“Courage is knowing you’re licked, and remaining steadfast until the very end anyway.” – Harper Lee
One of those who didn’t stop to calculate her odds was Judith of Betulia, a heroine whose story is associated with Hanukkah. Her bravery was a favorite subject of Renaissance art. Pictured: Caravaggio’s “Judith beheading Holofernes” (Creative Commons)
This is the Shabbat of Hanukkah 5786. Every year it is dark when we load up our Hanukkah menorahs with candles, or oil, or whatever we’re using. This holy day period invokes sun in the midst of rain and snow, light in the dark days of winter. To light a single candle, we remind each other, is to banish the darkness. Every night we light another candle, reminding ourselves that the days will once again grow longer, and the light of our days grow greater.
Hanukkah started on December 14 at sundown; it seems not inappropriate that, this year, the last day of Hanukkah is on the shortest, darkest day of the year. This year, our celebration of Hanukkah was marked with tragedy already on its first day. Fifteen people were murdered, and forty-one more – including children – hospitalized, in an attack on a Hanukkah gathering in Australia.
May the memory of the murdered remain as a blessing; may those who suffer be soothed. May the heroism of Syrian-Australian Ahmed al-Ahmed, who disarmed one of the shooters and was shot in the process, be lifted up and may he find complete healing.
This year, lighting a single candle, followed each night by another small light, seems either especially brave, or especially naive.
This year, our spiritual resilience requires better support than the comfort food of latkes and sufganiyot.
This year, I invite you to consider the details of the Hanukkah story. In reality, there was no “miracle of oil” and no divine intervention; the story is human, and complicated. One of the strands of the real story is about the intraJewish fight over Hellenistic culture; another is about the willingness to defy evil in the face of overwhelming odds.
Where does a person find the courage to do anything at all, much less act heroically, when all seems dire? Our special haftarah for this Shabbat of Hanukkah contains a famous phrase often invoked at times like this: “not by might, nor by power, but by spirit”.
זֶ֚ה דְּבַר־ה’ אֶל־זְרֻבָּבֶ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר לֹ֤א בְחַ֙יִל֙ וְלֹ֣א בְכֹ֔חַ כִּ֣י אִם־בְּרוּחִ֔י אָמַ֖ר ה’ צְבָאֽוֹת׃
“This is the word of HaShem to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit—said HaShem of Hosts. (Zekharyah 3.6)
In other words, the prophet is saying that we should rely neither upon government action (Rashi) nor some special protected status (Abravanel), but only upon HaShem’s רוח “ru’akh”. This ancient Hebrew word means “spirit” as well as “wind” and can refer as well to feeling or attitude.
Since the term ru’akh can refer to the human being as well as the Hashem, in which the human is made, it follows that we are being told to rely upon that aspect of ourselves which is most like HaShem. Zekharyah helpfully supplies a definition for us later in his prophecies:
אֵ֥לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר תַּֽעֲשׂ֑וּ דַּבְּר֤וּ אֱמֶת֙ אִ֣ישׁ אֶת־רֵעֵ֔הוּ אֱמֶת֙ וּמִשְׁפַּ֣ט שָׁל֔וֹם שִׁפְט֖וּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶֽם׃ וְאִ֣ישׁ ׀ אֶת־רָעַ֣ת רֵעֵ֗הוּ אַֽל־תַּחְשְׁבוּ֙ בִּלְבַבְכֶ֔ם וּשְׁבֻ֥עַת שֶׁ֖קֶר אַֽל־תֶּאֱהָ֑בוּ כִּ֧י אֶת־כׇּל־אֵ֛לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׂנֵ֖אתִי נְאֻם־ה’
These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares HaShem. – Zekharyah 8.16-17
It is understandable that in the wake of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, some might descend into anger, or a desire for vengeance, or even maneuvering for political capital. But neither these choices, nor the reliance upon government funds to buy us bulletproof glass for our building, nor a groupthink majority attitude that forbids any one of us to fall out of lockstep, will support and sustain us in these dark times. Only divine ru’akh, remembering that we are created in the image of the Highest and are capable of acting in that image, will help us envision light in this darkness.
Acting for the world we wish to live in, rather than the world we have, is not dependent upon the odds that we will live to see that world. Just that it’s all that is worthy of our lives, and our courage.
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 