Is it possible we can discuss the third verse in only three notes? Let’s see:
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Antigonus of Socho received the tradition from Simeon the Just. He used to say, Be not like servants who minister to their master upon the condition of receiving a reward; but be like servants who minister to their master without the condition of receiving a reward; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you<\/strong>.<\/blockquote>
\nMy first two notes were about Antigonus himself and about the servant-master metaphor, and now we come to the fear of Heaven. What is the fear of Heaven?
\nIf we look at this saying as a triple, we can identify the first part as a negative injunction (be not like…) and the second as a positive injunction (be like…), and the third is—what? Remember the last triple was torah<\/i>, avodah<\/i> and g’milut chasadim<\/i>. The first is the law, the second the ritual (yes, they could be other things, but bear with me for a minute), and the third is going beyond the strictures of the commandments, beyond even the traditional hedge that has been built up to safeguard the law, to something extra, done out of kindness. Here, then, we have a negative and a positive injunction that could be seen as encompassing the whole of your obligation: serve the Divine. And yet, it isn’t enough. There is something extra. And that, presumably, is the fear of Heaven.
\nBut why fear? Is it fear of consequences? Is it possible that Antigonus is saying that we should serve the Divine not out of desire for a reward, but out of fear of Divine vengeance? Well, it is possible. But it certainly isn’t satisfying.
\nHere’s a thought from me: the use of Heaven as a sort of substitutive synonym (there is a word for this, but I can’t find it; it’s not a euphemism nor a dysphemism, but a use of one positive term for another positive but tabu term) is in common use in Rabbinic literature. Clearly we are meant to read fear of Heaven<\/i> as fear of the Divine<\/i>. But if I can borrow a bit of semiotic argument, these signs are not perfectly transparent transfers of meaning, but rather layer one meaning behind another. When we hear Heaven<\/i> we understand it to mean the Divine, but we also<\/I> understand it to mean Heaven, that is, the sky and its stars and planets and whatnot. Right?
\nSo in the phrase fear of Heaven<\/i> we can also read an allusion to a commonly understood fear of heights. If we think of the fear in Antigonus’esses statement to be a fear of that kind, those of us who experience it can relate it to a religious experience. The fear of heights isn’t so much a fear of falling (at least in my experience). It’s not even properly speaking a fear. It’s a panic, a rush of adrenaline, an altered state of consciousness, a moment outside ordinary understanding. It isn’t a pleasant experience, by any means. But it isn’t fear. It isn’t a rational assessment of the potential outcomes, or even a bargaining with the Divine. It’s more like what in Scripture (or Kierkegaard, I believe) would be called a trembling<\/i>.
\nI think we have to lift the fear of heaven<\/i> out of the metaphor of the servant and master, where the servant fears the master who could beat him or fire him or ruin his life in various ways. I think this fear, when it is felt, is what takes us out of those metaphors of the Divine, not only servant-master but parent-child, defendant-judge, subject-king, and even sheep-shepherd, and into a dim understanding of the vast gulf that separates us from the Divine, a glimmer of the smallness of individuality in the vastness of Creation. We can’t live that way all the time (or at least I can’t), and our tradition actually frowns on too much religions ecstasy as leading to a neglect of the Law.
\nWhich, I hope, brings us around again. We should serve the Divine, not with an eye to a reward (either in this world or any other), but as a servant who does not think of a reward. How can we refrain from thinking of a reward? By letting the fear of Heaven come upon us. Not so much that we are unable to carry out the commandments, because the middle part of the triple makes it clear that we should do so, but enough that we can remind ourselves not to bargain with the Divine.
\nTolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Which Your Humble Blogger pretends to have read Kirkegaard, which, you know, not so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-11644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scripture","tag-pirkeavot"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18587,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644\/revisions\/18587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}