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Oscar Wilde said “conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

Reflecting upon this musing, I have come to the conclusion that I COMPLETELY disagree. As the Jewish People, so many of our holidays and so much of our liturgy is based on a complex understanding of the weather and the changing of the seasons. For instance, the holiday that just passed, Tu B'Shevhat, marks the emergence of warmer weather and spring in Israel.  

As I spoke to a friend in New York this week, the first thing she mentioned was the immense snowfall, and what the snow day meant for her and her family. I realized that talking about the weather is not as banal as we sometimes think. Rather, it represents a way to express and share with others the obstacles we face and the choices we make each and every day.  As I continued chatting with my friend, it became clear to me that talking about the weather is a way that we remind each other of our shared humanity, our shared troubles, and our shared joys.

This week, as the weather switches between dark, cold and wet one day, and sunny and pretty the next, I remind myself that we do not know what each day will bring. Whether we find ourselves on a sunny afternoon walk, or making our way through a frightening storm, we know that life is unpredictable and we learn a lot from the weather we experience.

God says to Moses in our Torah Portion, Yitro, this week: “...God will descend before the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And so, on the third day, when it was morning, there were thunder claps and lightning flashes, and a thick cloud was upon the mountain... and the entire nation that was in the camp shuddered. Moses brought the people out toward God from the camp, and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. And the entire Mount Sinai smoked because God had descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of the kiln, and the entire mountain quaked violently.”

This parasha reminds us that God appeared to the Israelite people through the literal manifestations of the weather, whether through storm, lightning, or earthquake. So too, we know that God appears through rainbows and sunshine. I take this as a reminder that no matter what the weather is, beautiful or less so, we can find holiness in simply talking about and experiencing the weather. It is a small, seemingly trivial, step toward a life infused with gratitude and godliness. Shabbat Shalom.