Shabbos Candles and Chanukah Lights: Lights of Faith

1“One who is regular with the lamp will have sons who are Torah scholars.” Rashi explains: “As it is written, ‘For a mitzvah is a lamp, and Torah is light’: through the mitzvah lamp of Shabbos and Chanukah comes the light of Torah.”¹ But what does the Chanukah lamp have to do with the Shabbos lamp?

2We must also ask about a custom recorded in the Shulchan Aruch: women are accustomed not to do work while the Chanukah lamps are burning.² What is the reason for this custom? Chazal said of the days of Chanukah, “They established them and made them festive days with Hallel and thanksgiving,”³ and Rashi explains: “Not that work is forbidden on them; they were established only for reciting Hallel.”⁴ Why, then, did the women take on the custom not to work?

3Perhaps we can explain it this way. As is well known, the Zohar says of Shabbos, “All six days are blessed from it.”⁵ The idea is this. One of the reasons the holy Torah forbade us to work on Shabbos is to teach that the world was newly created and did not always exist, and that it has a Creator and Guide, Who feeds and sustains all. During the days of the week people are busy with their livelihood and their sustenance. It could enter their minds, Heaven forbid, that “my strength and the might of my hand made me this wealth,”⁶ and in this way they would deny the Creator's providence. That is why the Torah commanded us, “And on the seventh day you shall rest.”⁷ Far from losing by it, you receive from this very day the flow of blessing for all the days of the week. And by its power, on the weekdays too, as you do your work, you will believe and know for certain that livelihood comes through hashgachah pratis, Hashem's watchful care over each individual, and not through your own strength and toil.

4That is why Chazal expounded the words vedaber davar, “nor speaking words,” in the verse about Shabbos: “Your speech on Shabbos should not be like your speech on a weekday.”⁸ Even talk about matters of work is forbidden. We also find that the early chassidim, the pious men of old, were careful even about thought. Whatever they thought of on Shabbos to do after Shabbos, they no longer wanted to benefit from.⁹ All this is to show that we trust in Hashem and not at all in our own strength, and that we cast our whole burden upon Him.¹⁰ Rashi likewise explains Shabbas Shabbason, “a Shabbos of complete rest,” as “a rest of tranquility, and not a passing rest.”¹¹ The meaning is that on holy Shabbos one should set aside all thought of work entirely. Every one of these shows the same truth: everything is in the Creator's providence.

5The mitzvah of Shemittah, the Sabbatical year, works in a similar way. It roots in us, for all the days of the year, the faith that livelihood comes through hashgachah pratis. That is why the Torah calls it “a Sabbath for Hashem,” and Rashi explains: “just as it is said of the Sabbath of Creation.”¹² The meaning is that the mitzvah of Shemittah is like the mitzvah of the weekly Shabbos. It shows that the Holy One, blessed be He, feeds and sustains all, and that even when we do not toil, He provides our livelihood. More than that, “All six days are blessed from it.” The same holds for Shemittah, as the verse says: “And if you shall say, ‘What shall we eat …?’ … I will command My blessing …”¹³

6We find the same in the days of the Chashmona'im, the Hasmoneans. As is well known, the Greeks wanted to deny the Creator's providence. As Chazal said, the kingdom of Greece would say to Israel, “Write for yourselves on the horn of the ox that you have no portion in the God of Israel.”¹⁴ But the Chashmona'im defeated them, and everyone saw the Creator's providence. Above all, when the cruse of pure oil was found, His providence, which let Bnei Yisrael light the Menorah in purity, was plain for all to see. By the power of the miracle of Chanukah, then, Bnei Yisrael reached a level like that of Shabbos. Just as holy Shabbos teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, feeds and sustains all, so Chanukah teaches us that everything is in the Creator's providence.

7So when we light the Chanukah lamps, they bestow on us faith in the Creator's providence, as it was bestowed on Klal Yisrael at the time of the miracle, and through this something of holy Shabbos is awakened. That is why women are accustomed not to work. Women in particular keep this custom because the miracle came about through them, as the Beis Yosef and the later authorities explain.¹⁵ Yehudis fed the enemies' leader cheese to make him drunk, and then cut off his head.¹⁶ In this way she brought about this holy flow of faith and trust upon Klal Yisrael. Through the miracle the Creator's providence was seen, and so the holiness of Shabbos was drawn down upon Israel. That is why women do not work while the lamps are burning, much like the prohibition of work on Shabbos.

8This answers our first question. Rashi explained “one who is regular with the lamp” as the Shabbos lamp and the Chanukah lamp because both teach one and the same thing: they bestow faith in the Creator's providence. Our words also explain well why Chazal placed the Gemara's discussion of the laws of Chanukah in tractate Shabbos, of all places. The holiness of Chanukah is of a kind with the holiness of Shabbos.

9On holy Shabbos the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows good on us in spiritual and material things, as the words “All six days …” teach us. May Hashem grant that in the same way He bestow good on us in these days of Chanukah, spiritually and materially, until the coming of the Redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.