Elevating Fear

There’s so much fear floating around the world, isn’t there? If we’re not worrying about financial meltdowns, we’re worrying about all the dead fish. If we’re not worrying about comet strikes, we’re worrying about nuclear ones. If we’re not worrying about an actual terrible disease, we’re worrying about potentially developing one.

Why did G-d create fear? What good purpose does it serve?

If you look in Rebbe Nachman’s ‘Book of Traits’, you’ll find sections on ‘Fear’ and ‘Fear of G-d’, and there’s a lot of overlap between them. Because when we don’t fear G-d, we’re scared of absolutely everything else. And when we do fear G-d, nothing else fazes us.

I’ve been battling fear in various ways for years and years, as I’ve written about extensively. Each war I have with my fallen fears is absolutely grueling; but I know that the work is to raise that worry, that fear, back to G-d, and to see that He is behind every single thing in my life.

A little while back, with all the stress in the world, I started to feel really, really unwell. Not just a little bit under the weather, or a little bit poorly; I felt so unwell for a couple of days that I truly started to believe I was seriously ill with something very bad, G-d forbid.

I was racked with pains, I felt really weak, I had splitting headaches that lasted for days – and my evil inclination was having a field day. Rebbe Nachman warns us to stay away from doctors, and I really try to follow that advice. But things got so bad last week, that I was considering going to see one. Which is when I got into the following dialogue in my head:

Evil Inclination (EI): “Things are bad. Something serious is going on. You need to act responsibly and go to a doctor now.”

Good Inclination (GI): “Everything comes from G-d. If G-d wants me in pain, or dead (G-d forbid a million times) – how is going to a doctor going to help me?”

EI: “Go now, before you regret it for the rest of your life. You need to catch these things ASAP.”

GI: “G-d is running the world. I pray every day, I try to see Him behind everything. This illness is not a punishment, it’s a present. It’s hiding something very good. If G-d wanted me to see a doctor, He’d give me that message very clearly…”

And so on and so forth, for a couple of days. It was an excruciating test of emuna. Physically, it was very, very hard. Spiritually, it was the best thing ever. Why? Because I literally spent most of the week talking to G-d non-stop, reading my emuna books for encouragement and asking G-d to show me what He wants me to look at and change.

By the end of the week, I had clarity on a bunch of things, I made some very sincere teshuva, and I really worked on my emuna. Thank G-d, I also started to feel so much better, especially once I separated the fear away from my actual physical illness.

The fear of ‘what would be’ was giving me the greatest amount of suffering. Once I accepted that G-d can do whatever He wants with me, I felt so much calmer and happier, even when I was still in pain.

This week, I decided two things: One, I’m going to a naturopath to get checked out. Naturopaths are holistic, non-invasive doctors that know that body and soul are connected. They don’t tell you that drugs or surgery are the answer to every problem, and they have a much more spiritually healthy view of illness and healing.

Two: nearly all modern medicine is built on fear. It sells us the line that doctors can heal everything, that all pain can be banished, and that we are in control of our health. G-d is completely out of the picture – everything is how fast you find ‘it’; how much drugs you take to manage ‘it’; how good the surgeon is to patch ‘it’ back together.

We all have fear. We all have fallen fears. We’re all scared of dying and suffering (unless we’ve spent years working on our emuna.) Modern medicine masks that fear, and gives us pills to calm us down. But if you really want to get rid of your fear, elevate it to G-d, and acknowledge He’s behind it. And there is no other way.

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You’re welcome to write Rivka Levy at rivkawritesback@gmail.com