Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. It's that time of year
when schools are letting out, at least in the Southwest
and the West. I know that some schools continue to
go on through the middle or even the end of June.
But as many people are already preparing for vacation, maybe
(00:22):
they've already arrived. Young people are heading off to summer
camp and many other exciting places. As I'm told, it's
time to gain some new perspective, enjoy the distraction of
those settings that take us out of the familiar neighborhood
or places where we work, to go to the ocean
or the mountain or anywhere in between. And when we do,
(00:44):
it's more than just setting out to have some fun
and joy away from familiar routines. Perhaps it's also time
to take a moment to sit back to become a
bit more introspective and spiritual at the same time. And
one of the ways to do it is to explore
how we relate to the world around us. And how
(01:06):
we relate to the world around us includes how we
relate to the possibility that God is a part of
that world experience and perspective to In a beautiful reading
from Gates of Prayer, published by the Central Conference of
American Rabbis in nineteen seventy five, but used in worship
and worship settings for decades until only recently, there's a
(01:29):
beautiful prayer called nature. It begins this way, How wonderful,
o Lord, are the work of your hands. The heavens
declare your glory. The arch of sky displays your handiwork.
The heavens declare the glory of God. Even in this
opening paragraph, we begin to get a glimpse of something
(01:51):
that we wouldn't see unless we took the moment to pause,
to look, and to reflect. Because the words that say,
how wonderful, Lord are the works of your hands already
begins to separate us from that which we have created
with our own hands. There are many beautiful wonders around
us that we had nothing to do with, whether it's
(02:13):
the mountains or the seashore, or the beautiful grasses, or
just the lovely country road that were driving down. There
was so much beauty around us that we have had
little to do with, And so we say, oh, my God,
how beautiful, how special? Where did it come from. How wonderful,
(02:34):
o Lord, are the works of your hands. The heavens
declare your glory. The arch of sky displays your handiwork.
Even recently, the Aurora borealis was able to be seen
much farther south than usual, And I'm sure that many people,
perhaps in the Midwest or the upper Midwest, were able
to look up into the sky and say, Oh, my God,
(02:57):
who would have known? Who would have been able to
see this? Not everybody makes a trip up to the
Arctic to be able to see such a beautiful natural sight.
And so the heavens declare your glory. We know physically
and by signs how it happens, But to look at
it to feel a sense of awe is to say
the heavens too, represent, reflect, and display God's glory. This
(03:24):
reading goes on to say, in your love, you have
given us the power to behold the beauty of your world,
robed in all its splendor. The sun and the stars,
the valleys and the hills, the rivers and lakes all
disclose your presence. You see. What this paragraph also says
is that human beings have a special opportunity and ability
(03:47):
to be conscious of the wonder of the beauty of
world around us, but also conscious of the creator of
the beauty and wonder of the world around us. When
I spend time with my dog at home, which I love,
and I'm sure you love pets that you have, if
you do have them, they are a wonder and they
(04:08):
take in our love and they give so much love unconditionally.
And someone once asked me a long time ago, can
a dog feel my love? And of course the answer
is yes, your dog can feel your love. You can
see it in their eyes. You can see it in
the way they relax with you, and they give so
much too. But is a dog conscious of its own creator? No,
(04:32):
the dog doesn't pray. That dog doesn't contemplate God's active
creation that brought it into being. But we are, We
are gifted in a unique way in relationship with God,
that we are conscious of the world around us and
conscious as we contemplate it, of God's active creation. So
(04:53):
in this reading, when we see in your love, you
have given us the power to behold the beauty of
your world. Let's not overlook those powerful words. We have
a unique power, a unique ability to behold the beauty
of the world that God has created, and so in
the wonders of nature that we experience. If we simply
(05:15):
walk past it, or don't take time to smell the
proverbial roses, then we don't also appreciate the unique place
that we have in the world. It is so fleeting,
and life can be so short. But as we take
the time to walk or hike, or bike or swim
and be conscious of the gift that we have to
(05:38):
be able to be aware of the beauty of the
world around us, that is a very special gift that
begins to awaken our awareness till all that is around us.
