Dear TBZ Community:
In the past week, I have found myself having several pastoral conversations about holding both hope and acceptance at the same time. Embracing the hardship and the challenge that a person is going through, while also believing that things can be better. The tension between the embracing of “what is” and not giving up of “what could be” is a daily practice. It is perhaps the only way to go through life, recognizing both that we are in control of the decisions we make and we are agents of change, and that we have no control over the ways that life unfolds. How can both be true? How can we hold both?
As I have written and shared before: There are two terms in the Kabbalstic practice that speak to this: Netzach and Hod. These two Hebrew terms are understood by our mystical forebearers as a couplet, existing in dynamic tension with each other (and other spiritual potencies). Netzach is commonly understood as the symbol for tenacity, endurance, overcoming, and victory. In the words of Rabbi Arthur Green (Ehyeh, A Kabbalah for Tomorrow, page 53): “Netzach seeks to remake the world… It is a great force for goodness, that which inspires us to go forth and right the world’s wrongs, to reform the social order, to fulfill the dream of perfection.” Hod, on the other hand, is the Kabbalistic symbol for humility, gratitude, acceptance, and surrender. As Rabbi Green further remarks, Hod teaches us to accept ourselves and others as we are, to be grateful for life as it is. In the realm of Hod, we find beauty by opening our “inner eye” to the gifts of the given. Holding Netzach and Hod in balance is no easy task. When should we lean into our feelings of agitation and seek to change and overcome? And when should we accept the “hand we have been dealt” and seek to cultivate gratitude for what is?
As we have been lighting the Hanukkah candles every night this week, I have been thinking about darkness and light. Often our focus is the light, our capacity to light, and to bring light to the world, to bring change, to get better, to lift up. And often our association to darkness is negative, connected to something we want to avoid, we want to get rid of. This is echoed in the themes of our Hanukkah songs, such as this one that I love singing with during our TBZ Hanukkah celebrations:
באנו חושך לגרש בידינו אור ואשכל אחד הוא אור קטןוכולנו אור איתן
סורה חושך הלאה שחור סורה מפני האור
Banu hoshech legaresh, beyadeinu or va’esh. Kol echad hu or katan, vechulanu or eitan.
Surah choshech, hal’ah sh’chor! Surah mipnei ha’or!
We came to drive away the darkness in our hands is light and fire. Everyone’s a small light, and all of us are a firm light.
Fight darkness, further blackness! Fight because of the light!
The image of fighting darkness of course speaks to the idea that good and light can overcome evil and darkness, but what if we don’t think about darkness just as something negative? Rabbi Adina Allen, Co-Founder and Creative Director of the Jewish Studio Project, wrote a beautiful piece for My Jewish Learning called “Rededicating Darkness.” In it she writes:
Hanukkah offers us an opportunity to find meaning not only in the oft-cited miracle of the flickering candle lights, but also in the beauty, mystery and depth of darkness. Darkness is not widely appreciated in our culture. We tend to deride or ignore it, dismissing it as having no real value in and of itself.
Rabbi Allen invites us to re-think darkness:
Within our sacred stories we find a much fuller and more complex understanding of darkness. According to the account of creation found in the Torah, darkness is the place from which all life comes. In the opening verses of Genesis we read: “When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was chaos and void and darkness on the face of the depths.” Darkness pre-exists all. It is from the chaos and void, the darkness and depths, that humans and hummingbirds, rainwater and red-tailed hawks, pine trees and the Pyrenees, eventually arise. The darkness, depths and waters of the world recall the darkness, depths and water of the womb from which each of us came. Without darkness, there would be no light, no life. Darkness allows for creativity and generativity. Rather than a lack of something, darkness is that which contains and gestates the seed of everything and the spark of the light.
Perhaps we can think of the tension we encounter between darkness and light, between Netzach and Hod, as the tension we encounter between “what is” and “what could be.” Both part of our existence, both part of life, both holding us in day-to-day living. Darkness as a fertile place from which something new can grow. Acceptance as a place of gratitude, light, as the possibilities ahead, what could be, believing and having faith and trust that change is possible.
In these last days of Hanukkah, my invitation is to embrace what is and what could be, recognizing the tension, the dance, the balance, and the beauty of our existence of light and darkness, of flickering candles, and quiet absence of light.
Wishing you all a beautiful end of Hanukkah, and a month of blessings!
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing. And may we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov, Chag Ha’Urim Sameach,
Rav Claudia
Please note that the TBZ office will be closed between January 26 and January 2. Services and programs will be held as planned. You will receive a Shabbat N’kabla email next Thursday, as usual, with information about Shabbat, but I will not be writing a Shabbat message next week. I look forward to reconnecting with you in the New Year, 2023.