{"id":1325,"date":"2009-03-30T18:01:25","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T18:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun.php"},"modified":"2009-03-30T18:01:25","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T18:01:25","slug":"jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","title":{"rendered":"Jews Prepare to &#8216;Bless the Sun&#8217; Before Passover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (RNS) Traditionalist Jews and tree-huggers alike are coming together for Birkat HaHammah, a Jewish holiday that falls only once every 28 years, marking the sun&#8217;s return to its original position at creation.<br \/>\nThis year, the celebration takes place at sunrise April 8, followed by the start of Passover at sunset. The timing is a coincidence that won&#8217;t happen again until 2437; unlike major Jewish holidays, which run on a lunar cycle, the &#8220;blessing the sun&#8221; is based on the Julian calendar.<br \/>\nStill, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life has encouraged Jews to take advantage of the convergence, offering suggestions for tying the obscure observance with the major annual holiday.<br \/>\nFamilies can discuss the meaning of Birkat HaHammah during the traditional questions asked at the first Seder meal, and turn the pre-Passover ritual of ridding homes of leavened bread into a simultaneous search for light bulbs that can be replaced with energy-efficient models, said Liore Milgrom-Elcott, COEJL spokeswoman.<br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;re encouraging people to look for ways we waste energy along with the leavened bread,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We want them to really think about the sun and all that it can do for us.&#8221;<br \/>\nA few groups have come up with their own ideas: in Winston-Salem, N.C., Jews will gather outside Temple Emanuel at dawn to share their final taste of leavened bread for the week &#8212; bagels &#8212; and burn the leftovers while blessing the sun with songs and prayers.<br \/>\nDozens of other Birkat HaHammah observances have been planned throughout North America and Israel, ranging from a sunrise meditation service at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Ill., to a Yeshiva University presentation last month in New York City by Rabbi J. David Bleich, author of &#8220;Bircas HaChammah: Blessing of the Sun-Renewal of Creation.&#8221;<br \/>\nCOEJL has compiled a list of events and other information at www.blessthesun.org. Birkat HaHammah last fell on April 8, 1981; it will next fall on April 8, 2037.<br \/>\n&#8220;Twenty-eight years ago, we were ignorant of the environmental realities and energy realities that we were heading towards,&#8221; Milgrom-Elcott said. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t want to just let this opportunity slip and not have the chance again for another 28 years.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Nicole Neroulias<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (RNS) Traditionalist Jews and tree-huggers alike are coming together for Birkat HaHammah, a Jewish holiday that falls only once every 28 years, marking the sun&#8217;s return to its original position at creation. This year, the celebration takes place at sunrise April 8, followed by the start of Passover at sunset. The timing is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jews Prepare to &#039;Bless the Sun&#039; Before Passover<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jews Prepare to &#039;Bless the Sun&#039; Before Passover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEW YORK (RNS) Traditionalist Jews and tree-huggers alike are coming together for Birkat HaHammah, a Jewish holiday that falls only once every 28 years, marking the sun&#8217;s return to its original position at creation. This year, the celebration takes place at sunrise April 8, followed by the start of Passover at sunset. The timing is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-30T18:01:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jews Prepare to 'Bless the Sun' Before Passover","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jews Prepare to 'Bless the Sun' Before Passover","og_description":"NEW YORK (RNS) Traditionalist Jews and tree-huggers alike are coming together for Birkat HaHammah, a Jewish holiday that falls only once every 28 years, marking the sun&#8217;s return to its original position at creation. This year, the celebration takes place at sunrise April 8, followed by the start of Passover at sunset. The timing is&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-03-30T18:01:25+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun","name":"Jews Prepare to 'Bless the Sun' Before Passover","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-03-30T18:01:25+00:00","dateModified":"2009-03-30T18:01:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/03\/jews-prepare-to-bless-the-sun#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jews Prepare to &#8216;Bless the Sun&#8217; Before Passover"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}