And it goes on to say, robed in all its splendor,
the sun and the stars, the valleys and the hills,
the rivers and the lakes, all disclose your presence. Yes,
(06:01):
we see in all the things that we didn't make,
all the things we didn't create, all the things we
didn't join a committee to master, are the things that
reflect something larger than ourselves. I use the word God
easily and comfortably. My faith has grown and deepened certainly
over the years as a practicing rabbi. But even if
(06:23):
you don't use that word easily or comfortably, yet it's
okay to say, something larger than myself, something beyond me,
was responsible for this, and I still stand in awe
of it. And because we are uniquely human and not
just an animal, then we also have the ability and
(06:44):
power to be conscious of the difference between what is
created by human beings and what is created by science,
acts of nature, the Big Bang, and God. The reading
goes on, the roaring break of the sea tell of
your awesome might. The beasts of the field, and the
birds of the air bespeak your wondrous will. Indeed, the oceans,
(07:10):
when they are so powerful and so awesome on the seashore,
they really do tell of an energy that is hard
to comprehend. We see it only on the surface, but
what's churning underneath is continues to be a mystery to
most of us, unless you're a deep sea diver or
someone who studies oceanography. Then we are just mere witnesses
(07:34):
of what approaches us on the sand and the seashore,
and from which we usually run as the tide comes in.
And the birds that chirp, and the beasts of the field,
as the writing tells us, are not aware of their creator,
but certainly reflect acts of creation, because there are so
(07:55):
many wondrous things in nature that we see and hear
and touch, and some that we can't ever figure out.
The question has been asked a long time ago, why
did God create a mosquito? Well, I live in Houston, Texas,
where there are plenty of them, and we do all
we can to rid ourselves of them. But even the
(08:16):
mosquito has a role and a purpose beyond our comprehension,
but still part of one of God's mysteries. This reading
concludes with these words, in your goodness, you God, have
made us able to hear the music of the world.
The raging of the winds, the whispering of trees in
the wood, and the precious voices of loved ones reveal
(08:38):
to us that you are in our midst That one
is so touching to us, because any of us who
have ever walked through the woods, or have the privilege
to sit on a dark night where you can see
the stars beyond the city lights and really hear and
feel the wind through the trees. It is a kind
(09:00):
of music. It is a sound that we don't create.
It comes by virtue of the combination of things in
nature that plays on the winds and the speed of
the wind that comes through the volume the rush. Some
of us have learned because of the places where we
live or the experiences we've had to understand what the
(09:21):
air smells like, is rain coming? Or what the wind
looks like and feels like is a storm coming in?
Or should we run for cover again? Living in Houston,
Texas or anybody who lives along the Gulf Coast knows
what the thicker air is all about and when the
winds are coming. And though hurricanes can be predicted, sometimes
(09:42):
we can see the swirl in the sky or the
changes in nature, all of it clearly beyond our own
acts of creation. We stand in awe of what the
world around us can smell like and sound like and
feel like. Times when I lead a wedding under a
huppah the wedding canopy at an outdoor wedding, I'll reflect
(10:06):
on the fact that the world that we're about to
enter with a unique couple who's never been married before,
This couple has never existed before. In this way, we're
surrounded by the feeling of nature. The wind, the sun,
the warmth. All of it is part of the world
we all engage in and we all live in we
depend on it, and so as we appreciate the world
(10:29):
that we're entering into, we also have to appreciate and
perhaps see reflected in it God's acts of creation and
the ongoing process of creation reflected in the couple, and
all that we continue to be and do together. I
wonder where you're going to be this summer as you
make your way, or if your children are going to summercamp.
