Mindflex- The Chanukah Candle Inside You- Rabbi Shlomo Buxbaum

okay good evening everyone welcome to mineflex my name is ruby bucksbaum coming to you from the greater washington dc area silver spring maryland and i'm very excited to be here tonight sharing with you torah hanukkah is next week it's an exciting time of year during a very unusual time in our lives an unusual time in history and we need to use this time to strengthen ourselves together to make this konica unusually amazing thank you so much project inspire amazing amazing work that you're doing with all of the programs the mind flex and the shabbat show and just pumping out inspiration after inspiration to keep us all on our toes to keep us all focused and that brings us really to the topic of tonight the the topic the title of tonight is the hanukkah candle inside of you how to illuminate your soul during a spiritual blackout a spiritual blackout is a time when you might feel low you might feel disconnected you might feel like the glory days of your judaism are behind you you just want to get it back or maybe you feel you thought that life would have already propelled you to the next level in your spiritual journey and it's just not happening the way that you thought that it would pan out the way you'd like it to you're not alone that's the name of the game that's what we go through as jews that's what we go through as spiritual seekers find me someone out there who says oh yeah spirituality constant trajectory upwards i'm always climbing that ladder obviously we know there's no such thing it's not true it can't be spirituality growth in our judaism growth to hashem to become more godly is a rollercoaster ride it has its highs and it has its lows and our job is to always be developing ourselves more and more in a way that we have the tools to navigate through those pitfalls through those struggles and that's we're going to be talking about tonight and how that connects the hanukkah because it does and in fact that is the story of chanukah that is the message of hanukkah let's do this there's a great rabbi who is known as the aish kodesh the psets in the rebbe was the rabbi of the warsaw ghetto who was killed during that time and he wrote many very very passionate very powerful books one of them is one sitting right in front of me it's called you're probably seeing it in reverse but um it's a book about exactly what we introduced just a moment ago and that is this journey this journey to live a life of feeling spiritual feeling awake feeling inspired what we're all looking for what keeps us going and he introduces in his book these three terms three different ways that he describes how people are feeling in terms of their relationship with their spiritual selves and again we don't know each other that well yet um and i don't know the different levels of hebrew of our audience out there so i'll just assume that we have all sorts of wonderful people out there but these three hebrew words and if you're familiar with them if not don't worry i'm going to translate it and explain it but the three words the three different levels of connection that he speaks about the first word is we'll translate it in a moment the second one is sounds a lot like the first one it's a little different the third one is hitler i'm sure many of you out there are familiar with these words or at least the third one is literally translated it's about inspiring oneself it's about being inspired nithyal i'm inspired by something something awakens my attention the next one is hitra gush the the hip rug should the root of it is regis regis means emotion something a little deeper i'm emotionally connected to something it's a fire it's a flame let me explain these three levels and i'm going to share with you a personal story something a little bit embarrassing but we've been friends now for at least five minutes so i'm sure that i could open up and share with you somewhat of an embarrassing story a couple of years ago more than a couple years ago probably close to 10 years ago my wife and i our family we moved into our first private home we were living in an apartment up until then we were in israel we moved to america we had a home beautiful and there was a fireplace in our home and we were very excited to light the fireplace and have a cozy evening sitting the family sitting around the fireplace maybe roast some marshmallows and um i never lit up a fireplace but it was just something new to me you know i was actually you know i used to in in the day you know in my my younger days i actually did go camping a lot but i was the guy who who played the guitar so because of that the rule was the guy with the guitar didn't have to do any of the actual work i would just be there strong in the guitar and then put up the tent you know someone else has got to do it like the fire someone else has to do it so it wasn't much of an outdoorsman so it came to having to uh light this fireplace and the previous owner of the house had had left in the garage some like these mini logs for the fireplace so i figured okay it looks like firewood to me you just you put it in the fireplace and then you know you light it up simple as that right i see you're laughing already so i tried lighting the firewood and of course as you can imagine i'm sitting there putting the flame on and you know as they say there's again it's not going nothing's happening it's not starting up you know you know that right i didn't know that at the time someone's thinking back what can i do and you know my wife is already looking just like i don't think that's going to work you know why don't we just