Live Despite the Fear

My mother was a worrier.  Having escaped the Nazi madness, she was determined to be in control of her life.  No longer would she be surprised by sudden evil.  When someone knocked on our apartment door, she worried about who was there and interrogated the identity of the person, even when that person was her own son.  When the phone would ring, she panicked about who was calling with terrible news.  Worry, anxiety, and fear were her way of controlling the uncontrollable. I remember one day telling her she should leave our one bedroom apartment, go outside and enjoy the beautiful sunshine.  She refused saying, “It’s sunny now but it will soon be raining.”  My mother had seen craziness up close and she had learned to be afraid of life.

More than any other command in our scriptures and traditions is the exhortation, “do not fear for I am with you”, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not fear”, “Fear not, I am the Lord your God”, and on and on it goes.  We are told that we are accompanied by God; we are encouraged and excoriated to not be afraid.  In fact, in the Bible, when someone tells you not to fear, that is precisely the time to begin to worry, you know craziness is on its way.

Here is the problem.  Telling us to not be afraid does not stop us from being afraid.  Fear is a deeply felt unconscious emotion.  And, by the way, there are people, events and things we ought to fear.  My mother was not completely wrong.  Walking in heavy traffic ought to scare you.  The thought of nuclear war is frightening.  Tornadoes and hurricanes cause us to run for cover.  Cancers, heart attacks, ALS, Alzheimer’s and all sorts of other diseases scare us and they ought to.  

We fear what we cannot control.  We are frightened of violent people, unpredictable diseases, and natural calamities that suddenly come out of nowhere and attack us without reason.  But that is life.  Right? What can we do about it?  What can I do about fear, with or without faith, since it seems to be such an intricate part of our being human? 

After my father died, my mother who rarely left her safe apartment, went outside, and got a job working at a bakery.  She had to get up every morning at 5 a.m., catch a bus that took an hour to get to the store and then take the same bus an hour back to get home at 7 p.m.  She fretted, was worried and scared but she acted anyway.   Fear is real, and while some people will say, “Just have faith and everything will work out”, the rest of us know better.  We get up and face the day.  And the day is not always easy.

Over the years, I have come to respect and admire the courage and tenacity of my mother. Despite her worrying, panicking and fear, she survived the Nazis, got married, emigrated to a strange land, raised two boys, cleaned the apartment within an inch of itself, and worked in a bakery. She left that legacy to me and my brother. She showed us, courage is the ability to act despite fear.  Hats off to Pola Haar!

And if you think about it, you and I do this all the time.  In this part of the world we periodically have tornadoes.  They can be terrible and damaging.  Yet, we keep living here.  We overrule the fear and say. “Yes, I am scared.  I feel the fear at the core of my being.  Yet, I will not let it overtake my ability to make decisions.”  “I will not let the fear stop me from living my life.”  Many of us get in our cars every day and join the rest of the drivers knowing that accidents can happen.  Despite the fear, we keep on keeping on.

It takes courage to get out of bed in the morning and go outside.  So, it’s ok and normal to worry, feel anxious, be afraid.  Feel the fear but do not let the fear run your life.  Yes, craziness may attack you but resist its power.   Live your life despite the fear.  If my mother did it, so can you, and so can I.  By the way, living as a “mensch” “despite the fear”, is the heart and soul of all religion!