Even a person who is as great in Torah and good deeds as our teacher Moshe, what is the point of it all if he is arrogant, since conceit is the abomination of Hashem he will be considered like one of the empty and base people. Why does he deserve to live when Hashem says about him that “He and I cannot live together!”? His “earth” (decomposed body) will not be awoken at the revival of the dead, and many other bad things will happen to him.
It follows that a person must strengthen himself with much force and effort, and reflect on the fact that in direct proportion to the level of wisdom that he has and the level of his ability, is the level of his obligation to serve Hashem, and Hashem is exact with him “right up to the equivalent of a hairsbreadth” (He will punish even for the slightest transgression). A good parable for this is the following story. Two people owed the king money, One owed one thousand gold coins and the other owed one thousand silver coins. The first repaid five hundred gold coins and the second repaid five hundred silver coins. The result is that even though the first has repaid much more than the second, he still owes much more than the second. The same is true here.
