📋 Shiur Overview
The First Mitzvah in the Zohar: Knowledge of Hashem or Fear of Hashem
A Zohar shiur for Erev Shabbat, Parashat Toldot – a continuation of the series on the first mitzvah in the Zohar.
Introduction: Review of the Previous Shiurim
This shiur will be very short, in honor of the short Friday. We will continue the topic we are in the middle of and learn a few more lines of the Zohar on the first mitzvah.
The point I want to explain here, if I can put it briefly, concerns the question of what the first mitzvah is. Last week we learned about two issues on which the Zohar apparently takes a particular position. I think I have already spoken about this as well, but now we will clarify things further.
The first is that the Zohar rules here that the first mitzvah is the mitzvah of knowing Hashem (*yedi’at Hashem*), although this is disputed, since the Ba’al Halachot Gedolot did not count belief (*emunah*) or knowledge of Hashem as a mitzvah. That is one dispute.
The second concerns the explanation of the mitzvah of knowing Hashem: is it what the Zohar calls a “general mitzvah” or a “particular mitzvah”? Others call this a mitzvah based on investigation and knowledge, as opposed to a mitzvah based on faith and tradition. (As we explained in the previous shiur regarding these two disputes.)
The Zohar’s Innovation on the First and Second Questions
There we explained the Zohar’s innovation (*chiddush*). First, knowledge of Hashem can be a mitzvah, since all the mitzvot are nothing but the revelation of Hashem’s existence, and so it is not really different from the other mitzvot. The mitzvot themselves are Godliness (*Elokut*).
There is another secret hidden here to be explained, which perhaps we have already explained elsewhere: according to this, our knowledge of Hashem and what Hashem is are not two separate things. It does not mean that there is, so to speak, a claim, a declaration, that there is a God and we know it. Even that says too much. Rather, this is the unity of the mitzvah, the one commanded, and the One who commands—all three as one—and it is strongest in the mitzvah of knowledge. But let us set this topic aside, since it is not our concern now. It is just a continuation and further deepening one could enter into on the previous topic (and this is not the place to elaborate).
Second, we explained the Zohar’s innovation on the question of general knowledge and particular knowledge. In truth, in a certain sense it agrees with all the opinions. For even those who say that according to the Rambam and the Chovot HaLevavot one fulfills the mitzvah of knowledge only through understanding, intellectual comprehension, and investigation certainly do not mean that a small child or a simple person does not fulfill it at all and has no faith because he does not know. Everyone must hold some approach to general and particular, and the Zohar has a very clear approach and explains the question explicitly.
The Third Question: Is the First Mitzvah Knowledge of Hashem or Fear of Hashem?
But now we can approach a third issue, and there is something important in it that must be understood. These are the words of the Zohar: “And if you say, but it is written, *Yirat Hashem reshit da’at*—The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” (Zohar, Introduction 11b; Proverbs 1:7).
That is, the Zohar based the first mitzvah on *”Anokhi Hashem Elokekha”*—”I am Hashem your God” (Exodus 20:2): to know that there is Hashem your God—that is the first mitzvah. So what about the fact that there is another verse, and therefore another line of reasoning, since a verse merely expresses a line of reasoning? That is the verse “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).
“Beginning” (*reshit*) means the first thing one must know. Apparently one could interpret—though one need not—that this refers to the first mitzvah. For one way to learn the mitzvot is to read the list of mitzvot, and that is a list of things to learn and know. True, some mitzvot are to be done, and some are only knowledge, like the mitzvah of knowing Hashem, which is entirely knowledge. And even if we say that there are mitzvot of the mind that consist only of knowledge, alongside mitzvot that require thinking, doing, feeling, and speaking—nevertheless, when one learns all the mitzvot, they are all “knowledge” (*da’at*). This is like the phrase “to know Your commandments,” which I believe appears in Psalms, chapter 119: to know all the mitzvot. If so, regarding knowledge of the mitzvot it is said “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge,” so the first mitzvah ought to be fear of Hashem (*yirat Hashem*).
The View of the Zohar’s Introduction That Fear of Hashem Is the First Mitzvah
This *chiddush*—that the first mitzvah is fear of Hashem—is not the Zohar’s own innovation here in the Ra’aya Meheimna (*Pikkudin*), nor is it simply raising a strange question. Rather, as we discussed, the Zohar has other places where it enumerates the mitzvot, chiefly in the Introduction to the Zohar, which is the introduction to the book of Genesis. There the Zohar began to enumerate all the mitzvot and to expound and explain them according to the order of the verses of the account of Creation.
