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Jews Bless The Sun In Williamsburg
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 8, 2009
Modified Apr 8, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 8, 2009
Modified Apr 8, 2009
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Today, Jewish worshippers around the world are participating in events marking the "Blessing of the Sun." As Julie Wiener explains in the Wall Street Journal, "According to Talmudic calculations, every 28 years the sun is in the exact position it occupied at the time of Creation. As it happens, that moment falls on Wednesday, April 8, of this year, at sunrise -- just hours before Passover begins. There is a brief blessing for the occasion, too. It is called Birchat Hachamah, Hebrew for 'blessing of the sun.'"
Fox 5's SkyFox helicopter took the above photograph of a Bedford Avenue gathering in Williamsburg; there were other gatherings in NYC this morning, such as a prayer at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the U.N. and a prayer at a penthouse near the World Trade Center site (according to the NY Times, "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 is dedicating Wednesday's blessing to the memory of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks").
The Times also links to its own 1897 article about the ceremony (PDF): It didn't go very well, because the rabbi was arrested for performing the ceremony (which attracted hundreds) without a permit. There were language barriers between the Hebrew-speaking rabbi and the cop, "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" and the cop, who wondered "whether some new infection of lunacy had broken out ... seized the rabbi by the neck and took him to Essex Market Police Court."
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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