Rabbi Julie’s sermon, “Days of Awe” for Kol Nidre, 5786, October 1, 2025

“Code blue was called, and when I reached the room, a nurse was performing the Heimlich maneuver with no success.  Being the senior physician, I took over, not wanting the elderly woman’s impending death on the hands of the nurse.  Standing behind the choking woman with my arms encircling her, I performed multiple abdominal thrusts, initially to no avail.   Her oxygen saturation was steadily dropping, and her extremities, then her torso, began turning blue.  My abdominal thrusts became more frantic.  She then began to lose consciousness, and I could feel her life ebbing away.  Amazingly, that may have saved her. By starting to lose consciousness, her musculature relaxed enough for the food she was choking on to come flying out.  She immediately started breathing, her color returned to normal”, and her life was saved.

“Life-threatening emergencies always evoke a certain amount of fear”, admits this retired Shomrei physician.  “This one was pure terror.  I cannot describe how frightening it is to feel someone literally dying in your arms, how difficult it is to avoid letting terror devolve into panic.  It was only later that I was able to reflect on how tenuous something as fundamental as taking a breath can be.  This is where the awe comes in, the realization that the ability to inhale and exhale, a process we rarely have to think about, should never be taken for granted.  How awe-some it is that something as magnificent and infinitely precious as being alive depends on the simple act of being able to draw a breath!”^[1]

* * *

The High Holy-Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are together called the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe.  “Let us speak of the sacred power of this day, ki hu norah v’ayom”, for it is profound and awe-inspiring.^[2]  Though our prayerbook, translates norah as ‘awe-inspiring’, in modern Hebrew the word norah has a negative connotation, more awful than awesome.  Likewise, in English, the etymology of the word “awe” links to earlier words that refer to fear, dread, horror, or terror.^[3]  Both the English word ‘awe’ and the Hebrew words Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe, emerged in the Middle Ages, a time of plagues, famine and war for everyone, and a time of widespread religious persecution for Jews.   It was the dual meaning of Yamim Noraim, which evokes both fear and awe, that first made me curious about the interplay between the two.

* * *

For the last fifteen years, Professor Dacher Keltner and scientists around the world have been looking to find awe in the lab.  They started with a definition: “awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries we don’t understand.”^[4]  Next, they charted this elusive emotion with measures of the brain and body – with physical responses like tears and goosebumps, and with thousands of personal stories describing experiences of awe across twenty cultures and languages.^[5]   They concluded, “[human beings] can find awe anywhere. Because we have a basic need for awe wired into our brains and bodies, finding awe is easy if we just take a moment and wonder.”  The study of awe was motivated by the question, “how can we live the good life, [a life] enlivened by joy and community and meaning, that brings a sense of worth and belonging?”  After twenty years of teaching and researching human happiness, Professor Keltner concludes, “Find more awe.”

* * *

“When I feel awe – writes a past president of Shomrei – which for me encompasses an overwhelming sense of wonder and smallness in the face of something much greater than myself – it almost never involves fear.  I know “fear” is often included in definitions of “awe”, but that’s just not my experience.  When I gaze at the vastness of a starry sky or at the beauty of a baby’s smile, or touch the enormity of a sequoia (se-koy-a) tree as I inhale the aroma of the woods, or hear a magnificent piece of music in a certain way, I experience what I can only call “awe” because no other word captures it.  It makes me feel small, but not afraid.  In fact, it is a feeling of smallness that I relish and that I chase after.”