There is a deep idea in this itself: why should the mitzvot follow the order of the account of Creation? Because the Ten Utterances (*Asarah Ma’amarot*) with which the world was created are like the root of the 613 mitzvot, and they must be included in each of them. Just as the root of all 613 mitzvot is included in the Ten Commandments, so too in the Ten Utterances. That is the Zohar’s theme in its Introduction.
Be that as it may, in the Introduction to the Zohar the first mitzvah is fear of Hashem. The Zohar there cites the verse “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge,” and interprets with it the verse “In the beginning God created the heavens” (Genesis 1:1) as alluding to fear. Certainly one could also say that the verse alludes to Hashem’s existence, to the creation of the world and its coming into being. But the Zohar there—and I don’t remember right now how—explains that the first mitzvah is fear of Hashem: “*Pikkuda kadma’ah da yirat Hashem*—The first commandment is this: the fear of Hashem” (Zohar, Introduction 11b).
And there is an important matter there: what are the three levels of fear of Hashem—what we call fear of punishment (*yirat ha’onesh*) and awe of His exaltedness (*yirat haromemut*). The Zohar relates there that Rabbi Shimon said “Woe,” that he wanted to say and did not want to say, and did not know whether to reveal the secret that fear of punishment is a small thing, since it is a difficult matter and not everyone can understand it.
Be that as it may, the first mitzvah in the Introduction to the Zohar is fear of Hashem and not Hashem’s existence. This is an interesting *chiddush* that needs to be understood. It is certainly not from the standpoint of logical order, since in order to fear Hashem one must first know that He exists. But there is a strong reason why fear of Hashem should be the first mitzvah, and that is what I want to explain.
Once we understand this, perhaps we will also be able to understand the Zohar’s answer here. Apparently it retracts what it held in the Introduction, and it seems this is a later version. It says: not so; rather, belief in Hashem, knowledge of Hashem, should be counted as the first mitzvah. Fear is an additional mitzvah, and it counts it here as well, but it explains that the verse “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” does not refer to this at all, but to something else.
So how are we to understand this? There is a *chiddush* here. Perhaps I already hinted at it in the previous shiurim in the series, but in my most recent study I found something wonderful that clarifies for me what is going on here, and we will say it.
The Order of the Mitzvot and the Three Principles of Sefer HaIkkarim
We have already discussed that everyone understands that the mitzvot must be arranged in some order. It can be a logical order, and even more so an experiential order, that is, an educational order. A person says, “I am beginning to do mitzvot,” and he must do this every day. As we learned a few shiurim ago, every day we say *Shema Yisrael*, meaning that every day we start from zero (as we explained in the previous shiurim regarding the recitation of the Shema, and this is not the place to elaborate). So we must clarify: where does everything begin?
One can call this a logical order: in order to know this, you must first know something else. And one can call it an order of divine service (*avodat Hashem*), the order of a person’s progress: he must start here and arrive there. So there are at least two ways to understand why things must have an order.
And we said that apparently—and this is truly so—one should calculate as Sefer HaIkkarim enumerated. Sefer HaIkkarim made the reckoning of the fundamental principles (*ikkarim*) of the Torah and asked what they are, and answered that they are three things:
A. The Existence of Hashem
The first principle is the existence of Hashem. Even this needs to be understood, since the existence of Hashem is also the end and not only the beginning, and this is what we learned here regarding general and particular. In any case, the first thing is the existence of Hashem: one must know that there is a God, and without this there is no beginning at all. Let us assume we understand this. In my opinion we do not understand it, but let us assume we do.
B. Torah from Heaven – What Does a Divine Torah Obligate?
The second principle, which he calls “Torah from Heaven” (*Torah min hashamayim*), is apparently the simplest to understand.
But here too one must ask: what if the Torah is not from Heaven? Many people keep laws that are not from Heaven. I have not heard that non-Jews in America do not obey American law because they do not believe it is from Heaven. If so, this too needs to be understood, namely that it is connected to the first principle.
If one wants to keep the Torah as a divine Torah, one certainly needs to know that it is from Heaven. But what does it even mean to keep the Torah as a divine Torah? What is the practical difference between a divine Torah and a human Torah? This is a question people really don’t think about, and one needs to think about it.
People think that if something is divine, then it is binding. Fine. But if it is human, it too is binding, and it depends on how much one is punished for it. If the king where I live legislates a law and says that anyone who violates it will be fined, then it is binding. I am afraid I might get a fine—that is fear of punishment—and therefore it is binding.
