Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Greatness of The Jew and Chanuka

[Music] okay hi everybody first um I do want to extend I know on behalf of everybody our tremendous gratitude to uh Reon Reena Quint for hosting us again uh her story is absolutely remarkable last year we had a much longer version of it but I would urge you to all get the book maybe you have some books you can make available uh because it really is on one hand full of tragedy on the other hand full of Redemption full of light full of Hope full of optimism and that's exactly the type of that all of us need as we're going through difficult times not as difficult as you went through but within our uh situation so uh brem thank you thank you for the person that you are and uh in particular for your hospitality thank you also to uh rabaran and Bina uh for arranging this party and thank you for all for all coming uh first uh tonight's Sher is dedicated for a Raa for all those whose Health has been affected by the war and especially for the return of our brothers and sisters in captivity all of us pray for them every day uh in addition for benzar and tonight's class we also have an anonymous donor so thank you uh Mr or Mrs Anonymous uh dedicated for the Hat and's protection of all of the may they return healthy to their homes with and may Hashem bring the GAA now and finally end of year contributions we much appreciated uh and of course as riron said Rie poon said uh they are still bringing to fill in and sit it uh to the Brave and courageous soldiers on the front lines and ion is a partner in all of that process so if anyone is interested in either contributing financially or assisting uh in the actual production of cus I don't think you're producing filen per se but whatever it is uh they should you should contact Rabbi Poston uh if there's any silver lining in the dark situation of War and the difficulties of the hostages in our it's that again as Reena said the in is is much much stronger than it had been for a very long time people don't even remember what it was like before October 7 with hote on the religious side on the secular side and people were taking this very seriously they were saying this is the end of the state of Israel this is the end of democracy in this country uh there were people and milim who were saying that they were not going to come come to duty if there's some they did come but but they were talking about not showing up and leaving the Army Etc so things were falling apart and maybe it's a real tragedy that it sometimes takes a war to bring out the and the is that are at least latent within us and if there is a silver lining to every cloud this is indeed the Silver Lining uh the big fear that I is that when things get back to normal and hopefully they should get back to normal soon we will forget the important lessons that we learned and it will be business as usual once again and that would be a tragedy on top of a tragedy there's the tragedy of the war and the and the that are going through difficulties but if we don't learn from the tragedy and we simply go back to the lack of that we had that's a second tragedy superimposed on it and of course it's interesting that um you know people talk about Israel being dangerous I understood that I think there's a travel advisory here telling people not to go to the United States because of the dangers of of anti-Semitism you better stay here and uh even in the hollowed Halls of of Harvard and Penn and MIT we can see the rot of woke culture and the fact that um in an ultimate sense the world doesn't care that that much about the Jews it's uh very very scary and the fact that the president of the University of Pennsylvania had to resign was well actually she did voluntarily but it was not because of her love for aat Isel it's because somebody was going to give a hundred million doll threatened to withdraw it and that that will get you off your position uh in any University whatever whatever it would be so it's kind of the bitter reminder that we are alone in the world and ultimately we're not because we have sh Israel we have God all we have is God but God is all we need to have uh and we have God and we have each other and that's where we have to put our energies that's where we have to put our Focus again it's uh it's kind of sad but on the other hand you know what do you expect you got to kind of you know they say a pessimist is never disappointed because he doesn't expect he doesn't expect things to be better and this is this is the nature of the this is the nature of the Beast there's an old saying in political science that Nations uh don't have friends they only have interests so for a certain amount of time you know interests coincide when they don't coincide so everybody goes their own way and with the Jewish people it's certainly that way okay uh so I want to talk about khaka a little bit uh I actually spoke about Kana last week but we're going to continue it a little bit and I want to start off with a gamar and everyone knows that there's a Mitzvah lighta candles right we just did it now but you know it's interesting that the gamar says there are three different ways you can do the Mitzvah there is basic there is mahadin a more beautiful way and there's then there's mahadin Min mahadin the most beautiful of the most beautiful sounds like restaurants mahadin Min mahad the most basic way is very strange Nobody Does it one candle every night no matter how many people that actually means if I have a family of 10 people night one I light just one candle and even night eight I Light One Candle do you realize that if that's all you did and I've never met a person who does that you are y say the basic Mitzvah one candle now if you want to do more than that if you want to be mahadin there's a another level and that's still not what we do you light one