Blinded by the light
I almost called this post, “Here comes the sun…. not.” Luckily, sometimes when you think the sun isn’t going to come out, it does. Today’s a special day in Judaism and it only happens once every 28 years. So this is my first time. Oh ahahahahahaha. Right. But no, I really don’t remember this last time. It’s called Birkat Hachama (Blessing of the Sun) and supposedly, the sun is in the exact same position it was in when the world was created. I’m no astronomer but hey, why not? You have from sunrise until noon to say the special blessing but you have to be able to see the sun. And if you’re in the Northeast, you know that hasn’t been very common lately. Actually, I happened to be awake at 6:33am when sunrise happened and I needed coffee (I’m all prepped to go away for the first days of Passover so I didn’t make any) so I ran out to look. No sun! I got my coffee. No sun! I went to work an hour later. No sun! Sensing a pattern here? At 10:30, it started to snow. Ye gods. Er, God.
But at 10:55, right before my 11am meeting, I saw this from my office window:
Actual shot from my office, you can tell they’re not awesome at cleaning the windows.
Jackpot! I ran outside without my coat but there were too many tall buildings. This will shock you, I’m sure, knowing that I am in New York City. But I went to the corner and there it was! I said my blessing which basically goes, “Blessed art thou, Lord our God, king of the universe, who makes the works of creation.”
Now here’s the thing. I don’t really believe God made the world in seven days like in the Bible. But I do believe He made the world and I do believe the world is a great place most of the time and I’m glad it exists. I also like the sun a lot. And for one moment every 28 years, I’m happy to stop and acknowledge that. Also, to say it out loud on the corner, looking crazy (yeah, yeah, I’m not the only one). Then, I went to my meeting and walked into a wall because I had been staring at the sun for 30 seconds, which doesn’t seem like a lot unless you’re looking directly at the sun.
By the way, only twice in the history of time has Birkat Hachama fallen on the eve of Passover, which it happens to be. So I won’t be blogging or commenting for a few days, but since I only post once every 28 years, you probably won’t even notice.
Man, did I have a lot of songs I wanted to use to title this post. The one I chose, obviously was:
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Blinded by the Light
But I also liked:
U2 – Staring At The Sun
