When we move to Yoreh De’ah, much of yir’at Hashem expresses itself in food. Before certifying a shochet, the person qualified to kills animals in the halakhic way that allows their meat to be kosher, the rabbi must check the candidate’s fear of God as well, particularly in our generation (he says) of heresy, leniencies, and tendencies to doubt Chazal, Yoreh De’ah 1;23.
Should the candidate pass but later be lax about smoothing his knife of all issues, he will show himself either unqualified or lacking in fear of God, because it is well known the big cities have factories where such knives are readily available. While strict law does not care about a nursemaid’s religion or observance, we prefer a child nurse only from those who keep kosher, 81;34, because non-kosher food is considered to damage the soul, lead to bad character. Arukh HaShulchan references a leading Torah scholar of his time who thought that led to children leaving observance, to their lack of yir’at Hashem.
The need for kashrut symbols on food seems obvious today, but was new to Arukh HaShulchan 119;9. Anyone who has been touched by yir’at Hashem will only eat that which has been certified kosher, not just trust the Jew who brings it from elsewhere.
Yir’at Hashem is a characteristic we seek in those who produce our food, is revealed by their assiduous care to use the best possible shechita knives, means even infants should be given only kosher food, and is part of why we should look for kosher symbols. All good ideas, but would we intuitively think of that as part of yir’at Hashem?
Choshen Mishpat Gets Into the Action
While courts allow litigants and witnesses to sit for verdict, Arukh HaShulchan Choshen Mishpat 17;5 thinks the litigants and witnesses themselves, if yir’at Hashem has touched their hearts, if their forefathers stood at Sinai, will know to stand out of honor for the Torah. About to hear God’s justice from the mouths of the judges, standing is the proper position.
For many issues, we no longer treat even our greatest Torah scholars as the kinds of talmidei chakhamim the Gemara thought warranted special treatment, but the idea that such a person could retrieve a lost item just by saying he recognized it still works, 262;25. The Gemara confers the right to invoke tevi’at ayin, his clear recognition of his lost object without any describable identifying signs, on a talmid chakham, Torah scholar, where Arukh HaShulchan says it is really a matter of yir’at Hashem—the fear of God that would mean this person would never falsely take what did not belong to him. The Gemara only spoke of a talmid chakham, he says, because one who spends all his time studying Torah will presumably also be a yerei Hashem, one who fears God [and only claim he recognizes his lost item if he really does].
Four simanim later, paragraph two, he contrasts yir’at Hashem to various types of sinners, who do not have such fear of God. In Choshen Mishpat, fear of God presents itself in our dealings with courts, our recovery of lost objects, and to whom we decide to return such objects.
Even HaEzer
In 17;139, on evaluating problematic witnesses regarding testimony a woman’s husband has passed away, Arukh HaShulchan urges the judge to include other scholars, who fear God, in the decision process, not rely on his own judgment. In 25;10, he recommends busha, a quality that is closer to discretion and chastity than its usual translation of embarrassment, because it fosters fear of sin.
For 55;1, his topic is women with whom a man already has some kind of marital connection, engagement (shidukhin) or betrothal (erusin). In both cases, the man himself still may not have conjugal relations with the women, and therefore may also not be secluded with her, let alone live together, and one who fears the word of God will stay away from many such arrangements.
[Surprisingly to me, I know of Orthodox shuls today which have couples who just live together, outside the sanctions of marriage.]
Lastly, in 165;14, Arukh HaShulchan accepts the possibility of yibum, although Ashkenazic tradition strongly preferred yibum. If the couple’s purity of motivation is clear, or even if they are just known to be God-fearing, and said they were planning on chalitzah, the unshoeing ceremony that frees the widow to marry others, yibum could be allowed.
Even HaEzer’s yir’ah: including other judges on difficult cases, cultivating busha, avoiding yichud, seclusion, even with one’s future wife, and being the type of person whose good intentions are clear and to be trusted.
Yir’at Hashem can come from the wonders of nature, as we saw in Rambam, and in Arukh HaShulchan from our conduct in ritual religion, our concern with getting our food in the way God wanted, our attitudes towards money, marriage, and marital relations. Probably more, if we look. Not, apologies to Sefer HaChinukh, from just thinking about it ourselves and deciding we know what it is.
