How we keep the Chanukah candles burning Bright All year long
By Rabbi Raichik
As we look back over the past week when we celebrated Zos Chanukah on the 8th night of Chanukah and Hei Teves we reflect and take a message with us for the days ahead. As mentioned many times before the Greeks didn't want to destroy our physical bodies, rather the struggle was spiritual and aimed at the soul of the Jewish people and the kedusha of Torah and mitzvos. The Greeks agreed to and even encouraged the practice of Torah and mitzvos based on rational alone providing it be devoid of emunah and kedusha, the true source of the warmth and simcha in the Torah and mitzvos. Therefore this is where the struggle with the Greeks took place, it was a spiritual battle.
The drama of the Chanukah story is being relived again in our times albeit in a modern context.
Yesterday it was the Hellenism as it says in the Hayom Yom for the 30th of Kislev “The sins of Israel in the time of the Greeks were: Fraternizing with the Greeks, studying their culture, profaning Shabbat and Holy Days, eating t'reifa and neglecting Jewish tahara.”
Today we see it in secular Judaism with its focus on Tikun Olam and making sure that the youth are educated in a university. Beyond this it ends in a myopic and constant focus on the culture and what is trending in a world of social media, a world without rules or borders, a place where anything goes.
While of course it's a good idea to fix the world, but we need to remember that it's a world created by Hashem. Hashem gave us the Torah and the mitzvos to direct us in the best and most direct possible way to bring the world to its fulfillment of being a Dwelling Place for Hashem and to usher in the era of Moshiach.
To go about trying to fix the world without Torah and mitzvos, G-d forbid is not only an enterprise doomed to failure (as history has shown us so many times before) it is to remove the soul of the Jewish purpose. Without delight in the Torah our wells of inspiration and warmth for what is holy and what is bright about our future run dry.
When children go to a university, even from a traditional home, over time they are fed by their professors and their environment a not so subtle ideology that denies the existence of a Creator. In other words today is the same as in the days of Chanukah when the Greeks profaned the oil in the Bais Hamikdash. The Greeks tried to change our perception of what the Torah is and what it should be, this is the way they profaned the oil spiritually. The oil represents the delight that the soul of the Jew has from learning the Torah and doing a mitzvah. The candles represent warmth and joy. The culture represents coldness and darkness of a world without moral clarity purpose or values.
We have the oil. The oil is Chassidus, Penimius HaTorah. The Chassidus of the Rebbeim is the container of oil that is sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. We crack open the seal of the container of oil by studying the Torah in general and Chassidus in particular. On Hei Teves we have a custom to buy sefarim, but it’s not enough to buy them we also need to crack open the seals and learn them, Each person according to their level.
When we absorb the oil, the quality of the oil seeps through everything, penetrating our hearts and minds with inspiration pleasure warmth and joy which shines “m’pesach beiso m’bachutz, from our house outward” just like the lights of the candles of Chanukah. By keeping the Torah and mitzvos fused with the inspiration of Chassidus infused with emunah and genuine warmth we inspire our children to do the same. They do the same because they recognize the truth of our connection to Hashem something they cannot find in the world outside in the cold Hellenistic culture of today or by browsing on their smartphones.
And then we and our children together as one become the lamplighters of the world providing guidance light and warmth to the world outside thereby dispelling the darkness of the exile and ushering in the era Moshiach now.
A Good Shabbos