I read Textual Arachne's post about the approaching solstice last night before lighting Chanukah candles. Perhaps as a result, as the candles gleamed before me I found myself thinking about the fourth night of Chanukah as a hinge.

We're midway through the holiday. Hovering at the midpoint between least light and most. If the arc of the holiday takes us from a kind of dark midwinter to a kind of midsummer blaze, then the fourth night of Chanukah is like the equinox, the point in the middle where, for a moment, everything balances.

It's an illusion. We are always in motion. There's no such thing as stasis, not for living beings for whom life is always in flux.

But now, on this cusp -- in the middle of Chanukah, the scale about to tip toward abundance of light; at the turn of the solar year, that balance on the verge of shifting, like a dancer moving gracefully from one foot to the next -- it feels like we are really pausing. Like we could hover indefinitely before the wheel keeps turning, before the next instant comes.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Chanukah, solstice.