go to the store and we can get they have these easy like things you just put the match to it and it lights up and i'm like no no i'm gonna do it right i've been cat i've gone camping many times and i remember that they used to put toilet paper right you've been you've seen that in these these um uh when they make the bonfires right so they wrap it in toilet paper so i'm like okay bring the toilet paper we had some newspapers in the house some pudding in the fireplace some newspaper and some some toilet paper and trying to light it and for the moment it actually looked like it was starting to light because you know toilet paper and all these things they are flammable and they do light for just a couple of moments but of course they burn out within a couple of minutes we have just you know hashes of newspaper and toilet paper and they're like floating all around the house and my kids quick you know catch the toilet paper before it lights the house on fire in the meantime my wife has you know kind of snuck out and went down the block and she got some of these easy easy life things and after a while you know i called it quit held up the white flag and we lit these very flammable uh fireplace vlogs and you know as you can imagine these things right there they're beautiful you put a little fire to it and then boom you have this beautiful fireplace and i learned a wonderful lesson and it helped me understand a little bit more of what this whole the holy rebbe the ish kodesh was speaking about when a person is connecting to the spirituality on the level of inspiration we often become very dependent on the motivational speech the rabbi's sermon on the new music on something outside something external someone else is going to excite me someone else is going to inspire me people the self-help movement the personal development self-help the influencer motivational speaker even in the around the globe at the tony robbins movement is massive massive people look because people want to feel inspired and at the moment when you have the fiery rabbi telling you that story and you're crying because the story is so beautiful or you have the the motivational speaker the influencer the tony robbins and they're yelling at you that you could be better and think more positive so you're feeling at that moment you're feeling so awake you're feeling so inspired at that moment you can conquer the world but you're like the nick bucksbound who's trying to light the fire who thinks that it's lighting up just because there's a flame right there but that's only because the candle is up right there it's the candle is there so it looks like it's on fire but the moment that it goes away the moment that the candle goes away the fire goes away suddenly it's not there anymore the fire is not there what happened i i'm standing at the hotel last week no that wasn't actually but theoretically you're standing at the hotel you just want to change the world and change your life and a week later it's gone it's young kipper and this is going to be your year and a week later it's gone grab my sermon the tony robbins seven-hour conference whoever it might be and then it's gone because it's just like the fellow holding the candle up then once the candle goes away the flame is gone is wonderful but if it doesn't hit ba'alud is when i'm becoming inspired from something outside of me but it can only last a certain amount can't last forever we need to develop the next step the next level of the ash kodesh and that's called hit ragshut hit rock shoot is when the pilot light is on hit rock shoot is one is an inner yearning when there's an inner emotion when instead of looking outside i'm looking inward i'm saying what do i really feel what's that voice inside of me what's it saying what's it what does it speak to me how does it guide me when i'm awake inside shirashima in the song of song that says i need shayna believe the air i'm sleeping but my heart is awake we want our hearts to be awake and even then sometimes it doesn't necessarily feel explosive it's difficult i might feel like i need i might feel like i'm sleeping but my heart is awake and i want to feel it a little bit more it will come that's the next step that's it means it's a flame on fire i'm feeling it i'm excited but it's in it but it's a flame it's like the easy light in my fireplace it's the flame that comes about it's an authentic flame it's a flame that didn't come from something outside of myself but it came from my inner yearning my inner work i worked so hard i pushed i pushed farther and farther and farther and now hitler but i am on fire and it's my own fire it's not an externally ignited fire it's ignited from inside from my heart we know that the light of the hanukkah menorah is supposed to represent that inner fire many symbolisms conica is wonderful in terms of if you like symbolisms the symbolism of mitzvot and how they correspond to other things if you like the numbers game this equals this hanukkah is your holiday there's so much there and one of the beautiful most beautiful ideas in hanukkah is that if you look at the hanukkah candle itself which is a composite it needs three ingredients you have the oil you have the wick and you have the little flame and i'm sure that you've heard this before and if not i'm happy to be the one to share it with you that the the flame itself is in there with the letter nun the wick is called the sill with the letter p and the oil is shemin with letter shin and if you take that if you take those three the what's called the russian tavo if you take the first letter of ner sil and shemen it spells nephesh which is our life