Q: If you could help me, I have a question: in the book Tanya, Rav. Zalman Shnei-or from Liadi explains two kinds of fear/awe. An upper (fear of God) and a lower (fear to be seen). In fact the book has a lot of mentions to fear or awe as a way to access God. What does יראה עלאה mean?

A: Hello, dear friend, Yir’ah Ila’ah יראה עילאה is Yir’at Ha-Romemut יראת הרוממות the reverence that comes from seeing how high the Source is. Rom רום means height, elevation. And this is what we call love: the heart drawn toward what is immeasurably above it.

Reverence is quiet respect born from recognizing something greater than yourself.
It is the moment when the heart becomes still and transparent before what is infinite.
In reverence, the human being is not crushed, but opened and only in such openness can true love appear.

But this stage does not arrive instantly. Before the sight of the high, before love, there is a stage called eved עבד the servant or the slave. What does this mean?

A human being cannot suddenly love, or recognize the higher. First, he encounters the world through the lens of duality: night and day, warm and cold reward and punishment, through subject and object. Only from this mind set does he begin to rise beyond it toward reverence, and then toward love.

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