Apr 7, 2009 9:40 | Updated Apr 7, 2009 9:57
By YOSEF ISRAEL ABRAMOWITZ
KIBBUTZ KETURA
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At 6:22 a.m. on Wednesday, April 8, the sun will peak over the imposing 800-million-year-old mountains of Edom, bathing the Arava Valley below in light, and triggering one of the rarest and least-known Jewish rituals: Birkat Hahama, the Blessing of the Sun, is celebrated every 28 years in Jewish communities around the world, across the spectrum of Jewish observance.
‘Captain Sunshine’ Yosef (Yossi) Abramowitz
Photo: Courtesy
This year, the blessing dawns as we burn our hametz and prepare for that evening’s Seder. The next magic moment in history when the blessing falls on Erev Pessah will be 532 years from now.
Sixteen hundred years ago in Babylonia, the rabbis codified the Talmud, and with it, the Birkat Hahama ritual: “Our Rabbis taught: One who sees the sun in its season, the moon in its power, the stars in their paths, and the planets in their order, says, ‘Blessed is the Maker of Creation.’” (Masechet Brachot 59b). “And when is the Sun in its season? Abaye says: Every 28 years, when the cycle resets and the Spring equinox falls in Saturn on Tuesday evening, the eve of Wednesday.”
According to the Book of Genesis, the Sun, Moon, and stars were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14), and so the celebration of Birkat Hahama always occurs on a Wednesday morning. The Sun is traditionally greeted with a blessing and Psalms: “Blessed are You, Ruler of the Universe, who makes Creation.” It is believed that every 28 years at this moment, the celestial bodies orbit back to the exact place in the heavens where they stood at the Creation.
Science and Wonder
The simple ritual bursts with cosmic significance. At the heart of Judaism is a recognition and celebration that God is the Creator, and that the universal God Jews pray to, argue with, love, and occasionally ignore or fear, is - like the mysteries of the universe itself - never-ending. The Jewish revolution, baked in the deserts, not only rejects a physical God, but actually dilutes the power of any physical manifestation of God as simply yet another creation of the Ultimate Creator.
A common belief among the ancients - from the Aztecs in Mexico to the Inca of South America to our first theological antagonists, the Egyptians - all quite understandably considered the sun to be God. We Jews, as idol-smashers, have something to say about this.
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