force which is our soul so when we look at the candles the candles themselves are supposed to be that inner life force the candle the flame that's inside of us the pilot light being turned on every single night a little bit more another beautiful symbolism that perhaps you've heard is that hanukkah is eight days and we know in jewish mysticism and kabbalah and the deeper sources they speak about seven being completion of the natural order completion of the physical world and how so many things revolve around seven seven days of the week the seven continents the seven colors of the rainbow the seven musical notes and it goes on and on and on and in judaism holidays are seven days there's so much in terms of seventh represents completeness chronicles eight days and eighth is transcendent it is metaphysical it is infinity eight is the the days of when when a child has a circumcision to show that this is our contribution about how we're going to break through the physical chains how we're going to break beyond our physical capacity our capacity as human beings and we're going to become in this lifetime even bigger even greater and every single night the lighting of the candles one night and two nights and three nights up to eight shows that we're growing we're lighting the fire there's so many symbolisms within the story of hanukkah another beautiful one if you look at the uh the the the chronicles which on is 25th day of the jewish month of kisly and if you look at the 25th word in the torah the 25th word of the torah is or his light a hint to the light of chanukah and we know what is that life it was the first day god said let there be light and there was light and the commentaries say that this wasn't a physical life this wasn't a natural light this wasn't a light bulb or fluorescent light bulb or even the side of the moon this light was called the origamis the hidden light this term enlightenment that so many religions throw around each one with their own language what is enlightened meant enlightenment is trying to tap into the spiritual life the light the hidden light of creation that or hagan is the light of the first day of creation hinted to in the 25th word in the torah so once again the light of the hanukkah menorah the beautiful candles of hanukkah menorah are meant to be that light inside of us what does the chanukah story teach me as to how to do it and what i want to speak about in our time together tonight is to try to look back a little bit at the hanukkah story itself and see how the story can provide us guidance for where we are today where the world is today what does the hanukkah story the story itself what does it symbolize how can we take that story and cut it and paste it to our lives because we know we know that every single holiday is not all about this story in history that happened two thousand one thousand or however long ago it happened the the holiday is meant to be the story of today my story our story and the historical aspect of it the commemorative aspect of it is meant to give us a window how can we relive that story how can we make that story our story so the chanukah story we know we teach it to all of our kids we know the wonderful story of the oil the the the talmud teaches us the oil last it was always those last for one day and it lasted for eight days we know about the story you know about the maccabees and how they won this war they were a small army against the big army but the hanukkah story is a little bit bigger than that all of these stories really focused on the moment that hanukkah became chanukah but what we have to look at to fully understand the chanukah story is the moment in time that hanukkah entered into the universe because the story is more than what happened it's when it happened every single holiday you know we don't just make holidays for miracles we don't just make holidays wrinkles we have had so many miracles that have happened to us throughout our history and if if if we made a a holiday for every single one we would all be very very very much stuffing our faces all the time and it would not be healthy because we do not always eat as healthy as we should during these holidays you can't have a holiday every single time this is a miracle the holidays that we have commemorate miracles that happen at very specific points of transition in the history of the world and the history of the jewish people the miracle itself was god's way of saying we're undergoing a change now next face we're moving on the way that you live the way that you practice the way that things were up until now they're going to change every single holiday that commemorates something and obviously we know how passover we went from being a non-nation just as people swallowed up in egypt to being the jewish nation that's an easy one to see but we know that shavuot went from not having a torah to having the torah purim comes in very strategically in history right between the first and the second temple transition and the story of chanukah itself represents a massive transition in how jews practiced what jews used as a way to connect to god let's take a look at that a little bit closer if we want to understand what a moment in history represents and we look at who are we look at the enemy we look at who were at war against and the contrast there's going to be a contrast being brought out between us and between them there is a powerful concept that's found many many times in jewish mystical texts that's called means this opposite this and that means that when there is an energy that is entered into the world the shepherd something is coming from god a godly