I came to the subject the way I come to all my subjects.  I listen to people—I listen to what’s bothering them and where they need help. What I found from them was a sense that the world is out of control and they couldn’t handle it. It’s the idea that things are happening to you, and around you, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.  But I want to say to them, that’s not right.  There are things you can do, ways you can take control of your life. I don’t think you can eliminate fear—that’s unhealthy—but you can recognize fear and not let it dominate you. You can use it and not be overwhelmed by it.

On a personal level, I fear that something could happen to those I care about—people in my family—and I would be powerless to help them.  Globally, I fear that so much anger and sense of powerlessness could lead some people to take irresponsible action.

They all demand different responses.  At the core of fear is the sense of events being out of your control.  The way you regain control will vary, depending on what the problem is.  For example, there is a very straightforward way of dealing with terrorism:  Realize that the goal of the terrorist is not to kill you but to intimidate you.  If he kills one person, he frightens 1,000 people.  If he kills 1,000 people, he terrorizes an entire country. For instance, a few years ago the D.C. sniper, one man with a teenaged accomplice, shut down an entire region around Washington, D.C.  Another example:  If the Homeland Security Agency were to announce that they had plausible reason to believe that terrorists were planning an attack on a shopping center somewhere in America next Monday, everyone would stay home on Monday.  That would be exactly the wrong thing to do.  Because that says to the terrorists, “You win. You are stronger than we are.  We are afraid of you.”

What we need to do is what the British did after the subway bombings in London a few years ago.  They said, “Terrorists bomb the subway, we insist on riding the subway.” It’s what the Israelis do.  They say, “Terrorists bomb the buses, we will ride the buses.  They bomb the cafes, we will go to the cafes.  There will be innocent victims, but we will foil the terrorists.”

But the scariest thing, I have found, is fear of rejection—on a personal level, on a romantic level, or on a professional level.  Rejection can destroy a person’s soul.  For example, the boss saying, “We don’t need you any longer.” I’ve had women in my congregation who handled a diagnosis of breast cancer much better than the news that their husband was leaving them for another woman.

How do you respond?  Very delicately.  The first thing I tell people is, “ Sometimes smart people make mistakes [in rejecting you].  Or—sometimes smart people get it right. Maybe the person broke off the relationship because he or she could see, down the road, that it wasn’t going to work out. Perhaps you would see, later on, that you wouldn’t have been happy in that position for which you were rejected.  The most important response to rejection—and this is the key—is that you not try to handle it alone. When the world gives you the message that you are not special, you need to surround yourself with people who will say to you, “You are special.” The one time in my life when I was turned down for a job I really wanted, I was absolutely distraught. What saved me was a colleague who had been through the same experience. He took my wife and me out to dinner.  He told jokes, ordered a good bottle of wine. It didn’t change my situation, but he reassured me that I was somebody worth cherishing.

I don’t want people not to be afraid.  You couldn’t cross the street safely if you didn’t have a sense of fear.  You need to know the difference between the fire that cooks your dinner and the fire that burns you house down.  What we need is a realistic sense of what we need to fear, and where fear is exaggerated or unnecessary. You drive carefully, but you don’t assume that every other driver is going to run a red light. You can’t be afraid to fly because you are afraid the plane is going to crash.  Statistically that’s not so, and in any case it’s out of your hands.

Another example: I was speaking to a woman who was afraid that if she took her child to the mall, her child was going to be kidnapped.  I tried to tell her how rare that was.  She was still fearful.  At that point, I suggested she see a therapist. In two sessions, the therapist found out what was bothering her.  It was not the fear of kidnapping but the fear that her mother-in-law thought she was an inadequate mother, and was always criticizing her.  And once we identified the problem, then not only could she shop, but she could deal with her fear more realistically.

So when someone has an exaggerated fear—fear of heights, of airplanes, a compulsion to wash their hands every half hour, that, I assume, is masking another fear the person is reluctant to face.

Turn to others.  Don’t try to do it yourself.  In this congregation [Temple Israel, Natick, Massachusetts] we have a couple of dozen people who have been out of work for a year.  They have formed support groups. They network, they trade information.  They are jobless, but they are not alone in their joblessness. And the more people you connect with, the more chance you have of finding someone who can help you. 

I quote a doctor who said, “Anthrax is not contagious.  Fear of anthrax is.” When the Homeland Security sends the level up to red, a lot of people get anxiety attacks.  There were doctors who calculated that more people would die from the results of anxiety after 9/11 than died on 9/11 [in the attack on the World Trade Center].

The answer, I think, is to try to see all these things in perspective. Worrying has got to do a job on you—on your health, on your ability to sleep, on all sorts of hormonal levels.

Turn to others.  Don’t try to do it yourself.  In this congregation [Temple Israel, Natick, Massachusetts] we have a couple of dozen people who have been out of work for a year.  They have formed support groups. They network, they trade information.  They are jobless, but they are not alone in their joblessness. And the more people you connect with, the more chance you have of finding someone who can help you. 

I think the root of the anger is fear.  It is considered unmanly for a man to admit he’s afraid, so it becomes anger. What is at the root of the fear, I think, is the sense of events being out of control. But if you listen to some of these talk shows that feed on this anger, you hear the message to all these vulnerable people out there that you’re right, they’re really out to get you. That’s a disservice. What do you do with this anger?  Try to use it constructively. Figure out what’s worth being angry about, and what is just a matter of conspiracy theories. The other thing is, democracy is set up so you do have a sense of influence over what happens. Moneyed interests have a lot of control over how laws are made, but we still have elections.  And if the Supreme Court doesn’t totally hand us over to corporations, we can make our voice heard.

First of all, when somebody says to me, “I don’t believe in God,” I don’t argue with them.  I say, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in. Because there are a lot of Gods I don’t believe in either.” Often we find out we don’t believe in the same thing. It becomes at that point a matter of terminology. If you don’t believe in God, fine.  Would you be happier if I said, “There are resources within you and around you that maybe you’re not aware of. You are capable of being greater than you think you are. You are capable of being more patient, more compassionate, braver.  For me that’s the proof of God. If you want to phrase it differently, fine.

You can be stronger, braver, and more enduring than you think you can.  People surprise me all the time. I surprise myself. When I have to do something that I think is too much for me, from somewhere that I will never be able to explain I find the resources and the strength to do it. And I see all sorts of people doing this.