The Connection Between Fear and Courage

There is a song which my daughter used to sing at Camp Ramah.  In English, the lyrics go like this:

The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing to recall, is not to be afraid at all.

It’s a fun little song to sing but I wonder.  Not to be afraid at all.  Is this possible?  The word “fearless” is often used to describe people who are incredibly brave or people who do amazingly brave things, often giving their lives in the process.  Are these people truly fearless.  Is there such a thing as having no fear?

I recently wrote a blog about evil in which I theorized that, in order to know good, we must know evil.  Evil was created to achieve a balance in the universe.  Just as we have day and night, light and dark, health and sickness, life and death, yin and yang.  To me, the universe is in some state of equilibrium and these opposite forces must exist.  Similarly, I believe me must have fear to know bravery.  From the little butterflies we feel prior to performing on stage to the enormous fear we feel before going into battle in war, we all know fear.  And this fear is often necessary to drive us to perform at our highest levels of capability.

It is how me manage the fear or channel this fear into a useful energy that helps us to succeed.  I once read that Samurai warriors put their fear on the tips of their swords.  Rather than pretend to be fearless or to hide their fear, they put their fear right in front of them.  Without fear, we would not strive, we would not take risks, we would not achieve.

In the Hebrew language, one of the words for fear, which is often used in the Torah, is יִרְאָה .  The gematria numeric value of יִרְאָה  is 216.  The word for courage or might is בוּרָה which also has a value of 216.  The connection between fear and courage is quite apparent.  It is the presence of fear which enables us to rise up with courage and to confront our issue, take intelligent risks, and reach our goals.  It was the fear of losing everything to depression which finally gave me the courage to recover and to thrive.

I started this blog with a little song.  I would like to change the lyrics.

The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing to recall, is not to let fear keep you from crossing it.  What do you think?