THE ART OF BEING GRATEFUL FOR BEING GRATEFUL
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THE ART OF BEING GRATEFUL FOR BEING GRATEFUL
When we light the Hanuka candles, we are lighting the candles of our souls. King David said, כִּֽי־אַ֭תָּה תָּאִ֣יר נֵרִ֑י יְקֹוָ֥ק אֱ֝לֹהַ֗י יַגִּ֥יהַּ חָשְׁכִּֽי: for You light up my candle, YKVK my G-d will light up my darkness. (Tehillim 18;29) A soul is comparable to a candle. נֵ֣ר יְ֭קֹוָק נִשְׁמַ֣ת אָדָ֑ם A candle of YKVK is a man’s soul. (Mishlei 20; 27) One of the reasons why a Jew shakes during his Amidah prayer, something that is not found in the prayer of any other religion, is because the flame of the Jewish soul is flickering when he is talking to G-d.
Why is a soul compared to a candle? And how do we light up our soul and cause it to flicker?
There are two types of light and darkness. There is the light and darkness that we are familiar with, that comes from the sun and the lack of it. That light is the secondary light that G-d created on Day 4 of Creation. On day one of Creation, G-d created a light that He decided to hide for the Tzadikkim till the End of Time. א֖וֹר זָרֻ֣עַ לַצַּדִּ֑יק (Tehillim 97;11. See Rashi in Bereshit) That light is also found in the Torah, and in the Hanuka candle light. This type of a light is a light of awareness, that a person can “see” from one end of the world to the other. (Hagigah 12a) The word חשך, darkness, at its deepest meaning means held back, or unaware. וְלֹ֥א חָשַׂ֛כְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ֥ אֶת־יְחִידְךָ֖ מִמֶּֽנִּי G-d asked Abraham, not to hold back his son Yitzhak from him. And that is what all prayer is about. Awareness. Opening up your eyes, letting the soul free, to connect to Him and to express authentic gratitude to him.
That is why we “flicker”, when we shake while we pray. When we light the Hanuka candles, it is as if we are making a prayer to G-d, Master of the Universe! Light up my darkness! If I don’t see how You are ruling my world, and I don’t thank You for every detail that I owe You gratitude for, my life is not a life, my ‘candle’ is not lit, my soul is in the dark, as I am disconnected from the source of life, חי העולמים. Only through gratitude and thanks can I be connected to You, can I see the light, can I be aware! Please G-d! Give me that awareness! Don’t hold me back from seeing how much You are there for me!
This is the hidden light that is found in Hanuka candles. Thanking G-d for the ability and the awareness to thank Him. As we say in Modim Drabanan, the Modim that the Minyan says, while the Hazzan is saying the Modim of Shemoneh ‘Esreh. עַל שֶׁאֲנַחְנוּ מודִים לָךְ. בָּרוּךְ אֵל הַהודָאות On the very fact that we are able thank You, we are thanking You! Being grateful, that I can have gratitude in my heart, is on a Jewish thing, built into our religion and every day service.
It is so strange. The whole repetition prayer of the Hazan, we say Amen just to his prayer, and it is considered that he is our messenger for a public prayer, a Tefilat Tzibur. (Which is why it is so severe to talk during the Chazara, the repetition prayer, because it is the communal prayer, that we are all expressing through the Hazzan. Speaking in the middle of the Repetition, is like speaking in middle of Shemoneh ‘Esreh, and is the only thing the Halacha says to scold someone for. לא ישיח שיחת חולין בשעה שהשליח צבור חוזר התפלה, ואם שח הרי הוא חוטא וגדול עוונו מנשוא וגוערים בו. (O”H 124;7) But in the repetition, when we say our own Modim, we don’t rely on the Modim of the Hazan! A Baal Teshuva I teach prayer to asked me the following two questions last week: If it is important to thank G-d for our ability to thank Him, why don’t we thank him so, in the original Modim? And second question, why can’t we have the Hazan to be our messenger for this Modim, as well?
