Searching for Bright Light on Chanukah in Hawaii

In the Northwest, it's common to hear complaints at this time of year about SAD. That's not only the emotion spurred by the lack of winter sunlight, but an actual psychological malady, Seasonal Affective Disorder, where depression interferes with sleep, performance and energy.

Those who work indoors in Seattle drive to their 8 am jobs in the dark and emerge at 5 to the same nighttime.  No wonder sun-simulators are so popular. I've got a light-box on my desk.

My search for bright light was happily rewarded this year when my husband and I were able to take a working-vacation to Hawaii, where the winter sunrise is at 7 and night comes at 6:30. Those extra 2 1/2 hours of sun make a huge difference.  So does aqua surf and temperatures around the clock between 70 and 80 degrees.

But seeking light has a deeper meaning tonight as the 8-day Jewish holiday of Chanuka begins.  Just as the winter equinox closes in, we begin an expansive celebration of light, specifically the menorah, which was a 7-flame oil candelabra that illuminated the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

Yes, the "chanukiah," the candle holder for the holiday, has eight branches, one for each day of the holiday, plus a separate holder for the "helper" or shamus, that lights the others.  But the eight days of the holiday recall the miraculous amount of time that a small pot of undefiled oil kept the menorah going before new oil could arrive, once the Temple was re-dedicated, after banishing Greek gods and culture. The Temple having its special continuous light was so crucial that the menorah's ongoing glow is central to the holiday--and is the ultimate symbol of God's presence. It is because of this that the menorah is the emblem of the State of Israel.

But God's "enlightenment" is something we seek throughout the year.  Jews conclude our most central thrice-daily prayer by asking God to "bless us, our Father, all of us as one, with the light of your countenance, for with the light of your countenance you gave us, our God, the Torah of life, and a love of kindness, righteousness, blessing, compassion, life and peace."

That always strikes me--God gave us everything good that's non-material with the light of His countenance. Not with his words, though that's how He created the world. Not with his thinking, or waving some figurative arm, or sending some angel.  Not even by the look on His countenance--no, there's something special about light, in Hebrew, "ohr."

In the first Holy Temple, the seven-light, six-branched gold menorah was in a shape God dictated to Moses in Exodus 25: 31-40, with almond and knob decorations, and the branches turned toward the middle. The windows of the Temple, it's said, were backward, in that the spiritual light came from within and radiated outward, as opposed to normal windows, which let outdoor sunshine in.

So it is tonight, when we ignite the first of our Chanuka lights, allowing the brightness to emanate from within our homes to overcome the SAD of these darkest days. It's considered a gift that God tilted the earth to create seasons, to let us move from the dark months into the light, beginning with Chanuka, when, using "chinuch," education (the root of the word "Chanuka"), we improve ourselves as each subsequent day brings greater and greater daylight.

I'm searching for bright light here in Hawaii, and we'll attend a public menorah-lighting with others who understand that the holiday represents the triumph of insight over ignorance, and independent dedication to true principles over the ubiquitous and convenient messages of our feel-good culture.

Today the weather in paradise is blustery and rainy, so I'll appreciate all the more the clear sunshine when it reappears, and bask in the brilliance of this message of illumination--both the kind that can give me a tan and the kind that lights up a winter's night and a seeking soul.

Arriving in Paradise on the Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Some of us are searching for bright light in the midst of a frigid almost-winter.  I say 'almost' as the solstice that officially starts the dark months is yet two weeks away, though the La Nina conditions that enveloped Seattle haven't gotten the memo.  Yesterday morning was 31 degrees.  Today, however, Day 1 in Honolulu (aka paradise) it's about the same time of morning and about 80 balmy, luscious, sunny degrees.

We're on a nice, long working vacay, one where we're apparently being stalked by President Obama in a few days, though he has yet to call for a tete-a-tete.

There are many things to recommend the Aloha State, but sometimes you've got to wonder if the aloha attitude is one of them.  We flew in at midnight, eager to jump in our rental car and settle in.  Thrilled to see there was no line at the car counter, we presented our reservation...and the easy-going clerk began his fulminations that for some reason lasted a half-hour, while he laboriously completed forms by hand.  This after our arranging it all online.

