Light for the Lowly: Fixed for Every Generation

101aThe words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on “The following year they established them” are well known.¹ We may also say something on this question: why do we commemorate a miracle that happened in the Beis HaMikdash, when for our many sins the House has been destroyed, and make no remembrance of all the other miracles that happened there? Ten miracles were done in it, as the Mishnah teaches, and even in the Second Beis HaMikdash there were five, as the Gemara says.² The answer, we may say, is that this miracle was so beloved chiefly because Israel was then at its lowest, unworthy of any miracle at all, and yet “a light shone in the darkness for the upright.”³ This is the meaning of Al HaNissim: “And for Your people Yisrael You performed a great salvation … as this very day.”⁴ “This very day” means at this time, a time when they were not worthy of a miracle.

101bAs for “the following year”: they [the Sages of that time] had supposed that the miracle would be awakened this way only for those at a low state, and not for people of great stature. When they saw the wondrous light shine even for the great, they established the days for all generations. This is the meaning of “Train (chanoch) a lad according to his way; even when he is old he will not turn from it.”⁵ It speaks of one who is a lad in his understanding, who is then like “the fool walks in darkness.”⁶ When the light comes to him in the days of his darkness and his youth, he will have it in the days of his old age as well. On this basis we may explain the Gemara's question here about the blessing over the Chanukah lamp, “Who … commanded us”: “And where did He command us?” and its answers, from “You shall not turn aside,” or from “Ask your father and he will tell you.”⁷ Think this through.⁸