Q&A: Fear of God
Fear of God
Question
Hello Rabbi,
On Sabbath 31a-b several statements are brought about the importance of fear of God:
- Reish Lakish said: What is the meaning of the verse, “And there shall be faith in your times, strength, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge…” ? “Faith” — this is the Order of Seeds; “your times” — this is the Order of Festivals; “strength” — this is the Order of Women; “salvation” — this is the Order of Damages; “wisdom” — this is the Order of Holy Things; “knowledge” — this is the Order of Purities. And even so, fear of God is His treasure.
- Rava said: At the time a person is brought to judgment, they say to him: Did you conduct business faithfully? Did you set fixed times for Torah study? Did you engage in procreation? Did you await salvation? Did you reason wisely? Did you understand one thing from another? And even so: if fear of God is his treasure — yes; if not — no. This may be compared to a person who said to his agent: Bring me a kor of wheat up to the attic. He went and brought it up for him. He said to him: Did you mix into it a kav of preservative? He said to him: No. He said to him: It would have been better had you not brought it up.
- Rabbah bar Rav Huna said: Any person who has Torah but does not have fear of Heaven is like a treasurer who was given the keys to the inner doors but not the keys to the outer doors. How can he enter?
- Rav Yehuda said: The Holy One, blessed be He, created His world only so that people would fear Him, as it is said: “And God has done it, that they should fear before Him.”
- Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: The Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world except fear of Heaven alone, as it is said: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear…”
My questions:
- Maimonides’ words about serving out of fear and out of love are well known. But here it seems that specifically fear is an integral part of serving God, and perhaps even its goal. In your opinion, how are these things reconciled?
- What kind of fear do you think is being discussed here (fear of punishment / awe / something else)?
- Do you think that serving God without fear is missing something essential, as emerges from the statements above?
Serving God that is, alternatively, “doing the truth because it is the truth” seems to lack a dimension that is expressed here. - If so, how can one strengthen the proper kind of fear?
Answer
- They aren’t well known to me. What exactly are you referring to, and what is the question?
- I assume both.
- Definitely. I don’t think there is such a thing as serving God without fear of God. Doing the truth because it is truth is love, which includes within it fear (awe).
- Maimonides speaks about strengthening love of God (which is also awe), by contemplating His creations, His deeds, and His greatness.
By the way, not long ago I saw a passage in Rabbi Kook at the beginning of Orot HaKodesh, vol. 3, where he argues that fear of God is an engine and has no content of its own. It takes the content placed into it and leverages it, for good or for bad. It seems to me that this is the parable of a treasure storehouse. It is a space into which things are placed, and has nothing of its own. See there at the beginning of the book, section 4 and onward.
Discussion on Answer
1. What he calls love there is not different from awe. I didn’t get into the issue, and I don’t know whether Maimonides himself gets into it. But conceptually it is certainly there too.
2. I don’t know. I’m not even sure there is anything to fear.
4. Each person in his own way. I don’t have advice, certainly not universal advice. It doesn’t have to be contemplation of the natural world. Philosophy can also do the job.
One last question on the subject:
Could you explain how love of God includes awe?
Love is attachment and an ongoing bond with God (“his soul is bound up in the love of God, and he is continuously enraptured by it,” in Maimonides’ words), whereas awe is a deep, humbling sense of amazement before greatness, infinity, wisdom, etc.
Even if I wasn’t precise in describing love and awe, I was trying to show that they aren’t really identical, or that one doesn’t necessarily include the other.
Arriving at love of God through recognizing His greatness, His governance of the world, and the wisdom that exists in the world, includes within it awe. What is there to explain? It comes from the same root, except that these are two somewhat different consequences of it, though not very different.
Fear is fear of harm, and it is connected to fear of incoherence, of stupidity, of falsehood (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”).
Connected to fear is knowledge; a person needs to know what is harmful / incoherent in an action.
To strengthen fear, one has to strengthen knowledge. To understand what is flawed there.
The other side of fear is love: that a person is drawn to beautiful, coherent attachments; that a person rejoices in and loves doing the right act.
But that isn’t awe.
What is called awe can perhaps be interpreted as the reversal of pride that occurs in a person, or as humility.
But that too is a result of fear of God; for that, a person needs to know more about his own smallness.
Fear of God is what is required so that the intellect can operate and a person can understand.
There’s a chicken-and-egg issue here, and therefore it is said: If there is no wisdom, there is no fear; if there is no fear, there is no wisdom.
1. Maimonides in Laws of Repentance 10, which you like to quote. There he describes serving out of fear as inferior, and serving out of love as ideal. That seems to contradict this. Granted, you answered that in answer 4, but where did you see in Maimonides that love of God is also awe? I didn’t see him address awe there at all.
2. If both — is there something worthwhile about fear of punishment, worthwhile enough that I should cultivate it?
4. Do you have any practical advice? What does it mean to contemplate His deeds? To watch National Geographic?