I was speaking recently with two very elderly women, D and S, who I see once a month at the local nursing home. D just turned 95, and S will be 93 next month, God willing. I asked them how they face their fears. Here’s what they told me:
daily prayer,
expressing gratitude every day,
staying present to what is happening right now,
and letting go of thoughts of being in control of what’s happening.
D and S are not saints. They are wonderfully ordinary women who have lived full lives and experienced their share of both suffering and joy. They know, with a clarity most of us lack, that their lives are finite. Quite unselfconsciously, they seem to embody the biblical proverb “Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”
Why do I say that they embody fear of God? How do we even understand that concept, especially those of us who don’t believe in a personal God? It is obviously not fear in the sense that we tend to use the word, nor is it fear of God in the child-like sense of fearing punishment for wrong-doing. So what is it, what does it have to do with the wisdom of D and S, and what does it have to do with us?
The Hebrew expression for fear of God is yirat haShem. The word yira – yud raish aleph – actually carries a double meaning not captured by the single word fear in English. Yira means both fear and awe. So yirat haShem is more accurately translated as the fear and awe of God. That makes a big difference in trying to understand the centrality of this spiritual practice in Judaism.
Although we expend a significant amount of psychic energy either suppressing our fears or being unconsciously driven by them, our tradition teaches us to cultivate the fear and awe of God. Our tradition promises us, paradoxically, that the more we cultivate this fear, the less afraid we will be. And there is something in how D and S relate to their moment-to-moment reality that feels to me like they are tapping into this promise.
The recent hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters have really shaken me, more than I was able to admit at first. How precarious our lives are, especially for those people living in certain regions of the planet. I can try comforting myself with the thought that where we live is not one of those regions, but the fearful uneasiness remains.
This is one element of yirat haShem: that gut sense of how fragile and insignificant we humans are. How fleeting our lives are, and our possessions and all the things we care about.But if yirat haShem were just about that, life would be bleak and terrifying. What is it about the fear and awe of God that can bring us to a place of feeling less afraid?
On Yom Kippur we traditionally read the story of Jonah – a story that I find even more poignant given the recent tragic storms, as you will see. What can we learn about yirat haShem from the Jonah story? We need look no further than the opening scene:
God instructs Jonah to go warn the people in the city of Nineveh that they need to repent from their evil ways. Jonah flees from God, finding a boat to take him in the opposite direction. God then stirs up a huge, menacing storm; experiencing fear, the other men on the boat cry out to their various gods. When that doesn’t work, they bring Jonah up to the deck from where he has been sound asleep, and ask him what he may have done to bring this storm upon them. When he tells them about God’s instruction and how he is fleeing from it, the other men now “fear a great fear.” And when at last they reluctantly follow Jonah’s instruction to throw him overboard, thereby ending the storm and saving their lives, the men “fear a great fear of God.”
Fear, great fear, and a great fear of God.
The fear and the great fear make sense at the beginning of the story, as the storm intensifies and the threat of death looms larger. But notice when the “great fear of God” happens: The storm is over. The men on the boat are safe. The life-threatening danger is past. So how do we understand the meaning of this great fear of God?
Imagine being one of the men on that boat. Or imagine being one of the people who survived the hurricanes this past month. Imagine the fear… followed by a rush of relief, gratitude, and perhaps a flash of awareness of the preciousness of life.
Many of us have had those flashes, that heightened sense of gratitude, that expanded consciousness, even if momentary, that is both fear and awe, and perhaps something beyond both. In the face of the vast mystery of it all – which Jewish tradition refers to as Adonai, the un-nameable, unknowable totality of existence – in the face of that vast mystery, we wake up, perhaps for just a brief flash, to the reality that our lives are as ephemeral and precious as beautiful clouds. And this time it’s not a bleak and terrifying vision. There can be a sense of okay-ness, a sense of surrendering into the grandness of it all, a sense of trusting. A sense of our life energy being a part of the All, in some mysterious way that we don’t have to figure out. This is the other face of yirat haShem, the fear and awe of God.
Yirat haShem is an experience that can come at the boundary between life and death, and we are taught to cultivate it in our everyday lives. It’s not just something that happens to people who are facing their mortality. It’s not just something that comes to D and S.
So how do we cultivate yirat haShem, especially those of us who don’t necessarily believe in the biblical God or use traditional God language? Here’s the thing – It doesn’t need to have anything to do directly with our personal understanding of or belief in God. The Jewish mystical tradition teaches us that the path to yirat haShem is through whatever practices help us develop humility. Through whatever practices help us lessen the grip of Ego.
How do we develop humility? Through meditation, prayer, contemplation, consciously choosing simplicity, serving others – whatever practices help us to shift our attention away from our anxious little Me.
How do we develop humility? Through seeking at all times to be “a useful engine,” in the immortal words of Thomas the Tank Engine. This simple, profound expression is one of my favorites for orienting the mind and heart in the direction of yirat haShem in everyday life.
How do we develop humility? Through the practices of D and S:
daily prayer,
expressing gratitude every day,
staying present to what is happening right now,
and letting go of thoughts of being in control of what’s happening to us.
There is much to be afraid of in this world. Like the men on Jonah’s boat, we are at times literally afraid for our lives. The ultimate spiritual challenge may be to transform the energy of that fear into the fear and awe of God.
May we all find our own ways to cultivate yirat haShem – and in so doing, may we get a taste of that liberation from our fears that we sing of in Psalm 23: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me.”