Hanukkah, Oil,  8 Days of Action:  The Green Menorah Covenant
Hanukkah this year begins with the lighting of one candle on the evening of December 21. At the dark time of the moon and sun, we kindle a growing blaze of lights. And light is the central symbol of the holy season.

In this letter we will share some of the deepest symbols that make Hanukkah a festival for sharing light by saving energy, and will also share some specific earth-healing actions for each of the Eight Days. 

First: The traditional Hanukkah song of Ma'oz Tzur has not just one but a number of verses, celebrating God's redemption of the Jewish people from a series of oppressions -- Egypt, Babylonia, Haman, Rome, as well as Antiochus.
 
It ends with a verse looking forward to the ultimate Messianic redemption  of  --  we might well say in our generation --  all peoples and all life.  There follows a new version of this verse in English that I have written to fit the traditional Jewish melody.    (It uses two phrases by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi from a quite different version of that verse.) We encourage you to sing it at the lighting of the candles or in any context that calls to you. 

Holy aid extend to us and bring our planet's healing near.
When Your foes oppress the earth, give all life compassion's ear.
In oil-addiction dour, at our darkest hour,
Bless the sun and everyone, Make our shepherd flower.
Bless the sun and everyone, Make our shepherd flower!

On the Shabbat that comes in the midst of Hanukkah, Jews traditionally read the passage from the Prophet Zechariah that celebrates the Great Menorah (literally, a Light-bearer)  in the Holy Temple that he envisions will be rebuilt after the Babylonian Captivity.
 
Zechariah, in visionary, prophetic style, goes beyond the Torah's description of the original Menorah . That Menorah was planned as part of the portable Shrine, the Mishkan, in the Wilderness.
 
First Zechariah describes the Menorah of the future that he sees: "All of gold, with a bowl on its top, seven lamps, and seven pipes leading to the seven lamps." It sounds like the original bearer of the sacred Light. But then he adds a new detail: "By it are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left." (4: 2-3)
 
And then ---  in a passage the Rabbis did not include in the special prophetic reading on Shabbat  --- Zechariah explains that the two olive trees are feeding their oil directly into the Menorah (4: 11-13). No human being needs to press the olives, collect the oil, clarify and sanctify it. The trees alone can do it all.
 
Now wait!  This is extraordinary. What is this Light-Bearer that is so intimately interwoven with two trees? Is the Menorah the work of human hands, or itself the fruit of a tree?
 
Both, and beyond.  In our generation it might be called a "cyborg," a cybernetic organism that is woven from the fruitfulness both of "adamah" (the Hebrew for earth)  and of "adam" (a human earthling). Just as earth and earthling were deeply intermingled in the biblical Creation story, so the Divine Light must interweave them once again, and again and again, every time the Light is lit in the Holy Temple.
 
What stirs Zechariah to this uncanny vision? Once we listen closely to the Torah's original description  of the Menorah for the wandering desert Shrine, we may not be quite so surprised. For the Torah describes a Menorah that has branches, cups shaped like almond-blossoms, petals, and calyxes (the tight bundles of green leaves that hold a blossom). (Exodus 25:31-40 and 37:17-24)
 
In short, a Tree of Light, a Green Menorah. Small wonder that Zechariah envisioned its receiving oil directly from the olive-trees!
 
And in the legend told by the Talmud as the origin of Hanukkah, the Light itself is a miracle. One day's oil becomes sufficient for eight days' needs.
 
 At the physical level, this is about conserving energy, the triumph of sustainable sources of energy over the Seleucid Empire that guzzles oil and other forms of material wealth. Seen this way, the Green Menorah can become the symbol of a covenant among Jewish communities and congregations to renew the miracle of Hanukkah in our own generation: Using one day's oil to meet eight days' needs. By 2020, cutting oil consumption by seven-eighths.
 
We can start right away, this Hanukkah, by joining in The Shalom Center's Green Menorah Covenant for taking action -- personal, communal and political -- to heal the Earth from the global climate crisis.

After lighting your Hanukkah menorah each evening, dedicate yourself to making the changes in your life that will minimize our use of oil (and coal). (And this pattern can be used for the Twelve Days of Christmas, the Seven Days of Kwanzaa, and so on.)

Day 1: Personal/Household: Call your electric-power utility to switch to wind-powered electricity. (For each home, 100 percent wind-power reduces carbon dioxide emissions the same as not driving 20,000 miles in one year.)

Day 2: Synagogue, Hillel, or JCC: Call your congregational board chair to urge that your building switch to wind-powered electricity.

Day 3. Your network of friends, IM buddies and members of civic or professional groups to which you belong: Connect with people like newspaper editors, real estate developers, architects, bankers, etc. to urge them to strengthen the green factor in all their decisions, speeches and actions.

Day 4: Town/City: Urge town/city officials to require greening of buildings through ordinances and executive orders. Creating change is often easier on the local level.

Day 5: Workplace or college: Urge the top officials to arrange an energy audit. Check with utility company about getting one free or at low cost.

Day 6 , which this year is Shabbat. Automobile: If possible, choose this Shabbat and through the year,  one day a week to not use your car. Walk. Bike. Other days, lessen driving. Shop on-line. Cluster errands. Car pool. Don't idle engine beyond 20 seconds.

Day 7: State: Urge state representatives to reduce subsidies for highways, increase them for public transit so it becomes convenient, swift, frequent, and inexpensive.

Day 8: National: Write a letter to at least one of your senators and congressmembers urging them to support the strongest possible limits on CO2 emissions, and to support Federal grants to develop sustainable energy and fund Green Jobs.  As the new Congress gathers in January, The Shalom Center will send you information on the bills most likely to make the necessary changes.

Give our planet a Happy Hanukkah!

If the necessary changes seem overwhelmingly hard to  accomplish against the entrenched power of our own oil empires, Hanukkah also reminds us: Small groups of seemingly powerless human beings can face huge and powerful institutions ---  and change the world.
 
But let us not stop at the economic, political, or ecological levels of meaning that hide in the Hanukkah candles.  At the spiritual level, since "eight" is the number of "Beyond," the Infinite, the storied eight-day miracle when  One Becomes Eight  reminds us that when we enter deeply into the One, the Infinite becomes fully present.

It reminds us that conserving oil, or coal, or our whole planet, is not just a political or economic or even ecological decision. It reminds us to take into our hearts the knowledge that we do not need all the "oil," all the glut of material goods, that tug and pull at us.  If we can fully celebrate the Infinite One,  of course we need some food, some oil, some light --  but hyper-ownership will not fulfill us.

The Infinite is always present when we choose to light One Light.
 
Blessings of shalom, salaam, peace --  and LIGHT!

--  Arthur

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow is the author of Down-to-Earth Judaism, available by writing Office@...   For more information on the Green Menorah Covenant, see ---
http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/1

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