ְלֹא אִירָא

Since I am not listening music, to keep myself from climbing the walls, I have been catching up on watching my DVDs. Yesterday evening, I brought Batman Begins; I worked backwards, having seen The Dark Knight two weeks ago. Yes, I realize I am one of the last people (of those who watch movies) to see these films. I found that I thoroughly enjoyed both films; particularly Batman Begins. I enjoy action films, as well as the realization of comic book heros. However I also like a good, meaningful story. Needless to say, you don't really get that too much in superhero movies these days.

Growing up, I was not so much "into" Batman. However, understand that Batman when I was growing up was Adam West being an uber intellectual caped crusader, galavanting around in the wild in crazy world of the 1960s. I remember in 1989 when the first Batman movie was released. It was dark and edgy; but it was also emotionally off-kilter (thank you Tim Burton). Batman Begins presents a better, deeper story of personal conflict and the profound effect of a person's worldviews and philosophies.

Bruce Wayne may be one of those people who should be utterly and completely happy. After all he has money, he's amazingly handsome, and his physicality and intelligence are well above average. Yet he is very far from happy; and makes decisions that boggle the minds of those who are close to him. His life is at times thrown into autopilot, driven by anger and fear especially, taking him to places and pushing him into experiences that he probably would not anticpate...nor wish for.

The power that fear has over people is incredible. Many times, people do not even know what they are afraid of (or they cannot articulate their fears). Fear is what stops people from seeking out their dreams. Fear is what helps make the logical illogical. Fear is something that can limit potential unlike nothing else. Yet who can blame someone for succumbing to their fears?

In Batman Begins, a recurring theme was "Men fear what they can't see"; I would also stretch that to say that people fear what they do not know about. Who wants to be the first to do anything? Only very, very special people. The other day, I heard about Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin going to the White House to help promote the U.S. Space program. I am very awed by these men; for no matter how much you study space travel, and the environment, and what the moon is like; you just never know until you get there yourself. And long before then, Christopher Columbus could mainly gather those who had little to lose if they died at sea. However now that we understand the globe, few people think twice of traveling to continents thousands of miles away.

In many ways I feel that those of us who are from non-frum backgrounds have this kind of relationship with the frum world. You have to embrace your fear, and take it with you on the journey to become frum yourself. I almost said to "conquer your fear", but that is much easier said than done. Rather you need to co-exist with it, work with it, until it becomes of no consequence. Bruce Wayne never "conquered" his fear of bats; but rather funneled it into something that created something awesome.

In Hebrew, there is no blanket term such as "fear"; rather you have יראת which means "humility/reverance" sort of fear, and you have אירה which is a which is a "dread" sort of fear. One is positive, and one is negative. Yet the two are interelated; and it is possible to morph one into the other. People who contemplate any kind of major lifestyle change can either dread it to the point to where they just cannot do it; or they can hold a reverance for it, and the seriousness of it all. A key piece of the puzzle is to understand what you fear. Be knowledgable about the situation that you dread so much. You do not have to spend time in a cave with thousands of bats; but you most definitely must be willing to come far away from your comfort zone.