The Jewish Story: Interlude: Hanukkah - Releasing the Light Within

[Music] okay good evening everybody and welcome thank you all for coming - at this point I have no idea how long we've been doing this year but it's the 20th the oort said my father Charles Martin foyer the Taliban Abraham passed away and in this cuff bet he slept which is tonight that was December 1st in 1999 Dominion Nam and before get started sure I just want to do a couple of housekeeping items first of all welcome to party since - thank you so much those who've never been here before take a look it's the center of Jerusalem whether you know it or not everybody's curious I'm happy and I'm sure several of our students would be happy to tell you more about the place when we're done that's number one we're cold Oksana's they say number two I've never people asked me if book two of the age of prophecy series was out it's right here if you don't know the age of prophecy series is it happens to be wave Dave my co-author is right here and he'll be able to explain it not while I'm talking but they are here they're on sale I'm happy to to tell people about that afterwards number three is I want to take the opportunity to say a word about the Jewish story because those of you who are here yet last year which is actually a good a good crop of the folks know that last year we did a launch party for the Jewish story and it's been fantastic successful want to thank everybody for the work they've done for their support if you're not yet a listener so you can find the Jewish story at my website Jewish story dot Co or simply on iTunes or frankly if you google it you'll come out with it if you are listening and you're not yet a supporter I want to make a call right now for people to put their money where the ears are you know in a world which is facing a narrative divide where it seems like we've lost the ability to speak to those who don't agree with us I'm telling a story where Christians and Jews religious secular conservatives and progressives are all listening to the same story and if you think that's an important part of the solution to the type of crisis of communication that we're facing today I encourage you like I said put your money where your ears are you can go to the website there's a little button there that says be a patron or you can ask me directly trust me jack cash check I'll figure out how to take your credit card if you really push me um and last I'm certain at least if you are a supporter thank you thank you guys because you make this happen and I'm really excited and I think that's it for the housekeeping for now so the title that Shearer is releasing the light within and it's a bit of a retrospective for me 20 years since my father passed away I remember some of us were sitting 10 years ago in the Beit Midrash assume Yaakov allow Shalom and somebody asked me 20 10 years seems like a long time and it actually didn't seem that long to me at the time but when I sat and started thinking about 20 years that indeed actually struck me as it's been quite a while so with your permission rather than telling kind of the same stories they tell about my father every year although I'm sure one or two for the most pop up I want to take a second and just contemplate what that means because you know if you look at the mission and our votes which people are probably familiar with there's a whole educational approach five years the Micra ten years the mission etc and it goes on to all the different sort of stages of life it says been a stream little dull right you're meant to be pursuing when you're 20 now it's speaking about partner size speaking about making a living but you know it's some sense I'm 20 years old today the person that basically everybody not basically that everybody in this room knows is 20 years old and it's one of the challenges I really face in my life of trying to put things together is that that no one in my life today that I interact with on a daily basis even knew my father if the stranger actually went and googled Charles Martin foyer today just to see what would happen you know what happened not a whole lot because the world in which I live is not the world in which he lived and my father was an electrical engineer he was actually graduate from University of Michigan with a degree in electrical engineering had a very very low draft number he was going to Southeast Asia but actually got a deferment from the army because he took a job for Michigan Bell in essential industries and as I said to him at my graduation from college right he never actually had a chance to pause never out of college got avoid the war into work he and my mom were married actually before he graduated and my brother had me work work work we were not cheap or easy children so at a certain point when I was I'm the younger brother when I graduated from college and I had an opportunity the whole world was wide open in front of me here I'm gonna tell the story good you know well right yeah the whole world's wide open in front of me and I had no debt I had an excellent education I had all this potential and that's what I actually want to speak about today is this power of potential and how do you release the light how do you release the light the Chanukah is that is the holiday of lights we're all nearly lighting candles but how do you release the light it's not a symbolic act so so I haven't decided not to get a job and I asked my mom actually to tell my dad I wasn't gonna get a job and she said no way you can tell him and sure enough he comes up to me right before graduation says so your mother tells me you're not getting a job yes right go mom and I said yeah you know I