energy that can be taken and that can be used for holiness or it can be used for impurity or at the very or you know even just mundane it's mundane use or even worse it can be used for impurity so when there's great potential when there's potential there's an awakening in mankind when we see a new any new movement and if you even look today at any of the movements there's so many movements that are out there you don't have to look you know more than just the last the half a year and all of the movements that are shaking up the world as we know it our country as we know it and we see that every single movement has in its holy aspects and every single movement has within it it's impure aspects and so much that falls in that gray space in between so let's look at the greeks and let's look at what they represented and let's try to find a little bit of a common thread and maybe those who are part of the mind flex program last night touched on this and maybe we can go a little bit deeper because we'll see something absolutely incredible absolutely incredible and that is that there was a movement happening within the world at large being affected by the greeks and a movement happening within the jewish world and that they're somewhat parallel except one on the side of holiness and the other on the side of the more mundane we know historically that the greeks made massive contributions to society contributions in their philosophy in government and democracy in the sciences in the arts architecture sculpture they're into wisdom they're very cultured me smart and so much of the cultured world that we know today is inspired by greece that who can say that in our own lives we're not affected by a world that is the outgrowth of what greece introduced to the world right if most of the of the entertainment most of the beautiful things are somewhat will connect back to that they made a massive impact on the world and really did create a much more improved much more civilized world in many ways and one of the things that the greeks were emphasizing was the power the emphasis would focus on the human being and the focus on what we can become that our creativity can create art that our minds can create new governments new systems do math new science the fact that the human being is amazing is incredible on the physical realm they were very big into their bodies and their athleticism to show that every single part of us our creativity our intellect and even our bodies are something they're beautiful which is one of the reasons why we see in many of the jewish texts they say that we're not meant to push away greece but we're meant to utilize what they introduced to the world and use it for holiness but we also have to look at what was going on in the jewish world and again the chanukah story which happened second century bce was a response to something that was going on for almost two centuries before that the hanukkah story didn't happen in a bubble it didn't happen in you know three days the hanukkah story was an outgrowth of a hellenization that was going on for a much longer time but how what was causing it well what started it and the rabbis teach us that there was a massive shift in how we operated as jews that happened just as alexander the great was conquering massive areas of land and changing over his section of the world there was also a massive change happening in judaism and what was that it was the end of the era of prophecy malachi the last prophet with his death prophecy was gone and up until then from the really the beginning when judaism first began at mount sinai with the great prophet mosher of being moses all the time when the jewish people were in israel the first temple we were very much dependent on those prophets prophets to guide us and the deeper commentaries explain that even if you weren't the prophet the fact that you lived during the era of prophecy meant that your spiritual connection was somehow being plugged into that prophecy somehow their spiritual wifi that they brought down with their prophecy everybody was plugged in everybody felt it to the point this is what the this is what many of the of the of the commentaries jewish tradition teaches that even when they study torah even when they study torah it was an aspect it was a level of prophecy malachi dies prophecy leaves and at that point the jewish people need to readjust we need to redefine themselves who are we now something amazing happens if we take a look at all of the books that we have of the oral torah and you know torah sheba is something that is as old as the as any part of torah comes right down at mount sinai together with everything else so the oral torah was there it was part of jewish life from the beginning but yet at that point in time when the prophecy is finished when the era of prophecy is finished something happens with the oral torah suddenly starts becoming alive in a whole new way the talmud says that at that point in time and really you can track it with the names beginning with the the names of all of the rabbis were more or less around the spirit and again we're talking about a couple of centuries here and i'm not going to get into the dates because i'll because i'll lose you and i'll lose me but the overall time this this second temple period was a time when with prophecy gone the conversations that are happening suddenly the the talmud says suddenly there's no debates happening and while that might seem scary because suddenly we have all of this different conversation and yet it seems very dynamic but i'm saying one thing and you're saying something else and how could they both be right