Jewswithoutjobs's Blog

Ok so tonight is the first night of Chanukah. (I never knew how to spell that word. I know if you’ve got 3 Jews you’ve got 4 congrgations, but if you’ve got 3 Jews how many spellings of Hanukah do you get?). And the other night I went to one of those Berkeley Hinjew events that those of you not from the left coast would never understand. It was a Shakti festival, celebrating the divine feminine. There was candle lighting and flame everywhere in the dark room. I imagine before there was even this Hindu Diety, I imagine there were alot of very frightened proto Indians watching the days get shorter just like in the middle east. What must it be like to live only from the light of the sun and moon and the flame from fires or torches.

The great fear of darkness that so many kids experience  has fostered a huge industry of night lights and probably has contributed more to global warming than all the new cars in China. It’s in our very DNA. And yet we go through life pretending we’re not scared, because we’re sure we’re the only frightened people around. After all you’re supposed to “grow out” of this childhood terror.

Yet across the globe, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and I imagine every faith that exists has at its root a celebration of light held as the deepest dark of winter lies ahead. In fact maybe religion itself is a response to these terrors. What would the world be like if we just fessed up to the fact that we’re scared most of the time. We certainly have lots of very real things to be frightened about. Danger is everywhere, the planet is sinking, Osama is somewhere, I have an ingrown toenail, you can’t get a job or got foreclosed or are underemployed or or or or……

But even if none of this was happening, we’d still be afraid of the metaphorical dark…the unknown, the unknowable. And what would it be like if everyone just admitted that? Then this supreme disconnection people feel from each other might just fade away. Because we’d see how similar everyone really is! Just a bunch of ‘fraidy cats….Welcome to the club.

If you hold your breath long enough, the days will get longer…..

Tags: Chanukah, darkness, fear, Hanukkah, jewish humor, jokes

This entry was posted on December 11, 2009 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.