want to go to Australia I wanna go to start I want to travel in forever on Asia and this big plan and he said why and I said you know my dad because I can you didn't ever have a chance like I said out of college work avoid the war kids make a living there was never a pause and I have this great blessing of having had a pause in my life to ask what's the potential and so you know you listen that we should know my father was a tremendous listener a number of my friends at that graduation weekend came up in the afterwards that I said the most intense conversation with your father around the keg he also was quite a competent drinker the it this was really one of the great gifts that he was able to give to me to my brother really to everyone he knew is that as I've said here before I don't really have so many memories of anything my father said to me but I have a lot of memories of him listening and I think in many ways that's even more important to me so sure enough at the end of graduation he comes up to me he hands me a card and I open it up and there's a check for the plane ticket to Australia and he says to me all I want you to do is keep a journal that's all I ask which I did for a good five years afterwards because he saw the potential right and so it's a bit of a cliche to say that um the loss of someone's father at a young age I was 25 he was 53 when he died to say that it provokes a crisis of faith is um it's like you know yeah exactly I make that face do-right nonetheless but I actually the real question is what's the nature of that crisis in other words what do we mean by faith people speak about living in the light of faith it's like a big question today in the postmodern world what else face looked like after fill in the blank after the Holocaust after Hiroshima I don't know after the White House they can take a big you know and you know what I want to point out and what I want to carry through this xiu'er is there's kind of two faces that question one is why did this happen right what is it what's what's the meaning can I extract from something which essentially exists outside of me right that the essential importance of the world lies outside of us and our task is to decipher it the other one is what does this mean which is a fundamentally different stance now that means that the essence of life lies within in my tasses to imbue the world and everything which it offers with meaning and to paraphrase Viktor Frankl as he says that the meaning of life is found not by asking what life means but by recognizing that life is asking you that question at all times right so Mike what does it mean that your father died suddenly what does it mean that the temple was liberated from the Greeks what does it mean that we're sitting in the rebuilt Jerusalem you understand the difference that you know that meaning exists out there and our only hope is to somehow find it which I don't know about you that's been a particularly dissatisfying approach in my attempts to understand the difficult things in my life or I hear it as a question to me and then the answer the power to answer that question lies within so everything in lie is a question from God that is the meaning of faith in my eyes and the question is what does this mean and the answers we give to the questions that are posed by our life by history you know are an expression of the divine within us that has the capacity to give the real meaning to life past present and future remember if God was just sort of planting meaning in the world if we knew what kind of comment and I will come to comic in a minute don't be nervous if we knew what kind of comment then we wouldn't still be discussing it today somebody said to me before the sheriff I don't get even doing this for almost 15 years how's it possible actually say something new about Connick every year so the only answer that is well we've been doing it for 2,500 who read the parsha this week yeah that's a waste of time right how many times have you personally read it much less how many times has it been read and you get the point right so I can tell you this my father was a man who loved life as well do you doesn't touch it my father loved and believed in me and in many other people but I'm the one talking and my father would have wanted to see the world which I built for myself and for my children and last but certainly not least he didn't get through so what does that mean and what does it have to do with chronica well I can tell you that age 20 dentistry middle I'm pursuing that meaning and every year I build a little bit more so you know Connick is funny in that of course there's no track tape Konica right not in the Mishnah certainly not mammarra right there's no book of chronicles of look at the Maccabees but but our tradition that's kept it on the outside there's an interesting book I highly encourage read in the first year the other words are like knockoff sequels it's not so worth your time but the strangest thing about the treatment Annika does get in our tradition is it all starts with a question my Hanukkah you've heard it before it's a strange thing say my poem my pass off and of course the garagas it's answer but you know we're juice here don't let an answer ruin a good question right so is this a act of driving meaning or making it so if we start looking in the text the earliest texts that we actually have that attempts to answer the question actually well predates the Gemara its Josephus you see this great historian of the Second Temple era not gonna tell this story you can look it up but he actually says a very clear answer well actually not so clear but you can look on your source sheet if you have it there