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5.01 Baal HaSulam,
Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 38, “The Fear of God Is His Treasure”
Our sages said, “Everything is in the hands of heaven but the fear of heaven,” is because He can give everything but fear. This is because what the Creator gives is more love, not fear.
Acquiring fear is through the Segula [power/remedy] of Torah and Mitzvot. It means that when one engages in Torah and Mitzvot with the intention to be rewarded with bringing contentment to one’s Maker, that aim that rests on the acts of Mitzvot and the study of Torah brings one to attain it. Otherwise, one might remain—although he observes Torah and Mitzvot in every item and detail— he will still remain merely in the degree of still of Kedusha [holiness].
It follows that one should always remember the reason that obligates him to engage in Torah and Mitzvot. This is the meaning of what our sages meant by “that your Kedusha will be for My Name.” It means that I will be your cause, meaning that all your work is in wanting to delight Me, meaning that all your actions will be in order to bestow.
Our sages said (Berachot 20), “Everything there is in keeping, there is in remembering.” This means that all those who engage in observing Torah and Mitzvot with the aim to achieve “remem- bering,” by way of “When I remember Him, He does not let me sleep.” It follows, that the keeping is primarily in order to be awarded remembering.
Thus, one’s desire to remember that the Creator is the cause for observing Torah and Mitzvot. This is so because it follows that the reason and the cause to observe the Torah and Mitzvot is the Creator, as without it one cannot adhere to the Creator, since “He and I cannot dwell in the same abode” due to the disparity of form.
5.02 Baal HaSulam,
Letter No. 2
There is none so wise as the experienced. Therefore, I shall advise you to evoke within you fear of the coolness of the love between us. Although the intellect denies such a depiction, think for yourself—if there is a tactic by which to increase love and one does not increase it, that, too, is considered a flaw. It is like a person who gives a great gift to his friend. The love that appears in his heart during the act is not like the love that remains in the heart after the fact. Rather, it gradually wanes each day until the blessing of the love can be entirely forgotten. Thus, the receiver of the gift must find a tactic every day to make it new in his eyes each day.
5.03 Baal HaSulam,
Shamati, Article No. 211, “As Though Standing before a King”
One who is sitting at one’s home is not as one who is standing before a King. This means that faith should be that he will feel all day as though he is standing before the King. Then his love and fear will certainly be complete. As long as he has not achieved this kind of faith, he should not rest, “for this is our lives and the length of our days,” and we will accept no recompense.
And the lack of faith should be woven in his limbs until the habit becomes a second nature, to the extent that “When I remember Him, He does not let me sleep.”
5.04 Baal HaSulam,
Shamati, Article No. 38, “The Fear of God Is His Treasure”
In His treasury, the Creator has only the treasure of fear of heaven (Berachot 33).
Yet, we should interpret what is fear: It is the Kli, and the treasure is made of this Kli, and all the important things are placed in it. He said that fear is as it is written about Moses: Our sages said (Berachot, p 7), “The reward for ‘And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look,’ he was rewarded with ‘the image of the Lord does he behold.’”
Fear refers to one’s fear of the great pleasure that is there, that he will not be able to receive it in order to bestow. The reward for this, for having had fear, is that thus he had made for himself a Kli in which to receive the upper abundance. This is man’s work, and besides that, we attribute everything to the Creator.
Yet, it is not so with fear, because the meaning of fear is not to receive. And what the Creator gives, He gives only to receive, and this is the meaning of “Everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven.”
This is the Kli that we need. Otherwise, we will be considered fools, as our sages said, “Who is a fool? He who loses what he is given.” This means that the Sitra Achra [other side] will take the abundance from us if we cannot aim in order to bestow, because then it goes to the vessels of recep- tion, which is the Sitra Achra and Tuma’a [impurity].
This is the meaning of “And you shall observe the commandment of unleavened bread.” Observing means fear. Although the nature of the light is that it keeps itself, meaning that the light leaves before one wants to receive the light into the vessels of reception, yet one must do it by himself, as much as he can, as our sages said, “You will keep yourselves a little from below, and I will keep you a lot from above.”
The reason we attribute fear to people, as our sages said, “Everything is in the hands of heaven but the fear of heaven,” is because He can give everything but fear. This is because what the Creator gives is more love, not fear.
