Bringing Light to the Darkness

You are the first human being on earth. Over these past few months, you’ve made your way pretty well; you have even found companionship. Everything is new, but you’re managing.

However, you’ve also noticed during these months that the sun has been setting earlier and earlier each day. As the weather is getting cooler, it’s unmistakable: the days are getting shorter. Darkness is closing in. You wonder if maybe the end of the world is near. Perhaps all of existence will soon return to tohu vavohu, the chaos and void before creation. The darkness is confusing, disorienting, terrifying. What is happening?

Can you imagine living in complete unknown? Can you imagine the feelings that this Talmudic tale depicts of Adam, the first human being? Can you imagine having your whole life thrust into uncertainty?

Somehow, I think that this year, we can imagine it.

These months have been immensely challenging. Disorienting. The social distance, the restrictions, the fear, the strangeness of it all - the strangeness of this holiday!

During these months, some have experienced terrible loss. And many have even lost the ability to properly mourn their loss, as funerals, shivas and Kaddish recitation have been disrupted.

Some have experienced moments of joy and celebration. But even these were filled with uncertainty, and with compromises.

Some of us are counting our blessings, because we’re managing. But even those who are making it work, are living with deep uncertainty. Parents don't know whether their kids will be able to go to school tomorrow, or if they’ll need to juggle the kids at home because of a sniffle, or worse. Older people don't know when they’ll be able to go grocery shopping without fear, or when they might return to consistent social contact. Doctors and long-term healthcare workers have endured incredible stress and strain, physically and mentally. These have been dark days. Perhaps what is most difficult is living with the unknown. Like Adam, we don’t know when the darkness will end.

In our Haftarah yesterday, we read of Chana, who felt this same sort of powerlessness and uncertainty, as she faced infertility.

In her heartfelt and poetic prayer, Chana exclaims:

Chana acknowledges her own NOT knowing, her lack of certainty. This prayer actually appears after she has finally given birth to her son, a process that is unpredictable for any first-time mother, and especially for one who has struggled with infertility. It is a moment of humility. She knows that she is fortunate, but that it could have gone another way. She has learned, through her experience, how little she knows, and how little she controls. God is all-knowing, she says. Only God knows. We even say it as an expression, when we’re completely baffled or uncertain about something - God only knows! Throughout Rosh Hashanah, our Torah, Haftarah, and prayer liturgy focus on this idea of God’s supremacy, and of our own humility. We are not in control. Mostly, we are, like Adam, in the dark.

A few months ago, we lost one of the great leaders of the American Jewish community. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm was a theologian, Modern Orthodox pulpit rabbi for 25 years, professor and then president of Yeshiva University and eventually its chancellor.

Rabbi Lamm’s grandson, Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm, reflected on the loss of this truly great man, who was also his Zaydie. He wrote about the despair, and the difficulty of losing his grandfather only a month after losing his grandmother to COVID. He says that after arriving home on the day of his grandfather’s funeral, sitting on his couch almost unable to move, in a moment of deep sadness and loss, he wanted to hear words of wisdom from his grandfather. So he turned to Rabbi Lamm’s sermons, all of which are now digitized and archived by Yeshiva University, and he began to read.

The first one he happened to read was from 1952. When his grandfather delivered this sermon, he writes, “a polio epidemic was sweeping across the nation. And on the social policy front, the nation was firmly in the bloody grip of Jim Crow… Many states mandated racially separate services from railcars, to restaurants, to barbers. Three days after my grandfather preached these words, in fact, the Supreme Court began to hear arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.”

And he absorbed Rabbi Lamm’s beautiful words, delivered in the midst of this turmoil, words of inspiration, of encouragement, and of Torah wisdom.

And then the bereaved grandson read another sermon, this time from 1968, following unrest in nearly every major American city in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Then he read another, and another.

He writes: “By the time I finished reading, it was long past midnight. I had read through dozens, maybe hundreds of sermons, luxuriating in the sound of my grandfather’s poetic, prophetic voice. Yes, I was still completely heartbroken. But I found that I could stand a little straighter. In a world and at a time that feels so broken, I began to feel a surge of hope.”

This is a beautiful story of a grandfather’s words inspiring his grandson. It is also the story of a visionary leader guiding a community through times of unrest. But perhaps part of what might bring comfort is also the ability to get a glimpse at the rises and falls of decades of struggles, a reminder that this is not the first time we have faced darkness. As Jews and as citizens of the world, we have struggled many times, we have encountered much darkness, and yet here we are.