it's the first source I gave you from the antiquities but he speaks about oh sorry obviously the Maccabees comes the book of Maccabees comes before Josephus but they're not trying to give some answer to the meaning of the story why not they're living it that's a very important point right it's only afterwards right this is what wallace stegner in a beautiful book called the angle of repose which you should all know them and read it tonight um calls the Doppler effect of time as life is coming at you it increases in pitch you don't have time to contemplate it at best you can live it right it's only once it passes in the wavelength stretches out right that's the ambulance you can begin to actually wonder like what did that mean so the Maccabees we're not gonna look through right now although it's a discussion we've had before maybe they'll come up at the end for now Josephus is really the first text that we have who attempts to answer this question unpaused yet by the Gemara because that comes hundreds of years later what's Hanukkah and his answer is light all right tell us a brief part of the story there very glad and yada yada yada but here's the last line I gave you from this time we celebrate this festival and call it lights now remember if you're not familiar that the story of nice package Eman the the little cruse of oil which burned for eight days is not in the book of Maccabees it's a classic question now the book of Maccabees it's not in the ton of attic material it's not in the earliest reference to Hanukkah which in in rabbinic literature which is known as McGill at town eat right which is a list of dates on which we don't fast or say eulogies that if only appears actually in the gomorian bobbly then some later sources but we'll come to that momentarily so but nevertheless Josephus says it's called lights which all of us haven't grown up with the story of Connick I want him to say why is it called lights well when in then they found the jar of oil and no he says in it's strange we call it lice I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us and that vents the name was given to it the answer is that I suppose he knows it's called light and there must be some reason for it but it doesn't really know why so what does he do he puts his own meaning on it I meaning which was very important to him we're not gonna go into the eyes of Josephus but the reality is it was quite critical this question of Liberty in the time when Rome had just destroyed the temple but there's other early sources that speak about this camel I didn't bring it to you but but one of the classics is the Gemara I'm sorry the the the Mishnah in bava kamma that talks about in legal damages if a camel is carrying a bunch of flax and it is like overflowing into the courtyard of a store and lights on fire because of the store owners candle so the camel driver is liable for damages because you should pack your camel better always remember that right um but if it's outside he's still liable unless what this is Hanukkah cuz that everybody knows you're gonna have candles outside interesting nobody says why but everybody knows everybody has so much so that it's actually exempts you from damages which if you're familiar with civil law that's a very strong assertion everybody knows to the point where I will exempt you from your responsibility for damages so the light is out there but we don't know why and so that's what I want to do I want to look a little bit about where this light comes from and use the light as a metaphor in order to understand a little bit about this process of deriving meaning of creating meaning and what really lies between them a word on metaphor before we go much further man towards a funny thing there's a common assumption that metaphor works like this right God stretched out God's mighty hand and strong-armed into the children feeds out of Israel Egypt right but God doesn't have a hand right raise your hand if you have a hand I'm gonna check if you're listening right um so therefore it's a it's a metaphor right this is a hand and we use it to understand something about God I've got news for you you're wrong not how it works God has a hand this is a metaphor a Yod is the ability to assert will in the world which of course only God can really do in its fullness and we have this appendage which is expressive of the divine that's mean when we're created in the divine image you may have noticed Rashi is insistent if fella moved DeMuth it's Debus right meaning your shape is specifically reflective of the divine that's why every aspect of your physical being is a metaphor for some aspect of the divine so therefore metaphors are not simply a tool to understand the world they're an embodiment of meaning which is when we speak about Chanukah life that's exactly what I want to get at what meaning are they embodying and is it fixed so what's the oldest story of Chanukah anybody know you'd probably look at your story to figure it out there's a great one in every culture more or less of the Northern Hemisphere has some holiday celebrating light and darkness in the midwinter it's fairly natural I think for ancient cultures just like this time of year I mean granted winter is please God let it calm let it be soon let me cold let it snow but right now it's not so impressive nevertheless raisin have you grew up in the Midwest like me right here yes you know what a real winter is on the Northeast right Oh Canada Oh Canada well but ok fair enough we always forget can't I don't we so so like you can understand why it would be very important to celebrate the existence of light when a time where and certainly with for agent humanity you might actually