Knowledge is Power -- G-dly Knowledge is SUPER POWER
The central theme of Chanukah is light. Through the 36 lights we kindle on Chanukah, we connect with, and draw from, the primordial light that shone for 36 hours after Adam and Eve were created.
Big bonfires and grand torches isn’t always necessary to address darkness. “A little light, chases away much darkness.” While a stronger light is better than a smaller and weaker one, the principle is the same. Add a little light, and the darkness is gone.
There are times however, when real obstacles and impediments stand between the light and the darkness. A thick impenetrable dark cloud separating “between the sun, the earth and its inhabitants”.
The same is in the service of each individual, “and you shall be a light unto the nations”, “the candle of G-d, is the soul of each person.”
A person in his mission to have the light shine, can be challenged with “distance” and/or actual “obstacles”.
“Distance” are those things that are not forbidden according to the Torah and retain the potential for Holiness when used for a G-dly purpose. When a person takes kosher ingredients and makes a bread for his/her Shabbat Table, and before eating, washes his hands, and pronounces a blessing, over the food, he has brought the light of G-dliness and spirituality into what is otherwise darkness. Regular flour transformed into a vehicle for G-dliness.
There are things G-d allows us, and reveals to us they may be used as a support and preparation to serve Him, like using a knife for circumcision, and there are animals while they are kosher to eat, they are unacceptable to be brought on the Altar.
Then, there are the real actual “obstacles” to light, the things G-d tells us are forbidden. There is no way to make “Kosher” a pig. Stolen money, can NEVER become laundered into Kosher money, because its actual existence is a “black hole”.
The books of Chassidus discuss whether darkness is merely the absence of light, or an actual existence of darkness. The conclusion, is that both are true at different levels. “G-d formed light, and created darkness.” In Egypt, the ninth plague darkness, started as a lack of light, and ended with “the substance of darkness”. People could not stand, and those standing could not sit.
We are expected to always light up the darkness. It is therefore imperative to know what type of darkness one is dealing with. Does it fit into the definition of, real substantive darkness, things that are a real existence of evil and adding light alone is not enough. Or, is it the type of darkness which is defined merely as a lack of light, and by igniting positivity alone the negative will dissipate.
These two levels where addressed during the times of Chanukah.
The Maccabees first had to fight the Greeks who presented a formidable real darkness to the practice of our G-dly spiritual Torah. Only after they were defeated and eliminated from Israel, and the place of the Holy Temple, the Maccabees approached the source of light, the menorah, and attempted to light it, with the only substance that could and would bring light, PURE olive oil, untouched and unmoved by the Greeks.
That is why the optimum time established by our Sages to light the menorah is, “as the sun is setting” and not, when it is already dark outside. To allude to this idea of using light to illuminate, only those areas that are affected, where the light has caused it to dim and only because of this reason it has brought darkness.
Like with the original Chanukah, King David instructs us in his book of Psalms, “turn away from darkness and do good…”. Merely working on bringing on the light isn’t always the answer in dealing with darkness. The first step, one must isolate and define what is clearly real darkness and eliminate it, in whatever way that is possible.
Only afterwards, and step number two, is to shine the world in PURE light. Our internal world where it all starts, and internal challenges to the light of the soul, can be successfully overcome by the study of the Torah. “For a Mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah is light”, and ALL darkness is eliminated.
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