There has been so much written about the mash up between Thanksgiving and Chanukah that I need to take a break and go back to the roots of Chanukah itself. Last week I attended a Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting. YES, I am now a fully inducted full fledged member. It took a year and a change in the bylaws but that is another story. Rabbi Michael Balinsky did a wonderful teaching. We looked a section of Gemara from the Talmud that asks the question, is it the lighting or the placing of the menorah that makes the mitzvah? He based on a teaching of Rabbi Itamar Eldar from Yeshivat Har Tzion who combines the gemara with some important Chassidic teachings. Thank you, Rabbi Balinsky for showing us the light!

First Chanukah is outlined in Masachet Shabbat. As a “newer” Jewish holiday it does not have a full tractate. It is not from the Torah but from much later Jewish history!

 “Come and hear, for Rabba said: If one was standing and holding the Chanukah lamp, it is as if he did nothing. Thus, we learn that it is the placing which constitutes the mitzvah. For a bystander, seeing him, would assume that he was holding the light for his own purposes [if he does not set it down].” However like most Talmudic arguments there is another opinion: “Come and hear, for Rabba said: If one lit the lamp inside and then took it [to place it] outside, it is as if he did nothing [that is, he has not fulfilled the mitzvah]. Now it makes sense if you say that the lighting constitutes the mitzvah, and hence there is a need to light in the proper place [i.e., outside], and therefore this person has not fulfilled the mitzva. But if you say that the placing constitutes the mitzvah, then why has this person not fulfilled it? [Because] here, too, an observer would conclude that he lit for his own purposes.” (Shabbat 22b)

So what does the Chassidic teaching add? They point out a tension between doing a mitzvah with joy and fixing the mitzvah in its time and place. Doing it correctly. We see this same argument in discussions of Jewish prayer–about kavanah, intention and keva, the set structure. The truth is we need both. What this teaching adds is around the word “kindling”, l’hadlik. As Eldar points out, “we hear the living, vibrant, dynamic element of life. It speaks of enthusiasm, movement, change and power. This is what makes life interesting, surprising, fascinating.” Placing on the other hand is “fixed and static. This is the calming element, reflecting composure and introducing quiet and tranquility into the never-ending rat race of life.”

For Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berechev, kindling the Chanukah lights, doing any mitzvah, is to allow us to arouse fervor in our souls and turn our hearts to G-d with love and wondrous desire. The joy of a mitzvah–and the main thing is to perform each and every mitzvah with love and great desire and with tremendous fervor. When we light the candles we are igniting that fervor. However, he cautions, much like Abraham Joshua Heschel when he talks about the need for structure in our daily prayers to help get us over the hump, “sometimes when a person’s heart and mind have become blunted, such that he is not able to perform a mitzvah with fervor and desire, he should not refrain, heaven fore fend.” He should perform the mitzvah in a state of “placing” even if he has no fervor.”

Sometimes the joy comes from the doing. The Israelites said standing at the base of Mount Sinai, “We shall do and we shall hear.” They committed to the doing before they even knew what they would be doing. The very act of doing can lead to joy.

We place other items to remind us of these very words–mezzuzot and tefilin and tallitot to name a few. Yesterday we had a great pre-Chanukah celebration at Congregation Kneseth Israel. In addition to our annual Latke Lunch, we also had a Chanukat Habayit, a dedication of the home, our spiritual home of CKI. After much work on the foyer and the mezuzah being off the door since last spring, we were able, in the spirit of Chanukah and rededication, nail the mezuzah back up and rededicate the building to our vision of life long learning, embracing diversity, meaningful observance and building community. It was great to hear our youngest students sing Sh’ma while our Machers responsible for the foyers reconstruction, hammered (pun, Maccabee means Hammer) the nails into the doorpost. There was a great deal of joy. And isn’t that the point?

Eldar goes on to point out that “R. Levi Yitzchak addresses one of the great innovations of Chassidut, if not its greatest contribution: “That the essence of man’s service [of God] in prayer and Torah and the mitzvot is to arouse his soul and his heart in fervor towards God, in love and wondrous desire.” Dr. Joseph Rosenfeld, the president of Congregation Kneseth Israel was making a similar point in his most recent HaKol (monthly bulletin) message. He said, “We have a responsibility to work on our joy…we have been chosen by G-d to be his people. Our songs, our wisdom, our duty to heal the world (Tikkun Olam)—these are great privileges bestowed upon us. We are really the Chosen People. Furthermore, you don’t have to be a great scholar to pray to G-d; to reach out and dialogue with the Lord. Spirit (Ruach) in English, in Spanish, or in Hebrew; with a timbrel or a lute; it all works if we believe that G-d loves us, and if we love Him. Thank you to the B’nai Mitzvah celebrants and their families for showing us the way. ” Check us out on Sunday mornings. The building, newly rededicated, is filled with joy, enthusiasm, passion.

Chanukah is an ideal opportunity to work on joy. The Talmudic rabbis set it up that way. In a discussion between Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel in Shabbat 21b about the proper way to light Chanukah lights, they wonder whether you should light eight candles the first night, seven the second etc OR one the first, two the second and so forth. Rabbi Hillel who argued that the candles should increase each night from the principle of “Ma’alin Ba’Kodesh ve’ayn Moridin, we increase with holiness and do not decrease” won the argument. The increased light increases our holiness and our joy.

 So light your candles. Even if you don’t feel it. The very act may cause you to rise in holiness and joy. And that is a good thing. A very, very good thing.