Yirah–Awe: Accompanying an Awe-Filled Journey

Parashat Lech L'cha invites us to accompany Abram on his journey as we watch him cultivate awe within his soul. Walking alongside Abram, we witness his response to both grand and mundane moments…Completely awed by the moment, Abram responds with silence, contemplating the outcome, hoping that the encounter with the divine voice and the sacred word would endure far beyond the spoken moment.
-Rabbi Richard M.C. Kellner

"Awe is a natural human response to an overwhelming profound experience....But only an inner instrument that has been polished and honed will find just as much awe in less dramatic situations...Cultivate the capacity to feel awe and the whole world becomes awesome."
-Alan Morinis

"When we stand in Awe, our lips do not demand speech, knowing that if we spoke, we would deprave ourselves. In such moments talk is an abomination. All we want is to pause, to be still, that the moment may last... The meaning of the things we revere is overwhelming and beyond the grasp of our understanding."
-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abram's silence demonstrates the awe within him being perfectly in balance. We would expect Abram to respond by reaching out to his beloved Sarai or his nephew Lot to share with them the grandeur he just experienced and the awe he felt. Abram's silence, an expression of awe, permits him to recognize God's presence in his life, whereas the spoken word would have minimized that awe-inspiring moment of hearing God's voice.
When Abram finally does speak, after his journey, he addresses Sarai...

Abram's yirah is no longer in balance. God had already reassured him that his descendants would possess the land. How quickly Abram has forgotten this promise! His yirah is misdirected toward Pharaoh's power ratherthan toward God's. Had Abram been able to direct his awe properly in this less dramatic situation, he might have behaved differently.
-Rabbi Richard M.C. Kellner

There is a story about Rabbi Nachman Kossover, a great Chasidic preacher who always perceived the divine name before him by seeing the divinity in the faces of those in his synagogue. Times changed and he found himself as a merchant in the marketplace, where he could no longer concentrate on God's presence. He hired a special assistant to remind him of the godliness of every soul. In the midst of the chaos of the marketplace, he would look at the face of his assistant, and then Reb Nachman would remember God's name.
As we walk through nature or the marketplace, let us notice the wonder. As we look upon the face of another, we can behold God's presence. When we can perceive the divine seeds, even the mundane can become magical.
-Rabbi Richard M.C. Kellner

Questions to Ask

• In what ways does cognitive analysis get in the way of your being captivated by the grandeur of the moment?
  
• What encounters with people or nature have inspired awe within you?
  
• Think about another human being. What about that person inspires awe within you? How do you see God's presence within that person?