“Avraham stepped forward and said: Will You also stamp out the righteous along with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous people in the city. Will You still stamp it out rather than spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people within it? It would be sacrilege to You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous along with the wicked; and the righteous will be like the wicked. It would be sacrilege to You! Shall the Judge of all the earth not act with justice? And Hashem said: If I find in Sodom fifty righteous people in the midst of the city, then I would spare the entire place on their account” (Bereishit 18:23-26)
“To love Hashem, your G-d, to walk in all His ways and to cleave to Him” (Devarim 11:22)
Rashi expounds on the words and to cleave to Him – Is it possible to say this? Is it not said of Him, “He is a consuming fire”? Rather, the verse means, “Cleave to students of Torah and to the Sages, and I will consider it as if you cleaved to Hashem.”
“The righteous one is saved from misfortune, but the wicked one comes in his stead” (Mishlei 11:8)
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai learns that wherever tzaddikim go, the Shechinah goes together with them (Bereishit Rabbah 15:6).
“Hashem, your G-d, shall you fear, Him shall you serve, and in His Name shall you swear” (Devarim 6:13)
Shimon Ha’amsuni would expound on every usage of the word את in the Torah. When he reached the pasuk of “את ה' אלו-היך תירא – Hashem, your G-d, shall you fear,” (implying that there are other powers to fear besides Hashem), he retracted all his former explanations. His disciples questioned this. He replied, “Just as I received reward for lecturing, I will receive reward for desisting.” Until Rabbi Akiva came and expounded, “Hashem… shall you fear includes the mitzvah to fear talmidei chachamim” (Kiddushin 57a).
Even if one were to learn the entire Torah, he will not merit doing complete teshuvah and removing the partitions separating him from Hashem, if he does not cleave to the tzaddikim of the generations, the holy ones of Hashem (Ma’or V’shemesh, Parashat Masei).
The Gates of the King refer to the tzaddikim, who act as an entranceway by which to reach the King. One who bonds with the tzaddik becomes extremely elevated. His level of Torah and mitzvot and his livelihood are all receive elevated (Degel Machaneh Efrayim, Parashat Metzora).
The Torah equates fear of the Torah Sages to fear of Hashem Himself. Everyone is obligated to fear Torah Sages just as he fears Hashem. Chazal say (Ta’anit 24b) that the entire world was sustained in the merit of Rabbi Chanina. This means that all blessing comes down only in the merit of tzaddikim. The whole world exists only in their merit, as the pasuk states (Yirmeyahu 33:25), “If My covenant [would not be learned] night and day, I would not have established the laws of heaven and earth.” Certainly, one should fear the Torah Sages (Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Mevakshei Torah).
