Rav Avigdor Miller on The Sunny Side of Life

A:

And the answer is absolutely!  That’s when it should be taught.  You should teach a child and tell him, “Isn’t it beautiful that the sun is shining right now?” Explain to him the benefits of the sun.  In the summertime, the sun warms you.  Walk on the sunny side of the street and walk on the sunny side of life.  And the sun gives you vitamins as it hits your skin.  The sun gives you light. And it’s all free energy!  No landlord will send you a bill.  Con Ed won’t send you a bill for the daytime light.  It’s so beautiful, the sunlight.  

It’s a mashal of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. The Gemara says the sun is a mashal of Hakodosh Boruch Hu.  Just like the sun floods the world with happiness and light and joy, so does Hakodosh Boruch Hu.  And so certainly you can teach children to enjoy sun.  

We have to teach ourselves too, by the way.  Let’s enjoy the sun.  The biggest bracha that we make in davening is on the sun.  Doesn’t that show the hypocrisy among us?  The longest bracha in davening is on the sun — ברוך אתה ה’ יוצר אור and it concludes יוצר המאורות and the malachim are so excited over the sun that they say קדוש קדוש ברעש גדול; with great excitement they’re praising Hashem — and we, we’re the recipients of all this, and we’re not interested.  We’re asleep.

So there’s a lot of work to be done on children and on ourselves.

TAPE # 301