Expelling the Darkness

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas Hatorah (www.bircas.org)

Parashas Mikeitz begins by noting that Pharaoh had a dream “at the end of two years.” The Midrash comments that this was the end of Yosef’s darkness, adding that every person has darkness in his life, but his darkness will end as he overcomes his evil inclination.

We learn that the more we conquer our Yetzer Hara, the more darkness we expel and the more light we will have in our lives. What sort of “light” are we referring to? In Sefer Mishlei (6:23) it says, “A mitzvah is a candle, and Torah is light.” Any step that a person takes to deepen his relationship with Hashem and His Torah adds light to his life.

Chanukah is known as the “Festival of Lights.” The Greeks wanted to take away this “light”—our Torah and our relationship with Hashem. This is why the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 2:4) refers to Greece as darkness. The Chashmona’ims’ victory over the Greeks was in essence an expulsion of this darkness.

The Sages ask (Shabbos 21b), “What is Chanukah?” They answer with the story of how the Greeks profaned all the oil in the Beis HaMikdash except for one jar. That jar contained enough oil to burn for just one day, yet miraculously its oil burned for eight days. Why didn’t the Sages recount the victory of the Chashmona’im? They were a family of kohanim untrained in battle, yet they won against the army of a world power! Our survival was surely a miracle. Why was the oil singled out to define Chanukah?

Furthermore, the Chashmona’im were actually permitted to use impure oil, being that there was no pure oil available (Yoma 6b). Lighting the Menorah with pure oil was just a hiddur mitzvah (beautification of a mitzvah). How can a hiddur be the main element of the Chanukah miracle? Why did Hashem even make this miracle if it was halachically unnecessary?

The Sefas Emes answers that the main miracle of Chanukah was indeed the Chashmona’ims’ victory. The reason we say Hallel and Al HaNissim is that we regained the ability to live according to the Torah without fear. This was surely the most crucial aspect of the victory.

However, when Chazal established the commemoration of Chanukah, they selected the oil to convey Chanukah’s message. The oil shows that Hashem is ready to make miracles even in order to enable us to perform mitzvos, and even to enhance the performance of mitzvos that we are already capable of performing. He does not retain His miracles solely to save us from physical danger.

The lesson of the oil reminds us that we’re not alone in our spiritual battles. Hashem is constantly helping us come closer to Him and keep His mitzvos. Chanukah also teaches us the importance of doing mitzvos in the most beautiful way that we can.

We live in a time of great darkness. So many people find it difficult to learn Torah for so many different reasons: emotional, financial, social, etc. In all stages of life, and particularly among the youth, there are people who lower themselves into spiritual muck, and sometimes they leave the life of Torah altogether, Rachmana litzlan. In the midst of our difficulties and struggles, we may despair, thinking that we’re fighting a battle that we can’t win. Chanukah reminds us that Hashem didn’t just fight the battles of our forefathers—He fights our battles here and now too. As long as we do our best, Hashem will help us out of the darkness. When you look at your Chanukah lights, remember that no matter how bad things are, Hashem can do wonders and turn our darkness into light. We just need to continue keeping His mitzvos and learning His Torah.

I know a distinguished rav and rosh kollel who confided in me that when he was younger, he was very talkative. At times, this led him to speak in ways that are forbidden. He tried to restrain himself many times, only to realize afterwards that he had transgressed the laws of lashon hara. This discouraged him and made him think that he could never change.

One of his rebbeim advised him to stop working on his talking problem directly and instead apply himself to Torah study and tefillah as much as possible. He began putting all of his mental energy into learning and all of his emotions into tefillah. At some point, he realized that though he was still talkative, all he wanted to talk about was Torah and service of Hashem. His Yetzer Hara for evil speech had left him entirely. The light of Torah had expelled the darkness of lashon hara.

May we be zocheh to bright light that expels our darkness!

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