The Eleventh Commandment

DON'T BE AFRAID

They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree and none shall make them afraid.
MICAH 4:4

Before I could write a book about what people today are afraid of and how they might deal with their fears, I had to write first about what frightens me. Only then would I be able to understand the fears of others. Fears can range from mild concern (Did I remember to turn off the oven?) to serious worry (She was due home at ten; it's midnight and she's not home yet!) to sheer panic (My brakes aren't working! The man has a knife!). I find myself worrying more about something happening to people I love than about something happening to me. I worry that they are vulnerable to serious illness, accidents, crime, natural disaster. To love someone is to make yourself a hostage to fortune, aware of all the terrible things that can happen to him or her. Whenever I read of a violent crime against a woman or child, a fatal automobile accident, a young person drowning, the rational side of my brain reassures me that it makes the news only because it is so rare, but my emotional side keeps saying, What if it had been someone close to me? (Even as parents fear for the well-being of their children, children's primal fear is that something will happen to one of their parents. I was once preparing a thirteen-year-old boy for his bar mitzvah ceremony, and I asked him if there was anything he was scared of. I was thinking of his performance at the synagogue service, but he spoke instead of his fear that one of his parents would die while he still needed him or her.) It startles me to realize that my grandson is only a few years away from being eligible for military service and might have to risk his life in a war. I worry about my grandchildren having to cope with the dangers and challenges of adolescence in a much more complicated world than either I or their mother grew up in. I worry about another attack on an American city, like the one on September 11, 2001, with heavy loss of life. I worry in the knowledge that I and the people around me can do everything right and still experience misfortune. We can be careful about what we eat and how much we exercise and still fall victim to a genetic time bomb hidden in our DNA. We can drive carefully and still be in the path of a careless driver. We can work hard at our jobs and save for our retirement, only to have events beyond our control force our employer to terminate our job or market events erode our savings. On those infrequent occasions when I have a bad dream, it is always the same one. I am trying to get somewhere where people are expecting me, and I can't get there. The dream speaks to my sense of helplessness in the face of forces I can't control and my fear of disappointing people who are counting on me.

I worry about losing those things that give meaning and pleasure to my life, the ability to read and to write, to give birth to another book or craft a meaningful sermon, the ability to follow the news and crack a joke about contemporary politics, the ability to recognize people I care about and remember where I know them from. In my rabbinic experience, I have seen too many people who were so sharp and insightful when I met them, only to have those qualities taken from them.

I worry about our planet becoming less livable, about our running out of places to live, water to drink, and even clean air to breathe. Sometimes I worry that I will live so long that I will come to see terrible things happening and be powerless to do anything about them, a war more terrible than anything we have ever seen or an economic collapse that will wipe out people's...

"Rich with Harold Kushner's honest, practical eloquence, Conquering Fear is the right book at the right time. It will ease the heart and strengthen the mind of everyone who reads it!"