“To be clear”, he continues, “it’s not that I am a fearless person.  I often feel afraid, but mostly those are not the moments when I am experiencing awe, and in fact, I wonder if a moment of awe might be a good antidote to most of my fears.”^[6]

As it turns out, although awe can sometimes be mixed with fear, studies show “that most moments of awe – about three-quarters – feel good, and only about one-quarter are flavored with threat.”^[7]  And while fear and awe may be mixed together on Yom Kippur, when we imagine standing before God in judgment for our very lives, on most other days, everyday awe is not.  Our vocal and facial expressions for awe are very far from fear.  And when different emotions are mapped computationally, “awe is…far away from fear, horror, and anxiety…Instead feelings of awe are located near admiration, appreciation of beauty, calmness, and joy.”^[8]  As one long time member wrote, “awe opens us to the universe.  Fear contracts us.”^[9]

* * *

Ultimately, everyday awe can be found in what Keltner calls the “eight wonders of life.”  When analyzing thousands of stories of human experiences with awe in twenty languages across continents and cultures, awe fell into one of these eight areas ninety-five percent of the time.   Most often, awe was encountered in moral beauty – the strength, courage, and kindness of others.  This is like my experience of being awed by my friend Dahlia, who has a form of dwarfism that makes her less than four feet tall; one day she went right up to a playground of kids who were staring and pointing at her and invited them to ask her questions about why she is so little.  The second ‘wonder of life’, collective movement, can be experienced at a concert when we dance or football game when we cheer, but also at Yom Kippur services when we bow and beat our chests as one.

The third ‘wonder of life’, called ‘wild awe’, is found in nature.  It’s like the awe of seeing the “breathtaking beauty and marvel of the Grand Canyon for the first time,” according to one Shabbat regular^[10].  The fourth ‘wonder of life’ is musical awe, which I experience every year when Alan Stepansky plays Kol Nidre on the cello; it’s the awe a Shomrei theatre lover describes at a recent performance “whose every song lifted ones spirits to unimaginable places.”^[11]  And similarly, the fifth ‘wonder of life’, visual awe, can be found in Guadi’s fantastical buildings in Barcelona or the sea of white we are surrounded by on Yom Kippur.

The last three of these “eight wonders of life” that catalyze awe are particularly present on Yom Kippur.  Number six, religious experiences. Number seven, encountering life and death.  This is central to the theme of the haunting prayer, “b’rosh hashanah y’kateyvun, on Rosh Hashanah it is written, u’veyom tzom Kippur y’chateymun, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die.”   The very purpose of the day is to face our mortality so that we can make the most of this precious life we have been given.  Without the terror of driving on an icy road at the edge of a mountain, as described by another congregant, “fingers gripping the steering wheel, I said the Shema…alert for the crunching, cracking, slipping, skidding, squealing”, we are supposed to ask “How am I alive?” and “give way to the fear, awe and absolute gratitude.”^[12] Likewise, fasting, prayer, and reflection are meant to lead to new insights about our relationships, our purpose in the world, and the ways we want to do better.  The intense period of introspection is intended to cultivate the conditions for the last of the eight wonders, epiphanies.  Yom Kippur, in the words of one Shomrei father, reminds me “as a human, particularly a Jewish one, [to be] in awe of every day I’m alive and what my grandparents survived, so I, and now my children, can be here.”

* * *

I reached out to two dozen Shomrei members to ask them to share stories of fear and awe with me.  I wanted to see how their encounters with awe would map onto the eight wonders of life that Keltner identified in his research.  Many of the stories they shared were of once-in-a-lifetime experiences of awe.

* * *

A recent Jew by choice writes, “for me, my conversion in the mikveh was one of the most spellbinding moments of awe that I have experienced in my lifetime.  It was a sensation of complete transformation within my body and soul, based on supreme gratitude that G-d had allowed me to mark the ocassion, and the sense that in a way, a new chapter of my life was waiting.  It was also an intensely physical experience; I can’t remember a time where I was so fueled by adrenaline!”^[13]

Another congregant wrote of an unforgettable Friday night during her childhood the same week as the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.  “I remember, being told by my parents to eat quickly because they were going to temple, and I said something like: ‘We never go to temple!  Why are we going tonight when they’ve said they’re going to bomb us?;  The next thing I remember is sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car beside my brother, my parents in front, nobody talking.  I was…stark-raving terrified.  When we got to Temple Emanuel, the parking lot was overflowing with cars and people.  More people than ever had come to temple on a Friday night… The awe came in the sanctuary, which was packed.  There was no orchestrated campaign to get people to come.”  Despite the bomb threat, with courage and conviction, “Everyone just SHOWED UP… I felt that the rightness of my cause and the strength of the community around me would protect me. I realized I was no longer in the least bit afraid.”^[14]

