The days are now shorter, and the nights seem incessantly long. It is the great reminder we are in a new month, Kislev, whose name means ‘to trust and to hope.’ When the darkness is so omnipresent, trust and hope is exactly what we all need. Darkness surrounds us – a world filled with fighting and political uncertainty, with fear for so many anticipating they may be torn from their homes, families and friends, with the demoralization for those still alive hidden in ‘darkness,’ below the earth in Gaza, hostages whose trust and hope must be waning separated from the world they once knew, and of course there are many homeless, hungry and thirsty in many parts of the world, even in our own city.
Kislev is also the month of dreams, residing in the unconscious and ever present when laying to rest as night comes earlier and lasts longer. The winter solstice is a time of hibernating and renewing our bodies and our spirits. Torah is filled with ‘dream’ talk as the story of Joseph takes center stage in Kislev. The young teen who bragged to his brothers they would one day bow down to him, we now see it was a foreshadowing of what is to come through this epic story of jealousy, hatred, and loss. As Joseph seems to get his just reward when his brothers exile him from his family and land, things turn around as he uses his insightful analysis of dreams with Egyptians, two men who worked in the Pharaohs palace as well as Pharaoh himself. So brilliant is his understanding, he is rewarded with becoming the Pharaohs vizier, 2nd in command to the King himself, wielding enormous power that saves ‘all people’ from a horrific famine, including his own family touched by this natural disaster.
As this dark-filled month wields its ominous presence, it heralds a magical time marked by the most light-filled holiday on the Jewish calendar, Channukah. As we struggle with the dark, the challenge of being Jewish in a non-Jewish country, a holiday of ‘hope’ arrives, just in time, to celebrate in joy and brightness, in song and play, in delicious morsels, eight days, each getting brighter as the light increases in a resplendent luminous glow.
Channukah, which reminds us of being Jews in History when the Hellenists pressure was to assimilate and even desecrate our Holy Temple, recalls the strength and courage of a small Jewish army that refused to be bullied and controlled , winning the battle. There is no question the State of Israel, and its powerful army, identifys with such daring and bravery, igniting the same kind of desire to defeat the darkness that wishes to destroy their country and its people.
Yet, the light of such prowess filled the rabbis of the past with discomfort. They write in Talmud about the miraculous story of the small cruse of oil used to rededicate the Temple after its defilement which continued to burn for eight days. The rabbis prefer to focus on the spiritual enlightenment within each one of us as we gaze at the dancing flame and feel the illumination in our souls. They quote the Prophet Zecharia, “Not by might, but spirit alone shall we all live in peace.” The real world, however, demands both spiritual radiance and physical resilience.
Midrash teaches that when the world was created on the first day it was filled with an all-encompassing, powerful light that could be seen from one end of the world to the other. As Gd foresaw the corruption with the coming generations, Gd hid the light. But the mystics remind us, that some of this sacred light, seeps in daily to sustain the world. Each one of us carries a spark of this Divine Luminosity. “Ner Adonai Nishmat Adam”, “The Candle of Gd is the Soul of the human.” We are the ones that generate a flicker of this hidden light.
In darker days we invite the light in and let it inspire hope through the glow from our colorful candles and then shine it upon others. Through the warmth and kindness of our N’shamas, our souls, we light the way for sanctity to exist. Kislev invites us to fill the darkness with the hidden Divine light that through our goodness can be revealed.
Eva Robbins is a rabbi, cantor, artist and the author of “Spiritual Surgery: A Journey of Healing Mind, Body and Spirit.”
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