'Blessing Of The Sun:' Jews Perform Sun Ritual For First Time In 28 Years

JERUSALEM — Devout Jews around the world on Wednesday observed a ritual performed only once every 28 years, saying their morning prayers under the open sky in a ceremony called the "blessing of the sun."

Tens of thousands of worshippers stood next to the Western Wall in Jerusalem's walled Old City, the holiest site where Jews can pray. Hundreds headed to the ancient desert fortress of Masada, while others prayed on the roof of a Tel Aviv high-rise and congregated on road sides.

"God created the world in seven days," said Yona Vogel, one of the estimated 50,000 who attended the Western Wall prayers. "On the fourth day he put the sun into orbit and every 28 years it returns to the original place that it stood when God created the world."

The special blessing _ called the Birkat Hachamah in Hebrew _ was marked in many time zones, starting with members of the small Jewish community in New Zealand. In hundreds of places, from Israel and Italy to New Zealand and Kyrgyzstan, observant Jews rose before dawn for outdoor prayers and dancing.

The prayer came on the eve of the weeklong Passover festival, in which Jews commemorate the exodus from slavery in Egypt. The timing was coincidental, but added to the joyous feeling felt by many worshippers.

In New York City, a rabbi was to lead a morning gathering near the United Nations. Another group was to pray on the deck of a 17th-story penthouse near ground zero, the site of the demolished World Trade Center.

A Birkat Hachamah ceremony in 1981 was held on the 107th-story observation deck of the World Trade Center's South Tower, and the rabbi was dedicating Wednesday's blessing to the memory of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Organizers of a ceremony on the boardwalk in Long Beach, New York, on Long Island, said they would distribute sunglasses to worshippers. But they might go unused; the forecast was for a cloudy morning.

The Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch movement scheduled live Webcasts from seven locations as the sun moved across the Earth, starting at 8 a.m. local time in Christchurch, New Zealand, followed by events in Brisbane, Australia; Jerusalem; London; New York; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Honolulu.

An especially colorful ceremony was reported by The New York Times in 1897, when a rabbi was arrested for presiding over the ritual as hundreds of Jews assembled without a permit in a city park. He and another rabbi tried to explain what they were doing to a police officer.

"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 Times reported, adding that the officer, wondering "whether some new infection of lunacy had broken out ... seized the rabbi by the neck and took him to Essex Market Police Court."

Devout Jews emphasize that they are not worshipping the sun, but rather paying homage to God.

"We make a special blessing on this day to remember the day that God created the world and put the sun into orbit. It's as though he is creating the world anew," Vogel said.

Modern science may have overtaken the astronomy of the scriptures, but scholars say the blessing still has symbolic value as acknowledgment of the divine role in the universe.

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AP writer Verena Dobnik, in New York, contributed to this report.

Comments

[Taxi]

12:03 PM on 04/08/2009

To finish my earlier last thought:
" I don't agree with all of it, I don't even like too much of it. But I'll admit, it's quite incredible what this man, Abraham, has caused."

****************************************

Shotei, what you say is good and everything, but do you think we then 'choose' to believe?

Is believing a choice we make?

Or does this faith thing jump at our faculties out or nowhere, or down from a heavenly sky, or what?

I personally have difficulty distinguishing between delusion and believing.

And I think our future survival depends on having less collective delusions, NOT validating any old belief the Jone's might have or endorse.

Yes, I can tolerate people's beliefs cause I understand their need for it, but I just cannot bring myself to validate these inclinations.

It just doesn't make sense, for example, to believe the sun was created on the forth day, when we know for sure that billions of years are involved - and so long as the sun is still burning, it is still a work in progress, like everything else around us.

Not to mention the indisputable scientific discoveries we've made about our universe since biblical times.

Not that I think science know everything either. Science, too, is a work in progress.

Even with all the sciences and varieties of holy books under our belts, we still struggle as individuals with the why's and wherefores of existence.

[Macready]

11:58 AM on 04/08/2009

suspect this is a ritualistic carry over from the days when Yaheweh had a mate . . . .

[stargazer13]

10:52 AM on 04/08/2009

I love the warmth of the sun on my face !

[Taxi]

04:29 PM on 04/08/2009

oh me too so very me too!

[Taxi]

09:54 AM on 04/08/2009

cont...

I don't agree with all of it, I don't even like too much of it. But I'll admit, it's quiet incredible what this man, Abraham, has caused.

[Taxi]

09:36 AM on 04/08/2009

I don't know about you guys, but it sounds like, looks like paganism to me. All monotheistic religions do to me - the incense burning thing, ringing bells, eccentric robes and hats, the mesmerizing prayer, chanting, dancing at sunrise, moon calender sciences, seasonal rituals, blood rituals, spiritual circumcision, the promise of good favor from the all seeing, etc.

I mean, what difference would it make really if one god or a thousand gods created our existence?

We'll still be here half in the light and half in the dark. Still have no proof of either. We'll still know that having no proof of either is not proof in itself. So what we got? Nothing. Nothing certain you can write on the page anyway. Just a fluctuating sense of it all... "IT".

Indulge me please, I consider myself a permanent seeker and not a 'finder'.

Sometimes, when I'm just sitting there, thinking about it all, you know the god thing, I find myself awestruck by the effect of Abraham, a single man from the Arabian Deserts - the wars and joys borne from his life and thought. The immense and enduring influence he's had on the whole world through his life and progeny.

It's quiet incredible really.

The old man in the desert. How can we forget the story of the old man in the desert.

I don't agree with all of it, I don't even like too much of it. But I'll admit, it's quiet incredible what this man, Abraham,

[shotei]

10:01 AM on 04/08/2009

For some people, faith is precisely the absence of the need to prove anything. It is simply the power of believing in something. Apparently, we all have to believe, even if it is believing there is no God.
As long as one's belief respects the freedom of his neighbor so that he too can believe whatever he wants in peace, I think that belief is valid, no matter what religion we are talking about.

[obamagal]

10:09 AM on 04/08/2009

I'll indulge you... I ask myself many of the same questions as well.