(10:52):
One of the most beautiful memories of summer camp that
I remember is going on a hike with counselors to
go through the woods, which it were so different than
the suburban neighborhood where I grew up, and sometimes to
sit on the grass and to play with the leaves
or the grasses or the stems, to blow a dandelion,
or to hear animals and to wonder how they grow
(11:14):
and to learn about them. And at least for me,
when I went to Jewish summer camp as a young
child and then also was a counselor, it was a
time to connect those experiences with Jewish teachings. Appreciation for nature,
a blessing for the new morning, even a prayer for
the evening, and to be so grateful for the world
(11:37):
around us that we grew deep in appreciation for how
we should tend the world around us too. It wasn't
ours to spoil the earth or to take over few
and rare resources for our own good. And so we
were grown to understand the preciousness of the world that
(11:58):
God created for us to have dominion over, as the
Torah tells us, but not to despoil the earth or
to waste precious resources. So in the Torah, in the
Book of Genesis, we learn that when God said to
Noah that God would never destroy the world by flood again,
commentators over the years and we learned even as children
(12:20):
that though God promised not to destroy the world by
flood again, it didn't mean that we human beings couldn't
take our power and misuse it, abuse it and misunderstand it,
and do the very same thing to destroy the resources,
perhaps by nuclear war, which was a greater threat in
the past but doesn't end even today, and by many
(12:45):
other means. So there's an interest in hybrid vehicles, e vehicles,
how we recycle and use things. It isn't just a
reflection of a political point of view. Much of it
really does come from faithful teachings that remind us that
we are not owners of the earth, and if we
(13:06):
don't appreciate the least agreement that we have, we might
actually run out of what we desperately need. And so
the summer is time to not only take a break
from work, but to re enter the world of nature
that is God's creation, and to grow in our respect
and appreciation for it, so that we can come home
again and do our work with a higher sense of
(13:29):
value and sense of appreciation, and to look forward to
a new year filled with God's blessings that surround us.
I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation That Israel in Houston.
To listen again or to share this message, please find
it at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
My podcast is Heart to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon.
(13:53):
So as your week continues, perhaps you're simply going back
to the classroom or to work, but if you're already
on your way or soon you will be to a vacation,
be sure that wherever you are, whether it's another major
city or somewhere deep in nature, take time to close
your eyes, to listen or to open your eyes and
(14:16):
look around and appreciate the sights, the sounds, and the
world around you filled with such beauty where perhaps you
made a difference, but not everywhere, of course, So appreciate
the difference that others have made, and that which is
larger around you has created and preserved for us to enjoy,
(14:37):
to learn from, and to gain better and deeper appreciation.
So we can come home and do our very best
in the world that is ours that we create, and
we appreciate with others who join us in those places
for good, for blessing, and for peace. Thank you for
joining me. I look forward to being with you again
(14:58):
next time.
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. It's that time of year
when schools are letting out, at least in the Southwest
and the West. I know that some schools continue to
go on through the middle or even the end of June.
But as many people are already preparing for vacation, maybe
(00:22):
they've already arrived. Young people are heading off to summer
camp and many other exciting places. As I'm told, it's
time to gain some new perspective, enjoy the distraction of
those settings that take us out of the familiar neighborhood
or places where we work, to go to the ocean
or the mountain or anywhere in between. And when we do,
(00:44):
it's more than just setting out to have some fun
and joy away from familiar routines. Perhaps it's also time
to take a moment to sit back to become a
bit more introspective and spiritual at the same time. And
one of the ways to do it is to explore
how we relate to the world around us. And how
(01:06):
we relate to the world around us includes how we
relate to the possibility that God is a part of
that world experience and perspective to In a beautiful reading
from Gates of Prayer, published by the Central Conference of
American Rabbis in nineteen seventy five, but used in worship
and worship settings for decades until only recently, there's a
(01:29):
beautiful prayer called nature. It begins this way, How wonderful,
o Lord, are the work of your hands. The heavens
declare your glory. The arch of sky displays your handiwork.
The heavens declare the glory of God. Even in this
opening paragraph, we begin to get a glimpse of something
(01:51):
that we wouldn't see unless we took the moment to pause,
to look, and to reflect. Because the words that say,
how wonderful, Lord are the works of your hands already
begins to separate us from that which we have created
with our own hands. There are many beautiful wonders around
us that we had nothing to do with, whether it's
(02:13):
the mountains or the seashore, or the beautiful grasses, or
just the lovely country road that were driving down. There
was so much beauty around us that we have had
little to do with, And so we say, oh, my God,
how beautiful, how special? Where did it come from. How wonderful,
(02:34):
o Lord, are the works of your hands. The heavens
declare your glory. The arch of sky displays your handiwork.
Even recently, the Aurora borealis was able to be seen
much farther south than usual, And I'm sure that many people,
perhaps in the Midwest or the upper Midwest, were able
to look up into the sky and say, Oh, my God,
(02:57):
who would have known? Who would have been able to
see this? Not everybody makes a trip up to the
Arctic to be able to see such a beautiful natural sight.
