Carolina Chickadee : Black & White… and Gray

This is a Carolina Chickadee. Look at that face, a study in contrasts. His dramatic beauty comes from the separation between the black and white. That same contrast makes this is a hard photograph to take. When there’s sufficient light to bring out the details in the black, it can be too powerful and overwhelm the white. Sometimes, though, events conspire appropriately, and a singing bird invites the shot. Most powerfully, our own eyes are drawn to the bird’s, where the soul-reflecting light floats in a pool of rich blackness.

Jewish tradition is largely composed of discussions on both separation and unity. Separation: Literally creating the beginning of time, day is separated from night. Later the Israelites are sanctified as a holy nation, set apart as a light, a beacon, distinct and distinguished. Talmud is thousands of evaluations of pure/impure, kosher/unfitting, etc. Unity: the First Commandment majestically proclaims the Oneness of HaShem. All humanity descends from a single progenitor. And so poignantly, we are taught that saving a single life is as if we have saved an entire world.

It is easy to see the world in contrasting black and white. Too easy. There is - rarely - an Amelek; more often, though, there are the Egyptians, against whom we celebrate our triumph, but we also commemorate the plagues they suffered by diminishing our own cup of joy. Our world is largely gray, hard to discern as clearly but so much richer when comprehended. Look again at the Chickadee, at the gray of the wing. It’s the wing that gives the bird flight, and our own ability to see the gray - amidst the black & white - to simultaneously compass both separation and unity, is what lifts our spirits to soar.