Parshat VaYechi 5767: Fear and Faith

Fear is an intuition; it is a feeling, an emotion. Fear is not the product of data or intellectual process. So, when someone feels afraid, it is not helpful to tell them not to worry, that there is nothing to fear. The way to counter fear is with Faith. Faith is also an intuition, it is also an emotion [1]: faith in yourself, faith in your G-d. Like Fear, you will not experience Faith through the mastery of data or of intellectual process. You access faith through intuitive feeling, not through rational proof.

The feeling of fear in the pits of our stomachs (or wherever else we feel it) is a warning-light. It indicates one of two things: it is either a) a warning that there is real danger in what we are thinking of doing; b) the “danger” is in our own heads and results from inadequate faith in ourselves and in G-d.

When we experience a feeling of fear in any particular area of our lives we need to do a check. Is there any data that suggests real danger in what we are planning? If there is, then we should act to alleviate that danger or abandon or modify the plan. If we can find no signs of real danger, then we should look inward rather than outward. We should question our Faith in ourselves and our Faith in Hashem.

Faith is…

Faith is the feeling that G-d is infinitely wise and infinitely loving, and that he does not play tricks on us. He has put us here to learn, evolve and grow. The experiences of our day-to-day lives are our lessons. He opens doors for us to go through. Sometimes He waits for us to close doors before He will open new ones. When we don’t close doors, sometimes He closes them for us. When we don’t hear His lessons, He turns up the volume. When He does so, we sometimes feel pain. If we still fail to hear, He turns the volume even higher. Faith is knowing that every effect has a cause and that every action, word or thought has an outcome. Every benefit requires an investment, and every investment properly cared for yields a dividend. Faith is knowing that G-d has programmed the Universe to respond to us according to His laws: His laws of physics, of medicine, of economics, of chemistry and of Torah.

Faith is feeling that there is no coincidence in the Universe, every event is mindfully programmed or orchestrated [2]. Therefore every “coincidence” is G-d talking to us. Sometimes He calls us to action, sometimes to reaction - or simply to reflection.

Often we pray and complain that He is not answering. But are we listening? Are we learning His laws and observing how the Universe and our own lives are responding to what we do, say and think? Are we open to receiving His messages?

Shema Yisrael – Yaacov’s key to Faith

Faith is the feeling that at their core, every effect has but one single initiator; that whatever happens in the Universe and in our lives can somehow be traced to one source. This is the meaning of Shema Yisrael that we say three times each day. We declare that all the forces in the world, all of the world’s energies, are One [3].

Even a thirteen-year-old child is obligated to make that declaration. What experience does such a child have, what understanding, to position him or her to make so sophisticated a statement? Here once again we see that Faith is not a matter of knowledge. It is an intuitive feeling embedded into the hearts of every Jewish person at birth [4].

The Shema, the key to accessing intuitive faith, has been the Jew’s method of conquering fear for generations. When Jews have found themselves in imminent danger they have always turned to uttering the Shema. This is not some mindless. We do this not only as a declaration of our faith but as a remarkable practice that we have developed in our daily lives. The Shema is a tool that helps us to accesses the Faith that each of us has within us.  “Shema” we are told: “listen!” Allow yourself to hear Hashem speaking through the events of your life, both painful and joyful. Silence your ego while you reflect on what is happening and what has happened around you, and hear G-d’s whispers. “Listen, Hear…Hashem (the G-d that you experience deep inside you, deep inside your soul, the G-d that you can feel when you go deeply inwards), He is Elokeinu – that G-d inside you is the source of all your energy and power. Access it. It is infinite. Hashem Echad – that power, that Divinity inside each of you is all one force. Access it and anything is possible. Access it and there is no place for fear.

The magic of the Shema. The gift of Faith. The Conquest of fear. A treasure bequeathed to us by our Father Yaacov before his death in the Parsha of this week [5], Vayechi.

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