What is so important about light on Chanukah?

Aggadah: Sages, Stories and Secrets, Rabbi Immanuel Bernstein

What is the significance of this horn?

The Shelah Kadosh explains: The reason why one who sins brings an animal as a sacrifice is in order to indicate that one recognizes that through sinning he has become more like an animal. The sacrifice is meant to take the place of the person, and it can only do so if they have some commonality. And this is the point; in bringing the sacrifice one demonstrates ones awareness that through sin he has more in common with this animal. However this recognition could become a negative thing. As important as it is for a person to recognize that he has a problem, it is equally important to realize that there is a way to overcome it.

We do no wish for a person's recognition that he has become like an animal to backfire, and for him to say, "Well, what do you expect from an animal? Leave me alone!"

This is why an ox which Adam brought as an offering has a horn in its forehead. The Hebrew work for "horn" is keren. this is also the word for a beam of light. Before Adam sinned, his makeup was altogether more spiritual and elevated in nature. His face radiated light, After sinning, he fell from this level and his body assumed a more physical form. The person who came closest to reclaiming Adam's original level was Moshe after being on Mount Sinai, where the verse says that his face beamed forth light. The horn (keren) which Adam's offering had on its forehead represents his own aspiration to return to the original level of light.

...we can see how the dispute between Greece and Israel could be summed up by saying that they are arguing over "the horn (keren) of an ox", i.e. whether man should be aspiring to anything beyond the development and perfection of physical existence.

Greece says, "Man is an ox, that is it; devote you energies to making that ox as successful and beautiful as you can. Get rid of the horn and we will be best friends!"

Israel says, "The horn of the ox represents everything we aspire to be. It represents our connection with the divine. It is true, we are an ox, and we cannot deny that. But we are an ox with a horn, and that is what divides us from you."

Pri Tzadik in Kol Mevaser, Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin

“...[the righteous] do not take that which is not destined for them from Hashem… That which is not created for this specific person is like stolen property when they are in possession of it, and thus [the righteous are careful] not to take possession of it. Because of this, property that is assigned to and created for them is very precious to them—so much so that our patriarch Jacob risked his life for his property. Thus …it was said in the name of the Yehudi Hakadosh: a righteous person is obligated to enjoy an object which is fitting for him even if it means risking his life. That is why Jacob– who knew that the small vessels were his, appropriate to his soul, and created for him—risked his life to save them

Were the Greeks entirely wrong?

Seeing More with One Eye, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

"We take as a given that the reason we light the Chanukah candles is to see the flames. We tend to assume that the pirsumei nisa, the publicizing of the miracle, is achieved by lighting oil and commemorating a miracle from many years ago. But perhaps we are missing the point. Maybe the real purpose is not to see the flame itself but to allow the flame to illuminate the darkness and reveal what is all around us.

How can we "see more?"

1. Seeing more through people & relationships

Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, Professor Yaffa Eliach

Hanukkah came to Bergen-Belsen. It was time to kindle the Hanukkah 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 Hanukkah lights. The Rabbi of Bluzhov lit the first light and chanted the first two blessings in his pleasant voice, and the festive melody was filled with sorrow and pain. When he was about to recite the third 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 third blessing: “Blessed are Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, and has preserved us, and enabled us to reach this season.”

Among the people present at the kindling of the light was a Mr. Zamietchkowski...As soon as the Rabbi of Bluzhov had finished the ceremony of kindling the lights, Zamiechkowski elbowed his way to the Rabbi and said, “Spira, you are a clever and honest person. I can understand your need to light Hanukkah candles in these wretched times. I can even understand the historical note of the second blessing, “Who wrought miracles for our Fathers in days of old, at this season.”

But the fact that you recited the third blessing is beyond me. How could you thank God and say “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, and hast preserved us, and enabled us to reach this season”? How could you say it 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 God? For this you praise the Lord? This you call “keeping us alive?”

“Zamietchkowski, you are a hundred percent right,” answered the Rabbi. “When I reached the third blessing, I also hesitated and asked myself, what should I do with this blessing? I turned my head in order to ask the Rabbi of Zaner and other distinguished Rabbis who were standing near me if indeed I might recite the blessing. But just as I was turning my head, I noticed that behind me a throng was standing, a large crowd of living Jews, their faces expressing faith, devotion, and deliberation as they were listening to the rite of the kindling of the Hanukkah lights.

I said to myself, if God has such a nation that at times like these, when during the lighting of the Hanukkah 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 Hanukkah blessing “Who performed miracles for our Fathers in days of old, at this season”; indeed I was blessed to see such a people with so much faith and fervor, then I am under a special obligation to recite the third blessing."

Henry Ford

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't - you're right"

A Case Study of the “Pygmalion Effect”: Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement, Jie Chang

In the teaching and researching domain, the “Pygmalion effect” was also called “Rosenthal effect” because of the classic experiment by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968; summarized by Pintrich and Schunk, 1996). At the beginning of the academic year, Rosenthal and Jacobson told the teachers that this test was to predict which students would “bloom” intellectually during the academic year. They deceived the teachers that their genius students had been tested by some new methodology of determining the success of school age children, and these kids were the best of the best. In fact, the students were randomly chosen from 18 classrooms and their true test scores would not support them as “intellectual bloomers”. The result of the experiment showed a distinguish difference between the sample students and the control students. The “bloomers” gained an average of two IQ points in verbal ability, seven points in reasoning and four points in over all IQ. The experiment showed that teacher expectations worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then the children did indeed show that enhancement

2. Seeing more through one's self

Rav Kook - Potential, What We Can Do

Every person has the ability to change the world. It all exists within one's spiritual resources. It all depends on whether or not one has the power to reveal it...There is no limit to the power of the soul. It is a candle of the divine in the world.

