On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will occur. It will be observed around the world and notably in Texas. Special glasses and other safe means to view it are being prepared. Schools are teaching important lessons about astronomy and physics. What will Judaism teach us about the event?

Among other lessons, Judaism can teach us about Awe. Though we’ve been taught not to look for signs, we shouldn’t also “walk sightless among miracles.” The challenge is that we’re not easily awed, today. Science explains a lot and technology updates often enough that we’re accustomed to regular changes. But, on a hike in the mountains, I appreciate nature all around me—quiet meadows between hills, and cold streams running through them. In those places, I have found myself saying, “My God, such beauty!” It really is a prayer. In its simplicity, it acknowledges God’s role in natural beauty without the help of human hands. It happened without us. That’s awe. I was in awe. Likewise, when you’re looking at a colorful sunset or beautiful face of one you love, you might feel in your soul or utter, “My God, such beauty!” It’s really a prayer, too.

Nature moves all around us, mostly unseen and unnoticed every day unless it’s a storm that destroys and floods. But when the planetary cycle, far from human reach, creates a shadow over the earth on an otherwise sunny day, there can be awe. It’s about recognizing what is larger than we are and being moved by the experience. It provides perspective. Small as we really are in the scheme of the universe, we are still unique in it. Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel wrote that “faith enables us to differentiate between being small yet meaningfully related to the Divine” (Schachtel, The Shadowed Valley, 1962).

Today, awe should be found only in beauty and nature. But we’ve been numbed by awe found in power and destruction, too. After 9/11/2001, I’ll never forget when Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense, announced that “Operation Shock and Awe” would be unleashed on Iraq. My reaction to it was horror. As a nation, we wanted to bring to justice those who were guilty of, and complicit with, the tragedy that befell our nation. But “shock and awe” felt like an appalling assault without any boundaries.

Boundaries don’t limit our excitement or our awe. But they can help us remember that we’re not God, and that “shock and awe” corrupts the hope we have that the creation of the world is awesome. The world’s creation should leave us nearly without words as we gaze on its marvels and stare carefully at the sky when a total solar eclipse passes by us.

Like Jacob who awoke from his dream and said, “God is in this place, and I did not know it,” we can awake from our numbness to stand in awe of the world around us and respond with our duty to the world’s well-being. Then we can see that, though we are small, we are not insignificant, and that every human life is worth the value of the whole world. That’s an awesome observation that doesn’t require special glasses to see, just time and appreciation for what passes by overhead and around us in the world.

L’Shalom,