A few people have been asking about the Rosh HaShanah messages and I am happy to share the recordings on you tube here, with the text of sermon on AWE pasted below.
1st Day Rosh HaShanah - Awe
2nd Day - Rabbis' Discussion
1st Day Rosh Hashanah 5784 - Awe
One of the particular ways, and there are a few, in which Brits mock Americans’ use of the English language is the absurd frequency of the word “awesome!’’ “That’s awesome” for almost anything that is, as we English might say, “not too bad,” or we might add a “splendid, super or lovely” if it is actually something good. Often the overuse of a word devalues it and it loses its meaning. The word awesome refers to something that has inspired awe, great admiration or fear. What is awe in its essence, and are we experiencing it really when we name a moment or an object as awesome? We are entering the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, norah, which might be a good time to explore what awe really is, and how it can impact us and the world. Sounds awesome, right?
In Hebrew the word that would most accurately be translated as awe is yirah, the same root as norah as in Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe. Yirah often shows up as yirat shamayim, the awe or fear of heaven and has multiple meanings. Jacob is on a journey from Beer Sheva to Haran, fleeing from his brother Esau who wants to kill him after Jacob stole his father’s blessing, and he finds himself in a certain place where he takes some stones, lays on one of them and has the extraordinary dream of a ladder linking heaven and earth, with angels, going up and coming down that ladder, all accompanied by a very reassuring promise from God of Divine protection and many descendants. When Jacob wakes up he is shaken.
וַיִּירָא֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר מַה־נּוֹרָ֖א הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה אֵ֣ין זֶ֗ה כִּ֚י אִם־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזֶ֖ה שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃
Awe-struck, says the Torah in Genesis 28:17, he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.”
Pretty awesome dream, right?
Mah norah hamakom hazeh, how awesome is this place, which has been set to a powerful and well-known chant by Rabbi Shefa Gold, is the consciousness that hamakom, the place, is any place where we allow ourselves to experience awe. The powerful challenge in a world that feels so dangerous and chaotic and full of distractions, is to experience wonder every single day.
Part of my summer reading was Dacher Keltner’s: Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it can Transform your Life. This powerful book seeks to define awe and explore it in different contexts, based on some compelling science and research, from 2600 stories in 26 countries with diverse cultures. Keltner and his team define awe as:
Being in the presence of something vast and mysterious that transcends your current understanding of the world.
Pretty good definition, right? Keltner explains that “something vast” has different meanings:
Vastness can be physical - for example, when you stand next to a 350-foot-tall tree or hear a singer's voice or electric guitar fill the space of an arena. Vastness can be temporal, as when a laugh transports you back in time to the sounds or aromas of your childhood. P.7
Let’s just take a moment to consider what we most associate with awe; a time and place where you were in a state of awe. Share.
A sunrise, a beautiful super blue full moon, majestic mountains, a stormy sky, a rainbow, a stunning tree, an inspiring building, an ocean...Something profound happens to us when our senses are enlivened by the world around us, and the rabbis of the Talmud teach us that a way to tune into this depth is through the ritual of brachot/blessings, striving to say 100 brachot, 100 blessings every day when we see, hear, smell, touch, taste something. In fact the Talmud warns:
אסור לו לאדם שיהנה מן העוה"ז בלא ברכה וכל הנהנה מן העוה"ז בלא ברכה מעל
The Sages taught: One is forbidden to derive benefit from this world without reciting a blessing beforehand. And anyone who derives benefit from this world without a blessing, it is as if they have misused a holy object from the Temple. Brachot 35a
The whole created world is sacred, like the Temple and if we benefit from it without acknowledging its source, this text suggests, it is as if we are stealing something. There is a whole liturgy of blessings for sensory experience - seeing mountains, seas, rivers and deserts, we might say oseh ma’aseh bereshit, blessing the sovereign of time and space for continually performing the works of creation; seeing a beautiful animal or bird, we might say sh’cacha zeh b’olamo, blessing God for having such creatures in the world and so on, with five different blessings for fragrances, five for food and drink and so much more.
Saying a bracha is more than simply obeying a rabbinic command; it is about elevating a daily experience into an awesome one! As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel puts it his classic God in Search of Man:
This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.
Our senses are so full of wonder and mystery and another book that I have been reading recently is An Immense World - How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around us by Pulitzer prize-winning author Ed Yong. This is a magical, deeply scientific exploration of how different animals and species perceive and experience the world through smell, taste, sight, color, pain, heat, contact, vibrations and sound. Those of us with dogs know very well how they sniff their way through the world with sensual delight in smells that might disgust us.
Yong says that “each creature is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.”
There is a wonderful word for this sensory bubble - Umwelt...from the German word for "environment," but...Umwelt is specifically the part of those surroundings that an animal can sense and experience - its perceptual world... a multitude of creatures could be standing in the same physical space and have completely different Umwelten.”
Animals may not say a bracha for their intricate sensory perception, but it is how they experience the world and how they play, eat, protect themselves and survive. And who knows if they too are experiencing awe?
