light travels across an astounding expanse

Today is one of my family’s favorite days of the year. In addition to being my partner’s half birthday, December 22 is the day after the winter solstice. Which means, the days are officially getting longer. My kids woke up this morning, got dressed, and ran downstairs singing, “Light is returning, even though it is the darkest hour…no one can hold back, back the dawn.” Then they started playing dreidel and remarked it still feels like Hanukkah. This might be related to the fact that we have not yet put away our menorahs. Partly because it's been a busy week and partly because until the days were getting longer, we needed the reminder. 

This, as it turns out, is a core human need. So core, even the first human being, Adam HaRishon, had this experience. 

In Masechet Avodah Zara (8a), 
Our sages taught: When Adam saw that the days were getting shorter, they said: "Oy, I did the wrong thing and therefore the World is getting darker and is returning to chaos. Death has been decreed upon me!" 

This midrash recounts the very first human’s encounter with the very first winter. The days just keep getting shorter and they think it’s their fault. Even more so, they fear it's irreversible. Existentially asking, what if light never returns?

The midrash continues, “Adam HaRishon therefore spent 8 days fasting and praying. As they finished their fast, Adam saw that the days were getting longer. They realized that maybe the days waxed and waned throughout the year. And they were relieved. So the following year, Adam celebrated the end of the shortening days with 8 days of celebration…”

This is yet another tale intended to answer the question the Talmud asks in Masechet Shabbat, “Why Hanukkah!?” It is also an affirmation of my own kid’s spiritual instincts. Even when Hanukkah and the Solstice don’t quite align, there is a human instinct to celebrate the light lasting a little bit longer on December 22. To honor that we have made it through the rigor of waning days. 

I offer you this long slender poem as a belated Hanukkah gift, with gratitude to Rabbi Mó who shared it with me. 

How the light comes by Jan Richardson
I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain…

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

Maybe you spin the dreidel tonight, maybe you don’t. But either way, I invite you to savor the extra minutes of day, the diminishing darkness, and to remind yourself that light is returning. May we trust that the light is seeking out what the pain and peril that is so present. And may we have the courage to turn ourselves toward it.