"Jewish Groups Prepare for Rare Blessing of the Sun"

A quick follow-up:

No sooner did I post my first entry here and breathe a sigh of relief, than I found an article waiting in my e-mail's In box, a piece from the Jewish Forward about a 28-year cyclical ritual to honor our earthly connection with the sun:

http://forward.com/articles/103089/

From the article: “Growing up, there was almost a fear in recognizing that our holidays and calendar are indicative of an earth-based religion,” said Nati Passow, co-founder of the Jewish Farm School, one of the groups behind BlessTheSun. “That doesn’t necessarily mean idol worship or earth worship, but it means that the calendar and the cycles were a reflection of people who lived with a greater awareness of natural cycles than we have now. And so any time you can teach people about elements of our tradition that are earth-based, and especially the ones that are hidden and not as well known, it’s a way of bringing people into Judaism.”

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Indeed, as well as reconciling it with the old religions from which Judaism sprung. To me, aboriginal Judaism is a thing of rare beauty, and nothing to fear or condemn. Such a belief structure may take the wisest and most compassionate Westerners into true communion with both G_d and the planet that sustains us.