(The latest in this series about the Birkot HaShachar, the Jewish morning blessings, and the role they might play in helping us – Jews and non-Jews; believers, agnostics, and atheists – live with more gratitude, presence, and even compassion. Part spiritual reportage, part suggested practice.)
Baruch Atah Adonay, Eloheynu Melech Ha’olam, Roka Ha’aretz al Ha’mayim
Blessed are You, Source of all that is, who stretches forth the earth on the waters
I’ve always had a hard time knowing what to do with this blessing. But when the heavens opened in New York City, and with the assistance of modern sculpture and a random number generator, I got an answer.
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December 2, 2015 – Although I know museums are good for me, I seldom find myself in one. 
This is true at home, and equally true when I go travelling, drawn as I am to ambling through streets, riding public transit, and diligently conducting surveys of food carts and bakeries.
Yesterday, the first of this two-day visit, things began according to plan. Though the sky was spitting and the air was chilly, this didn’t prevent me from acting on the whim to ride the N train from Manhattan to Coney Island, and fortify myself for a walk out to the pier with a stop at Nathan’s. But no sooner had I dug in to my fish sandwich, than the rain started to drench the ground outside. I looked up a weather forecast which insisted this would continue non-stop for the remainder of my stay.
Museum-going it would be. But which museums? Large and renowned? Small and quirky? Art museums? Historical? A problem unique to first worlders, I grant you, but my head began to hurt with the overabundance of options. Then, I came up with an idea that made me giddier by the second. I went online and found a list of all museums in the city, counting 217. Then I pulled up a random number generator, to tell me which of the 217 to visit. Most likely, my biases would be countered, and I would be dispatched to unfamiliar parts of the city.
That was yesterday, and I’ll tell you a little more about it later.
But for now…
As of this morning, the rain has not stopped. Out come the list and random number generator. I spin the dial and discover I will be going to the Noguchi Museum in Queens.
The entirety of my knowledge about modern sculpture would fall well short of the halfway point of a thimble, but as I look at the museum’s website, I see that the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi brought a sparing, Zen-like approach to its design. Though I have doubts about whether I’ll “get” his work, he has at least afforded me the opportunity to experience quietude while with it. I decide to wear white and let the colour be his.
A subway ride and a walk later, I enter the museum ready for stillness. I’m not ready, however, for the school bus that arrives just behind me, and the two dozen grade fours suddenly filling the lobby.
I may be a big fan of kids, but this isn’t what I had in mind. I slink away, hoping to put distance between us.
I can hope all I want, but it’s not going to happen. In no time, they and I are sharing the same sculptures.
As a dozen of them sit on the floor by their teacher, she asks them to describe one of Noguchi’s works. What colour is it? What is it made of? That’s right! It’s marble. Do you have anything made of marble at home?
Eager hands shoot up. The sink! My kitchen!
“Last one. Just one more,” the teachers says, as the offerings keep coming. But she takes two.
A while later, in another room, the teacher explains they are now standing beside a sculpture Noguchi called The Roar. “Can you roar?” she asks. “RAWRRRRR!” they answer.
At times, I do get my own space, and the opportunity to consider Noguchi’s work and what he might have meant by it.
But when I’m again in the presence of the kids, I experience a different kind of Zen. There’s no pushing or shoving. Just excitement and the desire to say “I am here” and connect with the teacher, while the parents chaperoning the group look on and smile, their eyes sparkling.
At one of the temporary exhibits, the teacher instructs the children to cover their eyes as she prepares to surprise them with the sound one of the installation makes. More than a few of them cheat, peeking between fingers splayed comically apart, fooling no one.
And I remind myself of the brucha of which I’m trying to be mindful.
Baruch Atah Adonay, Eloheynu Melech Ha’olam, Roka Ha’aretz al Ha’mayim
Blessed are You, Source of all that is, who stretches forth the earth on the waters
I think I know the brucha’s origins. Surely, it harkens back to the Torah’s creation story, in which God gives order to the chaos of the primordial, shapeless void by separating the waters below from the waters above, and fashioning the dry land on which the human adventure will take place.
But for the first time, I think I know what to do with the brucha, because it also harkens forward to this very day, where I’ve been granted witness to young people being sheltered from a world teeming with danger and uncertainty by loving family and a teacher stimulating their minds and respecting their energy, giving them solid ground on which to stand.
Then there was yesterday…
While at Nathan’s, the first museum to which the random number generator dispatched me was the New York City Fire Museum in Lower Manhattan. Lacking the aesthetic sensibility of the Noguchi Museum, it told its stories more with volume than with style. I learned of a time when enmity prevailed between rival fire stations, and leadership was determined by political patronage rather than ability. I learned about rough treatment of African-American, and later, female recruits. And I learned about an occupation filled with camaraderie and fraught with danger. On Jude Amsel’s memorial to the 343 firefighters who perished on September 11, 2001, I catch the names Joseph Angelini and Joseph Angelini Jr., father and son.
I think back a few years ago to a fire a couple of houses over from me. At the time, there was a rash of arson attacks in Toronto alleyways, and that night, a neighbour’s shed went ablaze. Unwisely looking out the window a moment, I felt the baking heat of the inferno from thirty yards away, and on the most primordial of levels, experienced the world as unsettled, unstable, dangerous. Within minutes a firefighting team arrived, and the flames were extinguished. By the next day, I was safe to again become blasé about the reliability of the universe.
But now, I have a brucha to cut through my casualness, and remind me that there are forces, not of my own making, to thank for this reliability. I decide that after I return home, the members of my local fire station will receive a letter conveying my gratitude.
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Let’s Get Mindful
Take a moment to consider the sources of stability in your life. Who fashions constancy for you in this see-sawing world?
…and/or…
Take a moment to consider the ways in which you might be a source of stability. Is there something you can do, today or very soon, to offer grounding to someone else?
With this in mind, you might wish to offer your own blessing or recite the traditional brucha…
Baruch Atah Adonay, Eloheynu Melech Ha’olam, Roka Ha’aretz al Ha’mayim
Blessed are You, Source of all that is, who stretches forth the earth on the waters
…and consider what action you can take.
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Lorne Meets World 