Light & Warmth
This is Chanukah
Zos Chanukah
Today, the eight-day of Chanukah
Every bit of potential has been realized, every cup in the Menorah that waited its turn is sufficiently filled with olive oil or candles.
The oil drips are everywhere, the wax too.
What about the light of the fire?
What about the warmth of the flames?
As Chanukah wanes, do the light and warmth retire?
What of them remains?
When Chanukah 2020 began, everything was dark, deepened by the world's pain.
What could Chanukah add with its teeny tiny flame?
I reflected each night, quite a lot---and here is what I've got:
(the rhyme in me is done, sufficiently )
Night one: One tiny spark of a match, the flicker of a flame, just like that---it is no longer pitch black.
The fire gives me the light--- the clarity I need to see what it is before me.
Night two: My vision restored, I listen now.
As the flames dance, I hear the crackle and hiss, I am present, I await their messages.
Night three: The light is growing, I am too.
Night Four: Light is wisdom and knowledge, without it I am ignorant.
Night Five: The flames are increasing, I feel their energy and warmth enter my skin and settle in my bones.
Night Six: I am thawing. I am feeling deep inside.
Night Six: Everything is growing stronger, there is more light, I feel more warmth.
Everything is growing stronger, the light in my mind, the feelings in my soul.
Night Seven: I am busy running around, I am far from the flames, yet I can still see their glow. My path is still lit.
Night Eight: It is so bright, for a moment I want to close my eyes, and not see, just feel. I want to feel what is. Here. Right now.
The world is brighter, this I know, I feel safer with the Menorah's glow.
With each passing hour, the light is getting dimmer, that is nature.
With my limited mind, in all of my finite glory, there will always be times when I lack clarity, the light concealed from me.
But for now, the warmth stays within me.
And when I lose that feeling deep inside, because feeling come and feeling go---I search for the light, to rekindle those feelings.
What about the light of the fire?
What about the warmth of the flames?
The light remains---- it is the light of logic, reasoning, knowledge, of Torah
The warmth remains--- the feeling of the mitzvah, of knowing that I am linked in a golden chain of being a Jew.
What about the light of the fire?
What about the warmth of the flames?
If not ever-present, something of both will always inspire the other--- my intellect and my emotions.
Both borne out of Chanukah's light.
(Reflections on a conversation with my nephew, Yosef New)