candle for every member of your household meaning if I have 10 people including me night one I light 10 candles night eight I light 10 candles B buy it now we don't we don't do that either then we come to the highest of the high the greatest of the greatest Mahin Mahin and this is where you get the famous argument between B Shi and B in which you you want a light to indicate the number of days but Bei says you start with eight and you go down B says you start with one and you go up and is normally the case in a between B and we follow now interesting if you're doing the highest level of days do you incorporate the middle level of a separate manora for each member of the household sardam take the position that if you're doing the highest level you only light one manori you don't have everybody lighting a separate manura because they make the argument if there are too many Manas around somebody walking by is going to see 50 candles in the window they're not going to know the days so according to sim the men many Sim some far them go with ashkanazi Customs but but according to of Yosef Caro if you're lighting only a family only has one manora according to ashkenazim the RAR says the Min is that the highest level incorporates the middle level meaning the middle level says separate lighting for every member of the household and then you you upgrade that to the number of days and that is why every person has their own manura and within that there are many variations what about husband and wife most do not have husband and wife light separately what about girls there are different there are different Min hug within the RAR okay but the one thing that you see very clearly without getting into technicalities is that there's a tremendous emphasis on beautifying the Mitzvah oflot we have multiple levels of Greater Beauty and enhancement and this is unique again now it's true of course that there is a general Concept in all commandments called hior Mitzvah one is supposed to do a Mitzvah in the most beautiful way possible a beautiful lul an esrog a shabas table fill because you glorify God you give honor to God by doing mitzvot in the nicest way possible but it's very very clear that the emphasis on mahadin and mahadin is not simply an example of the general concept of Mitzvah but it's it is something that is unique and special to itself I'll prove this arithmetically actually and that is the following there actually is a how much money what percentage of money must you spend for Mitzvah example if I could get a Kosher srog for let us say $40 I have a good memory uh because you're not going to get it for that not not today but I could get a more beautiful esrog for more money so I could get basic for 40 but I could spend more money for more beautiful how much more money must I spend so the towood says you only have to spend a third of the final cost for he Mitzvah that would mean $60 because 40 is for the basic and you're spending another 20 for hedor meaning if you could get a Kosher esk for 40 and a beautiful s would cost you 80 you're not obligated to do that I mean many people would do it if they could afford it but you're not obligated Now by Kaneka you're clearly going way out of those percentages because under the strict T all I need are eight candles for the whole holiday of Kana and If instead I'm doing 36 candles not counting the shamish times the number of people in my house I'm going Way Beyond theer Mitzvah here even though candles are not necessarily expensive but all I'm just simp making the point that the H of khaka goes Way Beyond the generic concept of H Mitzvah why is hior such an important feature of Kana so so I'm going to give you three answers answer number one is we know that Kaneka is a battle against yavan it is the celebration of defeating yavan now yavan was of course at the time the most powerful Empire in the world and it was actually a miracle uh that uh the untrained makim were able to defeat the war of the armies of Yovan but it's very very clear that all alth though the maban Revolt resulted in political Independence the Genesis of that Revolt was not Independence the Genesis of that Revolt was the ability to keep the Torah and overthrow the oppression that stopped us from keeping the Torah this is what the alanan prayer says that the came to make us forget the Torah they prohibited keeping Shabbat and keeping Kash and women couldn't go to the Mikvah and they didn't allow the Sanhedrin to sanctify new moon and there were even very very despicable things that any woman that got married the first consummation so to speak had to be with uh an official before she could be with her husband all sorts of awful awful awful things the maban Revolt was not a Revolt over political autonomy it was over the ability to keep the Torah so we always talk about this is the defeat of yavan but is yavan all bad but what does yavan represent now we know in many many ways helenistic culture had many beautiful features helenistic culture had developed a very sophisticated philosophy a literature music art so let me share with you a comment of RAB shimin Rafal H the ancestor of yavan is no third son yees and if you remember when Noah got intoxicated and his nakedness was exposed and wanted to point to it and embarrass his father so shame we come from Shame semites Shame and yees walked backwards with a blanket and they covered their father's nakedness Noah gave shame and yees a braa and the braa that gave sh is it's a Biblical pun God should give Yi God should give Beauty toes and he will dwell beem in the tents of Shem in English that sounds bad but in Hebrew it's not bad he shall dwell in the tent of Shem no rers explain explains that Noah is giving shame and yees two different missions for Humanity which are supposed to work in tandem Shem was given the me the mission of spreading ethical monotheism