Rebbetzen Tziporah

Dear friends,

Do you sometimes feel like you are in a movie, not as a spectator, but as one of the actors, but you don’t know your lines?

I do.

I know that I should have something to say that will express what I saw this evening, but it just isn’t enough to fit the scene's drama. It was about 3:30when I decided to call a taxi to get to the Kotel by 4:30 when the menorah is scheduled to be lit. I had planned to leave earlier, and to use the light rail. It’s cheaper (in Israel, when you get to be a million, you get free public transportation. I figure that the Powers That Be in the Ministry of Transportation realize that the gesture buys them goodwill, and the users won’t be going on public transportation forever…).

 It also was a beautiful day, one of Israel’s crisp sunny winter days, and since I was not the only one headed to the Kotel, a perfect day for people watching. The human scenery is so Israel! The crowds are an eclectic mixture of Sem girls, tourists, yeshevishers, chassidim, Ethiopians, Sephardim, and a sprinkling of non-Jewish pilgrims here for the December holiday at their clueless best. The one thing that they all share is that the Kotel is their magnet. 

As things worked out, a friend dropped by, and when the coffee came out, the clock didn’t stop, so I ended up in a taxi driven by a middle-aged man who was a combination of most of the above. Sephardi, is vaguely chassidish, and doing his best to prove that his English is almost like a native speaker (no doubt because he wishes that he could afford to see LA). He pointed out that only Hashem rules, and that we must all have faith. You would have to have been in the vehicle with me to appreciate how important it was to hear these words as Speedy did his best to get me to the Kotel.

When I got there, I had just missed seeing the large menorah that faces the Kotel it’s light spreading living poetry. Its brilliance and its testimony of faith in Hashem’s love and His gift of our survival were visible in the entire plaza. A smaller menorah was about to be lit at the Kotel itself. It was pure in every sense of the word, from the menorah itself, its oil, and Rabbi Grossman and his friends from every walk of life who participated in lighting it not all that far from where the Maccabees lit the menorah in the Bais HaMikdash which was on the other side of the wall.

The Haftorah of Shabbos Chanukah is about Zecharia's dream. The first Temple was gone, and the second one was still a dream at the time. He saw the Kohen Gadol, Yehoshua, standing wearing filthy clothes. An angel stood nearby ready to begin a litany of accusations. Yehoshua’s sons had fallen prey to what exile is, and while in Bavel had married out. 

Hashem silenced the Satan (the accusing angel), as he no doubt will silence the angel that accuses us of being what exile has made us. He told the Satan that Yehoshua himself was rescued from the fires of exile. Hashem then told the angels to remove the filthy clothing and to clothe Yehoshua in white garments. This hinted that when things change, his sons will come back, and leave their foreign wives.  

Is this the way we dream of things happening? Is the next step going to be recovering from the unspeakable damage that exile has done to all of us? Hashem tells Yehoshua that it can happen, and the message that He gave Yehoshua Kohen Gadol is one that is still the contract He is offering us.

1-     We have to and can walk in Hashems ways, meaning finding the place inside you that you like the best. Recognize that this is the part of you in which Hashem’s image is very much alive. Let this be a statement about who you want to be. Find the middos that reflect your G­‑dliness (chessed, strength to do what is right even when that means self‑restraint, love of truth, a sense of wanting to live a life in which that which is eternal is paramount, and more).­

2-     Keep the Torah so that you can keep the mitzvos.

Can you do this? Is it overwhelming? The end of the vision is one in which you get to see (through Zecharya’s eyes) a fascinating scene. He saw a golden menorah being “fed” with oil coming from a mysterious bowl above it pouring seven thin streams into its seven holders, feeding each of the menorah’s seven lamps. The oil in the bowl came from two olive trees, one on either side or a mysterious hand squeezing the olive oil into the menorah. The angel asked Zecharia what he saw, and he had to tell the truth – he had no idea of the meaning and message of what his vision was.

Hashem told him. 

When the time to return comes, everything will fit into place. Hashem will be conducting the orchestra, beginning with His doing whatever has to happen to bring His people back. Each detail, from the selection of the right leader (in the case of the return to build the second Temple it was Zrubavel), to the gates opening for the rest of the Jews to allow them to return and to come home. He also revealed what will NOT happen….

Not with valor or strength, but with My spirit says Hashem”. 

The mesiras nefesh literally “giving over their souls” of the Maccabees, and its contemporary parallel in those who are learning, those who are turning to Hashem at the Kotel and everywhere that you can find a Jewish heart, and those who are fighting are living with Hashem’s spirit experienced in their hearts and their souls. We all look at the menorah and see light expelling darkness.

Chanukah is one of the rare holidays that almost every Jew understands in their gut, even if it doesn’t flow down to their minds and hearts. We have a promise that Hashem will return those who are in the exile called “Eretz Ashur the land of contentment”, and “Eretz Mitzraim the land of stress and pressure”.

Love, and happy Chanukah,

Tziporah