עברית
Faith
What is meant by "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven"?
Question
Hello respected Rabbi! I heard the saying, "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven"—what does this mean? If I feel a desire to do Hashem's will, is that not something of my own, but rather a gift from Heaven? For a youth who has fallen away, do they also have a choice to return to the path, or is that from Heaven? If I was given a test to either commit a sin or not, and I chose not to sin and truly tried to overcome, but in the end I fell, how is this defined regarding free will: did I succeed or not? Thank you!
Answer
Greetings and blessing. There is free will in matters of Yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven). Hashem does not decree whether a person will be righteous or wicked. Each individual's point of choice is different, of course. You too have choice in matters of Yirat Shamayim; indeed, you have the desire to fulfill the will of the Creator, but you also face tests in matters of Yirat Shamayim according to your level. Likewise, even a youth who has fallen away faces the test of whether to keep Shabbat or not, but he has the strength to withstand this test and not fall, thereby ascending higher and higher until he becomes a Torah scholar, God-fearing, and holy. A person who reaches the test of sin and refrains for three hours without sinning, then later stumbles, nonetheless has great reward for those three hours multiplied many times over during which he merited to stand in the test. And one who has a sin come close to him and overcomes it is considered as if he actually performed a mitzvah. After countless mitzvot of overcoming, if he has one failure, he can rectify it through teshuvah, but all the successes in withstanding tests are never diminished. It is like a person climbing a mountain who advances hundreds of meters and mid-way stumbles five meters; certainly, his ascent of the mountain is considered great, even though he fell several times. Blessings, Binyamin Shmueli
