We live at a time when renewable energy means something completely different from what I’m about to describe. This season’s renewable energy is hope. Hope drives us when logic and percentages tell us to stop. Hope whispers in our ear to hold on just a little longer and get through this day. Hope suggests that our efforts likely reach much farther beyond what we imagine. And finally, hope reminds us that we have been through the most difficult challenges in life and we are stronger than we think we are.
When we as New Yorkers raised our voices at 7 PM in support of front line workers and when we put pictures of rainbows in our home windows, we were inspiring hope. It was our way of infusing the world with appreciation, love, and support, when our hands were tied in so many other ways. This was the renewable energy we could contribute. There is a magic formula to hope. When you allow yourself to believe in a different future, that future comes closer. When our spirits imagine a brighter situation beyond the present, when we believe we are capable of weathering this storm without having to have it all figured out in this very moment, our hearts open and that future feels more imminent.
These are the very themes that make Chanukah so powerful. It is a story of a people who were fighting an uphill battle against an enemy, the Roman Empire, who were taking away their fundamental ways of life. This was a people who survived another day and then another, until the story tells us there were 8 days of light. While oil is not seen as a renewable energy in 2020, the story of unending light is certainly here to remind us that one element of survival is hope. Our enemies can only take that away from us if we let them. Call it naive. Call it unrealistic and magical thinking, but the miracle of Chanukah is that we can still believe in a brighter future. Hope itself is an act of defiance.
Please don’t get me wrong. Skepticism is important too. It is here to protect us from imminent harm and reminds us to wear masks and wash our hands. Chanukah is here to remind us to be more selective with our skepticism and allow hope to do its thing also. So, this Chanukah, I will put the Chanukiah in my window like the rainbows from March, to do my part to renew the energy of hope.
(You can also read this article in this week's Bellmore Herald)
Shabbat shalom and Chag Urim Sameach, Rabbi Bernstein
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