So what is the difference when we say that Hashem is the one who obligates? When we say that the Torah is from Heaven, does it mean that from there we know punishment will come? True, in exile, when there is no *beit din* (rabbinical court), it may be that the only obligating factor is the divinity of the Torah. But when there is an earthly *beit din*, what need is there for this? And in truth, even in exile there are certain punishments. Even here in America, where there is perhaps no *beit din* that administers lashes, they won’t accept a person’s children into cheder if he desecrates Shabbat. There is a punishment, and it is binding enough. Why, then, must one arrive at this principle? This must be understood. A person must be honest with himself and know where the Torah’s divinity is what obligates.
There is a certain kind of Torah observance for which specifically the divinity is what obligates. This is not simple, and plainly speaking it is not so. I am saying a *chiddush* here, but I think that in a Chassidic discourse it can be understood simply: the mere doing of the mitzvot does not yet require that the Torah be divine, and perhaps does not even yet require that there be a God. If we say that the existence of Hashem and Torah from Heaven are the foundation upon which the mitzvot stand, we must understand that this refers at least to certain mitzvot. Perhaps there are other mitzvot about which it is said, “And the earth He has given to mankind” (Psalms 115:16). But at least for mitzvot in the sense we are speaking of, the meaning is that one must do the mitzvot in a divine way. That is a different kind of mitzvah. Over them we bless “who has sanctified us with His commandments,” and on Shabbat we add a *chiddush*: “and has taken pleasure in us.” There is “taken pleasure in us” and “sanctified us,” and that is why we keep Shabbat, and not for some other reason one could have for keeping Shabbat. And this is a *chiddush*.
C. Reward and Punishment – The Foundation from Below to Above
But let us continue. Sefer HaIkkarim says that one must also believe in reward and punishment (*sakhar ve’onesh*), and that is the third principle. Here too people do not clarify things sufficiently. Suppose a person says there is a God, and God gave the Torah, and in the Torah it is written to do such-and-such. One still has to ask: what if I don’t do it? Why should I do what is written in the Torah? Why should I do what Hashem says?
There are very many reasons for this, as we discussed a few weeks ago (as we explained in the previous shiurim, and this is not the place). It may be because Hashem is wiser than I am and knows what is good for me, and here enters the question of which fear we are talking about. Or it may be because Hashem is stronger than I am and will punish me if I don’t do it, or will reward me if I do, and I want the reward, so I do it. All sorts of reasons, and they are all included in reward and punishment. So before we bring in the other levels of understanding the topic of fear and of reward and punishment, one must know that in truth, when one starts from below, this is the main thing.
Of course one can ask: how do you know that He gives reward and punishment? Because it is written in the Torah. How do you know that it is good for you? Because it is written in the Torah. All sorts of things can be said. But the first thing, when one starts from below to above, is this: why do you keep the Torah? And he answers, “Because there is a God.” But that is a leap. There is a God—so what? There is a God and He gave the Torah—so what? This “so what” is very good; it is a good question: so what?
Rather, in the Torah it is written that one must do this: if you don’t do it, such-and-such will happen, and if you do it, something good will happen. This is what is called “the reward of a mitzvah” (*sekhar mitzvah*). We see very many times in the words of the Sages and in the Mishnah that the reward of a mitzvah is the way of saying that the mitzvah is good: “Weigh the loss of a mitzvah against its reward, and the reward of a transgression against its loss” (Avot 2:1). You must calculate the reward, what one gains from the mitzvah.
Therefore what I call reward and punishment, which Sefer HaIkkarim calls the third principle, is in my opinion the principle of principles. One can truly start everything from it, and everything can be included in it. In the language of the enumerators of the mitzvot, it is called the mitzvah of fear (*yirah*) and the mitzvah of love (*ahavah*). I believe the Rambam, as well as the Ramban and the Zohar, all elaborated at length on how exactly to define what fear is and what love is.
The Meaning of Fear and Love
As we discussed, it is not clear to me that love and fear are two opposites. It may be that when one says love, one means something entirely different. For the mitzvah of fear, in its ordinary sense, is in my opinion even simpler in this respect: it fills the role, the obligation within the structure. Proof of this: a proper Jew is called “God-fearing” (*yerei shamayim*), not “a lover of Hashem.” A lover of Hashem is already an additional level. Perhaps love is already connected to the mitzvah of knowledge itself, and perhaps it is connected to the particular knowledge that we will learn. Love is perhaps something additional.
