A miracle is an incomprehensible connection between an action and a result where my action suddenly causes an incredible but great result. That is why it is said, “I labored and found!”

We must exert efforts in our studies and try to find everything that is said within ourselves, but what we find is entirely unpredictable, even though we talk about it and expect it.

But once we find it, we are amazed at how far we were from imagining it correctly! So we call it a miracle.

What is this oil vessel I need to light? I have to find these inner forms inside myself. Oil is my desire to enjoy, and I have to understand how to light it, that is, create a wick in it that comes out through my efforts.

The wick is my resistance to using my desire in a direct form to receive for myself. I want to use it in the likeness of light!

And so I bring a wick out from it into which a little of my desire to enjoy is included. As much as I can liken it to the light and annul my egoism, I am ready to use it for the benefit of others.

But how much am I willing to give? It is just a thin wick. I constantly check to make sure I am not doing this for myself. Every time it seems that I have achieved this, but it turns out that I have not, and so it goes on and on.

I discover more new egoistic interests in myself. This is how I ascertain all of them until finally a wick is created in me, a thin line (Kav Dak) of my desires, emanating from me to the Creator.

This wick resembles the light at its upper end its quality; therefore it lights up. Darkness flares up like light.

If I can imagine such a state inside myself, in my desires and my properties, then I am already in it!
It means that Hanukkah, the festival of light, has come to me! A small candle lit up in me, inside my huge egoistic desire; a tiny part of it began to glow with bestowal.

My soul is the part of the desire to enjoy with the light in it that can shine there. For now it is very small.

Then we continue to correct our vast desire until it all turns into light. To find all these properties in ourselves is our work.
[6644]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/9, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 43 (1958)

Related Material:
Hanukkah and Shabbat: Lighting Candles
Hanukkah—The Closest Spiritual Station
Hanukkah Is a Hope for the Help of the Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work | Add Comment →