Bob Schwartz

Today is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, when daylight starts growing. (Summer Solstice elsewhere, where daylight begins waning.)

Next week, Christmas and Hanukkah coincide, with the first candle of Hanukkah on Christmas night.

Whether your view is astronomical, with earth revolving round the sun, spiritual, with growing light, or religious, with a Messiah born or a temple retaken and rededicated, it is a special time.

Ecclesiastes (known as Kohelet in the Hebrew Bible) has grown into my favorite biblical book. Its view is consistent with all of those perspectives, whether a planet circling, darkness waning, children born, sacred spaces renewed.

We learn from Kohelet what we may not be taught during the holidays, but which the solstice demonstrates: All things pass.

This does not suggest that we restrain joy, our joy or especially the joy we bring to others. We can be the sun of the winter solstice, brighter day by day. We can be the candles, brighter every day, one to eight.

No book of the Bible has been more mysterious than Kohelet, the mystery being, with its somewhat existential view, why the compilers of the Hebrew Bible included it at all. The solstice tells us, as does the book itself, again and again.

All things pass, and in that passing, our role is to live. Seasons come and go, holidays come and go, we come and go.

Here, on Winter Solstice, with Christmas, Hanukkah and many other holidays for many people to come, we live.

In everything that happens below the sun.
Go eat your bread and enjoy. Drink your wine
Happily. God long ago approved your acts.
Let your clothes always be freshly washed.
Keep your hair scented with good oil.
Enjoy life with the woman you love
During all the shining days you are given
Below the sun. Your unique purpose is
To bellow a good life below the sun.
Use all your powers while you are here.
Ecclesiastes 9:4-10

Willis Barnstone, Poets of the Bible