The prayer for the new month includes a long wish list. Curiously, though, there is one desideratum mentioned twice—and only one. And that tells a tale.
Which is that “doubly desired” thing? Yirat shamayim. Literally, “fear of heaven.” But what exactly is that? And why is it so desperately needed?
My teacher Alan Morinis, citing his teacher Rabbi Yechiel Yitzchok Perr, explains it like this: “One of the classical analogies for the fear of G-d urges us to fear G-d like a man who loves his wife and who is beloved by her. He isn’t terrorized by her wrath, but rather is fearful of doing anything at all that might result in losing even a shred of the love he so treasures.”
The pagans feared that the gods would stomp on them simply out of spite. One of the earliest myths we have from Babylonia talks about the gods being angry with humanity for “making noise.” Yirat shamayim is obviously something else entirely—a fear of loss of G-d’s love.
And why is this so important? Because, explains Rabbi Perr “They say that you are going to come to the next world and they are going to show you what you could have been. They are going to show you the guy who was the same as you, and what he made of himself. And you are gong to stand there and you are going to look at him for a million years. And that’s just the beginning. Because you lost your opportunity.”
And as Alan Morinis sums it up, “No hellfires, no piercings, just an eternity wracked with regret for the opportunities you missed in this life, for squandering the chance you were handed to seek purity and perfection.”
Repeating the call for Yirat shamayim makes a great deal of sense precisely because it is not natural for us to pray for it at all. Money? Health? Peace? Sure.
Obviously we want all of these things. Their place on the personal/cosmic wish list is obvious. Virtually automatic.
Recognizing our place in the universe, our limited time in this world, the gap between what we are and what we could be? That is not at all so natural. Who thinks about that all the time, or even at all? Who would even want to?
And yet, in a certain way, that may be the single most important thing we could think about. As it says at the end of Ecclesiastes (again, cited by my teacher): “The end of the matter, all having been heard: fear G-d and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man.”
The monthly prayer for the New Month is our helpful reminder.