If a person is always apprehensive, he's afraid (Yiras Hashem) like was described before: when out in the street he should feel like he was arrested by a Roman sergeant. Wouldn't that be a contradiction to enjoying life? Wouldn't that detract from the happiness of life?
ANSWER:
The happiness of life is never appreciated when people live in monotony. When you enjoy life without thinking, you don't have the happiness of life. It's only when you have a criteria, you're aware of what happened to others but it didn't happen to you, that's when a man begins learning to suck the honey out of life. There are people who never broke a bone in their bodies all their lives; it never occurred to them to be full of joy because of that. Full of joy because I didn't break a bone in my body? But when it happens challila, it's such a discomfort, you can't even lie in bed; it's excruciating. It's such a difficult experience, it has repercussions on all other functions of the body.
And this man all his life, he passed his days in utter peace; now he doesn't appreciate that. If he utilizes his head and he studies what happened to others, that man certainly is going to enjoy life. That's a prescription to be happy in life, to see what happens to other people.
Now, if that's the case, when a man learns Yiras Hashem he's not apprehensive, he's really not afraid of things that might happen to him, he's afraid of Hashem. This man, besides gaining the appreciation of the fact that what happened to others didn't happen to him, in addition he's gaining the satisfaction of the perfection of Yiras Hashem.
Nobody is going to have less happiness in life because of the fear of Hashem. On the contrary, he becomes more and more aware that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is protecting him; he's more and more sensitive to the things that others don't enjoy. Therefore Yiras Hashem actually gives happiness to people in addition to giving them longer lives.
Good Shabbos To All
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Important Numbers