And so the heavens declare your glory. We know physically
and by signs how it happens, But to look at
it to feel a sense of awe is to say
the heavens too, represent, reflect, and display God's glory. This
(03:24):
reading goes on to say, in your love, you have
given us the power to behold the beauty of your world,
robed in all its splendor. The sun and the stars,
the valleys and the hills, the rivers and lakes all
disclose your presence. You see. What this paragraph also says
is that human beings have a special opportunity and ability
(03:47):
to be conscious of the wonder of the beauty of
world around us, but also conscious of the creator of
the beauty and wonder of the world around us. When
I spend time with my dog at home, which I love,
and I'm sure you love pets that you have, if
you do have them, they are a wonder and they
(04:08):
take in our love and they give so much love unconditionally.
And someone once asked me a long time ago, can
a dog feel my love? And of course the answer
is yes, your dog can feel your love. You can
see it in their eyes. You can see it in
the way they relax with you, and they give so
much too. But is a dog conscious of its own creator? No,
(04:32):
the dog doesn't pray. That dog doesn't contemplate God's active
creation that brought it into being. But we are, We
are gifted in a unique way in relationship with God,
that we are conscious of the world around us and
conscious as we contemplate it, of God's active creation. So
(04:53):
in this reading, when we see in your love, you
have given us the power to behold the beauty of
your world. Let's not overlook those powerful words. We have
a unique power, a unique ability to behold the beauty
of the world that God has created, and so in
the wonders of nature that we experience. If we simply
(05:15):
walk past it, or don't take time to smell the
proverbial roses, then we don't also appreciate the unique place
that we have in the world. It is so fleeting,
and life can be so short. But as we take
the time to walk or hike, or bike or swim
and be conscious of the gift that we have to
(05:38):
be able to be aware of the beauty of the
world around us, that is a very special gift that
begins to awaken our awareness till all that is around us.
And it goes on to say, robed in all its splendor,
the sun and the stars, the valleys and the hills,
the rivers and the lakes, all disclose your presence. Yes,
(06:01):
we see in all the things that we didn't make,
all the things we didn't create, all the things we
didn't join a committee to master, are the things that
reflect something larger than ourselves. I use the word God
easily and comfortably. My faith has grown and deepened certainly
over the years as a practicing rabbi. But even if
(06:23):
you don't use that word easily or comfortably, yet it's
okay to say, something larger than myself, something beyond me,
was responsible for this, and I still stand in awe
of it. And because we are uniquely human and not
just an animal, then we also have the ability and
(06:44):
power to be conscious of the difference between what is
created by human beings and what is created by science,
acts of nature, the Big Bang, and God. The reading
goes on, the roaring break of the sea tell of
your awesome might. The beasts of the field, and the
birds of the air bespeak your wondrous will. Indeed, the oceans,
(07:10):
when they are so powerful and so awesome on the seashore,
they really do tell of an energy that is hard
to comprehend. We see it only on the surface, but
what's churning underneath is continues to be a mystery to
most of us, unless you're a deep sea diver or
someone who studies oceanography. Then we are just mere witnesses
(07:34):
of what approaches us on the sand and the seashore,
and from which we usually run as the tide comes in.
And the birds that chirp, and the beasts of the field,
as the writing tells us, are not aware of their creator,
but certainly reflect acts of creation, because there are so
(07:55):
many wondrous things in nature that we see and hear
and touch, and some that we can't ever figure out.
The question has been asked a long time ago, why
did God create a mosquito? Well, I live in Houston, Texas,
where there are plenty of them, and we do all
we can to rid ourselves of them. But even the
(08:16):
mosquito has a role and a purpose beyond our comprehension,
but still part of one of God's mysteries. This reading
concludes with these words, in your goodness, you God, have
made us able to hear the music of the world.
The raging of the winds, the whispering of trees in
the wood, and the precious voices of loved ones reveal
(08:38):
to us that you are in our midst That one
is so touching to us, because any of us who
have ever walked through the woods, or have the privilege
to sit on a dark night where you can see
the stars beyond the city lights and really hear and
feel the wind through the trees. It is a kind
(09:00):
of music. It is a sound that we don't create.
