My team recently made sun catchers together. We patiently added paint to our frames in patterns that pleased us. While doing so, we chatted amiably, and our bodies relaxed. Towards the end of our time, I noted that there was something very Jewish about paying attention to the sun just now: we are in the Hebrew month of Tammuz (based on a lunar cycle) during which the rabbis tell us Joshua made the sun stand still (Joshua 10:12-13). Given the coincidence of timing and what it means to pay attention to the sun now, I wondered…what does it mean to catch the sun?
When we talk about enjoying our time in the sun, we say we “catch some rays” or “sunbathe.” We do not say we catch sun or sunlight. We also talk about experiencing the sun negatively as in “baking in the sun” or getting a “sunburn.” The closest we come to using the phrase commonly would be when talking about positioning plants to “catch the sun(light),” sometimes dropping the “light.”
It feels to me very much like “catching the sun” means something else. The suncatchers my team made are meant to capture the sun’s light through colors that would then get cast brighter. Prisms are used similarly to refract sunlight casting rainbows. Solar panels might also capture sunlight with a focus on its energy. I think, though, “catching the sun” is less about the light than it is about the beauty or majesty of the sun.
Jewishly, appreciating the sun this way is complicated. So much of the biblical and ancient rabbinic traditions are taken with making sure to avoid treating the sun as an idol or a god. It is not that the sun is unimportant or unappreciated but rather that the sun cannot be venerated. That is why I find it fascinating that it is the middle month of summer (in the northern hemisphere) during which the tradition finds the sun to be even more significant than in its celestial role. To have Joshua’s famous stopping of the sun fall in this month seems to me to mean more. Perhaps it is specifically because Joshua stops the sun that it gets its moment. Only by being subject to Divine intervention does the sun merit a special moment.
This summer has felt particularly hot. It is tempting to give the sun undue importance, though assuredly it plays a big role. I believe Jewish tradition wants us to see that the sun is just another part of Creation–in our case this year to remember that humidity has caused just as much of the heat warnings. We can and should catch the sun, its rays, and its lights. When we catch its significance, though, we need to remember that we might “catch” so much more of Creation–water, earth, vegetation, animals, wind, people, and more. I look forward to hanging up my suncatcher; and, when it does catch the sun, I intend to catch gratitude. The Talmud (Berakhot 59a) encourages us to “bless the One who made the work of Creation” when we see the sun this way. Go, catch some sun, and catch some gratitude, too.
About Rabbi Jeremy Winaker
Rabbi Jeremy Winaker is the executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hillel Network, responsible for West Chester University, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and other area colleges. He is the former head of school at the Albert Einstein Academy in Wilmington and was the senior Jewish educator at the Kristol Hillel Center at the University of Delaware for four years. Rabbi Winaker lives in Delaware with his wife and three children.
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