And fear can include both love and fear together. For if fear is what tells me that something is good for me, and that if I don’t do it things will be bad for me, then that itself is called fear of Heaven, is called fear. And these are already questions of interpretation (*mashma’ut dorshin*): how one defines each mitzvah and what it means.
There is also the question of whether a single mitzvah itself includes several levels. The Zohar has a kind of strategy here: it says that within each mitzvah itself there can be more than one meaning, more than one level, just as the mitzvah of knowledge itself includes general and particular. Someone else could have said: if so, I must count them as two separate mitzvot—a mitzvah of general faith and a mitzvah of particular faith. This is not clear to me in the Zohar itself, but the Zohar has no difficulty with it, since it teaches that every mitzvah has many levels. In the Rambam too we see that certain mitzvot have more than one level, and perhaps it is clear in the Rambam as well that the mitzvah of faith has two levels. But there are other mitzvot where it would have been simpler to divide and say this is a mitzvah by itself and that is a mitzvah by itself. This too is a question of interpretation, of how one defines it.
But let us focus now on the mitzvah of fear. Fear is the first mitzvah, since when one starts from below to above, fear is what says why I must keep the Torah. And the simple meaning of fear, as brought in the Introduction to the Zohar, is reward and punishment. As we discussed, fear here does not necessarily mean “I am afraid.” It can just as well say “I want things to be good for me.” Fear here does not mean dread, but rather what tells me why to act, and in the other language of the *ikkarim* it is called reward and punishment.
Reward and punishment is the fact on which the matter is built. But what is in a person’s soul, the thing that concerns me, is called fear. When I want to act because I want the reward and don’t want the punishment, that is called keeping mitzvot out of fear. And so we see many times in the Gemara and in the Rambam that “out of fear” means because of reward and punishment, and “out of love” means for its own sake (*lishmah*). So we understand that fear is the simple level of the matter.
And this is simple. Therefore I think this is the claim of the Introduction to the Zohar, that fear should be the first mitzvah. For the first mitzvah in this sense—the reason for which one does each and every mitzvah—is called fear. One can also call it reward and punishment. Only, reward and punishment is the principle when speaking about the facts, whereas when speaking about what a person needs to have within him, he must have fear of Heaven. That is what it is called: “God-fearing,” “Heaven-fearing.”
The Zohar’s Answer: “Fear of Hashem” as the Attribute of Malkhut and Particular Knowledge
Now, the Zohar gives an answer here and rejects this interpretation. Certainly fear will be an important mitzvah later on, but according to it the verse “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” does not refer to this.
According to it, “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” refers specifically to the particular knowledge we are dealing with; that is, “the fear of Hashem” has a different meaning. You thought that “the fear of Hashem” means to fear Hashem? No—”the fear of Hashem” means that Hashem is fear. And what does it mean that Hashem is fear? That Hashem has a fear: “*Le-minda man ihi yirat Hashem*—to know who is the fear of Hashem” (Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction 15a)—one must know who the fear of Hashem is. The fear of Hashem is an entity; there is an entity called the fear of Hashem, and here it refers to the Shekhinah, to the attribute of *Malkhut* (Kingship). *Malkhut* is called fear.
And what does “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge” mean? When a person engages in knowledge, and not merely in faith, where does he begin? He begins from the level called the fear of Hashem. That is particular knowledge, when one begins it. We are not talking here about general knowledge. General knowledge does not begin there, since one who has general knowledge knows nothing at all about the distinction between *Malkhut* and *Tiferet* and all these things. He knows there is a God, and does not know all this.
But particular knowledge, as we have already learned many times in the Zohar in many ways, is a person’s apprehension of Godliness, and it begins from the attribute of *Malkhut*. That is, it begins from Hashem’s actions, from Hashem’s providence (*hashgachah*), His providence over the lower realms, etc., and from there it ascends to *Tiferet*. That is the meaning of particular knowledge, and that is the meaning of the verse “The fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge.”
And the Zohar says: not as I tried to answer—for what does knowledge have to do with mitzvot? Knowledge means knowing! To this the Zohar answers here: indeed, knowledge does not mean mitzvot. Knowledge means that when you enter the level of knowledge, you will begin from “the fear of Hashem,” and not from fear of Hashem.
