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

 

What a Time

It’s dark – this is the longest Shabbat of the year - and then there’s Covid, wreaking havoc and spreading fear. We’ve taken the decision to move all services to streamed-only for the coming three weeks. It’s not an easy decision. There aren’t a lot of easy decisions around.

 

My mind has wandered to the magnificent opening verses of Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

 

There is a time to be born,  and a time to die;  a time to plant,  and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away.

(I love that idea of a time to throw away)

 

The great message of Ecclesiastes is that the world doesn’t work out the way we think it should – this is the problem that prompts Ecclesiastes to consider existence Hevel – usually translated as “vanity.” A better translation would be “absurd.” We expect life to unfold in an ordered and gentle way, and it refuses to. That is the absurdity of it all – Havel HaHavelim HaKol Havel – the absurdity of absurdities. What is a person to do? Tread gently, Ecclesiastes counsels. “Know that you cannot know the way of the wind, or how bones grow in the womb and how much the more so you cannot know the work of God who doeth all things.” Don’t yield to despair, get out into the world, “Sow thy seed in the morning and in the evening withhold not thy hand for you not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they shall both be alike for good.” And take the pleasures of beauty where you can find them, “The light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. For if one lives many years, take pleasure in them.” Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that the world is a benign and ordered place.

 

But there is something else in, perhaps, the most famous verses in the book, that opening to Chapter 3 which remind us that there is “a time to hug, and a time to refrain from hugging,” (really – this book is the most remarkable guide to how to endure Covid). Ecclesiastes reminds us that is that there is nothing so wonderful that it will not become lost. And nothing so lost that it will not reveal the wonderful. Olga Tokarczuk’s stunning, newly translated, The Books of Jacob contains a remarkable play on the relationship between two almost identically spelt Hebrew words “blindness” – Eilem – and “world” – Olam. The impenetrability of the world is its very nature. Light, she reveals, is only visible next to shade. Beauty only means anything when we appreciate its fragility. Life, strength and courage are only revealed when it is dark.

 

I’m saddened not to be able to celebrate this dark Shabbat in person in this wonderful community. That time will come again soon. But in the meantime, please do consider joining us to greet the Shabbat at 6:30pm tonight, or celebrate it, at 10am on our stream www.newlondon.org.uk/digital. May our prayers herald an ever deeper and more powerful understanding of the light,