Hannukah: Mitigating the Darkness
Rabbi Tom Samuels
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, there is a saying: “The greatest revelation of Godliness is the light that emerges from darkness." Our sages were teaching us that our task as human beings is to uncover, to reveal those sparks of light, of love and of kindness, that reside in each and every human being.
A story is told about a young boy meeting the great mystic and civil rights leader Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on Rosh HaShanna, during the ritual of duchenen (the ceremony where the kohanim, men of priestly descent, recite the traditional Priestly Blessing upon the congregation, and the tradition is it is forbidden to look at the kohanim because at that moment the Shechinah, the Presence of God in this world, descends into the congregation). Of course, like almost any child, the boy, Levi, stole a glance at the kohanim while the ceremony unfolded. He then turned to his father and said, “Pappa, you told me that I was forbidden to look because I would see God, but instead all I see are men. Where is God?” The boy’s father directed his son to Rabbi Heschel who sat in thought nearby at the service.
“Where is God?” asked Levi. Rabbi Heschel responded, “Levi, if what you want to do is see God, you need to look in the mirror, but you have to look beyond your face. You have to look deep within yourself, and if you do, you will see that there is a nitzotz, a spark of God’s holiness, that is there. And when you look at your father and mother and your sisters, and when you look at all the people you encounter both within the congregation and throughout the entire world, each one is created in the image of God, and there is a spark of holiness present in every single one of them.”
And then Rabbi Heschel quickly added, “However, the problem, Levi, is that most people forget this truth, and the spark of God that is there remains nistar, forgotten and hidden. Your task, Levi, is to uncover those sparks that are hidden. To take those sparks that are hidden and to make them revealed in the world. You can remind them that they are created in the image of God.”
Our lives, our world is so full of darkness. Who does not ask themselves, when the monopoly of darkness overwhelms, am I safe? am I loved? am I needed?
For some of us much of the time, and for all of us some of the time, darkness suggests peril and instability, the sense that life is fleeting, tenuous, random and senseless. It is dark, and I am alone and afraid.
There is a Talmudic story about Adam and Eve first witnessing the sun go down. They were panic-stricken, thinking that the setting of the sun was a consequence of their sin, and that this new, intense darkness would spell their death. They spent that entire first night weeping. And then dawn broke, and they realized that this was simply the way of the world -- day followed by night, and night followed by day.
Imagine that first night of creation in metaphorical terms. Who among us has never had a foreboding akin to Adam's: What if night never ends? What if meaningless and loneliness are simply all there is?
Judaism does not ask us to ignore this darkness and the sense of doom it might educe in us. On the contrary, it asks us to face them squarely, and then, ultimately, to defy them. But how? In Genesis, God takes Abram outside and says, "Look toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And God adds, "So shall your offspring be" (Genesis 15:5). On the surface, the meaning of God's promise is clear: the children of Abram will be so numerous as to be beyond counting.
But the great Hasidic master R. Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905), known as the Sefas Emes, offers a very different and deeply arresting interpretation of God's promise. God's promise, he says, is not quantitative but qualitative: To be a Jew is, like a star, to bring light to places of vast darkness. Thus, even and perhaps especially when Israel descends into the darkness of its Egypt, its mission is clear -- to light up the darkness of the most depraved and immoral parts of the world.
In understanding our mission in the world, there is something crucial to keep in mind about the nature of stars. Stars do not eliminate the darkness, but rather mitigate it.
And this imagery is at the core of Hannukah. It is winter now. The days are getting shorter and shorter. The nights are getting longer and longer. The moon has all but completely disappeared. We are in one of the darkest periods of one of the darkest months of the year. All around us is darkness. And what do we do? We light a fire. Not a bonfire, but a small fire-- now one, now another, and so forth for eight nights. We do not pretend to be the sun, but only stars. We do not bring an end to darkness, but merely soften its effects.
"The soul of man is the lamp of God," the Book of Proverbs tell us (20:27).
Ultimately, our task is not to light candles, but to be candles. We have the potential to be the bits of light that help bring hope and dreams back into a world gone dark.
