The light of Chanukah

While I was holding the havdalah candle this Motzai Shabbos, I thought, If you look at a candle, any candle, you’ll see that the bottom of the flame is solid, burning strong and bright. But

as it makes its way up, the flame dances back and forth, never stopping until

you put it out. This flame is the Jewish neshama. The strong, solid part of the

flame is our Eloka Mimaal. There is a piece of Hashem in each of us that is

ALWAYS burning, whether you or not you feel it. Sometimes we feel it, other

times we don’t, but it NEVER goes out. It is up to each one of us to kindle that

flame, to strengthen it and make it move like the top of the flame on a candle,

dancing with every ounce of koach it has.

You know how you walk out of a shuir, or yom kippur davening, or after working hard on yourself in avodas Hashem, and you

feel “on fire”? Or if you see a Tzadik saying a bracha and you get that feeling

that his neshama is mamesh “on fire”? THAT is what YOU can accomplish on

Chanukah! Chanukah has the koach of being lmaalah min hateva! Beyond the

confines of nature! You can step up and rise up that flame, to raise up your

neshama, and burn with ahavas Hashem, Yiras Hashem, Torah, simcha, ahava, and to

dance with all of the energy you have build up in your holy neshama! You can

mamesh GLOW and be LIT up with kedusha! The world tries to put us out just like

the yevanim (greeks) tried to do, but YOUR flame can never, ever die out because

that piece of Hashem is ALWAYS inside of you! Embrace that light! Raise it up

this Chanukah! And you will see nissim!