Question: I grew up in Israel, and for me Hanukkah is a very childlike holiday with doughnuts and the dreidel. And suddenly I hear from you that Hanukkah has a spiritual meaning. How should I relate to the lighting of the candles so that this action is not merely external?

Answer: This is a spiritual action. There is nothing in the Israeli holidays that is not connected to the spiritual. After all, we exist only in order to attain our soul,  what is called the future world, the upper world, the higher dimension, that we must reach.

At present we see the picture of this world: houses, sky, sea, people, everything around me. Behind this picture we need to find a crack into the upper world, widen it, open up the horizons, and see that we are located only in a very small sphere, in a tiny part of a much greater, more spacious, infinite world.

Our entire universe is also within our current world. But we must reveal the world beyond it as well. This is what we human beings are meant for. For we do not belong to the still, vegetative, and animate levels that are bound to nature, but to the human level.

A “human being” in Hebrew is “Adam,” from the word “domeh,” similar to the Creator. We are not only capable of reaching such a state, but are simply obliged to attain it, to reveal the entire true reality that lies beyond what now appears to us as this world.

Then we will reveal not only infinite spaces, but also ourselves as existing in an infinite, perfect form, within this vast, expansive, light-filled reality that is revealed to us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is intended for this. All the holidays speak to us about this, including Hanukkah, about how we begin to open the upper world for ourselves, expand our organs of perception and reality, and then emerge from all these narrow, bitter limitations.

All this lies before us. But everything depends on the unity between us, because unity is precisely the action that begins to open the boundaries of the present reality. And the pressures we feel today are meant to push us to accelerate and reveal the true world.

Therefore when lighting the Hanukkah candles—together with Hanukkah songs, games with children using the dreidel, and tasty doughnuts—let us think that the true Hanukkah is like a housewarming, for we are opening a new world for ourselves through uniting with one another.
[172119]
From Radio Station 103FM 12/6/15

Related Material:
A Hanukkah Candle, A Symbol Of Light
The Fire Of Unity Will Illuminate Our Lives
The Simple Formula Of The Miracle Of Hanukkah

Filed under: Holidays, Israel, Nations of the World | Add Comment →