save them. Or put another way, as long as the sun is out
we’re flying solo, with Hashem not putting in an appearance, salvation wise,
until it starts pouring. Moreover, those
who fear Hashem are only saved from their enemies.
What’s this
business about only saving us? How about
whacking the bad guys while You’re at it?
This brings us
to verse 20, where we hear that Hashem protects all who love Him and (that)
He will destroy all of the wicked.
As can be seen,
the first posuk speaks of fear which means fear of punishment. And even though unstated in this particular
case, the flipside of fear is always the expectation of reward.
Reward and
punishment is no small thing mind you.
The Rambam includes it in his list (ani ma’amins) of 13 bedrock
principles of Judaism. And yet even so, as
important and fundamental as it surely is, the fear of Hashem is but the
handmaiden to the love of Hashem that is spoken of in verse 20. And this is born out by the different ways in
which Hashem takes care of us, as recorded in these two verses.
As we saw above,
those who fear Hashem are only saved from those who would do them harm.
Verse 20 comes
to tell us that Hashem does it one better for those who love Him by protecting
them. As Rabbi Wegbreit explains it,
Hashem’s protection means that His loved ones (those that love Hashem) never
encounter situations that would force them to cry out because Hashem shields
them completely from the sources of distress.
In
contradistinction to how Hashem deals with those who oppress the G-d fearing
amongst us by merely extricating His People from the evil that they are enduring,
when it comes to the enemies of those who love Hashem, He will zap them
totally simply for the evil they intended to do but couldn’t, due to Hashem’s all
encompassing protection of those who love Him.
Rabbi Wegbreit
sums up the fear addressed in verse 19 and the love spoken of in
verse 20 as follows:
If they fear
Him, He saves them from the source of their fear.
If they love
Him, He spares them from the fear itself.