The Order of Knowledge and the Order of Action: Two Meanings of Fear
But certainly, fear of Hashem is something else entirely. Certainly the Zohar says: “*It lei le-var nash le-dachala le-mareih ad la yada lei*—A person must fear his Master even before he knows Him” (Zohar I:103b). Even before a person has knowledge, he must already fear. And one must ask: how can one fear without knowing whom? Rather, there it refers to general knowledge: the person knows in a general way; he has a kind of faith from tradition, a received faith, and he has fear. And in this sense the Zohar agrees that fear of Hashem is the first mitzvah.
But the Zohar here wants to arrange the mitzvot according to the order of knowledge. According to the order of knowledge, the first mitzvah is knowledge of Hashem. But according to the order of action, the order of the soul, indeed the first mitzvah is fear of Hashem. And fear of Hashem in this context means what we discussed: the reason why one must act at all, what we call reward and punishment. And at this level it is indeed the first mitzvah.
But the Zohar does not go much into the matter of reward and punishment, not even later on, when it will speak here about fear. It will speak a little about there being fear in general and fear in particular. In fear too there is fear in general, which we call reward and punishment, and there is fear in particular, which means knowing who the fear of Hashem is. So the fear of Hashem itself has two meanings. There is general fear, which goes together with general knowledge. And there is particular fear, which is the true meaning of fear, and which means knowing the level called the fear of Hashem—and this level is a level of knowledge.
What Is the “Attribute of Fear” of the Holy One, Blessed Be He?
And the essence of the matter, briefly, is that our fear is not fear of Hashem but fear together with Hashem. So to speak, the fear of Hashem is the attribute of fear of the Holy One, blessed be He.
And what does it mean that Hashem fears? How is it possible that Hashem fears? Hashem is the only One who fears no one! Very well—and every proper Jew also fears no one. A Jew fears no one; he fears only Hashem. And just as Hashem fears no one, so His attribute of fear is that He fears no one.
As it says regarding Avraham Avinu: “Now I know that you are God-fearing” (Genesis 22:12), and as Avraham Avinu said about Avimelekh’s place: “Surely there is no fear of God in this place” (Genesis 20:11). This does not necessarily mean that he is afraid of Hashem. It means more—as at the Binding of Isaac (*Akedah*)—that he takes the Torah, the thing Hashem commanded him, more seriously than all other things. That is one who fears Hashem. One who fears Hashem also has many desires, and Avimelekh also had desires, but had he possessed fear of God, he would have overcome his desires.
How Is Fear Possible Without Knowledge? The Spreading of the Shechina Everywhere
This, then, is the true meaning of the attribute of fear (*yirah*), and this is truly the answer to how it is possible to have *”ledachla minei ad lo yada lei”* (“to fear Him even before knowing Him”). For this is indeed a question, and a good question: how is it possible for a person to have fear of Hashem (*yiras Hashem*) without knowing what it is about?
When one reaches the level of specific knowledge, there is room to raise the question and say: “Until now I had no fear of Hashem!” But on the other hand, as we learned last week, one cannot say that what existed until now was nothing at all (as we explained in the previous shiur regarding general and specific knowledge).
Therefore, the possibility of fear of Hashem existing in the world without knowledge should be understood as follows: fear of Hashem is the Shechina (Divine Presence) itself, and the Shechina spreads into every place. Moreover, as the Zohar states in its introduction, the Shechina spreads even into the fear of punishment, except that there it is clothed in an external garment.
Therefore, even when people fear *”ad lo yada lei”* (“before knowing Him”), it is because fear of Hashem itself, the *cheftza* (the actual entity), the thing called “fear of Hashem,” rests upon them. True, if you were to ask such a person, he does not know. And therefore, in a certain sense, as the books of Chassidus say, there is a certain truthfulness in the fear of Hashem of a state of smallness (*katnus*) that is not present in a state of greatness (*gadlus*). For with him, it is not that he knows there is a God and consequently he fears. Rather, there is here a reality of fear of Hashem, and it clothes itself in each and every person according to his upbringing and according to whatever brings him to fear of Hashem.
There are places that have no fear of Hashem — *”makom she’ein bo yiras Elokim”* (“a place where there is no fear of God”) — and that is because in that place fear of Hashem is lacking. But there are places that do have fear of Hashem, and in them there is room for divine service (*avoda*). And the reason a place has fear of Hashem is because the Shechina rests there. That is the explanation.
This concludes our shiur for this week. And whoever wants to learn about Yitzchak and say Torah thoughts may do so. Until here, and Shabbat Shalom.
