As the wine steward said to Pharaoh in Genesis 41:9, “I declare my sins now.” The sin I declare now is my tone-deafness to the significance of this week’s solar eclipse. I just didn’t understand why it was such a big deal to so many people, including to many of the Rabbinic Fellows in Clal’s LEAP program, run in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
In anticipation of our 3-day gathering in NYC, a number of our Fellows asked if/how we were making time and space to experience and reflect on the eclipse. My immediate and initial, and happily internal-only, response was that we were not planning to do so. I appreciated that many people were making a big deal of this event, and even have close friends who were traveling with their families from NYC to Canada or Maine in order to experience the 100% eclipse of the sun, as opposed to the 88% eclipse that could be glimpsed at home, but “interrupt” a gather of Katz Center scholars from around the world and a group of rabbis from across the county, for the eclipse? I just couldn’t see it. And then, I realized that I needed a new set of lenses. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist).