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”

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Question: It is said that a miracle happened on Hanukkah: the oil, being enough for one day, burned for eight days. Do you think this could have happened?

Answer: It is up to us. If we strive to ensure our properties to be equal with the properties of the Creator, that we participate in kindling the light in the world in order to illuminate it with the qualities of love, kindness, and connection, then such an effort is sufficient on our part. This comes from our side, Malchut, and the rest is given from above.

Question: Do you think the miracle of Hanukkah really could have happened on a corporeal level?

Answer: Why not? Our world conforms to general laws. If we fulfill them, we can do everything. There are more and more miracles in our world every day, but we simply do not notice them because we are included in them. And if we could see them from the outside, they would be miracles to us.

Question: So, this is not an allegorical description?

Answer: Of course. Absolutely everything that is written in the Torah must and will happen in our world. I do not see any miracles in it.

If a Papuan comes to me, for example, and I press the switch and the light comes on, he will fall on his knees before this phenomenon. Is it a miracle or not? It is a miracle for him but not for me.

If we were now at the first spiritual level, then everything that happened there would be a miracle for us.

Comment: But if you say that these are laws, then any person could repeat them. And I don’t think anyone can repeat that today.

My Response: Because we are not at that level!
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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Question: What is a Menorah? Why does it include eight candles?

Answer: From the highest quality (Keter) to the lowest quality (Malchut), from the quality of the Creator to the quality of creation, there are eight stages, eight Sefirot, excluding the highest and the lowest.

Therefore the Menorah is lit for eight days, on the eighth day the newborn is circumcised (Brit Milah), etc.

Question: How did the Kabbalists know that the Menorah should be in this form?

Answer: Kabbalists act according to their inner vision. They feel it from the correlation of their inner attributes. The connection of these attributes appears to them in this form. Moreover, this is how our world appears, according to our desires. In fact, it does not exist; it is simply that our materialized desires manifest themselves in front of us.

Question: According to Kabbalah, oil is the egoistic desire, the wick symbolizes the screen, and when there is a screen, an anti-egoistic quality, a force covering the egoistic desire, then fire appears. What is fire?

Answer: Fire represents the light of life, knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12.16.2019

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Question: What is a Spiritual Temple from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: Spiritual Temple is our soul —of each one of us and of all of us together—integration of all our desires striving for equivalence of form with the Creator.

We must unite our desires in such a way that in our connection, in bestowing to each other, we can reach a state that is balanced between us. And then in it, according to our efforts, we will find the upper force, the quality of bestowal and love called the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/20

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Question: What is the difference between the Greeks and Romans inside us?

Answer: The Greeks are egoistic thoughts directed toward knowledge and philosophy. And the Romans are egoistic actions directed toward working with coarse desires.

Question: Let’s say I want to become famous, to glorify myself. Is this called the Greeks in me? Are these the desires that need to be corrected?

Answer: No. We are talking about correction on the spiritual level. Both the Greeks and Romans are states that come to a person when he really wants to expose himself to the quality of bestowal. Then he begins to fight with his egoistic desires and sort them out internally into Greeks and Romans.

In other words, there are desires of our world when you want to use someone for your own sake, and there are desires related to the Creator. If the Creator reveals Himself to man and he wants to use the connection with the upper force for his own sake, then these desires are called egoistic: Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. They need to be corrected.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/14/20

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The holiday of Hanukkah is a special time. You see, our world is a projection of the spiritual world and it contains various symbols of spiritual renewals and corrections due to our work.

Therefore, during the year we go through good times and special states in this world as symbols of our progress in building the soul, restoring the spiritual vessel, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which was shattered.

On this path, from the most broken state to the fully corrected one, we pass important points: the beginning of correction called the New Year (Rosh HaShanah), then the recognition of shattering: the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and correction by the surrounding light: Sukkot. The next stop on this path is Hanukkah, which symbolizes rising to the state of Bina, the stage of bestowal.

We celebrate these holidays in this world, but of course, all their manifestations take place on the spiritual level. If we reach faith above reason to the fullest extent, this is called Hanukkah, and if we rise even higher to receiving in order to bestow, it is Purim.

