Video – San Antonio Blesses the Sun

SAN ANTONIO, TX — As Passover begins, the San Antonio Jewish community came together for a ceremony held once every 28 years to bless the rising sun.

On Wednesday more than 100 gathered on the gently slopping east front lawn of Chabad Lubavitch of South Texas in San Antonio for Birkat Hachamah.

“It’s comforting,” said Elizabeth Friedman. “It’s the rhythm of life.”

The bright red cardinals were easy to see hopping between the new foliage of the oaks on the cool morning as the crowd waited for the sun to clear the horizon. At 8 a.m. the hazy orange orb could be clearly seen through the trees, and Rabbi Chaim Block started the ceremony.

“We are not praying to the sun,” he said later. “We are giving thanks to God for the sun.”

The sun is a symbol of giving in his faith because it warms us, makes plants grow and lights our days, Block said. It serves as a reminder that people should give of themselves if they to want to thrive.

For Friedman it was a powerful experience that moved her to tears as she stood with the crowd in the soft morning light.

“I felt the sun as the positive energy,” she said. “As embracing humankind.”

Like most who had gathered, the ceremony was completely new even though it has been on the Jewish calendar for millenniums.

According to Jewish tradition, when God was creating the universe Wednesday was spent working on the sun, moon and stars. If the solar year were an even 52 weeks, Birkat Hachamah could be held every year. But it takes the earth roughly 52 weeks and 11/4 days to complete a trip around the sun. So if the ceremony is to be held on a Wednesday, it can happen only every 28 years. That is after seven leap years have passed to allow the solar year and the weeks to complete a cycle.

Because a solar year is a few minutes short of 3651/4 days, the calculation is not exact. But it has worked for thousands of years to put the ceremony close to the spring equinox.

“It’s there all the time and we just take it for granted,” Priscilla Gamer said of the sun. It was her first time to learn about the ceremony and she said she would not soon forget.

The next ceremony will be held on April 8, 2037.