Flashes of Illumination:Wisdom of Chanukah and the Story of Joseph

Paradox

In a paradox, opposites do not negate each other – they cohere in mysterious unity at the heart of reality. Deeper still, they need each other for health, as my body needs to breathe in as well as breathe out. But in a culture that prefers the ease of either/or thinking to the complexities of paradox, we have a hard time holding opposites together. We want light without darkness, the glories of spring and summer without the demands of autumn and winter, and the Faustian bargains we make fail to sustain our lives.

When we so fear the dark that we demand light around the clock, there can be only one result: artificial light that is glaring and graceless and, beyond its borders, a darkness that grows ever more terrifying as we try to hold it off. Split off from each other, neither darkness nor light is fit for human habitation. But if we allow the paradox of darkness and light to be, the two will conspire to bring wholeness and health to every living being.”
Parker Palmer, from

"There Is a Season: A Meditation on the Cycles of Our Inner Lives."

https://fetzer.org/blog/paradox-fall

The Light that Sustains us in the Pit

Tree of Souls Mythology of Judaism

Howard Schwartz

.....Jacob .....gave the stone to his beloved son, Joseph, when he gave him the coat of many colors. Jacob made Joseph promise to wear the stone all the time, but he did not reveal its power which he knew well. And because his brothers did not know the amulet was precious they did not take it from him when they stripped him of the coat of many colors and cast him naked into the dark pit.

Now snakes and scorpions lived at the bottom of the pit. And when Joseph heard them slithering and creeping in the dry leaves, he shivered in the darkness at the bottom of the pit. All at once a light began to glow and Joseph saw that it was coming from the amulet he wore around his neck. And as long as Joseph was in the pit, the amulet continued to glow and so that he was never afraid. At last Joseph heard Midianite traders call out to him from the top of that pit. They pulled him out of pit and brought him to Egypt where they sold him into slavery, and to the destiny that fate held for him, which was to become prince of Egypt.

When Joseph was imprisoned in the dungeon, he discovered that if he placed his tsohar in his cup and peered into it, he could read the future and interpret dreams. That is how he interpreted the dreams of the butler and the baker, and later the dreams of Pharaoh that prophesied the seven years of famine.

......

That cup, with the precious jewel in it, was placed inside Joseph's coffin at the time of his death, and remained there until Moses recovered Joseph's coffin and was told in a dream to take the jewel out and hang it in the Tabernacle, where it became known as the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Light. And that is why, even to this day, an Eternal Light burns above every ark of the Torah in every synagogue. (p.86)

Nachman of Bretzlov

A Rotating Wheel

Their books contain questions as to the order of Creation: How is it that a star merited to be a star, or that a constellation deserved to be a constellation? What was the sin of the lower creatures, animals and all the rest, that consigned them to their lowly state? Why not just the opposite? Why is a head a head and a foot a foot?

… This entire pursuit, however, is a vain one. One should not ask such questions of God, who is righteous and upright. For in truth, the entire universe is a spinning top, which is called a dreidel. Everything moves in a circle: angels change into men and men into angels; the head becomes a foot and the foot a head. All things in the world are part of this circular motion, reborn and transformed into one another. That which was above is lowered and that which was below is raised up. For in their root all of them are one.

There are separate intellects, which are angels, completely separated from matter; there are spheres, which are composed of the most refined matter, and there is a lower world, which is fully corporeal. Even though each of these is surely derived from some particular place, in their root they are all one.

Therefore the universe is a spinning top, on which everything turns and is transformed. Right now one thing may be highest, and it is considered a head, while that which is at the bottom is called a foot. But when they spin around again, the head will become a foot and the foot a head, men will become angels and angels will be men…. Everything in the world is a dreidel, moving in a circle, for in truth they are all one in their root......

https://www.sefaria.org/Sichot_HaRan.40.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

"That Which is Indestructible Within"

“Oh God, times are too hard for frail people like myself. I know that a new and kinder day will come. I would so much like to live on, if only to express all the love I carry within me; carry into that new age all the humanity that survives in me, despite everything I go through every day. And there is only one way of preparing for the new age, by living it even now in our hearts. Somewhere in me I feel so light, without the least bitterness and so full of strength and love. I would so much like to help prepare for the new age and to carry that which is indestructible within me intact into the new age, which is bound to come, for I can feel it growing inside me, every day. —

Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork, Excerpt from July 20, 1942

Resources:

Understanding Pharaoh's Dreams,Rabbi David Fohrman, Aleph Beta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjpFMJ35wHw

Joseph's Groundhog Day, Rabbi David Fohrman, Aleph Beta

https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/life-of-joseph