doubt that it was ever coming back but Chanukah waits it's not a biblical holiday it's not there from the gods I perspective that the Torah gives us it waits except the the rabbis fill in a backstory here on your sword sheath in the Gemara Nevada Zara that when Adam after the sin noticed that the world was gradually getting darker because the days were getting shorter Reid heading into winter he says woe is me why cuz this is the death that he had been promised for eating from the tree Manek the world is going to die he fasts for eight days fortunately approaching the winter solstice and then being an excellent observational astronomer notices that the days are getting longer again and says oh that's just how the world works and he celebrates it it's very interesting we're all going to discussion now because it's just kind of a setup but it's interesting to note that the sages insists that these were sacred holidays in the beginning that autumn fixed these as as a time of celebration and that they were taken by the nations of the world and made an idolatrous there's a classic vision that the sages have that there's a natural religion which is bound up with God and then there's a corruption of natural religion which is idolatry and then there's a redemption of that which we call Torah and it's a process which begs the question of what's the next phase look like but we'll get there um but in this sense I want you to just remember the first stage of exposure of light is responsive you right you have to be photosensitive if you want to know what the world means you have to be responsive and responsiveness the light is one of the definitions of life I was trained as an EMT I'm gonna keep asking people to raise their hands how many guys were trained in the medical professions right right responsiveness to light is one of the ways you start measuring levels of consciousness this is a I mean it's not quite pain will get there right but it's a very low level of consciousness but nevertheless differentiates between life and death if you cannot respond to the world around you then there's not much hope that any light will come from the situation okay that's the first element of the metaphor I mean I'll make it obvious and just point out that many people have things happen to them in their life and they never respond not by asking what does this mean and not by asking or looking at it the question to them of what it means right and and I think a lot of people live with a lot of darkness because of that not out of judgment just out of the callous that we put around ourselves in order to not be responsive to the world all right next step we can move from responsive to another aspect of light I thought about doing this as like a demonstration but it's dangerous to play with matches anywhere especially in the Beit Midrash but just think about striking a match it's it's it's a striking notion no um the strange thing but this room is filled with energy so is filled with energy potential energy all around us right now it might take you a while by breaking a piece of this table off and rubbing against that piece of table to prove it to yourself but it is possible to release that energy what stands in the way of releasing that energy what action where you have to release the potential inside first of all you have to know it's there it's an astounding thing that for most of the history of humanity we thought there was light and there was matter and never the two shall meet Oh fire thing was and when it was once it was understood was a chemical reaction but the idea that light and matter are only one thing came to us much later who brought that one out Einstein right and and before we even get into the details of where I think that goes just appreciate the conceptual courage that's involved in looking at the world and saying yeah I know everybody thinks that matter and energy or difference but they're wrong the conceptual courage is one of the most important elements in being able to draw a light out of a dark situation in being able to look at dead matter and say no no there's life in there it's a conceptual courage which I would argue is second perhaps only to another great who was his ancestor Abraham the whole world says no idolatry he says I don't think so and he goes looking and he brings a great light the world by the way it is a parallel of course Abram Matityahu in the Maccabees the whole world is going Greek everybody says it's the best way to do it hellenism is the cultural rage they're making movies everybody dresses like them right and suddenly much I don't want a Sun stand up and they say no this is actually darkness it's the in dark admit as aware that praise instead of the Enlightenment gotta hang out with a firma crap the so this ability to see light in the in earth in matter is a product of conceptual courage you have to have some ability to step out of the frame so how like how do we know the light is there well we're gonna keep going with the order here even though I can feel my brain changing this even as we speak but um there's a beautiful notion that that the the tell me you saw me I didn't I didn't bring it to you here well then tell me you saw me brings down a beautiful notion that the origin news right the original light of creation God's statement ie he Oh let there be light that the organiz of course if you've read Rashi know that it didn't stick around God hid it away from whom for the righteous right um I'll do a plug you should all listen to the partes podcast because you can get the full story on the Oregon news they're coming out probably next week next week but for now that light gets hidden away it gets hidden