Shattering can be the beginning of creating something anew, a stimulation of our imagination. View the study sheet here. Watch the recording here.
Chanukah is all about religious freedom, right? Well, not exactly. There are at least three different narratives in Jewish texts about the meaning of the holiday. One describes a heroic battle fought by brave Jewish warriors to reclaim political sovereignty from the invading Seleucid Empire. Another emphasizes the reclaiming of religious ritual life and the restoration of religious festival celebration. A third displaces the role played by the Maccabees in defeating Israel’s enemies with that played by God in turning one day’s worth of oil into eight. Historical accounts point to a civil war between Hellenistic and more traditional Jews as an underlying context to the events of the holiday.
This proliferation of meaning could be a source of frustration or cynicism: None of it is true! However, since its very first word Torah has been teaching us that reality has multiple dimensions. This profusion of possibilities is the essence of life. The trajectory of Torah is not to narrow our perspective but to expand it.
Kabbalah describes the moment of Creation as a shattering. This is meant less as a sad and tragic event than as an opportunity to reassemble disparity into unity. That is our spiritual and ethical mission. To essentialize another human being constitutes mission failure. To refrain from recognizing and exploring our own internal being, an environment rich in contending yearnings, traits and urges, is a frustration of divine purpose.
On spiritual, psychological, and intellectual levels, brokenness is an opening to create something new. On a sociological level, diversity is an opportunity to align with others in the human enterprise of expanding the light that is the source of life: “For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we each are free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world” (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks).
Join us here at 7:00 p.m. (PST) Thursday December 2 as we explore brokenness and imagination.
