“I Love You to the Moon”

There is a lovely story in the midrash (Talmudic legends) which offers an explanation as to why the light of the sun and the moon is so different, even though they were both created on the same day in the Book of Genesis.  It appears that the sun and the moon were very much in love and always together.  Alas, the combination of their light was so great that it threatened to dispel all the darkness—which would have destroyed the delicate balance between the light and the dark essential to the universe.  So God separated the sun and the moon—and the moon now spends all of eternity chasing after the sun.  When it comes closer, the moon brightens; but when the distance becomes greater as it tires, the moon dims and disappears altogether until it regathers its strength to try to catch the sun once more. 

What should we make of such a story?  Should we just dismiss it as a romantic fairy tale—charming, maybe, but hardly relevant in light (?!) of our modern scientific understanding of the universe.  Or, instead, maybe we can see it as a metaphor for the pulsing vibrations of the universe—a back and forth between dualities without which existence itself would not be possible.  Then again, maybe this tale is an illustration of what it means to be human—always searching for complete love and sometimes coming very close, only to have it slip away again. 

Or…?