According to Halachah, we are not supposed to do any work while the Chanukah lights are burning. For that half hour, we should focus on the lights and try to connect to their meaning. In these times of financial setbacks and hardships, focusing on our spiritual existence takes on a greater significance.

• What is our true purpose in this life? Are we fulfilling, or even attempting to fulfill it?
• Are our careers and jobs a means to an end, or an end in and of themselves?
• Are we appreciating the fact that we have been blessed to live in circumstances and conditions immensely superior to those experienced by 98% of the rest of the world?
• Do we truly appreciate our children, parents, spouses, family, and friends?
• Are we placing our faith in God, or are we trying to totally control our destinies?
• Are we spreading light to the world around us?

After you light those holy Chanukah lights, make the next half hour special. Gaze at the lights and connect to the unbroken chain of Jewish history. Think about your life, and how you can add more meaning, and light, into it. Think about how you can be a light to those around you.

May this Chanukah be a time of light and blessing for us all.

Happy Chanukah!

There are many answers to this questions. A few of them are:

1. the first day was celebrated for the miracle of the military victory
2. the fact that they even found one tiny flask of pure oil was itself a miracle.
3. they only added an eighth of the oil each day

I’d like to share with you two answers that I really connect to.

1. The very fact that oil burns is a miracle. Nature is a miracle. We take it for granted that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, that water puts out fire, and that oil burns. But why? It’s all miraculous, every aspect of nature, from the planets and stars to the blossoming of a flower. Chanukah is a time to recognize not only the once in a lifetime miracles, but the miracles that happen all around us every minute of the day. The miracle of nature.
2. The Jewish people had just gone through one of their most difficult periods. Persecution, death, war, personal hardships. When they finally managed to drive the Hellenist forces out of Jerusalem, they entered the Holy Temple only to find it desecrated and in ruin. They miraculously found a tiny flask of sealed holy oil, but they knew that it could only last for a day, so why bother? Why bother lighting the Menorah, the eternal light, when it will just be extinguished within the day? You see, the miracle is that they didn’t give up hope. Even though it looked hopeless, they lit the Menorah. They started over, from amidst the ruins and desecration. They never gave up hope. The Jews in the concentration camps and ghettos of the Holocaust also never gave up hope. Those that survived the destruction lit the tiny flask of oil that remained, and watched it miraculously burn, and continue to grow and spread light throughout the world.

The second kind of miracle is started “below” and is completed or fullfiled from “above”. The primary example of this kind of miracle is Chanukah. The Jews took up arms against their oppressors, and then God granted them victory over overwhelming odds. The Jews lit the Menorah in the Temple with only a tiny flask of pure oil, and God caused it to burn for eight days. The Chanukah miracles were instigated from “below”, by the Jewish people.

Chanukah is more than a time of miracles. It’s a time of instigating miracles. During this time God tell us to, so to speak, force Him to make miracles by taking the first step.

Chanukah is the time when we can make miracles happen. All we have to do is start the ball rolling. We can make miracles happen.

Happy Chanukah.

This halacha teaches us a very deep lesson. Chanukah teaches us that miracles do happen. God is in control of our destinies, not us.

Just the other night, sitting in front of the menorah, I started worrying about my own financial situation. How was I going to take control of my financial destiny? It’s all totally in my hands, right?

Then I realized that I was counting money by the lights of the menorah. I was trying to control my life, while the lights were telling me that God is in control. The miraculous can happen. So, I stopped thinking and started believing in the message of those holy mystical lights.