A Light in the Darkness

I keep hearing how it’s our responsibility to be a light in this dark world,

how it’s a mitzvah to bring goodness to life,

how necessary it is to illuminate the night sky, especially in dark times such as these.

Yet, I find myself questioning.

What if that small, still dim light is fading?

What if it feels too heavy to be a light?

After this horrible year of so much destruction and so much darkness in Gaza?

where the hostages still wait?

where the dark antisemitism is boiling over and making it hard to breathe at times.

When my mom has been sobbing in VT after our elected officials wore keffiyehs on 10/7.

This is when we need to be light when we are just so, so tired?

Yes, I imagine a rabbi might say, yes, this is when we reach for the light.

But how?

In Vermont, the darkness has hit harder this year.

The weight of the pain of so much wears down on me.

Every face of a fallen IDf soldier. Every day that goes by without the hostages home. They are no different than you or me. They just happen to be held in a hell. It could have been us. We could have wanted to enjoy music and then ended up in the worst depths possible.

And then I hear that that Jewish people are less likely to be hired for a job and that Jewish college students can’t even study or even get into in a library without being accused of genocide.

Not to mention the silencing of Jewish and Israeli writers.

It’s too much to have to be a light right now.

It’s too much to ask that we embrace miracles when the war wages on and our precious soldiers aren’t home yet.

This year, I plead that we honor where our hearts are and remind ourselves that sometimes it’s ok to not always be the light.

That sometimes it is enough just to have hope that the light will return. 

That alone is enough for me this year.

***

 For My Daughter, On Hanukkah.

For my daughter, with her wide, open eyes.

You have lost so many teeth this year! And you wave your Israeli flag with love.

You spin dreidels and happily attend Hebrew School and you don’t know the pain of being Jewish yet.

Can I hide that from you a little longer?

You don’t know that there is so much hatred of Jews, that the hatred of Jews started with the beginning of time somehow.

You don’t know yet all that happened and how much pain has happened since Oct. 7, 2023. You don’t know who Hersh is.

You lived through a pandemic and you’re living in a climate crisis and American Jewish college students aren’t safe right now. Only you don’t know that yet.

You see the joy, only. 

You enjoy the holiday celebrations at shul and you love challah and you light Shabbat candles now and your eyes dance in their light.

You love Hanukkah music and you don’t even know that sharing Jewish joy is an act of resistance – and survival.

You aren’t fazed by seeing cop cars outside the synagogue because to you, that’s normal.

You don’t yet carry the weight of now being ostracized in a progressive town, because you don’t know the hate yet.

I hope you can stay innocent and protected longer.

I hope you can stay in the magic as long as you can.

Someday you will know about the shoah and someday you will learn about the slaughter of our people – over and over again.

Someday you will learn that we carry pain and trauma in our blood.

But for now, I hope you keep being the light that is so needed.

A light in dark VT.

A light for all who see your shining eyes.

***

A Light is Quiet.

A light doesn’t ask to be bright.

A light doesn’t ask to be lit.

A light is a warm meal, on a cold winter night.

A light is a soft pillowcase.

A light is the smile of an IDF soldier when he takes his heavy vest off.

A light is a quiet hug.

It’s a psalm, the one that you love, the one that your grandmother loved.

It’s remembering those who passed and honoring their memory.

It’s returning to our hearts. 

It’s giving ourselves grace when there is too much screen time and the days without school stretch in front us.

Hanukkah is the triumph of good vs evil – a story of the underdog.

But being the light doesn’t have to be a triumph.

It can just be waking up, starting anew, even when we’re so tired and fragile.

It can be cuddling with a child, or a tender animal.

Calling a friend.

Cooking a soup.

Driving a little slower and letting someone merge, because we all need to merge sometimes and we want someone to wave us through.

Listening to coffee.

Listening to winter and the sounds of snow underneath heavy boots and the lacing up of long coats.

Maybe, maybe, maybe being a light is just about finding a little more peace in our hearts.

Just a little. 

That is my Hanukkah prayer.