5.05 Baal HaSulam,
Shamati, Article No. 11, “Joy with Trembling”
Joy is considered love, which is existence. This is similar to one who builds for himself a house without making any holes in the walls. You find that he cannot enter the house, as there is no hollow place in the walls of the house by which to enter the house. Therefore, a hollow space must be made through which he will enter the house.
Therefore, where there is love, there should also be fear, as fear is the hollow. In other words, one must awaken the fear that one might not be able to aim to bestow.
It follows that when there are both, there is wholeness. Otherwise, each wants to revoke the other.
For this reason, we must try to have both of them in the same place. This is the meaning of the need for love and fear. Love is called existence, whereas fear is called a deficiency and a hollow. Only with the two of them together is there wholeness. This is called “two legs,” where precisely when one has two legs can one walk.
5.06 Baal HaSulam,
Shamati, Article No. 138, “Concerning Fear that Sometimes Comes Upon a Person”
When fear comes upon a person, he should know that there is none else but Him. And even witch- craft. And if he sees that fear overcomes him, he should say that there is no such thing as chance, but the Creator has given him a chance from above, and he must contemplate and study the end to which he has been sent this fear. It appears that it is so that he will overcome and say, “There is none else besides Him.”
But if after all this, the fear has not departed him, he should take it as an example and say that his servitude of the Creator should be in the same measure of the fear, meaning that the fear of heaven, which is a merit, should be in the same manner of fear that he now has. That is, the body is impressed by this superficial fear, and exactly in the same way that the body is impressed, so should be the fear of heaven.
5.07 RABASH,
Article No. 295, “Anyone Who Sanctifies the Seventh – 1”
Once he has obtained the degree of bestowal, meaning obtained the degree where all he wants is only to bestow contentment upon the Creator, he fills himself with all the pleasures that his eyes see, as in the explanation, “The whole earth is full of His glory.”
It follows that all that one needs to obtain that he can define as a reward after he has toiled several years is only one thing: the desire to bestow, meaning the degree of wanting to serve the rav not in order to receive reward.
All the labor where one needs to exert himself in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] is only to obtain this. This is called “fear of heaven,” as it is written, “What does the Lord your God ask of you? Only to fear Me.”
5.08 RABASH,
Article No. 31, “How I Love Your Teaching”
“God has made it that He will be feared,” that all the bad situation that we feel is only so that man will not remain in the state he is in. That is, unless a person rises on the degrees of greatness of the Creator, he will not be able to overcome, and only when one feels the greatness of the Creator does his heart surrender. This is regarded as having to climb the degrees of fear of the Creator.
It follows that these questions cause him to need the Creator to open his heart and eyes to be rewarded with the greatness for the Creator. Otherwise, he suffices for the fear of heaven he has acquired through his upbringing. But when the wicked one’s question keeps coming to him, it is not enough for him and he needs to constantly ascend up the degrees of greatness of the Creator.
5.09 RABASH,
Article No. 5 (1990), “What It Means that the Land Did Not Bear Fruit before Man Was Created, in the Work”
In the work, man is regarded as one who has emerged from the control of the quality of a beast. A “beast” means one who is immersed in self-benefit, like a beast, and man means one in whom there is fear of heaven and works because of fear, which The Zohar calls “Because He is great and ruling,” where he works only because of the greatness of the Creator and does not care for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the Creator. It is as our sages said about the verse, “In the end of the matter, fear God and observe His commandments, for this is the whole of man. What is ‘for this is the whole of man’? Rabbi Elazar said, ‘The whole world was created only for this’” (Berachot 6).
It follows that man is regarded as one in whom there is the fear of heaven. And what is the fear of heaven? That is, what is fear? It is as he says (“Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Item 191), “Both the first fear and the second fear are not for his own benefit, but only for fear that he will decline in bringing contentment to his Maker.”
According to the above, we already know the meaning of Adam. It is one who has fear of heaven, who is afraid that perhaps he will not be able to do everything in order to bestow. This is called “man.” A “beast” is the opposite: one who cares only for one’s own benefit, as it is written (Ecclesiastes 3), “Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goes downward to the earth?” We should interpret that “spirit of man” goes upward means that everything he does is for the sake of the Creator. This is called “upward,” when his intention is that everything will be only in order to bestow. From this man derives contentment.
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