The answer is hidden in the meanings of the word Modim. The word Modim, has in it three different levels. On the simple level, it means thanks. On a deeper level, it means that I admit. הודאת בעל דין. I admit that I am not independent, I could not manage without You, but I am so very dependent on You. On a deeper level, it means, I am aware. וידוי. This is because, gratitude is rooted in awareness. There are a lot of levels of awareness. If I have a messenger saying that I am aware of something for me, it does not mean, yet, that I am actually aware. If I have someone saying for me that I am dependent, that is not the same as an admission that I am dependent, as if I say it myself. Therefore, we need to express our gratitude, our thanks, from our own mouths, and not have someone say our thanks for us. This is why the Minyan needs to make their own Modim, and not rely on the Hazzan. And this is why we take this personal moment of gratitude during the Repetition prayer, to express that we are grateful for being able to be grateful. I am grateful that I am grateful. Aware that I am unentitled. This brings a person to admittance that he is indebted. That admittance needs to be from the each and every member of the Minyan, something that the Hazan can’t cover for. The indebted feeling is what motivates one and gives him the emotional energy to actually be grateful and thankful. It’s a three-step process, to being grateful. Awareness. Admitting. Appreciation. And all three are found in the roots of וידוי, מודה, and הודאה.
We say in the Al Hanissim prayer something that is so strange. While we are telling G-d thank you, we mention something unrelated to the thanks itself. וְקָבְעוּ שְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי חֲנֻכָּה אֵלּוּ. לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵּל לְשִׁמְךָ הַגָּדוֹל: We mention to G-d a piece of history: that the Rabbis of the Hanuka days set up eight days of Hanuka, dedicated to praise. Why do we mention this, something that G-d already knows?
The answer is that the very fact that we were able to realize that we needed to take out 8 days each year to praise G-d – for that awareness alone, we are thanking G-d. Including the repetition prayer, we say Al Hanissim 5 to 7 times a day, for all 8 days of Hanuka, not including Al Hanisim of Birkat Hamazon. That is around 50 times! It gets pretty repetitious. It can even feel like “rambling”. If you are not aware of the importance of what you are saying, your prayer is not genuine, not authentic – you miss out on the power and meaning of your Al Hanisms! You can either accept or make a different change.
The light of the soul, the light of first day of Creation, the light of Hanuka candles are all lights of awareness. Every extra effort you put into your gratitude brings it up a level. Each level of awareness you are mindful of is another level of soul lit up. The fact that you are grateful to be grateful. The fact that you can express it yourself. The fact that you can publicize it. And the more people we publicize it to. How so?
Ever wonder why we have a special Hanuaka candle lighting in the Shul, with blessings, even though the person who lights in the shul will be making the blessings, when he lights later at home? This is because in dangerous times of antisemitism, when it was unsafe to light in our windows, and we could not publicize our gratitude for the passersby, the only kind of publicizing that could be done in those days was to the people indoors, to one’s own household. So, the Rabbis found another level of publicizing the miracle in times of antisemitism! They inaugurated lighting for the people that gather in the synagogue! And we make a special, extra blessing, just for that extra publicizing!
Although, one can say, if it is dangerous times, and I can’t light in my window because of antisemitism, why do I have to find other ways of publicizing the miracle? If it is dangerous, if it is risky, aren’t I patur and exempt!?
No! Even if I am patur and exempt, I go out of my way to thank, because I am indebted. Even though I can rely on the Hazan, I go out of my way to make a special personal thank you with my Modim D’rabanan! Even though the Hashmonaim did not have to light with pure oil, because they had a loophole of טומאה הותרה בציבור, they wanted to go the extra mile and find the best way, the ideal way, to light the menorah! Why?
Because what I want to do, I don’t find excuses not to do, I don’t try to get out of it! It is so interesting, what the Rambam says about the mitzvah of Hanukah! He calls it a מצוה חביבה עד מאד (Rambam 4 12) The most precious of all the Mitzvoth! How could that make sense?! Hanukah is a mitzvah from the Rabbis, while Tzitzit, Tefillin, Shabbat, are from the Torah! How can it be that the Rambam calls no other mitzvah so precious?!
The answer is because this is the Mitzvah, the holiday, that G-d did not ask of us! We did it, because we wanted to! We made this holiday, without any prophets, just with our awareness alone! Whenever the Talmud mentions something that a Rabbi learned on his own, it says, חביבה ליה, it is precious to him! This is our holiday of awareness. That we are thankful, that we can be thankful. Because once I realize, once I am grateful to be grateful, there is nothing more חביב, nothing more precious than that!
