NOVEMBER 24 • 2022 | 41

Two Types of Fear: 
The Good and Bad
T

oldot tells of 
Yitzchak’s adulthood. 
Preceding it, we know 
Yitzhak mostly as the child 
bound upon the altar as a 
near sacrifice by his father, 
followed by his mother’s 
death. 
 Now, his adult life is 
dominated by his 
fear of being killed 
by the local bullies 
of Gerar and, in his 
seniority, his fear of 
disappointing his 
favored son Esau.
It is no wonder, 
then, that the Rabbis 
see him primarily as a 
vessel of yirah — fear. 
Yirah, however, can 
have two meanings. 
It can describe fear 
of physical harm, 
but it can also describe the 
emotion we have before a 
higher moral authority, as 
the Israelites feel at Mount 
Sinai. Rabbi Abraham Joshua 
Heschel called the latter 
“awe.” 
Awe shares much with 
fear: a sense of human 
smallness in relation to that 
which is greater, and yes, 
even a healthy modicum of 
terror. Unlike fear, awe has a 
sense of the ineffability and 
holiness of the greatness one 
is encountering.
Does Yitzchak embody 
fear of being hurt or 
reverence for a higher 
authority? Rather than fear 
that his father will hurt him, 
his reverence for the future 
of the tribe may be the 

reason he avoided the bullies 
and made a pact with their 
leader and why he faced his 
fear of disappointing his son 
Esau.
Today, we live in a divided 
country, each side too often 
seeking to gain power to 
force the other side(s) to 
obey its positions. 
The Torah teaches 
us, however, that 
real authority never 
truly depends on 
the first kind of fear, 
that based on force 
and intimidation, 
but rather depends 
on reverence for the 
moral voice and moral 
calling.
As we face the 
divisions, each side 
needs to be operating 
not from “Now we’re in 
power, and we make the 
rules!” but rather from 
articulating the moral voice 
and humanity in their 
proposals and trying to 
show the other side that 
deep down they can tap into 
reverence for what we can 
be if we make these changes 
together. 
Of course, that means we 
have to find God before we 
represent God, and we need 
to have reverence for the 
presence of God in each of 
us. 

Rabbi Nadav Caine is the rabbi 

at Beth Israel Congregation in Ann 

Arbor. His podcast “Judaism for the 

Thinking Person” is widely available. 

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

Rabbi Nadav 
Caine

Parshat 

Toldot: 

Genesis 

25:19-28:9; 

Malachi 

1:1-2:7.

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