The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.
Devarim
Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22
Not long ago, a woman came up to me after a class and asked a question both simple and profound.
“Rabbi,” she said, “you seem to know the Bible well. Of all the commandments in the Torah, which one does God repeat more than any other?”
I paused. “Perhaps,” I offered, “the instruction to care for the widow and the orphan?”
She smiled gently and shook her head. “No,” she said. “More than anything else, God says this: ‘Do not be afraid.’”
I went back and looked. She was right.
More than 80 times in the Hebrew Bible, God says “Al tirah” — “Do not be afraid.”
He says it to Abraham.
To Isaac.
To Jacob.
To Moses, trembling before Pharaoh.
To Joshua, standing at the edge of the Jordan.
To prophets, who feared the kings they were sent to confront.
To a people wandering through deserts and doubts.
“Al tirah,” He tells them.
And He doesn’t say it once. He says it again. And again. And again.
Why?
Because life is often frightening. We are small. The world is large. We face challenges we did not choose, burdens we did not expect and journeys whose ending we cannot see.
And yet, time and again, God says: “Do not be afraid.”
This is not a denial of fear. It is a call to courage.
Because fear, left unchecked, becomes a kind of spiritual paralysis. It stops us from doing what we’re here to do. It makes us smaller than we are. That is why the most repeated phrase in the Torah is not “love” or “believe” — but “do not be afraid.” Because fear is what blocks love. Fear is what silences faith. The antidote to fear is not power. It is purpose.
In Judaism, faith is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to walk forward despite it.
Faith is not certainty that life will be perfect. It is the refusal to let uncertainty hold us back from doing what is right, from living with hope, from making the world better through acts of kindness and compassion.
Perhaps the most haunting expression of this idea comes from Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, a mystic of the 18th century, whose words became a song of defiance in the Warsaw Ghetto, on the front lines of the Yom Kippur War — and again, in the aftermath of Oct. 7:
“Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tzar me’od, v’ha’ikar, lo l’fached klal,” Nachman said. “The whole world is a very narrow bridge — and the main thing is not to be afraid.”
The world is indeed narrow. The bridges we cross are sometimes no wider than a thread. But faith tells us we are not alone. That God walks with us. That if we keep walking, we will reach the other side.
That has been the story of the Jewish people.
At the dawn of our history, God said to Abraham: Al tirah. Do not be afraid.
In this week’s parashah, Moses tells the people as they prepare to enter the land: Al tirah. Do not be afraid.
Across 4,000 years, Jews have crossed narrow bridges — through exile and return, through darkness and light — with courage, with faith, with song.
To be a Jew is to be a warrior of hope.
It is to see reality as it is, but to believe we can mend it.
It is to hold the hand of your child and say, “We will make it to the other side.”
It is to know that God’s most frequent words — do not be afraid — were not only spoken then. They are spoken now. To each of us. In every generation.
We may live in uncertain times. But the bridge still stretches forward. And the voice still calls.
Do not be afraid. You are here for a reason. Walk on.
The whole world is a very narrow bridge. And the main thing is not to be afraid.