From Presents to Presence: Bringing The Light of Chanukah Into Our Lives.

The writes about the main part of this yumptive is for the ordinary people, the people in the middle and the weaker people can seem at times so deep, so esoteric, it could be hard to connect to Kaneka, hard to connect to what we're doing or the nearest of Kaneka. And that's really what I want to talk about this week. How do we bring Kaneka down to our day-to-day life? How do we bring Kaneka? How do we make it applicable to our lives today? The Ramban writes the mitzvah of the mitzvah of lighting the minor is an extremely extremely precious mitzvah. And the question is the Rambam doesn't write this by any other mitzvah. We know all mitzvah are precious. is our beloved. What is it specifically about the mitzvah of Kaneka that the Rambam writes that it's that it's extremely precious. The y of kanuk is different than a typical yam. A regular yamis the day itself has kadusha. We make kdes it's we don't work on those days but is different on a regular Tuesday night we come home from work we like to the day itself doesn't seem to have any special kaduca. It's not us. We go to work, we do everything we do on an ordinary weekday. We don't make kdes. Why is khan different than every other yamt? So pinkis explains that is fundamentally different than a regular yam. On a regular yam, what happens elevates us, brings us closer to him. Therefore the day is kadusha. We make kdesh. We don't go to work. Why? Because is bringing us up is elevating us towards Hashem. He's bringing us towards is bringing us up. So the day itself has a certain level of kadusha. We don't go to work on a regular yam but says is different. It's not that we're being elevated and getting closer to it's coming down to us. is saying you stay where you are. You stay in the mundane of a regular day, of a regular workday. You don't have to do anything differently. I'm coming to you. I'm coming down to you. The Marin says a very similar idea. He writes in Hashem comes down to the person and illuminates him giving him the ability to return. And this is why there's a mitzvah to light the within tent of the ground low down close to the ground. Why? Because it's to symbolize coming down to us is telling us you stay where you are. Even if you're in a low place, I'm coming down to you. I'm coming down to be close to you when you like the Kaneka. The reason why the neran is so precious is because the sur call it it's the nerv gullus it's the fire that illuminates gullis both our personal gullus our personal things that we're going through our personal darkness that we're going through and the gullus the collective gullus the exile that we're in that says I'm coming down into the darkness of your personal gullus I'm coming down into the darkness of the exile that we're in to illuminate our lives is coming down to us. You know I was talking about this idea with a friend of mine hatiposha alsander and he told me a beautiful idea talking about this idea that the nera being the ner of gullis the ner that illuminates gull he said each yid is represented by the khan that we light that what happens sometimes we have a fire we have a fire burning inside of us but that fire goes out the fire goes out what do we do when the fire goes out we light two fires But that goes out. What do we do? We light a third fire, a fourth fire, a fifth fire, and so on and so forth. That each time we fall, we light another fire. We get back up, we light another fire. The falls seven times, but he gets back up. that's represented by the nearest of Kaneka. I was thinking about that and I was thinking perhaps this is also alluded to in the fact that in the BA mikt the manura that we had in the B mikdash didn't have eight branches like the manura that we light the manur in the basa mikdash was not the fire that we lit the man that we lit in the ba mikt was not a n of gullis it was at at a time when everything was going right when we saw every single day we saw it had seven branches in the in the bas seven always represents what's natural. The typical cycle is always going to be out of seven. Seven is what's normal is what's natural. But in gulus, the fact that we fall and that we get back up, the fact that we're lighting the neran and the darkness of gulus and the darkness of our lives, that's supernatural. Eight always represents what's above nature. The eight nights of Kaneka represent what's above nature. The fact that a yid keeps on getting back up after he falls. That's above nature. That's supernatural. The yid saying, "I fell seven times, but I'm getting back up. I'm lighting the manura in the darkness of Gulos." That's supernatural. You know, just yesterday I saw an article talking about six of the hostages that didn't make it back. But they have a video of them in Hamas tunnels lighting the mana singing the nigun singing the songs of Kaneka in a Hamas tunnel in the darkness that we can't even comprehend what were they doing they were lying in the Kaneka that's supernatural I I can't help but think of the famous picture of a manura in the window and through the window across the street you see the swastika flags hanging from the buildings that in Nazi Germany there were yidden that were going and lighting a mana that in the darkness of Nazi Germany they were bringing Hashem's presence into the darkness lighting the manura you know the world today seems a lot less friendly than it's been in a long time it's frightening what's going on we need to pause when we light the minera and realize that are doing is coming down to illuminate our lives in the darkness of today is saying I want to come down to you know we've been here before we've been there before we've been through the darkness before when the after they beat the Ivan after they beat the Greeks and they come back to the B mikdash everything's in disarray everything's been defiled but they find that one and they find that one little jug of oil that wasn't defiled. And that was saying, "I'm here. I'm here with you in the disarray. I'm here with you in the defilement. I come down to you in the darkness." To quote the uh the song from Distant Cousins, we've been through the fire, but we're still lighting the flames. We've been through the fire before, and is still coming down to us. is still coming down with us and saying, "I want to be with you in your personal darkness. I want to be with you in the darkness of exile of what's going on in the world." When we light this year, let's try to be a little intentional and let's realize that a little bit of light has the ability to dispel a tremendous amount of darkness. And when we light, let's think about it and realize and internalize that is saying, "I want to come down to you. I want to come down to be with you in the darkness.