The First Night's Joy: Teshuvah Accepted

5aThe Rishonim ask [why we keep eight days]: surely on the first night there was no miracle?¹ Perhaps we can answer through the way my holy grandfather, zt"l,² explained a question of Tosafos in Shabbos [on the Torah that Israel accepted anew on Purim].³ A ba'al teshuvah, one who returns from sin, must do teshuvah for his sins so that he will not remain far from Hashem, hated and abhorred. Afterward he must pray that the Holy One, blessed be He, draw him near and shine His face upon him, to show him that he has become close and beloved. As the verse says, “A pure heart … do not cast me away …,” and only afterward, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and let a generous spirit sustain me”:⁴ show me, through Your generous spirit, that You draw me near.

5bHad Israel not known on Purim that their teshuvah had been accepted for their sin, for enjoying the feast of the wicked Achashverosh or for bowing to the image,⁵ they would have had no true joy. Had they not had a clear sign from Hashem that their teshuvah was accepted and that He desired them, the joy of their bodies being saved by the miracle would not have been true joy in their eyes. So it stayed, until they reached what the verse calls “they upheld and accepted,” as Shmuel expounded it: “They upheld above what they had accepted below.”⁶ That is, above, Hashem desired them, their mitzvos and their Torah, and they felt the light of Torah anew in their hearts. As the verse says, “The Jews had light,” which is Torah, “and gladness … and joy … and honor,” all of it, as Chazal expounded.⁷ They felt a new light in their hearts for the Torah and the mitzvos, and felt that He wanted them. Then they “accepted upon themselves and upon their offspring” to keep these days of Purim, “and these days are remembered and observed.”⁸

6aSo too with the miracle of Chanukah. The whole war was indeed a great miracle, as the text of Al HaNissim tells. But the Midrash Rabbah says: “‘And darkness’: this is the kingdom of Greece, which darkened the eyes of Israel and said to them, ‘Write on the horn of the ox that you have no portion in the God of Israel.’”⁹ That is, the Greeks saw that the generation was in a low state, and that their whole faith had been spoiled. The generation had also blemished the attribute of Yesod, the sefirah of the covenant's holiness. This blemish darkens the eye and defiles the mind and the understanding, the source of the sense of sight. So atonement came through the Chashmona'i and his sons, who gave their lives in actual deed to sanctify Hashem's Name. Such mesirus nefesh, the readiness to give one's life, truly counts as a complete death and atones for all sins, as the holy Zohar says.¹⁰ Esther's mesirus nefesh helped all Klal Yisrael; in the same way the mesirus nefesh of the Chashmona'i and his sons, who were truly the eyes and the heads of the congregation, atoned for all Klal Yisrael. Above all, the sons who were actually killed were an atonement for the sin of all Israel. This atonement came from their own side, through their deeds.

6bYet as long as they did not see clearly that Hashem had accepted their teshuvah for all Klal Yisrael, nothing the war had won was a joy to them. For what is life to them, if not to do Hashem's will and His mitzvos, and that the King, the Holy One, blessed be He, should desire them? We ask for nothing but the light of His face, as Chazal said on “May Hashem shine His face”: “We have nothing but the light of Your face.”¹¹ Then they found a cruse of pure oil, though lighting with impure oil was possible. As the Chacham Tzvi and the Pnei Yehoshua write, this came to make known how dear they were, that Hashem loves them.¹² So the Midrash says: “Hashem said: ‘Not that I need the light of flesh and blood … but so that you should know how dear you are before Me …’”¹³ And the Western lamp is “testimony to Israel, to all who come into the world, that the Shechinah rests among them.”¹⁴ When they saw this, they understood that the war too had been by miracle. They saw and rejoiced that they were left alive to do their Creator's will, and that their teshuvah had been accepted as a pleasing aroma to Hashem.

7aIn truth, what prepared them to earn Hashem's favor, so that He would desire them, was the great mesirus nefesh with which they gave their lives in the war, while the Holy One, blessed be He, helped them and delivered their enemies into their hands. This came from the awakening below, the first step taken from man's side. They found favor in Hashem's eyes, and He accepted their teshuvah. Through this they earned the Menorah, to give them light, to reveal to “all who come into the world” that He dwells among them, and to make known how dear they are. “All who come into the world” means to the end of all the generations that will yet come into the world. That is, Hashem's mercy shone forth then to accept the teshuvah of Israel, and to help and support the awakening below, so that a person can return to Him truly, with a whole heart. That is why they fixed these days for all generations: to make known to their children after them that a time of favor and mercy was awakened then, to accept the teshuvah of the sinners of Israel and to help them return. And even if only some of Israel do teshuvah, their teshuvah will shield and atone for the whole people, as it did long ago.

7bThat is why the holy sefarim say that the days of Chanukah are the completion of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is as we have said: they saw that from Hashem's side too the time is suited to teshuvah, and every year it returns to its first state. This is the meaning of Al HaNissim. After it lists the miracles of the war, which came through their own deeds with Hashem's help, it says that through this preparation they earned what followed: they lit lights to testify that the Holy One, blessed be He, desires His people, “and they established these eight days of Chanukah” for all generations. Nes, “miracle,” is the same word as misnosesos in “crown jewels sparkling,”¹⁵ and the commentators on that verse explain it as a word of light. That is, the heart of the miracle is the light a person sees: through the very force of the miracle, he sees Hashem's greatness. When Hashem saw their true joy as they felt the light of the first night, He added to their gladness and joy through a miracle, and made it known, to add to their great dearness: “they lit from it for eight days.” This answers the Rishonim's question: the heart of the miracle was their joy on the first night.

8aIsrael had blemished the attribute of “the tzaddik, the foundation of the world.”¹⁶ That is why the Greeks told them, “Write on the horn of the ox,” in the spirit of “His firstborn ox, majesty is his, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox.”¹⁷ “Majesty” is Yosef HaTzaddik, as the holy Zohar explains. That is also why the Chashmona'im gave their lives for their sister, against the decree that every maiden must first be given to the governor, to mend this very sin. And that is why one of the mitzvos of the Chanukah lamp is to see the lights. A Chanukah lamp placed higher than twenty cubits is invalid, like a sukkah and like the crossbeam over an alleyway, because the eye does not take it in.¹⁸ For this blemish darkens the eyes and defiles the mind, the source of sight. So the special power of the Chanukah lights lies precisely in seeing them, in letting a good eye take them in, to mend this.

8bThrough seeing them, the eyes are sanctified, so that they look at nothing but what is Hashem's will. This is the meaning of “but only to look at them”:¹⁹ to look at what is solely for the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. And this is the meaning of “These lights are holy.” And seeing them gives “we have no permission” its sense: we have no permission to use any of our senses, above all sight, to look at permitted things and use them as we please; we may look only at the Chanukah lights, for the sake of Your unification, as we said. That is why the main blessing and mitzvah were set on the lights: because the miracle happened with the lights. Through this miracle Hashem's love for them was revealed, and it was revealed that all that had happened until then had been by miracle.²⁰