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A Literal Light Unto Nations

At its peak capacity, Ashalim will generate about one percent of all of Israel’s energy needs.
[additional-authors]
September 10, 2020
The Ashalim Solar Power Station (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

In Robin McKinley’s award-winning 2003 fantasy novel, “Sunshine,” the character Yolande remarks, “I can believe no evil of someone who draws their strength from the light of day.”

That sentence reminds me of why I am fond of sunflowers. It’s not only that I like the bright yellow petals, contrasted vividly with the flower’s large black center; I also love that sunflowers are solar trackers, facing east in the morning and slowly, imperceptibly drifting westward as the day progresses.

In a sense, we are all sunflowers tracking the light and wanting to bask in its radiance. We all recognize the value of light, which is why we try to avoid the darkness. Like Yolande, we instinctively associate light with good and dark with evil, and we understand that drawing our strength “from the light of day” reveals a lot about who we are.

At a time of seemingly all-enveloping darkness — the coronavirus pandemic, violence and uncertainty about our futures — it is vital to realize just how important light is and to find ways to draw strength from any light we can find, as well as doing our best to be a source of light for others. Luckily, even in these dark and scary times, there are beacons of light that remove the darkness and illuminate our lives.

recently described my trip to Israel with my son Meir, who is enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). One thing I didn’t mention was that during our post-quarantine trip across the southern region, I was struck by the sight of a penetrating light on the horizon. The light was in the wrong place for its source to be the sun and it seemed far too bright to be electric illumination.

I asked my cousin Shayke, “Is it a mirage?” He smiled. “No. It’s the Ashalim solar power station.” Then he began to tell me about this incredible new facility, which opened last year.

Ashalim is a 4,000-acre solar energy plant — the largest renewable energy project in Israel and one of the largest in the world. It cost roughly $1.2 billion to build and is a joint project of various investment funds together with the TKS, the Spanish engineering giant. I later learned that one of the movers and shakers behind Ashalim is my friend and Israeli expat Naty Saidoff.

As I watched the blazing light of the Ashalim solar power station, I couldn’t help but think that it was a physical example of the beacon of light that Israel has become for the world,

But I knew none of this as we drove down the highway toward Sde Boker, dazzled by the beacon of light that hovered on the horizon like a second sun. Ashalim is made up of 16,000 parabolic troughs and no less than 500,000 concave mirrors, all of which convert solar energy into steam that is then used to generate electricity. Ashalim also has a thermal energy storage system based on molten salt, which allows the plant to operate for over four hours at full power after the sun has set.

At its peak capacity, Ashalim will generate about 1 percent of all of Israel’s energy needs, which means that this plant represents a big step toward realizing Israel’s goal of being fully powered by renewable energy. The facility already is powering 70,000 homes, and it is expected to power 50,000 more.

When I returned from Israel and discovered that Saidoff was deeply involved in getting the Ashalim project off the ground, I told him how impressed I was. He told me he’s “proud to have been given the opportunity to build meaningful megaprojects in Israel,” and that he plans “to promote similar projects in the future.” But I believe Saidoff is not just promoting a renewable energy project or generating jobs — he and those behind Ashalim are fulfilling a biblical prophecy.

The haftarah that we read last weekend, Parashat Ki Tavo, is referred to as one of the shiva di’nechemta, the “seven-fold comfort” readings that we recite for seven weeks following the three-week mourning period of Tisha b’Av, the Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of our two temples. Rather than wallow in this depression, we double up on hope by reading portions of scripture that are upbeat and optimistic — a wonderful tradition that dates back as far as the destruction itself.

The haftarah reading for Ki Tavo fits in well with this tradition; it is the 60th chapter of Isaiah, which includes the familiar verse, “And nations shall walk by your light, Kings, by your shining radiance” (Isaiah 60:3). This verse, along with a few others in Isaiah, are the original source for the idea that the Jewish nation is an ohr lagoyim — a light unto the nations. This phrase is usually understood to mean that God’s Chosen People must always be a shining example of faith and morality for the gentile nations.

But as I watched the blazing light of Ashalim — so bright that it obscured the shape of the facility itself — I couldn’t help but think that it was a physical example of the beacon of light that Israel has become for the world, leading the way in everything from technology to business, diplomacy to renewable energy, and the study of every facet of God’s Torah in ways that our prophets and sages could never have dreamed possible.

The preceding verse in Isaiah describes an all-enveloping darkness that marks the period before messianic redemption: “Darkness shall cover the earth, thick clouds (shall cover) the nations; but God will shine on you, and His presence will be seen over you” (Isaiah 60:2).

We all have felt that darkness over these past few months. The commentaries struggle to explain how God’s light will ever be “seen,” but I think none of the commentaries could have imagined Ashalim, a light that goes well beyond physical illumination. Ashalim is taking pure light and making it brighter, not just by providing light but by removing darkness from people’s lives — those who need energy but for whom it may not be affordable; those who are concerned for the environment and tend to shrink away from energy use; those who perceive the excessive heat and brightness of the sun in the Negev as a problem. At Ashalim, there is no darkness in the light — it is all pure light. A selfless, generous light that will change the Negev and blaze a trail for all desert regions around the world.

As Saidoff said, “We have the privilege of creating light for the country that was prophesied to be ‘a light unto the nations,’ and we have the privilege of making the desert bloom as we turn the curse of the baking sun into [the] blessing of a cool oasis that powers Israel’s air conditioning. And as you fly above Ashalim, you can see it shining proudly below without a single drop of smog — nothing but life-sustaining green energy.”

Here and now, we are truly a light unto the nations. The prophet Isaiah foresaw it 2,500 years before it happened, and now it is our turn to see it. May that light continue to shine, and let it grow ever brighter.


Rabbi Pini Dunner is the senior rabbi at Beverly Hills Synagogue, a member of the Young Israel family of synagogues.

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