Kislev-Uniting the Colors of the Rainbow
Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

The long, silent white nights of winter have an almost
mystic quality. They make us occasionally consider
ending the day early and opening a book, or writing a
journal or maybe just listening. The silence lets us
hear our hearts speak loud enough for us to hear
without the static of day-to-day living.

We tend to deaden the impact of living with seasons by
killing their message with the intrusion (and
blessing) of electricity. We turn summer into spring
with air conditioning. We heat our homes and
experience winter by looking out the window and
feeling the frost if we actually touch the panes. We
lengthen the day by keeping the lights on. All of
this, of course, is a great piece of good fortune.
After all, no one really misses the sort of summer
that left us exhausted, tense and drenched in sweat,
or the kind of winter that imprisoned us in our badly
heated homes yearning for the sun. Nonetheless, it's
good to once in a while take the time to let the world
speak to us.

Each month has its own message. The Arizal, a great
mystic, tells us that the spiritual force of each of
the 12 months parallels one of the 12 tribes (for the
month of Kislev, it is the tribe Benjamin, who was
known for his unwavering faith in God and his
ferocious ability to battle evil) and the astral sign
of the month (for this month, it is the bow). All of
this lets us map out something of the nature of the
month, and perhaps how to find a part of ourselves
(since each Jew is a composite of all 12 tribes).

As the days get longer and blacker, we can intuitively
sense that place within us that is dark, hopeless and
vulnerable is closer to the surface than it is during
the summer. In fact, there is scientific evidence that
there is a biological basis for this feeling. What
escapes us is the precious nature of coming in contact
with this part of ourselves.

There are two events that took place in this month
that give us insight to the turf we enter. The first
is God presenting the rainbow as a covenantal sign
after the destruction of the Flood. We hardly
associate rainbows with the shortest days of the year,
but the rainbow is indeed very much part of the
picture. Noah left the safety of the ark and
re-entered the world on the 28th of Cheshvan (the
previous month on the Jewish calendar). He saw vast,
unspeakable, total desolation. We can't begin to
envision the barren, silent world that he faced. He
recognized that it was up to him to chart a course
that will lead him and his descendants to redefining
the world. He offered sacrifices to symbolize his
commitment to uplift the world and everything in it to
its Divine source.

The spark of eternity within us can never totally
disappear, no matter how well we disguise it by
adapting animalistic behaviors.

On the first day of Kislev, God responded to this act
by blessing Noah and his family. He set down new rules
for them. From now on man will be permitted to eat
meat. He will be accountable for shedding human blood.
The world is meant to be a place where the fact that
we were made in God's image is relevant. We are not
just a more developed sort of animal, but an entirely
unique species. The spark of eternity within us can
never totally disappear, no matter how well we
disguise it by adapting animalistic behaviors. We
cannot "convert" to becoming an animal any more than a
doorknob can become a canary. Animals may be killed
and eaten; no human being is an animal. God promised
never to bring a flood again, sealing his covenant to
continue existence with a sign -- the rainbow.

Why a rainbow?

There were always rainbows, even before the flood.
What changed is its message. What does the
multicolored luminescent rainbow tell us about the
territory we walk? It maps our future. After the
flood, humankind will now develop differently. Until
that point, there was no concept of nationhood or of
divergent cultures. From now on, different peoples
will become progressively more variegated. The rainbow
is a living statement (a map) of what that really
means (the territory). A rainbow is formed when pure
white light refracts into seven shades. Red is nearest
the original beam, and violet is the furthest away
from the pure white light.

This has a human parallel. Some people are close to
God, and live lives that reveal their intimacy with
the Creator. Other people are much further away from
their Source, and nothing about their lives gives any
external evidence of having any sort of relationship
with Him. The fact is that both people come from one
source, in the same way that red and violet are both
caused by the same pure light.

All the hues of our existence stem from one single
source of Light, even if we are not always wise enough
to see it.

