Judaism
is about reaching a sense of completion spiritually and mentally. There are two
foundational ways of lighting the Hannukah candles according to the Gemara (the
Talmud). Either we could have started lighting eight candles on the first night
and decreased by a single candle every night, to mark the number of nights left
of the holiday or add an additional candle for every new night (like we do
today). These two opinions, one like Bet Shamai (the Bet Midrash of Shamai) and
one like Bet Hillel (the Bet Midrash of Hillel), teach us two ways of looking
at our service of Hashem.
The
book Tzeror HaMor, a book on the Hebrew months of the year, explains in
our month of Kislev these two ways of practicing Judaism. The first way, as Bet
Shamai explained, is to look at Hannukah as a whole in the beginning and then
decrease by one candle every night. This way of servicing Hashem on Hannukah
shows that the complete spiritual energy for Hannukah is sent into the world as
a whole and it is our job by eighths to feed off this spiritual energy every
day of Hannukah until we took all of it by the eighth and final night. This
shows us that Hashem spreads out the spiritual light of Hannukah and it is our
job through Mitzvot to capture it day by day like vacuuming the energy.
The
other way of servicing Hashem through Hannukah is like Bet Hillel. This way,
which we light up another candle for each additional night, shows us that we
need to work on the reality where we are holding NOW and take it step by step
to reach a higher and higher level everyday. The Halacha follows like Bet
Hillel, where today all Jews light an additional candle everyday. Maybe this
shows us that we need to be stringent on our direction and goals and always
have it in our plan to increase our effort into following Torah and Mitzvot.
Shabbat Shalom!
Judaism=Think.
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