Love or Fear?
Now, there’s a question here because we know that at that time, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Avraham, הָּ ַ̇‡ יםƒ ֹ̃ל¡‡ ‡≈ר¿י יƒּכ יƒּ ̇¿עַ„ָי הָּ ַ̇ﬠ – “Now I know that you fear Elokim” (Vayeira 22:12). At this moment, when Avraham achieved the heights of ahavas Hashem, Hashem didn’t say, “I see now that you love Elokim.” He said, “Now I know that you fear Me.”
The question is, why is that so? On the contrary, to us it seems like fear and love are polar opposites. We think that where there's yirah there's no ahavah.
Now, if we’re going to understand the answer to this enigma, we should listen first to the words of a great authority, the Chovos Halevavos, at the beginning of his Shaar Ahavas Hashem. That’s ‘The Gate of Loving Hashem’. I’ll read it inside: הָמ לָּכ יƒּכ ה∆ּזַה ר∆פ≈ּסַּב ֹרו¿כƒזּנוָל םַ„ָּ ̃∆ׁ ̆ – Whatever I’ve mentioned previously in this sefer about the the duties of the mind and the qualities of character, all these things are ma’alos and madreigos, they’re steps and ladders to go up, ה∆ּזַה ןֹיו¿ל∆ﬠָה ןָי¿נƒעָה ל∆‡ – to this most important of all subjects, which is ahavas Hashem. He’s telling us that everything that was discussed in this great sefer until now was a preparation to that great quality of ahavas haBorei yisborach.
It means that in order to approach the subject of ahavas Hashem, a very great preparation is necessary. It’s not like people think, a matter of deciding that you’re going to love Hashem. People think that it’s just a matter of wanting to do it, when they’re good and ready they’ll do it. No, it takes work. It needs a lot of hakdamos, many chapters in the Chovos Halevavos before you get to Shaar Ahavas Hashem.
Fear Before Love
And what is the most important, the most essential hakdamah? Yiras Hashem. That’s what the Chovos Halevavos says, that without yiras Hashem you can never gain ahavah.
Why is that so? Because let’s be frank; let’s stop being disingenuous. How are you going to love Hashem? Love what? Can you love a vacuum? Can you love air? Can you love empty space? You have to have a Hashem in order to love Him.
And so even if you’re just going to begin loving Him now – let’s say you never really considered it much but now you’re hearing this and you’re thinking, “Maybe I should do it. After all, I’m saying it every day, a few times, ָיך∆ ֹ̃ל¡‡ 'ה ̇≈‡ ָּ ̇¿בַהָ‡¿ו, but what am I doing about it? L’maaseh, nothing at all!”
Isn’t it a shame? Someday you’ll come to the Next World and there’ll be a judgment. You want to come into Gan Eden and the shoimer will ask, “Did you ever love Hashem?” You scratch your head. You’re trying to remember.
Start With Emunah
That would be a tragedy. So imagine you want to start tonight; you want to try at least. But you can’t love thin air. You need Something to love. Which means, you have to have emunah.
But not emunah like a man told me recently, “I have emunah peshutah. I believe.” Now, I’m sure this man will run into a fire for kiddush Hashem because that’s the kind of emunah he has. But that doesn’t mean he has emunah. Emunah means that you believe in Hashem with at least the same belief that you have in your cousin in the Bronx. Imagine you have a nice cousin in the Bronx. You see him at the family simchahs; he sends you a check on your birthday every year. So you believe in him. That’s emunah!
So your emunah in Hashem should be at least as much as that. But if your emunah in Hakadosh Baruch Hu is emunah sichlis, it’s only intelligence – and even then, it’s hazy; it’s phrases, words, there’s no actuality about it, you don’t feel it – so that’s not emunah.
Seeing Is Believing
And therefore the first step towards love of Hashem is yiras Hashem, fearing Him. Because ‘to fear’, in its most poshut explanation, means ‘to be aware, to have emunah.’ And I’ll explain that al pi dikduk. Because reish-alef means to see. We write it as ה‡ר but the hei falls off. And yud-reish-alef, ‡יר, means to be afraid. Those words are relatives and they’re not distant cousins; they’re close relatives. In ‡יר the yud falls off many times and in ה‡ר the hei falls off many times, so ‡ר is the shoresh. The root of the words ‘to see’ and ‘to fear’ is the same.
Now that’s not drush; it’s dikduk, it’s the simple explanation of the words. And if you think about it, you’ll find that it’s justified. Because fear means awareness. ‘To be afraid’ means ‘to see something’, ‘to recognize something’ that arouses emotions in you, either apprehension or something else. If you don’t see that a peril is soon to come upon you, there's no fear because you’re unaware. So yirah, fear, is a result of re’iyah, seeing, awareness. Fear means mamashus because you only fear something that’s real, that you’re aware of.