In our individual lives, we also experience the entire
spectrum of light, going from bright to dark. Three in
the afternoon may be an ideal time -- work is great,
the sky is blue, and everything seems perfect. Three
in the morning is an entirely different story. You lie
in bed and can't sleep. Nothing you do seems
significant; nothing seems likely to change either.
Sometimes black moments are spurred by external
factors - rejection, failure or perceived rejection or
failure -- but there are also black moments that are
just part life's ebb and flow. At both times, we can
recognize that God made us with an inner rhythm that
moves the light within us from "red" luminosity to
"violet" despair, and that our souls are still eternal
and life still has meaning. Each human soul is and
always will be attached to life, which is God Himself.
All the hues of our existence stem from one single
source of Light, even if we are not always wise enough
to see it.

The police sergeant told Sammy that he had two calls.
Sammy remained silent. His eyes raced from the
florescent light to the chipped brown Formica desk.
Anywhere but the phone. At 19, he felt old, dead, and
repulsive. There was no one to call. Not his father,
who hadn't seen or spoken to him since his infancy,
nor his raging half sane mother.

The policewoman looked at him with a strange mixture
of impatience and compassion. "Call your lawyer or
someone from your family. We can't let you out until
someone comes to sign for you and to put down bail
money. It can be months until your trial."

He didn't answer; he didn't have to. She caught on.
There was no one on the entire planet that Sammy could
call. Her tired brown eyes met his for a moment. He
wanted to lash out at her and all of the rest of the
patronizing, safe, normal people he had ever known.
The hatred was sharp, deep, and nothing at all
compared to the heat of the hatred that he felt for
himself. One number came back to him. The principal of
his high school in Migdal HaAmek who had found him
asleep on a park bench five years earlier and
convinced him to go to the school dorms. The last time
he had spoken to him was at stormy meeting in his
office that had ended with Sammy going off to chart
his own path.

He didn't know what to say. He dialed the number with
trembling hands. He wanted the phone to just ring so
he didn't have to face the policewoman who knew too
much and at the same time not force him to hear either
indifference or anger he anticipated from waking
someone up at 4 am. It rang eight times. Rabbi
Grossman answered. "It's Sammy."

"What happened? Where are you?"

He spilled the entire sordid story and ended with the
only words he could. "They're holding me here unless
someone signs and pays." In a matter of hours, Rabbi
Yitzchak David Grossman the legendary Rav of Migdal
HaEmek, was in Tel Aviv, a 2 hour drive if the roads
are clear. He knew what Sammy didn't know and believed
something Sammy never believed; Sammy is priceless,
dazzlingly beautiful, and eternal manifestation of his
Creator.
THE LIGHT OF CHANUKAH

The second event that hallmarks Kislev is Chanukah. It
was one of the darkest times in our history. We had
somehow lost track of everything real and enduring. A
significant percentage of our people defined
themselves as Hellenists, lovers of everything Greek.
The Greeks knew the map better than any nation that
preceded them. They saw the hills and valleys; the
mind and the body. They were gifted with uncanny
accuracy and portrayed what they saw with unparalleled
beauty and power.

But they didn't know the territory. Morality,
Godliness, spirituality were beyond their grasp.
What's worse, they found the very concept of
spirituality to be threatening and dangerous to their
human-centered world. They outlawed Torah because it
took the mind to places unknown. They outlawed Shabbos
because it invited anyone who kept it to see
themselves as part of a created world with
accountability to its Creator, rather a member of a
human-centered world in which morality is irrelevant.
They outlawed circumcision because it implied that the
human body was not perfect as is, but rather an
imperfect instrument left for humans to perfect.

In the midst of all of this, we experienced national
rebirth and self-discovery. Then the miracle happened.
The Greeks had defiled the Menorah, which is a symbol
of the spirit just as they defiled everything else in
the Temple. When the Temple was recaptured one of the
first things that the Hasmonean (meaning coming from a
family of Kohanim whose name was Hashmonai) fighters
did was to try to rekindle the Menorah. Why was that
so important to them? The reason is that they were not
fighting for political independence. They were
fighting for spiritual renewal. Lighting the Menorah
was their response to darkness.

One day's worth of oil lasted eight days.

Each of us has to fight off darkness in our own way.
None of us are alike; each one of us is an entire
world. Let us use this time to see the rainbows that
are the natural result of rain and sun meeting. Let us
use this time to light the Menorah that is always
there within our hearts.