and then the talmud says something absolutely wonderful many many times it is possible that we could be having a conversation i could be saying yes you could be saying no i could be saying pink you could be saying blue and yet both your words both my words these are the words of god what does that mean what's the word of god this is this rabbi's opinion how could it be the word of god he's arguing with another rabbi you're saying something else the talmud says no that's not the way that all tradition works this is a gift this is a gift to the jewish people to say you're part of this process you're part of the development you have the tools you have the groundwork you have the written torah you have the tradition up until this point you have the mechanisms that you need to go and study now go and make it something absolutely amazing build on it build on it because these are the words of god you know there's a fascinating fascinating line that says that when you're quoting someone when you're saying over a torah an idea with the torah that you heard from somebody else you should quote it in their name and there's a fascinating explanation to that that when we say something recording a piece of talmud or or you know this this wonderful saver and i say the the ish coders said this said this this person said this their actual names become part of the statement of torah they themselves have become the channel by which this torah enters into the world divreil it's the word of god the word of god is now being manifested through them to their own opinions which came through the study of the written torah that is a fascinating idea to the point that we believe that in every single word of torah that we learn whether it's the talmud whether we're learning the commentaries there is an aspect of the word of god in there even though if you would have asked the person saying they were like hey you're a prophet like no prophecy is gone i'm pretty sure that i came up with that but it's the word of god somehow or another within this oral torah within this jewish tradition we somehow say that my own insight my own perspective can be fused together with the word of god a fascinating idea you know moshe moses in his final song to god and pasha's hazing so he says his word should be like rain and his saying should be like dew the commentary is saying that rain is compared to the written torah and do is compared to the oral torah because rain is always raining down i i feel like i'm out of control but i'm sitting there i'm walking seems like a nice day and then suddenly it starts raining oh i don't have my umbrella right it seems like i'm being poured upon something coming on me i'm out of control yet dude you never get stuck in the due storm right supposed to come from below and it just seems to be there where did it come from it just seems to materialize and you know when you have this insight when you're studying torah and you have a question and you're thinking about it you're racking your brains and you sleep on it and you you walk around the block and you pace back and forth and you're bothered by it and suddenly it came to me light bulb aha moment what is that what is that did that come from either they come from god was that a prophecy i don't know i don't know that's the power of the oral torah let's compare once again the world of greece and what's going on within the jewish people at that time there's an energy flowing into the world in the world of greece that means that suddenly they're seeing the power of the human being wow look at that human being look at his how big his muscles could become look how smart he can be look how we can come up with math what do we go with science look how we could create that sculpture how we could create that art and we could create that music wow that human being and in the jewish world they're saying the same thing wow look at that human being look how he can come up with that torah insight was that a prophecy i don't know i don't think so but yet it seems like it's the word of god it seems so true it seems so powerful it's the same movement happening except in one place it's happening for the mundane the other place is happening for holiness there's this amazing line from believe it or not but it's quoted many times in the world of art and in the world of creativity and that it's a line from socrates who lived at that time and socrates i'm going to read this for you because i i wouldn't be able to remember it on our own but what socrates says is this thing about poetry and he says if man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the gods sounds very greek right believing that technique alone will make him a good poet he and his same compositions will never reach perfection but are utterly eclipsed by the performance of the inspired madman what is he talking about why do i love this color i love this quote the socrates is saying is the artist to the poet and we hear sometimes even when we hear are they songwriters when they speak and they speak about that creative thing it came through me it came through me hey the song came to me even in the world of art they seemed to sense that something just happened that was bigger than me it was outside of me that language that they're speaking about in that world of art in that world of science in the world of medicine the jewish people are making that same trans transition except they're talking about in the world of torah it came to me this insight came to me i don't think it was a prophecy but i'm not sure that it came from me either this is something so wonderful so true but it's coming from inside