We have blessed God, as we do on many Shabbatot, in the words of Psalmist who wrote “A psalm, a song for the Sabbath Day.” You know the melody, and we often do it as a round. The words in Hebrew are מה גדלו מעשך יה, מאד עמקו מחשבותך, how wondrous are they works o’ God, thy thoughts are very deep. Over the last five hundred years scientists have been exploring the universe in which we live and have vastly expanded human understanding of it.

It’s four hundred years since Johannes Kepler created or discovered the mathematics that enables astronomers to calculate the movements of the planets and thereby precisely to predict their movements in the sky....and not coincidentally where they were thousands or even millions of years ago. Those calculations have forecast that in a less than two weeks Mars and Earth will be closer together than they have been in as much as 60,000 earth years, according to one specialist’s quick calculation. Happily, this close encounter of a frequent kind is occurring very close to August 30th when Mars and the Sun will be in opposition, that is, when Mars will be seen directly opposite the sun in our sky and therefore, its entire surface alight, will be shining very brightly. The combination of close encounter and opposition has made Mars the brightest object in the summer sky, except for the moon,, a rare event in deed. You can verify this yourselves if you wish. Just look to the southeast around 10:30 p.m. when the sky is not too overcast and you will see a brilliant orange or red object that emits a constant, not a twinkling, light. That’s Mars. And if you have been watching Mars over the years you will recognize that its brilliance is astounding.

Mars may afford a clue to how life began on earth. It’s possible that life came here in the form of very hardy tiny microorganisms lodged in pieces of rock dislodged from the Martian surface by a collision with a meteor or a comet. Scientists have discovered bits of rock that almost surely originated on Mars (we know a good deal about the surface of Mars because the U.S. sent a land rover there some years ago and it sent back the spectra of parts of the surface). Imbedded in that rock are tiny microorganisms that almost surely did not get there after the Martian rock landed. Those microorganisms are like those discovered on the Earth’s sea bed in incredibly high temperature and pressure, enviroments of the sort scientists believe may have existed on Mars not too long ago. And those microrganisms are very, very far back on the evolutionary chain, probably from around the time life began. So it’s possible, though it’s by no means proven, that terrestrial life began with a Martian visitor.

You might think of that when you see Mars approaching us (don’t worry; it will recede) on one of these summer evenings and shining brilliantly in the southeastern sky. And if you are moved by the sight you might take the occasion to bless God in words that have come down to us for use on similar occasions: ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו ......עושה מעשה בראשית Blessed are you, Adonai our God, the maker of Creation.