“It is better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness.”
Shabbat Shalom. “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” -Eleanor Roosevelt. The Jewish people have always known this. Last night, we lit the candles and retold our children the story of the Maccabees to
remind our selves of this.
Which, in a way, brings us to this week’s parshah. The story of Joseph is personally close to me. This is the first story that my Dad ever told to me as a child. Next week, you will be hearing the story of Joseph working for Pharaoh to help with the famine. Joseph learns that famine is coming in seven years. When Pharaoh asks Joseph to lead the effort to stave off starvation in Egypt, Joseph agrees. This is shocking, because only weeks before, Pharaoh had Joseph locked up for life. And Joseph agrees to work for him? Why?
I think back to Rosh Hashanah 2001. This would be only a few weeks after the attack on the Trade Center. This was the first time I wore a black Yarmulke, is deference to family I had lost, though we had not actually met. I was lucky enough that my father survived, though I was still particularly shaken up, as were we all. We were hoping for words of comfort and resolve, and while that’s what our Rabbi gave, it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. The line he used was “few are guilty; all are responsible.” And it struck a cord with me. In the face of the darkness, we were dared to ask ourselves, “What candle will you light?” Of course, I was 12, so I wasn’t allowed to touch the proverbial matches just yet
But, fast-forward five years. In the early morning hours of Monday, August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came a shore. I could see so little distinction between the storm and the attacks as it related to the lives on the ground. Having so related, I felt compelled to go help. I first went to South Mississippi with a summer trip with my high school. But after one summer in the area, I asked the volunteer center where we had stayed if they could use an extra staff member. I was hired for next summer on the spot.
My boss was Sierra, from Holland, Michigan. At the volunteer center, we all shared stories about how we ended up there, but Sierra’s struck me in particular. She married rich, had a house on Lakeshore Drive, drove a Lexus, and was a central member of a 5000 member church. The church invited a resident evangelist to stay with them, and Sierra volunteered to put her up in her guest house. Within a year, Sierra’s marriage had floundered, her ex-husband was married to the evangelist, and everyone in the church, the people who were supposed to be her support network, began to avoid her. Sierra had been betrayed and completely marginalized by those closest to her.
Realizing that even a central figure could be marginalized, Sierra began to realize what it must be like for those who are truly marginalized. She was motivated to join the staff of a non-profit charity called International Aid. This work took her to Kosovo in 1998, to Afghanistan in 2002, and finally, to South Mississippi in 2005. She told me that her work with International Aid came as a direct result of her kneecapping experience in Michigan.
So this is what brings us back to Joseph, because this is precisely his story as well. When this week’s parshah began, we were introduced to Joseph as the central figure of his family. He was his father’s favorite son. Conspicuously. Joseph has everything going for him. Until, of course, his brothers betray him and sell him into slavery. Marginalized. Kneecapped. It is in this context in which Joseph meets the Cupbearer and the Baker. They are the personal servants of the Pharaoh, subject to imprisonment, and even execution on the mere whim of the Pharaoh. As the dreams suggest, they are not in control of their own fate. This is what it means to be truly marginalized; to be at the edge of consideration of fellow human beings. The Cupbearer and the Baker show Joseph what it means for a person to say another human being is unworthy of concern.
This is not something Joseph can take lightly, because this is what he did to his brothers. Young Joseph, for all intensive purposes is a B-R-A-T. He tells them his first dream, about his brothers’ grain bowing before his own. His brothers don’t respond favorably. “Do you mean to reign over us?” they cry. Yet amazingly, Joseph has the audacity to tell them his second dream about the stars. Regardless of the dream’s validity, Joseph has the ability to keep his dreams to himself if others find them irritating, and the fact that he chooses not to shows that he does not care for his brothers in the slightest. This is not to excuse the actions of his brothers. But Joseph realizes in jail that he cannot be blameless. He had done nothing to show his brothers that he cared about them. “Few are guilty. All are responsible.”
This is the attitude that Joseph had when he was asked to step up for the famine. As it was with Sierra after Katrina. And as it was with me. By comparison, I was the lucky one: I was not betrayed, in the strictly literal sense of the word, on 9/11, and my father is still with me. I was lucky to learn this lesson at a young age. Joseph had to learn this the hard way, as did Sierra. We may not cause the bad things in this world. Most of us are decent beings who would never knowingly harm somebody. But that’s not enough. We know that darkness exists in our world. And if we have the power to light a candle, and yet we choose not to, that makes us responsible for it. Joseph shows us that simply because we do not cause all the bad things that happen, that cannot absolve us.
Tonight is the second night of Hanukah, the second night of miracles. I guarantee you that the fastest way to bring miracles into your life, if you have been feeling devoid of miracles of late, is to be a miracle for someone else. I’ve seen it first hand. At the volunteer center, we had over 10,000 people pass through and together we built 150 houses. That is a miracle. When Joseph is able to save his brothers from seven years starvation, not to mention all of Egypt, that is a miracle. Tonight, when you light your candles, ask yourself, who will you light a candle for? Who will you be a miracle for? Amen.