[Avodah] Yirah and Emunah

[Yitzchok Levine]

The following is from the new translation of 
RSRH's commentary to the Chumash, Sefer Shemos. YL

14: 31 And when Israel saw the great hand which 
God had used on Egypt, the people feared God and 
they trusted in God and in His servant Moshe.

Yirah and Emunah are the two basic qualities that are always to pulsate in
the heart of the Jew who stands before God. There is only one Being
Whom we should fear and trust at the same time, and that is God, the
one sole God, Who is as loving as He is just, as just as He is loving,
and equally omnipotent in the exercise of His love and justice.

To demonstrate and to teach these three virtues of God: His justice,
which is to be feared at all times; His love, which is to be trustingly
awaited at all times; and His mighty power, freely commanding over
all things and acting with mercy and justice simultaneously — that is
the eternal significance of the moment of this salvation, unique in its
greatness, when the once-enslaved nation, now forever free, saw the
colossus of Egypt stretched out dead at its feet.

Just as this moment attests to God’s hand acting omnipotently with
mercy and with justice, so, too, it is 
everlasting testimony to the authenticity
of the mission of His servant Moshe. Moshe’s hand was
stretched out over the sea, and it was by his hand that God led Egypt
to its doom and led Israel on the path of life and freedom. 
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