Zot Chanukah

Zot Chanukah is a funny day. It gets me every year. Besides the few hours that the Chanukah menorah actually burns with the flames of all 8 lit candles, for most of the day – the holiest, strongest day of Chanukah – it sits in silence. 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, more dreidel, and no more “Chanukah gelt”.

I was thinking 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. The day of Zot Chanukah, the lights burn brightest because it is the connection between the first 7 days when they burn physically and the rest of the year, when they burn only spiritually. And how can we spread this light to the rest of the year?

LIGHT OF TORAH WISDOM

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. Rabbi Lazer Brody told a story about how the Chazon Ish spoke with a neurosurgeon who came to him not knowing how to approach a patient’s life-threatening brain tumor without killing the patient. The Chazon Ish, using information from tractate Chulin in the Gomorrah, suggested a surgical approach that was much safer. Many such stories abound in fact. Rabbi Brody loves reminding people that you can learn all of geometry through the laws of Sukkah in the Gemara. 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, that the Torah 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 and its likes. The “beautiful democratic” society we were taught to love and admire – THAT society is exactly the society that is against the Jews and Judaism. That is the society whom we fought in the Chanukah story, and whose victory over that same society we celebrate every year. That is the society that tried to make us deny the Torah and forbid us from keeping some of its most important commandments, such as Rosh Chodesh, Shabbat, and brit milah (circumcision).

And that’s 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 and which contains the ohr ein sof, the wisdom of the non-Jews is utter darkness and confusion. Their wisdom is borne out of their own lusts, their desire to fulfill them, and their philosophies that enable them to do that. Consequently, 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 that we have (for instance, our innate desire to please and act like the non-Jews 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 we change the Torah (really they are the same thing) in order to keep our lusts and desires.

LIGHT OF THE TZADDIK

Even more, Chanukah is all about belief in the tzaddik. We aren’t celebrating the Jews who became Hellenists and acted like Greeks. We celebrate “Matityahu Kohen Gadol and his sons” – the tzaddik of the generation – who recognized that for Judaism to survive, he had to stand against Greek culture and its subversion. And Hashem helped him. Similarly, our survival at Purim 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.

OUR LIGHT TODAY

So what about us in this generation?! Can we 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! 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.