{"id":49644,"date":"2019-06-16T00:40:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T06:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=49644"},"modified":"2019-06-16T00:40:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T06:40:41","slug":"a-prayer-for-springtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/a-prayer-for-springtime\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer for Springtime"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

You can learn a lot from your rabbi \u2013 you can also learn a lot from nature. To watch a mama cat handle its young may be as informative as a chapter in Genesis<\/em>. The \u201cwired care\u201d and affection she exhibits is as strong a proof of a supreme Creator as Genesis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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So is it with us with the exception that sometimes we cannot find the sun or since we are endowed with free will, choose the dark \u2013 not the sunlight.<\/p>\n

But nobody can accuse us of ignoring G-d\u2019s handiwork. We Jews have prayers for everything from your backyard rose bush to the eye color of Zayde\u2019s newest grandchild. (See your rabbi for a complete catalogue.)<\/p>\n

The good Jew, the appreciative Jew, reveling in the expanded Garden of Eden, which G-d has given us to roam in, says a prayer over nature\u2019s beauty; the sunset, the mountains, the loaf of challah on the Shabbos table, the newly delivered infant. If he\u2019s observant, he says the proper prayer. If he\u2019s your run-of-the-mill, semi-affiliated, gefilte-fish-eating, Pesach observant Israelite, maybe his heart speaks in its own language. Maybe he doesn\u2019t know the proper words, but deep down inside there\u2019s a murmur of thanks, appreciation as he glimpses the miracle even of his bodily functions, much less the blessing of sitting at the Shabbos table surrounded by loving family. And if he doesn\u2019t say, \u201cHa Motzi Lechem Min Ha Oretz,\u201d still he thinks how gracious of G-d to provide.<\/p>\n

He even notices for the first time that the tulip tree beside the dining room window is displaying lavish pink blossoms of Spring. (Is there a special prayer for a tulip tree in full bloom? I\u2019m only a scribbler \u2013 ask your rabbi.) The renewal, the revival, the resuscitation of life enhances our gratitude.<\/p>\n

But unlike the pagans our ancestors encountered in Canaan and the various theologies we were exposed to after Sinai, we are careful to worship the Creator, not His creation. We understood that the sun, moon, and throbbing sea are miraculous creations. Visual symbols of His invisible power. This was our gift to the world, this understanding of an unimaginable, transcendental Creator. Don\u2019t pray to the Sycamore grove that crowns the hill, but to He who puts life in lifeless wood.<\/p>\n

As to Spring and the hope that it brought to the primitive human heart (\u201cLook, the tree was not lifeless. Buds and fruit decorate its limbs. Amazing, it comes back every year.\u201d) the ancients had numerous myths involving their gods \u2013 the deliverers of Spring. Their explanations were poetic if not accurate \u2013 usually a variation involving evil Hades \u2013 the god of the underworld and his capture of a beneficent goddess. Nature mourned her departure and the trees shed their leaves like tears. All nature turned brown with grief and mourned her departure. Somehow she always escaped \u2013 at least temporarily. Nature flared into life in wild exultation. The trees fruited and the lowly grape vine leafed and offered its fruit. We call it Spring.<\/p>\n

These myths of gods and goddesses, who misbehaved like their human counterparts, were prevalent at a time when our prophets were explaining that an invisible presence of goodness was driving nature: an ethical power whose greatest hope for man is to see his children walk in the footsteps of their Creator.<\/p>\n

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