and Holiness into the world Shem and eventually that function was taken over by Abraham the abrahamic line which eventually became the Jewish people but Shem was given the mission of bringing God into the world ethics morality values monotheism yeas was given the mission of creating Beauty and Aesthetics whether it's through ART whether it's through the Elegance of mathematics or philosophy and what Noah is saying is this capacity of yees that went down to Yan is a beautiful thing when it dwells when it's subordinated to the values of Shem y elim God will give yees which became Yan the power of creating Beauty when it dwells uh in the in the Society of Shem monotheism when it separates itself from godliness then it becomes a destructive force in fact Let Let Me mention this was even true in the Holocaust if we talk about German culture German culture uh was the most sophisticated in Europe and yet when it separates from a sense of morality that very culture becomes the most destructive force that could be known to man so the morale points out that yavan comes from a word that means oppression but if you reverse the letters noi Beauty the same letters of yavan are noi Beauty can become destructive when it separates from God so contrary to what people think the victory of Kaneka is not supposed to represent the destruction of yavan but rather the incorporation of the good parts of yavan into our service of God y have kimly effis because the true way you capture an enemy is not always by destroying it but by co-opting that enemy bringing him into the ambid of your good so as a result here's the idea if yavan is about beauty and Kaneka is a victory over yavan how do we celebrate that Victory by taking the beauty of yavan and using it in in the service of God and therefore the emphasis of mahadin by khanah is the notion that we take the beauty of yavan and we bring it into the tent of Shem right so that's answer number one answer number two is more of a technical answer we know the story of the uh candles again I spoke last week and this morning at the OU that uh the earliest sources for the story of Kana don't even mention the miracle of the candles um can refer you to you know earlier shorum where I talk about that but as we finally have it in the gamorra we talk about the miracle of the candles and the oil was only enough to burn for one day but a miracle happened that it burned for eight days now why did we need 8 days because it would take for seven days we had just stopped fighting a war all of us are ritually impure for seven days so we couldn't make oil until day8 and it would take a day to make it so as a result we couldn't have pure oil till after 8 days right that's why we needed the miracle but here's the problem hierarchically the whole miracle was Superfluous and the reason is if you don't have pure oil for the manura you're allowed to use impure oil because even though an individual cannot bring a Corban if it's impure but for the siore for the community there is a principle called Tuma bore that means the laws of impurity are set aside for the benefit of the congregation so let's imagine they lit that first jar of oil on the 25th of klave and it simply burned for one day and it went out well there was plenty of impure oil it was only they didn't have any pure oil so they could have lived with impure oil the miracle was not necessary did we sh him ask this question why did Hashem even make this miracle tumra the laws of Tuma are set aside for a Corbin sear so one of the many answers that is given is that yes it was a Superfluous Miracle but out of God's love he wanted us to do the Mitzvah in the most beautiful way possible and doing the Mitzvah with Purity is a greater beautification than doing the Mitzvah with impurity so the whole Miracle came only because God wanted us to serve him with beauty therefore we thank God by doing the Mitzvah and the point out that in some ways a Superfluous Miracle as a sign of divine love is even greater than a miracle that is necessary for our survival because the the answer would be this if God simply prevents us from being destroyed as important as that is that does not show his love because you know if you had an enemy that you hated I'm not talking about Kamas something that you know a Jewish person again without discussing how you allowed to hate them but you know even somebody you don't like if they're starving you'll give them some water and bread but you're not going to bake a lemon merang pie for them now what's more important bread and water or pie obviously bread and water is more important but bread water doesn't show the love that the pie shows because the pie is something extra something special so in a in a strange way the fact that God you know saved our lives that doesn't show his love for us you know he's kind of stuck that's what God has to do God made the promise to abov so he can't let us die he has to give us the bread and the water but when he gives us the cake gives us the steak that shows greater love so answer number two once again is that the whole Miracle of Kaneka was God's the miracle of the oil that is was God showing love so we could do the Mitzvah more than we had to do hedor we give thanks beor answer number three is an interesting little bit of pull I hope it won't be that complicated but it's the following the jar is described as a jar of oil that was sealed with the Signet of the Coen and that's how he knew it was n tampered with it wasn't touched and the like here's the problem why would the Coen GLE seal ever be on a jar of oil the coing guttle was not the custodian of the oil of the basa mcness there were designated officials who were in charge of the oil that wasn't the Coen gle's job why would there be a jar of oil that was sealed with the of the co G so the speculation is the following this jar was not manora oil at