"Ask the animals they will teach you, inquire of the birds, they will tell you... "
~Job 12:7-10.
What do I know of a bird, what has a bird taught me? I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the book, when I was an adolescent and I love to watch seagulls--I think they are the greatest of all birds. A Rabbi once told me he thought that seagulls are reincarnated Levites. I see them that way too. I see them stretch their great expanse of strong mighty wings like God's mighty arms, that lift them higher and higher into the air, and they swoop down into water when they see a fish and scoop it up with it in their beaks and then fly away well-fed.
Circling, swooping, perseverant, continuous, beckoning, diving downward--the seagull then lifts upwards again with the help of the wind, then downwards again, circling round again--eyes keen, spots a fish! Licks its chops and circles around again, wind lifting it up again, down again, around again, 20 times around that fish until the fish's golden scales catch sunrays and glitter enticingly through the transparency of the clear water and then: CAUGHT! The satisfied seagull then flies upward and away with a dinner in its mouth.
"... Speak to the earth, she will inform you.
The fish of the sea, they will instruct you.
They all know that God is the source.
In God's hand rests the life of all the living,
and the breath of all humankind."
~Job (cont.) 12:7-10.
~Job 12:7-10.
What do I know of a bird, what has a bird taught me? I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the book, when I was an adolescent and I love to watch seagulls--I think they are the greatest of all birds. A Rabbi once told me he thought that seagulls are reincarnated Levites. I see them that way too. I see them stretch their great expanse of strong mighty wings like God's mighty arms, that lift them higher and higher into the air, and they swoop down into water when they see a fish and scoop it up with it in their beaks and then fly away well-fed.
Circling, swooping, perseverant, continuous, beckoning, diving downward--the seagull then lifts upwards again with the help of the wind, then downwards again, circling round again--eyes keen, spots a fish! Licks its chops and circles around again, wind lifting it up again, down again, around again, 20 times around that fish until the fish's golden scales catch sunrays and glitter enticingly through the transparency of the clear water and then: CAUGHT! The satisfied seagull then flies upward and away with a dinner in its mouth.
"... Speak to the earth, she will inform you.
The fish of the sea, they will instruct you.
They all know that God is the source.
In God's hand rests the life of all the living,
and the breath of all humankind."
~Job (cont.) 12:7-10.
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