📝 Full Transcript
The First Commandment in the Zohar: Knowledge of God or Fear of God
Introduction: Review of the Previous Shiurim
We will learn a few more lines of the Zohar on the question of what the first commandment (mitzvah) is. Last week we learned about two disputes (machlokesim) that the Zohar decides here.
The first dispute is whether the first mitzvah is knowledge of God (yedias Hashem), or, as the Behag held, whether faith (emunah) or knowledge of God is not counted as a mitzvah at all. The Zohar decides that the first mitzvah is knowledge of God.
The second dispute is how one explains the mitzvah of knowledge of God: is it a “general mitzvah” (mitzvah kelalis) or a “particular mitzvah” (mitzvah pratis)? Others call this a mitzvah based on investigation and knowledge, versus a mitzvah based on faith and received tradition.
The Zohar’s Novel Insight in the First and Second Questions
In the first question we explained the Zohar’s novel insight (chiddush): knowledge of God can be a mitzvah because all the mitzvos are in any case a revelation of God’s existence. It is therefore no different from all the other mitzvos, because the mitzvos themselves are God.
There is a further secret here that has already been explained elsewhere: according to this, our knowing God and what God is are also not two separate things. It does not mean that there is a proposition, a statement, that there is a God and we know it. That would even be saying too much. Rather, this is the unity of the mitzvah, the One who commands, and the one who is commanded, and that unity is strongest in the mitzvah of knowledge. This is a continuation and a further depth of the previous topic, but we will set it aside for now.
In the second question, about general knowledge and particular knowledge, the Zohar in a certain sense agrees with both sides. Even those who say that according to the Rambam and the Chovos HaLevavos one fulfills the mitzvah of knowledge only through intellectual understanding and investigation certainly do not mean that a small child or an ordinary person does not fulfill it at all and has no faith because they do not know. Everyone must have some theory of this general and particular (kelal u’prat), and the Zohar spells out its theory very clearly.
The Third Question: Is the First Mitzvah Knowledge of God or Fear of God?
Now we can approach a third important point. The Zohar says that the first mitzvah is “Anochi Hashem Elokecha” – “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2), meaning to know that there is a Lord your God. The Zohar raises a question on this: “And if you will say… but it is written, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge'” (Zohar, Introduction 11b; Proverbs 1:7)?
What becomes of the other verse, and of the reasoning that verse conveys, that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge”? Seemingly, one could interpret “the beginning of knowledge” as the first thing one must know, that is, the first mitzvah. When one learns a list of mitzvos, it is a list of things one needs to know. True, there are mitzvos of the mind that one only needs to know (like knowledge of God), and mitzvos that one needs to think, do, feel, or say. But when one learns the mitzvos, all of them are “knowledge,” as there are such expressions in Psalm 119 (for example, “to know Your commandments”), meaning to know all the mitzvos. If so, the verse says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” implying that the first mitzvah should be fear of God!
The View in the Introduction to the Zohar That Fear of God Is the First Mitzvah
The question the Zohar asks here in the Ra’aya Mehemna (Pikudin) is not simply raising some strange idea that fear of God should be the first mitzvah. The Zohar has other places where it enumerates the mitzvos, and the main other place is the Introduction to the Zohar (the introduction to the Book of Genesis), where it begins to count and expound all the mitzvos according to the order of the verses of the account of Creation (ma’aseh bereishis).
In this itself lies a deep idea, why the mitzvos follow the order of Creation: just as the Ten Commandments contain a root of all 613 mitzvos, so too the Ten Utterances with which the world was created contain a root of the 613 mitzvos, and one must place them within each Utterance.
In the Introduction to the Zohar, the Zohar indeed teaches that the first mitzvah is fear of God: “Pikuda kadma’ah da yiras Hashem” – “The first commandment is this: fear of the Lord” (Zohar, Introduction 11b). It cites the verse “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” and interprets the verse “Bereishis bara Elokim es hashamayim” – “In the beginning God created the heavens” (Genesis 1:1) as alluding to fear (although one could also say it alludes to God’s existence, the creation of the world, and the world’s coming into being). There is also an important discussion there about the three levels of fear of God, what we call fear of punishment (yiras ha’onesh) and fear of God’s exaltedness (yiras haromemus), where Rabbi Shimon says “woe” and hesitates over whether to reveal the secret that fear of punishment is a minor thing, because not everyone can understand it.
On the logical side, it is hard to understand how fear of God can be the first mitzvah instead of God’s existence. In order to fear the Almighty, one must first know that He exists! But there is a strong line of reasoning for why fear of God should be the first mitzvah. Once we understand that reasoning, we will also understand the Zohar’s answer here, which is seemingly a later version that retreats from the Introduction: that the first mitzvah is indeed faith in and knowledge of God (and fear is a separate mitzvah), and that the verse “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” means something entirely different.