all rather this was Private Coen guttle oil every single day the Coen godle had to bring a meal offering in the BET mikdash from his own private stock and this was called a meal offering right the the modern Hebrew word for omelet comes from this description of the Coen gutle essentially it involved a u there was no eggs in it but it involed boiling flour in water and then frying it Etc right so this was not minora oil this wasan oil H got a problem there though because the quality of oil that you need from manora is a much higher grade than the quality of oil that you need for meal offerings manora needs grade A oil the first few drops when you squeeze the olive gently and there's no siment meal offering oil can be grinding the olives with sediment so the problem is how could they use kavan oil to light the manur because kavan is Grade B and manur is grade A the answer must be that this Anonymous Coen Gad we don't know who who did this wanted to use grade A oil for hedra Mitzvah even though he didn't have to so now it's an amazing thing without the HED Mitzvah of the K who used grade A when he could have used Grade B we would have had no oil at all so the whole Miracle came only because of the god Mitzvah therefore we acknowledge it by our doing mahadin mahadin so I just want to draw a quick comparison between the second answer I gave you three answers to the question of why is Kaneka so connected to mahadin the first answer which I'm not going to work with right now is that this is the ultimate triumph over yov the triumph over yavan is not to destroy the beauty but to reclaim the beauty for spirituality but the second answer is that since God gave us the opportunity to do the Mitzvah beyond the so God wanted us to do the Mitzvah in a beautiful way so we do the mitzvah beautiful way that second answer is focusing on the opportunities that God gives us the third answer is focusing on the devotion and m nees ofel the and in truth these are two different perspectives when you're looking at the neot of Kaneka on one hand the nro of Kana represent the light of the sh the light of God that permeates the world fills the world with benevolence with kindness with compassion that we remember that even in the dark moments of Life there is still a God that cares takes care of us nurtures us at least gives us the strength to go on and even grow from our challenges so one idea of Kaneka is I'm looking at the light of God that enables me to keep on living that is why it is said that the NEOS of khah correspond we light 36 candles on KH not counting the shamish if you add up all the candles it's 36 36 is a very significant number because the first three days of creation there were 36 or 12 hours of light for the first three days without a sun the sun was not created until day four so what gave the light of the first three days of creation it was the light of the sh and that light was concealed after 3 days replaced by the Light of the Sun so the 36 hours of light are called the or haos the hidden concealed light it is said inim that the 36 candles of Kaneka bring that hidden light of the sh back into the world the 36 candles correspond to the 36 hours of the oros that's why there is such a concept of sitting by the candles looking at the candles gazing at the candles because you're communing with Hashem you're absorbing the radiance of God's presence that's one perspective looking at what God has done for us but the second perspective of the naos is it's a mirror into your own soul a human soul is also called a nir this is why we Light yourart Side candles what does the verse say in Mish the soul of a person is a candle lit by God when I look at the neot I'm not just thinking of God's benevolence to me but I'm thinking of the radiance and the beauty of my own Nisha the Nisha of all of us that it is the Breath of God it is the candle of God and you see this in these two answers because one answer is focusing on God giving us the opportunity to do a Mitzvah in a beautiful way and the second answer is focusing on the Coen godo who made the decision to serve God in a beautiful way in many many ways this is really the perspective that we have in our contemporary situation we think of God without Hashem there is no salvation without Hashem we will not be successful the nvi zakar which is the T of Shabbat has the famous words fromes right himself has a vision of the minority this is way before the khaka story he has a vision of a manora which radiates the light of Hashem and the voice of God proclaims you will not succeed through your Valor or through your strength only by my spirit hasem says so that's one aspect of it and at the same time we have to see the Great of the Jew looking at the N of Kaneka we have both of those perspectives the glory of God and the glory of God's people truly an amazing an amazing thing and in this technical discussion of mahadin we see these different aspects one is focusing on what God has done for us and the other is focusing on what we are willing to do for God the Coen gal who used great a oil when he could have used great be there is another point I want to make which goes back actually two weeks but it's connected to Kaneka in our traditional sources and this is in the book of Zakaria the book of Danel and kazal of many many MIM the Jewish people are supposed to go through four Exiles not counting M but from the time we came to Earth Israel there going to be four Exiles until mashia comes there is the Babylonian EX Exile and then there's the Persian Exile and then there's the Greek Exile and then there's the Roman Gus the Gus of asov which destroyed the second basa mikdash and we are still in that gas almost 2,000 years now it's true there are other Madam that add a fifth Gus the gas of yishmael and again the commentar is explained yishmael is really a add-on to the gas of Asa right so