The Blogs: On Not Knowing: Chanukah and Its Hidden Resource

The front cover of the leadership book “Not Knowing” has the image of a lampshade that seems to be switched on, with one critical difference. The lampshade darkens the very area it is supposed to light up and its surroundings are illuminated. The image is inverted from our usual logic. In the book, authors, Stephen D’Souza and Diana Renner, share a counterintuitive discovery from their work in organizational development namely that, not knowing or being in the dark, has all the possibilities of illuminating ourselves and our futures.

We, in Israel know a lot about being in the dark. In fact, one only needs to talk about darkness to invoke images of Hamas tunnels and the unknown terrifying and tormenting fate of our remaining 100 hostages in Gaza.

We do not know what impending attack is next for us and from where it will come.

We do not know if we will be woken by sirens or “merit” a good nights’ sleep.

We do not know if and how people will return to their homes.

We do not know the extent of the pain or how to fix our collective physical and emotional scar tissue.

We do not know, excruciatingly, of our hostages, who are alive.

Fundamentally, we do not know when this will end.

But like Hansel and Gretel in the dark and endangered forest, we have learned from our historical DNA, to drop our breadcrumbs, to demarcate how to find ourselves and our way home, how to be strong. When you are in the dark you hone existing abilities that were under-used or that you didn’t know you had.

We Israelis have learned to double down on our muscle of helping one another, of sacrificing immediate needs for the greater good. I heard this week of a young boy named Assaf from a kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope, a budding carpenter, who made, together with his friends, for the other homeroom class in his grade, a wooden Chanukiah with a leopard print pattern because they wanted something to honour hostage Romi Gonen. Assaf and his pals knew their peers in the parallel class were struggling to make a Chanukiah of their own.

Israeli residents in the North and South have found their voice to express what they need to say to the people in authority who had once made decisions on their behalf. So many Israelis have grasped an awareness of faith, whether in God, or our greater purpose living in Israel or our understanding of family and community. One mother, evacuated from the North recently told me, “I know nothing about my future but I have learned that I know that I have people around me who are with me each step of the way”.

These are a few examples of the fortitude that we have developed this year. It doesn’t come easy and it requires, layers of love, like the love from the Jewish federations across Canada and Jewish communities around the world, to the people of Israel, that have held us collectively from North to South since October 7th.

And this brings me to Chanukah. We celebrate the historic survival and victories of the Jewish people on Chanukah, retrospectively. We are vindicated from those who wanted to vanquish us. But we are able to do this only after the fact. The reality is, that during the events of Chanukah all those years ago, we – did not know!!

We did not know that our religion or people would survive to thrive.

We did not know how we could possibly be victorious over our mighty enemies.

And we had no idea (in fact we were likely eye-rolling at the thought) that the little bit of oil could last for eight days.

Yet, each day the oil lasted. Each day, we did it.

With a bit of light.

Just an ounce.

We got to the next day.

And then to the next.

Until we could look back in hindsight and tell our story.

We are in these moments right now.

Not knowing is hard.

One day at a time we can, and will, turn this time of profound uncertainty into moments of opportunity and light.