The Endurance of Light

We celebrate victory, we celebrate the oil. 

We celebrate for generations past and still to come.

Of both our people and our light,

We celebrate the miracle of endurance.

We center our celebrations around the menorah and its light. From one to two and two to three, we light until eight and celebrate all the while. The glow from the fire seeps into our souls and illuminates us from within. We radiate light, and G-d, and good, and dwell in a state of transcendence. We live the miracle of Hanuka.

What is this light we bring into our homes each night? The light that resides within us all?

Before the world was created there was ein sof, a vast, infinite light with no beginning and no end. A supernal, all encompassing light, it was beyond time and space and predated all matter. On the first day of creation G-d contracted this light, creating a void, and within that void He created the heavens and earth. The earth was dark and chaotic with great depths. 

“G-d said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” 

He then brought back a version of this infinite light of ein sof and established it in this newly created space. The light was filtered down through the realms until it manifested itself into the world we inhabit and the light we now know. This light is both physical and spiritual and presents itself in many different ways. 

"G-d saw that the light was good…”

With this G-dly approval came the will for the light to endure. When G-d “saw” the light He committed to its lasting reality making it permanent and ceaseless. Even more, G-d is continually “seeing” this light, regenerating this light, infusing His will into its existence day by day, hour by hour, millisecond by millisecond. 

The root of the words ohr, light, and re’eh, seeing, are the same, connecting the two, as when we see we acquire new knowledge, something previously unknown is now established. Light, then, is a metaphor for knowledge and wisdom. When the Torah speaks of one seeing it is interpreted as an intellectual enlightenment. When we see something it is imprinted on our minds and just like our knowledge, and the light of the ein sof, it endures. 

This is the light pulsating within us all. It is at once both spiritual and intellectual, a spark of the ein sof, the primordial light so pure and boundless and constant. And we understand from the words, the absolute faith G-d has in us, to constantly give life to this light, this potential, desiring us to make the most of it. How precious it is that it can be taken away at any minute. And yet, how humbling and life affirming to know G-d is making an active choice to continually reaffirm His commitment to us.

This is the light of Hanuka. A spreading spiritual spark, an infinite hint at what we can be, what we should be, what G-d wills us to be, day by day, hour by hour, millisecond by millisecond. 

May we gather inspiration from the menorah, acknowledge its ascending lights and know, the ein sof is within us all, with Hashem constantly rejuvenating it, constantly breathing life in it, desiring us to grow it and ascend new spiritual and intellectual heights. May the light within us spread and increase as the lights of the menorah do night after night.