All Is Illuminated

A moment of clarity for the Jews and for the world

Oct 12, 2023

“At times, the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day. Our nature and habit then draw a veil over our perception, and we return to a darkness almost as dense as before. We are like those who, though beholding frequent flashes of lightning, still find themselves in the thickest darkness of the night. On some, the lightning flashes in rapid succession, and they seem to be in continuous light, and their night is as clear as the day.”

-Maimonides, Introduction to Guide for the Perplexed

We live in dark times. Darkness isn’t evil, per se. It obscures. As is clear to anyone who has studied the Rabbinic texts over the ages, we bought any clarity of thought we now possess by limiting our scope. When we rule our minds at all, they are small kingdoms with closely guarded borders beyond which yawns a dark, frothing fray. Not only have the intellectual foundations of civilization eroded, but even the foundations of the erosion have eroded. Where does that leave us? In uncertainty.

In one way or another, from a different direction or another, I write about that uncertainty in every post to this platform. Much of my writing is about the beauty, the sublimity, and even the Divinity of our current uncertainty.

But G-d is not limited, of course, to uncertainty. No matter how profound the night, the lightning can still fall. We hope, pray, and believe it will fall in moments of beauty, peace, and transcendence. But, as the same Maimonides notes in his magnum opus, in the Laws of Fasting, “[S]hould the people fail to cry out [to God] and sound the trumpets [at a time of suffering,]…this is a cruel conception of things.”

Sometimes, the lightning falls as a suffering beyond imagining. And all is illuminated.

Flash. It’s 2008. I’m a high school grad who’s decided to spend a gap year (that would turn into seven years) at a Chabad yeshiva in Jerusalem. I am young in every way. The yeshiva students stand in a field in Kfar Chabad before two tallis-wrapped bodies. It is the funeral of the Holtzbergs, murdered by terrorists in Mumbai for the crime of being Jewish, the crime of feeding kosher food to travelers, the crime of living their lives for their people. For the first time, I understand.

Flash. It’s 2015. My third extended residence in Israel, my third year in Jerusalem. I am shopping for groceries in the Machane Yehuda shuk. Nothing is happening whatsoever. It is a moment of peace-time in the country and in my life. A haredi shopper argues good-naturedly with the sabra shopkeeper. They are both mine, and I am theirs. What’s special there, between the river and the sea, is nothing more than feeling it.

Flash. Yesterday. Protests throughout the Western world. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In the dark, we all know and have always known that this means they want the Jews gone. They say we have no right to be there in the first place, that our presence there was founded in sin. But they defend themselves and play word games, and because Jews are weak for ideas (“The gentile makes gods of stone and we of theories.” — Isaac Bashevis Singer) and compassionate above all, many of us hold a shameful silence.

Flash. Protestors waving Palestinian flags chant “Gas the Jews” in front of the Sydney Opera house as social media geniuses, renowned for their discernment, demand evidence that the Jewish babies were beheaded rather than merely murdered in their cribs. Najma Sharif, writer for Teen Vogue (in the darkness of 2023, they don’t conveniently call it Der Stürmer for you), explained to us what “decolonization” means:

Note: Jews in Israel live in their ancestral homeland. The people of Israel and the land of Israel cannot and will not be separated, and there is nothing about it to apologize for.

Flash. I continue to recite the quote of the avowed atheist Golda Meir: “I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe in G-d.” We have all witnessed, in ourselves and around us, the unity, the sense of shared purpose and destiny, and the utter commitment to being a Jew that this week has illuminated. Make no mistake: all of these things are our worship. They have nothing to do with “God,” the concept of the world that is defined in dictionaries. They have everything to do with the G-d of Israel. Atheists are not only welcome; they are worshipping alongside us every moment of every day. The Jewish G-d is found within being Jewish. This is now palpable.

Flash. Our fellow Jews, who have argued and continue to argue that this is somehow our fault, that Israel is a terrible crime perpetuating further terrible crimes. They are a tiny group, even by our people’s standards. Of all people, Peter Beinart implied he was feeling politically alienated this week. Before he had time to compose a more ideological response, Bernie Sanders expressed his disgust and utter solidarity with the Jews of Israel. But others showed not even these signs of reconsideration and reconciliation. Their absence at our side is more painful than ever. Their being a Jew has gone astray, has carried them down ideological paths that insidiously turn them eventually against us. They are lost. And we will find them by burning brighter. The spark will be drawn to the fire.

Flash. Speeches by US dignitaries and other heads-of-state showing unexpected and unprecedented support. Their clarity reflects our clarity, as the Rebbe predicted and advised.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, through the calm between the storms. We are not there yet. The illuminated landscape must be burned into our retinas and memories because we will need its strength to carry us through the night.

But for those with ears, in the groans, the trembling, and the unspeakable suffering echoes, as ever, the sound of a great shofar.

It’s getting louder.