away except the rashaam he says but it's stuck around for how long 36 hours 36 hours 12 hours of Shabbat 12 hours of the night of Shabbat 12 hours of the day of Jabari striking where else have you heard that number 36 before happens to be the number of candles that you will be lighting to fulfill the mitzvot Hanukkah and the 36:30 my herd over there that you gonna listen the other podcast where I can't there's only so far we can do it no but so there's there's a connection says the sauce ms great considered master of the second half of the 19th century there's a connection between these two lights original light of creation he says according the real chaos where the others are firms says the 36 candles we light on Hanukkah parallel with 36 hours that that original light of creation is shown and therefore he says it reappears every year when you light your Chanukah candles and that's a light that you can see from one end of the world to another what does that mean you can see from one end of the world to another you know we see not because of light alone we also see because of shadow the eye works through contrast the proof of that is is if I took a big flashbulb and set it off in this room flooded the room with light would you be able to see better no you'd be blind just think about that for a minute too much light blinds you we see through shadow but the organ news that original light of creation you don't need to see something by understanding what it's not it's not the either/or universe you simply can see what is and that means you can see from one end of the world to the other so that light gets hidden away tucked inside will speak a little bit about it more in a second but the sauce Emma says or quoting there okay off that it's also there in the candles of Conoco why because he points out that you know world the word for world in Hebrew is or lung which is strikingly similar similar as he points out to ALM right something which is obscure hidden or is Marlene which hides so if the world is somehow a veil over this light most of us never see it we call it the natural world this was a big part of our challenge with Greece right Greece was a materialist society they believed in the supremacy of the mind they weren't into our notions of Revelation that's an old battle one that we're still fighting it today but the basic premise a revelation is that the mind is a necessary but insufficient tool for understanding creation the old way to say that is the Emunah begins when the intellect ceases to be the proper tool for engaging in the world otherwise you know what you have to do you have to shrink the world to fit your mind and you live in a very small world no offense you're mine but it's certainly nice because it could be I wasn't looking here specifically we'll talk about that later why you plant yep really it's an it's an important challenge how do you live in a world bigger than you can imagine you have to believe that it's got more potential and then you have to figure out how to unleash it and the key when the sauce Emma's here engages on a deeper level well how was it that the generation that walked in darkness and the stages to find Greece as darkness its but gracious Robert goes through the four exiles and fits them back into some one of the first verses of creation each one has its quality the quality of the Exile Greece is darkness and we're still fighting it today this insistence that what you see is what you get he's a great tool for darkening people's eyes for removing their hope hope is one of the great lights of the world you know what hope is based in that what is does not define what will be as soon as you believe that what is defines what will be there's no place for hope I mean it might be cheery hope means that there's something you can't see which nevertheless will come to be and that's a great light how do you release it so the next stage after this responsiveness autumn unless you put up a callus when things happen to in life you respond Oh darkness is coming light comes of course his responses giving thanks and praise the Maccabees respond with masseur nephesh this some says the sauce amis but the generation that lived in the days of the wicked Greece walked in agnus but they serve God with a spirit of self-sacrifice even in the midst of that darkness I mean just think about it I mean you've got a small group I mean Quintus and I think Yahoo and his sons the whole world is against them not just the Greeks because let's not forget this is a cultural battle the Jews are against them this may sound familiar right their fellow Jews are telling them listen you're nuts this is the way of the world it's not just the way of the world in a fatalistic way this the way it ought to be and there's a small group of Jews saying no this is not our story I'll come back to that that's the last stage that question of what our story is this is not our story and and and they fight it's a bloody fight this is a bloody fight you know this is one of the funny things about Chanukah is that the meaning that we imbue it with changes according to who you ask right Konica the Adam was this natural religion for the Maccabees it was the sort of great national victory throwing off the yoke of not only the foreign oppressor but of the cultural oppression you know the Zionists or so the rabbis it's you know the day's Hanukkah thing we're gonna get to that don't worry right to design this what was it there's a classic Zionist song there was no oil there was no miracle guys heard that one it's like yeah it's like yeah like it expresses like who needs such a thing it's about the victory of might and you ask the average I don't want the