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VAYISHLACH 5784
See the World Through Your Chanukah Glasses
I remember playing touch-football in the streets of Brooklyn as a child and getting hit hard in the solar plexus. Gasping for air, it felt like I would never catch my breath again. I’ve had this feeling lately, have you? The horrors of October 7th knocked the wind out of all of us and we haven’t really caught our breath. Overwhelmed by grief, sadness, worry and concern, we are now 2 months into this war and neither the situation nor we are getting better anytime soon. When some of the hostages were released, we learned how barbaric was their treatment. About 130 are still being held captive. Our soldiers have resumed the battle yesterday—fighting for their lives and our lives. The enormous spike in blatant antisemitism in America and around the world is alarming and frightening. It’s hard not to despair.
For example, at an Oakland City Council meeting this week, person after person defended, excused, and glorified Hamas as they sympathized with the terrorists. They even accused Israel of faking the pogrom and killing its own people! How can we long for Gd to bring the Mashiach (Messiah) to redeem the world when so much of the world seems irredeemable?
Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton teaches that we can find strength in the holiday of Chanukah—which couldn’t come now at a better time. He notes that our holidays correspond to our different senses. On Purim our hearing is heightened as we listen to the Megillah. On Passover our sense of taste is sharpened when we eat matzah and bitter herbs. Chanukah is the holiday of seeing (Kedushas Levi, Rav Levi Yitzchak). The mitzvah of seeing the candles is best summed in the song sung after the lighting: Haneyrot halalu kodesh heym; v’ein lanu reshut l’hishtameysh bahem, ela lirotam bilvad (The candles are sacred; we don’t have permission to benefit from their light, just to look at it).
There is a unique law about the Chanukah candles. The Shulchan Aruch on Chanukah (676:3) tells us: Haro-eh mevareych—one who can’t light for himself but sees the candles lit by someone else—nevertheless should recite the 2nd blessing: she’asa nisim la’avoteynu (Who did miracles for our fathers). Now, if I see someone put on Tefillin, shake a lulav, or blow a shofar, I don’t make a blessing. Only on Chanukah do I make a blessing when seeing someone else perform the mitzvah. Why?
It’s because the essence of Chanukah is seeing. On Chanukah, we test how well we see. People say, “Seeing is believing.” If I can see it, then it’s true. If I can’t, it’s not real. Following this rule, we have dismissed and disregarded the most precious truths and realities in our lives. There are ideas, feelings, thoughts and dreams that are authentic and genuine, despite the fact that they can’t be seen or observed. Is Gd real? Can we see Him?
Our Rabbis taught that darkening our vision was the goal of the Greek oppressors in the Chanukah story. They wanted to make us believe that something is true only if we can see it. They worshipped the body, the aesthetic, the visible form. Jews have survived over the millennium only because we have been taught to see beyond what is in front of our eyes—to dream of what could be. One can live with their eyes open, have perfect vision, and still be cloaked in darkness. On the other hand, it can be pitch black all around and yet a person can see with absolute clarity.
The Maccabees saw beyond the reality of their few numbers, their weak army, their impossible task. They saw the mighty hand of Gd. They saw the obligation to fight evil. They saw Divine protection that would accompany them. We Jews have been charged to look beyond what is in front of our eyes. We’ve faced impossible odds and confronted impossible challenges. With faith, hope and optimism we had vision—not just sight … imagination—not just observation.
In today’s Torah portion, Jacob, who had fled his brother’s wrath for stealing their father’s blessing, returns home to face him. Why did he return? His brother Esav was a much stronger and skilled fighter and had an army of 400 soldiers. It was because Jacob had a greater vision of his role as a Forefather of the Jewish people and knew the unseen Gd was with him.
It was the same with the Maccabees in the Chanukah story. What if they had only considered the overwhelming might of their Greek oppressors? What if in the wars 1948, 1967 and 1973 the brave men and women of Israel had conceded the impossible chances of overcoming the hundreds of millions of Arabs with their abundant resources and arms that sought to annihilate them?
