Here Comes The Sun

The New York Times, on April 8, 1 897 reported that park policeman Foley arrested a Rabbi Wechsler – though Rabbi Klein escaped – who had illegally convened a crowd of several hundred Jews in Tompkins Square to say the blessing on the sun. Reported the Times: “Rabbi Klein’s knowledge of English is slight, while Foley’s faculties of comprehension of matters…are not acute. The attempt of a foreign citizen to explain to an American Irishman an astronomical situation and a tradition of the Talmud was a dismal failure.” The paper concludes by saying that “the new sun” service had been conducted in this country for 180 years, or since 1717. In 1897, it would have been the 203rd cycle of the sun. Now, we are entering the 207th.

On Wednesday, April 8, will be the Blessing on the Sun, birkat ha-chama. It will be said bright and early and perhaps it will be sunny everywhere just for the occasion. After all, it is a blessing one can hope to say only three or four times in a lifetime and this year is one of the very few times in recorded history that the blessing falls on erev pesach. Jews will gather all over the world – including right outside BU Hillel – to say the blessing “oseh ma’aseh b’reisheet” and, hopefully, none of them will be arrested.

The source of the blessing is Berachot 59b, where it says:
The rabbis learned: “One who sees the sun in its period, the moon in its strength, the stars in their pathways and the planets in their order says “Blessed is the one Who made creation”. And when is this? Said Abayei: Every 28 years, when the cycle returns and the period of Nissan falls under Saturn on the night of the third [day] into the morning of the fourth [day.]

In the opinion of Rabbi Yuda (Tosefta Berachot 6:6), the blessing on the sun was uncomfortably close to heresy. A number of other Rabbis – including the famed Maharal of Prague – were sufficiently in doubt about the blessing that they chose to say it without God’s name or even to not say it at all. Others (R. Saadia Gaon) apparently said it once every year. But for most of at least the last two thousand years, Jews have gathered religiously every 28 years to celebrate the sun.

Now, there are other occasions upon when this blessing is meant to be recited. According to Jewish law (see Orach Chaim 227-228), one says the same blessing upon seeing lightning, a shooting star, an ocean or any extremely impressive geological formation. What is the difference between these relatively ordinary and frequent opportunities for blessing and the blessing of the sun?

Well, the rule with lightning is basically that you only say it once a day[1]. No matter how many lightning flashes you see during an electric summer sunset, you only say the blessing once. The rule with oceans and geologic formations is that you say it if you haven’t seen one in 30 days. Clearly, lightning is an event (in the cheftza) and so has a shorter interval, whereas impressive formations are always there and it is only your experience of them (in the gavra) that changes. Hence, the longer interval.

However, the sun never changes and we see it all the time. It does change its position in the sky ever so slightly over time and there are days – or occasionally even a week – when clouds might obscure it[2]. But more or less, it stays the same.

It is for this reason that Rabbi J.D. Bleich writes (in Contemporary Halachic Problems II) that: The Blessing on the occasion of Birkat ha-Hammah, it would appear, is not responsive but rather evocative in nature. It is designed to reinforce belief in the doctrine of continuous creation etc”

In other words, it is not motivated by seeing the sun, but by something else. There is no change or flash and there is no absence of 30 days after which we can be so happy to see the sun again. Rather, there is an awareness – a religious awareness – that once upon a time on a bright spring morning, when God was creating the world, (S)He also gave us the gift of the sun. It IS an awe-inspiring ball of gas and flame and it caresses our planet with light, warmth and care. As we say in the morning prayers: “He Who illuminates the earth and those who dwell upon it with mercy and, in His goodness, renews each day perpetually the work of creation.”

It is precisely the fact that the sun appears every single day — breaking over the horizon in splendor – that it is the cause of the blessing. It is not the uniqueness or rarity of the occurrence, but the absolutely dependable, “old faithful”, quotidian, hum-drum fact that the sun is a reliable companion.[3] It is the sun’s link each day back to the moment of creation that inspires us to evoke, b’rov am (en masse) and with such rare enthusiasm, the singular appreciation of God’s creation once in a blue moon, er, sun. Just as the sun rises each morning, so may God care for us each day and may we be redeemed in the light of the healing sun (see avodah zara 3) and in the Hidden Light of the righteous, speedily in our days. Shabbat shalom!
P.S. If you want to learn more insights into the blessing on the sun, join me next Shabbat, April4 (Shabbat ha-Gadol) at 5:30 pm on the first floor of BU Hillel.

[1] If there are two totally distinct storms, you would say it once for each storm.
[2] Hence the statement in the Jerusalem Talmud that one should say the blessing if there were three consecutive days of rain.
[3] Let us pray that neither global warming nor the putative “death” of the sun in 14 billion years affect us.