Rosh Chodesh Kislev: Only Through Darkness Can Light Shine Victorious

Long before there were weblogs and Facebook, long before I knew how to turn on a computer at all, I kept track of all my memories and correspondence the old-fashioned way: a pen and paper. I began keeping a journal when I was eight years old. I wrote almost every day in a spiral notebook, followed by another spiral notebook and several dozen more spiral notebooks. One of my greatest pains years after moving across the country was finding out that in the many disasters that surrounded our life in and eventual sale of my family home in Massachusetts, ten years of my journals were destroyed and lost. Nonetheless, after I left home, I continued to write. Pen and paper were almost always my first choice, but eventually, computers took over, and two years ago I gave into the lure and luster of blogging-- of having a permanent, seemingly indestructible location for all of my thoughts. Now, after the recent and sudden death of my second laptop, even more of my writing is lost in the abyss of words said and forgotten. Yet, this blog remains...and more importantly, that which is real and truly important is never lost or forgotten!
This Thursday marks Rosh Chodesh Kislev, the beginning of the new month. Kislev is a month that falls during the darkest part of the year. At least here in the northern hemisphere, the days are short, the nights are long, and the darkness and cold can penetrate your very bones. And yet, Kislev is also the month in which the festival of Chanukah falls, one of the most joyous celebrations of our Jewish year. It is on that first night of Chanukah, the 25th of Kislev, that I celebrate my Jewish birthday. This year will mark my 28th year on this little blue planet, and I pray, please G-d, for many more!

As I was sifting this evening through a few of the spiral bound volumes that made the exclusive cut for what I was willing to ship 3,000 miles across country this past summer, I found a letter I wrote on my 23rd birthday to my former 13-year-old self. It's not necessary to share the entire thing, word for word. The gist was a message telling 13-year-old me that it would be OK. That I would be OK. At thirteen, I remember everything seemed so BIG. I felt so small in that, so powerless. Even at 23, telling that frightened 13 year old to 'keep her eye on the prize,' did I truly know what the prize was? I knew at 13 and at 23 that I lived in a world of darkness. I thought at 13 that I wanted some easier way out of that. I knew at 23 that what I'd really wanted was a way in. At 23, I could already tell my decade-younger self that things would get worse before they got better. What I did not know yet, was just how amazingly grand they would get. I had no awareness of how big that prize truly was and how very worth it in the end of the darkness it would be to finally, palpably feel the light shining upon my face. I did not know that there is great comfort in being so very small in the realm of something so much bigger.
Today, I am almost 28. I am wise enough to admit that I know very little. I am optimistic enough to say I have much yet to learn. I can flip through crumpled pages of faded words and mourn the verses that are long since forgotten. The Truth in it all remains regardless. It can be written in pencil, pen, or in typeface-- through blood, sweat and tears. That which I knew to be True at 13 and at 23 and still today and G-d willing tomorrow is what really matters.

First Night, 2010

Almost 28 years ago, two days before the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, I was born. That same evening, Jews everywhere lit the first candle in their Chanukah menorahs. What is the significance? I believe now it is that we are all here to be a light in this world of darkness. I also believe that for a very long time, I went about that mission in an exhausting and ineffective way. You cannot light a room by taking away darkness. You must infuse that darkness with your light. 
Ten years ago, at 18, I boarded a plane headed to northern Idaho. Talk about darkness, this time of year the sun goes down there before 4:00PM! Ten years later, with G-d's help, I live a life of spiritual, bodily and emotional health. It's not effortless nor is it meant to be; it is, however, meaningful and no longer exhausting. I rest peacefully and wake full of vigor and a gratitude that would not be palpable were it not for the darkness I experienced. No longer do I struggle against the natural state of the world around me. More importantly, no longer do I struggle against my own natural state. For I am not a person who struggles with sadness or melancholy. I am not a person who hides beneath a shadow. I am a person of great joy and great light; the struggle ended as soon as I became unwilling to stifle that. The joy began when I allowed my light to emanate from within me, completely uninhibited by fear or doubt.
I've been learning from a Chassidic discourse , Victory of Light, given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. In the introduction he highlights the following:

"...darkness has a purpose. It is an unnatural condition. It is an aberration that exists to awaken our infinite essence, which has the power to transform the darkness to light (page 18)."

When I think about it, even on my birthdays, my parents would always dim the lights as they carried in my cake with its candles all aglow. They, like all good parents, did not want me to ignore the darkness. They did not wish to shield me from its existence. They did want me to appreciate the light, and it is so much easier to appreciate those tiny little flames in a dark, dark room.
Whatever this time of year may symbolize for you, I pray that we all find warmth, light, and joy. May we all merit to shed a little light in a time of great darkness and to celebrate the many blessings we are fortunate enough to obtain.