Shabbat Reading: S. Y. Agnon's Days of Awe

#whatireadovershabbat S. Y. Agnon's Days of Awe, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, translated by Maurice Galpert and Jacob Sloan (1948; Schocken, 1965)

Days of Awe is one of those books you recognize from the shelves of synagogue and day school libraries. Until this High Holiday season, I never pulled it down. Now I know why it’s ubiquitous. Agnon, Israel’s greatest writer, fuses together passages from 300 books to form a meditation on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the Ten Days of Repentance between them, exploring their grand meaning and loveliest intricacies. It is a poem in prose, a polyphonic sonata. Days of Awe gathers the wisdom of the tradition concerning these most holy days and makes it instantly, majestically accessible.