* * *

For Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “life without wonder is not worth living.”^[15]   Awe and wonder are not relegated to the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, but are meant to be accessible every day of the year.  For both Heshel and Keltner, living with more awe is nothing less than the key to our happiness.^[16] And it happens more frequently than we might realize. According to Kelnter’s research, “people experience awe two to three times a week. That’s once every couple of days.”  Experiencing awe, in the words of one Heschel-loving congregant, can be as simple as noticing “God’s creation, the earth, the sea, a sunset, a newborn child.”^[17]

And both Heschel and Keltner also agree that while awe is a magnificent human experience in and of itself, awe ultimately leads to something greater.  Studies show that “simply being in a context of awe” leads to a change in perspective and can even improve our mental health.  Keltner writes, “we can quiet the nagging voice of the interfering neurotic simply by locating ourselves in the context of more awe.”^[18]   Brain scans show that “when we experience awe, regions of the brain that are associated with…self-criticism, anxiety, and even depression, quiet down.”^[19]   Remarkably, “people who feel even five minutes of everyday awe are more curious about music, poetry, scientific discoveries, philosophy and questions about life and death.  They [also] “feel more comfortable with mysteries, with that which cannot be explained.”^[20]

Awe also leads to a greater sense of interdependence and concern for others.  In one study, participants were either asked to look in one direction at a group of magnificent blue gum trees or in the other direction at a mundane science building.  The group that gazed at the trees, when asked questions afterwards, were focused on selfish concerns.  And when a person walked by (as part of the experiment) and dropped a bunch of books and pens, study participants who had been looking at the trees picked up more pens that those who were looking at the building.^[21]  Awe expands our sense of “community” and “collaboration” and connectedness; awe expands the kindness we feel toward others.^[22]

For Heschel, the experience of wonder and awe shifts our orientation to life itself.  “Intrinsic to the experience of wonder is the sense that we are being asked the ultimate question, that “something is asked of us.”   According to Heschel, when human beings approach the world with wonder, we cannot but ask, “how shall we ever reciprocate for breathing and thinking, for sight and hearing, for love and achievement.”^[23]  Ultimately, this is the sense of awe we strive to touch on the Yamim Noraim, on the Days of Awe.  But the true goal, Heschel urges us, “should be to live life in radical amazement…to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.  Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible.”  Even with all the pain and suffering in the world, even with all the fears and the brokeness, if we approach the world with wonder we can catch glimpses of the “phenomenal” and the “incredible” each and every day.    May we be sealed for wonder and awe in the Book of Life.  G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

^[1] True story, Shomrei member, Craig Eichner.

^[2] Opening line of the prayer, u’netaneh tokef, recited in Musaf on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

^[3] Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder, p. 19.

^[4] Keltner, p. xvi.

^[5] Keltner, p. xviii.

^[6] Reflection, Shomrei member, Howie Erichson.

^[7] Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder, p. 25.

^[8] Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder, p. 23.

^[9] Reflection, Rosemary Steinbaum.

^[10] Reflection, Shomrei member, Elinor Alboum.

^[11] Reflection, Shomrei member, Nick Levitin.

^[12] Reflection, Shomrei member, Jan Hoffman.

^[13] True story, Shomrei congregant, Katie Toledano.

^[14] True story.  Shomrei member, Dale Russakoff, Birmingham, September 16, 1963.

^[15] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, p. 41.

^[16] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, p.41.

^[17] Reflection, Shomrei member, Nick Levitin.

^[18] Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder, p. 34.

^[19] Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder, p. 36.

^[20] Keltner, p.40.

^[21] Keltner, p.135.

^[22] Keltner, p. 40.

^[23] Shai Held, The Call of Transcendence, p. 37.

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