How to raise up fear - Rav Ofer Erez
HOW TO RAISE UP FEAR - RAV OFER EREZ In Likutey Moharan, Lesson 15: 2, Rebbe Nachman says the following: > "How do we raise up fear? By judging our own actions, and in this way a person can remove from himself all fears, elevating fear to a state of clarity and purity. And then, there will remain with him only fear of Hashem and no other fears. Because when a person doesnât judge himself, they judge him from aboveâŚâ Rabbenu teaches us in Lesson 15 that one of the greatest tikkunim is for a person to contemplate the lackings that he has within him. In our daily hitbodedut, itâs enough for us to see one failure that we had today, this week or even in the last year, where we identify that maybe we have a little bit of jealousy, that we didnât look favorably on someone else, or had some other bad trait or lust. Itâs important to remember the following rule. The yetzer hara loves the work of judging ourselves. Every time a person comes to judge himself, the yetzer hara comes along with him and tries to strengthen the person in his work. He says to him: âon the contrary, this is a great tikkun that all the Tzaddikim went through. Well done! You have revealed really where you are in the worldâ. YOU'LL SPEND A THOUSAND YEARS IN GEHINNOM... After a person checks and checks and discovers all the hundreds of weaknesses and lusts he possesses, along comes the yetzer hara and says: âNow that we have learned so much about the real you, now tell me, is there any hope for you? Maybe after a thousand years in Gehinnom, if youâre lucky, theyâll find you a place in some far off corner near the gate of Gan EdenâŚâ The yetzer hara uses this service to make a personâs heart very heavy. Therefore the work of âjudging ourselvesâ is actually very dangerous and can cause a person to fall into despair and depression. In practice, a person needs to identify one or two bad character traits within himself a day. For example, today I identified that I have anger, today I identified that I have jealousy. Then, he should immediately come to Hashem and say to him: âAbba, have mercy on me, I donât want the anger and I donât want the jealousy, help me to not be this wayâ. This helps all of his spiritual work. In most cases, without a broken heart, a person canât successfully pass through such self-examination unless he suddenly receives a âspirit from aboveâ and feels an immense desire to regret and cry. In general, though, itâs important for a person to go with the above advice, in order that heâll have the strength to continue and not to fall as a result. GETTING RID OF OUR FALSE IMAGINATIONS One of the main results a person achieves through self-judging is that he doesnât go through the world with a false imagination. Every person has good days, when he is on an up, when his prayers flow and he manages to do good deeds. But, after a week like that, he already falls into confusion that heâs certainly the Tzaddik of the generation, or at least a hidden Tzaddik, and those around him are the ones holding back the redemption⌠Rav Dessler says in his book âMichtav MiEliyahuâ in the name of the Maharal of Prague, that what is holding back the redemption is not our lackings and our sins, rather itâs the falsehood in a person that he doesnât see the truth about himself. The work of judging oneself is an immense tikkun because it removes the screens between us and Hashem and helps us come close to Him. PROTEST THE BAD, BUT DON'T FALL! Itâs important that a person learns to confess, and to protest the bad, without falling as a result. We want the opposite to happen! The goal is to be happy with the work of clarifying the truth, because all this internal cleaning builds a new closeness to the Master of the world. Rabbenu reveals to us that through judging ourselves a person removes all his fears. This is the secret: all the fear that we feel doesnât actually come from the things themselves. In reality, there are no âscary thingsâ, no scary Arabs, no scary dogs, rather there is a decree from heaven that this thing will come and cause me to be afraid now. Why? A person sins and doesnât pay attention to it. Then the time for judgment above arrives, and they judge him and this results in the person experiencing fear down below in order that the person will wake up and judge himself. Therefore, when a person follows the advice of judging himself, there is then no need for him to be judged above, because heâs already done the work himself. âWhen there is judgment below, there is no judgment aboveâ, and then a person wonât have any decrees made against him, and he has no fears. This is the way to remove all fears from upon ourselves. WHEN HASHEM JUDGES US, WE'RE ALWAYS FOUND INNOCENT When a person works constantly on this, even for just a few weeks, heâll now find that those things that he used to fear in the past, no longer scare him. Afterwards, says Rabbenu, many gates of Torah and prayer are opened up for him. This is the removing of the masks and coming closer to Hashem. A person who holds on to truth, merits to have the Torah (which is truth) revealed to him. Working on judging ourselves takes just five minutes a day, where we confess to one or two matters, protest that we donât want this and request mercy from Hashem that He should save us from these things. When a person is a âmaster of accountingâ, as the Zohar calls it, in this world, then in the World to Come there is no Beit Din that is able to judge him. Rather Hashem Himself judges this person, and when Hashem judges a person, heâs always found innocent. * Excerpted from Rav Ofer Erezâs new book in English, From the Depths. If youâd like to help get âFrom the Depthsâ and other of Rav Ofer Erezâs books printed and translated into English, please contact: In the US: 1 - 347 - 873 - 1222 In Israel: (972) 58 - 632 - 2207 Or email: ab.kayalt@gmail.com