Rabbi's Blog

There are certain signs which indicate that we are living through prosperous times. An example is the number of pets that people own today. Owning a pet in my generation was a luxury, but has become something standard in today’s times. Due to the fact we are living richer lives we can afford the ‘extras’ in life, such as pets. This is true for the non-Jewish world. How much more so for the Jewish and religious Jewish world. A much larger sign of prosperity has blossomed in the last few years in the kosher food industry, particularly in fresh ready-made foods. I am not referring to restaurants, but rather to the number of take-out food establishments both in Eretz Yisrael and in the larger metropolitan cities in the U.S. which house a great proportion of the Jewish people. In my day, the take home food stores had the basics; chicken, kugel, deli and coleslaw. Today, not only can you buy different soups but even the noodles that go into the soup. Twenty-five different kinds of salads are complimented by eighteen different kinds of dips. Huge wine and high-end whiskeys that only increase our appetites for the array of meats and newly-discovered roasts that we never had before. This is all topped off by sushi stations located in all kosher supermarkets, in addition to, of course, baby-sitting available while shopping. All of this, of course, can be delivered to your doorstep with a few clicks from your smart phone. I am not going to even speak about the opulent smorgasbords and lavish weddings that are just a bit over the top. This entire description isn’t to make your mouth water but rather to depict what good fortune this has turned out to be for the Jewish people.

The Torah is very clear that fortune often leads to forgetting about God. These warnings are mentioned in the Shema and later in Devarim when Hashem warns the Jewish people that if you get fat and you forget Hashem, you will be kicked out of the land. In my humble opinion, part of this phenomenon is the desire and striving for Jews to want to be like the other nations of the world. This just about summarizes the entire story of how Chanukah came to be. When many Jews wanted to become like the Assyrian-Greeks, anti-Semitism started to perk its ugly face. The Hebrew term Misyavnim, is taken from the root Yavan, meaning Greek,. The letters of Yvan are Yud, Vav, and Final Nun. Each letter is a little longer than the previous one, indicating the small deviation away from Hashem. It then continues to stretch further and further out of range from where God allows us to be.

Hashem recognizes that man lives within a range, and as we stay in that range we will be able to remain close to Hashem. This is symbolized in the Halacha of the placement of the Chanukiyah. One should not place the menorah lower than three tefachim (A tefach is approximately 3-4 inches) and preferably not higher than ten tefachim. Putting the menorah higher is acceptable up until twenty amos, which is approximately forty feet high. The reason it can’t be lower than three tefachim is because it would be considered on the ground - which is a disgrace for the menorah. The height of ten tefachim creates a separate halachik domain. The Rabbis tell us that this is man’s domain, and God typically doesn’t enter that airspace. The Chernobyl Rebbe, in his sefer Meor Eynayim, writes that when it came time to save the Jews during the story of Chanukah, He – God - lowered Himself to be within the ten tefachim. Hashem wanted to be close to His people to bring them back and return. This came about through the shemen/oil which represents wisdom. It is through the light of the Torah that teaches a person how to serve Hashem with knowledge and intellect.

Every year we light the menorah and God hopes that it is through the light that a person will see the light of the Torah which is what the oil represents. As Hashem comes down within the ten tefachim, He becomes more visible; He wants to be close to us. Once Hashem is within the ten tefachim, He then reaches down to straighten the wicks, which represent the straightening out of the Jew, bringing him back to God. It is interesting to note there are a few places in the Torah which reveal that the cure of the punishment comes from itself. Meaning, what was it that lured the Jew away from Hashem? It was the prosperity or the fatness of the land. The word for ‘fat’ is Shamein which is the same root word as Shemen or oil. It is that which drives us away from Hashem and has the same strength to bring us back to Him. It is only a matter of substituting a few vowels and the light produced from the oil which will illuminate the truth for us and help us to understand that we grew fat for nothing. Prosperity by itself is not bad; this major issue is for us to understand that what we do with the wealth and how we behave with this new wealth is critical.

This message is clearly seen in Yosef’s wisdom in planning for the challenging times that lay ahead. There was tremendous blessing in Egypt for a few years which only Yosef, with great intellect, could see, guiding him to provide for the need to save for the bad years to come. He, Yosef, did not misuse and or abuse the blessing of plenty that Egypt provided. Rather, he wisely saved for the lean years. The bracha for all of us this Chanukah is to become wise through the light of the menorah and to get closer to Hashem with the light of Torah and not frivolously going further away through the very same fatness.

Ah Gut Shabbos & Ah Lichtiga Chanukah

Rabbi Avraham Bogopulsky