Its 6th of December, 2010.
I was flown to Adelaide, business-class, to bring a freighter back the following day. I am given a 24-hour layover here. The ground handling agent handed me a hotel sheet, and told me to enjoy the day. Adelaide is expecting heavy rains the next few days. Looking at the sky, clear and blue, I hardly believed her.
I walked out of the hotel into a foreboding heat. Everyone is in shorts and light tops. I had 2 layers, just in case. I walked around, trying to remember the last time I was here. It must have been 10 years ago when I was undergoing a finesse program for a month, upon joining Cathay Pacific as a Second Officer. Or maybe it was a trip between then and now, somewhere lost in the haze.
I went to eat in a local restaurant I recognized with outdoor seating, it was near an Independent movie theater that seems to have disappeared now. How things change. I had a vegetarian burger.. it was big and robust, but sadly fried on the outside.. disappointing, as I inquired prior to the order and was told it was oven-baked. It tasted good nonetheless.
On my way back to the hotel it started to rain. But it did not just rain, it poured large, voluminous drops that soaked everything in their wake. I was completely drenched by the time I got to the hotel room. I filled the bath tub with warm/hot water, and soaked my body for a time. The bed looked too attractive to pass up, and I laid on it for another bout of deep sleep. Each time I awoke was difficult.. like an awakening from a drowning experience.
As the sun began to set, a Jewish group was forming on the grass below my hotel window. I was on the 14th floor, and quite a ways up, overlooking a small rectangular grassy park. A big menorah was erected, and the small gathering of people joined to light the 5th or 6th day (I lose track) of Hanukkah, with a rabbi holding and speaking into a microphone. His extended belly, dark garb and top hat was so peculiar to his clerical role, he looked like any other rabbi that has ever lived before him. There was even a keyboard player who played along to those simple tunes I remember quite well from childhood. My window was open just enough to hear them. I participated from afar.
I wondered about the Dalai Lama who supposedly said to a Jewish follower once, go back to your own religion. Many took this to mean the Jewish path was the "right" path. Maybe one people's path should remain that group's eternal path forever. A Jewish man should not practice Hinduism or Buddhism, etc. But what religion is the Jewish religion? Unless you delve deep into the heart of it (Kabala), you will find only stories about Abraham, and all his children. It could have been a soap-opera from ancient times. And no tale or story is without its horrors, murders, sodomy, betrayal, even mild-amnesia. Ah.. but we can learn from those stories, someone says? So we can from every story, every man, woman, or child that has ever walked this earth. The one exception, I suppose, is that the characters from the Bible all had a deep-rooted connection to God--and spoke to him often. In the soap-operas of today, God is never present.
So here were these Jewish people in a grassy park below my hotel window, all dressed in different colors, with no uniformity amongst them except perhaps their seemingly displaced awkwardness. Men in white pants, and colored shirts, ladies over-sized, everyone with a baby trolley. Was this a "spiritual" gathering, or a gathering to associate with Jewish folklore, or a delving into childhood memories? Was it to simply say, I am Jewish? If so, fine. But lets not call it a spiritual path. Not yet.
As they sang and chanted, I observed with both familiarity and mild shame, these songs and jingles are simple, almost juvenile. And yet the people gathered, and with what strength to guide them I don't know, they sang along. And then I started seeing something.
It was as if I was looking down from above, way up, like from a Holy place. I saw these people as a group of beloved people, small, unique, and special. And when they prayed to God, the prayer of Hanukkah, I felt almost a shiver run through me. I believe that if God existed then, he would have heard the prayer too. All the jingles and juvenile stuff disappeared.. and there was silence. The jingles were but a light-hearted dance around a sacred fire. And in that prayer the fire rose straight to Heaven.
And as the light heartedness re-appeared again, it was as if to say, we know... you know... (Him)... but we do not have to point, as much as we do not ever utter His name. But He is with us, and we are not alone.
Happy Hanukkah...
