We go through life pursuing our careers, caring for our families, worrying about the state of the world. But all around us, there is more that is happening.
The Psalmist writes:
The heavens rehearse the presence of God, just as the firmament proclaims God’s doing. Day after day speaking gushed forth, just as night after night wisdom is whispered. But of course, there can be no speaking, nor can there be any words; indeed the voices of the heavens and the firmament cannot be heard. Still their voice reverberates throughout creation, their words to the ends of the earth. With them God has made a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom emerging from his marriage canopy, like an athlete in prime, ready for the contest. He comes out at one end of the heavens and his course leads him to the other. No one can hide from the heat of the sun.
Even as you read this, the Psalmist tells us, miracles are happening. The sun and the stars are declaring God’s praises. Their voices are reverberating throughout creation, and their words are spreading to the ends of the earth.
And yet all too often, all we hear is the horn of a driver trying to cut in front of us, orthe words of a politician who is bent on taking away the things most dear to us.
How do we find the strength to see the world as it really is? How do we put aside the cares of the moment so that we can recognize the eternal?
Perhaps, it comes from prayer – from pouring out our fears before the Holy One just as the Psalmist did, from confessing our limitations and our mistakes, and from admitting that we are only here through God’s grace.
And perhaps, it comes from study – from the kind of study that helps us to confront ultimate truths. We study with others, and we learn that none of us are all powerful, that we will die, in the words of the Talmud, with only half our dreams accomplished.
And perhaps, it comes from doing acts of loving kindness, from seeing that for all our limitations, we still have the power to help each other. Avodah (prayer), Torah (study), and Gimilut Chassadim (acts of loving kindness), those are the things, said the rabbis, that the whole world stands on.
And perhaps, there is one other thing that can help us see what the Psalmist discovered: a sense of wonder.
Abraham Joshua Heschel described the worldview of what he called, “Biblical man” – the ancient Jew who lived in a primitive world. The Biblical man had no electricity, no street lights to light up the night. He had no idea of cause and effect, no idea of science.
How frightening it must have been for Biblical man to see the sunset, to know that darkness was coming, and that thieves might come out in the night. But in the darkness, in a world with no artificial light, Biblical man could see the stars in all their brightness, and he could be amazed at the beauty of the heavens. The heavens rehearse the presence of God.
God meant us, of course, to discover electricity, to light up the streets, and find cures for deadly diseases. God wanted us to be his partners. But God never wanted us to lose our sense of wonder.
And this is why the Holy One gave us Shabbat – a time to be, not to do, a time to wonder, not to change. Each week, we light candles, and each week, we sing the Psalm for Shabbat. “It is good to give thanks to Adonai.” the Psalmist tells us. It is good for us to stop, to rest, and to be thankful for the week that has passed.
There’s a tradition that each week, as we light the candles and say kiddush, the soul of the world is renewed.
But perhaps, it is not only the world that is renewed. As we light the candles and say the kiddush, we too are renewed. We take a moment to experience the wonder, to put our false sense of mastery aside. And we, too, find the strength to last another week.