Being Unafraid to Fear
The parashiyos that we lein in these weeks feature prominently the mitzvah of yiras Hashem. In Parashas Eikev, we learn אלוקיך ה’ מה ישראל ועתה ה’ אלוקיךאתליראה אם כי מעמך שואל, Now, O Yisrael, what does Hashem, your G-d, ask of you? Only to fear Hashem, your G-d.
In truth, the reason that people don’t regularly strengthen themselves in the area of yiras Shamayim is because they don’t properly grasp the true nature of yiras Shamayim. The very idea strikes fear into their hearts, and it throws them into stress and pressure; thus, they’re afraid to touch the topic for fear that it will interfere with their lives, preventing them from enjoying life. But this is a mistake.
We have already noted that in the niggun Koh Echsof, composed by Rabbi Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, we read the words לעם יראתך נועם משוך רצונך מבקשי, draw down the sweetness of Your fear to a nation that desires to fulfill Your wishes. There is a great sweetness in fearing Hashem.
This instructs us that we must better study the nature of yiras Shamayim in order to better understand it—and in this way, our yiras Shamayim will be sweeter and more enjoyable. Just as other mitzvos that may seem difficult to carry out are nevertheless sweet and enjoyable. Take, for example, learning a difficult sugya with Rashi and Tosafos. It’s hard... and a person must toil greatly in it... but once he immerses himself in it, he feels an incredible sweetness. And the same applies to all mitzvos. When a person engages with them, the sweetness automatically comes. And we must understand that the same applies to yiras Shamayim. It is incredibly sweet to have yiras Shamayim and to live with yiras Shamayim. If a person doesn’t sense it, he has probably not yet grasped its true nature.
Witnessing Holiness
And so, the pasuk in Parashas Re’eh, which deals with eating ma’aser sheini in Yerushalayim, illuminates for us this incredibly important topic of yirah. ותירושך דגנך מעשר שם שמו לשכן יבחר אשר במקום אלוקיך ה’ לפני ואכלת הימים כל אלוקיך ה’ את ליראה תלמד למען ויצהרך..., and you shall eat before Hashem, your G-d, in the place that He will choose to rest His Name there—the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, ... so that you will learn to fear Hashem, your G-d, all the days. The pasuk is teaching us that eating ma’aser sheini in Yerushalayim brings a person to fear of Heaven.
One would think that eating ma’aser sheini would bring one to ahavas Hashem—for yirah is when a person fears doing an aveirah or is afraid punishment or of Hashem.... It begs the question: What is the connection between ma’aser sheini and fear of Heaven?
Tosafos (Bava Basra 21a) asks this question, and he answers that it is not the eating itself that brings yiras Shamayim—but rather the sights and sounds that one will experience in Yerushalayim while eating his ma’aser sheini there. “Because they saw great holiness and the Kohanim engaged in their avodah, they would apply their hearts more to yiras Shamayim and learning Torah, as we learn in Sifri.”
The Nisayon of Plenty Is Yirah
We can better understand this Tosafos—and the sugya of yiras Shamayim in general—with the words of the Sfas Emes (Parshas Eikev):
We know that there is the challenge of poverty, and there is the challenge of wealth. It is very challenging when a person doesn’t have what he needs, and it is also a great challenge for a person to remember Hashem when he has wealth and plenty, as outlined in the pesukim of Parashas Eikev.
And it is known that the test of wealth is even greater than the test of poverty, for the pauper has a natural fear of Heaven, seeing that Hashem is “more powerful than he is.” When he davens for his parnassah, he davens with utmost seriousness... because he is lacking [here, we obviously refer to any kind of lack, not only financial need...]. Such a person generally has the aspect of yirah; his lack is in the aspect of accepting his lot with love. He must love the Ribbono shel Olam despite his suffering, he must sing and dance despite his challenges.... The nisayon of poverty is ahavah.
The nisayon of the wealthy person is precisely the opposite. Everything is going his way, and he has what he needs, and he thanks Hashem every step of the way. His challenge is not in the area of ahavah but in yirah—to know that Hashem can take it all away in one moment, R”l.
And so, the nisayon of poverty is in ahavah, and the nisayon of wealth is in the area of yirah.
The Sfas Emes is teaching us an incredible yesod: The primary nisayon in yiras Shamayim is when a person is successful and has what he needs. That is when he needs to remember Hashem most, toiling to fear Hashem, not so much when he is in a crisis.
And this is the connection to ma’aser sheini: We tell the person, “You have everything you need... you came up to Yerushalayim with abundance and plenty... now is the time to awaken your yiras Shamayim! How? By witnessing the kedushah and the avodah of the Kohanim, and from there you will learn to fear Hashem even when you’re successful and you’re enjoying abundance.
Yiras Shamayim Improves the Life of a Person
We see from here how yiras Shamayim improves the life of a person even in This World. For the life of a person is best lived on the הממוצע דרך, the middle of the road, not veering too much to the right or to the left—because the ahavah and yirah serve as guardrails to keep him within boundaries; ahavah ensures that he won’t want to fall prey to the yetzer hara, and yirah ensures that he won’t be able to fall into the yetzer hara’s trap.
Thus, teaches the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh (Parashas Yisro): Ahavah is not possible without yirah. We explain to a person: You can reach great levels of ahavas Hashem, but it will not work without yiras Shamayim. For if you won’t fear the aveirah, and you won’t fear being distanced from Hashem, you will surely engage in misguided behavior, which will cause you much damage. For example, a person may feel a tremendous feeling and pleasure in Shabbos Kodesh, a great feeling of closeness to Hashem on Shabbos. But in one moment, he can lose it all, as the tzaddikim cautioned us: With one improper sight, a person can lose so much good that he has amassed. From here we see that yirah is a necessity to preserve proper ahavah.
Says the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh (ibid): HaKadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe Rabbeinu, “There are great and lofty madreigos of ahavas Hashem that a person can attain, but without simple fear of Heaven, he won’t arrive anywhere.”
One must feel that ... I simply can’t do the wrong thing. There is a concrete wall before me. I can’t hurt another Yid, for if I do so, I won’t be able to be a proper Yid, and I won’t be able to be close to Hashem! And for this reason, a person must have yiras Shamayim: so that he will feel bound to do only the right thing, and in this way he won’t lose the great madreigos in ahavah that he has attained. He won’t lose his shalom bayis... he won’t lose his shefah... he won’t ruin everything that he has toiled to attain through ahavah.
Yiras Shamayim serves as the guardrail, the reminder to bear all this in mind.
Yirah Is the Safety Mechanism
We learn this lesson from our own world; for example, in the world of aviation. Airplanes assist us in traveling very far distances at very fast speeds. At the same, it is a very dangerous endeavor, and it is the fear of these dangers that causes aviators to take extravagant precautions. Before every flight, they check and recheck every aspect of the machinery and mechanisms to ensure that they’re working properly. Thus, the fear of the dangers—and the precautions that are taken—enable the success of the flight to reach great heights and attain far distances.
In ruchaniyus, it is the same way. A person can attain lofty levels, the likes of which he has never dreamed of—for he is, after all, a אלוק חלק ממעל, a part of G-dliness Above, and he isn’t limited by the confines of This World. However, this is not without danger. Just as we can’t build a plane without safety measures, so too, the journey of ahavas Hashem cannot take place without the guardrails of yirah.
We don’t say not to fly the plane. Fly! But take the necessary precautions. And the same applies to ahavah and yirah. When we do it right, the benefit is tremendous!
Enabling Us to Soar in Our Ahavah
This is what the Torah seeks to teach us, again and again, especially in these parashiyos. HaKadosh Baruch Hu didn’t imbue us with a neshamah in order that we should raise ourselves up just a little bit, to do some good... to be pretty OK. He gave us a neshamah that can transport us above and beyond—to places that we never dreamed possible! But to arrive there, by necessity, the neshamah must go through dangerous territory, and yiras Hashem must be in place to guard it against those dangers.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu implanted in each of us a search for ahavah, for love—all so that it should seek the pleasure of Shabbos, a taste of the beauty of Torah and tefillah, the pleasantness of mitzvos. However, on this journey of seeking ahavah—since we are, after all, comprised of a human body—we will inevitably look to the sides, to the lowly ahavah that lies off to the side. And this is a necessity. Because—in order for the neshamah to want to seek more, it has been designed to never sit still, and never be satisfied. By necessity, the neshamah will always be searching. And because of this, the neshamah lies in great danger, because it is searching, and it will likely find inappropriate things as well. This is especially true in the world that we live in today, where a person can so easily and quickly find the worst things, R”l.
