Chanukah Day #3 | Judaism Cherishes Community, But Also Loves Individuality

it's an interesting lawn the talmud recorded and shrek date shabbos 23b by the great talmudic sage rover say you have 10 jews who all want to light the hanukkah menorah but they don't have 10 menorahs so they take one bowl they fill it with oil and they place inside the bowl around and around ten wicks and they kindle these wicks can we say that all of these ten jews have fulfilled the mitzvah of lighting the hanukkah menorah so in a classic talmudic distinction rather says it depends if you place a vessel over the bowl so that each of the ten wicks emerges independently it's perfectly fine each one of them fulfill the mitzvah but if the bowl filled with oil and the ten wicks is just left open there's no utensil covering it then rover says nobody fulfill the mitzvah because from a distance it seems like just one large bonfire a medura so 10 people didn't do the mitzvah not even one person did the mitzvah because you're supposed to kindle a flame not a bonfire and this articulates a profound message in judaism there is the light that we generate together as a collective it's the value of family of community as hillel says in the ethics of the fathers shanil asks me if i am only for myself then what am i we all need attachment we all need connection and together as a collective we create something incredible that we cannot create on our own but there's another element in judaism and that is to recognize the indispensable contribution of your soul of your life of your mind of your body of your unique gift each and every single one of us is an indispensable note in the divine cosmic symphony the day you were born is the day god said that the world is incomplete without you without your unique energy and creativity without your unique neshama your soul and your presence it goes back to the genesis of our history god always promises our patriarchs beginning with abraham and isaac and jacob i'm going to make your children like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea and the commentators ask there's a lot of sand on the beaches but you can't compare the number of grains of sand to the number of stars the number of stars exceed the sand so once god tells abraham your children are going to be like the stars of heaven isn't it redundant and anti-climactic to say we're also going to be like the sand of the sea but the answer of course is stars and sand represent two different qualities you see one grain of sand is pretty valueless on its own but when you bring together many grains of sand you create a phenomenal beach that's the power of unity with stars it's very different stars are individualistic every star shines on its own and when stars collide they destroy each other so god tells abraham your descendants are going to have a dual quality they're going to be like the sand of the sea but like the stars of heaven they're going to cherish and appreciate the power of community the power of oneness the power of cohesion like the sand of the sea but they're also going to possess the quality of being like the stars of heaven every single one of them casting a unique light to illuminate our planet to illuminate our lives every one of us was born unoriginal we must make sure that we don't die as copies happy hanukkah [Music]