These days continue to be very hard to be a Jew.
The war between Israel and Hamas has caused many of our eyes to open up to facts about our American society that are so painful to us because they are hateful.
The Israeli captives exchanged for convicted Palestinian terrorists (in a 1:3 ratio) cause us to give profound thanks, while at the same time makes us remember the vast majority of those who are still in Gaza (if they are alive at all).
Many of us are politically more engaged now than we have ever been in our lives as we realize that Israel’s well-being has now risen to the top of our priority list for any upcoming election. The Jewish future, as the Israelis claim, is in a state of existential crisis.
Our college students are on the front line. We obsess with the news headlines and coverage. We actively evaluate each friend and relationship based on whether their actions and words endorse or condemn our right to exist.
When times are really tough, our tradition has us look to the teachings of Torah and Jewish wisdom. Not because they necessarily have the easy answers (wouldn’t that be nice), but because existential questions and intergenerational wisdom are contained in our religious discourse, preserved for when they are needed most.
In the first paragraphs of Genesis, our Sages question how God could separate the ‘light from the darkness’ before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. Clearly the ‘light’ that our bible says God first created was not a physical light, but rather is seen as the ‘good’ that is possible in the world. Good to counter the apathy (or evil) that exists, even when it is obscured by vibrant illumination.
Above the ark in every synagogue is a Ner Tamid, an eternal light, that is supposed to represent both the eternal ‘light’ of the Jewish soul, and the good that we are commanded to create (by our actions) into the world… a world that is, by default, very dark.
The Ner Tamid is a reminder of who we are at our collective Jewish essence: divine lights created against the dark, empowered to light the way for the world, and to give one another hope for a better time (now, and the future).
Every synagogue has a Ner Tamid because we need this reminder.
Especially when the world seems dark.
Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Spike