Seeing in the Darkness

I’m grateful to my colleague Rabbi David Wolpe for this insight. This week’s Torah reading brings us to the plague of darkness, a darkness so thick that – Vayamesh – it could be felt. No Egyptian could see their fellow, “but there was light in the dwellings for the Israelites.” Rabbi Wolpe asks why no-one lit a candle.

 

There is nothing to be done about locusts and the frustrations of a pandemic disease we understand all too well. But if it’s dark, all you need to do is light a candle. No?

 

The Or Hahayim (17^th century Morocco) picks up a very precise ambiguity in the Hebrew. The phrase “but there was light in the dwellings for the Israelites,” allows the understanding that there was light, even in the dwellings of the Egyptians, but it was only the Israelites who availed themselves of it. Our ability to see, religiously, emotionally and even biologically, isn’t a function of the availability of natural light, or candlelight, or even electricity. It’s a function of processes inside our own body.

 

The British poet, John Heywood, was correct to remark that those who “will” themselves not to see are the blindest of us all. Our ability to see our neighbour is a function of desire, personality, and will. It’s not a function of luminosity or biology. The blind Duke of Gloucester, in Shakespeare’s King Lear, “sees it feelingly,” He understands more of the world than his sighted fellow players.

 

I know it’s still dark outside. But there is so much light to see both in and beyond all of our dwellings. Indeed, in darkness, the sparks dance and shine more brightly than in a world suffused with light. We have the possibility to be lifted, and to lift the hearts of others through recognising and celebrating sparks of kindness and warmth. We lift ourselves and others by focusing on witnessing the light there is, for light, like love, is one of those special precious gifts that can be given away without diminishing our own possession of it.

 

We are back in-building this Shabbat, with a Bar Mitzvah and an Aufruf to celebrate – plenty of light at 33 Abbey Road. We’ve tightened our Covid protocols, increased our physical distancing, but we would love to see you. Be boosted, take a test before you come. And we can bathe in the light together.

 

Shabbat Shalom