Doing Wonders for Your Spirit

“When my reserve unit didn’t call me up for duty, I sank into a deep depression” writes Yair, the co-editor of One Day in October about the emptiness and fear he felt back in October of 2023. “For long weeks I remained home in Tel Aviv, listless with shame and frustration. I was left behind…I was stuck in a black and bitter place.” When he was invited to work on the book, he recalls, “I could hardly breathe, let alone read.”

I knew when I began reading these vulnerable and honest words in the book’s Preface, it was going to be something special. Yair goes on to tell of how each successive story made it a little easier for him to breathe. The heroes in the stories, their hearts and their values, were flickering lights. Yair concludes: “This book lifted me out of depression…These heroes don’t know it, but they saved my life too” 

The portraits of Judah and Joseph in this week’s portion of Torah can also sustain us when we’re struggling with doubts about what’s up ahead. Both of them descend into low places. It’s a curious way to begin telling the stories of the Children of Israel (Jacob). We don’t get stories of faith or fortitude. Instead, we hear tales of going down into pits and prisons in Joseph’s case, and bitterness and blame in Judah’s (Gen. Chs:38,37) Why? Clearly, God’s Torah wants us to walk alongside flawed figures who fitfully grow, who eventually rise when their egos are cut down to size and their values ripen.

Maybe, in listening with care to the trials and tight-spots they go through, you and I can tune our hearts to a frequency that flickers with wonder. What, after all, is the miracle of Hanukkah? Yes, it’s about a long-lasting jar of oil. And yes, it’s about the few defeating the many. And yes, it’s about rededicating sacred spaces and reinstating sacred aims. In our day, maybe it’s also about miraculous interventions that show up in subtle sizes and shapes. 

I’m personally reflecting on Yair’s words this morning for a reason. Today’s my 365th Daily Letter to our community, signaling a full calendar-year. Writing daily and receiving your ongoing feedback keeps lifting me. As I’ve drawn from the stories in Yair’s book, trying to canonize them with emotionally reliable biblical stories, it’s done wonders for my spirit. I mean that quite literally: it’s furnished my spirit with regular get-togethers with wonder. May you find your works doing no less for you and those dearest to you for a bright and blessed Hanukkah.