Essays on Fearing Hashem - 008 Fear of Death

Introduction

When it comes to fear of punishment (yiras ha’onesh), there are three kinds of fear: fear of suffering, fear of death, and fear of Gehinnom. Previously, we began to discuss fear of death.

As we explained before, fear is essentially to fear a situation of disconnection. In addition, a person fears the notion that he will stop existing. Fear of suffering is essentially a fear of being challenged and opposed. Fear of death is to fear a disconnection, and fear of Gehinnom is to fear a situation of ceasing to exist. (The Maharal says that Gehinnom is called “the shadow of death” – Gehinnom is the place of “death”.)

Let us now make this concept practical in our life.

Constructive Fear of Death – Fearing A Painful Kind of Death and Thus Avoiding Sin

The fear of death is essentially to fear a disconnection. Man is always connected to a higher source. His highest Source is the Creator. After our highest Source – the Creator - we are then rooted in the Torah, and after that, in the collective whole of the Jewish people.

Fear of punishment, which contains three fears (fear of suffering, death, and Gehinnom) is to fear becoming disconnected. The soul fears becoming disconnected from its source – from its prime source, which is the Oneness of Hashem.

We are all connected to things. The highest connection we can have is with Hashem. The second highest connection we can have is with the Torah. The third highest connection we can have is with the Jewish people as a whole.

The point of yirah\fear is to prevent us from sin. How does fear of death prevent us from sin? Simply, it is because if we know that sins cause death, we won’t come to sin, as we can see from the fact that the Torah says that certain sins result in the death penalty.

But the depth of this as follows. Man knows that he will inevitably die, because everyone dies. We all have our time. The only question is, how he will die. Man wants to die in the right way, and that this shouldn’t be such a painful process. This is the purpose of the fear of death: that man should fear sin, because if he sins, he will be more connected with evil, and then death will be a much more painful process for him, because he will be forced to detach from the evil he’s connected with.

Thus, fearing death is not just a fear that we can only have sometimes about the future. It is a fear that can be used now, all the time, for a constructive purpose: avoiding sin.

Fear of death is not just about preventing us from sin – it is to help us disconnect from materialistic desires that are permitted, which are called in the sefarim hakedoshim as “Kelipas Nogah” – permitted desires. At some point, we must learn how to detach even from permissible desires, because although they are not a sin, they hamper our connection with spirituality. So fear of death exists to help us want to detach from all materialistic desires, not just from sin.

Until now, we explained the lower function of fearing death, which is that man is afraid of the painful process that is death. We explained how one can use that fear in a constructive way.

Fearing Sin Because It Will Disconnect Me From Hashem When I Die

Fear of death contains a higher function as well. When our soul fears death, it doesn’t just fear the painful process of separating from materialism. It fears a deeper kind of disconnection – to become disconnected from its highest Source, Hashem. When we fear death, we are fearing what will happen to our connection with Hashem if we sinned, after death.

The deeper fear of death is essentially for a person to fear a disconnection from his source of vitality in life. When a person reaches a higher level in spirituality, he gets vitality out of his relationship with Hashem, and he is afraid to lose this.  Of course, we all are being sustained from Hashem anyhow, whether we feel that we’re getting vitality out of it or not. But the question is, how revealed is this vitality in our life? Does a person actually feel that he gets vitality from Hashem? That is the question.

When a person avoids sin because he fears losing his connection with his source of vitality – his closeness with Hashem – he utilizes the fear of death in a constructive way. This is another way of how a person can utilize the fear of death in his daily life, and not just as a fear that he sometimes he has of the future.

The Chovos HaLevovos writes that if a person is on a high spiritual level, a “pious person awaits his day of death.” He does not fear death. However, on a deeper note, even a person on a high spiritual level fears death – in the fact that he fears losing his connection with Hashem.

For example, if a person is immersed in learning Torah and lives a life of holiness, and then a business opportunity presents itself to him, he won’t take off from his learning. Simply this is because he knows he has a mitzvah of Talmud Torah. But the depth of his motives is that he fears losing his vitality from the Torah.

Similarly, if such a person is immersed in learning Torah all day and then he is informed that he can make a lot of money off his yerushah (inheritance) – that is, if he takes off 3 months to be involved in it – he will choose not to get involved. Why? It’s not just because he knows that he has a mitzvah to learn Torah. It’s because he can’t fathom taking off from his learning, even if it’s only a temporary hiatus. He’ll forfeit the huge profit he could be making; he can’t bear the fact that he will be temporarily disconnected from learning Torah. He truly feels that he gets vitality out of his learning, and he can’t go even a little bit without being connected to his source of vitality.

 This is how the fear of death can become more accessed in a person’s life: by being afraid of losing our source of vitality in life, which is our connection with Hashem and His Torah. This is how a person can actualize his fear of death in a constructive way, on a daily basis, and not just as a fear that he sometimes has about the future.

So when a person is tempted to sin, he can remind himself that if he gives in to the temptation, he is losing his source of vitality in life – his connection with Hashem.

Fear of Death Because I Fear Sin

On a more subtle understanding, all fear of death is rooted in sin, because death came onto the world as a result of Adam’s sin. Therefore, fear of death is essentially a fear of sin. Even more so, a person fears death because he is afraid of the revelation of the sin.

People cry over the deceased – simply this is because we are in pain when someone dies. But the Ramban writes that the depth of mourning is that death reminds us of the sin of Adam, which caused death to come onto the world.

Therefore, the deep reason why the soul fears death is because death is really all a result of the first sin.

Fear of Death Because I Fear A Deviation From My True, Upright State

Another way to utilize the fear of death is that a person always makes sure to avoid sin, because sin takes him away from his pure state of yashrus (uprightness). We must build and develop the power of yashrus, “uprightness”, within ourselves; to constantly demand from ourselves that we do the right thing and not be swayed by falsity. We must make sure that we are not swaying from the truth, and this will help us utilize the fear of death in the right way. Yashrus is a way for a person to always fear death, in a constructive way, and thus avoid sin. If a person feels a need to demand yashrus from himself, he will be able to utilize the fear of death, constructively, all the time.

These are the four general ways of how fear of death can be utilized as a way to avoid sin: fearing the painful process of death, fearing a disconnection from Hashem due to sins, fearing sin itself, and fearing a deviation from man’s intended state of yashrus.