We
have turned the clocks back an hour.
Darkness regularly descends into our lives in mid-afternoon, now. As we
approach Thanksgiving, winter in general and Chanukah in particular, how can we
focus on bringing light into our world-into the world at large, our own TBS
community and not least of all, into our own individual lives?
All over
the world today, we are faced with racism, anti-semitism and hatred. The threat of white supremacists, hard at
work defiling real and virtual spaces with graffiti and policies that are
similarly intended to make the United States and Europe narrow and intolerant
places, weighs heavily upon us. There is
a story that will help us focus on a broad, bigger picture; one that is profoundly
Jewish and magnificently American- when America is at its best. It is about the
power of light and the blessings of faith; in God, in ourselves, in each other
and in community. It is a story with
which you may be familiar. Like the ancient tale, the story of Hanukkah in Billings, Montana 1993, bears repeating and reconsideration. That year a group of white supremacists moved into town. It was part of a larger and broader movement to make the region one that was ‘safe’ from gays, blacks, Jews, and all the other groups that did not fit into the narrow bigoted vision those racists were trying to make a reality. Not content to simply think these ideas, the white supremacists began covering Native American and African American gathering places and churches with vitriolic graffiti. The good folk of Billings would come together to wash the sites and show solidarity with those under attack, but the general trend of hatred continued.
The turning point came when a 5-year-old Jewish boy by the name of Isaac Schnitzer displayed a drawing of a Hanukkah menorah in his window, and a brick was thrown through the window, into his bedroom. His mother reported the incident to the local paper. They printed a paper menorah along with an editorial requesting people of all faiths display them in their windows.
The majority of the population of Billings, Montana was and still is white and Christian. Their personal safety was not under threat. Their humanity was not under assault. Yet, they understood that there was something much bigger at stake. Across Billings, people of all backgrounds began to display either the paper menorahs or other versions, fighting against a narrow vision of their community. There was pushback. Some churches and Christian homes had their windows broken. Signs promoting tolerance were shot at. But, in the end, the violence abated and the general attacks ceased. The ancient Hanukkah story and that of Montana 1993, share the theme of light triumphing over darkness.
We live in uncertain times; times when it is often hard to uncover
light, which is so easily suffocated by darkness. I conclude with words of hope
from my friend and colleague, Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyers: “Rebecca Solnit writes in her book “Hope in the Dark”:
‘Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and
that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.’ I pray for the
Spiritual resistance to enter each day with a sense that redemption is
possible, a sense of hope, a sense that the ofek, the horizon out there,
no matter how far, is reachable, and requires that I get to work.”[1]
Yes, the uncertainty of it all is
terrifying. How much easier it would be to know the end. But hope and
possibility insert themselves into the story of uncertainty. To maintain hope and to imagine possibility is
more emotionally demanding than despair and…more frightening. And, especially
when we join together, immeasurably more rewarding.
