Even though the days are—even if infinitesimally—getting longer, and even though we might still be in the post-New Year’s glow, it is still dark this time of year. It is dark when many of us wake up, and driving home most days it is edging towards evening. Gorgeous LA sunsets aside, these dark days can be hard. And today might feel extra hard, as we add no extra light; the hanukkiah is done for the season, and Shabbat is still a day away. A colleague, Rabbi Gray Myrseth, wrote a beautiful reflection on this week’s Torah portion—VaYigash. Reflecting on these winter days, Rabbi Myrseth writes: Have you ever stepped from a well-lit room into a darkened one? You can’t see a thing. In fact, you can see even less than you would have been able to had the light been dimmer in the first place. Is this how we feel when Hanukkah ends? As winter [...]

Tonight we light the 8th candle of Hanukkah Here’s something interesting I learned this week: In Catholic tradition, the eight days from Christmas to New Year’s Day are known as the octave of Christmas. Bernard Strasser, a German Benedictine monk, wrote the following to explain: "Octave" means an eight-day celebration, that is, the prolongation of a feast to the eighth day (dies octava) inclusive. The feast itself is considered the first day, and it is followed by six days called “days within the octave". The eighth or octave day is kept with greater solemnity than the “days within the octave”. This should feel familiar, as we come to the end of our own Octave tonight. This final night of Hanukkah is sometimes called Zot Hannukah—referring to the first line of the Torah reading for today. From the Book of Numbers, it reads: Zot hanukkah hamizbeach—this was the dedication of the altar. The Hassidic masters offer a [...]

Tonight we light the 7th candle of Hanukkah Again, not the start of a stand-up routine, but what does a whale have to do with Hanukkah? While the timing is a bit off this year (this 7th night of Hanukkah coincides with New Year’s Eve, not the Winter Solstice), the rabbis of the Talmud have a vivid imagination of how the new month begins. On the Winter Solstice—and some say Rosh Chodesh Tevet—they teach: God created in the sea big fish and little fish. The size of the biggest fish was one hundred parsangs, two hundred, three hundred, even four hundred. If it was not for God’s merciful repair [tikkun], the big ones would have eaten the smaller ones. What repair did God make? God created the Leviathan. On every winter solstice, Leviathan would rear their head and make themself great and snort in the water and stir it up, [...]