“Our goal 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, never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
Where have you experienced awe? When? Did the experience of awe influence your life in any way? What brings awe to your eyes and reverence into your heart?
Awe is a human experience of the transcendent piercing apparent reality, a glimpse of the supreme within the mundane. However it may come to us, a moment of awe gives us a small taste of the cosmic mystery, and an intuitive intimation of the divine. Awe does not protest phenomenal reality; rather it offers direct affirmation of the eternal that lies within the worldly. Awe is the invitation to seek, delivered directly to the heart.
Awe—does it belong to either category, the eternal or the ephemeral. Is the experience of awe an invitation or is it the show?
Awe inspired by God's magnitude, exaltedness, and awesome power never leaves a person or parts from them all the days of their life. It is the gateway to pure love and intense yearning.
Out of all human yearnings and strivings, is awe a central one we aspire for? Is it central to you? Why is that the case?
Rabbi Simcha Bunam of Pzhysha once said to his students: "Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: 'For my sake was the world created,' and in his left: 'I am but dust and ashes.'"
Awe inspires us to be humble. How does this image of two pockets affect you?
(3) God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness God called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.
The word 'Chanukah' means 'dedication'. The festival of Chanukah commemorates the victory of the few over the many. It comes from the same root as the word 'Chinuch' which means 'education'. When the Maccabees entered the Temple and began to reclaim it from the Greeks, they immediately relit the ner tamid (eternal light), which burned constantly in the Temple and has parallels in our synagogues to this day.
(א) הַנֵּרוֹת הַלָּלוּ שֶׁאָנוּ מַדְלִיקִין, עַל הַנִּסִּים וְעַל הַנִּפְלָאוֹת וְעַל הַתְּשׁוּעוֹת וְעַל הַמִּלְחָמוֹת, שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה, עַל יְדֵי כֹּהֲנֶיךָ הַקְּדוֹשִׁים. וְכָל שְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי הַחֲנֻכָּה הַנֵּרוֹת הַלָּלוּ קֹדֶשׁ הֵם וְאֵין לָנוּ רְשׁוּת לְהִשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ בָּהֶם, אֶלָּא לִרְאוֹתָם בִּלְבָד, כְּדֵי לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל לְשִׁמְךָ הַגָּדוֹל עַל נִסֶּיךָ וְעַל נִפְלְאוֹתֶיךָ וְעַל יְשׁוּעָתֶךָ.
(1) We kindle these lights on account of the miracles, the deliverances and the wonders which thou didst work for our fathers, by means of thy holy priests. During all the eight days of Chanukah these lights are sacred, neither is it permitted us to make any profane use of them; but we are only to look at them, in order that we may give thanks unto thy name for thy miracles, thy deliverances and thy wonders.
These are no ordinary lights. They have special significance. They are holy. How can we tie yirah to the lighting of our Chanukah candles each night?