Parshas Vayeishev  – A Light By the Window

By: Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin

Who doesn’t love Chanukah?

Family gathering around the menorah, basking in its light, singing together the age-old melodies of Haneiros Hallalu and Ma-oz Tzur. Soon after, it’s time to take seats around the table, enjoy some hot sizzling latkes, and play a game or two of dreidel. Memories that warm our hearts and souls.

Antiochus IV, leader of the Syrian-Greek empire, wished to spread his power and influence. His goal was to Hellenize our nation, making them one with the Greeks. He brought Greek culture to the Holy Land, and wanted the people to participate in Greek entertainment, take on Greek names, dress in Greek styles, and study Greek philosophy. To act and even think “Greek”.

Antiochus waged a war against the Jewish soul. He tried to destroy our connection to HaShem, crush our spirit, and break down the Jewish home. To rob us of all things Jewish, a Holocaust of the Jewish soul.

He enacted edicts forbidding Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh, Bris Milah, and Torah study. All of them, mitzvos that solidify family and home.

Perhaps, for this very reason, while we light the menorah in shul, the Gemara (Shabbos 21b) tells us of the requirement to light “Ner ish u-beiso”, to bring the Chanukah lights into our homes.

So we kindle the Chanukah lights in our bayis, our home. We celebrate that it’s over two thousand years since the miracle of Chanukah, and the Jewish home still stands strong.

The Greeks desecrated the Beis HaMikdash, and left it in shambles. After a major cleansing, the menorah was lit. Despite the tyranny of the Greeks, there were people who never lost their faith, but searched and searched until they miraculously found a single sealed cruse of pure olive oil. And the great Chanukah neis of the small amount of oil that was sufficient for just one day, yet burned for eight days.

Within the word Chanukah are the letters that spell Kohein – Chof, hei, nun. There is also a letter ches, whose numerical value is eight. The Kohein lit the menorah in the Beis HaMikdash, a fire that lasted for eight days.

Each year, come Chanukah, we transform our home into a mikdash me’at, a sanctuary in miniature. We have the great z’chus to be a “kohein” of sorts, by lighting our personal menorah, thereby elevating our souls.

The menorah was lit with pure olive oil – for it is only when the olive is squeezed with great pressure that pure oil is extracted. So too, with Am Yisroel, when we are “squeezed”, when we are challenged, when we suffer at the hands of our oppressors, we emerge pure and unadulterated. Like the light of the menorah, our light shines bright and strong.

The words shemoneh, ha-shemen and neshama, are all comprised of the same Hebrew letters, hei, mem, nun and shin. This is not random, but there is a connection between these three words. The miracle of Chanukah lasted for shemoneh – eight days. It was a miracle that came about through ha-shemen – the oil. And Chanukah celebrates the victory of the Jewish neshama, the soul within every Jew, which throughout history refuses to surrender to the spiritual oppression and persecution by those who seek to uproot our emunah and bitachon, our trust and faith in HaShem.

Antiochus understood the power of our people. He knew what makes us tick, and forbade Torah study. But this didn’t stop many a father and son from hiding in caves to study Torah. When the Greek soldiers would approach the caves, the children would quickly pull out their dreidels and call out “Only playing”.

The letters on the dreidel, are nun, gimmel, hey and shin, an acronym for neis gadol hayah shom, a great miracle happened there. They are the very same letters that spell the word Goshna – to Goshen. The Torah tells us that Yaakov readied his family to join Yosef in Egypt, by sending Yehudah ahead to Goshen. Rashi cites a Midrash that it was to establish a place of learning. Yaakov understood that the survival of the Jewish people lies within Torah learning.

As the dreidel spins and spins, and then falls, so too is the story of our people. We too have spun and spun, falling down again and again, forced to leave one country and settle in another. But wherever we have landed, we established places of chinuch, Torah learning, for that is the key to our survival.

The word chinuch – education, shares a common root with the word Chanukah. How do we survive the golus, the exile? By taking a lesson from our zeide Yaakov, and establishing places of learning.

Yaakov himself imparted Torah teachings to Yosef, a chinuch that served Yosef well. In this week’s parsha of Vayeishev, Yosef was sold as a slave, ending up in the house of Potiphar. When Potipahr’s wife tried to seduce Yosef, it was the “D’mus d’yukno shel oviv, The image of his father”, an image that reminded him of all the Torah his father taught him.  An image that gave him the inner strength to say no and flee.

Chazal teach that Yosef saw a reflection of his father in a window. By placing the menorah by our window, we are also reminded of our past, the teaching of our avos and imahos. Additionally, the bright lights of the menorah shining through our window sends a powerful message of how proud we are of our heritage, how lucky we are to be Jews.

In the brachos preceding the candle lighting, we say “Bayamin ha-heim, bizman hazeh” thanking HaShem for miracles past and present. Recent events in Eretz Yisroel have inflicted much pain, sorrow and loss of life, but we must also recognize the tremendous miracles that have occurred, sparing many more from death and destruction. While we are now in a time of darkness, let us linger by the Chanukah lights, reciting extra tefillos, beseeching HaShem to illuminate the lives of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel and Jewry worldwide.

Ah Freilichen Chanukah and Shabbat Shalom!

Chaya Sora

Chaya Sora can reached at csgertzulin@gmail.com

This article was written L’zecher Nishmas /In Memory Of HaRav Meshulem ben HaRav Osher Anshil HaLevi, zt”l and Rebbetzin Esther bas HaRav Avraham HaLevi, zt”l