That slow, methodical, take-it-easy happy lumbering shows up a lot, sometimes for the good.  We arrived famished and so went to the ubiquitous ABC Store near our accommodations in Waikiki.  In case you have yet to enjoy a Hawaiian vacation, anyone who's cruised Waikiki knows this chain is better called the "every 50 feet store" because that's how far between them.  They're pretty much identical, with the same excellent selection of tourist souvenirs, travel necessities, and foods.  Waikiki may be sunny but it's definitely not a "food desert," as every ABC store stocks fruits and veggies and peanut butter and bread along with fifty kinds of suntan lotion.

So we grabbed a few high-priced comestibles and milk, and as we're checking out, the clerk, dressed in a muu muu and looking the stereotype of the Hawaiian auntie, plumeria jauntily poked behind one ear, takes a look at my husband and then me: "She your girlfrien'?" Yeah..."Can I call you Mikey?"  Yeah...funny, friendly, silly...aloha.

Casual, informal, assuming, sometimes slightly nervy...can't wait to spend some time exploring the concept.  I have a friend here in Honolulu who says locals can get pretty uppity if you're not one of them. She grew up here and has to start talking pidgin to get respect sometimes.  It's not polite to discuss, but she reports a strange kind of suspicion for "haoles," Caucasians, even for the kanamina, the ones who grew up here.

A different culture, here in paradise, and yet, it's the good old USA, and today, the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, is cause for reflection and remembrance, including a grand parade down the main drag of Waikiki, with marching bands from across the nation. Special celebrations at the memorial through tomorrow, and I hope we'll be able to go.  It's all part of this very separate feeling, thousands of miles isolated in the middle of the Pacific, vulnerable yet completely connected.  A separate culture, and yet, on the plane here I sat next to a young soldier, on his way to his newly assigned base on Oahu, all the way from the center of North America.  This juxtaposition between American identity and multi-national, Polynesian exotica makes this a fabulous place to watch and learn...and remember the sacrifices seventy years ago that were a result of its very location in the middle of the sea.

Homeless in Hawaii

Leave it to the homeless to dampen my enthusiasm for paradise.

I haven't blogged in awhile as I'm in Hawaii, the best new-empty-nesters gift my husband could have given me this winter.  I'd rather have a warm downpour than a frigid one, and the overcast skies punctuated by monsoon-style cloudbursts have offered enough intermittent sunshine to allow us some beachy afternoons and great tete-a-tetes with friends to create some fabulous photos and indelible memories.

Equally memorable were the "landed-homeless" whose blue-tarp-covered heaps of possessions pock the grass-strips between sidewalk and street, even in the most touristed areas of Waikiki. Their tents pitched under banyans in parks and their groaning shopping carts draped with plastic bags stationed along sidewalks remind us that hospitable liberal government would rather enable freeloading on public property than business to high per-square-foot rent-paying establishments.

I've seen matted-haired scavengers picking through trash bins along the beach, and even right in front of Kalakaua Avenue designer shops, searching for cans to redeem for pennies.  Last night my husband and I walked by a woman settled on a store stoop who appeared in her 50's, entreating passersby for their restaurant doggie bags.  On a drive around the island, we saw a public elementary school lawn food distribution, long tables of comestibles seemingly offered to anyone approaching.

If you've gotta be homeless, Hawaii's the place.  No huddling under freeway underpasses  when you can sleep unmolested to the sound of lapping waves in a green park on the Waikiki shore.  In doorways, in front of expensive shops, you can catch your zzz's.  On last night's walk, we saw a guy lying asleep on the Kalakaua thoroughfare sidewalk. Near his extended form he'd laid out a couple necklaces, ostensibly for sale. His fingers clutched some kind of rifle, even in his sleep.  His clothes and person were dark with dirt, in contrast to the white sidewalk.  What an appealing incentive to spend big bucks in Fendi, Coach, and the other glitzy stores a few feet away.

I think it's heartless to allow pitiable people to amass mountains of stuff inches from the street, rather than placing the sad souls with mental health providers or shelters, which they obviously need.  Peeking from under their tarps were all sorts of gleaned goods, including a baby car seat. Some of the piles were ten feet high--clear evidence of the problems these vagrants face.

We've been privileged to come to Honolulu, where my husband works during our stays, many times over the years. I've never seen so many and such conspicuous homeless encampments, just plopped down in the most desirable footage on the planet.

