About Those Who Believe Otherwise

I’ve lived these past few years with a tremor of fear that the world is going dark. It hasn’t been absolute, or constant. It’s been interrupted by moments of ecstatic joy, some intimate and some public. But when I was alone and let my mind wander, it often wandered into a place of leaden darkness.

Some darkness is the depression I feel over racism and the rising tide of antisemitism. I hear echoes of Pastor Niemoller’s “They came after the Jews….”

I feel the dark chill of night when I hear Christian nationalism’s desire to redefine what it means to be a real American: White, Evangelical, gun-toting and mean.

Then there’s the feeling that global warming is heading us toward extinction while we elect idiots who claim it’s all a hoax. That’ll darken your spirits some.

This coming Sunday (18th) I will once again light the first candle of Hannukah. If there were a lesson for me, and for America, in this year’s holiday, I think it would come from the wisdom of (Rabbi) Jonathan Sacks: “Hannukah is about the freedom to be true to what we believe without denying the freedom of those who believe otherwise.”

I’m going to do my best on Sunday evening to shake off the shiver of darkness, be grateful for the nation that has given me so much and light a candle for those who believe otherwise.