Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: What is Fear of G!d

there are three important words that come up in relationship to fear in Hebrew one is hot the other one is year ah and the other one is Aimie and all these three get translated as fear so when people say the fear of God you always get into the place what are you telling you about the fear of God I have to be afraid of God you know so what does the word fear stand for so my mafia taught me the following he said the word pahud which stands for terror is if some real danger faces me a guy with a gun the guy with a knife facing me poor HUD here the sharp get the idea pahud part is that terror no but when I think of Daniel Pearl in his last minutes you know this part that's not what we have in relationship to God Aimie Aimie is the night that Abraham was offering the sacrifice we are told in the beginning between the two parts of the sacrifice been a veteran and it says they're descended upon him a maja shaken off a little of a dark Aimie fell on him and that is high anxiety what it stands for is I don't know what it is I don't know where it is ie where is it ma what is it you hey MA and I don't know what it is I don't know where it is but I'm scared okay it's different than pocket because pocket I know where it is so then what is year ah follow me a couple of steps the word row a is to see if I go with Latin I would say SPECT inspect something year R is respect and the example is I come into a room I figure there's nobody there all of a sudden I realized someone was standing in the corner and saw me what would be my experience at that point the startle reflex suddenly I realize I'm being seen I'm not alone do you get the idea that is what we have to have in relationship to God here are we are being seen we are being seen we are being noticed you know and when it first comes to me I didn't think I was being seen and noticed and suddenly I realized I'm being seen and noticed you know there's a startle reflex and I begin to behave altogether differently so if you read the Rambam or the Chicano rule that says a person waking up in the morning recognizing that is before the mail alert Malcolm Lokomotiv Oracle before the Holy One then what happens is that the way in which a person acts when there is no one else around it's different than way a person would act if God is around so that consciousness that we need of Shiva th in Lenexa taught me to bring that in creates a very strong effective base

Channel: jewishrenewal

Views: 42,990

Keywords: Reb, Zalman, Schachter, Shalomi, Jewish, Renewal, Fear, of, G!d

Id: G2QpBsz7GZM

Length: 4min 19sec (259 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2007

Reddit Comments

[u/ZevBenTzvi]

I miss him. זכר צדיק לברכה.

[u/eitzhaimHi]

Love this.

[u/levicherub]

that was very insightful. I wondered what fear of the lord meant.

[u/ZevBenTzvi]

Rabbi Chanina said: Everything is in the hands of heaven, except for the fear of heaven. -Brachos 33b

It's entirely up to us to notice that we're not alone!