There is a message plastered all over Israel right now hanging on billboards, posted on buses, displayed on bumper stickers. It has become the motto of this war: Am HaNetzach Yinatzeyach (The people of eternity will be victorious). Jews don’t look at odds, numbers and likelihoods. We are NOT intimidated or scared by predictions of pundits. We, the people of eternity. We see differently. We believe in what should be—not just what is.
Residents of the kibbutzim near Gaza whose homes were destroyed have not given up or given in. They have vowed to return, to rebuild and expand. They are part of the Am HaNetzach—the eternal people who don’t accept what is but have a vision of what should be.
Yaffa Eliach, in her classic Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, tells the incredible story of Chanukah in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: It was time to kindle the Chanukah lights. A jug of oil was not to be found, no candle was in sight, and a menorah belonged to the distant past. Instead, a wooden clog, the shoe of one of the inmates, became a menorah, strings pulled from a concentration camp uniform, a wick, and the black camp shoe polish, pure oil.
Not far from the heaps of bodies, the living skeletons assembled to participate in the kindling of the Chanukah lights. The Rabbi of Bluzhov lit the 1st light and chanted the 1st 2 blessings in his pleasant voice, and the festive melody was filled with sorrow and pain. When he was about to recite the 3rd blessing, he stopped, turned his head, and looked around as if he were searching for something.
But immediately, he turned his face back to the quivering small lights and in a strong, reassuring, comforting voice, chanted the 3rd blessing: “Blessed are You, O Lrd, our Gd, King of the Universe, Who has kept us alive, preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day” …
Mr. Zamietchkowski, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Bund asked him … “Rabbi … I can understand your need to light Chanukah candles in these wretched times. I can even understand the historical note of the 2nd blessing, “Who wrought miracles for our Fathers in days of old, at this season.” But the fact that you recited the 3rd blessing is beyond me. How could you thank Gd and say “Blessed art You, O Lrd … Who has kept us alive, preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day” … when hundreds of dead Jewish bodies are literally lying within the shadows of the Chanukah lights, when thousands of living Jewish skeletons are walking around in camp, and millions more are being massacred? For this you are thankful to Gd? For this you praise the Lrd? This you call “keeping us alive?”
“Zamietchkowski, you are 100% right,” answered the Rabbi. “When I reached the 3rd blessing, I also hesitated … but when I noticed behind me a large crowd of living Jews, their faces expressing faith, devotion … I said to myself, if Gd has such a nation that at times like these, when during the lighting of the Chanukah lights they see in front of them the heaps of bodies of their beloved fathers, brothers, and sons, and death is looking from every corner, if despite all that, they stand in throngs and with devotion listening to the Chanukah blessings … then I am under a special obligation to recite the 3rd blessing.”
That night in Bergen-Belsen, Mr. Zamietchkowski only saw dead bodies and terrible suffering. The Rabbi also looked, but he saw another layer of truth—a higher truth.
My friend if you only look at what can be physically seen, there is so much to fear in our world now. But over the last 2 months, if you look a little closer, if you wear your “Chanukah glasses” you’ll see things you’ve never seen before. You’ll see our vision to be a united people is becoming fulfilled. You’ll see the dream of a spiritual awakening among Jews is happening. And you’ll see a new connection to the land of Israel from Jews—no matter how disconnected—around the world happening now.
So, when Chanukah comes Thursday night, take the time to not only light the candles—but to look and gaze at them. Use that light to dispel all the darkness. Allow it to illuminate your life, see with 20/20+ vision. As the light penetrates into you, allow it to calm you and help you catch your breath as you feel at the core of your being that the Am HaNetzach Yinatzeyach, that our people of eternity will prevail!
May our people experience a new Chanukah miracle in our time. May we merit to see the hand of Gd as all the hostages are released. May we see a full and lasting peace. May it happen as we say in our Chanukah prayers: bayamim ha’heym bazman hazeh—as we saw such miracles in the past, may we see them again speedily in our day. Amen!
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