RSS
In dark times like these, Jewish tradition suggests a new way of seeing
This story was first published on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — This past week we entered the Hebrew month of Kislev, the month here in the Northern Hemisphere when we often experience the longest, darkest nights of the year. As the light contracts each day, I experience a tightening in my gut, an anxious fluttering of the heart. Time feels compressed, as if there aren’t enough hours in a day to do everything that needs doing. When the light fades at the end of these foreshortened days, I draw the blinds and turn on the lamps, wanting to make my home into an island of warmth and light in the face of the encroaching darkness.
My trepidation at the onset of night echoes the primal fear of the dark ascribed to the first mythic humans, Adam and Eve. A talmudic tale, found in Avodah Zarah 8a, imagines the two of them becoming frantic as darkness falls at the close of the first day of their lives. They’ve disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and now they’re terror stricken. “Woe is me,” Adam wails, “that because I’ve sinned, the world is darkening around me! The world will return to chaos and emptiness; this is heaven’s death sentence upon me!”
In this midrash, Adam experiences the arrival of darkness as punishment. His words conjure up the kind of existential shudder that can overtake a person in the dark, as the familiar shapes and colors of the daytime world dissolve into the trackless night. No wonder that darkness is often a metaphor for the scariest of times, times like the present, when awash in grief, fear and anger, we bear witness to the atrocities of war, to hatred unleashed and suffering magnified, to shattered dreams and dampened hopes. “These are dark times,” we tell one another.
Perhaps it’s only natural that humans try to beat back the dark with our hearths, campfires and brilliant winter light displays. We Jews do this beginning on the 25th of Kislev, when we kindle Hanukkah candles in remembrance of the Hasmoneans’military victory over the Seleucid Greeks and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple. But on a more primal level, we do this to remind ourselves that even a tiny flame instantly dispels the deepest dark, offering hope, a light at the end of the tunnel.
And yet it strikes me that many of our tradition’s most transformational and transcendent moments unfold in the dark, in a dream space rich with spiritual potency. In Toldot, this week’s Torah portion, for instance, we meet Jacob, whose journey toward self-realization is bookended by two stirring night episodes. Fleeing from his wrathful brother, he has a prophetic dream in which angels ascend and descend a ladder stretching between heaven and earth while God looms over him, promising protection. Returning home some 20 years later, he engages in an all-night wrestling match with a mysterious being, perhaps his own shadow self, who ultimately blesses him as the dawn breaks, renaming him Israel, the one who strives with God and prevails.
Despite the anguish that darkness evokes, the dark times offer unique opportunities. They slow us down, inviting us to rest in the moment. Sometimes they force us to face painful truths. They challenge us to deepen our prayer life, strengthen our faith and resolve, and discover inner resources and possibilities for transformation we might not know we possess.
Years ago, I practiced walking in the woods at night without a flashlight and discovered that when I could breathe deeply and relax into the darkness, over time my eyes would adjust and I could see much more than I thought possible. Not just my eyes, but my whole body began to see in the dark in ways that I couldn’t in the light of day. I could find my way.
Adam and Eve, so the story goes, sat across from one another on that first traumatic night, fasting and weeping. When the dawn finally broke, they realized that the freshly created world was not coming to an end and that the alternation of light and dark, day and night, was simply the way of the world. Had they not felt so guilty and terrified they might have been able to look around with curiosity as the light waned, noticing how their eyes were primed to pick up many subtle shades of gray, the palette of darkness. Their vision might have gradually adjusted to the dark and, in the subtle glow of starlight, they might have been able to pick out the familiar, reassuring features of the other’s face and been calmed and comforted, even in the midst of their distress.
Could it be that in our yearning for the resurgence of the light, we fail to recognize and fully receive the gifts of darkness? That in drawing my blinds against the terrors of the night, I also shut out the vastness of the cosmos, the glimmering pinpoints of distant stars, the radiant winter moon, and the intimate, enveloping quiet of the dark?
—
The post In dark times like these, Jewish tradition suggests a new way of seeing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
RSS
Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
RSS
Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.