it's really the Roman gut because most Jews are living in western civilization but the with added with the persecution of isma right now the medish says that the four galot are mumas at the very beginning of creation the world was jumbled astonishingly jumbled that refers to I'm I'm sorry EMP to toe is actually empty the world was empty that's a reference to B that emptied the World by destroying the temple is confusion that's par that tried to kill us where the Milla says shushan was confused is yavan yavan is called the galot of to home on The Depths that's the gas of because that seems to be an unending ocean that never ends so of the four Goot Yan is called the galut of indeed that symbol symbolism fits very well with kanak because kanak is light dispelling the darkness Y is called now let's go back two weeks ago well we read about another struggle in the dark and this is Yakov a is struggling the night before he meets asov in the flesh he is aaed by a mysterious man who is asa's Guardian Angel who fights with him the entire night and sometimes Yakov is Victorious and sometimes Yakov is not Victorious and they're struggling and struggling then there's the break of dawn and the angel has to leave and yakob says to the angel I will not let you go unless you bless me and again refers explains based on the sa for that this is a long long mush for the bitterness of galut the long night of galut in which nations try to oppress us and sometimes we're successful and sometimes we're not and at the end there will be a day there will be a Dawn and when that Dawn breaks even the enemy that tried to destroy us will bless us and acknowledge the greatness of am Israel but when that Dawn comes it will not be without casualties Yakov is limping when mashia comes it's not going to come as a freebie we know that whether it was The Crusades or the pgrs or the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust of course or the victims of Terror that still are being victimized to this very day we will be limping no question about it but that day will come that morning will come and the Nations that tried to destroy us will acknowledge it's a beautiful beautiful message but then there's an interesting curiosity there Yakov asks the angel tell me your name and the angel says why do you ask my name so Rashi explains that when Yakov says tell me your name he says like what's your job what's your job description and the angel says I have different job so I have different names when I when I do this job I have that name which means he's basically saying I don't have a fixed name but there's a beautiful mush from of shamadan who says that the angel is answering yakov's question yakob is asking the angel tell me your name the angel says my name is why do you ask my name that is my name for the older people in the audience you know who's on first this is exactly the famous Abbott and Costello routine of who's on first my name is why do you ask my name so the question is what type of name is it why do you ask my name it's like a person whose name no name my name is no name it's not a name right so shr gives the following muscle there was an illiterate polish peasant who is visiting the big city for the first time and you know he was totally overwhelmed by everything that he saw and he was told if he goes into a certain room room he will see people and animals coming out of the wall in a miraculous way he just has to buy a ticket go into the room and you'll see people coming out of the wall he had no idea what this was he buys a ticket the lights are turned off and all of a sudden he sees people and animals coming out of the wall he didn't know where they came from because when he entered the room there were no doors on the side of the wall so he took out his big flashlight and he shown the light on the wall to see if there's some hidden entrance now you understand what happened here he's in a movie theater he had never heard of a movie all of a sudden he sees people coming out of the walls he shines the light to see where they came from but that obscures the picture and people yelled at him and they said shut off your light we can only see when it's dark ran says this is actually a mashall forah when you sit in the darkness two things happen things that are really imaginary look like they're real it looks like those people are real and things that are real you may not even notice you can have a bag of diamonds next to you in a dark seat you're not going to notice it so when you're in the dark things that are not real appear to be real and things that are real you may not even notice when you turn on the lights the opposite happens that which is an illusion disappears and that which is real you get to see is very much the same thing when we sit in darkness that means we don't think about life we just go through automatic pilot all sorts of things appear to be real and significant that don't really count the money we make the power the control The Grudges the resentments you know all sorts of things seem to be like so important because we're really in the dark we're not thinking about life so all sorts of things are important and the things that are really important we don't pay attention to when you turn on the lights you put things in a proper perspective so turning on the lights is kind of a metaphor for thinking about the meaning of life the purpose of life the goals of Life what's life about you know we're not going to live forever know I'll talk about remembering the day of death now I know that this sound very depressing of course you know what do they say about life he says nobody leaves this room alive no that's 100% true life is a terminal condition but the purpose of thinking about this is not to be depressed it's the other way around to cherish every moment to focus on what's important to seize the opportunity to