It comes by virtue of the combination of things in
nature that plays on the winds and the speed of
the wind that comes through the volume the rush. Some
of us have learned because of the places where we
live or the experiences we've had to understand what the
(09:21):
air smells like, is rain coming? Or what the wind
looks like and feels like is a storm coming in?
Or should we run for cover again? Living in Houston,
Texas or anybody who lives along the Gulf Coast knows
what the thicker air is all about and when the
winds are coming. And though hurricanes can be predicted, sometimes
(09:42):
we can see the swirl in the sky or the
changes in nature, all of it clearly beyond our own
acts of creation. We stand in awe of what the
world around us can smell like and sound like and
feel like. Times when I lead a wedding under a
huppah the wedding canopy at an outdoor wedding, I'll reflect
(10:06):
on the fact that the world that we're about to
enter with a unique couple who's never been married before,
This couple has never existed before. In this way, we're
surrounded by the feeling of nature. The wind, the sun,
the warmth. All of it is part of the world
we all engage in and we all live in we
depend on it, and so as we appreciate the world
(10:29):
that we're entering into, we also have to appreciate and
perhaps see reflected in it God's acts of creation and
the ongoing process of creation reflected in the couple, and
all that we continue to be and do together. I
wonder where you're going to be this summer as you
make your way, or if your children are going to summercamp.
(10:52):
One of the most beautiful memories of summer camp that
I remember is going on a hike with counselors to
go through the woods, which it were so different than
the suburban neighborhood where I grew up, and sometimes to
sit on the grass and to play with the leaves
or the grasses or the stems, to blow a dandelion,
or to hear animals and to wonder how they grow
(11:14):
and to learn about them. And at least for me,
when I went to Jewish summer camp as a young
child and then also was a counselor, it was a
time to connect those experiences with Jewish teachings. Appreciation for nature,
a blessing for the new morning, even a prayer for
the evening, and to be so grateful for the world
(11:37):
around us that we grew deep in appreciation for how
we should tend the world around us too. It wasn't
ours to spoil the earth or to take over few
and rare resources for our own good. And so we
were grown to understand the preciousness of the world that
(11:58):
God created for us to have dominion over, as the
Torah tells us, but not to despoil the earth or
to waste precious resources. So in the Torah, in the
Book of Genesis, we learn that when God said to
Noah that God would never destroy the world by flood again,
commentators over the years and we learned even as children
(12:20):
that though God promised not to destroy the world by
flood again, it didn't mean that we human beings couldn't
take our power and misuse it, abuse it and misunderstand it,
and do the very same thing to destroy the resources,
perhaps by nuclear war, which was a greater threat in
the past but doesn't end even today, and by many
(12:45):
other means. So there's an interest in hybrid vehicles, e vehicles,
how we recycle and use things. It isn't just a
reflection of a political point of view. Much of it
really does come from faithful teachings that remind us that
we are not owners of the earth, and if we
(13:06):
don't appreciate the least agreement that we have, we might
actually run out of what we desperately need. And so
the summer is time to not only take a break
from work, but to re enter the world of nature
that is God's creation, and to grow in our respect
and appreciation for it, so that we can come home
again and do our work with a higher sense of
(13:29):
value and sense of appreciation, and to look forward to
a new year filled with God's blessings that surround us.
I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation That Israel in Houston.
To listen again or to share this message, please find
it at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
My podcast is Heart to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon.
(13:53):
So as your week continues, perhaps you're simply going back
to the classroom or to work, but if you're already
on your way or soon you will be to a vacation,
be sure that wherever you are, whether it's another major
city or somewhere deep in nature, take time to close
your eyes, to listen or to open your eyes and
(14:16):
look around and appreciate the sights, the sounds, and the
world around you filled with such beauty where perhaps you
made a difference, but not everywhere, of course, So appreciate
the difference that others have made, and that which is
larger around you has created and preserved for us to enjoy,
(14:37):
to learn from, and to gain better and deeper appreciation.
So we can come home and do our very best
in the world that is ours that we create, and
we appreciate with others who join us in those places
for good, for blessing, and for peace. Thank you for
joining me. I look forward to being with you again
(14:58):
next time.
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