here it's not coming from there it's not raining down on me it's like dude it's coming from inside raising itself up the story of chanukah represents the transition from the world of prophecy the world of having to look outside of myself for the world of torah sheba the world of the oral torah which is about looking inside and trying to find the renewal inside of me we opened up and we said that the ace kodesh says that in our journey we need to move beyond always looking to be inspired by the external flame and we need to develop a hit rock shoot an inner emotion so that we can build out of that with a fiery flame that hitler with that fiery flame is the flame of the menorah and that's why we make sure that on the very first night we're lighting one and then two and then three because it's just a pilot light but if we're consistent about it and we continue it's growing and it's growing and it's growing how does that look in our life and how does that look in our life today the past eight months for everyone and every individual at his own and her own stage there comes that point that we need to make this transition from stopping to look outwards and starting to look inwards in the last eight months many jews have had to learn how to do everything over again but we thought we had prayer down for those of you right who go to go to a minion go to school part of the synagogue or you don't go but everything is sort of in a system right yeah i go here i pray here i do it this time and then i go to this class and this is my rabbi and i go to this chair and and this is the khasi that i do and this is the kindness and i go to this wedding and i go to that show abraham and i helped this one and everything was very sad and then boom suddenly i have to relearn everything you learn how to pray again learn how to study torah again we learn how to be kind in a different way we have to learn how to be a a spouse again how to be a parent again how to be a child again in in this in this whole new environment and so many people over the last eight months have said this is exactly what i needed i needed this i needed this change because judaism became so rote i just the there was no pilot life it was nothing inside it was just okay you know what's the rabbit going to speak about what's the minion gonna be like everything is just relying on everybody else and suddenly people were home and they had to open the sitter prayer book and they had to say without dominion without the synagogue people sitting in there at their passover seders without the big family looking at the haggadah or looking at their whatever they're learning without sitting with a whole group of people and asking themselves what does it mean to me what do the prayers mean to me what does passover mean to me what does sukkot mean to me and people learned how to pray again in a whole new way they learn to look into a sitter and say okay you know what i can go at my own pace now i'm not in a rush i'm not going anywhere so let me pull out let me take a note of that hey you know what i've been saying that line for 37 years of my life and i never realized how beautiful it is and i'm not gonna rush it today because i got all the time in the world i'm just gonna stop i'm gonna think about it i'm gonna let it sit in my head i remember being in yeshiva and i remember the first time coming up with a novel idea a new concept because we're studying the torah we're studying the talmud gemara and we find this contradiction and i'm thinking about it and suddenly a new idea comes and it's so exciting but it doesn't have to end in yeshiva every single time we sit down at our shabbat table and we share advartora is it just one that we pulled off the shelf some you know an english book that gave us some sort of canned vartana we're creative about it we think about something fresh something that speaks to us it's the freshness that beauty and something else another blessing of the last eight months another blessing of this time of code was that suddenly all of the greatest teachers all the stuff is online and maybe we were boxed into only learning specific only studying specific things because that's what we had available and now everything is available every single rap i went on zoom and literally made their stuff available for the world i should not just rather i'd teach all types of teachers the the the opening the worlds of availability in terms of study and now is the just a wonderful time to say what what am i missing in my jewish knowledge what do you want to learn more about can i access it now that there's so much information available it was all about looking inside and saying okay where do i go from here because we can't always look outside we need to be able to find it within ourselves how can we use our own creativity our own style what's unique about my shabbat table where does it have my flair my jewish home my study my prayer where does it have my own uniqueness my own unique touch that was the blessing of what this time brought and in many ways hanukkah challenges us to do that to look inwards just end just for the last couple of minutes with some more symbolism over the course of hanukkah one one candle on the first night two on the next night three on the next night if we added all together so we get 36 lights and the commentaries have said that the 36 lights correspond to the 36 hours that adam and eve were in the garden of eden from the time that they were created until through the very first shabbat when they were allowed to stay 36 hours in total and for those 36 hours they had this brilliant brilliant connection to god absolutely