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Hanukkah,
Oil, & 8 Days of Action:
The Green Menorah
Covenant
Hanukkah this year begins with the lighting of one candle on
the evening of December 21. At the dark time of the moon and sun, we kindle a
growing blaze of lights. And light is the central symbol of the holy season.
In this letter we will share
some of the deepest symbols that make Hanukkah a festival for sharing light by
saving energy, and will also share some specific earth-healing actions for each
of the eight Days.
On the
Shabbat that comes in the midst of Hanukkah, Jews traditionally read the passage
from the Prophet Zechariah that celebrates the Great Menorah (literally,
a Light-bearer) in a rebuilt Holy Temple after the Babylonian
Captivity.
Zechariah, in visionary, prophetic style, goes beyond the
Torah's description of the original Menorah . That Menorah was planned as part
of the portable Shrine, the Mishkan, in the Wilderness.
First Zechariah
describes the Menorah of the future that he sees: "All of gold, with a bowl on
its top, seven lamps, and seven pipes leading to the seven lamps." It sounds
like the original bearer of the sacred Light. But then he adds a new detail: "By
it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left." (4:
2-3)
And then --- in a passage the Rabbis did not include in the
Haftarah - Zechariah explains that the two olive trees are feeding their oil
directly into the Menorah (4: 11-13). No human being needs to press the olives,
collect the oil, clarify and sanctify it. The trees alone can do it all.
Now wait! This is extraordinary. What is this Light-Bearer that is so
intimately interwoven with two trees? Is the Menorah the work of human hands, or
itself the fruit of a tree?
Both, and beyond. In our generation it
might be called a "cyborg," a cybernetic organism that is woven from the
fruitfulness both of "adamah" (the Hebrew for earth) and of
"adam" (a human earthling). Just as earth and earthling were deeply
intermingled in the biblical Creation story, so the Divine Light must interweave
them once again, and again and again, every time the Light is lit in the Holy
Temple.
What stirs Zechariah to this uncanny vision? Once we listen
closely to the Torah's original description of the Menorah for the wandering
desert Shrine, we may not be quite so surprised. For the Torah describes a
Menorah that has branches, cups shaped like almond-blossoms, petals, and calyxes
(the tight bundles of green leaves that hold a blossom). (Exodus 25:31-40 and
37:17-24)
In short, a Tree of Light, a Green Menorah. Small
wonder that Zechariah envisioned its receiving oil directly from the
olive-trees!
And in the legend told by the Talmud as the origin of
Hanukkah, the Light itself is a miracle. One day's oil becomes sufficient for
eight days' needs.
At the physical level, this is about conserving
energy, the triumph of sustainable sources of energy over the Seleucid Empire
that guzzles oil and other forms of material wealth. Seen this way, the Green
Menorah can become the symbol of a covenant among Jewish communities and
congregations to renew the miracle of Hanukkah in our own generation: Using one
day's oil to meet eight days' needs. By 2020, cutting oil consumption by
seven-eighths.
We can start
right away, this Hanukkah, by joining in The Shalom Center's Green Menorah
Covenant for taking action -- personal, communal and political -- to heal the
Earth from the global climate crisis.
After lighting your Hanukkah
menorah each evening, dedicate yourself to making the changes in your life that
will minimize our use of oil (and coal). (And this pattern can be used for the
Twelve Days of Christmas, the Seven Days of Kwanzaa, and so on.)
Day
1: Personal/Household: Call your electric-power utility to switch to
wind-powered electricity. (For each home, 100 percent wind-power reduces carbon
dioxide emissions the same as not driving 20,000 miles in one year.)
Day
2: Synagogue, Hillel, or JCC: Call your congregational board chair to urge that
your building switch to wind-powered electricity.
Day 3. Your network of
friends, IM buddies and members of civic or professional groups to which you
belong: Connect with people like newspaper editors, real estate developers,
architects, bankers, etc. to urge them to strengthen the green factor in all
their decisions, speeches and actions.
Day 4: Town/City: Urge town/city
officials to require greening of buildings through ordinances and executive
orders. Creating change is often easier on the local level.
Day 5:
Workplace or college: Urge the top officials to arrange an energy audit. Check
with utility company about getting one free or at low cost.
Day 6 , which
this year is Shabbat. Automobile: If possible, choose this Shabbat and through
the year, one day a week to not use your car. Walk. Bike. Other days, lessen
driving. Shop on-line. Cluster errands. Car pool. Don't idle engine beyond 20
seconds.
Day 7: State: Urge state representatives to reduce subsidies for
highways, increase them for public transit so it becomes convenient, swift,
frequent, and inexpensive.
Day 8: National: Urge your senators and
congressmembers to support the strongest possible limits on CO2 emissions, and
to support development of sustainable energy. For easy addressing and a model
letter to send them, go to
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4181/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=21544.
Give
our planet a Happy Hanukkah!
If the necessary changes seem overwhelmingly
hard to accomplish against the entrenched power of our own oil empires,
Hanukkah also reminds us: Small groups of seemingly powerless human beings can
face huge and powerful institutions - and change the world.
But let us
not stop at the economic, political, or ecological levels of meaning that hide
in the Hanukkah candles. At the spiritual level, since "eight" is the number of
"Beyond," the Infinite, the storied eight-day miracle when One Becomes Eight
reminds us that the Infinite is always present in the One.
It reminds us
that conserving oil, or coal, or our planet, is not just a political or economic
or even ecological decision. It comes when we take into our hearts the knowledge
that material possessiveness, hyper-ownership, is simply not necessary to
well-being.
For the Infinite is always present when we choose to light
the Light.
Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace -- and
LIGHT!
--
Arthur ^^^^^^^^^
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the
author of Down-to-Earth Judaism. For more information on the Green
Menorah covenant, see
-
http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/1
To donate to the Shalom Center, click on our logo!
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