The Hard Work of Looking for Hope

The Hard Work of Looking for Hope, by Emily Herzlin

Inspired by Natalie Diaz’s poem Of Course She Looked Back

Over the past eight months, people have been leaving New York City. People moving upstate or out of state or out of the country, because of the pandemic or out of fear of what life will be like after the election. As if messengers of God had visited and told them to get out while they still can. I get why people are leaving. I’ve had more than my fair share of moments during this time. Especially during the height of the pandemic back in April and May, stuck inside, ordering grocery deliveries, wiping down mail, seeing images in the news of mass graves being dug by inmates and the refrigerator trucks for the dead outside the nearby hospital. I fantasized about a little house in New Brunswick near the sea. I’ve got the area picked out. I know what the garden will look like. My spouse is Canadian, we could do it. We’ve said, “let’s see how the election goes.” 

But even if we left, what then? In this week’s parsha, Vayera, when Lot flees the city of Sodom, he asks the angel not to send him to the hills, it’s too scary. So he goes to a small town, and it’s too scary there, so he goes to live in a cave, which doesn’t work out, either. Where is the place where there is no pain or struggle, where we don’t need to show up bravely and compassionately for ourselves and our neighbors? Where is the place that is immune to the suffering caused by greed, hatred, and delusion, which can travel across all kinds of borders?

Certain people have said that New York is a wasteland. That everyone’s fled, the city’s in shambles. Others call us an anarchist jurisdiction. Here’s what I see:

People in Queens, the borough hit hardest by the pandemic, are staying to take care of their neighbors;

They advocated for city streets to be open for pedestrians to gather safely outdoors while maintaining social distance;

They are organizing coat drives and food drives;

Mutual aid groups are forming and organizing to care for each other’s needs;

Community fridges are being filled, and community gardens popping up;

Neighbors and local groups picked up each other’s compost when the city shut down its composting services;

Protests for racial justice are happening every single day of the week since the spring;

Lines to vote early wrapped around city blocks, in the rain and wind and cold;

Volunteers gave out food and water and masks to voters...

Of course Lot’s wife looked back. Because even in a city where so much suffering was taking place, she knew there was good. There was strength, there was potential, there was hope. 

She looked back because the angels who came to Sodom didn’t look hard enough for the ten good people God required in order to not destroy the city. They were there and she knew it. Did the angels even look, at all, actually? Did they really try to search for the ten people? Or did they base their decision off of how they were treated by the most aggressive people with the loudest megaphones and the biggest flags? Did they look at the sea of red on the map and just feel too tired?

She looked back because she had hope, she saw hope, and that hope could have been put to work, to good trouble.

In the words of Rebecca Solnit this week:

“Not only is Canada not the Motel 6 that left the lights on for you, but we are not guests in the USA, especially those of us with the privilege that also means the power to protect others. We are the cleaning staff, and we are here to clean it up and make it safer for the next people who come along…. 

“This is our country, and this is our work, and we were put here to do it, those of us who are safe enough in this regime and who have the capacity to influence outcomes and protect the more vulnerable. There is meaning in hard work as there is not in disconnected leisure and insularity. 

...So deepen your roots, stretch your branches, and plant yourself like a tree. Here we are, here we will be.”

Ner Tamid in Pandemic Times

I grew up performing in community theatre productions, and I remember learning at a young age about the ghost light. The ghost light is often a simple, uncovered light bulb on the top of a long pole that stands in the middle of an empty stage. It gets lit at the end of the night, and left on all night, until the staff or performers return the next day. The tradition may have started out of safety, in case some maintenance workers were in the building late and needed light to be able to see after the house lights were turned off. The mythology is cooler, though: it is said that every theatre has ghosts, and the light is there for the ghosts, so that when they come out at night they have enough light by which to perform and dance on stage, when no one else is there to watch them.

In this week’s Torah portion, Emor, God tells Moses to command the people of Israel:

...they shall take to you pure olive oil, crushed for lighting, to kindle the lamps continually. Outside the dividing curtain of the testimony in the Tent of Meeting, Aaron shall set it up before the Lord from evening to morning continually. [This shall be] an eternal statute for your generations. Upon the pure menorah, he shall set up the lamps, before the Lord, continually.

The ner tamid, often translated as the eternal flame, is a key component of synagogues--a light that is always lit, which hovers above the ark. The ner tamid in my childhood synagogue looked to me like a small, fiery lion. Looking back now, I think it may have been the word חי (chai-life). Whatever it was, that bright spot over the ark was a focal point for my often distracted, wandering gaze. It was what I’d realize I was looking at when I was supposed to be looking at my prayerbook. 

The word tamid is often translated as “continually” or “regularly.” But another, more simple translation is “always.” So the translation I like best of ner tamid is the Always Lamp.

The Always Lamp is something that can be counted on to mark sacredness, to help us find the way to holiness, no matter what. And perhaps, like the ghost light on a stage, to make sure that holiness itself never feels lost or alone or unseen. Even if the people of Israel were not always there in person, it was a sign that they were thinking about God. It’s nice to know someone is thinking about you, isn’t it?

Once I was on a long, silent meditation retreat that happened to fall during my wedding anniversary. My husband and I decided we would write a letter to each other, to be opened on the night of our anniversary. Though we would not be together, would not be able to see or talk to each other, we would have something to kindle that remembering of our love and joy in one another. It would sustain both of us during a time of separation. That letter was oil for our Always Lamp. 

I am thinking now of all the lonely Torah scrolls in all the arks around the world in dark sanctuaries which have been empty of people for months at this point during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am feeling deep tenderness towards the image of those scrolls being comforted and reassured by the Always Lamps, these nightlights letting them know that they have not been abandoned, that we are still very much here for them, even in our physical distance. Maybe it is giving the letters enough light to lift themselves off the parchment and dance joyfully with each other around the sanctuary.

This Torah portion is not the first nor only one that mentions the Always Lamp, but I think there is significance to it coming up at this time in the Jewish calendar. During the 7-week period between Passover and Shavuot known as the Omer which we are currently in, each week is dedicated to cultivating a particular quality of mind and heart. For much of this week, the quality is Netzach. Netzach is all about persistence and endurance and keeping going. The Israelites would have surely needed to rouse a lot of Netzach in their long journey from Egypt to Sinai. The Always Lamp is a perfect symbol of Netzach. 

But Netzach doesn’t sustain itself, and neither does the Always Lamp. It is dependent on being fed in order for it to keep going. Its supply is not infinite. And so I am wondering during these unbelievably challenging times, what on earth is feeding my inner Always Lamp? What is feeding yours? What is feeding our persistence, our endurance, our ability to keep going through this pandemic? Probably a lot of things--hope, rest, connection, moments of joy, appreciating acts of kindness, learning, studying Torah, and miraculous things we can’t even name. Because it really is a miracle that we persist.

So if we notice someone else’s Always Lamp oil is getting low and their light is getting dim, maybe we can reach out in some way to replenish it for them. And if ours gets low, maybe it can be okay to ask someone else for some oil. After all, when God gives the instructions in the Torah for bringing oil to light the lamps, God gives that responsibility to the entire community, not to just one person. That care was community-based, just as it needs to be now.