The Advent of Radical Triumph

Encore Presentation: November 29, 2004.

This is the time of advent and the time of triumph, a time that lightens this great darkness with the remembrance of miracles. The one thing I still miss is the tree, a miracle in itself, with its brightly feathered birds and rococo balls, sweets wrapped in gold, dripping from the needles, homemade garlands like rainbows, and strand upon strand of little coloured lights, weighing down the branches like a necklace of jewels. And, oh, the fragrance!

Many a year the tree toppled from the weight. Some years the cats threw themselves at it with abandon, fancying themselves the biggest and brightest ornaments of all. Decorating the tree every year, for most of my life, gave me a sense of tradition and continuity, a rootedness. And I especially loved the holiday season for the lights that radiated from window and garden, doorpost and roof.

Yet, against all the flash of electric twinkle and glow, there is nothing so alive as the first candle lit, its flame connecting to another and another and yet another. Place a single candle in the window, against an extravagant electrical array, and judge which possesses more power. This surprises me every year.

The season has come upon us when some J bloggers talk about other faiths- other traditions, and find harmony in the seeking, and composition. Or reject them. I am indifferent. I no longer have interest in those other worlds nor other worlds of faith. When those worlds speak, they speak like strangers and familiars- dear old companions that accompany me in my rounds. I have become deaf to any sound but Hebrew.

When I passed through the gates of Judaism and Torah, I entered a palace as large as the vaulted skies that hover over every star and planet, with an intricate arrangement of rooms and corridors that wind back up on themselves in perfect symmetry. I happily shut the gates on the world I knew out there, having thoroughly ranged across its breadth and depth. When the gates closed behind me I gave myself up fully to this new space and existence. I know there is a world out there where I still nominally exist, in order to survive. I had moved within it and explored its nooks and crannies and byways. I know its textures and colours, taste and sounds- imagination and intellect are great blessings.

But now I move in this hard-won world that pulls me to it, a world created for me, a world by which I measure the miraculous length of my days. I am familiar with those other voices and other sounds, but they seem, now, like soft murmurs of a bygone time, while I wander in the courts of the Lord.

Longing for Zion