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By Rabbi Naftoly Bier
In פרשת עקב, Deuteronomy 10:12, it states, “And now, Israel, what does G-d, your G-d, require from you? Only, to fear G-d (to stand in awe and trepidation of Him) your G-d, to walk in all His ways to love Him, and to serve Him, and to serve G-d, your G-d, with all your heart and soul.” It continues, verse 13, “To keep His commandments, and His statutes, which I command you today for your [own] good.”
What initially is puzzling and incomprehensible is the word, “only”. 1) Is our obligation only to “fear G-d”; it’s quite a difficult achievement? 2) The Torah states that we must love Him, emulate Him, serve Him—a task that encompasses every living moment of one’s life—it’s not only, it’s everything?!
Rav Yosef Albo in his monumental work, ספר העקרים (published in the beginning of the 15th century) teaches a novel approach to understand this most important idea.
For a person to truly attain a level of complete subservience to one’s Creator, to love a non-corporeal entity like Hashem, to live every moment in awe of Hashem’s benefactions and in turn dedicate oneself to emulate Him is an awesome, staggering, formidable challenge. What the Torah is saying is the following: And now Israel, recognize with utmost clarity and acuity Hashem’s consummate, magnanimous and sublime kindness. He is not asking you to fear… but rather instead of demanding us to fear Him, to walk in His ways, to love Him and to serve Him with our “heart” and “soul”, He engendered for us a path to attain those goals in a manner that is more easily attainable. How so? (verse 13) By observing His commandments and His statues, we will attain and reach the purpose of humankind!
This is what Dovid HaMelech said (Psalms 111:1), “ראשית חכמה יראת ה, the fear of Hashem is the beginning of wisdom.” The meaning is, the best and essential part of wisdom is to attain fear of Hashem, (continues the verse) “A good understanding have all these that do them.” Not to study them, but to do them; the performance of the commandments leads to the aim realized by understanding the goal—the fear of Hashem. The study of Torah and the enactment and implementation of the mitzvos will invariably bring one to the spiritual level of “fear of Hashem”.
What is meant by fearing G-d? שלמה המלך, King Solomon, teaches us in the Song of Songs 9-14, that though Hashem has endowed us with all kinds of pleasures, they are but fleeting; the only endeavor that will bring eternity to one is “the fear of Hashem.” To attain this attribute necessitates intense, relentless effort as we are taught that אברהם אבינו, our patriarch Avraham was only given the title ירא אלוקים, a person who “fears” G-d after all his tests, including the Akeidah. “For now, you have attained the highest level of possible in this world and therefore, you have gained a wonderful place in the World to Come, עולם הבא.”
To define “fear of Hashem” as to be afraid of punishment if we don’t follow Hashem’s dictates or to perform מצוות to gain reward is an aberration of its true value. The true lofty status is gained by one who due to perceiving and contemplating the infinite greatness of Hashem and due to this acts constantly with complete, unequivocal submission to Him, this is the real “fear” and is only accomplished through the medium of Torah observance. For when one recognizes that Hashem is aware of all of one’s actions, thoughts, and speech, and one discerns their paucity as compared to Him, one will naturally tremble in His presence and be embarrassed to go against His will.
This is the natural, intuitive, logical tendency of a person—to act in this manner—one wants to attain true accomplishments as dictated by one’s Creator. But we have the שאור שבעיסה, the inclination to denigrate and be rebellious towards Hashem. The Torah therefore tells us of all the calamities and punishments that will befall us—not because we need this to cause us to logically serve Hashem. On the contrary as aforementioned, we rationally understand to be subservient to Him. We need to visualize the repercussions of our behavior not in sync with Hashem’s will in order to fend off the natural drive for independence from governance.
Rav Yosef Albo continues; “If one can’t fulfill the maximum service of Hashem without enthusiasm (תחת אשר לא עבדת… בשמחה) if so isn’t it oxymoronic to require to serve hashem with trepidation?”
The true definition of an action that can be considered complete and ‘perfect’ is if a person has no fear of inadequacy. But if there is a natural intuitive sense of trepidation and one doesn’t have it, then it is a sign of true weakness.
Accordingly if one attains a true sense of awe of Hashem’s benevolence, and in turn one’s logical imperative to follow His dictates, it is reasonable and natural to feel joy and enthusiasm, due to one’s developing an honest view of life. Just as a person who undergoes tremendous pressure and physical stress to dig up a treasure buried deep in the ground but ultimately is exhilarated due to the ultimate result, so too, when one due to “fear of Hashem” valiantly does His will—one will experience ecstasy. On the contrary, one who truly “loves Hashem”, will not despair at all due to all the hardships and stress, but will retain one’s enthusiasm. (For a more elaborate explanation, read ספר העקרים section 3, chapters 31-37)
