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Friday April 27, 2007

There is something sacred about a candle in darkness

by janet silver ghent

On the first anniversary of my mother’s death, I lit a yahrzeit candle and said Yizkor, a prayer my mother never learned but would have expected me to say. The next day, we lit the Shabbat candles and sat down to dinner with our granddaughter, bringing light into the present.

Then at Beth Am, we marked another anniversary — a candlelight service to commemorate a night four years ago when the electricity went out at the temple, a night when we read our prayer books with flashlights and lanterns. Despite the inconvenience, congregants as well as visitors raved about the experience, so the synagogue decided to make the event annual, according to board member Louise Stirpe-Gill.

As Rabbi Janet Marder observed, Jews don’t need romantic dinners to share the aura of a flickering flame. We enjoy the blessings of candlelight dinners once a week.

There is something sacred about a candle in darkness, which is why so many religions light a flame to mark a ceremony, a festival, a rite of passage.

The Ner Tamid, the Eternal Flame, hangs above the ark in the synagogue. The Festival of Lights brings warmth into the dark of winter. Shabbat candles transform the end of the week into holy time; extinguishing the Havdallah flame marks the return to the everyday.

When I meet with my spiritual director, Peg Krome, a candle sits in front of me, helping me focus and direct my energy.

And last year, the large candle I was given by the funeral director burned in my home for a week, reminding me that mourning is a sacred time.

When I returned to the Judaism I wasn’t raised in, I lit the candles one Shabbat when my parents were visiting. My father turned to my daughter and said, only half-jokingly, “I’ll have you know, Janet didn’t learn any of this from us.” On at least one occasion, I told my father that talking to him about religious experience was like talking to a virgin about sex.

My mother, one of the most ethical people I’ve ever met, often asked me how religion and ritual made one a better person. She would reel off countless examples of seemingly pious people who led less than exemplary lives.

My answer was that candles, ceremony, or even observance do not necessarily make one a better person. Rather, it is the setting aside of holy time that helps me think about what really matters. It also nourishes my spirit, providing the energy to go out into the world as a better person.

As I sat in the synagogue on my mother’s yahrzeit, focusing on the candles on the bimah, my thoughts turned to the dark period a year ago.

The Chanukah and New Year’s, the birthdays and wedding anniversary that we couldn’t really celebrate. And finally, the bitter cold day at the cemetery.

But even during those bleak days, we made time for candlelighting and Shabbat. And in a community thousands of miles away, we found support.

After the darkness came light. Three weeks after my mother’s death, we were on a long-planned trip to Israel with a group from Beth Am. We felt the warmth of the Holy Land at a time when we needed comfort, and we were surrounded by people who helped provide it.

In the words of Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season … a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

Years ago, when I was beginning my own Jewish journey, I interviewed professor Julius Lester, an African American and son of a Methodist minister, who had written “Lovesong: Becoming a Jew.” What was it about Judaism that drew him? In addition to the music, he told me that Jewish rituals helped him stay connected to his late father.

I experienced that connection as I heard my mother’s name read during the candlelight service on her yahrzeit. Judaism provides us with a time to remember. Death does not end our connection to a loved one. The candle, the Yizkor, the Prayer of Memory, keep us linked to our forebears and the light they provided.

Janet Silver Ghent, former senior editor of j., is a freelance writer/editor living in Palo Alto. She can be reached at ghentwriter@gmail.com.

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