Filmmaker Steven Spielberg recently directed a movie about Abraham Lincoln. He commented on this project: “I require fear in order to run towards something. The more frightened I am the more I have to run into what’s scaring me to figure out what it is. The work that I’m proudest of is the work that I’m most afraid of.”
I like this quote. I relate to this quote. I relate to the idea of not letting our fear of possible failure keep us from attempting possible success.
And yet something about it niggles. The blanket term “fear” rather than “fear of G-d?” Many times I’ve felt the way Spielberg does that I have to face down my fears use them as jumping-off points. But isn’t it possible that sometimes it’s far better not to duke it out with the yetzer hara for instance and simply run from temptation as Yosef HaTzadik did with Potifar’s wife?
When we apply our own feelings to something we can make a mistake. Something defined by Torah moderated by Torah can’t be hefker out of control. Like the “joy” expressed by San Francisco baseball fans last month after their team won the World Series a joy expressed by all too many via destroying property setting fires and acts of violence. Why should “joy” translate into acts of violence and destruction? The same acts in fact demonstrated by fans of losing teams. Because the “joy” was not moderated. It was left to human interpretation rather than the Torah’s never a good idea.
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