Q&A: Fear of Heaven
Fear of Heaven
Question
I heard from a well-known and prominent rabbi that one of the criteria for knowing whether a person has fear of Heaven or not is how much he is willing to invest—money, time, effort, and so on—in order to perform a commandment. First, it seems to me that this is a mistake, because a person has dozens of considerations about whether or not, and how, to perform a commandment, and certainly performing the commandment does not depend דווקא on the person’s fear of Heaven. Therefore, other considerations can push a person away from performing the commandment. What do you think? And second, what do you think is the criterion for knowing whether I have fear of Heaven or not? In other words, how can I know whether or not I am a person with fear of Heaven?
Answer
That is too general a statement to discuss as is. You are right that there are various considerations, but if you look at the totality of the commandments and the totality of a person’s actions, it certainly could be a measure. Let’s put it this way: if you take two identical people (or yourself in two different situations) under similar circumstances but with different levels of fear of Heaven, that difference will be reflected in their observance of the commandments. Since it is impossible to create such a scientific experiment on particular individuals, we move to larger groups and rely on statistics to do the work.
I don’t know. A person is supposed to know himself. External indications are needed for other people. I will just add that if this question troubles you, then it is likely that you do in fact have fear of Heaven.