A human being is indeed created to light up this world.
Rabbi Tom Samuels
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, there is a saying: “The greatest revelation of Godliness is the light that emerges from darkness." Our sages were teaching us that our task as human beings is to uncover, to reveal those sparks of light, of love and of kindness, that reside in each and every human being.
A story is told about a young boy meeting the great mystic and civil rights leader Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on Rosh HaShanna, during the ritual of duchenen (the ceremony where the kohanim, men of priestly descent, recite the traditional Priestly Blessing upon the congregation, and the tradition is it is forbidden to look at the kohanim because at that moment the Shechinah, the Presence of God in this world, descends into the congregation). Of course, like almost any child, the boy, Levi, stole a glance at the kohanim while the ceremony unfolded. He then turned to his father and said, “Pappa, you told me that I was forbidden to look because I would see God, but instead all I see are men. Where is God?” The boy’s father directed his son to Rabbi Heschel who sat in thought nearby at the service.
“Where is God?” asked Levi. Rabbi Heschel responded, “Levi, if what you want to do is see God, you need to look in the mirror, but you have to look beyond your face. You have to look deep within yourself, and if you do, you will see that there is a nitzotz, a spark of God’s holiness, that is there. And when you look at your father and mother and your sisters, and when you look at all the people you encounter both within the congregation and throughout the entire world, each one is created in the image of God, and there is a spark of holiness present in every single one of them.”
And then Rabbi Heschel quickly added, “However, the problem, Levi, is that most people forget this truth, and the spark of God that is there remains nistar, forgotten and hidden. Your task, Levi, is to uncover those sparks that are hidden. To take those sparks that are hidden and to make them revealed in the world. You can remind them that they are created in the image of God.”
Our lives, our world is so full of darkness. Who does not ask themselves, when the monopoly of darkness overwhelms, am I safe? am I loved? am I needed?
For some of us much of the time, and for all of us some of the time, darkness suggests peril and instability, the sense that life is fleeting, tenuous, random and senseless. It is dark, and I am alone and afraid.
There is a Talmudic story about Adam and Eve first witnessing the sun go down. They were panic-stricken, thinking that the setting of the sun was a consequence of their sin, and that this new, intense darkness would spell their death. They spent that entire first night weeping. And then dawn broke, and they realized that this was simply the way of the world -- day followed by night, and night followed by day.
Imagine that first night of creation in metaphorical terms. Who among us has never had a foreboding akin to Adam's: What if night never ends? What if meaningless and loneliness are simply all there is?
Judaism does not ask us to ignore this darkness and the sense of doom it might educe in us. On the contrary, it asks us to face them squarely, and then, ultimately, to defy them. But how? In Genesis, God takes Abram outside and says, "Look toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And God adds, "So shall your offspring be" (Genesis 15:5). On the surface, the meaning of God's promise is clear: the children of Abram will be so numerous as to be beyond counting.
But the great Hasidic master R. Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905), known as the Sefas Emes, offers a very different and deeply arresting interpretation of God's promise. God's promise, he says, is not quantitative but qualitative: To be a Jew is, like a star, to bring light to places of vast darkness. Thus, even and perhaps especially when Israel descends into the darkness of its Egypt, its mission is clear -- to light up the darkness of the most depraved and immoral parts of the world.
In understanding our mission in the world, there is something crucial to keep in mind about the nature of stars. Stars do not eliminate the darkness, but rather mitigate it.
And this imagery is at the core of Hannukah. It is winter now. The days are getting shorter and shorter. The nights are getting longer and longer. The moon has all but completely disappeared. We are in one of the darkest periods of one of the darkest months of the year. All around us is darkness. And what do we do? We light a fire. Not a bonfire, but a small fire-- now one, now another, and so forth for eight nights. We do not pretend to be the sun, but only stars. We do not bring an end to darkness, but merely soften its effects.
"The soul of man is the lamp of God," the Book of Proverbs tell us (20:27).
Ultimately, our task is not to light candles, but to be candles. We have the potential to be the bits of light that help bring hope and dreams back into a world gone dark.
A human being is indeed created to light up this world.