Stars

My older brother's high school class filled the hay wagon on a ride through the fields at night. The tractor buzzed and the teenagers around me were probably more interested in each other than in the mysterious of the nighttime. I was lying on my back, watching the stars. One kept moving - a satellite, unusual in those days. The stars, so many, so bright, so very, very bright against the black, black sky. White, twinkling specs of wonder, a whole panorama of them, silent.

And the moon, too, when it is visible.

I look at the stars every night, now. Blessed are You, Adonai our G!d, Source of all being, by whose word the evening falls. In wisdom You open heaven’s gates…ordering the stars on their appointed paths through heaven’s. Creator of day and night, rolling away light before dark, and dark before light, making day pass and bringing on night…Blessed are You, Adonai, who makes evening fall. And after these words, the words of the Mourner's Kaddish, in memory of my mother: Yitgadal v'yitkadash, May the Great Name of the One be magnified and sanctified...and there before me are the stars - the magnificent, amazing, glorious, mysterious, amazing stars.