What Blessing Do You Say In A Storm?

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor 
November 26, 2003 

Thanksgiving Sermon

September 17th was a beautiful day with blue skies, comfortable temperatures and hardly a cloud to be seen. On September 18th the winds were howling, the rain was pouring and the skies were an ugly grey. I filled the bathtub with water. At 6:20 P.M. we lost our electricity, which would not return until the afternoon of September 27th. Until then we would rely on candles and batteries. Sometime that evening we lost water pressure. On the radio it said that the worst of Hurricane Isabel was going to hit in the early evening hours. In the fading light I watched two trees by my house, the one by the sidewalk on Malvern and West Franklin facing a bedroom and living room and the other directly behind by house facing the kitchen and master bedroom. 
What did we say to ourselves and each other during the hours of the storm? 
My wife asked: "Did you fill the bathtub all the way up?" 
"Where are the flashlights?" 
"Do we have enough batteries?" 
"'C's or D's?" 
"Do we have enough bottled water?" 
"Where are the candles?" 
"Where are the matches?" 
"Are the cell phones fully charged?" 
"Is our daughter okay in her apartment?" 
"What do you want to eat?" 
All of us said the same questions and more of the same.

I had a whole other set of worries on my head. Friday night September 26th began our season of the High Holy Days of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur with other ancillary observances. It's having Christmas and Easter in ten days time. 
When and how can I write my sermons? 
After all, no electricity, no computer! 
Will we have electricity in the synagogue? 
Will it be damaged? 
How will anyone get here? 
As Rabbi, will my congregants be safe? 
And we had a Bat Mitzvah celebrant for that Shabbat of the 19th & 20th! 
How would that take place? 
As was written in Fiddler on the Roof, these were questions that can cross a Rabbi's eyes! We were fortunate to have electricity in the synagogue that Saturday morning, the building was not damaged, my congregants were safe, and my trees did not fall down. We had enough water, the batteries lasted and our daughter was also safe.

But tonight, with the motif of thanksgiving before us, I want to ask a different question. I pose and answer it from the perspective of my Jewish tradition and share with you these insights from my faith. But it has a universal discourse. 
How do people of faith look at the world of nature? 
Especially its powerful and destructive elements? 
What blessing do you say in a storm?

I. Let me first indicate that in Judaism there is a category called "Tefillat Shav" - loosely translated "An Unworthy Prayer." Basically this is a prayer uttered for things that cannot be changed. If I didn't study before a test, it is a tefillat shav to ask God for me to pass or get an A. If I smoke my lungs out, it is a tefillat shav to pray to God that I will have a clean x-ray. When Hurricane Isabel's track brought it central Virginia, it was a tefillat shav to pray to God to steer it towards some other unlucky people. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't have preferred it going out to sea and never reaching land! We needed this like we needed the proverbial "another hole in the head!"

Judaism does teach that there are indeed worthy prayers. We pray giving praise to God for life, the earth, for family and friends. We pray to God asking for forgiveness for wrongs towards Him, direction in atoning for wrongs towards others, and wisdom to perceive and change wrongs towards ourselves. We pray before eating, permission to partake in food, and we pray afterwards in thanks for that of which we have partaken. We pray for healing, when it is possible, and comfort and peace when it is not. We pray for God's love in this world and in the next. These are all categories of most worthy prayers which we pray every day.

There is another genre of prayers that are not formulated in the usual format "Blessed are You O Lord our God.." This is the Book of Psalms, personal meditations of the Psalmist, King David and whoever else, covering the gamut of human emotions from highest celebration to deepest distress. While the traditional number in the Bible is one hundred and fifty, the night of September 18th I added a few in a more contemporary nature! Let me share with you two blessings I said in the storm and two that I recited afterwards, and one more that I wished I could have.

II. In Judaism there is a category of blessings/prayers that are recited over phenomena and events - berachot ha'riyah v'hash-meyah - "blessings on what you have seen and heard". Those days certainly qualified!

The first is recited when you see lightning, experience an earthquake or see a comet: 
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe Who makes the work of Creation. 
The second is recited upon hearing thunder: 
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, for His strength and His power fill the universe.

From the Jewish perspective, the religious person sees the phenomenon of nature and indeed "The Laws of Nature" as stemming from God, as part of His design of existence. In reciting these two blessings in particular, when we witness exceptional events in the natural world like lightning, thunder and a hurricane, we are attesting not to God's absence, but to God's presence. In the first blessing while watching the lightning or feeling the earth shake under our feet, among the true fears of the moment, is the perception that this somehow shares with us the miracle of God's creation of existence. It is an ongoing process and not a one-time event. If not being partners, at least we are witnesses! While powerful storms rightfully make us afraid, how glorious it is to think that we can, in our time and limited human capacity, have some experience of God's creation of the world! That is stunning!

In reference to the second blessing, upon hearing the thunder, let me first say that from the time I was a child and saw "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston and then read the Bible, I've always wondered: 
What does God's voice sound like? 
Remember the scene of how God made the first set of tablets? I always wondered about experiencing that awesome power of the divine. In the religious vision of the physical world, in the experience of thunder, we "see" with our hearts and heads that which our ears hear: 
The presence of God and the manifestation of His power and presence. 
The poetic words of the psalmist come alive in the midst of the storm: 
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof!" 
While science can admirably explain how the sound of thunder is created, what I hear is not a scientific theory. In the midst of the thunder I "hear" the presence of God!

In the midst of the hurricane, this is the Jewish response to that awesome experience, to recite these blessings amongst our other expressions for safety and well being, acknowledging the awe-inspiring power of God that gives us a taste of creation and the breathtaking experience of the power of nature that makes God's presence real to us. These are blessings I said in the storm.

III. There is one blessing to share with you that I wish I could have said after Hurricane Isabel had passed. It is the blessing recited after seeing a rainbow: 
Blessed are You O Lord King of the universe, Who remembers the covenant, is trustworthy in His covenant and fulfills His word. 
It obviously refers to the covenant of Noah in which God expresses His love of humanity with the promise to never destroy it through a cataclysmic act. Scientists may explain to use the "how" a rainbow occurs. Judaism teaches the "why," an act of comfort and salvation in God's eternal love. In the beauty of Friday morning, I wish there had been a rainbow.

Conclusion 
There were two blessings that I recited after the hurricane was past and especially after learning that in comparison to the ferocity and geography of the storm, in proportion to the number of trees that fell, predominantly in the street and not on homes, that the loss of life, tragic for any one, had been so small. Realizing the magnitude of it all, I recited: 
Blessed are You O Lord, King of the Universe, Who is good and does good. 
After the storm I had a strong sense of thanksgiving that stays with me everyday like never before. When I came out and saw my neighbors, whole and safe, when I saw the mammoth trees cutting off West Franklin Street above and below my house, Malvern cut off north and south of Patterson Avenue, and no one hurt, I gave thanks to God through this blessing. I do not believe that He singled out this tree or that home to be spared or the others to be struck. Looking out of the devastation and yet the salvation I felt the need to say "Thank You" to God. When I see any tree down, when I hear of any storm the feeling of that morning will vibrate within me.

Lastly, I share with you Judaism's perspective to never take anything for granted as expressed through a blessing. It is normal to expect to awaken every morning, to expect that the sun will rise and set in its usual course. But we will live more wholesome lives, more giving lives, more caring and sharing lives if we never take it for granted and then give thanks when we have it, the new day, the loves of our lives, freedom and liberty, our abilities, and worldly goods, and life itself. For us, this is ultimate expression of giving thanks: 
Blessed are You O Lord our God King of the universe, Who has kept us in life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this day. Amen.