Devout Jews observe ‘blessing of the sun’ ritual

DEVOUT Jews around the world yesterday observed a ritual performed only once every 28 years, saying their morning prayers under the open sky in a ceremony called the “blessing of the sun”.

Tens of thousands of worshippers stood next to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, the holiest site where Jews can pray. Hundreds headed to the ancient desert fortress of Masada, while others prayed on the roof of a Tel Aviv high-rise and congregated on road sides.

“God created the world in seven days,” said Yona Vogel, one of the estimated 50,000 who attended the Western Wall prayers.

“On the fourth day he put the sun into orbit and every 28 years it returns to the original place that it stood when God created the world.”

The special blessing — called the Birkat Hachamah in Hebrew — was marked in many time zones, starting with members of the small Jewish community in New Zealand. The prayer came on the eve of the week-long Passover festival, in which Jews commemorate the exodus from slavery in Egypt.

The timing was coincidental, but added to the joyous feeling felt by many worshippers.

In New York City, a rabbi was to lead a morning gathering near the United Nations. Another group was to pray on the deck of a 17th-story penthouse near ground zero, the site of the demolished World Trade Centre.

Modern science may have overtaken the astronomy of the scriptures, but scholars say the blessing still has symbolic value as acknowledgment of the divine role in the universe.