Chanukah Wisdom for Moving Forward After the Midterms
By Rabbi David Jaffe
Image Description: Blog image with a photo of Chanukah candles at night. Text reads, “Kislev 5787 By Rabbi David Jaffe”
One week out from the U.S. midterm elections, it appears that a significant majority of voters rejected the corruption, economic gaslighting, and cruelty of Trumpism. While the cruelty may continue for some time and needs to be opposed, the opposition has momentum. The underside of a victory over forces that have acted with such impunity is the impulse for retribution. The mistreatment and dehumanization of immigrants and trans people, the weaponized anti-semitism that has further divided our community, the brazen Islamophobia, the pillage of our economic and environmental resources, and on and on, have caused real harm, and can arouse a desire for revenge. But revenge is not what the U.S. needs right now. We need to rebuild and repair. Yes to wise accountability for egregious misuse of power, but the focus for the coming years needs to be on how we rehumanize each other and create an economic and political system that works for everyone. This will take a lot of healing and courage. We will need wise courage, so our efforts actually build and don’t replicate patterns of domination.
Chanukah, starting in about 3 weeks, points to a practice for developing such wise courage.
One of the key themes of Chanukah is Hoda’ah—gratitude. This is the reason the praises of Hallel are sung for eight days, and the holiday is filled with festive, upbeat activities. At the time of the year with the shortest days (in the Northern Hemisphere), we celebrate with eight nights of thanks and light.
Rabbi Natan of Breslov (d. 1844, Ukraine) uses the gratitude of Chanukah as a starting point to expand on a Talmudic teaching that offers a practice fitting for our moment. In Talmud Bavli Brachot 54a, Ben Azzai teaches that the proper way to pray is to… “Give thanks for the past and cry out about the future (נוֹתֵן הוֹדָאָה עַל שֶׁעָבַר וְצוֹעֵק עַל הֶעָתִיד)”. Based on the context of this teaching, Ben Azzai is saying that it doesn’t make sense to pray for something that already happened. Rather, the past is the past and we turn our efforts, hopes and prayers to the future, which is yet unfolding.
In a letter to his son just before Chanukah, 1833 (Alim L’trufa 124), Rabbi Natan explains that the second part of this teaching builds on the first part. To the extent that one is able to find the good in the past and see that the Holy One was there all along, one is energized to cry out for a better and different future.
I want to unpack this teaching and add a piece to the valuable practice Rabbi Natan is giving us for this time that holds both possibility for a better future while also being on the precipice of further fracture.
On its surface, this teaching can seem to echo insensitive advice to people who have suffered that can feel like gaslighting—“Just be thankful for all that happened because, at a deep level, the bad stuff wasn’t really bad.” While too many people have suffered from this form of rabbinic malpractice, I don’t think that is what Ben Azzai or Rabbi Natan are saying. A key to understanding this teaching is to appreciate that the word Hoda’ah/Thanks is rooted in the term “acknowledge.”
Acknowledge what happened in the past. Don’t pave over the past and try to build a future that ignores what happened. Rather, look right at what happened and acknowledge its texture. Rabbi Natan emphasizes finding the good amidst the wreckage of the past. We know from his many teachings about finding good points that this practice includes seeing clearly all the pain and mistakes and messes. And yet, it is possible to find some good amidst the hard stuff. The practice is about where to focus rather than a lack of awareness of the hard things. Even though suffering was real, acknowledge that good was there and give praise for the Holy One’s presence that only hindsight makes perceptible. I want to emphasize that our hearts are big enough to hold more than one thing. We can both grieve the losses of the past AND feel gratitude for any good that was there.
I believe that it is from this combination of grieving and finding joy in the past that we can wisely face the future.
Building on this multifaceted acknowledgement, we cry out about the future. While crying out in prayer can seem like a passive act, it is actually what Rebbe Nachman calls “The gentle weapon.” According to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, and the vision.” (“On Prayer” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, ed. Susannah Heschel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 263. “Tzo’ek al Ha’tid/Cry about the future” implies facing the future with boldness, courage and hope. The future can be different, and we must participate in making that change. Cry out and do our part with confidence, knowing the future is yet unformed.
Crying out does not just include prayer. We can also “cry out” with our actions- the organizing, the advocacy, the fundraising we do to make things better. Each move to repair, re-humanize, and rebuild is a “cry” for the future.
If we don’t base these actions on a full-hearted acknowledgement of the past, unprocessed trauma could lead to an overly vengeful approach to the future. The elections created an opening in the U.S., and hopefully in Israel and Palestine as well, for something new. May we use the “gentle weapon” of prayer and the concrete steps we know how to take as organizers, advocates and communal leaders, to re-humanize and rebuild our communities and broader world in the months and years to come.
Indeed, this is why Kirva exists, to support people like me and you to have community to practice these Jewish spiritual technologies for building a better, more just, and courageous world. During Kislev, Kirva will be running our annual membership drive. I invite you to renew your support or join us as we bring these Jewish practices to more and more people.
Let us use the lights of Chanukah as a reminder that the future must be built on a confident awareness that the Source of Light, even if hidden, was, is, and always will be close to our hearts.
Chanukah Sameach,
David
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