The graffiti seems to have increased, too.  Now, I'm not complaining, as my daughter in New York is stranded by a blizzard, and our friends back in the Great North-wet shiver under continuing wintry storms.  But you'd think that Hawaii would want to rely on more than just the weather to entice visitors. Their "shaka" attitude of casualness goes a little too far when tourists are forced to step around some pretty disgusting inhabitants, and doesn't serve those individuals or their neighbors at all.

Fast-Day Contemplations, No Longer in Paradise

It's a Jewish fast-day, the Tenth of the month of Tevet, when Jews around the world refrain from food and drink from before sunup to full-dark in mourning for events leading to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem-- but more crucially, to rouse us to repentance in order to avert the need for God's response. I have plenty requiring my correction and improvement, and longing for my hot mocha, as the wind whooshes the enormous Douglas Firs so hard they sway, is a potent motivator.

The stormy weather--rainy and churning to the point that I just saw a bald eagle swooping before my window struggling to dodge the drafts--while better than snow, reminds me how precarious things remain. My son's school lost power, (I had to go pick him up) and we, situated where any blustery gust cuts our electricity, are likely to require down comforters and a crackling fire tonight.

My adrenaline, watching the trees pitch and sigh, at least deters my hunger.

I finally uploaded my Hawaii vacation photos, and the contrast between the benign warmth of Honolulu, 80 degrees both day and night, and the lashing wind and gauzy rain-sheets that form our view here, is striking. Much easier to repent in a fearsome storm than with the soothing turquoise surf, and occasional warm drizzle that offers a rainbow bonus. Where weather is tough, life is serious. In Hawaii--ho, brah, bodda you?

Which brings me to Barack Obama, my neighbor on Oahu during our vacation. While I was there, I read several letters in the local newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser, complaining that he has disowned his taro roots. He arrived wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball hat, and was never seen wearing an Aloha shirt. He seems to have dumped his non-racist, easy-going Hawaiian style to identify with the black culture of Reverend Wright, where darker-skinned people are victims.

That's not the way it is in Hawaii, where whites are derogatorily called "haoles" and 58.4% of the births are classified by the Hawaii Department of Health (table 2.07) as "mixed race." Further Hawaiian government statistics (table 2.39) show that 55.5% of marriages where at least one partner is a Hawaii resident involve spouses of differing races. In other words, Barack Obama would have felt quite comfortable in his own skin, growing up where shades of brown include every hue, and plenty of folk buy "Maui Babe" brown sugar tanner to increase the sun's effect.

We were delighted to spend some time with our dear friends, the husband part-Hawaiian, the wife white, with two adopted daughters, one Japanese-Filipino, the other a mixture of black and white. The family is just that--connected by love and faith; skin color just disappears.

President-elect Obama spent his formative years in the one place in America where race is truly not an issue, and yet--it wasn't his varied and lengthy experience that won him the Presidency. He wasn't a poor kid from the Chicago 'hood he adopted, but rather attended an elite private school while living with his white grandmother, who was a Vice President of the Bank of Hawaii. With such a pleasant environment in which to live, you'd think he'd choose to wear aloha prints, at least when he returns to his blessedly balmy homeland.

I'll confess that while in Hawaii, I didn't miss my home at all. Here I wear thermal underwear, turtleneck, fleece and carcoat--in the house (even as I write this). There, the air caresses my skin, emanating the fragrance of tropic sunblock: coconut, pikake, plumeria. We took a drive around the island to the North Shore, visiting friends who share with their neighbors a beautiful, empty beach, and to a macadamia nut plantation where lush ginger lined the valley and pothos with leaves the size of a skillet snaked up palm trunks. We drove across the Pali, the stark mountain range that rises like a green dinosaur spine shrouded at the top in mysterious mist. It's paradise, brah.

I'm sure those who live there confront the same problems the rest of us do. But they get to do it wearing a muu-muu, while I'm strangling from this knit scarf twisted around my turtleneck. They get to swim with their turtles. Still, there's always something comforting about coming home, and now that the snow is melted and my husband's raving that the thermometer is up to 49 degrees, perhaps things are looking up. I do have much to be grateful for, and much work to do. And hey, it's almost time to eat!

