F3: Days of Awe

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Awe and fear

The collective name that is given to the festivals of Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur is Yamim Noraim. This is
sometimes translated as “Days of Fear”, although a better translation is “Days of Awe”. What's the difference between awe and fear? The term 'awesome' features regularly on American TV shows and is used as a term to endorse absolutely everything that is good, much like others use the words ‘wicked’ or ‘cool However, such indiscriminate use of the term awe fails to capture what makes it unique.

Compare the following two situations: Imagine that you are on holiday and have accidentally knocked over someone’s motor cycle as you were innocently walking past. You begin to run away, but a group of people start chasing you and drag you back to meet the owner of the motorcycle. You can hear him yelling with rage as you stand outside the room waiting for him to come out. How do you feel? Now, imagine something quite different. You are about to meet Rolf Harris, who is your undoubted, all-time pop idol. You have won a competition to meet him and spend an entire day with Rolf whilst he is out promoting his new album. You have never met him before and you have spent the past five years dreaming of this encounter, despite the constant mocking of your friends. The train draws into the station, and you will be meeting Rolf on the platform. How do you feel now?

In both situations you are waiting to meet people whom you have never met before and the impending encounter is causing you to feel something. However the feelings that you experience in the two encounters are entirely different. In the first scenario, you are worried about what it is that this biker might do to you. In short, you are experiencing fear. In the second scenario, you are experiencing something quite different. Here you are not worrying what Rolf will do to you. He is hardly known for being dangerous! However there is a certain fear of the unknown and a sense of your own unworthiness and insignificance in this great mans presence. Here, you are experiencing a sense of awe.

Days of Awe

Commenting on the verse in the Bible that states that: 'one should call out to God whenever He is near', the Rabbis of the Talmud explain that this refers to the 'Days of Awe'. It is during this time in the year that we are able to feel the close presence of God. Again, it is an encounter with the unknown, someone before whom one can only feel a sense of insignificance. During this period, the feelings that one is meant to have is not that of fear, but of awe.

However, it is here that there is a real problem. Experiencing awe whilst waiting to meet a pop idol is easy. You know exactly what he or she looks like and are fully convinced that they exist. How can you experience a sense of awe for someone that you cannot even conceive what they look like? Is it possible to feel anything when you do not seem to be waiting to meet anyone at all?

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