Venus Doesn’t Need a Job

Venus Doesn’t Need a Job

Last night we were sky gazing when my girlfriend pointed up and asked, “What purpose do planets like Venus serve?”

Great question.

Also, deeply Jewish.

Because modern people hear “purpose” and immediately think usefulness.

Can I eat it?

Sell it?

Charge it monthly?

Use it to find parking?

Venus does none of that.

It just hangs there in the night sky, glowing like HaShem left a porch light on for humanity.

Last night the crescent was low and warm. Venus sat above it, brighter and quieter. Streetlights and traffic lights competed for attention underneath. The usual Florida noise. Two people looking up anyway.

In Genesis the lights in the heavens are created “for signs, seasons, days, and years.”

The moon got a job in Judaism. It marks the months. It gives us Rosh Chodesh. We even have a mitzvah of standing outside, looking at the waxing moon, and blessing God for renewing the luminaries. The moon is useful inside the system.

Venus, as far as Jewish practice is concerned, received no such assignment.

It just stays lit.

Judaism does not look at the sky and see random scenery. It sees order. Time. Rhythm. A universe that keeps moving even when human beings are busy pretending their little emergencies are the whole story.

Venus does not need to justify itself by being useful to us.

That may be its lesson.

A Jew looking up at the sky is supposed to feel humility. Awe. Wonder. Perspective.

We are tiny.

But not meaningless.

That is the paradox.

The same God who spins galaxies also cares how we treat the person sitting across from us at dinner. The same universe that contains Venus also contains Shabbat candles, mezuzahs, matzah crumbs, Jewish mothers, and the quiet stubbornness of people who still light candles anyway.

The heavens remind us that we are not God.

Baruch HaShem.

Most of us cannot even manage our inbox.

Rambam says one of the ways a person comes to love and fear God is by looking at the heavens and recognizing the mind behind the order. Not by extracting utility. By being interrupted.

So what purpose does Venus serve?

Maybe Venus is there to interrupt our arrogance.

To make two people standing under the night sky pause long enough to ask a real question.

To remind us that beauty is not useless just because it cannot be monetized.

To teach that wonder is also a mitzvah of the soul.

And maybe, just maybe, HaShem placed lights in the sky because human beings forget too easily.

We stare down all day.

Phones.

Headlines.

Fear.

Noise.

Nonsense.

Then night comes.

Venus appears.

And creation whispers:

Look up, mensch.

There is more.

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