Happy Zot Chanukah! Chabura Tonight

B'H

As the sun fades along with the light of Chanukah, I wanted to share with you a small piece of daat that I spoke to Hashem about today during my hitbodedut. It isn’t from Harav Arush exactly, but based on things I have heard from him, as well as from Rabbi Nosson Maimon and Rabbi Michel Twerski of Milwaukee on this subject.

REMINDER: CHABURA MEETS TONIGHT! 8PM

Next week – back to usual Tuesday night 8:15PM

Zot Chanukah is a funny day. It gets me every year. Besides the few hours that the Chanukiah actually burns with the flames of all 8 candles lit, most of the day – the holiest, strongest day of Chanukah – it sits quiet and silent. It’s still Chanukah, but where is the light? I struggle to remember that it is still Chanukah, even – with no presents to look forward to, no candle lighting tonight, no more doughnuts and no more dreidle and gelt.

I was talking to Hashem about this today and suddenly it hit me – the light that burns in the Chanukah candles is the ohr ein sof  - the unending light of Creation. Using it you can see from one end of the world to the other. Really, this day of Zot Chanukah it burns the brightest because it is the connection between the first 7 days when it burned in physicality and the rest of the year, when it burns in spirituality only. And how can we access it the rest of the year?

IN THE TORAH. The Torah is also the ohr ein sof – using the Torah it is possible to see all of Creation, to know everything, if only one knows how to mine the Torah for that information. I believe it was the Chazon Ish (correct me if I'm wrong) who developed a new method of brain surgery in order to help someone who came to him and the doctors didn’t know how to operate on his brain tumor – and the Chazon Ish based on the Torah gave that doctor exact instructions on how to do the surgery an alternate, safer way. Many such stories abound in fact. Rabbi Lazer Brody loves reminding people that you can learn all of geometry through the laws of Sukkah in the Gemara, including pi and others. It is possible to know everything through the Torah.

This comes with an important aside. We must recognize the principle importance of the Torah!!! I hear from people all the time, and even used to believe myself, in Torah that is “added to by the wisdom of the world around us” and the like. Why, we should be worldly Jews, right? NO!!! That is what Chanukah is all about. It gets me every year that as a child in public school I learned all about Greek culture etc. etc. And that “beautiful democratic” society we were taught to love and admire – THAT society is exactly the society that is against the Jews, against Judaism, who we fought and won in the Chanukah story, whose victory over that same society we celebrate every year. That society that tried to make us deny the Torah and forbid us from keeping from some of its most important commandments, including Rosh Chodesh, Shabbos and brit milah.

And that’s is what Chanukah comes to remind us about, year after year. Sure the wisdom of the non-Jews, Greek philosophy and everything else, looks great. It’s all diamonds – looks nice and shiny but on the inside it is empty - really it is DARKNESS. Compared to the light of the Torah, which is the Truth of Hashem Himself and contains in it that same ohr ein sof that burns in the Chanukah candles, the supposed wisdom of the non-Jews is utter darkness and confusions, borne out of their own lusts and desires and their desire to fulfill them, and hold by a philosophy that enables them to do that. That is why every single nation refused to accept the Torah – each nation wanted their lust and desire, their sin, and didn’t want to keep a Torah that told them to change. It is also the primary reason why accepting the Torah upon ourselves is so difficult according to Rebbe Nachman as he explains in Likutei Moharan – the Torah tells us to curb some lust or desire we have (for instance, our innate desire to please and act like the goyim around us!) and we don’t want to listen, we don’t want to be challenged to change, we don’t want to give up that forbidden thing. So we deny the Torah, or change the Torah (really they are the same thing) in order to keep our lusts and desires.

Even more, Chanukah is all about belief in the tzaddik. We aren’t celebrating all the people who were Hellenists and acted like Greeks. We celebrate “Matityahu Kohen Gadol and his sons” – the tzaddik of the generation – who recognized that in order for Judaism to survive, he had to stand against Greek culture and its subversions. And Hashem helped him. And Purim too – everything was in the merit of Mordechai, the tzaddik of that generation. So BOTH of the holidays of “exile” are celebrations of the Tzaddik of the generation, and the Jews who followed him.

So what about us in this generation?! We can survive without following the tzaddik? To celebrate Chanukah and Purim IS to recognize that the only way to make it through exile is to follow everything they say, even if they say fight the mighty Greek empire! Fight the mighty Persian empire! Don’t go to the feast of the non-Jews, even if it’s 100% glatt kosher! So whose side do we want to be on today? Whose side do you think Jews of the future are going to celebrate – those who followed the tzaddik and had true emunat tzaddikim (belief in the true tzaddikim), or those who didn’t?!

Don’t worry that it’s dark outside now and Chanukah is over. We still have the light of the Torah, and the light of the true Tzaddikim, lighting up the way for us – IF ONLY WE CONNECT TO THEM, BELIEVE IN THEM, AND FOLLOW THEM NO MATTER WHAT – even and especially when that means leaving behind the ways, dress, jobs, lands, and opinions of the non-Jews.