The Order of the Mitzvos and the Three Principles of the Sefer HaIkkarim
Everyone understands that the mitzvos must have some order. This can be understood in two ways: a logical order, where to know one thing you must first know another; or an experiential order, an order of education and progress in divine service (avodas Hashem). When a person begins doing mitzvos (and as we learned, every day one says Shema Yisrael because each day one begins anew), where does everything begin?
The Sefer HaIkkarim made the calculation that the fundamental principles of the Torah are three:
A. The Existence of God
The first is the existence of God: one must know that there is a God, because without that nothing begins. (Admittedly, one must also understand this, because God’s existence is also the end and not only the beginning, as we learned regarding general and particular.)
B. Torah from Heaven: What Is the Obligation of a Divine Torah?
The second is Torah from Heaven (Torah min hashamayim). Seemingly this is obvious: if one wants to obey the Torah as a divine Torah, one must know that it is from Heaven. But when one thinks it through, what is really the practical difference between a divine Torah and a human Torah? American gentiles also obey American law even though they do not believe it is from Heaven!
People think that if something is divine, it is binding. But a human law is also binding, depending on how severely one is punished for it. If the king makes a law that whoever violates it gets a fine, I have fear of punishment and it is binding. And if “Torah from Heaven” only means that one will receive punishment, then when there is an earthly court that punishes, or even in exile here in America, where they won’t admit the children into cheder if someone desecrates Shabbos, there is already a punishment that is binding enough. A person needs to be honest with themselves: where does the divinity of the Torah make it binding?
In a Chassidic discussion one can understand it simply: merely doing mitzvos does not yet require that the Torah be divine (and perhaps not even that there is a God), and perhaps there are indeed mitzvos that fall under “and the earth He gave to mankind” (Psalms 115:16). Rather, if God’s existence and Torah from Heaven underlie the mitzvos, it means one must do the mitzvos “divinely.” It is a different kind of mitzvah observance. For this one makes the blessing “who sanctified us with His commandments,” and on Shabbos one adds a further novelty, “and He desired us.” One keeps Shabbos because of “He sanctified us” and “He desired us,” not for some other reason.
C. Reward and Punishment: The Foundation from Below to Above
The third principle of the Sefer HaIkkarim is reward and punishment (sechar ve’onesh). Even if someone believes that there is a God and that He gave the Torah, a good question remains: so what? Why should I obey what the Almighty says in the Torah, and what happens if I don’t? When someone answers “because there is a God,” they have skipped a step.
This is where reward and punishment comes in (along with the discussion of what kind of fear we are talking about): it could be because the Almighty is wiser than I am and knows what is good for me, or because He is stronger than I am and will punish me if I don’t obey, and reward me if I do. In the words of the Sages, too, we often see that “the reward of a mitzvah” is the way of saying that the mitzvah is good for me, as in the Mishnah: “Calculate the loss of a mitzvah against its reward, and the reward of a transgression against its loss” (Avos 2:1).
When one begins from below to above, the third principle of reward and punishment is truly the “principle of principles.” One can begin everything from it, and everything can be included in it. (Although on the other hand, how do you know that He gives reward and punishment and that it is good for you? Because it is written in the Torah.)
The Meaning of Fear and Love
In the language of those who enumerate the mitzvos (the Rambam, the Ramban, and the Zohar), the principle of reward and punishment is called the mitzvah of fear (yirah) and the mitzvah of love (ahavah).
It is not clear that love and fear are two opposites. The duty to be within the structure and obey the Torah is called the mitzvah of fear. That is why an upright Jew is called a “yerei shamayim” (one who fears Heaven) or “yerei Elokim” (one who fears God), and not an “ohev Hashem” (one who loves God). “Ohev Hashem” is already a higher level, which perhaps has to do with the mitzvah of particular knowledge.
Fear itself can include both love and fear. Because the simple meaning of fear (as stated in the Introduction to the Zohar) is not necessarily being afraid, but reward and punishment: that I do mitzvos because I want things to go well for me (reward) and not badly for me (punishment). Reward and punishment is the fact on which it is built, and the corresponding conduct in a person’s soul is called “fear.” So too we often see in the Gemara and in the Rambam that fulfilling mitzvos “out of fear” means because of reward and punishment, whereas “out of love” means for its own sake (lishmah).
