City Rabbi Goes Country | Synagogue 3000
Aug. 10th, 2009 08:35 pmCity Rabbi Goes Country | Synagogue 3000
The wilderness allows people to use vocabulary that would feel cheesy, sappy or otherwise overly poetic anywhere else. In nature, we're allowed to use words of awe. It's the only place where that vocabulary is widely accepted and can be used by "in," "out" and "non"-marrieds and by women AND men. Exclamations of wonder and awe are easy to say and hear when standing next to a hanging glacier or a tiny purple wildflower growing up from the parched desert. People get used to using vocabulary that expresses gratitude, awareness, searching when we're surrounded by nature. And once those words enter our vocabulary and we feel safe using them... they can be used in a Jewish context, too. How easy it is to be thankful for beauty that we see, to raise questions about the inexplicable, to ask for help climbing over a huge boulder when we've all agreed that awe-language is appropriate.