Each person and the whole world must go through these states in their correction, correcting the shattering of the single soul of Adam because we are pieces of that soul.

Hanukkah is called a miracle because we cannot connect with each other without help from above, without the force of the Creator. This connection happens above corporeal nature, like a miracle.

Corporeal nature is egoism, the will to receive, which is drawn only to separation, distancing, its own authority. The spiritual nature, on the contrary, aspires toward connection and self-nullification. This is why Hanukkah is called a miracle, the attainment of the force of Bina.

We used to think that miracle is what we get for nothing: I did not work and suddenly won a million in the lottery—that is a miracle! And if I earned that million, I would not think it was a miracle.

But we invest a lot of effort in spiritual work, we try to achieve connection, perform a lot of actions, and then we are rewarded with the miracle of spiritual revelation. It is called a miracle because until it happens we do not know what we will come to. Only when it happens do we see: “So this is the spiritual world; I did not think it was like this! This is not what I imagined at all!” That is why this is called a miracle, but it takes a lot of work.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/20, “Hanukkah”

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Question: 200 years before its destruction, the Temple was desecrated. From the spiritual point of view, desecration means that people have discovered the Greeks, egoistic desires, within themselves.

At the same time, other desires, called the Maccabees, appeared among people who rebelled against the “Greeks.” In honor of the rebellion of the Maccabees, who purged the Temple, the celebration of Hanukkah began. What does this holiday mean?

Answer: Our soul consists of two parts: vessels of reception and vessels of bestowal. As we advance, at a certain stage we complete the correction of the vessels of bestowal and must start correcting the vessels of reception.

“Hanukkah,” from the word “Hanaya,” means a stopover, i.e., a transition from one action to another. The desires to bestow are easier to correct. Therefore, Hanukkah is the festival of light.

Question: It turns out that spiritual states can be viewed from different points of view. On one hand, these are historical events. On the other hand, a whole nation passed through these states. And third, each person within himself must go through the same states. Are these all identical?

Answer: Yes, as it is said: “… the collective and the individual are one and the same.”
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a dreidel and what symbolism does it have?“

A dreidel is a spinning top, which has an inscription of Hebrew letters around the sides. The letters signify, “a great miracle happened here.”

Spinning a dreidel is one of the Hanukkah customs.

The dreidel is spun in order to see what letter it lands on, and while spinning, the dreidel symbolizes our lives: we “spin” our lives around and around, and eventually reach the awareness that only when we all spin ourselves together around a common center—a common goal to unite as one—will we achieve true happiness, harmony and the purpose of our lives.

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Hanukkah is a special holiday, which means that the created being ascends from Malchut to the level of Bina. That is, it makes a restriction on its desire to enjoy for its own sake and is corrected by the upper light, and acquires the intention for the sake of bestowal. Bestowal for the sake of bestowal is the level of Bina.

Hanukkah is a celebration of the victory over the “Greeks. “Greek” is the name of the force that pulls a person into knowledge and not above it. This force appears precisely when a person who strives to approach the Creator already acquires some properties of bestowal, that is, he wants to reach the level of Bina.

The person put a lot of effort into his or her correction, invested in the group, in the ten, in the studies, and started to feel what bestowal is. And it is at this time that forces opposite to bestowal awaken in one: forces of separation that pull a person back into egoism.

It is written about this: “The Greeks attacked me.” Egoistic desires awaken inside me, and I must declare an internal war on them and fight the thoughts that one should not go by faith above reason to bestowal and connection. They persuade me to remain in this world, to settle as much as possible in it and enjoy it.

This is the approach of the “Greeks” as opposed to the approach of the Maccabees who call to rise to bestowal to the Creator. There is a war going on in a person between these two opinions. On one hand, I want to reveal the Creator and my soul. But on the other hand, life draws me in, urging me to enjoy its pleasures and not to dream of spirituality.

It is this war that Hanukkah symbolizes, and it takes place in darkness. A person feels that he has fallen under the power of the Greeks, that is, under the complete power of the desire to enjoy, and one has no chance of defeating it. This is how one was created by the Creator.

And then a person seeks inside himself at least some kind of connection with the Creator and finds one thread, grabs it, and prays for salvation. And when the Creator unites with a person and begins to pull him out of his egoism, He seems to light a candle for him. In this way, a person is gradually going out from darkness to light.

He lights a tiny candle of one’s connection with the Creator, and it cannot be smaller. But since the candle lit by the person is connected with the Creator and the Creator is eternal, this candle burns and burns, and the oil in it is not burning out. This is how a person exits one’s egoistic intention and reaches intention to bestow, Hanukkah, the level of Bina, bestowal for the sake of bestowal.

The virtual convention “Uniting Above Reason” at which we attained the previously unattained connection with the Creator just ended. Let us keep this connection and try not to extinguish it. Then we will begin to feel how inside this tiny connection, this thin candle, we are kindling an ever stronger fire until we reach reception for the sake of bestowal until the end of correction.

Hanukkah is only the middle of the path. Let us feel that we are halfway there, and that we just need to preserve the connection that we have reached at the convention and develop it more and more.

We must not stop. Stopping means death! Just continue all the time. We have reached the parking place, and we need to reconstruct ourselves in a new way in order to attack our egoism with renewed vigor and achieve even greater unity.

Everyone should feel that he has the strength to rise above his egoism. And now we can begin to unite on top of our egoism and the egoism of our friends, cover all crimes, both mine and his with love, and build a connection.

Let us begin to implement this law: “Love will cover all crimes.” This is our work after the convention. Good luck!
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/20, “Hanukkah”

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Question: The Greeks, led by Antiochus IV, captured the Temple in the 2^nd century BC. There was a division of the Jews into Hellenized Jews, who supported the Seleucid Greeks, and Orthodox Jews led by the Maccabees. The Maccabees led the uprising and expelled the Seleucids from the Temple that had been captured and desecrated. When the Maccabees entered the Temple, they saw that the pure oil for the Menorah candles could only last for one day. But a miracle happened, the oil burned for eight days.

These are historical events that occurred more than 2,000 years ago. What do they mean from the point of view of Kabbalah?

Answer: After leaving Egypt, the people of Israel received the method of connection (mutual guarantee, Arvut), which developed during 40 years of traveling in the desert. Gradually, they became more and more united according to the method received from Jethro, the father of Moses’s wife. Jethro was not a Jew, nor was his daughter, but as the Torah says, he fully joined them.

The term Torah comes from the word “light”(Ohr). The light of the Torah, which a person receives from above, is necessary in order to bring people together and turn them into one single whole.

Despite the fact that they are egoistically distant, opposite to each other, and each wants to rule over the others, with the help of the right environment and the upper light, everyone can subjugate himself to society and make sure that all the people in it are directed to the center of society to unite with each other.

This is what the Jews were doing for 40 years in the desert. After they reached the state of unity, the desert turned into a fragrant land for them, called the Land of Israel. “Land – Eretz” comes from the word “desire – Ratzon.” That is, their desire began to blossom and bear fruit.

They built the Temple that represented the result of their efforts that came from the connection between them. The Temple does not mean something materialized, not stones and wood, but the connection of their desires.

So they lived, fought, reconciled, and constantly chose new conditions of connection. They were changing because new egoistic desires constantly arose in them. Therefore, they had to attract the upper light called the Torah more and more, to unite and thus advance.

But they could not hold on to this and for some time they fell into the slavery of egoism called the Babylonian exile of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. And then, with the help of Queen Esther, they came out of exile and began to inhabit the Land of Israel again, i.e., the desire to unite and connect with the Creator.

So they moved on until they reached the state of building the Second Temple, uniting in one common vessel in which they attained the Creator. But it did not last long because once again there was a huge, tearing egoism between them. This is how the Second Temple was destroyed, the common vessel was broken, the mutual desires and intentions for loving each other that allow us to reveal the Creator.

It was at this time that Rabbi Akiva called on the Jews to unite and shouted that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself,” but they could no longer hear him. This is the state the people of Israel are in now, people who, on one hand, understand that it is necessary to unite, and on the other hand, are not able to force themselves to unite.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/16/19

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