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Steven Moskowitz

Let’s Dance Like Sunflowers

My new favorite flower is the sunflower. It’s not because of its seeds which I enjoy but instead because of a recent scientific discovery.

Apparently, sunflowers dance. Let me explain.

Every flower requires sunlight. When sunflowers grow together, they block the sunlight from each other. And so, scientists discovered they move around so that each is exposed to the sun. They do not do this when a building shades the sun. They do this when grouped together in a large patch of sunflowers. They dance in a coordinated fashion to make room for each other.

As we mark the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul and the approach of the High Holidays the sunflowers provide us with a model for how we might behave towards each other during this contentious and painful year.

Everyone needs the warmth of the sun. And everyone needs to dance. How do we behave like the sunflowers and make room for others? How do we ensure that each and every one of us can fulfill such basic needs?

Too often we focus on ourselves. We live our lives like that guy who dances so wildly that he knocks others off the floor. Instead, we need to make room for others. We need to bend and turn. Only then can others find equal nourishment and fulfillment.

We need to ask ourselves, “Does my joy come at the expense of other people? Does my happiness come at the price of our precious earth?” Somehow the sunflowers make room for others. In some mysterious way these seemingly lowly plants provide space for others so that all can reach the sun. We should learn from them.

We should dance like sunflowers.

In these devastating times the only way we are going to reach the light is together, not in an obvious and harmonious way but instead with a thoughtfulness about others’ needs. The only way the memories of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino come to serve as a blessing is if everyone is given the room to dance. That is what many of them set out to do when they attended the Nova Festival on October 7th.

In this devastatingly tragic moment, I take a measure of hope from the sunflower.

Let’s think of others like sunflowers do. Let’s dance like sunflowers.

About the Author
Rabbi Steven Moskowitz is the rabbi of Congregation L'Dor V'Dor, a community serving Long Island's North Shore. He began his rabbinical career in 1991 at the 92nd Street Y in New York. He travels every summer to Jerusalem to learn at the Shalom Hartman Institute where he is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow. Rabbi Moskowitz is married to Rabbi Susie Moskowitz and is the father of Shira and Ari.
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