The Real Fear
The verses in this weeks Torah portion Bereishit 32:7-8
state: "The angels returned to Jacob saying, 'We came to your
brother, to Esau, and he is also coming toward you, and four
hundred men are with him.' Jacob became very frightened and was
distressed, so he divided the people who were with him and the
flocks and the cattle and the camels into two camps."
Rav Yerucham Levovitz, the great pre-WWII Mirrer
mashgiach enlightens us to the fact that Jacob surely was
not afraid in the same terms that we would be afraid, but rather
he was afraid that maybe he sinned and this in turn would lead
to his downfall.
Rashi makes this clear in the following verse: "I have become
small from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You
have rendered Your servant, for with my staff I crossed this
Jordan, and now I have become two camps." (Bereishit -
Chapter 32:11) Rashi states: "Therefore, I fear lest I have
become sullied with sin from the time that You promised me, and
it will cause me to be delivered into Esau's hand."
The expression "and four hundred men are with him" tells us that
Jacob's fear of sin was equal to the natural fear that a person
has of a thief or a dangerous animal. For Jacob, the fear of sin
was a reality and the only thing to fear.
The Talmud in Brachos 5b brings a story: Once four
hundred jars of wine belonging to R. Huna turned sour. The
scholars went in to visit him and said to him, "The master ought
to examine his actions."
He said to them, "Am I suspect in your eyes?"
They replied, "Is the Holy One, blessed be He, suspect of
punishing without justice?"
He replied, "If somebody has heard of anything against me, let
him speak out."
"We have heard that the master does not give his tenant his
lawful share in the vine twigs," they replied.
"Does he leave me any? He steals them all!" he countered.
However they answered him, "That is exactly what the proverb
says, 'If you steal from a thief you also have a taste of it!' "
He then pledged to give it to him in the future. Some report
that thereupon the vinegar became wine again; others that the
vinegar went up so high that it was sold for the same price as
wine.
The Lekach Tov asked, why didn't the sages inquire into the
natural reason for the wine turning sour? Is it true that every
time someone's wine goes bad that the reason is because of sin?
The answer is that there are no natural causes! Everything that
happens to use is because of our merits or because of our sins.
Our Rabbis taught: In a certain place there was once a lizard
which used to injure people. They came and told R. Hanina b.
Dosa. He said to them: Show me its hole. They showed him its
hole, and he put his heel over the hole, and the lizard came out
and bit him, and it died. He put it on his shoulder and brought
it to the Beth ha-Midrash and said to them: See, my sons, it is
not the lizard that kills, it is sin that kills! On that
occasion, they said: Woe to the man whom a lizard meets, but woe
to the lizard which R. Hanina b. Dosa meets! (Gemara
Brachos 33a)
R. Ammi said: There is no death without sin, and there is no
suffering without iniquity. (Gemara Shabbath 55a)
This awesome and frightening idea can help bring us to new
levels in our fear of G-d and our fear of sin.
A glossary of non-English words can be found at the Global Yeshiva's
glossary.