5. Now no tree of the field was yet on the earth, neither did any herb of the field yet grow, because the Lord God had not brought rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil.
Rashi
When the creation of the world was completed on the sixth day, before man was created, no herb of the field had yet grown. And on the third [day], where it is written:“Let the earth bring forth,” they [the plants] had not yet emerged, but they stood at the entrance of the ground until the sixth day. And why? Because He had not caused it to rain, because there was no man to work the soil, and no one recognized the benefit of rain, but when man came and understood that they were essential to the world, he prayed for them, and they fell, and the trees and the herbs sprouted. — [from Chul. 60b]
8 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgwJw0xzr4
Rabbi Sacks, how come you chose Tefilla as the Gedanken experiment in particular?
Moonlight
Because in t'filla we identify ourselves, as a specific life process within the Creation/ecosystem, needful of His wisdom to succeed.
To Hashem, humans will always appear exactly as they are, regardless of the imposed social standards and regardless of any other way they may wish to present themselves. Yet, men of great wisdom have suffered persecutions as a result of the standards of the particular society in which they lived, probably because they created revolutionary concepts that were ahead of their time period. Thus they were deemed nonconformists and rejected by the society at large, and so many ended up living in dejected conditions and dying in penury. The world is still learning to catch up with their genius. So in this case, how should these men present themselves: in the way the world will accept them or in the way they are? By the way, I'm reading this book called Out of Egypt--a memoir of a Sephardi family that adjusts its identity so as to be able to live in peace with their neighbors and to at least try to avoid any persecutions from the surrounding society.
moonlight1021,
Thanks for the Schrödinger's Cat video.
Do you have a blog?
You're welcome. And I did have a blog at some point, but not anymore. Maybe one day I'll open up one (again).
A video on the Power of Tefillah--the beginning is a visual representation of Rashi's commentary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5812104784097635551&ei=wrAdS5GVFem5lQfAp-neCA&q=power+of+tefillah&hl=en#
Another nice song on Tefilah by Avraham Fried-Rak Tefilah Esah. I heard it first on Israel Hour Podcast on iTunes (Hebrew music helps me learn Hebrew):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfqmWsbrdQ8
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