The Eternal Flame

My job is Rabbi and I have many tasks. I organize Bar Mitzvahs, I set up circumcisions, I read the Torah and the Talmud, I talk to the fire departments, the local police, but there is a national problem; all the lights have gone out in Israel. So, why would I be called, I hear the reader ask, I'm not an electrician or an emergency crew, I'm just a Rabbi. Rabbi is yiddish for teacher. I teach the congregation, I lead the community, I lead by example, give speeches, comfort the bereaved, read from the Torah every morning, but you can't read from the Torah without light. Oy veh.  But in every Synogogue. Please call them synogogues, not temples; temples are where Jews made animal sacrifices to Hashem. Why don't we just hire a construction company to put in windows? Because that's not the real problem; the real problem is Jewish Laws say the eternal flame shouldn't go out no matter what. Aren't we supposed to have emergency electricity for that or something? That's out, too? Oy veh. So, what am I supposed to do? Figure out how to keep this flame burning. Right, like at Hannukah, right? Right. But, I just need to keep the candle burning 'til the electricians figure out what's going on? Ok. How long do the electricians say it'll be? You don't know. Oy veh. You got a ballpark maybe? No. Okay and my job is to keep the flame going during services while leading services in the near dark. Oy.  

Now, there are tricks Rabbis have used to make “miracles” happen. It's all natural law. G-d doesn't make miracles, but if we understand nature, we can make people believe we perform miracles, like a magician. Like, think of a plane or a helicopter. A thousand years ago, people thought people flying would be a miracle, but it isn't a miracle, it's natural law. And the mishagas with Hannukah. See, they had plenty of oil to burn the minorah, but they didn't have holy oil and I figured out in an outing how those menches made the minorah last for eight days on one day of oil. See, once me, the cantor, the president of the synogugue and other important people went out to lunch. Not to discuss anything important, just to socialize and be in the outside community. What? We can't have a social life outside the synogogue? Go shit in the ocean. Grow like an onion, with your head in the ground and your feet in the sky. So, after we ordered, the president screwed around with the peg game, the cantor talked with kids at the other table and I looked at the gas lamp. Most Cracker Barrels have these lamps.  But, I remember thinking these were the kinds of lamps Judah Maccabe used in the Holy Temple. But, I realised something. There was a liquid for burning in the bottom, a flame at the top, and a dial on the side. So, for shits and giggles (what, a rabbi can't swear now and then?), I turned the dial to the right and the flame got smaller, I turned the dial to the left, and the flame got bigger. That's how the Maccabes did it. They burned smaller amounts of oil. An eigth of the oil to make it last eight days. Miracle indeed. Now, I need to figure out how to do the same damn thing with our eternal flame which doesn't have lighter fluid. If I can figure this out, that would be a miracle. Oy.  

So, I go to Home Depot. Maybe these motherfuckers can tell me what to do. But, there's no electricity there, either, so they can't ring anything up or see inside the store. But, I talk to a manager and he says I'd need coal, starter fluid, or slow burning gasoline. Great. So, I go back to the synonogue and ask if anyone who works there, like the cantor, has any of this shit and some of them do and donate it to the synogogue so the flame lasts through the night, even though I wind up falling asleep in front of the Torah curtains. But, when I wake up the motherfucker is still burning. Hallelujah!  

People at the synogogue bring battery operated radios so they can now what's going on. Things like Public Radio tell the news in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Yiddish. I don't know Arabic, but know what they're saying. This could be a terrorist attack, which is common in Israel. But, it's common with bombings, explosions, etc, not with electricity. Oy veh. But, the Public Radio doesn't have an estimate of when electricity will come again.  So, I say my morning and my evening Shamas, the prayers over the bread and the wine, but I'm old and it's difficult to read from the prayer book or the Torah with the Eternal Flame, which is still going. Some congregants bring in candles, flashlights, and cell phones so the service can keep going, but the batteries will only last so long, as will the eternal light.  

But, I thought about the IDF, how they were able to win when everyone else thought they would lose, so there has to be a way to keep this thing burning. Maybe scrap paper, wood scraps, old worn out clothes, so I tell the congregants and they do what they can. But, it's hard, as the expression goes, to keep the light burning at both ends and I see the flame start to flicker on and off like it does when it's about the go out and I feel helpless and useless. Like Moses when the water didn't come out of the stone and he smashed it. So, I prayed to Hashem and asked Him what to do and was silent. I didn't hear anything though.  

The intervals between the flame being out and the flame being lit were increasing. So, I gathered up the congregation to tell them the news: The flame would go out in about an hour. I apologized. Short term solutions like paper wouldn't solve the problem. I let the congregants ask their questions and answered as best I could. I led the morning service as the light dwindled. Then, I heard a noise, like a TV or a radio. More than likely, another radio, but then lights started flickering on and there were cheers from the congregation and the flame moved back to normal. Hallelujah!