Sometimes, we ask ourselves... we bring children into such a dangerous world, and it is so easy for them to fall. It is true. This World is a terrible makom sakanah, a place of great danger, and we must invest in safeguarding our neshamah against the dangers of the world. This is the way of the world. The goal is not that a person should be dry, without any desires and thus not in need of any guarding.... The idea is that he will be in constant danger, and he will then strengthen himself constantly.
The main idea is to awaken and arouse within himself yiras Shamayim as much as possible—knowing that, through this, his life will be good, for his neshamah will continue to run—and run in the right direction.
Harnessing the Body Through Yirah
The Sfas Emes explains that fear is given to us for the guf, while joy is for the neshamah—both are necessary. With this he reconciles the contradiction between the two pesukim, one exhorting us to “serve Hashem with fear,” and the other calling upon us to “serve Hashem with joy.” We must harness our body through yirah to get on board with the program of the neshamah. And in the moment that the body stops pulling the neshamah into smut, the neshamah is propelled at lightning speed to the Ribbono shel Olam, and it will automatically experience great joy. Thus, both are true and necessary: the fear as well as the joy.
The yesod is, as outlined above, that the neshamah is always on the move. It will never rest—as we see clearly, a person is always searching and seeking, never satisfied. And so, if we feed the neshamah pleasure from foreign sources, the neshamah won’t arrive at its destination. And it is for this reason that we need yiras Shamayim; to protect the neshamah and ensure that it can reach its lofty destination.
If the yirah will serve as a guardrail to prevent the neshamah from seeking pleasure in foreign sources, the neshamah will automatically cleave to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.
This is why we are commanded to love Hashem with everything we possess. For when a person loves many things—aside from the fact that he will never be satisfied, because the neshamah senses that it isn’t the real thing—he is prevented from properly loving Hashem. This is what yirah is designed to do: to channel the ahavah to love only what is good and proper... and then, the sky is the limit.
A Vessel for Love
This is why the sefarim teach us, “Yirah is the vessel for ahavah.” And one may ask, aren’t fear and love two conflicting emotions? How can one be the vessel for the other? But according to what we explained, it can be understood very well. The unbridled love for Hashem exists in each of us, and it is constantly seeking. A person may say, “I will use my power of love to love all sorts of things... indulge in food and other ta’avos...”; on this account, he loses out on love for Hashem. And it is for this that we need yirah: to pull us away from foreign ahavah and to channel the love to the Borei Olam.
On the pasuk “What does Hashem ask of us but to fear Him?” the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says: If you will awaken and arouse yiras Shamayim within yourself, you will gain so much—not only will you have yirah, but you will also have ahavah! By awakening yirah, you will have both—and then it will be good for you in This World and in the Next World.
The Avodah of Our Time Is Yirah
Let us return to the words of the aforementioned Sfas Emes that when a person has abundance, his primary avodah is yirah, and when a person is lacking, his main avodah is ahavah.
In our times, although people go through plenty of challenges, in general we are blessed with abundance. People aren’t dying of starvation, and people aren’t afraid of death the way it was in many eras in Jewish history. There is tremendous abundance. Most people live in comfortable homes, with plenty of food. Thus, the avodah of our time is yirah, to ensure that we retain our yiras Shamayim.
In this vein, we will say that those who don’t follow the path of Torah because they don’t have yiras Shamayim live in incredible suffering—the likes of which none of us can even appreciate. For Chazal have taught us that העולם מן האדם את מוציאין והכבוד והתאוה הקנאה, envy, lust, and the pursuit of honor take a person out of the world. This means that someone who is mired in these issues has no life.
Yirah Gives us Bliss
Clearly, we all must work on distancing ourselves from kinah, ta’avah, and kavod. But someone who has distanced himself from Torah is steeped in the mud of kinah, ta’avah and kavod, and he pursues them until the end—because he has nothing to hold him back.