Awe is not just about our Umwelt, our sense and our relationship with the natural world. There is the awe that comes in human relationships, in art and music, in the profundity of birth and death, in epiphanies when we grasp an understanding of an essential truth, and mystical or religious awe. In Dacher Keltner’s words:
When overtaken by mystical awe we may feel goose bumps, tear up, tremble, or shake. We may bow or look upward and raise our arms to the sky, vestiges of seeking embrace. Sometimes we even call out, or quietly observe wow or whoa, close relatives of the sacred sound om. P.203
Feel free to move your bodies and call out whoas and wows. Whatever our relationship to Judaism might be and the complicated and often alienating liturgy that accompanies these Days of Awe, there is something awesome about the gathering and rituals. As Keltner puts it:
Moving in unison becomes religious ceremony. Awe-related bowing, shaking, prostration, or looking to the sky give rise to ceremonial acts of reverence. Such rituals bring about a shared physiology, feeling, and attention to being part of something larger than the self. P. 209
A shared religious or mystical experience like this can be transformative as we transcend our individual selves and become part of a greater whole. Keltner cites empirical studies with thousands of participants that find that “a sense of spiritual engagement is associated with increased well-being, a reduced likelihood of depression, and greater life expectancy.” There is also a tendency for much more kindness and compassion as a result of these experiences.
Jewish tradition emphasizes yirah, awe, as a crucial part of spiritual life and equates it to wisdom.
Echoed in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 111 verse 10 says:
רֵ֘אשִׁ֤ית חׇכְמָ֨ה ׀ יִרְאַ֬ת יְהֹוָ֗ה שֵׂ֣כֶל ט֭וֹב לְכׇל־עֹֽשֵׂיהֶ֑ם
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Eternal;
all who practice it gain sound understanding.
And in the third chapter of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says
אִם אֵין חָכְמָה, אֵין יִרְאָה. אִם אֵין יִרְאָה, אֵין חָכְמָה
Where there is no wisdom, there is no awe.
Where there is no awe, there is no wisdom.
Chochmah, wisdom, is so much more than intellectual knowledge, but a deeper, embodied knowing that is connected to awe. In another section of God in Search of Man, Heschel writes:
Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding. Awe is itself an act of insight into a learning greater than ourselves. Awe is a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality...Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.
Do you remember Dacher Keltner’s definition of awe earlier? It is pretty similar to Heschel’s: “Being in the presence of something vast and mysterious that transcends your current understanding of the world.”
Part of Keltner’s book that really struck me were the studies that found that experiencing awe has profound physiological effects, reducing inflammation. Measuring other positive feelings like pride and amusement, the study found that:
...it was only awe that predicted lower levels of inflammation. Everyday awe, then, can be a pathway for avoiding chronic inflammation and the diseases of the twenty-first century such inflammation is associated with including depression, chronic anxiety, heart disease, autoimmune problems, and despair. 118
Wow! Now, obviously I am not a research scientist and if you doubt this conclusion, it was based on a pretty rigorous study. Anyway, some of you may be wondering why with all the crises we are facing as a civilisation right now; climate change, the record breaking temperatures, devastating fires, floods and earthquakes around the globe, serious threats to democracy in Israel and elsewhere, gun violence, increased antisemitism and so much more, why am I talking about awe? Well for one thing, as has already been mentioned, feeling awe is good for us physically, emotionally and spiritually and makes us better, kinder people. I believe that if we have a sense of wonder, gratitude and appreciation for the natural world, we are far more likely to respect the earth, this fragile planet. Spiritual activism can be about self care in a stressful world, but also widens our capacity for compassion. With all of the studies in those 26 different cultures, Keltner and his team found that the largest category of awe by far was not awe in nature, in a religious or spiritual setting, music, art, but in moral beauty.
it was other people's courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming. Around the world we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty, the first wonder of life..”.p.11
Personally, I have been experiencing tremendous awe since having my serious biking accident a few weeks ago - the awe that I am alive, that my body has healed so well, knowing how much worse this could have been, awe of Blake, the person who found me unconscious, woke me up, called the ambulance, took care of my bike, awe of so many people, including many of you here, who showed up with care, concern and support, with moral beauty.
Yes, the world feels like a mess and perhaps we all have to find our way to show up for Israel, for our own country, for the planet, but how about we start the year with a commitment to enter into practices of daily wonder, of experiencing awe as a way to align us to being in the presence of something vast and mysterious.
The beloved American poet Mary Oliver experienced awe in nature a great deal in her life by oceans, beaches and woods in Massachusetts and Florida and her poem Mindful captures this so beautifully.
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Awesome, right! In a similar vein, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel brought us the phrase “radical amazement,” which is closely related to awe.
Our goal, says Heschel, should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
May this year bring us daily opportunities for radical amazement, wonder and awe that inspire us to be healthy, kind and grateful, sharing awesome experiences in community together. Mah nora hamakom hazeh - how awesome is this place.
Shanah tovah!
Thank you to our incredible staff team and volunteers that have been working so tirelessly and with such dedication to make these Holidays happen. We hope to see you on Yom Kippur, or this Shabbat, Shabbat Shuva when we are hosting Michael Harlow for a spirited musical Friday night service. Beofre Kol Nidre on Sunday night, we have an opportunity to see the world premier of the film about our Torah's journey to Boulder. We hope you can join us.
We are in the middle of the asseret y'mei teshuva, the ten days of returning from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur, which is accompanied by some powerful, daily liturgy - "zochreynu l'chaim, melech chafeytz bachaim, v'kotveynu b'sefer chaim, l'ma'anacha elohim chaim - remember us for life, sovereign who delights in life and write us in the Book of Life for the sake of the God of life." That is a lot of emphasis on LIFE and being written in the book. It seems that it is not just about being alive, but about the quality of our lives, asking that we be remembered in ways that our lives are meaningful, rich, that we live with purpose and with blessing. At the end of Yom Kippur, kotveynu changes to chotmeynu, - from "may we be written" to "may we be sealed." May we have the merit to be written and sealed in that book for beautiful lives filled with purpose!
Gmar chatimah tovah! Shanah Tovah
Rabbi Marc
