Fixed the Following Year: The Light That Returns

111The Gemara above teaches that the eight days of Chanukah begin on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, and that only the following year were they established as festive days, with Hallel and thanksgiving.¹ The Kozhnitzer Maggid, in his sefer Avodas Yisrael, asks: surely “the zealous hasten to do mitzvos.”² Why did they wait for the following year, and not make Chanukah in that very year?³ My holy father and teacher, zt"l, zy"a,⁴ spoke at length in his holiness to explain this [see above, where his words on the year they waited are given]. The heart of his holy words is this. Chazal would establish no remembrance of a miracle unless the light of that miracle is nokev veholech, breaking through and carrying on, so that it goes on shining through the years. In that first year they could not know whether it would carry on. But the following year they saw and felt the wondrous lights and the preciousness of the great light just as in the year before, and then they established it and made it for all generations.

112aTo explain his holy words: nes, miracle, is the same word as in the verse “Raise up a banner (nes),”⁵ a word of lifting up and greatness. I mean this. When a person is granted some miracle, his joy at that moment is so great that he is almost beside himself. He goes out of his vessels and out of his settled mind, his da'as, for his mind cannot contain his joy, and he is lifted above his own understanding. This is why Chazal did not establish a remembrance of every miracle for all generations. Sometimes the lack is on the Giver's side, and sometimes the lack is on the receiver's. Chazal looked ahead to the later generations, to see whether they too would take the remembrance of the miracle on themselves willingly. The generations who lived at the time of the miracle were lifted above their minds and understanding by the great joy of their souls, so they took the remembrance on themselves willingly. But the generations to come, with their minds settled, might not want to take on the obligation.

112bThis is what Chazal meant by “If we came to write, we would not manage.”⁶ At first glance this is puzzling. Truly, if we came to write, it would never be enough, for there is no end, limit or measure to the miracles and wonders He did for our fathers and for us. Even so, is it better to fall wholly silent? We say in the Shabbos prayers, “Were our mouth full of song as the sea … we could not thank You enough, Hashem our God … Therefore the limbs that You set within us … they shall thank and bless.”⁷ Silence is no substitute for praise. It is “the duty of all creatures before You, Hashem our God, to thank and to praise,”⁸ every moment, with all one's strength and ability.

112cRather, Chazal's words “if we came to write, we would not manage” mean this: the generations to come would not be able to stand by them. It is like Chazal's saying, “A decree is not laid on the community unless most of the community can stand by it.”⁹ The generations who lived through the Churban, when the House of our God was burned, took even severe decrees on themselves, because of troubles beyond measure. But the later generations, far from the Churban, had not seen all this with their own eyes; only their fathers had told them of it. They would not take the decrees on themselves, and so the decrees could not be made. That is what “unless most of the community” means: unless most of the community can stand by it in the later generations too.

113aThis is also the point of the moda'ah, the plea of compulsion, that Chazal speak of: Hashem “held the mountain over them like a barrel,” and “from here comes a great moda'ah against the Torah.”¹⁰ The heart of that plea is this. When they stood at Mount Sinai, with thunder and lightning, when “Hashem came from Sinai … and came from the holy myriads,”¹¹ they stood so high that even their physical being was raised and lifted up, and their souls “longed for the courts of Hashem.”¹² Surely, out of their great joy and awe, they went out of their minds and understanding, and had no choice or will of their own when they said, “We will do and we will hear.”¹³ Afterward Mordechai and Esther “upheld and accepted” it on themselves and on their descendants,¹⁴ willingly and with settled minds. This is what we said about the miracle: they did not establish it for generations in that same year, for perhaps in the following year, when the year had come full circle, they would not want to take on themselves a remembrance of the miracle.

113bBut the following year, once the year had come full circle, the miracle carried on. They felt the wondrous light, the very bright lights themselves, in the same joy and gladness they had known then. Sparks and flames of “the fire of the flame of God”¹⁵ caught fire within them, and sparks of awakening multiplied and burned on without pause, in a great longing to draw near to the light of the face of the living King with all their heart, all their soul and all their might, and to behold the pleasantness of Hashem, the light of the great yichud, the union on high, of the year before. Then they saw and understood that on their own side, the side of the receivers, there would be no obstacle: they were ready and prepared to take it on themselves and on their descendants.

113cAnd on the side of the Giver, the Compassionate and Gracious One, Who prepares food for all His creatures, spiritual food and bodily food, at every time and every hour, their trust was strong: surely there would be no obstacle there either. He would bestow on them a spiritual flow without pause from the source of living waters, “for Hashem will not forsake His devoted ones.”¹⁶ He draws near to His service even the lowly and the loathsome, as He promised us through Moshe Rabbeinu in the holy Torah: “I will not reject them, nor abhor them.”¹⁷ Though we are loathsome and soiled, even so He does not, Heaven forbid, reject us. Then they understood that the Creator's intent, blessed be He, was that the miracle should carry on every single year, with those same unions on high and the very bright lights themselves. Only then, a year later, did they establish it for generations:

114a“They established them and made them festive days, with Hallel and thanksgiving.” They established them (keva'um) speaks of the soul: Chazal established us in the very light of emunah, faith, firm as a peg that will not be moved, for then they were privileged to believe in His Oneness, blessed be He; for truth and faith are “a law that will not pass away.”¹⁸ And made them speaks of time: they made the eight days tovim, good days, so that the season itself will awaken forever. That is, the season helps every Jewish soul not to be ungrateful for all the good and kindness Hashem has done for him. With Hallel speaks of light, from the verse “His sneezes flash forth (tahel, תהל) light”:¹⁹ these days shine for him through all his darkness. All this comes to him through the power of hachna'ah, humbling oneself, which is hinted in and thanksgiving (hoda'ah), for all the bowing is at Modim, the blessing of thanksgiving.

114bI mean this. When a person turns his mind away from all strange and intruding thoughts and humbles himself before Klal Yisrael, he is granted the very bright lights and comes to draw near to the light of the face of the living King. For of the proud, Chazal said in Hashem's name, “I and he cannot dwell together,”²⁰ and Dovid HaMelech said, “For Hashem is exalted, veshafal yir'eh.”²¹ The words mean “and He sees the lowly,” but here they are read “and the lowly one sees”: the lowly one sees, with open eyes, the greatness of Hashem. And, in one reading in the Gemara there, “With Me is the crushed one.”²² The closer one draws to a higher level, the more he sees his own lowliness. These days help a person to humble himself, and so to be granted the shining of Hashem's face. “The people who walked in darkness” until now “have seen a great light,”²³ “a bright light in the skies,”²⁴ the light of the face of the living King.