How can we light the light, meaning reveal the Creator? To do this, we need three contradictory components: a jar of oil, a wick, and a fire. Yet, how can we put them together if the oil itself does not burn, the wick itself also does not burn, and neither oil nor a dry wick can support the fire?

The fire burns only if the wick is contradictory to the oil, and therefore absorbs it. We do not want to receive spiritual work, and yet we are forced to approach it, and then we absorb spiritual qualities from it against our will, and become imbued with the importance of bestowal, self-nullification, and love of friends, as a wick absorbs oil.

This is what happens, whether we want it or not—another convention, another lesson, reading of articles, meeting with friends—time and time again we absorb the oil into the wick, despite the fact that we consider this work worthless. I do not want this work, and I only dream of rewards, of discoveries, so that I can learn everything, control everything, and feel everything, as my egoism imagines.

However, I do not have a choice, and I perform actions that allow me to absorb oil like a wick. I am still getting permeated with the material that the wisdom of Kabbalah provides, and in the end I will receive enough material inside, connect with my friends, and our light will light up.

Then, I will see the true results of this entire process, I will reveal the Creator within the created beings that is bringing us a new state, faith above reason, which is called Hanukkah, a parking in the middle of the way.

Our whole life is made up of contradictions because otherwise we would not distinguish the difference between darkness and light. We would be like animals that do not feel their “I,” do not feel themselves. In order to understand who the man is, it is necessary to rise to a higher level than the man and study him from there.

The wick is all that I neglect in spiritual work, all that I resist. I have resistance to the oil, but I am trying to connect the oil and the wick together, and then I reach the light. Then I begin to understand what is happening to me.

If the oil and wick burn out, then there is nothing left to burn and darkness comes. It is the same with a person when he has exhausted all his efforts and all his burning, he loses the light and returns to darkness again. If he wants to keep the light, he must make an extra effort, which is called a wick, and add his burning, which is called oil because the light has nothing else to light up on and rise on.

After such overcoming, a person is rewarded with receiving the light of the Creator that illuminates his soul and is called the light of Hanukkah, that is, the light of absolutely good open upper providence.

To the extent that a person can sacrifice his egoism for the sake of connection in a group that wants to advance toward the purpose of creation, he makes  a wick that absorbs oil out of himself and of the group. Initially, no one wants this and considers this despicable, but since we are all connected, we make a wick from ourselves, twist all the threads into one thick bundle.

One thread cannot absorb oil, but when ten threads are twisted together, there is an empty space between them that sucks in the oil. The oil goes up the wick, and we can light it up at the very edge of the wick.

We do not want this work, but we agree to connect together and let the oil go up in us, over our threads twisted together. The oil rises, not through the threads themselves, but through the gaps between them, through the connections of the friends with each other. If the friends try to connect despite their differences and are together, then the oil begins to go up between them and the Creator lights the candle, that is, begins to become revealed.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/20, “Hanukkah”

Related Material:
Burning Candle
Hanukkah Is A Way Out Of Darkness
Happy Holiday Of Spiritual Conception!

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