Fair Fear
BECHUKOSAI BECHUKOSAI
Anxiety and Fear
One of the most difficult readings of the Torah can be found in this week’s parsha; it is known as the tocha’cha-the harsh words of rebuke. (An even more gruesome follow up can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy.) These words of rebuke are also characterized by the Torah as curses. But, Torah is the source of all good and blessing. Indeed, the Talmud explains that the reason the Torah begins with the letter beis is because it is the initial of the word beracha, which means blessing. This opening letter sets the tone for the entire Torah.
This raises the obvious question: How do we understand the Torah’s use of dire threats and horrible curses if Torah epitomizes blessings?
BECHUKOSAI
One of the answers to this question lies in the understanding that the curses, from the vantage point of the Torah, are challenges to us. It is as if the Torah commands us: “Take these curses and convert them into blessings!” But in order to transform a curse, one must know what they are, and where they come from.
A cursory survey of all these dire threats delineated in this week’s parsha yields an unmistakable conclusion: fear and anxiety from real and imaginary threats are the most frightening prospects for our people. The real fears derive from suffering, persecution, famine and other natural and man-made disasters that the Torah lists. But, arguably, the most extreme form of fear is outlined in the second part of the following verse:
And those who hate you shall rule over you; and you shall flee when none pursue you.
In today’s world we can see how this curse has come true. There is a penchant, to the point of obsession that many have, induced and exacerbated to a certain extent by the media, to search for and exaggerate the BECHUKOSAI threats to our well-being. Whether it is the fear of meteors, SARS, UFO’s, Mad Cow Disease, Global warming, nuclear proliferation, Aids, the Russians, ISIS or the multitude of other diseases and concerns, our society has been conditioned to worry.
To be sure, there is a need to be aware of certain dangers that lurk in our midst so that we can take action to prevent these situations from degenerating into a real catastrophe. But in this “information age,” when we are bombarded hourly with every tragedy and threat from every corner of the world, it is a major challenge to sort out the genuine and imminent threats from the trivial ones. Fear becomes the norm.
It is bad enough to be petrified when being pursued by those who hate us and wish us harm, but why do we fear and flee in terror when no one is really pursuing us? Why do we look for fear? And, more importantly, how do we treat it?
BECHUKOSAI
The Root of Fear
To answer this question it is important to trace the emotion of fear to its roots in our G-dly soul. Only then can we discover a means how we can tap into the incredible energy generated by and inherent in the emotion of fear.
There are two conventional ways one can approach these phobias: The first is to demonstrate to ourselves that they are without foundation, and the second is to actually confront them.
For example, if one is afraid of contracting Mad Cow disease, all they have to do is read how the probability to get it is virtually nil. If the fear is of flying, all one has to do is actually fly until they no longer harbor that fear.
In truth, Jewish mystical literature teaches us that there is a third approach to treating fear and anxiety that involves recognizing the harmless source of that fear and attempting to express it in the way it was intended.
BECHUKOSAI
To explain: Our G-dly soul possesses two forces and drives that are, paradoxically, antithetical and complementary.
One part of the G-dly soul longs to return to its maker. It is consumed with love of G-d because it is a part of the Divine and because it senses and appreciates the love and closeness of G-d towards us. This love and passion is the root and generator of love that we experience in our physical lives as well.
But, there is another part of the G-dly soul that senses the awesome majesty and infinitude of the Divine that imbues the soul with a sense of overwhelming awe and reverence. This exclusively spiritual experience that is natural to the Divine soul within us, known in Hebrew as yirah, is a distant cousin of fear, or, more precisely, is its ancestor.
Fear is an emotion that makes us recognize our vulnerability. Faced with fear, even the greatest and toughest among us will cower. As stated, this emotion of fear is rooted in the soul’s profound humility and self-abnegation that is borne out of an acute awareness of the infinite and transcendent nature of the Amighty G-d.
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When the soul becomes garbed within a physical body, the sublime spiritual feelings are strongly tempered and made much more down-to-earth. Thus the soul’s state of utter self-abnegation and profound reverence can evolve and degenerate into a state of fear and dread for real and even imaginary threats.
When a person is overcome with inordinate fear and anxiety, in addition to seeking professional help which the Torah encourages for any health problem, it is helpful to reflect on the source and root of that fear; that it originates in the soul. And at its root it is a positive and holy emotion.
And when we take our fears and recognize that they are, in essence, expressions of reverence and awe for G-d, and when we couple that realization with behaviors consonant with it, that will remove those elements of our nature that distort the pristine emotion of the soul, which produce the painful and debilitating feelings of fear.
BECHUKOSAI
Pain of the Soul
In addition, the feelings of fear can be the soul’s way of expressing pain when its needs are neglected. The soul becomes apprehensive when it sees how we deny its needs. To assuage the fear, we must do those things that the soul craves: Study Torah, put on Tefillin, pray, help another, light a Shabbos candle, keep kosher, observe the Holidays with joy, etc. The soul, seeing that its needs are being met, will lose some of the anxiety and angst that it felt when it was being ignored.
Moshiach: The Cure for Fear
The “curses” that we read in this week’s parsha are associated with exile. Obviously, with the advent of the coming of Moshiach and the ultimate Age of Redemption, the fear and anxiety that plagues our society will be removed. Our Biblical Prophets spoke of how during the Messianic Age we will be overwhelmed with the awareness of G-d. This, in turn, will generate the healthy form of yirah that will remove the curses that come when the source of fear in the soul is BECHUKOSAI obscured. In addition, the soul’s needs will be fulfilled that will negate any possibility for fear and anxiety.
BECHUKOSAI
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Behar-Bechukosai by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
