by Annie Belford
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

Years ago, I hiked up a California mountain. I walked until I reached the peak, and as I looked out I saw the low clouds above covering the valley and ocean beyond; I could just make out the tops of ocean islands peeking through the cloud cover. As I took in the view, I was overcome with emotion. Never before had I felt so connected to the world around me or sensed holiness in nature. I was full of awe, and could only cry. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel discusses this kind of experience when he says, "awe is an intuition for the creaturely dignity of all things and their preciousness to God; a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something absolute" (God in Search of Man [New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1955], p. 75). When we experience awe, we gain deep respect and gratitude for the world around us--and ultimately, for God. 

Before our Torah portion goes into the details of the challenging theology that Rabbi Perlin describes, Eikev reminds us of the necessity of these feelings: "For the Eternal your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill . . . a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack for nothing. . . When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Eternal your God for the good land given to you" (Deuteronomy 8:7, 9-10). Whether we find that awe through study, prayer, activism, or hiking up a mountain--in the end, it cannot help but commit us to change the way we relate to the world, to work for climate change and sustainability--and in the end, to connect us to "something absolute" in everything around us.

Rabbi Annie Belford serves Temple Sinai in Houston, Texas.

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