do good to be good to care to love to serve Hashem to care about our families to care about our communities put all the junk behind you right this is the notion of turning on the lights when the lights are off everything looks real that's fake and the things that are real you don't even notice you know it's been said that on a person's deathbed they're never going to say gee I wish I did one more deal at the office that's not going to be the the final thought that a person has now going back to Yakov we know that the angel of ASF symbolically represents the ater Hara the powers of evil when yov asked the angel tell me your name he's really asking the angel tell me your power over people how do you trick people into following you really makes no sense you know why why should people go on the path of not thinking about Kusa and the Angel's answer is cuz nobody asks my name is is the source of my power is nobody asks my name nobody thinks about it nobody turns on the lights Y is called the gut of K because in truth on one level it wasn't even a galut remember when we're under Greek domination we're in AR Isel number one number two we even have a bikash except for the three years that the yanam took it over so you have everything but you don't appreciate it you're in the dark so helenismo remember most of the Jew people don't always realize this even before an most of the Jews had voluntarily assimilated to helist culture not only were the mcab fighting the most powerful army in the world the makab were doing so without the support of the vast majority of the Jewish people it is estim ated that between 5 and 10% of the Jews were committed to the maban Revolt 85 to 90% were siding with the aanam not not militarily but uh theologically and philosophically Judaism was hanging by a thread helenismo it's not that we didn't have a temple we had everything but the the enticements of Hellenism were so powerful that we simply didn't even think it was important anymore and that's what yakob aino is uh that's what the angel is communicating my power over people is when they don't turn on the lights they live in is about the spiritual light being um a a a final point that that I want to make is may sound like a technical chronological point but I think it has very very profound meanings the way we're typically taught the story of kanah is we had this war against the yavan and upon the culmination of the war we regained the Bas mikash and and we found the oil and a miracle happened meaning the conventional retelling of the story is that the na of the P was after the victory against Yovan there was the victory against Yovan the rededication of the temple the m and indeed I have to admit that that is how the rambam gives us the narrative that the P happened at the end but there is an alternative version of the story that many historians support and has some support in Jewish sources as well that the rededication of the temple and the finding of the jar was not at the end of the struggle it was towards the beginning of the struggle which continued for more than 25 years afterwards the peman was found towards the beginning of the mil rather than the end of the mil now you might say okay what what difference does that make meaning if the was found at the beginning or found at the end I think there's a tremendous nafina if it was found at the end it becomes a kiss it becomes a cherry on top of the Sunday meaning we had this great great Victory and God gives us this miracle wonderful so that's good but if it's at the beginning of the struggle there's a whole other different message imagine that you're a makabe and every morning every night you're engaged in fighting the most powerful military force in the world and you're not trained you're not a soldier you don't have weapons and not only that you don't even have the support of most of your people most of your fellow Jews think you're a fanatic most of your fellow Jews think you're oldfashioned like why don't you go with the plan assimilate Helen and every day you get up and you're facing unbelievable odds where all logic says you're not going to win this why bother either surrender and go with the plan or if you want to keep the Torah go to a cave you think you're going to create a Jewish Society here so one could understand very easily how demoralized a makabe is going to be fighting against impossible ODS so what does God show them in the beginning of the struggle he says here's a jar of oil the jar of oil only has the capacity to burn for one day so what's the point of lighting it I light one day of oil well I'm going to have nothing tomorrow so what does the oil show me you do what you can do and then God blesses your efforts beyond what you thought was possible if they wouldn't have lit the one day of oil nothing else would have happened God is giving the macbes a message that's your message you think your efforts are inconsequential you think your efforts are impossible you think your efforts are worthless do what you can do and then you'll see this is an enormously powerful message on so many levels we live in a world that is filled with darkness in many many ways there is the darkness of death and destruction and war and violence here in erit Israel and really the whole world different parts of the world there is the darkness of ignorance and assimilation within the Jewish people there is the individual darkness of Despair and depression and estrangement of husbands and wives and parents and children there is the darkness of loneliness so much different types of Darkness ranging from you knowas to the individual depressions that people struggle with we live in a world of darkness and asabi often said a Jew's role is to be a Lamplighter to bring light into that Darkness but then when we look at the darkness it is so overwhelming it is so deep it is so pervasive what