New Light on Darkness
This is the week of Winter Solstice, the day with the least amount of daylight. As the recent flurries of snow demonstrate, we are fully in winter now. We are in a season where darkness is more common than not. As John Donne described it dramatically, “Tis the year’s midnight.” Even as we light the Chanukah candles, we also by contrast highlight (!) the surrounding darkness.
It’s easy to resent or dread the dark, an attitude captured well by a saying from the sages, “Woe to the house whose windows open into the dark” (Exodus Rabbah 14).
In our Torah portion, Miketz, our current protagonist Joseph begins the chapter still in the dark windowless dungeon of Egyptian prison. But his fortune soon flips. Pharaoh has mysterious dreams, and his chief cupbearer who had once had his dream interpreted by Joseph in prison recommends that Pharaoh seek out Joseph’s talents. So Joseph is “rushed from the pit”, soon to become Pharoah’s trusted adviser (Genesis 41:14). The commentator Sforno adds that every miraculous event is like this - it happens very swiftly.
I sometimes find myself wanting to be rushed from the pit of winter, a swift and miraculous return to spring or summer. (Of course people do take important reprieves through the modern miracle of plane travel to sunnier regions!) The cycle of the seasons, however, is a very different kind of miracle, one whose blessings can only be discovered with patience and presence.
Rabbi Adina Allen writes, “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.”
Darkness sustains restorative rest and contains creative potential. If you are in search of new ways into winter darkness, here are a few ideas for perspective and practice:
Read Katherine May’s fascinating and kind book, Wintering.
Spend some time with the prayers for light and darkness, Yotzer Or (recited in the morning) and Maariv Aravim (recited in the evening). What images or phrases catch your attention?
Follow Adina Allen’s suggestion of pausing before lighting the Hanukkah candles and bringing awareness to the darkness first.
Ultimately, while Joseph emerges from his place of darkness, he does so through his skill with dreams, a creative experience associated with sleeping and darkness. May this season nourish our rest, and nurture our dreams.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
