Joy and fear: can you feel both at the same time?

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.

After a gap of several decades, I can still clearly recall my feelings when I exited Dublin’s Holles Street Maternity Hospital with my firstborn child in my arms. I was literally shaking with sheer joy that here before my very eyes was the baby my wife and I had fervently wished for, coupled with a deep fear that I had just exchanged my comfort area for an adventure in parenthood for which I had no experience or training and in which, I felt, I was way out of my depth. I’m sure that many readers of this post may have comparable mixed-feeling sensations of being torn between the powerful emotions of joy and fear.

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.