Fear Means He’s Real
But it’s not merely the fear. Of course, that’s a benefit, to be afraid of doing a sin; but there’s something in addition to that, even more valuable, and that is that it gives you emunah chushis. Because if your whole belief is invested only in l’osid lavo, that after you leave this life in Olam Haba there’ll be judgment and retribution and reward, whatever it is, so it’s not so simple that it will be a motivation for you. It’s not so easy to be motivated by far off things. But when a man is thinking he needs Hashem right now, the next minute he needs Him because he wants to be safe and healthy and successful, so that brings Hashem close to him. And Hashem becomes so real that now when he wants to practice ahavas Hashem, he has Something on which to practice it. He’s right here!
And that’s why yirah is so important as a preface and as an adjunct to ahava. Because to love something that’s very far off is extremely difficult. But to love an object which you already picture in your mind and is constantly before your mind’s eye, that comes much easier.
That’s why you’re doing a great benefit when little children are taught from the beginning that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is ready to take action against wrong deeds; because it makes them aware that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is right here. That’s a wonderful beginning because they’re gaining emunah now – Hashem is real! He demands! He’s right here and He reacts! He’s a Chai V’kayam, a true reality – and that’s the emunah they’ll use to come to ahavas Hashem.
And even if you’re not such a little child anymore – let’s say your a man of fifty or sixty – you also have to learn to be afraid. If you do something wrong, there’s going to be a clobber over the head. You have to believe it k’pashtus. Yiras ha’oinesh! We must spend time on being afraid of punishment.
Fear on the Street
Like the Gemara says, ּ̃וּׁ ַ̆ל ‡ָˆָי – Anytime you walk out on the street, טֹיוƒּ„¿רַס רַס¿מƒנּוּלƒ‡¿ּכ יוָינ≈ﬠ¿ּב ה∆מֹוּ„ יƒה¿י – you should practice up fear by feeling like you’ve just been arrested by a Roman sergeant. You know a Roman sergeant, if he arrests a man, that man is an unfortunate fellow. In the ancient days a policeman meant business. Even not so long ago, when I was a boy, I walked through certain neighborhoods at night. There was no question about it because everybody was afraid of the policeman. And there was only one policeman! And he didn't have any patrol cars; he didn't have any walkie-talkies either. All he had was a billy club. But he knew that if he used it there wouldn't be any civilian review board and therefore one policeman on foot was enough to intimidate a big neighborhood.
And you can be sure that the Roman sergeant was even worse. And so when the Chachomim tell us that as soon as you walk out in the street you should imagine that you’re already being followed by a Roman policeman it means that you should be afraid of what might happen to you on the street.
Now we don’t have to suspect the Chachomim of trying to give us nerves, to make us sick. They only want us to live successfully and they’re telling us that every time you go out in the street we should grab that opportunity to practice up our yirah by realizing that anything could happen to you now and you need the help of Hashem.
Now why in the street? And in your house you shouldn’t be aware of Hashem? In your kitchen you don’t need His protection? The answer is that of course we want to utilize any opportunity we can for yirah but we want to be genuine about it too. In your house, you’re protected. You know who’s in your house. The street is already a hefker place. In the street, all types of meshugoyim go around.
Street Violence
Who knows what could happen? A man might run amok with a knife or a gun! Who knows? Maybe the cornice of the house will fall down on top of you. It happens sometimes, again and again. Or a car drives up on the sidewalk. Here’s a nice man – I know him well – and he’s standing on the street corner waiting for the light to change. He has no bad intentions. Suddenly a car drives up on the sidewalk and now he’s been in the hospital for the last two years. Operation after operation.
So it’s true, even in your house you can practice up fear of Hashem but the street is a dangerous place and so the Gemara is telling us to utilize the street as an opportunity for yiras Hashem. Every corner you stop and say, “Hashem, please protect from this corner till the next one. Please don’t let anything bad happen to me.”
Now, that doesn’t mean that life should be full of apprehensions but you’ll give yourself a little reminder here and there, it’ll redound to your benefit. Even when you hear that somewhere far away people are being killed – that Arab terrorists went into a school and slaughtered children – so you give yourself a shiver. That’s a very good shiver because a person who practices on yiras ha’oinesh, he is a man who is most likely to climb up to the high madreigah of ahavas Hashem. Because once you’re aware of Hashem, so now you can begin loving Him. And the more and more you become aware of Him – even if you’re an old tzaddik of 120 years you can still grow in awareness – the more and more you can love Him.