average yes many um sort of liberal Jews today hanukkah's the celebration of religious freedom which mean it isn't unless you disagreed with the Maccabees it wasn't but you get my point is that is that there's so much there that can be drawn out so so here's the Maccabees and says he saw Sema's how do they access that organiz what you're gonna speak about what it is in one second how do they access that light that underlies creation is ceará nefesh self-sacrifice there's something which is more important than life and the amazing thing is that when you live a life which is dedicated to something greater than you you get more life it's fantastic thing living life for one's own self might seem like a great strategy for self-preservation but you're playing it small and you're cutting or you selling yourself short because there's much more life which can be released and masu it nefesh is the next stage of how we're at how we create light one is the responsiveness of light the next one like go after that that that match how come the match if it burns when I strike it doesn't just combust in the box right it needs activation energy I don't want to scare anyone but go back to your high school chemistry education and think about the difference between an endothermic and an exothermic reaction endothermic reaction is when you have to constantly put energy into in order to make it happen in which case as soon as you stop putting energy in it's over that's not what the match a match actually as an exothermic potential as soon as you start the reaction it goes to consumption burst of light so why doesn't the match just burn up in the box because it has an activation energy you always got to get over the hump if you want to let the light out of blood that's the way it is and as soon as you get over that home the light comes pouring so the maccabees they go for broke a guy in his kids small group of rebels it's insane right we're still telling their story today they build a kingdom unequaled in strength whatever it ends which is its own story that deserves a treatment some of us have spoken about it before but they build a kingdom unequaled in strength until the modern state of israel it's a fantastic release of light so all built in this year an effin and just to finish out the specimens cuz he deserves his own treatment so he points out that we should all rejoice because in this day right you say oh yeah meme hain Boozman hozhet these days in those in that time this all happened which means when you light your conquer light you're releasing some of that hidden light and you can benefit from it and rejoice because the Greeks wanted to make us forget and we're doing this act of remembering and not just remembering but advertising the miracle so we have this responsiveness of Adam we've got the activation energy of the Maccabees and there's one more piece that I want to put into it well actually before we get there a more personal note you know um Coggins also an agricultural holiday you guys know that right we think of that culture holidays as as that sawfish of votes so code it's fairly well known where they fall out no not as potatoes it's the at the end of the aisle of pressing season it's not when the olives grow this is the end of the pressing seasons you you've gather olives you let them ripen to the point where they're perfect pressing and you do it now is the time which is why we're all eating fried foods right um but if a fantastic metaphor for life and it's been used by many others before me not just me that um if you want to get the potential out of life it needs to be picked waited on ripen crushed strain process and then lit right they and that is a powerful and painful process I brought you guys a source here so the first is a quote from qohelet if anybody can tell me what pleasee a sneeze is I'm happy to hear later so call here from qohelet says eat the onion Shh deep run the hakama meanest a clue to the ketone alumina project right literally or literally a classic translation I have here is I've seen that wisdom is superior to following as lightly superior to darkness don't miss the resonance with conical because we're all arguing about what wisdom is with the Greeks is it Greek wisdom is in our wisdom but the reality is that there's another level that to this verse because a clone l'homme Amin has the gluts or heat on the owe me Nicosia could also mean what there's something in darkness which brings benefit to light there is a truth in that statement that the Zohar below it brings out the benefit of light only comes from darkness scissors are because the Tikhonov of white is black this is this contrast again right just like the tea grant goes on to say a bitter is sweet hey the power of light comes from that experience of darkness and I'm something that everybody here probably knows but it's worth saying anyway is that we should never know difficult things unless we want to grow right I would never say that I'm happy my father died but I can tell you standing here happy with who I am that it was the best thing that happened to me you can't take it back you only get to be who you are so either there's a you Tone the ohm you Nicosia there's a benefit that darkness brings the light through that crushing process but to extract something that you otherwise wouldn't be able to access and again go back to Viktor Frankl you can say why did this happen and you're gonna chase down a blind alley or you can hear the question being posed to you Mike what does this mean twenty years pursuing that meaning here we are so that's just an important moral piece which frankly I put in here and note to self don't forget this last element just in