Days of Atonement & Awe

a·tone·ment (n.) def.:  a satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends; expiation

awe (n.) def.:  a mixed feeling of reverence, fear, and wonder

As I shared in my most recent post, the Jewish high holy days are a way of marking time that appeals to me, and as I write these words today, it happens to be Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement—the highest of the high holy days and the most significant day in Judaism’s religious calendar.  It is a day when—like Easter in the Christian tradition—even some of the most unobservant of those of the Jewish faith may find their way into a synagogue, and it is the last of what are sometimes referred to as the Days of Awe, a period of time that as I pointed out last time is one of self-reflection and self-reckoning:  a reboot for the year to come.

But as I reboot this time, with the new school year now well in stride, I’ve been enduring Ian’s remnants for the past five miserably rainy days, watching the pictures coming out of southwest Florida—reminding myself with each complaint that “at least your roof is still over your head”—and I cannot help but think more intensely and intently about the concept of atonement.  The injuries being endured by Ian’s survivors are the direct result of the injury we have committed to the planet’s climate, and as the Colorado river dries up (another big story in recent news), the lives of over 50 million people are being put at risk as a direct result of the injurious demands of a whole range of human behaviors—from agriculture to homes to (craziest of all) [expletive deleted] golf courses in an [expletive deleted] desert! Add in our injury to the pollinators we rely on for a third of our food supply, our injury to the waters that provide sustenance for over 3 billion humans, and our injury to truth-telling, threatening democratic societies around the world, and well…we Homo sapiens have a lot of atoning to do.

What’s more, that’s with me simply focusing on an incomplete listing of the “injury” part of atonement’s definition. I haven’t even touched on all the social and economic wrongs in need of amending in this world, and so with such an overwhelming amount of atoning to do, it’s enough to make one want to throw one’s hands up in despair and give up—something, sadly, many of the millennials and Gen Z generation are doing as they deliberately decide not to have children because of climate change and today’s economic challenges.

But anyone who has read anything I have ever written knows that “hands in despair” is almost never where I leave things (confessing that Notes from the Trenches was just plain grim). While I believe it is critical to face even the harshest truths without blinders of any kind, I believe equally strongly that we must do so because it is the only way to heal.  Atonement cannot happen without honest confession.  Amends cannot be made without acknowledgement of the harm. We cannot repair a relationship or a world without taking responsibility for the alientation we have caused—the sin we have done.

Nor can owning our sin be a “one-and-done.” Instead of thinking or living in terms of an annual Day of Atonement, I want to suggest that we think of each and every single one of our days as ones for atoning.  Each time we walk or bike instead of driving, we are amending our impact on climate change.  Each time we support a local farmer, plant pollinator friendly gardens, avoid using pesticides or fertilizers, or reduce our consumption of meat, we atone for the poor choices of both earlier generations and (for many of us) our earlier selves. When we, individually or as a society, deliberately choose healing actions on a daily basis in response to the injuries and wrongs of ourselves and others, then the concept of Yom Kippur isn’t just an annual self-analysis; it is a way of living. 

Which brings me to the other concept I’ve been thinking about both intensely and intently these past several days:  awe.  Even with all my learning about Judaism (my mentor in college and graduate school was the Jewish philosopher, Steven Schwarzschild), I have regularly puzzled about why this period in the religious calendar is regularly called the Days of Awe.  I know the official, codified reason, but the notion that one can create conditions for awe has always struck me as a little bizarre (a sensation not limited to my experience of Judaism; all religious liturgy and ceremony has just never done anything for me).  To me, awe is something spontaneous, infrequent, and usually associated with the natural world—not a series of ritual observances.

However, as I was outlining my thoughts for this post, I happened to read an editorial in the newspaper and hear a story on NPR’s 1A show that jogged my thinking a little.  The author of the former was writing about how “learning to find small satisfactions where we can is the key to life during climate change.”  He was pointing out that the reality of climate change is not going away anytime soon and, thus, we “must find beauty in the here and now…[taking our] small satisfactions where [we] find them” (Cummings). 

His words then primed me for what happened later while listening to Avery Kleinman interview Temple Grandin about her new book on visual learners.  The two of them were discussing the variety of ways humans think (words vs. images) when Grandin mentions some recent research about dogs that suggests that because their olfactory sense is also wired into their visual cortex that when dogs think, they use 3D images of their smells—that their sense of smell is fully 3-dimensional in character.

Now I know it’s the biology nerdling in me, but like Kleinman (who actually says “lifting my dropped jaw off the desk”), I felt this overwhelming sense of awe upon learning this new piece of knowledge (the hairs on my arms even stood up), and that’s when I had one of those mini-epiphanies we all get from time to time:

1) Moments of awe present themselves daily, if only we are open and receptive to experiencing and acknowledging them.  2) Furthermore, they will be present no matter what the conditions of the world are to which we find ourselves needing to adapt (such as climate change).  3) Therefore, awe—simply put—is all around us all the time, and it is ours for the having if we will only do so.

Wow, I thought, sitting there in the car with this freshly minted though, and suddenly, I am feeling a lot less puzzled about why Judaism might refer to this time in their religious calendar as the Days of Awe.  Just as the concept of Yom Kippur can teach us that atonement is a way of living that puts one right with the world—one that truly can bring expiation for any of the world’s sins—so too can Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the Hebrew for the high holy days) teach us that there will always be awe in our lives if we will only perceive it.  The fundamental truth is that as we are repairing the world’s injuries and righting its wrong, repenting actively for our own contribution to the harm, we also need to be embracing the awe that accompanies the healing.

Which I now realize is part of what has always appealed to me about how Judaism celebrates the coming of the next year. I have written before about my belief that sin and salvation are the spiritual equivalent of breathing and how, like actual breathing, it is what you do with the life the breathing produces that matters. So too must atoning and awing go hand-in-hand, laying the foundation for a purposeful and more profound existence.

And when we engage in an annual ritual to deliberately remind ourselves of this fundamental truth, we do a better job of practicing it the remaining days of the year. So for my Jewish friends and Jewish readers out there: my gratitude for a cultural gift that can enlighten and inform all of our lives and Shana Tova!

References

Cummings, K. W. (Oct. 5, 2022) Learning to Find Beauty in the Changing Climate.  The Baltimore Sun. https://digitaledition.baltimoresun.com/html5/desktop/production/default.aspx?edid=f18ee75d-54f8-4c33-b299-a1243519e536.

Italie, L. (Oct. 2, 2022) Going Without Children.  The Baltimore Sun. https://digitaledition.baltimoresun.com/html5/desktop/production/default.aspx?&edid=fd156cb0-8d26-4e6e-8955-e0cbda2a564d.

Kleinman, A. (Oct. 5, 2022) Temple Grandin on the Power of Visual Thinking. 1A. https://the1a.org/segments/temple-grandin-on-the-power-of-visual-thinking/.

Schwarzschild, S. (1990) The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (ed. by M. Kellner).  Albany: SUNY Press.