Dear one,
The world about me is snow-white: although crisp and cold, with biting and painful windchills, the sunlight is nonetheless welcome. Moreover, nearly six weeks after winter’s solstice, the lengthening of evening’s twilight is equally welcome. Light: most all of us delight in sunlight—admittedly, in varying degrees of moderation—an observation which surely ranks as a profound grasp of the obvious; and yet, equally obvious, not all light is beneficial.
I was recently reminded of this latter truth in my rereading of Chaim Potok’s, The Book Lights. Within the novel, a recurring theme centers upon Albert Einstein’s letter of August 2, 1939, to President Roosevelt. In his letter, Einstein encouraged the Roosevelt administration to undertake the development and production of an atomic bomb:
“A single bomb of this type,” Einstein affirmed, “carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.”
Sadly, not many years later Einstein regretted that letter, describing it as his “one great mistake.” Similarly, upon seeing pictures of the bomb’s destructive force, he uttered, “Woe is me.” For Einstein, a Jew, who had sought to be a pacifist throughout his life, the “mistake” was not only that the bomb was dropped upon the wrong people, as if there exists a “right people”; but far more importantly, irrespective his religious practices, Einstein understood that he numbered among the Chosen, who were to bring light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). And yet, some of the greatest Jewish minds of a generation, if not of a millennium, produced a light of previously unimagined destructive power.
Please, however, do not misunderstand this last observation: I do not seek to criticize the Chosen, to whom I am so greatly indebted; rather, I share the lament of many twentieth-century Jews: How could this be?
Light.
Not all light is beneficial; and then there are those lights, which reveal what we will not to see. No doubt with Jesus’ declaration at the forefront of his mind: “I am the Light of the world,” in his Gospel John penned:
“What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not snuff it out …
Unto His own He came, and His own received Him not (John 1:4-5, 11).”
The Light came and revealed to us the meaning of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and moderation,” but we have consistently refused to see, let alone walk in His Light. We experience darkness, because we refuse His Light.
Seeking His Light,
Stan
Light