building a fairly loose structure here to understand what are we after was where again we're asking like how do you get the light one is you have to be responsive you have to be responsive that atoms experience of giving thanks in face of that light is what preserved that as part of human consciousness otherwise it's just another day we almost we wake up in the morning how many people said mow down kneel upon Ethel and they woke up this morning right how many of you meant it good that's a good percentage I mean it happens every morning and it's very hard to maintain an honest responsive posture to things which happen every day but I've got news to you if you can do it it's the key to drawing the light out of light the next phase is miss syrota nefesh whatever's for find something bigger than you to serve and the beauty is we'll draw out from you more than you already have we'll get you over that activation energy home we say it man he's on fire race I'm firing the bait meet Roger he's on fire for that they should we say it we say this why because we recognize that there's something in the human spirit which once activated is capable of more than you ever would have imagined and last but certainly not least oh and by the way that can be a crushing experience too but that as I said it's just a moral lesson that deserves remember the last but certainly not least is there's there's another funny fact of light which is the wave-particle problem right i'ma wave I'm a particle I'm going from perfectly I'm like if both is neither there's a power of light that has to be collapsed in order to be seen right light is potential its cruising through the ether Greeks after all right right he's cruising through the ether until it meets something something to refract it something to reflect it something to absorb it or something to observe it there's a power of consciousness which is a critical piece of what's underlying creation there's a light inside everything waiting for you to observe it you know the Kabbalists talk about light all the time people may be familiar with this language some of us have had a chance to learn rub cook together and if we have then you know I love that language of course names is cortex volt lights so what's he speaking out where does this light come from well it's actually quite simple to explain that in the beginning there's God everything else is essentially a solidification there's a light which slows down into matter which slows down into organic products which through the process of evolution yeah I said the e word comes up with what the dinosaurs they all get wiped out and that little gerbil under the rocks who happen to be small enough not to be worried the changing climate he's putting a man on the moon where does that original light of creation reappear most powerfully in our world in the chemistry of your brain it's a fantastic thing matter of producing energy you see it begins this light it becomes matter which becomes organic which releases that energy which allows you to do what no the world the light of consciousness can then of course as we say collapse the wave function it can give meaning to the plethora of possibilities members life about releasing the potential gives meaning to all that plethora of possibilities which exists in creation and you know what the primary tool of consciousness is and giving meaning creation language like he all said the boy olam let there be light but cook in well I think it's the last source ooh apparently not somebody else put this together oh I did bring you show me anyway um well cook here on the bottom of the second page in what to me is one of the most important passages in in the innominate interaction tool REI says serially motya forever oh well hi magma green at the new Maserati neshama prayer actualizes and brings to light the complete life that which is hidden in the depths within the shambhala so first of all which is not my focus but it needs to be emphasized if you want to let the light out in the world you got to pray and if you read the books of Maccabees by the way prayer plays a very important role in their victory right and aside from the mechanistic I pray because something outside of me is the meaning of the world God help me God help me the power of prayer that's not what Rob Cooke said what did he say the power of prayer was it releases the light inside of you just imagine you're walking down the beach and you come across a little jar in the sand you take it out it's metal you rub it off to see what it is what happens out comes the genie we've all heard the story right you better hope it's the best day you've ever had you know why cuz whatever that genie offers you you're gonna get whatever you asked for you'll know exactly who you are and you'll have to live it for the rest of your life what you pray for is who you are unstated but in potential and forcing yourself to put it into words releases something inside of you which could always remain murky you know this you've journaled before and you found this out you've spoken out your thoughts with a friend and you figure this out prayer works the same way that's why I'll cook said that it actualizes and brings to light that which is hidden in the depths of the neshamah but even more specifically he says a milan exhibit Oh God also favored a great light pours out with the well derived word choose your words carefully because they can cover over or they can release that light and this kind of brings us to the last point I wanted to make which is that his question we have this atom thing okay mythic thinking we're down with that all northern cultures light darkness why did I have to wait well