In his commentary on Avot 5:19, Maharam Shik throws in a discussion point that is not directly related to that mishnah at all, but which he considers important. He writes:
“Fear and joy are two conflicting
feelings and, in a place where either dominates, there is no room for the other”.
Since he has made the same point on earlier occasions, the previous
one being on Avot 4:24 (the context being Shmuel HaKatan’s caution not to
express joy at the downfall of one’s enemy), this is clearly something that
troubles him.
While neither joy nor fear are mentioned in Avot 5:19, both
feature on numerous occasions elsewhere in the tractate. For those who love
lists of references, joy can be found at Avot 4:1, 4:24, 6:1 and 6:6, while
fear appears in Avot 2:11, 3:3 and 3:7, 3:11, 3:21.
The fact that joy and fear do not appear together in any of
these teachings might tempt us to conclude, as Maharam Shik has done, that they
are mutually exclusive: if you feel the one, you cannot in his view be feeling
the other. But is this reasoning borne out by our own experiences as human
beings? I do not think so.
As a final point, I add that our feelings are given to us
for a purpose: to serve as a reality check. Joy, fear, anger, love, hate,
despondency and indifference are part of the emotional armory of every human.
We do not need to look to verses from Tanach or to scholarly disquisitions in
order to ascertain whether two or more emotions can be felt together. All we
need do is look within ourselves.
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