Post by Rabbi Neil on Aug 18, 2017 22:31:36 GMT
When darkness descends upon the world, it can be quite terrifying. Midrash (GenR 12:6) recounts that “when the sun sank at the end of Shabbat, darkness began to set in. Adam was terrified, thinking “SURELY THE DARKNESS WILL ENVELOP ME” (Ps. 134:11)…. So, what did God do for him? God made him find two flints which he struck against each other. Light came forth and he uttered a blessing over it, hence it is written in the Book of Psalms (134:11) “BUT THE LIGHT WAS ABOUT ME” the Hebrew for which is BA-ADENI, or, read differently, THE NIGHT WAS LIGHT IN MY EDEN!” Darkness can be terrifying and Adam, who was unused to darkness, saw it as potentially life-threatening. He despaired and needed help to see his way out of the darkness. Of course, it was merely a natural phenomenon – the rotation of the earth – that caused the darkness and that would cause it to be lifted once more.
Darkness falls on all of us sometimes. It falls on individuals, it falls on communities, it falls on larger geographical areas, it falls on countries, and very rarely it even falls on the world. Darkness for the individual, to quote Rabbi Avraham Aryeh Trugman (Orchard of Delights, p.222) “represents a sense of depression that is fed by despair and purposelessness… Depression causes people to fell alone, as if no one cares about them and in turn leads them not to care about others. This phenomenon is quite literally described in the biblical verse “NO-ONE COULD SEE THEIR BROTHER” [when the plague of darkness descended on the Egyptians]. An even more extreme form of depression occurs when people are completely sunk in the abyss and virtually unable to move. They are stuck in a state of physical or emotional paralysis. This phenomenon is also quite literally described in the continuation of the same verse in Torah – “NOR COULD ANYONE GET UP FROM THEIR PLACE.” What he describes is very real for individuals – a darkness or depression that can be paralyzing, or even worse. In the Jewish community, we tend not to think about individual darkness and depression. For some reason that I’ve never quite understood, depression is not seen as something Jewish. That is totally bizarre to me, considering the plethora of quotations from Psalms which call out to God from the depths. Indeed, many commentators think that the entire book of Ecclesiastes is written from a place of depression. Perhaps so many people think that depression is not something Jews often experience because our tradition always suggests that God redeems, that God helps us out of darkness, God gives light to those in darkness. The truth is, though, that that’s not always the case, and the realization of someone who is depressed that everyone else thinks that they shouldn’t be only exacerbates the depression. Most people tend not to know what to do around depression. Darkness has a way of confusing us, even when it is the darkness in others.
Why is darkness so confusing? If we know where we’re going, if we saw all the obstacles before it became dark, why do we suddenly become so unsure of our path? What hidden dangers do we think we suddenly arrive? Darkness reveals our inner doubts and our insecurities. What if we lost our bearings in the dark? What if something moved without us seeing? What if? What if? Darkness, mental and physical, brings out our insecurities and that, in turn, makes the darkness seem even darker.
To me, this explains why the early Rabbis took such a negative view of eclipses. If God is the bringer of light that nourishes the earth, removing that light, even if for only a couple of minutes, reveals is threatening and scary theologically. They compared it to a human king who made a banquet for his servants and put a lamp in front of them. When he got angry with them he said to his servant, “Take the lamp away from them and let them sit in the dark.” (Mishnah Sukkah 29a). They similarly added that “When the sun is in eclipse it is a bad omen for idolaters but when the moon is in eclipse, it is a bad omen for Israel… If the Moon’s face is red as blood, it is a sign that the sword is coming to the world; if it is sackcloth, the arrows of famine are coming to the world.” (ibid).
How is it that the Rabbis saw something negative in something so extraordinary? How did they not see the glory of God in an eclipse? A total solar eclipse is one of the most extraordinary known things in the universe. The Sun is around 400 times larger than the Moon, but it is also around 400 times further away. What that means is that when the Moon passes in front of the Sun, they are exactly the same size. By covering the entirety of the Sun as we normally see it, this extraordinary cosmic coincidence means that we on earth get to see the Sun’s corona, something we would never otherwise be able to see. The chances of such a confluence are so small that it is truly extraordinary. Yet the Rabbis feared it immensely. The reason, of course, is because they had such a poor grasp of astronomy that they thought the Sun and the Moon revolved around the firmament and had no idea of the extraordinary coincidence that they were seeing. To me, this shows that our approach to darkness is often a matter of personal perspective. Whether it be personal, communal, national or global darkness, how we approach it often determines our reality. Do we sit and enjoy being in the darkness, do we celebrate the darkness, do we try to fumble our way out of darkness? Sometimes we know that the darkness will automatically disappear, like with an eclipse. We know that darkness will pass whatever we do, and we also know it will be brief, so we can stay where we are and celebrate the darkness. With personal, communal, national and global darkness, though, sometimes for the darkness to disappear we need to act. The difficulty is, of course, that in the darkness it’s difficult to know how to act, that sometimes it’s impossible to see out of the darkness. That’s because of the confusing nature of darkness.
I believe, to quote Revd Martin Luther King, that the moral arc of the universe is long but that it tends towards justice. To me, that is a quintessentially Jewish position. We may not see the justice ourselves, but it is our duty to work to help others out of it, if not ourselves. We may not see a way out of the darkness, but if Revd King was right then we should remain firm in the belief that there will be an end to darkness. And that belief is essential, especially in dark times. It’s not always that “these things, too, shall pass,” but also sometimes that, “with effort, we can make these things pass.” Ultimately, the Jewish community is meant to be or lagoyim – a light to the nations. Perhaps to achieve that, we first need to be a light to ourselves and then to each other. Perhaps we need that delicate candle in our souls rekindled every once in a while. Then, and only then, can we go out to give light to the world. But in so doing, in rekindling the flickering light in our souls, or in our community, we must at least acknowledge that there will one day be a time when light will fill the world and darkness will be banished from the human heart and from our society. May such a day come soon, and let us say, Amen.
