For G‑d your G‑d… is a consuming fire (9:3)
Between coldness and heresy stands an extremely thin wall. It is written: "For G‑d your G‑d is a consuming fire" - G‑dliness is a blazing flame. Torah study and prayer require a flaming heart, so that "all my bones should proclaim" the words of G‑d.1
- Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch
Rabbi Nechemia of Dubrovna told:
I once saw a Russian soldier being whipped. His crime? While standing watch on a winter night, his feet had frozen in their boots. "Had you remembered the oath you took to serve the czar," his commander berated him, "the memory would have kept you warm."
"For 25 years," concluded Reb Nechemia, "this incident inspired my service of the Almighty."
The point is clear but seems to me misstated. Warmth and coldness of heart in this context are spiritual conditions. Frozen feet is a physical condition. The warmest of hearts cannot keep feet from freezing in a Russian winter. I have to think that, of all people, a Chassidic sage as spiritually elevated as Rabbi Nechemia should have recognized that the soldier was a classic victim of czarist cruelty. I also cannot avoid believing that such a mocking, sadistic guard is the last person on earth who deserves praise for teaching spiritual elevation.
Those two points may be true (and for the 2nd point, I agree), but I've read somewhere, I do believe on this very same website, that you should learn from everyone both what to do and what not to do, everyday.