I like this joke. Can you relate to it? Do you feel undervalued?
(I’ll ask this cautiously, is there someone you want to share it with? 
)
A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.
Proceeding into the entryway, he found an even bigger mess.
The family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.
In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.
He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door.
As he peered inside, he found wet towels, scummy soap, and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap, and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.
As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel.
She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewilderedly and asked:
“What happened here?!”
She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?”
“Yes,” was his incredulous reply.
She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it.”
I think of this story as I read the opening lines of the Torah which we are about to read again from the beginning, the weekly parsha of Bereishit.
In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Torah is analogous to ‘light’.
Think of what our world would look like without the moral compass and guide of Almighty G-d’s communication at Sinai.
Don’t steal, for example. A simple instruction, you say.
True. It’s the ABC of a functional society.
Have you ever contemplated what would have happened if G-d wouldn’t have instructed us not to steal?
Mayhem.
Think about a traffic light that says green on all sides.
You may be saying to yourself, what does the rabbi mean. Of course it’s wrong to violate someone else’s ownership.
But you have to consider this. Without the light of Torah’s moral code, who even says that ownership means anything. Survival instincts say, I can take whatever I want from you.
You may try to take it back from me, but I will resist. Or, maybe we will come to a common agreement to mutually honor ownership. Maybe we won’t. Depending on the maturity and sensibility of the parties.
Without clear morals the rule of the jungle prevails.
The stronger one wins.
Period.
The chaotic result of a world without moral signposts sounds much like the opening words of the Torah.
The world would be astonishingly empty and dark.
Which means that the default is dark, chaotic and jungle-rule.
If you do nothing, the lights won’t go on.
So do something.
Jews who I knew from the ‘old country’ would tell us as youngsters ‘take your hands out of your pockets’ or ‘why are you sitting with ‘crossed hands’. They meant to say, one needs to always be industrious.
What should you do?
The challenges look insurmountable.
You may genuinely not know what to do to solve the challenges you are facing.
Find something – even small – that you CAN do.
Do it.
Turn on the light.
Even a little light banishes much darkness.
How much more so a big light.
Imagine if you kindle a gigantic torch. How much light would that spread. How much darkness would that dispel.
My friends, we are coming from the high of Simchat Torah.
We are coming from the remembrance of October 7th.
One is the joyful celebration of Torah.
The other is the catastrophe of cruel barbaric savagery carried out against Jews that defies any description.
The darkness is tangible.
We dare not give in and surrender.
We must work ever harder to make the light burn more brightly than ever.
Darkness will not win.
G-d said ‘Let there be light, and there was light’.
It is our job to continue being partners with G-d to proliferate and enhance and spread the light.
A Jew never wants to disengage with G-d.
At the epicenter of each of us is a spark of G-d.
It may look sometimes like someone is dislocating from G-d, but the Tanya says ‘even at the time that a person is sinning, there is a quintessential part of him that is aligned with G-d and non-participant in the sin’
It is our job and we have it within our ability to add light.
No excuses will be accepted.
What does adding light mean?
Studying more Torah.
Performing more Mitzvahs.
Especially the central mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael, love your fellow as yourself by performing benevolent and charitable acts that create camaraderie and peace between people.
And to do so joyously. Full of light. With unbridled optimism.
In memory of the martyrs of October 7th, and in solidarity with the thousands upon thousands of wounded physically and emotionally, let us not just light memorial candles, let us set ablaze torches of spiritual light.
Our marching orders must not be to retreat into hiding our Judaism, rather let us be even more forthright and openly proud of our Jewishness, of our connection to G-d and Torah and Mitzvahs.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor