It is possible to turn fear into awe

For most of my life I have had a fear of heights. Perhaps like me, you have found that fears get in the way.  On a trip I was planning several years ago, I really wanted to go zip lining. I began imagining the experience, and somehow, to my delight, I did it! I guess I’m afraid of falling, not heights. My secret is I never once looked down. It was amazing, it felt like flying as I imagined! The beginning of wisdom, says Proverbs, is Yirat HaShem.-  Yirat is an interesting word in Hebrew, the same word meaning two different, yet connected emotions: fear and awe. From Proverbs we learn “The beginning of wisdom is fear and/or awe of the Holy One”. I knew those ropes, harnesses and pulleys were safe, and knowing I was safe I was free to feel the awe! Fear is helpful, preventing us from harming ourselves and doing something really dangerous. Fear of consequences prevents us from unethical behavior. Whether it is fear of legal, karmic, natural or Divine consequences.  The beginning of wisdom is Yirat HaShem.  Some degree of fear is helpful, but too much can paralyze, can limit.

Fear is also a powerful motivator. Political races are won by those that arouse fears in the populace. Fear of people that are different has motivated pogroms. Fear can be the pathway to “The Dark Side” according to the wisdom of Yoda (whose name in Hebrew means “to know”).  But fear can be turned to awe. Take a minute to name something silently that you fear. Picture it. Breathe in and acknowledge the fear. There is likely an excellent reason you are scared of this: remember the beginning of wisdom is fear. Breathe out, and as you do, try to release some of that fear that has a hold on you.  Breathe in and out again harder and imagine yourself giving this fear up to the Heavens. “It’s just too much for me oh Holy One, please, You take it!”

These Holy days are called the Days of Awe, not the Days of Fear. The process of Teshuva, return or Repentance has the power to Return us to the Awe we are born with.

To cultivate a feeling of awe we have done many things tonight: the music, beautiful setting, majestic words of our prayers. Another way to cultivate awe is to remember other times we’ve felt awe in our life. What experiences in your life have left you a feeling of jaw-dropping awe?

This past July NASA released the first images capture by the James Webb telescope. The images were from a patch of sky the size of a grain of sand held up in your hand against the night sky. There were thousands of distant galaxies within that tiny piece of sky. The mass of the dense cluster of galaxies acted as a gravitational lens to magnify an even more distant part of the universe.  Light generated by those more distant galaxies, travelling at 186,000 miles per second took 13 billion years to reach our eyes. We are looking at events that happened almost at the dawn of time.  Can you stretch your imagination that far? It is Inspiring just to try

And yet are we too busy to look up at the night sky, the vast Universe and wonder?

Or perhaps your awe-spot is watching nature’s miracles, rainbows, waterfalls, storm clouds. I know a young woman, Dani, she and her husband went backpacking in Ireland this spring, and they came to one town graced by an enormous double bow spanning the valley.  As the entered the town they said to the innkeeper, wow, did you see that amazing rainbow? “Darlin’ we get those every day,” was the reply.

Or perhaps you find awe in the birth of a child, a miraculous event for sure. Also a day’s work for a maternity ward nurse. And then the child grows and hold their head up and smiles, and talks and takes those first wobbly steps. And we get to experience the world anew. Unless we’re too busy:

A child arrived just the other day
Came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay

Learned to walk while I was away
And was talking ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say “I’m gonna be like you, dad”
~Harry Chapin, Cat’s Cradle

Ahhh, to see the world through the eyes of a child.

As young children, we see the world with eyes of wonder, life is wonder-ful.

I find it so sad when that curiosity, that sense of awe and wonder is lost in children. How can we hold on to the wonder, can we consciously cultivate it?

I am fortunate to have raised three of my own children, and to have seen the world through their eyes. As a teacher, I get to share the wonders of nature and of living creatures: of how every heartbeat is a miracle and we are made of stardust, literally. In every moment of our life, there is mystery and magic at the heart of existence.

Science and spirituality can work in synergy to deepen experiences, to live in gratitude and awe at the wonder of each moment. I find inspiration in the magic of relationships in the world: Parts coming together becoming much more than the sum of their individual parts the magic of life.  Life is not a parts list. The difference between life and death is not a missing part, but interactions which stop or go astray. The synergy that is created from no-thing – but rather from the relationships in the spaces between the parts. When there is synergy in a band they create an amazing sound. Loving and supportive relationships create a family, or a synagogue community – that is so much greater than the sum of the parts.  In Jewish tradition the Divine presence herself, Shechinah dwells between 2 or 3 or ten people studying Torah.

The great 20^th centuryRabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z’l’ urges us to live our lives in wonder, “Our goal, he says “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.”

And Maimonides, the great Scientist, Rationalist, of his time says and I agree, that G*d is simply beyond understanding or compare, (yet haven’t I seen You everywhere before?)  Unknowable, mysterious, we yearn to know the Holy composer of this universe, and in the yearning, to find connection.

So perhaps you just don’t feel amazed. What if you are burnt out, the passion for the things you loved a memory, tired, discouraged, struggling to find meaning. A story: There was a student of a Rebbe who was going through a dry spell. The young man was going through the motions, but could find no inspiration in his prayers or his study.  He approached the Rebbe for help- how can I get my mojo back?. The Rebbe said, I cannot help you, only The Holy One can, and I know a place in the forest where when you ask your question you will get an answer BUT you must pay particular attention to the pathway, or you will be hopelessly lost and not find your way back.  And so the two men went. And the Rebbe accompanied him into deep the forest, and left him alone to commune with G*d and nature.

The student heeded the Rabbi, paying particular attention to the pathway –Soon he became totally absorbed in this task. He began to notice things , the way his body was responding to the exertion, his heartbeat responding, it felt pretty good to be alive!. He began to notice things in the forest as well: the lush mossy ground, the majestic trees the sweet calls of the birds.  When he emerged from the forest he was smiling.  So, nu, asked the Rabbi Did the Holy One answer you.   I forgot to ask, I was so involved with the pathway.   The student was so involved in the NOW of living, he was finally alive in the present moment, being fully present, fully himself. “Then I think you have received an answer my son! Said the Rebbe

Even A. Einstein famously declared we do have a choice in the way you live: to “Live your life as if nothing is a miracle, or everything is a miracle.” The sciences reveal a nearly infinite level of complexity underlying the most seemingly ordinary things, as do the mystics. 

Perhaps our obstacle to living in amazement is that  We think we have seen it all before: it’s just a star, or a rainbow, it’s just another kid on the block. We can even become callous to tragic events, “it  is just another school shooting”-G*d forbid!

According to tradition we already knew all this amazing stuff before we were born.

The Talmud explains that the tiny light accompanies each child from the bundle of energy/ souls of the universe into the womb and that light remains as a protective angel until birth. And with that light, the tiny fetus can see to the ends of the universe, but upon birth the angel taps the child and they forget, we spend our lives relearning all the amazing things we knew. Socratic method in teaching is asking questions to draw out our innate wisdom.

Teshuva is returning to THAT, to childhood wonder.

What are you afraid of?  Only the beginning of wisdom is fear.  It is possible to turn the fear into awe. Perhaps the destination of wisdom is awe. We must access the “Awe” of life,

Teshuvah is returning and turning the fear into awe.

A poem

This witchery of life..

It is more than bones

More than the wrist with its individual pulse,

It is praising,

It is giving

Until the giving feels like receiving ~Mary Oliver

AMAZED

May I stay amazed, for all of my days

In all of the ways   of the world’s turning

Amazed at what I’ve got, and not what I’ve not

All soon forgot  in the world’s turning