(How one divides the mitzvos into different levels is a matter of interpretive approach. The Zohar holds that a single mitzvah can contain many levels, just as the mitzvah of knowledge contains general and particular, and in the Rambam too one sees that the mitzvah of faith has two levels, whereas someone else would count them as two separate mitzvos.)
Consequently, the claim of the Introduction to the Zohar that fear is the first mitzvah is very understandable: because from below to above, fear (reward and punishment) is the reason a person begins to obey any mitzvah in the Torah at all.
The Zohar’s Answer: “Fear of the Lord” as the Attribute of Kingship and Particular Knowledge
The Zohar here, however, answers that although fear is an important mitzvah later on, it does not agree with this interpretation of the verse “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
The Zohar says that “fear of the Lord” in this verse does not mean being afraid of the Almighty. Rather, it is an essence, a level within Godliness called “fear of the Lord,” namely the Shechinah, the attribute of Kingship (middas hamalchus), as it says: “To know who she is: fear of the Lord” (Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction 15a).
And the meaning of “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” is this: “knowledge” (da’as) does not mean mitzvos in general, but particular knowledge. When someone enters the level of “knowledge,” not merely general knowledge and faith that there is a God (where one does not yet know of any distinction between Malchus and Tiferes), but particular knowledge and comprehension of Godliness, where does one begin? One begins from the attribute of Kingship (“fear of the Lord”), which means recognizing God’s actions and His providence over the lower worlds, and afterward one ascends higher to Tiferes.
The Order of Knowledge Versus the Order of Action: Two Meanings of Fear
The Zohar says elsewhere: “A person must fear his Master before he knows Him” (Zohar I, 103b). Before a person has knowledge, they must already have fear. How can one have fear without knowing whom? There it goes together with general knowledge, a faith received from tradition.
It turns out that it depends on which order one follows. According to the order of action and the order of the soul, meaning why one must do mitzvos at all (reward and punishment), the Zohar agrees that fear of God is the first mitzvah. But here the Zohar wants to draw out the mitzvos according to the order of knowledge, and according to the order of knowledge, the first mitzvah is knowledge of God.
Consequently, the mitzvah of fear of God also has two meanings, general and particular: “general fear” is fear because of reward and punishment, which goes together with general knowledge; and “particular fear,” the true meaning of fear, which the Zohar will explain later here, is a level of knowledge: to know who the level called “fear of the Lord” is.
What Does “the Attribute of Fear” Mean for the Almighty?
In brief, the insight here is that we are not afraid of the Almighty; rather, we fear together with the Almighty, with the attribute of fear of the Holy One, blessed be He.
How can one say the Almighty has an attribute of fear, when He is not afraid of anyone? The answer is that in the same way, an upright Jew is not afraid of anyone in the world, only of the Almighty. And the very fact that they are not afraid of anyone is their attribute of fear, just as the Almighty is not afraid of anyone.
We see this with Abraham our father, about whom it says at the Binding of Isaac: “Now I know that you are one who fears God” (Genesis 22:12), and what he said about Abimelech: “Only there is no fear of God in this place” (Genesis 20:11). “One who fears God” does not mean simply someone who trembles, but someone who takes God’s command more seriously than everything else and overcomes their desires, which is what was lacking in Abimelech.
How Can There Be Fear Without Knowledge? The Spreading of the Shechinah Everywhere
With this one also understands the deep answer to the question: how is it possible “to fear Him before knowing Him,” to have fear of God before one knows at all what one is talking about? (And indeed, when a person arrives at particular knowledge, they must say, “Until now I did not have fear of God!” Although on the other hand, one cannot say that what they had until now was nothing.)
The answer is: because “fear of the Lord” is the holy Shechinah, and the Shechinah spreads everywhere. As the Zohar says in the Introduction, it spreads even into fear of punishment, only in an external garment. Consequently, when a person has fear of God “before knowing Him,” it is because the very substance and existence of the Shechinah (the Name called “fear of the Lord”) is present there within them, even if they themselves do not know it.
That is why the Chassidic works say that there is a certain genuineness in fear of God in a state of smallness (katnus) that is not present in a state of greatness (gadlus): because in smallness, a person’s fear does not come from their own knowledge that there is a God; rather, the reality of “fear of the Lord” (the Shechinah) works within them according to their upbringing. And in the same way, when there is a place where there is no fear of God, it is because in that place the indwelling of the Shechinah is lacking, and where there is fear of God, it is because the Shechinah is there.