Thank you all for your enthusiastic and active participation in the Third Annual Hannukah Eco Lights. After eight days of Jewish Environmental teachings in five languages, and tens of thousands of pieces of trash removed from our communities around the world, we and the world are that much better than before.

We will end this Hannukah with an inspiring teaching from Aryeh Bernstein, and a piquant glimpse by Yossi Ran (in Hebrew) into the adventures of one EcoLights participant around the streets and tourist sites of Jerusalem.

As Eco Lights has expanded, so too have the efforts required to send out and post the daily teachings to our host communities. Please support our online events by making a small online contribution to Sviva Israel through JGooders or IsraelGives.

Hag Urim Sameach! 

Aryeh Bernstein, Jerusalem

Just before Hanukah, we read Parashat Va-Yishlah, where we found Ya‘aqov anxiously preparation for his meeting with Esav. In a confusing turn of phrase, the Torah tells us that Ya‘aqov brought his whole family across the stream “And Ya‘aqov was left alone and a man struggled with him until dawn” (Bereishit 32: 24-25).

Perplexed as to how he was left alone if he went with his family, Rashi quotes a midrash that fills in that after he brought over his family, he crossed back to the other side . Why did he do this? For spiritual meditation? To get a quiet night’s sleep? No; “he forgot little jugs and returned to get them”. The family is in danger, a major confrontation waits him, and it is dark, but Ya‘aqov, a rich man, went back to collect his tupperware. Lest you think the midrash is criticizing Ya‘aqov for becoming too materialistic in Lavan’s household, the gemara (Hullin 91a) learns from this midrash that “Righteous people worry themselves more about their money than about their lives”.

One of the signs of being wealthy has always been a willingness to throw things out: one can waste if one will always be able to get new stuff. Since industrialization, more and more of us live our lives this way, treating more and more objects as disposable. The "wealth" this reflects is, of course, illusory: we can go to our planetary grave together on the chariot constructed of our disposed-of materials.

It turns out that Righteous life understands that even at moments of fear and awareness of mortality -- especially then -- we live not through reckless abandon, but through maximizing what we have, through seeing the redemptive potential in every little thing around us -- using less, finding new uses of old goods once they're made, and not disposing, for disposed-of items never really go away. If we go back for our little jugs, we may even find that one of them lasts 8 days, when we thought it was trash.

Hanukah Sameah.

Aryeh Bernstein lives in Yerushalayim and is the Director of Recruitment for New York's Yeshivat Hadar.