When God Enjoys His World: The Blessing on Beauty
Dr Tziporah Lifshitz
Published: 30 August 2021
The text of the Jewish prayer (Nusach) and the order of the blessings thus emerged in a world lacking divine inspiration, which arose following the destruction of the First Temple. The prayers and blessings sought to foster an awareness of communion with an invisible yet present God, who created the world and commands it and is present in all its manifestations. The “blessings on sights” include a blessing on natural or human beauty: “Blessed are You, the Lord our God, who has such things in His world,” or, in an earlier version, “who has such beautiful creatures.”
In a world empty of revelation, man’s search for God takes on acute existential meaning, and the human voice – the power of speech – gains a central role in the religious system. The text of the Jewish prayer (Nusach) and the order of the blessings thus emerged in a world lacking divine inspiration, which arose following the destruction of the First Temple. The prayers and blessings sought to foster an awareness of communion with an invisible yet present God, who created the world and commands it and is present in all its manifestations. The “blessings on sights” concern natural phenomena or places of national importance that are seen by the Jew, and they include a blessing on natural or human beauty: “Blessed are You, the Lord our God, who has such things in His world,” or, in an earlier version (Tosefta Berakhot 6:4), “who has such beautiful creatures.”
What is the content of this blessing and what is the religious awareness that it seeks to inspire? The phrase “[He] who has such things” (she’kakhah lo) is an expression occurring only once in the Bible. It is spoken by the Psalmist, who, in the preceding verses, admires the habits of the peaceful Jewish people: “May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars, cut for the building of a palace. May our barns be filled, with produce of every kind; may our sheep increase by thousands, by tens of thousands in our fields, and may our cattle be heavy with young.
May there be no breach in the walls, no exile, and no cry of distress in our streets. Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the Lord” (Psalms 144 12:15). The Psalmist recognizes that all the blessings bestowed upon the people are an expression of God’s love for them.
The expression “who has such things” is part of the blessings on sights, where it refers to the “experience” of God Himself, who enjoys the beauty of sensory reality and delights in it. In the blessing, as in the psalm quoted above, the bliss is material and reflects a close relationship between giver and receiver. The description in the psalm is of material abundance that expresses God’s closeness to, and generosity toward His people, while the blessing speaks of the abundant beauty that exists in the physical world and in which God Himself takes joy. In both there is a figure observing the connection – the Psalmist or the worshipper reciting the blessing – who sees the relationship and expresses it.
Thus, the phrase “[He] who has such things” is not a blessing of thanks to God for having created such beautiful creatures, but rather one of praise; praise to God for the beauty that exists in nature and a declaration that God Himself delights in such beauty. In other words, the blessing expresses the perfection reflected in beauty. Visible beauty has an affinity with the Divine, reminding the observer that God affirms reality and takes joy in it. The description of beauty’s essence recalls the words that conclude each day’s creation in Genesis, “And God saw that it was good” (Gen 1). The description of God’s satisfaction and “admiration” of reality refers to His own experience in the encounter with reality; thus, the blessing does not mention a divine action (such as creating the fruit of the vine), as do most blessings. It leads man from his own aesthetic admiration of reality to the realization of God’s “experience” of reality, to man’s admiration of God.
The expression “who has such things” is part of the blessings on sights, where it refers to the “experience” of God Himself, who enjoys the beauty of sensory reality and delights in it. The description in the psalm is of material abundance that expresses God’s closeness to, and generosity toward His people, while the blessing speaks of the abundant beauty that exists in the physical world and in which God Himself takes joy. In both there is a figure observing the connection – the Psalmist or the worshipper reciting the blessing – who sees the relationship and expresses it.
Through the “transfer” of man’s aesthetic experience to God’s “experience,” a clear distinction is drawn between the Creator and the beauty he creates, while maintaining a direct, even “personal” connection between them. The meaning of the blessing on beauty is that man is not taken captive by the wonder of beauty, which can deceive him and tempt him to see the divine in the visual; rather, the blessing suggests that through beauty man meets God, who, like him, admires the beauty that exists in the world. In this sense, the blessing is a brilliant intervention in man’s experience: on the one hand, it allows man to experience natural beauty in all its power; on the other hand, it assists him in rising above that beauty towards the divine, without falling into idolatry.
The blessing on beauty is diametrically opposed to the gnostic view of created reality and God’s attitude towards it. Contrary to gnostic theology, this blessing sees the material world as a good place desired by God. The very fact that, encountering beauty, man must bless God’s “delight,” casts human aesthetic enjoyment as parallel to divine “enjoyment.” As such, human aesthetic enjoyment is also seen as noble and lofty.
According to the halakha, the blessing over beauty refers to natural beauty: “If one sees handsome people or beautiful trees” (Tosefta, ibid.); Just as a work of art attests to the artist’s spirit, so natural beauty attests to God’s love for His world. Aesthetic experience is the juncture at which man discovers divine enjoyment, over which he recites a blessing.