By Rabbi David Jaffe
In just a few days, we’ll be launching our annual fundraiser, Rooted & Rising. This is an opportunity to strengthen the foundation of Kirva, ensuring that our transformative programs—like Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out and Disability Wisdom as Soul Care—can continue to nourish, equip, and inspire. Stay tuned for more details next week, and know that we are so grateful for you. Together, we can remain rooted in our spiritual practices and rise to meet the challenges of this moment.
Jewish wisdom has much to over in this season. The central theme of the rabbinic telling of the Chanukah story strikes me this year as exactly the message needed to face our situation of rising authoritarianism and threats of assaults on our society’s most vulnerable from the incoming administration.
The story goes that, after the Hasmonean’s military victory and reclamation of the Holy Temple from assimilationist allies of the Greek overlords, the priests could only find one jar of uncontaminated oil to burn on the Menorah. This jar would only last one day and it would take seven more days to produce new, pure oil. A miracle occurred and that one jar lasted the eight days until the new oil was ready. How does this apply to us?
The priests didn’t ration the one jar of oil. They needed to use all of it, even though they knew it wouldn’t last the time required. The political, social, legal, and communications challenges ahead of us are huge. None of us, nor any of our organizations has all it takes to completely protect what is dear to us, especially not on our own. And yet…that one jar of oil is symbolic of showing up for today with all we’ve got even though we know it is not enough to win. At the same time as the priests used the full jar, they were also busy producing new oil. That is symbolic of all the strategizing, base-building, communication, advocacy, fundraising, and innovation our movements will be doing consistently, with renewed vigor, over the coming months and years. Like the priests, we act knowing that our efforts won’t produce immediate results. It is those efforts, done in solidarity and mindfulness of the need for play, rest, and spiritual sustenance, that will eventually produce new, innovative approaches to advocacy while raising up values of compassion, dignity, and connection as guiding principles for public policy.
What gave the priests the holy chutzpah to use up the one remaining jar, when the new supply was days away? I don’t know, but a couple of ideas come to mind. To paraphrase Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (d. 1810, Ukraine) and 12-Step, it is a spiritual practice to start again new every day. To start again new takes faith that change is possible and that, this time, the situation might be different. Perhaps the priests felt that by being fully “in” and burning all the oil, something new would emerge. And, they knew they weren’t alone. The fellow priests were hard at work producing that new oil.
As we enter this new, challenging period, may this Chanukah remind us of the infinite possibilities that every new day offers, and that we are part of a determined ecosystem filled with big-hearted people giving it their all to create change. Please join us in community at Pearlstone Retreat Center on January 5th - 8th, right after Chanukah, to immerse in Jewish spiritual wisdom and practice together with fellow organizers and social justice leaders. Together, we will delve into tools to build resilience and grow our conviction, inspired by lessons from our tradition, like the Chanukah story, and build the spiritual muscle we will all need for this next era.
Chodesh tov,
David
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