Rosh Hodesh Blessing for the Month of Kislev
I love to feel useful.
One of my favorite poems is by Marge Piercy, entitled, “To Be of Use”. In it, Piercy writes:
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
And best of all is to feel useful “in a common rhythm” with others, as Piercy goes on to write:
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along . . .
And yet, in a culture that prizes productivity and profit seemingly without limits, we know that the elevation of usefulness has its dangers. Most of us like to feel useful, but we don’t like to feel used. And even without the shadow of exploitation hovering over our efforts, internally, we can often sense when we have slipped from an experience of usefulness that feels wholesome and healing into a pursuit of usefulness that feels more like a breathless race to prove that we are worthy of our own existence.
The rhythm of weekday and Shabbat offers us a year-round practice in inhabiting the life-giving paradox of work and rest, in which each nourishes – and needs — the other. But as we enter the month of Kislev, as we move into the days of winter when the world darkens and deepens into stillness, there is another practice that simply and subtly reminds us to make space for the parts of ourselves – and the places in our lives – where usefulness needs to be kept at bay.
As we prepare to kindle the lights of Hanukkah, we recite a passage that never fails to take my breath away (in italics below):
We kindle these lights on account of the miracles, the deliverances and the wonders which You did for our ancestors, by means of Your holy priests. During all the eight days of Hanukkah these lights are sacred, and it is not permitted to make any use of them; rather, we are only to look at them, in order that we may give thanks unto Your name for Your miracles, Your deliverances and Your wonders.
To all those who love to feel useful, but who also need to be reminded from time to time that they are beautiful and sacred reflections of the divine light – not because they are being useful, but because they are simply being – I offer this meditation for lighting the Hanukkah candles.
A Meditation on Sacred Uselessness
Be careful. Not everything has to be useful.
More than that.
You are not permitted
to look at these candles with hungry eyes.
Don’t ask
What they can do.
Don’t ask
What you can do.
Don’t ask.
These candles are useless.
Their light is not for
Reading
Working
Making
Doing
Selling
Amen.
These candles that we light
Are holy.
Kindling them is the easy part.
But if we linger
Relent
Just look
With eyes resting
Searching for nothing
Only words of gratitude and praise
On our lips
We too will be kindled,
Useless and holy
Amen.
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