Shir Ami Men Meet Despite Rain to Talk about Nature

It has been several weeks since I last met with the Men's group at Shir Ami, my local synagogue. We planned to take a walk with the rabbi today and talk about nature. Well, nature decided to deliver wind and rain, so we met instead in Shir Ami's sanctuary/meeting room. Around a square table we had a lively group of 14, including young Andrew Terkel, the visiting rabbinical student, who provided a quote, A Prayer for Nature, by Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov, a late 18th and  early 19th-century Hasid, who was the great-grandson of the famed Baal Shem Tov.

After we all introduced ourselves and gave a little details about our lives and origins, I read the 13-line quote out loud, but got more when I heard it again read by someone else. Rabbi Nachman, a scholar, advocated going out into the outdoors daily, and relating to the trees and grass, saying, "there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, To talk with the one to whom I belong." Interesting.

This quote, along with several others, let to a lively discussion about finding God in nature--and what this might involve. Didn't Jews tend to stay inside and study? Wasn't going out to the park and communing with trees and flowers a form of forbidden nature worship (paganism). What about the animals, asked one of the group.

I was impressed with how much the guys came up with, and I could see how other conversations could form in the future with various Shir Ami folks about the ideas turned up in the talk. Andrew has a while until he graduates, but already has the right kind of energy and leadership skills, along with a growing body of knowledge, to keep the 13 of us, all of whom were his seniors, captivated and, for me, regretful that the fun had to end.

We also read of Rabbi Joshua ben Korha, who was asked by someone why God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. The rabbi essentially turned it back to the questioner, saying it wouldn't have mattered if it were another kind of tree. "...there is no place where the Divine Presence is not to be found, even in a lowly bush."

Is it significant that in the biblical story of creation, humans are created at the end, before God rested? We talked about it. It showed how scholarly rabbis, in the Talmud, would debate the significance of everything.

The men's group will do other fun things, and I'm hoping Andrew is up here from his home in Los Angeles to go with us again.