RABBI’S MESSAGE
Increasing the light
With the few leaves that remain on the trees, and the ones that have fallen lying in a wet mat on the lawn, and the days getting shorter and shorter, and, frankly, with an election that has left some half of our country aghast in dismay, it is an odd time to think about increasing the light in our lives and our world.
But that’s what Judaism would have us do. We close-out our fall holy days with a week-long festival in which one of the mitzvot is to rejoice – as if we are filling our reservoir of happiness before heading into fall and winter. Then, when the nights are their longest, we light candles for eight days, each night increasing the number: brightness added to brightness against the dark. When the evening chill and the morning frost are still with us, we celebrate the reemergence of life and growth with Tu b’Shvat – the new year of the trees.
The cycle of the calendar, at first glance keeping in time with the flow of the seasons, takes on a different flavor when we look more closely. Each step, each observance reveals not a reflection of the season, but almost a challenge to it, a defiant thwarting of the darkness, a willful rejection of unending decline. But that defiance and rejection is not a self-deceiving denial that darkness exists, but a denial of its power, a determination that it will not last forever.
Even the Talmudic legend of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which tells of the priests climbing to the roof of the Temple, crying out that they have not been good caretakers of God’s treasure, and then tossing the keys up to God – even this small story, includes a seed of hope that those keys will someday be needed again when the darkness and destruction have passed.
To deny the waves of darkness that flow through history would be as foolish as denying the darkness that flows through the seasons. But to give in to the darkness, to forsake the determined expectation that the light will eventually return – that would be folly.
We light a candle, instead of cursing the dark, not even in addition to cursing it. The flame we kindle is itself the curse against the dark. In the words of those wise Jews, the Beastie Boys, “Dark is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of light.”* Only light can banish the darkness, giving courage to the determination that it will not last.
Rabbi Neal Schuster
nealschuster@gmail.com
*Yes, the Beastie Boys were all Jewish, and this line is from their song “Namasté.” If you’ve never heard it, I definitely recommend finding it online and giving it a listen (with headphones or earbuds) – it is not what you expect!