|
|
||
HOME
|
|
Appreciating God's Great GiftsFebruary 2007From the Desk of Rabbi CohonGod puts wonders everywhere in our world. But we take our little hands and cover our little eyes and see nothing. -- Hasidic teaching
One of the prayers from the Mishkan Tefilah prayerbook that we have been piloting -- nearly forever, it seems -- is by Karen Kedar. It includes a beautiful passage, "There is wonder to experience, if you take the time." We live in a marvelous part of the world, especially in this, our season, and the ability to "go outdoors each day, among the trees and grasses, there to experience our Creator", as Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav advised us, is an extraordinary gift.
Living as we do in a modern, high-tech society it is easy to take the beauty and miraculous quality of the natural world for granted. And yet the truth is that we are the beneficiaries of a universe of astonishing beauty and creativity, and it is incumbent upon us as Jews to take the time to recognize the gifts we have been given.
My children and I had the opportunity to visit Kartcher Caverns recently -- through the assistance of our congregant, Gary Tenen, the co-discoverer and preserver of those incredible living caves in Southern Arizona -- and the complex and subtle patterns of the fabulous formations there reminded us again of the way God has created a universe of elegance and grace. The remarkable beauty of the world we enjoy, and the exquisite arrangement of the forces at work that allow for the creation of such delights, all speak to the existence of a Creator whose wisdom we can only glimpse in the play of forces God has made.
Our very ability to get up in the morning and live our lives testifies a well to a series of divine gifts. The Birchot HaShachar morning prayers even include a prominent passage that thanks God for the miracles inherent in our ability to live and function. That our bodies work at all is, in a practical sense, astonishing, for they, too, are creations of immense complexity and delicate balance.
We are taught in our tradition, as Abraham Joshua Heschel said, that the proper attitude toward the fantastic complexity and goodness of the natural world should be "radical amazement", more or less at all times. It may be impossible to always feel that great sense of gratitude that Heschel and the Hasidic teachers urge upon us. But we can manage to take a little time every day to be grateful for the beauty inherent in every creation of God's, and in the potential to glimpse that beauty each day.
And sometimes we have the special opportunities to enjoy nature. This month we celebrate the natural world with the festival of Tu B'shvat, the new year for trees, as sap begins to flow in the midst of the winter. At Temple Emanu-El we have two marvelous ways to celebrate God's gift of the natural world for Tu B'shvat.
First, Friday night February 2nd at 5:30 pm we will enjoy our Tu B'shvat Winetasting Seder, a delightful exploration of the goodness of the natural world through taste, song, story, and the finest kosher wines in the world. This is an absolutely unique and quite wonderful way to enter into Shabbat. It's followed by a festive dinner and then our all Renaissance Shabbat Shirah Services at 7:30 pm.
And the next morning, Saturday, February 3rd, our Wandering Jews hike and service group will enjoy a fantastic Tu B'shvat Shabbat Hike to Bridal Wreath Falls -- leaving the trailhead at 8:30 am -- with a Sabbath service and Torah reading as Rabbi Nachman suggested, out in the magnificence of God's creation. This is a great program, with an outdoor Jewish hike experience of note every month. I usually lead the services, and I think everyone who comes enjoys the experience tremendously.
Join us for both of these celebrations of God's presence in nature!
L'Shalom v'rei'ut, in peace and friendship, and chag samei'ach,
Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon
|
