Chanukah Tzedakah: Truth, Faith and Raising the Fallen

44aThe books of the Kabbalists speak of the special power of the mitzvah of giving tzedakah on Chanukah to those who fear Hashem: it repairs what a person blemished through the four forbidden unions called nashgaz,¹ in this lifetime or in another.² To understand it, we begin with what we know: on Chanukah a person can repair what he blemished in Netzach and Hod, two of the sefiros, the Divine attributes. As the Tikkunei Zohar says, "The eighth is in thanksgiving (hodaah), and this is surely Hod."³ The Tikkunei Zohar also says, in the passage that opens "Eliyahu began," that Netzach and Hod are "two pillars of truth."⁴ And "He is truth and She is faith":⁵ the masculine side, truth, is in Netzach, and the feminine side, faith, is in Hod. Netzach is truth, in the spirit of "The Eternal One (Netzach) of Israel does not lie";⁶ Hod is faith.

44bAs the Kozhnitzer Maggid, R' Yisrael, wrote [in his sefer Avodas Yisrael], Hod takes its name from modim, "they concede," and "they concede" implies that they had disagreed.⁷ Where there is no dispute, the word "concede" does not belong; it fits only where people disagree. That is, though they disagree, one of them concedes the point, because of the point of truth planted and rooted in his heart. We know too that the vowels chirik and shuruk are the sefiros of Netzach and Hod. In this spirit the verse says, "I planted you a choice vine (sorek), wholly a seed of truth":⁸ sorek (שורק) is the same word as the vowel shuruk, and it is "wholly a seed of truth." Through the point of truth planted in his heart, a person can see himself and his true state. This is the name Chanukah, read as chanu kah (חנו כה) [usually "they rested on the twenty-fifth"]:⁹ here kah is koh, "thus." Through the truth, which is both truth and faith, a person sees his state of life koh, just as it is.

44cThis is the meaning of "He has scattered, he has given to the needy (evyonim)." The needy, as is known, are Netzach and Hod. And the first letters of pizar natan la'evyonim (פזר נתן לאביונים) form nafal (נפל), "fallen." That is, even one who is like a fallen man, who blemished himself through the bitter sin¹⁰ and thinks that teshuvah does not help for it: as the holy sefarim write, for all this the counsel is faith. As Chazal say, "Impurity is set aside where the community is concerned."¹¹ I mean, through the gathering of the community: he joins himself in a true bond with Klal Yisrael, and he and they count as faithful brothers, so that his pain and his sin touch all of Klal Yisrael. Twins feel each other's pain, for they are as one body; in the same way the impurity is set aside from them. For Klal Yisrael as a whole did not sin and blemish themselves with this sin, and Klal Yisrael is never cast off, Heaven forbid, for "I, Hashem, have not changed, and you, children of Yaakov, have not been consumed."¹² All this comes through his strong faith: he believes that being included in Klal Yisrael can help him and do him good, to save his soul from the pit. As the verse says, "The righteous (tzaddik) shall live by his faith."¹³ And one who believes is called a tzaddik at the very moment he believes, as the Chozeh of Lublin, zt"l, said, and his words run deep.

44dThis means that if a person "scatters and gives to the needy" on Chanukah, which belongs to Hod, giving to those who uphold the Torah and having compassion on them, and if he loves his fellow Jews and draws them close, then by that very act he repairs what he blemished through that bitter sin. And "the wicked man will see and be angered": the wicked man sees the one who blemished himself together with him in the bitter sin, how "his horn is exalted in honor" and he has risen high in his level. He is angered at it, and "he gnashes his teeth": "Did we not both sin together? Why were you worthy of this, to draw near to 'the light of the face of the living King'?"¹⁴ But in truth his fellow sought counsel and a way, healing and a cure for the ailments of his soul: he nullified himself before Klal Yisrael and believed that Klal Yisrael could do him good, for "each man helps his fellow."¹⁵ "He will gnash (yacharok, יחרוק) his teeth" is the same word as "they gnashed (vayachareku) their teeth,"¹⁶ and its root, ח-ר-ק, is that of chirik (חיריק), one of the vowels of Netzach and Hod, turned to its reverse. "The wicked man will see and be angered": his anger burns against a Jewish soul.