In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

117 9 Lamp Holders and Holy Sparks Men in Dark Times Even those among us who by speaking and writing have ventured into public life have not done so out of any original pleasure in the public scene, and have hardly expected or aspired to receive the stamp of public approval. —Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times In Men in Dark Times, Arendt offers insight into ten persons who provided a tenacious sense of hope in dark times. The method of their bringing light in dark times, for Arendt, began with their meeting of others in the public domain—whether or not their ideas met with the current consensus or were condoned or wanted. Arendt’s volume is not propelled by platitudes about persons but rather by deep attentiveness to the demands of existence itself. Existence, approved of or not, is the place one must find traction in making a difference in the world. Arendt’s characters in this work take this first and irretrievable step into darkness with the knowledge that only then can one discern genuine light. Only with a willingness to meet darkness is one able to recognize genuine light when it arises—darkness is the place that gives reality to “holy sparks.”1 The ten characters in Men in Dark Times function as lamp holders who provide a sense of existential hope, giving us a vision of holy sparks. Holy sparks, central to understanding the enactment of Judaism, assumes that 118 Lamp Holders and Holy Sparks we are witnesses in darkness—there is no place so dim that one cannot find holy sparks. However, a place illuminated by too much artificial light can obscure genuine light, and too much artificial light can make it impossible for the background of darkness to permit us to see the light before our eyes. Arendt points to the power of light found in places least expected. Lamp holders give us hope in existence—not false optimism but rather tenacious hope and courage. The figures discussed in Men in Dark Times met life on its own terms, in the darkness, providing a corrective to the social world gone awry and illuminating holy sparks. To know such a person in a moment of despair is to witness hope before one’s own eyes. Lamp holders are not drawn by humanistic heroism but by the light claiming them, demanding that they hold it up for others to see. As a derivative creature called by the light, one then acts within a Jewish call—“If not me, then whom?” Such are the lamp holders of Arendt’s Men in Dark Times. Arendt spent twelve years writing this project, with its initial publication in 1968, once again engaging major issues occurring within the West fewer than ten years after the conclusion of World War II. In 1954, the Soviet Union sought to join NATO, but the vote “no” came with the suggestion that permitting its entrance would be akin to admitting a Trojan horse. At this time, the French were in trouble in Vietnam with the defeat at Viet Minh—after a fifty-five day siege against their fortress at Dien Bien Phu, of the 16,000 stationed there, 10,000 were captured and 6,000 were killed or wounded. In the United States, Eisenhower, who had stated previously that we could not involve ourselves in Vietnam, made the first reference to a “domino theory” in that region in which communism would spread from one country to another.2 In this time of change, Arendt offers us a picture of the carrier of light in the midst of darkness—it is not a system or an idea but a human face. Additionally, one must admit and meet the darkness in order to discern the reality of genuine light. In the center of the storm of darkness, we rely upon human beings responsible for light in the “heart of darkness.”3 She points to lamp holders who, in spite of limitations, personal and otherwise , stood before the moment and offered what few can offer—hope from genuine light. The Story: Lamp Holders and Holy Sparks The ten persons Arendt chose for this volume were phenomenological contemporaries and companions but from different empirical generations . Yet, there is a common phenomenological connection in that each brought light in the midst of dark times. Arendt acknowledges that the term “dark times” was coined by Bertolt Brecht in his poem To Posterity.4 Brecht, a famous German playwright and poet...

Share