Tending the Light Within

This Hanukkah, wishing each other happiness comes with an asterisk (thank you to my wife, R. Laura, for this language). As I write, Australian Jews are mourning at funerals for those murdered while welcoming the first night of Hanukkah on Bondi Beach. In our hearts, as well as in our history, Hanukkah wavers between a commemoration of violent struggle (the Maccabees won, back in the day, at least for a while), and a holiday of joyous re-dedication to deeper spiritual truths (as we ma’alin bee-kedushah, elevate in holiness through each new candle on the menorah). 

Even in Talmudic times, this holiday had an asterisk. 

The Sages taught: It is a mitzvah to place the Hanukkah lamp at the entrance to one’s house on the outside (Shabbat 21b).

The guidance is clear. We place the menorah where it can be seen, on the outside of your house. But…what if you live in an apartment or don’t have permission or access to put a menorah outside your building? 

If one lives upstairs, one places it at the window adjacent to the public domain.

Okay, if the goal is for the light to be seen from the outside, just put it in a window. Some of us do exactly that today. We “publicize the miracle.” 

But…what if that feels risky? What if you don’t want to draw attention to your Jewishness? Here comes the asterisk:

And in a time of danger, one places it on the table and that is sufficient to fulfill one’s obligation.

Note, this is not about discomfort with one’s Jewish identity. This is about actual danger. Rashi (11th century) suggests that the sages were referring to Persian law that restricted when lamps could be lit, but they were unlikely to search inside the home and find the menorah on the table. And surely there have been other moments in time when Jews brought the light inside to keep themselves physically safe.

The 18th century Chassidic teacher Rabbi Avraham Dov Baer of Ovruch, known as the Bat Ayin, offers a fascinating alternative understanding of what the Talmud is teaching us. 

The Bay Ayin starts by connecting Hanukkah to an archetypal story of generous hospitality:

And this is what the verse says: "And God appeared to Abraham at Elonei Mamre, and he was sitting at the opening of the tent as the day was hot" (Genesis 18:1). Meaning that he was doing the tikkun (the spiritual healing) of the opening (פתח petach) of the tent, and this is a hint to the aspect of the Hanukkah lamp, since its mitzvah is at the opening (פתח petach) of the house (Shabbat 21b), and also his house was wide open (פתוח patuach) to receive guests (see Zohar III:104a). And he was also converting people (see Bereshit Rabbah 39:14). 

There are a number of connections the Bat Ayin is weaving here, referencing various teachings in the Talmud, midrash, and Zohar. Here are the key points:

First, Abraham is at an opening, and keeping it open. 

Second, Abraham is actively receiving people into his community (understood here as bringing in converts). 

Third, this is a tikkun - a spiritual act with great significance for repairing the brokenness in all worlds, including the personal realm, society at large, and even the metaphysical layer of divine light shattered and scattered. 

And fourth, all of this is related to the mitzvah of Hanukkah light, because it too is meant to take place at the petach, where one’s home opens to the world. 

In essence, the Bat Ayin is teaching that when we light the menorah, we are not radiating it outwards but drawing in all that is in need of repair. We are gathering holy sparks, “receiving guests” (hachnasat orchim) and mending the broken experience of the world one person at a time. 

This is the normal mode of Hanukkah, when we open out into the world and do our work of building community in the messy public sphere with kindness and courage. 

The Bat Ayin continues, however: 

A person who is capable of dealing with all the material aspects in the market (read: the messy embodied world) with good intention (kavana tova) so as to raise them to holiness, as we explained above, this is obviously good, and this is the essence of the mitzvah of the Hanukkah lamp being outside. 

But in times of danger, meaning, when one fears to make oneself enter into the external aspects, into the physical things, in order to raise them, because one is not able to conquer one's evil impulse, then obviously one sets it on one's table. This means, be very careful in matters of one’s table: eat and drink in such a way that is for serving God, and not to satisfy one’s cravings, and so one habituates themself in all of the middot (soul traits), cooling the physical appetites, the desire for honor, and arrogance, and perhaps after that one will merit setting the Hanukkah lamp outside, as explained.  

In the world of gashmiyut, the material embodied universe we experience, there are dangers. This Hanukkah, we are forced to reckon with the danger involved in showing up to light a candle on a beach. One version of our story tells us to bring the light inside - or fight fire with fire. Both of these strategies have their place. Sometimes we quietly become Jews at home and citizens in the street. Sometimes we organize politically and even militarily to ensure safety. 

The Bat Ayin adds another dimension, though, reminding us that danger resides not only in the world but in our reaction to the world. 

In his ideal version of Hanukkah activism, we practice a form of hospitality he calls conversion - helping turn what is broken, harmful, and lacking into something restored, beneficial, and whole. He sees Hanukkah as a re-dedication to the spiritual act of transmuting evil into good, chaos into coexistence, misunderstandings into clarity that illuminates. 

But if we find ourselves being swept away by anger, anxiety, hatred, fear, selfish desire, or despair, we will struggle to be of true service to our higher intentions, our kavana. In those moments (and we all have them), there is a danger that we might bring about harm rather than healing in our interactions. So we turn inward, not to hide but to return to ourselves. Alongside tikkun olam, repair of the world, there is tikkun atzmi, personal restorative repair. 

Like Hanukkah, which every year returns us to one lone candle before we increase the light and holiness, we too have cycles of turning inward, strengthening, practicing, “doing the work,” and then opening up once more to the outer world where we have our part to do in the great work of mending. 

Shabbat shalom! And Chag Hanukkah sameach!

Rabbi Jay LeVine