Always Working on Yiras Shamayim

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

Parashas Shemos documents the heroism of two Jewish midwives, Shifrah and Puah. Pharaoh ordered them to kill all male infants. They withstood this test and risked their lives, defying Pharaoh’s order and even helping the Jewish boys survive.

The passuk states (Shemos 1:21): “The midwives feared Hashem and did not do as Pharaoh had commanded. . . . Hashem saw that they feared Him, and He made for them houses.” Rav Yerucham Levovitz asks, why are the heroic deeds of the midwives preceded by the mention of their fear of Hashem? Many great deeds in the Chumash stemmed from yiras Shamayim (fear of Heaven), yet most of the time, the verse only mentions the deed, not the motivation for it. Why does the Torah stress the midwives’ fear of Hashem in this case?

Rav Yerucham answers that when the Torah records the midwives’ fear of Hashem, it is describing what they did, not why they did it. The midwives recognized that this was a test from Hashem. They understood that the only way they could risk their lives and pass this test was by strengthening their yiras Shamayim. Thus, working on their yiras Shamayim was the first action that they took.

For some of us, yiras Shamayim is an elusive idea, and we don’t know where to start in acquiring it. The passuk says, “You shall fear Hashem, your G-d.” Rav Yerucham explains that this is a positive commandment. A positive mitzvah requires an action, like putting on tefillin or giving tzedakkah. How can fearing Hashem be an action? We either fear Him or we don’t! Rav Yerucham concludes that this mitzvah requires that we add to our yiras Shamayim, like the midwives did.

How can we do this? Rav Yisrael Salanter says that we should start by learning a small excerpt from a mussar sefer (such as Mesillas Yesharim or Sha’arei Teshuvah) slowly and carefully. Review it until it is crystal clear. Review it again, and this time, sing the words with feeling. Continue reading it until the message penetrates. The more the ideas of these works become a part of us, the greater our yiras Shamayim will be.

The rosh yeshivah of Slonimer Yeshivah, Rav Yehuda Leib Pahn, once shared a room in an inn with Rav Yisrael Salanter. Rav Pahn recalls that he noticed Rav Yisrael repeating the final verse of Koheles to himself the entire night: “The sum of the matter [is], when all has been considered: fear Hashem and keep His mitzvos, for that is man’s whole duty.” When this was told to the Chofetz Chaim, he commented that apparently, Rav Salanter had faced a certain nisayon. Review of this particular passuk was evidently the way to gain the yiras Shamayim needed to overcome it.

Rav Salanter offers another way to grow in fear of Heaven: we should think of things that will make our fear of Heaven genuine. For example, the Mishnah in Avos (2:1) says that we should envision eyes that see everything we do and a hand recording our actions in a book. Another example is brought by the Rema in the beginning of the Shulchan Aruch: “The way a person conducts himself when he is alone in his house is not the same as when he is in the presence of a great king, and certainly if the king is HaKadosh Baruch Hu . . . he will certainly come to fear Hashem.” By imagining this, Hashem becomes real to us, and we begin to live with the awareness that every act we do will have an accounting in the next world.

Rav Salanter shows us this idea in an episode related in Berachos (18a): A poor man whom the Sages refer to as a “chassid” gave tzedakkah on erev Rosh HaShanah. His wife was angry with him, as she felt that they could not afford it. The chassid slept in a cemetery that night.

What could possibly have brought this chassid to sleep in such an impure place, particularly on Rosh HaShanah? Rav Salanter explains that the chassid was feeling anger toward his wife, and he knew that he needed to repent immediately. Thus, he went to the cemetery to come face to face with his own mortality. This enabled him to repent for his anger before judgment the next morning.

Even though methods such as these may seem extreme to us, we see that we should employ our imagination and intellect to develop our yiras Shamayim according to our respective levels.

The Chazon Ish once told Rav Shlomo Brevda that without working on our yiras Shamayim daily, we can quickly sink into spiritual quicksand. He added that the Sages of the Talmud understood this. Sometimes we find a section of Agadetta (a section of Gemara dealing with morality) in the middle of a lengthy halachic analysis. Apparently, the Sages felt that at this time they needed to work on their yiras Shamayim. The Rishonim did the same: Rabbeinu Yonah, who wrote peirushim on Shas, also wrote Sha’arei Teshuvah; and the Rosh, one of the three pillars of p’sak halachah of the Shulchan Aruch, also wrote the mussar sefer Orchos Chaim.

May we be zocheh to strengthen our yiras Shamayim!

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