Conversely, a person who knows that everything is from Hashem, and that the Ribbono shel Olam gives him whatever he needs and doesn’t give him what he doesn’t need, lives a life of bliss and satisfaction. When a person is fearful of looking at something improper, and he distances himself from improprieties and improper thoughts... can we imagine the sweetness of his life?! He lives without lusts and desires because he has sealed himself off from them! We can’t properly grasp this, but those who are distant from Torah and mitzvos live miserable lives due to their pursuit of kinah, ta’avah, and kavod. We can’t adequately describe the pain of these people...
Ridding Ourselves of Negative Pursuits
We must understand that we aren’t entirely free of these pursuits—and HaKadosh Baruch Hu expects us to work to rid ourselves of them. It’s not enough that we don’t live like a goy; we must rid ourselves of the goy that lives within us. Remove the vestige of kinah that’s within you; make a laughingstock of it. Understand that you have everything you need. We see how envy eats people alive... especially at this time of year, when people take vacations, and people say to themselves, “Why can’t I go to places where others go...” Understand that you have everything!
However, when a person doesn’t recognize the goodness of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, not only doesn’t he receive what’s what others have, but he also loses out on what is meant to come to him!
Yiras Shamayim Keeps Us Content
To help us understand how yiras Shamayim helps a person—making him happier and more content—let us take the following example: Someone with limited means took his family on an hour-long excursion to see the water. He returns uplifted and happy... until he meets his friend, who shows him pictures of his two-week family vacation in Europe... and his heart sinks.
Now, this is understandable as an immediate reaction—for we are, after all, human... not angels. But after a moment of reflection... what are you jealous of? Why are you bitter? You must remember that Hashem is providing all your needs, and you have everything you need, and you will have everything you need—and when you internalize this, you will see that the Ribbono shel Olam will shower you with good! When a person feels envy and jealousy, they eat him alive... he is always bitter, and he can’t enjoy anything he has. And this stems from a lack of yiras Shamayim. He forgot that the Ribbono shel Olam runs the world!
The pain of pursuing imaginary bliss, running after things that will never bring him satisfaction, robs him of the true and proper ahavah—and this is where yiras Shamayim comes in.
Waking Up with a Sense of Danger
Practically speaking, if a person has yirah, he wakes up in the morning, and he doesn’t think about the things that he wants. He says to himself, “If I want to have a good life, I must think about the reality of my life. The reality is that there is a Ribbono shel Olam... and we must serve Him. And so, he davens that he shouldn’t fall prey to any aveiros, chas v’shalom. He approaches his learning and davening with fervor and excitement... this is what is going on in his mind all morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening.
What will happen is that his ahavah won’t be wasted, and he will merit tremendous closeness to Hashem—as we have discussed above: When we don’t allow the ahavah to be wasted, it will automatically be channeled into loving Hashem, the Source of love and pleasure.
However, if a person doesn’t internalize thoughts of yiras Shamayim, he will surely seek ahavah from other sources... he will seek good food, he will seek honor and affirmation from others, he will seek ta’avos and pleasures from This World... and when such a person hears about his friend’s vacation, it is the worst thing that he can hear... it pours salt on his wounds.
The Sweetness of Yiras Shamayim
Thus, the sweetness of yirah is a very simple proposition: It’s akin to a person who comes home from a long day, and he knows that dinner may not be ready. What do we tell him? Do yourself, and your entire family, a favor. Eat something light before you come home... don’t come home famished. We say the same to people who need peace of mind in any given situation: Don’t arrive famished and exhausted... it won’t end well.
So too, when it comes to the topic of the pursuit of ahavah. We all know that every day when we wake up, our nefesh will seek ahavah. This is the way HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world, and it is a good thing... it’s how we know we’re alive and we have a neshamah...we’re alive and seeking. But if we don’t put up the guardrails to ensure that the ahavah doesn’t come from foreign sources, we will go wild every time we hear about someone else’s escapades and acquisitions. It will pour salt on our wounds, and we will be miserable.
Choose Life
This translates to many different life situations. For example, a person...