Alei Shur, Rav Wolbe - Mission, What We're Called On To Do

The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5) tells us:

Everyone is obligated to say — “bishvili nivra ha’olam — The world was created for me.” Rashi adds — That is to say — “I am as significant as an entire world. Therefore, I had better not remove myself from this world with even a single transgression!”

“I am like an entire world” — This is the special nature of man — there was never another individual like him, and there will never be another one until the end of all the generations.

With my distinct blend of abilities, my particular parents, my having been born into this exact time period and this specific environment, there is certainly a [unique] personal service incumbent upon me, and a particular portion [which I have] in Torah. Furthermore, the entire creation is waiting for me to do it, since no one else in the world can possibly fulfill my particular task.

Ish Ubeito - What We Are

3. Seeing more through G-d and the universe

Chanukah: Seeing in the Darkness, Sherri Lederman Mandell

Chanukah is a holiday that helps me understand the fallibility of numbers.

My son Koby was murdered at the age of 13, a prime number, divisible only by itself. Prime numbers are a special category. Nothing else can enter them. My son's death is like a prime number, a kingdom I cannot fathom. When I think of Koby, I am left with something I cannot divide. Every time I think of him, every hour of every day, I am left with a mystery.

Now Koby would be 15. Does he age in heaven? Or will he always be 13? To attach a number to him is meaningless. He has left the world of numbers.

...

When I am asked how many children I have, how should I answer? Do I count Koby? How can I not? How can a number describe my desire for him?

There is a picture in my daughter's room that shows Koby and me together at a bar mitzvah, two months before he was killed. What I see in my eyes is how proud I was to be his mother, how proud that a brilliant beautiful child like Koby was in my life. I had such a feeling of ownership with him. I felt like he was mine, almost like I had created him. Though now, I see, I never owned him. Because if I had, I would never have allowed him to be taken from me and from this world.

I used to think that life was about acquiring and creating and keeping things whole. But now, when my arm still reaches for four chocolate pudding treats on the shelf of the supermarket even though one of my four children is dead, I see that life is about learning how to see in the darkness.

Chanukah is also about learning a new way of seeing. The Maccabee's war against the Hellenists was a fight not just for territory but also for a worldview. The Greeks believed in the grace of beauty, the redemptive powers of humanity. For the Hellenists, beauty was holiness. For the Maccabees, holiness wasn't always visible -- but was the manifestation of the justice and goodness of God. For the Hellenists, the body was perfection. For the Maccabees the body was an instrument to be used for serving God.

The Maccabees insisted on giving tribute to God and his laws, and his temple. When the Maccabees were victorious and reentered the temple, there was just a little oil left to light the menorah, enough for one day. Nevertheless they kindled the flame and the oil lasted for eight days. Many people believe that this is the miracle of Chanukah.

But maybe it wasn't a miracle at all. Perhaps one vial of oil can always be enough for eight nights if we look at our lives as a place for God to dwell. Because God is infinite, when we approach the Divine, we leave the world where numbers circumscribe reality. Once we make a sanctuary for God, then the infinite possibilities of God dwell within us as well. Numbers become guides, instead of rulers.

Chanukah teaches us that what we see in this world is a glimmer of the truth. Our measurements in this world are imprecise, our ways of knowing limited. The world of truth is not one where the numbers we ascribe to reality are sufficient. One vial of oil becomes eight.

Thus it is fitting that Chanukah begins during the month of Kislev, the month of dreams and sleep. As we near the winter solstice, we prefer more and more to stay in bed. Many of the Torah portions of this month speak of sleep and dreams -- Jacob has his dream of a ladder and God speaking to him; Pharaoh has dreams that need to be interpreted.

Chanukah itself has the logic of a dream. In sleep we have access to a different world -- a world where what is impossible during the day becomes possible. In sleep, the few can become many. The light at night is a deeper light with a greater capacity for revelation. This is the light of Chanukah. This is the light of holiness.

It's not easy to see in the dark, but you don't need that much oil to fill the darkness. A small measure can easily expand to light the largest cavern. The Kaballah tells us that we are like flames, the spark of our souls reaching toward the candle of God.

To see God in my life, I have to see in the darkness -- to see beyond what appears to be, to stop counting with ordinary integers of ownership -- to see what is blurred, undefined, beyond my ordinary senses. Chanukah tells me that what matters is not how old Koby is now -- I can't count him anymore with my daytime logic. But I can create a sanctuary inside of me -- a place of holiness where his death matters, a place where I consecrate the light of his soul so that it shines within me.

______________________

The Chidushei Harim comments that the menorah's placement opposite the mezuzah means that the menorah is a kind of mezuzah as one leaves the home and enters the outside world.

Just as a mezuzah sanctifies the home, our choice to see more and seek meaning throughout our lives sanctifies our worldview. The Greek outlook is that man is mere flesh and blood; Israel chooses to recognize our keren, our beam of light, connecting man to something greater.

Bringing light into the world - positivity, joy, optimism - but are a vehicle by which we use to grow. we shouldn't lose sight that so much of light's value comes from what it illuminates. The light of the menorah reveals the depths, meaning and beauty of our surroundings.

The oil that should have seemingly lasted only one day extended far longer, just as the world and relationships we experience extend beyond what they seemingly are.

Seven represents physicality - in seven days the world was created. Eight represents the superphysical. The oil lasting eight days signifies how our physical world transcends beyond what we perceive.

On this Chanukah, may we have the bracha that we illuminate our worldview to see beyond what meets the eye in our lives; that the light we bring in the world reveals the true depth of our relationships, the world and G-d, and of ourselves.