revealed their eating from the tree of knowledge put them in a state of lower consciousness but until they left the garden of eden it was still there just sitting there sun tanning in this godly beautiful hidden light that we spoke about then they left and what happened to that light it became an orahoganas became a hidden light a hidden light means it's still there they just have to go and find it commentaries say that light is referred to 36 different times throughout the torah almost as if it's hidden in all of these different places these 36 hidden lights and in our life it's like that also we're always looking for those little menorah lights we're always looking for those little opportunities those little things that tell us a little bit more about what inspires us and when adam and eve when they fall from this high level god god asks them a question in one word ayaka where are you and we know that that very word ayaka has numerical value 36 it's god's way of saying i know you don't feel me now in this full high definition right you don't feel me in this powerful way but don't think that i'm gone ayeka you just have to find yourself ayeko where are you if you find yourself if you find what inspires you and you build on that then you will find those 36 candles you will find your way back to that hidden light in the chanukah story just because prophecy turns off doesn't mean that the jewish people can't remain connected they just have to find it within ourselves and when we are not finding inspiration from outside it just means that god is saying i need to pull back hashem is saying i need to pull back a little bit now because you're becoming too independent on inspiration coming from outside it's time for you to find yourself it's time for you to become it's time for you to be creative it's time for you to create use your mind use your emotions use whatever you can and add your own flair and if it doesn't feel like it's working the process of looking inwards the process of hit rock shoot is very different it's not like it followed it's not like standing at the hotel with live music in the background and being suddenly awake it's not like having an influence or yell at you or your or or the motivational speaker or the rabbi give me that powerful thing where you just go out and say i'm gonna change the world because we know that that only lasts only so long it's a process of one light and then two lights and then three lights the very famous story is a very famous story and we're going to end with this compound interest the miracle of compound interest so this amino little story is his father is on his deathbed and he offers us an inheritance to two of his children he says you have a choice i can give you a million bucks right now or if you want i can give you one penny but for the next 30 days every single day that penny is gonna be doubled and one sounds like a penny that sounds like so little who would want that this is some sort of scam give me a million bucks i'll take it walk away the other son says oh my father must have something up the sleeve i'm gonna take the penny and the next day that penny is two pennies and then it's four and then it's eight and it's too late at night for me to do all the math but one thing that i can tell you is that at the end of the month the two sons meet one another and the guy who took the million dollars got a million bucks the guy who took the penny has got well over that the number and again you'll do the math on your own but his number is crushing the other one millions and millions because that little penny doubled every single day when we're finding our own path we try this we try that it doesn't it it doesn't always feel like it's going to be a big explosion today but it's the consistency of saying i can be a little bit better today and i can be a little bit better than that tomorrow and i can grow a little bit more i'm going to be consistent about it in these small tweaks and it's like watching the clock where you can never really see it moving but then you look back and you're like wow spirituality is about the long game it's about the long game it's not just about always feeling amazing it's about saying i'm gonna stick to this program and i'm gonna always reach down deeper and deeper and deeper and make today just a little bit better make that one flame into two and then into three and we're going to compound on that spirituality until i'm a full menorah until i'm up to that eight night that number of transcendence until the hidden light a lot of enlightenment just pulsing through me until i could look back at my life or look back at this large section of my life and say this is what i became through my hard work through my toil and then hanukkah which comes at the darkest time of the year but it comes at that transitional moment because shortly after hanukkah then suddenly the days get longer the tree becomes too bishop and the trees start blowing again they start blossoming again that point that transition in my life of always having to rely on that external inspiration and looking inwards and turning it into a full flame a full he's live look one that i could look back on and feel fully inspired and full of joy thank you all so much for joining i hope this was meaningful i hope that it added to hanukkah let's connect somehow it was unusual meeting you through this medium but um easy to find online via the social medias as well and uh hopefully this is just the beginning of a wonderful wonderful journey may we all be soccer maybe all merit to feel enlightened and to feel that spiritual connection wishing you all a happy hanukkah