Question

“For me, joining the movement ‘Israel Against Racism’ is a religious obligation, so that the Torah of Israel will be the language that creates the foundation for human dignity and equality among human beings.”
So wrote Rabbi Benny Lau at the launch of the movement at the President’s Residence, a movement whose main efforts are directed toward eradicating the targeted discrimination against Israelis of Ethiopian origin.
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In response, one of his followers (Pini Leizer) reacted with praise and noted that Rabbi Benny is “like a lighthouse in the world of the rabbinate.”
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To this comment I added the following:
The comparison of Rabbi Benny to a lighthouse is precise and correct!
But at the same time, that comparison is saddening, and even a bit depressing.
The nature of lighthouses is that they stand upright, towering above their surroundings, visible from afar. But what surrounds them is a stormy sea, emptiness, threatening darkness, raging winds, and whirlpools—and they, the lighthouses, are alone! They do indeed shed a little light on the darkness and point the way, but there are far too few of them.

We need a precious light, one that drives away the darkness and turns it into light. Not the flickering light of a lighthouse, but the light of “Bloomfield,” the light of “Teddy.”
And there are! There are enough sources of light that could be guides (and after all, that truly is their main role), but they themselves are confused and have lost their way, and are afraid to connect to the power grid and spread their light; afraid to illuminate the emptiness, the great darkness; alarmed to stand upright above their surroundings.
That is why Rabbi Benny is one of the few who can be called a lighthouse!!
It is a badge of honor for him and those like him! But it is a mark of disgrace for us, that we have only lighthouses and not lighting systems like “Bloomfield.”
In this week’s Torah portion, the Torah tries to describe the darkness with which Egypt was struck: “…and darkness could be felt”—you could touch the darkness, so thick and absolute was it. “Darkness over all the land of Egypt… they did not see one another.”
The author of Chiddushei HaRim asks: what is special about the fact that they specifically did not see one another? They saw nothing! Not a door, not a chair, not a tree! Nothing!!
And he answers that there is no greater darkness than a reality in which no person sees his brother.
A darkness in which a person does not see his brother’s suffering, his hardships, his difficult days—that is the blackest darkness. That is the most terrible darkness.
“The darkness of Egypt”!
When “you don’t see the other person from a meter away,” not only in the physical sense, but when people do not listen to one another, do not even “count” one another—that is the greatest darkness of all!
And we hope that, as the verse says, there will be light in our dwellings, but we still do not have enough lighthouses for that.