could I possibly do what light could I shed why even bother it's like emptying the ocean with a thimble how long would it take so a person gives up a person gives up on their community on their family on themselves because they say whatever puny little light I could generate if I could generate anything is going to be swallowed up by that Darkness what is the message of kanah you do what you can and then Hashem blesses your efforts beyond what you thought was possible if you can shed light you must shed light that which we can do we have a responsibility to do and that is the great great message of Kaneka the light dispels the darkness even when you think there's no possible way that's going to happen I I want to end with a a story from the Holocaust itself could you keep a little louder yeah I want to end with a story uh from the Holocaust itself this involved the BL rebbi one of the great kic rebies and I believe it was in Bergen bellson uh the last Kaneka of the War uh back in 1944 right the war was over in April 45 and they were lighting the kanak manor at Great personal Danger first night of Kaneka they waited till 2:00 in the morning when the guards would be less attentive and hundreds of people assembled in silence and they had saved some rancid margarine and they pull strings off their uniform and they would light a a little candle that they blow out right away and The Story Goes that the BBI made the first you know had a low voice people said amen then he said the second him and then he was about to say the third BR theu but he hesitated and he looked around and then he made the shanu after he finished the three bras a man went over to him who was not religious the man had given up his faith as a result of all the suffering and he said Reby I want to ask you a question I don't believe in this stuff so to me it's worthless okay you believe in it if it gives you comfort I'm not going to take it away from you but here's my question I understand that you made the first God commanded you to light kanuka C look how you believe that God commanded you God okay uh God did miracles for our forefathers in the past okay you believe that I won't take it away but rebi tell me how could you make the BR in this concentration camp thank you God for letting letting me be alive to experience this moment don't you know how many people hope that they will not wake up the next morning and you yourself you know lost uh your wife and lost 11 children you lost many many children he remarried but he had lost a whole big family and you're telling me thank you God for letting me be alive in Bergen Bon the rebi did not call him a heretic did not call him a shagets did not call him an aporus the rebi said you have a really good question and that is why I hesitated because on one hand the is the you got to make Shak the first night of Kaneka that's the D and the other hand how can I lie to God how can I make a br to God that I don't believe and I don't feel I didn't know what to do the Reby said I didn't know what to do but I looked around and I saw hundreds and hundreds of Jews who had lost everything who really had nothing to hope for and yet they remained with their faith in Hashem and they remained with their desire to serve Hashem no matter what and I said to myself what a great people what a privilege it is to see the greatness and no ility of the Jewish soul and for that I could make a shaku thank you God for letting me see the greatness of your people for that I'll make a shako even in the concentration camp Simon wethal the famous Nazi Hunter tells a very similar story he says that after the war Rabbi elzar silver the great Rabbi from Cincinnati came to the placed persons camps to organize prayer services and Weeno refused to join and Rabbi Sil went over to weisenthal and said why don't you come ding with with people so weisenthal said after my experiences in the war he says I don't D it anymore so silver figured it was the what the Nazis did to the Jews he said no it was not what the Nazis did to the Jews it's what I saw a Jew do I saw a Jew had smuggled sitter into the concentration camp at Great personal risk and I was at first in great admiration of what he did but then I noticed he was renting the sitter for five minute increments in exchange for people's bread rations and he was taking bread from the mouths of men women and even children so they would have a sitter for five minutes and I said to myself if that's what a religious Jew does I want nothing to do with that religion so weisenthal used to say for years later what Rabbi silver told him Rabbi silver told him why are you looking at the person who's renting the sitter and taking the bread look at the people who are willing to give up the bread to take the sitter what about them you don't want to be connected to them look at them and weel who never became a sh mitzvos per se but weel said ever since then he says he never forgot that story and he realized that side by side with the worst evil can bring out the greatest good the greatest devotion we've seen this in our own time we see this now I mean this is not the Holocaust it's a difficult time for is and we need ra and our hearts certainly go out to the to theim that they they should have a but it's it's not to the extent of what the Holocaust was but we see it we see it we see it side by side with evil Comes This goodness this kadus that in the dark there is the light and Kaneka is the great Beacon of Hope that says that even if you think your light is ineffectual do what you can and Hashem will bless it beyond what you thought possible so I wish for all of us for all of is that we should go M as the puts it we should go from the darkness to the great light to see the light in ourselves the light in each other the light of Hashem and may that be the light of mashia that will come [Applause] [Music] w