How to Remain in the State of Awe

On a recent visit to downtown, San Francisco, we visited the new Apple flagship store, which was relocated to the corner of Post and Sutter streets. We entered the store from Sutter Street, ascending the stairs, passing the famous fountain by the sculptor Ruth Asawa, and faced a narrow waterfall running from the top of the green covered opposite wall. After getting inside the store crowded with people, my initial reaction was awe. On the other side of the store, facing Union Square was a 42 foot sliding glass door. Since the door was opened, it felt as though we were just part of the outside world. Looking around at the people, I noticed that others were awestruck as well. In the store itself, there were simple large wooden tables that displayed Apple’s merchandise like their iPhones and Apple Watches, similar to other Apple stores. One large room had some wooden cubes for people to sit on. Opposite the cubes, there was show of panoramic video, on the opposite wall, which was probably shot with an iPhone. There were as many employees in their blue t-shirt uniforms, as visitors, and the store was packed with onlookers like us. From the outside, the store looked like a huge glass box. It seemed to be completely out of place on Union Square, surrounded by mostly older more architecturally appealing buildings (at least for me). Nevertheless, the feeling of awe was there. Not even about the store and its location, but about how we live in a time, witnessing what the genius of the human mind can create in a relatively short period of time in history. But can this feeling of awe last? Will a new gadget or a car, which our mind cannot even fathom, in a few years convert the Apple store’s ground floor into a driverless cars show room? Or in ten years, will the building be demolished to be replaced with another one? Time will tell.

People are always looking for something new, exciting or stimulating, regardless if it is our relationship, in our family, work, or any of our other endeavors. We constantly need to be awed, even if the subject of our attention is God.

I recently read a weekly commentary on the Torah (Parasha in Hebrew) in the book “Talks on the Parasha” by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, whom Time Magazine hailed as a “once-in-a-millennium scholar”. There he comments on being in awe of God. “To what degree can one stand very close and yet remain in a state of awe and reverence, dread and trembling? To straddle both sides simultaneously is nearly impossible, it is certainly one of the most difficult things that a person can do. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) comments that in order to achieve this, one must be simultaneously extremely old and yet, in a sense, completely infantile. These requirements are against human nature, but nevertheless we are called upon to do just this.” Enjoy and Share.

P.S. I know that I am not extremely old, nor infantile any more, but I am in awe of many things in my life: my wife, my children, my colleagues, the work I do, helping people, and even the fact that you are reading my stories and like my photos. This time, I was fortunate to encounter and capture images of some people in with the expression of awe in the Apple store.

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Cheers,