According to the Talmud, Adam was created today, on Rosh Hashanah. And so, during his first months on earth, the days were, indeed, getting shorter and shorter. With darkness growing around him, Adam falls into despair.

And then, it is the winter solstice. At first it’s almost impossible to discern, but slowly, the sun starts to set later. The days begin to get longer. Adam sees that the light is returning. After about a week of this, the Talmud says, Adam exclaims, Aha! This is the way of the world! [minhago shel olam]. He understands that the ebb and flow of darkness and light is simply the way the world works. He breathes easy. He gives thanks to God, and he regains his confidence.

Indeed, my friends, this is the way of the world. Darkness comes, but eventually light returns. We, the readers of Adam’s experience, already know about the winter solstice and the seasonal cycles. We almost chuckle at poor Adam. He doesn’t know yet that things will get better. In some way, we get to have a “God’s-eye view” on Adam’s despair, the knowledge, the understanding that this darkness is only temporary.

Rabbi Lamm, in one of his sermons (1961) spoke of the words of the Psalmist, Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me. Rabbi Lamm said, “Even when mentally we walk through the valley of doubt and emotional perplexity , covered by the dark shadows of intellectual chaos, when our problems mount up on both sides of us like steep cliffs so that we seem dwarfed in a deep valley, even then we must not fear, for G-d is with us.”

We now find ourselves in the midst of our own darkness, which also feels unprecedented. But as human beings - especially as Jews - we are no stranger to the darkness. And we know that light will return.

There is another story of Adam’s encounter with darkness. It is not about the diminishing light of the sun, but rather about an encounter with existential darkness, having been banished from the Garden of Eden and from the light of God.

When the world sank into darkness, as part of Adam’s punishment for having violated God's commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge, Adam was inconsolable and exclaimed:

God responded to his cry of anguish by replacing the original light with fire sparks, by teaching him how to produce fire by striking two flints against each other.”

Adam is bereft. This is not about physical darkness, but on a spiritual level, he has lost his sense of security, his place in the world, his connection to all that is good and Godly.

Sometimes, in darkness, if we simply wait long enough, the sun rises again. God brings back the light.

But sometimes, God teaches human beings to create light of their own.

It is not only for God to say, “Let there be light.” God gave humanity the ability - and the responsibility - to make fire, to find light for ourselves, to adapt. Think about the fact that human beings are the only animal that can survive in every single climate. This is because of the power of the human imagination, the human ability to adapt. This is our miraculous God-given resilience.

Indeed, in this darkness, these past months, people have created so much light.

We have created light as individuals.

In the absence of physical closeness, we have connected in so many creative ways - outdoors and through our screens. Those who might have considered themselves technologically challenged mastered Zoom, teachers perfected their online teaching skills, grandchildren visited grandparents in new ways. And in our inability to gather in synagogues, the Jewish home, once again, became the beating heart-center of Jewish lives.

We have created light as a community.

We are here today - physically far apart, but we are here. And those who are not here in person have connected in other ways. Our community has banded together, with incredible kindness and generosity. Volunteers made hundreds of phone calls, delivered packages, offered help.

I’ve witnessed this light amongst Jewish professionals as well, both here in Montreal and in networks across North America. Never before have I seen so much sharing of information, program ideas, curriculum materials. This has become an amazing time of collaboration among rabbis and Jewish communal professionals.

And we have created light in our institutions.

In many ways, the pandemic has brought an amazing time of innovation and growth. We have remained true to our values and our missions while reinventing what it means to engage and educate our constituents, online, in their homes, in small groups and in boxes delivered to their homes. This is a light that will, no doubt, continue to grow and develop throughout the pandemic and beyond.

We have felt the despair of Chana, but we have also discovered her humble gratitude. We have experienced the darkness of Adam, but we have also discovered his ability to create light.

May this holiday season be our collective fire. May we find warmth inside our own hearts, and may we share our light with those around us.

The ritual of Havdallah, recited every Saturday night, is about bringing the light of Shabbat into the darkness of the week. It represents that moment when God taught Adam how to create fire. During Havdallah, we exclaim, Layehudim hayta ora. The Jewish people have found light.

Layehudim hayta ora, v’simcha v’sasson v’yikar.

May the Jewish people, and all people, experience light and joy and strength in the coming year.

Shana tova.