Let There Be Light

There’s me, my shadow, and my fatigue. As the day wears on and the sun drops, I look around to find myself followed by a stretching shadow that eerily resembles my feeling of exhaustion .I’m tired. 

But let me start from the beginning. I wake up five hours after midnight, because that’s when my kids do. Yes, they have this conspiracy- thing where they each arise before dawn, regardless of whether they are  in the same room or not. They’re rooster-types.

“Mommy, it’s dark outside!” My two year old points outside excitedly.

“Yes, dear. So why don’t you consider sleeping for another while?” I wonder.

And then for the next hour I hear the refrain “it’s dark outside. Dark outside. “ just about a hundred times. He’s standing on his stool, still in his pj’s, with his nose pressed against the glass. Got it. It’s dark outside.

I never know what time to expect it. At some point, he tugs my skirt and jumps up and down. “Mommy, its light outside!! “ As if by magic, one second it’s night and the next it is morning. “No more dark outside. Light outside. “

He probably wonders who turns on the switch. I lift him up so he can see better. “Naftoli, do you see the yellow ball? It is called the sun. When the sun comes, there is light. (it wouldn’t hurt if you waited for the sun to come before you woke up!)

“Sun. Light. Outside. Light outside. “

He enters a new word into his toddler lexicon and a new expectation into his daily schedule. Now he knows that when he wakes up it is dark, but then it will get light. The sun will come out.

Thus begins my 18 -hour workday.

I have to admit that I am grateful. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a few more hours of shut-eye. But I have come to attach meaning to the interplay between dark and light, night and day.

For starters, it happens daily. But it is not on autopilot. And that is the amazing part.

In one of the blessings recited daily before the Shema, we say” hamechadesh betuvo bichol yom tamid maseh bireishis”, “who in His goodness renews each day, continuously, the work of creation”.

Granted, God is the one who turns on the switch each morning. But in reality, he is actually recreating the switch from scratch each day as well.

That is the meaning that God renews the “work of creation” every single day. The story of creation did not only occur 5773 years ago! It occurs daily, and actually every moment that the world is in existence it is being recreated Ex-Nehilo. We humans can’t fathom such a concept.

In the Torah portion of Bereishis, we read a story of God creating dark and light by uttering the words “Let there be Light.” In this prayer, we learn that this is a perpetual story with an everlasting script. Just as a ball only remains in the air as long as there is mechanical energy propelling it, we and the world around us only exist as long as there is Godly energy boosting us! This applies to every aspect of our daily lives but is symbolized by the natural cycle of the day being renewed each morning.

So as the sun sets, I am tired, because I’ve watched it rise. I’ve watched the day being recreated from anew, just as it was created thousands of years ago.

Didn’t I say I would start from the beginning?!