because it's the responsive holiday I didn't make that point but it's the responsive holiday that's the way to a point in which I miss rail is ready to actually assert our capacity to make these holidays come together what's its companion forum but both of them are a process of taking a historical experience and asserting their essential meeting Hanukah was a gimme Oh dark light we got that right so the the power there or the power here so we go there go to the Maccabees their masseur nephesh release is a great light that's a kingdom I mean the Rambam says that we're celebrating a kingdom lasted 200 years that's what we're celebrating on Konica if you do the math two hundred years includes harridan the whole terrible story and how it ends what's the Rambam telling you is saying listen the light that they release the power that Kingdom mal hoot kingship is not to be scoffed at think about that today alright with all the problems that we have in our fair country here all the difficulties which prompts legally done and all those jokes are all making right now right never dismiss the great light which surrounds us right now never because a hundred years ago 150 years ago any one of us would have wept and died to see it happen but there's another level because the reality is that light didn't last maccabee in kingdom was destroyed but Chanukah doesn't go away the potential is there and it waits for the B'nai vena where these been a V now I guess I'm hoping no the the view to the liturgical poem mouths ooh right traditionally set on Connick often by the light of candles right the Navy now you may muna kavula Shiromani right this the people who really got it they were the ones who understood what do these people understand they understood that a light without a wick is nothing right in many ways you can think about the whole metaphor that I'm trying to give you that the world is is a pool of potential it's the oil you are the wick how do you draw the world through yourself and give light there's a responsiveness there's that Massoud message that you got to strike the match and let it burn right but the sages understood you also have to be able to plant yourself in the world wherever you are they wanted to draw a light out of Hanukkah that wouldn't depend upon the trash remember of course they saw the kingdom destroyed so the ultimate power of humanity to dip our soul into the world and extracted light if consciousness and the true of consciousness to extract meaning from the world is a well-chosen word a story a powerful story which is able to extract the light from the darkest of situations and lo and behold when the sages wanted to give you the light of Konica and a way in which would make sense not just to those who lived in the kingdom of the Maccabees not even just to those who live in a northern hemisphere by the way they told us a story about candles was it true it's not the same as asking did it happen by the way did it happen you'll never know you'll just have to ask remember that question about faith this faith mean you're able to identify what exists outside of you or does faith mean that you are able to touch that capacity within yourself to imbue them world with meaning is it a question why did this happen what happened when they got into the temple courts there or is a question of hey Mike what's that he that they got in there here's a classic question shows up in the bait feel safe about why we like candles for eight nights you can all go home and write an essay on this right why wouldn't we like for eight nights because eight nights is why do we like for events because the miracle what was a miracle they burned for eight nights right but the miracles seven because they found enough oil for one night osso Vinick is there and there's a whole host answer you can find a team like a hundred answers the best one I've ever heard is the miracles that they bother to look don't forget that hellenism began on the Temple Mount it was the priests that were the source of the Hellenistic conflicts within and the fact that the Maccabees got to the temple courts too much of it they potentially could have lit those candles in impurity but they had a belief that that that point of purity never disappears and so they went looking for it and lo and behold they brought a great light into the world I've done in poor I'll do it again I can prove to you that the story is true last time I asked you do this raise your hand if you lit Konica candles last year fantastic twenty five hundred years ago and we're still doing it now the light only gets stronger so you tell me these are a few pieces of light which are important to me there's that responsiveness don't put up a callus when light gives you darkness wait for the light to come and be responsive when it does there's this power of mecir at nephesh recognize the fact that the potential which underlies all creation has to be released there's an activation energy that you commit yourself to and a little bit of friction makes the match burn and last but certainly not least the power of the story me line exhibit a well-chosen word brings great light into the world and it's the great capacity of humanity adds not just to communicate with the create through stories this is what I would like to give to you as a few tools not just to release the light of Chanukah but hopefully to touch a little bit more of the light which is offered by life and I say it Lilu neesh Madhavi mori with Alvin Toffler so thank you all for your attention there's zucchini oats and some other refreshments in the dining hall there and I'm happy to take any questions or comments from here for but I'm gonna stop this now [Applause]