The Sages taught: One who sees the sun in the beginning of its cycle, the moon in its might, the planets in their orbit, or the signs of the zodiac aligned in their order recites: Blessed…Author of creation. The Gemara asks: And when is it that the sun is at the beginning of its cycle? Abaye said: Every twenty-eight years when the cycle is complete and returns to its genesis, and the Nisan, vernal, equinox, when the spring days and nights are of equal length, falls within the constellation of Saturn on the night of the third and eve of the fourth day of the week, as then their arrangement returns to be as it was when the constellations were first placed in the heavens.
The Blessing of the Sun reminds us that there is an open and clear solution ... to harness solar energy - the heat and warmth of the sun – to use it as a source to generate electricity. Then the country [United States] will be freed from its subservience to small states who have oil in their lands.
The question arises: What will be accomplished by a small group of Jews, who don't make energy policy and get together and discuss the issue amongst themselves? Firstly, Maimonides rules, the Torah of Truth rules: When a Jew asserts even a single statement based on Torah, he is "obligated to view himself and the entire world as equally balanced" and his one statement has the power to tip the entire scale, "for himself and the entire world to the side of merit and bring salvation." In addition, experience has shown that words initially spoken in private and later publically – through effort, they eventually reached a wider public and eventually Washington. So we should not be discouraged for we've already seen that this has an effect...
As we recited in the Blessing of the Sun, "Nothing is shielded from its heat"... When this energy potential is fully harnessed, it can even generate a surplus, allowing the US to share energy with other nations as well ... This is done as a fulfillment of God's command to fully utilize the resources God provides, especially the resources He has given this Nation of Kindness, to use for the individual good and the common good; for the good of this entire nation and of the entire world.
All widely used combustible fuels emit harmful (toxic or ozone-forming) gases and particles when burned to provide energy. These air pollutants can have a wide array of public health impacts, such as increasing the rate of certain cardiovascular (heart) and pulmonary (lung) diseases, cancers, and strokes.1 Mobile emission sources, including cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes using gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel account for more than half of all air pollutant emissions in the United States.2 Stationary sources such as oil- and gas-fields, oil refineries, and gas processing plants are small in comparison to those from burning fuels but may have significant local impacts....
Despite these improvements, air pollution still presents a serious health risk in urban areas. The EPA estimates that 14 million people in roughly 60 urban areas of the U.S. have more than a 1-in-10,000 lifetime risk of developing cancer caused by air pollution – ten times higher than the overall U.S. population.38 Over time, the past success of regulations and technologies in improving U.S. air quality means that additional emissions reductions come at increasing cost relative to the size of the reduction.39 Evaluating the economic, environmental, and health impacts, the difficulty of measuring and understanding impacts on large and diverse human populations, and the huge variety of different stationary and mobile emission sources combine to make air quality management a perennially controversial subject.
(א) רְאֵה אֶת מַעֲשֵׂה הָאֱלֹקִים כִּי מִי יוּכַל לְתַקֵּן אֵת אֲשֶׁר עִוְּתוֹ, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן, נְטָלוֹ וְהֶחֱזִירוֹ עַל כָּל אִילָנֵי גַּן עֵדֶן, וְאָמַר לוֹ, רְאֵה מַעֲשַׂי כַּמָּה נָאִים וּמְשֻׁבָּחִין הֵן, וְכָל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָאתִי בִּשְׁבִילְךָ בָּרָאתִי, תֵּן דַּעְתְּךָ שֶׁלֹא תְקַלְקֵל וְתַחֲרִיב אֶת עוֹלָמִי, שֶׁאִם קִלְקַלְתָּ אֵין מִי שֶׁיְתַקֵּן אַחֲרֶיךָ, וְלֹא עוֹד שֶׁאַתְּ גּוֹרֵם מִיתָה לְאוֹתוֹ צַדִּיק.
(1) Look at God's work - for who can straighten what He has twisted? (Ecclesiastes 7:13). When the Blessed Holy One created the first human, He took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, it was for you that I created it. Pay attention that you do not corrupt and destroy My world: if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you. And not only that - you cause the death of that tzadik [Moses].
רַבִּי חָנָן דְּצִפּוֹרִי בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן אָמַר, מִפְּנֵי אַרְבָּעָה דְּבָרִים חָזַר בּוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, שֶׁלֹא תְּהֵא הָאָרֶץ שׁוֹתָה אֶלָּא מִלְּמַעְלָן, מִפְּנֵי בַּעֲלֵי זְרוֹעַ, וּבִשְׁבִיל לְהָדִיחַ טְלָלִים הָרָעִים, וְשֶׁיְהֵא הַגָּבוֹהַּ שׁוֹתֶה כַּנָּמוּךְ, וְעוֹד שֶׁיִּהְיוּ הַכֹּל תּוֹלִין עֵינֵיהֶם כְּלַפֵּי מַעְלָה, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב (איוב ה, יא): לָשׂוּם שְׁפָלִים לְמָרוֹם.
Rabbi Hanan from Tzipori said in the name of Rabbi Shmuel Bar Nachman: "Because of four things the Holy One Blessed be He "changed His mind" and decided that the Land (of Israel) would only drink from above (and not from rivers): because of the strong; in order to disperse bad vapors; so that the high up people and the lowly should drink alike, and so that all would turn their eyes to the heavens.