Category: Chanukka

SHADOWS AND LIGHT–CHANUKKA 5783/2022

There’s an elephant in the room, though I think most readers are unaware of its shadowed presence. It’s the portion of the Chanukka story that occurs after the victorious restoration of the Temple that we celebrate with our chanukiyot.

Paradox — A Hanukkah Dilemma

Hanukkah teaches us how to survive exile and how to accomplish the purpose

“This Opposite This” HaShem Made the World

This tug-of-war stripped down to its basics is really about “who eats who?” And, really, the whole drama of geopolitics comes down to exactly that: In the end, whose narrative, whose scripture, whose ideology, whose story of why we are here and where we’re headed and what G d wants from us…whose narrative is going to prevail, and absorb everyone else into its story line. “Who will eat who?”

The Chinukh of Chanukka

Since Chanukka and Purim reference toward the future, R. Luria associates them with Mashiach ben David, and the 7th marriage blessing when “the woman of valor becomes the crown to her husband.” R. Luria brings fascinating evidence of the gender shifts that weave through the messianic lineage and narrative.

Chanukka—Harbinger of Messianic Gender Shifts to Come

ZOT CHANUKKA–A TRIBUTE TO THE SHEKHINA

The kabbalists read into Chanukka’s eight days, a journey of progressive tikun down through the sefirot from Binah to Malchut. Curiously, Binah associates with the higher Shekhina called Ima (literally, Mother) and Malchut associates with the lower Shekhina called Nukba (literally, Woman). Chanukka thus begins and ends on a feminine note. The first candle (of Binah) accompanies all the subsequent lights, and its last candle (of Malchut) gets honored with a name of its own—Zot Chanukka—(in part) because it enacts the last frame of the Shekhina’s moonlike odyssey (as we shall see).