THE BLESSING OF OCEANOGRAPHY

Oceanography. What is the spiritual aspect of this science, is there a way to look at it to appreciate the Greatness of the Blue Oceans, to fear the Dangers of Ocean Hurricanes as we fear the Greatness of Gd, the Lingering Damaging Floods of Destroying Ocean Tsunamis? 

To appreciate a springtime rainstorm, to see a bolt of lightening to turn it into a musical concert light show? To lay back on green turf on a blanket at an outside musical concert park and beat your feet to the drums you hear. Tap your fingers on your hands like as upon a sweet soprano flute. A piccolo? A Kosher pickle. Not to listen to just bass without Ein Sof as your source of sweetness, sweetness flying high as far as the sound of music can travel.

Oceans. California. The Pacific Ocean. The largest Ocean in the world! 

Redwoods growing. Birds' nests. Ocean birds. 

The tide coming in and going out. Splashing sensations on one's feet. Bare foot in the hot California beach sands. Venus Beach. A home for the homeless to travel. Beaches to welcome the homeless with an outside home. A tent here and a tent there. Every day warm. Every night cool but not cold. 

Oranges. Sweet sugary fructose fruit growing on trees. Pluck them off and eat free food growing on delicious wooden trees. Migrant workers well fed as they eat their own produce. A snack here and a snack there. Not to be hungry. Water coming in from waterfalls. Ocean pure natural waters. To take a Jewish mikvah in the Ocean water. Changing small letters into capital letters: ocean to OCEAN. From small to big. From dirty to clean.

The question is: Can we shun an ocean? An OSHUN? 

We need water every few minutes. Praying for clean water. The "Blessing of Oceanography". Water to saturate the mouth and tongue. Ocean waters cleaned in heavy duty filtration systems. A clean cup, a clean hand, sipping with clean lips. Water chasing away body poisons, food poisoning leaving the body with a glass of pure water. Not processed by the liver, instead expelled out of the body from the kidneys.

A blessing? Can we involve Gd into our thankfulness for the love of these large Oceans? Gd was the Creator. Like a Mom creating children as her own, like a Father helping his wife to raise their children, kids whom the Dad created too.

Watch and learn from Gd's creations, learn from nature. To feel as happy yourself as a great ocean pounding like drums of Timpani on the shores with each wave, successively, generation to generation. Drum head to drum head.

A Mom to become a Grand-Mom. A Dad to become a Grand-Dad.

Happily hydrated like the Great Pacific Ocean, pacified, gladdened, because of the purity of its clean water.

IMAGINARY DESCRIPTION OF THE MISHKAN

What did the Mishkan look like? We have exact blueprints of it saved by historians and worded in The Chumash Torah as described by an Author of Torah. We see pictures of it reinvented so it takes a true form of life, not only two dimensional but full sized, a real life sculpture.

So how can we describe it, not as actually a piece of art, but how it makes us feel to envision it, and to want to touch it as we now touch the Torah Scrolls when they are in procession down the aisle of a Jewish Temple.

We kiss our books, our prayer books, Seders, and feel affection and love as we watch the Torah marched, danced down the pathway, fully garbed in Torah covers, dynamite awesome sewed tapestries, glitter and shine, sparkling, as gold. Gold as the metal that comprised the Mishkan.

Who carried it? The Levites. Grab as far as you can reach. Got it? Touch its surface, smooth, gently, furry, felt-like, embroidered, silk and wool, linen, blue, purple, crimson, white. Where is the white? It is in the rainbow, all colors together, merged, cause whiteness.

To savor a clean feeling in one's mouth as we sing as the Torah is walked down the aisle, no red carpet, wooden benches, a Book of Life, a Bemah. Torah Stand.

A congregant who is in need of peace to shake everyone's hand as they pass by and walk up and then down the Bemah, up and then down Jacob's Ladder. A stage? The curtain behind who stands the Wizard of Oz? To bow frequently, to throw kisses, to throw candy, to catch it and chew it to sweeten our dispositions as we politely, sweetly sing with the Cantor.

The Mishkan? What is behind the Ark? Can we open the Ark doors? Blindingly the shine of the Mishkan with cherubs, two, each on the top. A place to bake Challah breads, two loaves at a time. Golden rods to fit comfortably inside the hands of the working Levites, to get a grip.

Olive oil. Surging and splashing. Oil that heals. Oil that lights a candle, or nine on Chanukah, arms branches, the Family Tree. Twelve Tribes of Israel. To which do you belong?

David. The anointed ones. To hear David again and again each generation, to feel his poetry in your heart.

To use this poetry to keep a loving feeling, especially to love Gd with a mind, a brain, an intellect.

SEEKING GOD, FINDING HIM AND THEN FLOURISHING

Seek and find? Look and see? Listen and hear? Sniff and smell? Touch and feel? Believe and acquiesce? Buy and have ownership?

What is it we are looking for? To turn wishes into prayers and prayers into blessings. To know the Hebrew language and have it become your mantra as a dance step or too as you simply sit and rest. To follow its regular beat. To make it your routine.

To smile at a friend and in this way observe the commandment of Pirkei Avot to greet everyone with a cheerful countenance. To as you walk on the street greet a stranger with this same smile and he then becomes not a stranger but a friend. To look the stranger on the street with direct eye contact as he begs you for money and be honest with him, yes you have money or no  you do not. To simply give a man a dollar that would be so appreciated. To instead give him a loaf of bread, if that is what you can give.

Where can I see God if I look for Him? In the gratitude reflected in this strangers eyes as he thanks you for the gift. Or to send someone an anonymous gift card in a greetings card to give someone money but not to identify yourself so he need not reciprocate. You get no reward, the gift is entirely his.

Colors? Do you know what color is which? Ever taken an Art Class? Look all around you inside or out, see all the colors of the rainbow without straining. To love the yellows as you turn them into gold and the grays as you turn them into silver. A door knob? Gold, silver, brass or nickel? Change in your hands: quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. Colorful pieces of cut glass: gems, jewels. Handcrafting necklaces, bracelets, headbands. Creating something out of nothing. Appreciating the nothing that becomes something. Knowing it is God Who made the difference.

A marble countertop with swirls of silvers inside whites. The text of your favorite book, the binding strong and secure, a book as a companion. The Torah being this Book. Integrating the Commandments into your brain so it becomes second nature to follow them to a T. T is also for Teaching, to Teach Torah and feel comfort and achievement in teaching it. 

Finding God? Seek. Find. Flourish.