Parashat Miketz and Hanukah: On Not Being Swallowed Up

“Sometimes in my tears I drown.” So sings the singer Matisyahu. We all sometimes drown in our tears, are overwhelmed by sadness, by despair, by the darkness that can surround and swallow us up. That’s how Pharaoh felt in his dreams – skinny cows swallowing up fat cows, the bad consuming the good, until there is no trace of light or hope. No wonder the Torah says he woke up and “his spirit was agitated,” Vatipa’em ruho (41:8). He had looked into the possibility of darkness taking over the world.

What do we do about this overwhelming darkness, about the tears – even legitimate tears for real terrible things that happen – that want to consume us? In the midst of the darkest period of the year, Hanukah offers us a response, a way of living in this darkness.

The answer is light. It seems simple, but it is very deep. One cannot combat darkness with darkness. One cannot enter into a battle with darkness and try to drive it away by negativity, by arguing against its existence. No. Even with the best intentions, one is easily swallowed up by darkness. The only option is to create light, to create some opposing force of good.

And furthermore, teaches Hanukah, it does not need to be a big light. A small cruse of oil will suffice. Don’t despair and think – but I am one person. Even if I try to do good, to create light, what can I do to effect the cosmos? These problems are bigger than me. No, Hanukah teaches never to think this way, but to believe in the single cruse of oil, the single act of goodness, the single human light. Because no matter how small the light, even a single point, a tiny flashlight has the capacity to transform the darkness.

Its transformation is greater than itself. This is the miracle of Hanukah. That such small acts have ripple effects, that light has a way of spreading and multiplying, that a little oil goes a long way, longer that it should by all natural standards.

The Sefat Emet asks why the miracle didn’t happen with a fire coming down from heaven. Somehow this miracle needed to happen through human agency – people needed to take the time to search for pure oil, to search for the light and light it, and to do so even if they thought – no, knew – the oil was not really enough to break the darkness.

Such acts are the acts that bring about miracles, that draw down onto earth the light of heaven. They begin as small acts, but they are essentially acts of faith – of a belief that by lighting one small light the world will not be consumed by darkness. Once we act, God responds double-fold, no triple-fold, no 8-fold, which means endlessly. For once we take that first step, begin to create light in the face of overwhelming darkness, we have entered the arena of light, and here, there are no boundaries.