Tefillah / Art Beit Midrash NATURE

To pray is to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all living beings...prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers-wiser than all alphabets-...we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory of nature.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, I Asked for Wonder

Scientists theorize that the “soft fascination” evoked by natural scenes engages what’s known as the brain’s “default mode network.” When this network is activated, we enter a loose associative state in which we’re not focused on any one particular task but are receptive to unexpected connections and insights. In nature, few decisions and choices are demanded of us, granting our minds the freedom to follow our thoughts wherever they lead. At the same time, nature is pleasantly diverting, in a fashion that lifts our mood without occupying all our mental powers; such positive emotion in turn leads us to think more expansively and open-mindedly. In the space that is thus made available, currently active thoughts can mingle with the deep stores of memories, emotions, and ideas already present in the brain, generating inspired collisions.

Annie Murphy Paul, The Extended Mind

Birches

BY ROBERT FROST

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig’s having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:

I don’t know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

During the Geonic Era (right after the Talmudic Age ending in the 7th Century CE) R. Saadia Gaon vehemently objected to the new insertion of the line Or Hadash in the first blessing before the Shema: “Anyone who concludes the blessing by saying ‘or chadash’ etc. makes a mistake, since the Sages established this blessing not over the future light of messianic days, but over the light of the present which shines each day ... One who says [these words] takes the Name of Heaven in vain.”

Saadia believes the "Or Hadash" line refers to a messianic age, a new time unlike anything we know currently." But others did not feel this line referred to a messiah or a different age. They read it more metaphorically and poetically.

What does "may a new light shine on Zion" mean to you?

God and the world are not opposite poles. There is darkness in the world, but there is also this call, "Let there be light!" Nor or body and soul at loggerheads. We are not told to decide either-or, either God or the world either this world or the world to come...it is upon us to have a share in this world and gain our share in the world to come.

Do you think there is nature as we know it in the world to come?

Will it be easier to know God in the next world?'

What is the most inspiring nature in this world?

Does the inspiration create gratitude for creation in your heart, mind and/or soul?