Soap Operas in Paradise

We just got back from our Hawaii vacation, during which time I did not turn on a computer, even to check my email. We had many memorable moments during our ten days away, including--don't tell!--a room fire from our Chanuka menorah, and my daughter falling two flights through a catamaran (nothing broken but lots of swelling and bruises). Even that excitement didn't compel me to touch a computer to describe the events to friends. I also didn't even keep up online with our Oahu neighbor, Barack Obama, who was visiting nearby Kailua. Nor did I search the web to find the facts about the island-wide power outage we endured on Shabbat. I didn't even check for photos of the amazing fireworks display on New Year's Eve that took my breath away as I sat on the sand with thousands of other revelers in this unique fireworks-obsessed island culture.

But one thing I could not tear myself away from during my absence: my addiction to the soap opera known as Bernie Madoff.

I have read everything I could get my hands on (and that's plenty) each day since the story of his $50 billion Ponzi scheme broke in the news on December 11. We get the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times as well as our local paper and USA Today. I pondered the connections between his family members and The Journal's family tree. I devoured the lists of victimized investors and institutions. I can't get enough of the sordid details, which include suicide (Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet), Hollywood (Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg), charities about which I care (Yeshiva University, Hadassa, Technion), international banking (Aozora in Japan; Medici in Switzerland) and fortunes made and lost--over a period of FORTY YEARS! The scope of the fraud; the personal emotional connections and the blatant lying--and acting!--involved scoops me in.

Bernie Madoff looks pretty fine as we see him walking the streets between 9 am and 7 pm near his home on East 64th Street in Manhattan (of course we all know why then; why there! And his wife surrendered her passport, poor thing!). And I suspect the reason Bernie, collar turned up beneath his baseball cap, wears that smirk: He'll ultimately be able to earn back what he lost, on probably the biggest best-seller ever penned. Whatta story.

And in the meantime--why, look at how many years he got to live the life! Citation X jet to fly to his Palm Beach estate...heck, to his yacht near his $7,000-per-night suite at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France!

Everyone seemed to think him a great guy, a modest, self-effacing, pleasant, and even altruistic guy. Who loved his family. His brother, sons, daughter-in-law, niece and wife were all in business with him. "What makes it fun for all of us is to walk into the office in the morning and see the rest of your family sitting there," said son Mark in a July 2000 interview with The Financial Technology Network. "That's a good feeling to have."

This, too, makes the soap opera compelling. Bernie supposedly revealed to his sons that there was nothing backing investments on December 10, at which point they turned him in--and refused to sign for his bond, and haven't spoken to him since. Is it possible that Bernie just smirked through forty years of deception even to the family with whom he surrounded himself?

So there I was on the beach in Waikiki. Luxuriating in the warm air, the squeals of happy children, the beauty of Diamond Head. And who should walk by unexpectedly but a couple who are our neighbors and friends! They were as pleased to see us there in paradise as we were to see them.

We started chatting--my husband wandering deeper into the surf with the husband, and the wife and I remaining where the waves splashed our knees. A glorious setting during the holiday of Chanuka. Respite from Seattle's frigid cold and piles of snow that nearly grounded our Hawaii-bound planes. Plenty to share, plenty in which to rejoice.

So what do we discuss? The Madoff affair. We're both obsessed. We compare updates. We finger our favorite suspects. We agree that Bernie is taking the fall for the rest of them since he's old with little future, and the sons can go on. We mourn losses by charities we support; I heard that Yeshiva University "only" lost 14 million instead of the $110 million it originally claimed. But what of the lost interest it was counting on? And Hadassa, who said they lost $90 million now says they really only invested $33 million...still, just think what that would have earned elsewhere. We can't stop ourselves. We're in Paradise, and like teens immersed in Twilight, we're sucked in by another type of vampire, one walking down Lexington in a baseball cap, smirking.

Got home right before Shabbat, with cooking and laundry and shopping to do; I still haven't checked my email (since December 22!), but along with a lovely, frigid day in Seattle, of Shabbat meals and Torah and settling in, I stole some time today to feed my little addiction and catch up on the latest juice on Madoff. Is he fueling anti-Semitism? How did this complicated scheme continue? Who else is impacted?

Is it bad for my character--for my soul--to be reading this stuff?

Yes, I'll fold the laundry, unpack my suitcase and even check my email. I'll upload the thousand photos I took on Oahu (perhaps even post one on the menorah fire)...all in good time. But first, um, maybe there's something new online?