Yirat Shamayim

12 Feb 2014

(f., plural not generally used); fear of “heaven;” synonymous with “Yirat HaShem,” Fear of HaShem, or Fear of G-d. “Shamayim,” heaven, a spiritual “location,” is assumed to be more-or-less the abode of HaShem, despite these words of Shlomo, builder of the First Temple (“Melachim” 1, 8:27), “Behold, neither the heavens nor the heavens of the heavens can contain You, certainly not this House that I have built.”

Actually, HaShem is not in any location nor is He excluded from any location. One of His Names is “Makom,” which means “Place” or “Location,” suggesting that He is not in the Universe, nor is He the Universe but rather, He is the “Place” of, for want of a better term, the Universe.

This makes it all the more amazing that HaShem does constrain Himself somehow, in the Beit HaMikdash, to abide in its Holy of Holies.