Zot Hanukkah: The Eighth Night That Could Change Israel’s Destiny | The Land of Israel Fellowship

On each day of Hanukkah, we read about the dedication of the Mishkan by the tribal princes in the desert. It's right in the Torah. It's detailed in the seventh chapter of the book of Numbers. And we read it in our prayers from the Torah during minion and when we pray. And on the eighth day, the Torah portion concludes with the words. This was the dedication of the altar. Zot Kanuka. This is Kaneka. So the eighth night is called Zot Kanuka. But the sages notice something um subtle uh but profound. The final day doesn't just continue the dedication. It defines it. It's not just another day of Kaneka. Rather this is Kaneka. So the eighth day becomes known simply as Zot Kanuka. And this is what it was all for. It all culminates right here in this day of transcendence. And on the uh and on the eighth night, you know, as all the candles were lit then and are lit now, well, it's pretty much the darkest time of the year right now. And if you're not careful, all you'll see is darkness. But as King David sings in in Psalm 92, to proclaim your kindness in the morning and your faithfulness at night. When we dare to to gaze into the darkness with with eyes of faith and trust, I really believe Hashem blesses us at least with moments, glimpses of where all of this is going. Because yes, we're we're mourning. We are being brought to our knees with grief and tears and heartbreak over what we are losing and what we've lost. Lights are going out. Doors are closing. Something irreversible is breaking. But maybe that breaking is not destruction. Maybe it's birth. For as we know, the night is darkest before dawn. Which brings me, as Jeremy said, to Joseph, to Yoseph, to the story that we're reading about in parallel right now in the Torah, where Joseph was sold into slavery. The sages share in the midash, right? Like the backstory that is inherited from generation to generation of of what the Torah tells us in the midash. It says, "And it came to pass at that time, Rabbi Schmul Barnakman began," quoting from Jeremiah chapter 29, "for I know the thoughts." This is what it says. The tribes were busy selling Yseph. Ysef was busy with his sackcloth and fasting. Ruain, Reuben, was busy with his sackcloth and fasting. Yakov, Jacob, was busy with his sackloth and fasting. Yehuda was busy taking a wife for himself. And the holy one, blessed be he, was busy creating the light of the king Messiah. So on the surface level, it's clear, right? As Jacob was mourning, as everyone was suffering, Hashem was bringing about redemption in a way that no one could imagined through the very thing that they're mourning is what redemption would be sprouting from. We've talked about that before. I think about that when I'm going through my own challenges. But there's something in this description in this midrash that isn't you don't even need to hear it from the midash. Just reading the text in the Torah itself. It's a good point that the midash makes that actually Rabbi Shalom Rosner noticed. I never thought about it. We are seeing a a household frozen in grief. Right. Each soul trapped in its own reckoning with tragedy. The brothers are crushed by guilt overselling Ysef. Rau, who tried to save him, is tormented by the knowledge that he didn't fight harder, and perhaps he should have. Yakov turns the blame inwards, agonizing over the moment he sent Yseph to Shem. Even Yseph himself mourns, wondering whether his own actions and dreams provoked the jealousy that tore the whole family apart. And then almost jarringly, the midrash tells us that Yehuda leaves and takes a wife. Who noticed that in the description? sackcloth and fasting and sackloth and fasting. Then Yehuda leaves and takes a wife. So on the surface, you know, it feels unsettling. While everyone else is consumed by remorse and repentance and grief, Yehuda steps away to build a home. Did he not feel the weight of what had happened? Was he indifferent to the suffering of his father and his brothers? Why would the Midrash deliberately place Yehuda's marriage alongside the collective grief of the family? What is it trying to teach us by showing us this contrast? And the answer, the answer that's brought down by the sages of Israel is that we are not meant to be paralyzed in grief and in tragedy or even in repentance. Yeah, there is a place for grief and sadness. There's a place for that, but we cannot let it consume us. Instead, as Yehuda recognized, we need to rise up and rebuild. And I believe that's also the lesson of the eighth night because the eighth night does not deny the darkness. It doesn't minimize the grief. It doesn't ask us to spiritually bypass the pain or just, you know, explain it away. The eighth night looks straight at the darkness and then refuses to stop there. You have to go through it. Yehuda did not move on. He moved forward. He moved through it. He understood something profound that if the story is going to continue, someone has to build while others are still weeping. Someone has to plant while the ground is still soaked with tears. Someone has to bring new life into the world. Even when the world feels unworthy of any investment like that of any new life that is not a betrayal of grief that is that's its redemption that's its redemption this is why the kings of Israel come from Judah this is why they come from the tribe of Yehuda this is why Messiah comes from Yehuda not because he was untouched by tragedy or sin oh He was touched by more than his fair share of tragedy and pain and sin. Messiah comes from Judah because he learned how to respond to the darkness without being consumed by it. He was able to take it and transform it to light. And this is what I believe the eighth night of Kaneka is teaching us right now. Yes, the lights are going out in the exile. We can deny it and we can fight it. And I'm hearing everybody, it seems like in the exile still doing that. We have to stay and fight and fight the darkness with the light. But the lights of the exile are going out. We've been here before. The doors are closing and Jews are being targeted simply for being Jews. Yes, it feels like something is cracking, something irreversible, but it's not. That cracking is not random. It's the sound of an old structure breaking because it can no longer contain what's coming next. The Mishkan, the tabernacle was never meant to be permanent. It was portable. You know, it moved with the people. And in many ways, the entire exile has been like a Mishkan, carrying the divine presence through hostile terrain until the moment when it could finally rest. Until they got to the holy land, when they could finally build the true culmination, the temple, that's what this is all about. This war that we're in, this is all part of it. It's called milikdash. That's what the soldiers call it. That's what I call it. The war of the temple, the war of the resurrection. the war of the revival. We're being resurrected as a people, revived as a nation. And maybe, just maybe, we are living in the moment when when it's all happening. That doesn't mean that the light is gone. It means it's going home. It means that the purpose for which it was created has reached its destiny, its grandeur, its magnificent purpose. And those lights around the world are being channeled to the third and final temple in Jerusalem. So what do we do now? Well, we do what Yehuda did. We do what the eighth night demands. We build. We light. We plant. We move forward with courage and faith, bringing life into the world. My name is Ari, and I live here on the edge of the Judeian frontier. And just as the prophets foretold, the mountains of Judah are coming to life. The in gathering of the exiles is taking place right before our eyes. And the final prophecy is manifesting as the righteous of the nations are coming together with humble hearts here in the land of Israel fellowship. And now I'm inviting you to join us along with hundreds of Jewish and Christian families from all around the world to experience the beauty and the holiness and the magnificence of our fellowship. So click below so you can taste the beauty and the holiness that is happening on this mountain. [music]