The Journey: The Blues or Blue Skies (Shemini 5779)

Photo by Ramon Llorensi

We often are ambivalent about Sundays. Some Sundays leave us with dissonance and anxiety anticipating the week ahead. We feel helpless: those are Sunday blues. Other Sundays inspire us to carry optimism and hope into the coming week. We feel hopeful; those are blue sky Sundays. 

This Sunday every JCHS student will be adventuring far from home - to southern California, to Zion National Park, to New Orleans, and within Israel. These journeys empower our students by engaging them with others who think, live, and believe differently than they do. These journeys empower our students to see their own world from different points of view -- and to imagine shaping the world through their effort and labor. Still just as Sundays start each week, some journey encounters will generate dissonance or anxiety while others inspire optimism and hope.

The Torah portion this week hints at our inherent capacity to choose optimism over anxiety - seeing blue skies instead of feeling the blues. 


Just after the Torah narrative describes dedicating the tabernacle in the wilderness, it opens this week with an unusual phrase, "On the eighth (shemini) day" (Lev. 9:1) But this particular day has never been referred to before. So why is it set-off with a definite article? As MeAm Loez (18th century, Constantinople) asks, "What's so important about the eighth day?" 

MeAm Loez offers several answers. One seems particularly compelling in this context. That is, the eighth day refers to Sundays. Echoing back to the first week of Creation, Sunday is the day on which light was created and all the rest of creation started. It follows that the eighth day comes immediately after the first Shabbat that closes the week of Creation. In that sense, Sunday echoes back to the start of Creation. More significantly, it draws our attention to the vast divine potential that fills the world then and even today.  

But in the story of Creation, the Sunday after that first week was the same day Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden. Talk about a journey of dissonance and anxiety!?! It was on that eighth day that Eve and Adam were made responsible for bringing their own labor and effort into the world. 

As expressed by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Creation is about the light that God brings to the world while the eighth day is about the light that humanity brings to the world. On Shabbat we remember what God created, but in Sacks words, "On the eighth day, we celebrate our creativity" in partnership with the Eternal. 

In other words, if Shabbat is a remembrance of the fullness of creation, then Sundays are the encouragement to realize the full potential of creation through our efforts and work. 

In the week ahead may each of us enjoy journeys that leave the blues behind and that involve remarkable encounters inspiring us to reach toward the blue skies of infinite potential.

[This revives my blog post from April 1, 2016, for Shemini 5776]