A Thought on Parshas Ekev
"...pach'dechem u'morachem yiten HaShem Elokeichem...""...terror and fear of you HaShem will cause..." (11:25)
HaShem promises His people that when we follow His ways, we need not, and must not, have fear of the nations around us. Just as we are bidden to fear HaShem, so are we commanded not to fear people. This is the broad meaning of our reassuring verse: the rest of the world will recognize that we are HaShem's people, and they will back off, wary of challenging the Kingdom of Heaven.
Rabbeinu Bachya adds to this: maintaining a steadfast faith, a fear of Heaven, can be the antidote for any decrees or threats awaiting a Jewish person. HaShem protects and saves those who fear Him and who place their reverent trust in Him. We know this.
In turn, one who fears other people depletes his capacity to feel yiras Shomayim. When his anxiety is diverted into worrying about what other people might do to harm him, he diverts his focus from the truth, and limits his awareness of HaShem's ultimate majesty. This distances him from HaShem which means that he has diminished his relationship and connection with Above. That disconnection can result in him stumbling and having troubles r'l which in essence had not been decreed before. Thus, yiras Shomayim can yield unexpected bounty. Lack of yiras Shomayim because of misplaced fear of people can lead to unprecedented personal problems which were not decreed against the person but are brought on by his lapse in Divine focus.
Last Sunday, I had an early flight back from Israel. I had to leave by six in the morning which meant I had to daven as early as possible. This gave me an opportunity, of course, to go the Zaharei Chama schul where Rav Aryeh Levine's zt'l grandson is the rabbi. I have spoken in earlier parsha emails about this spot near the Makor Baruch section of Jerusalem where I like to stay. We put on tefillin at 5:20 so as to begin Shema by 5:40. I was able to pray with a tzibur before rushing to my taxi.
We had liked a driver we had met "by chance" earlier in the week. He was a gentle Sefardic man who agreed to meet us at six o'clock. In the cab, he told us that he never misses wearing tefillin and planned to pray after dropping us off. As we rolled down the highway toward Tel Aviv, he shared an experience with us. He told of how he had been a tense man in his youth, obsessing and worried about many problems which came his way. One day, he picked up an elderly rabbi and as the older man got out of the taxi, he turned to him and said that HaShem decrees the events which will befall a person. What a person does with those events is up to the person, and not part of the decree. "If I lose money or break something, that is a punitive challenge from HaShem. If I suffer with worry and fear and anger and depression, that is a punishment I am giving myself. I am going beyond the limits of the actual decree. My suffering is self-inflicted, and is probably not what HaShem wants me to take from the challenge." He closed by saying that since then, he has become accepting and composed in the face of challenge, working on what HaShem expects of him rather than dwelling on his disappointment relative to what he had expected from HaShem.
May the Seven Weeks of Consolation bring us closer to yiras Shomayim. Good Shabbos. D Fox
HaShem promises His people that when we follow His ways, we need not, and must not, have fear of the nations around us. Just as we are bidden to fear HaShem, so are we commanded not to fear people. This is the broad meaning of our reassuring verse: the rest of the world will recognize that we are HaShem's people, and they will back off, wary of challenging the Kingdom of Heaven.
Rabbeinu Bachya adds to this: maintaining a steadfast faith, a fear of Heaven, can be the antidote for any decrees or threats awaiting a Jewish person. HaShem protects and saves those who fear Him and who place their reverent trust in Him. We know this.
In turn, one who fears other people depletes his capacity to feel yiras Shomayim. When his anxiety is diverted into worrying about what other people might do to harm him, he diverts his focus from the truth, and limits his awareness of HaShem's ultimate majesty. This distances him from HaShem which means that he has diminished his relationship and connection with Above. That disconnection can result in him stumbling and having troubles r'l which in essence had not been decreed before. Thus, yiras Shomayim can yield unexpected bounty. Lack of yiras Shomayim because of misplaced fear of people can lead to unprecedented personal problems which were not decreed against the person but are brought on by his lapse in Divine focus.
Last Sunday, I had an early flight back from Israel. I had to leave by six in the morning which meant I had to daven as early as possible. This gave me an opportunity, of course, to go the Zaharei Chama schul where Rav Aryeh Levine's zt'l grandson is the rabbi. I have spoken in earlier parsha emails about this spot near the Makor Baruch section of Jerusalem where I like to stay. We put on tefillin at 5:20 so as to begin Shema by 5:40. I was able to pray with a tzibur before rushing to my taxi.
We had liked a driver we had met "by chance" earlier in the week. He was a gentle Sefardic man who agreed to meet us at six o'clock. In the cab, he told us that he never misses wearing tefillin and planned to pray after dropping us off. As we rolled down the highway toward Tel Aviv, he shared an experience with us. He told of how he had been a tense man in his youth, obsessing and worried about many problems which came his way. One day, he picked up an elderly rabbi and as the older man got out of the taxi, he turned to him and said that HaShem decrees the events which will befall a person. What a person does with those events is up to the person, and not part of the decree. "If I lose money or break something, that is a punitive challenge from HaShem. If I suffer with worry and fear and anger and depression, that is a punishment I am giving myself. I am going beyond the limits of the actual decree. My suffering is self-inflicted, and is probably not what HaShem wants me to take from the challenge." He closed by saying that since then, he has become accepting and composed in the face of challenge, working on what HaShem expects of him rather than dwelling on his disappointment relative to what he had expected from HaShem.
May the Seven Weeks of Consolation bring us closer to yiras Shomayim. Good Shabbos. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 1:11 AM
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