The Sense of Awe
Many are so insensitive that they rarely experience that sense of awe, that moment when something outside of us reaches through all the clutter and man-handles our emotions…
In Junior High I took a chorus class. I can not remember our teacher’s name. Honestly, I can not even remember what she looked like. I can only remember two things about Chorus, one a classic case of adolescent torture at the hands of a frustrated teacher, the other a brilliant surprise.
The mortifying memory involves performing a song in front of the whole Junior High called “Being a Teen”. The lyrics included the lines, “Being a teen….it’s a stage in between.” Like most, I wanted desperately to be cool in Junior High and was certain nothing could be more uncool than singing those lyrics while attempting silly dance moves in front of hundreds of my peers. Not cool. Not surprisingly the performance was mortifying. I quickly vied for a position at the back of the stage and mouthed fake lyrics while imaging our teacher’s trial held before a jury of my peers. Ultimately I was certain she would be found guilty of torture and ruining reputations in the first degree. She would be lead kicking and screaming from the school grounds, banned from teaching teens, round the globe, forever.
The other memory is very different. Instead of starting class by tapping on the piano and leading a warm up, she called in a young Asian woman from the hall. She introduced her as a student who was visiting from China who was an terrific pianist. The girl had consented to play a song for us at teacher’s request. We looked at them and rolled our eyes. Bo-ring. We were poised to critique this little pet.
The girl positioned herself on the bench with her back to us. She lifted her arms and launched into a grand piece, the kind played at great speed involving the full stretch of the keyboard. Imagine Rachmaninoff. The sound ripped through the classroom. Such grace, such skill, such intensity, played at great volume. I was so shocked about thirty seconds into the piece I felt an overwhelming urge to cry. I was caught so off guard by this quiet girl, the raw power of her talent, the splendid dramatic music, that my adolescent cynicism was snatched away, revealing a human underneath the frosty eye shadow and precisely selected outfit. To cry in front of the super cool girls I was trying to impress would have been social suicide. I had to clench every muscle and try to block out the music, which was impossible. Almost thirty years later I can still recall the awe I felt, how humbling it was for this performer to take charge of my emotions totally against my will.
At Torah class last weekend, Rabbi Shapiro talked about how one of the dominant themes in Tanach is that God surprises us. He conducts. We are so entrenched in the overwhelming, subjective, physical experience of this world it is almost impossible to remember that we are not the conductors. Not only are we not the conductors, we can not even begin to see the big picture the way our Creator does. When we experience awe, it is a clear reminder that we are part of something bigger than our egocentric daily experience and we are most certainly in control of very little. It is a religious experience to feel such a thing.
Rabbi Shapiro explained that this is the reason we should be so careful to stay in a positive frame of mind; depressed people can not feel awe and therefore can not experience the Divine the way a tranquil or happy person can. I can’t stop thinking about the point he made. It takes some serious dramatics to clear away the negative emotions and bring a depressed or anxious person clarity. Adolescents are so hormonal it is nearly impossible for them to remain tranquil and composed for extended periods of time. That’s why a tiny bit of self-confidence goes so far for a teenager. The surprise of the beautiful music, the shock over the pianist’s talent, that was the big slap that cut right through all of the junk in my thirteen-year-old mind.
When I started praying and learning Torah I very quickly felt a delightful, warm, tranquil feeling for many hours of the day. It was such a strange feeling to not be cynical, to not feel anxious about much that, ironically, the tranquil feeling was in and of itself awe inspiring, if such emotions can coexist. Actually I will state that they definitely can. I also recovered a sense of awe about the world. What I had been seeing all of these years wasn’t what I thought it was! Unbelievable. It’s nice.
Recently a singer named Susan Boyle was all over the internet, the TV – you name it. You probably already know that she appeared on a British TV show, a talent contest. She walked on the stage looking dowdy, much older than her forty-seven years. She cracked some not-so-funny jokes during her introduction to the audience. It was hard not to fear the worst about the impending performance. Then after what seemed like ten minutes of awkward intros she started to sing. I had that same feeling from Junior High when I heard her voice. The dowdy country woman became a beauty when her high, angelic voice filled the hall. Within three seconds the crowd who had literally laughed in her face turned from a cynical mob into an audience laid bare by the power of her art, of her spirit.
There are many reasons her performance has touched so many people around the world. I can’t help but wonder if the real reason she touched so many is that we are so jaded, so busy in our minds, so obsessed with our own daily realities that we almost never experience that sense of awe, that moment when something outside of us reaches through all the clutter and man-handles our emotions the way she did. It feels like magic, like God surprising us.
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