Increase Light!

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

We customarily read the episodes about Yosef on the Sabbath that falls out on Chanukah, and that is no coincidence. The miracles performed for Yosef were akin to those performed for Israel during the Bayit Sheini Period. Yosef was thrown into a pit full of snakes and scorpions, and he was saved. He lived in Mitzrayim among corrupt people who were at the bottom of the forty-nine rungs of impurity - yet he remained righteous. He was in prison, and he rose to greatness, even becoming viceroy of Mitzrayim.

In the same way, Eretz Yisrael, during the Bayit Sheini Period were ruled over by the Greeks. They had no political independence. The Greeks and the Jewish Hellenists longed to swallow up Israel within the Greek Empire, to blur their Jewish identity and to make them forget their holy Torah and its mitzvoth. Am Yisrael was like a person sitting in a dark pit, with snakes and scorpions all around him. Yet a miracle was performed, and the Hasmoneans beat the Greeks. The few vanquished the many and the weak vanquished the strong. At the end of the war they lit the menorah in the Temple, thereby demonstrating for all to see that they had emerged from darkness to light. And the light of Am Yisrael continues to shine forth from Yerushalayim.

Today, we are grateful not just for the miracles performed for us in those days, but also - despite the hardships - for those miracles performed for us now. We have to open our spiritual eyes and see how G-d performs miracles for us, and how He brings salvation and comfort. After two thousand years, we have emerged from the “pit” of the dark exile, which was full of snakes and scorpions. The Jewish People lives on, despite countless attempts by the nations of the world and their religions to bite and to sting us, to poison the nation’s soul.

And just like Yosef, we have climbed out of a deep pit and ascended to a high roof, from Holocaust to Rebirth, from a poor country, governed by austerity at its creation, to a country that by the world’s standards is economically and militarily strong. Yet it is not enough to be strong economically and militarily. We have a duty to become stronger from a spiritual and moral standpoint, for: “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Mishlei 29:18).

Certainly we have faith in the Israel's eternity and no effort will succeed in blurring our identity, uniqueness, and purpose as an eternal people intent on bringing light to the world. Particularly in these days, we must remind ourselves - and each other - that no people will succeed in extinguishing the lamp of Am Yisrael. In addition, our duty is to increase the light - the light of Torah, the light of love, the light of faith. We have to learn to recognize our identity and destiny down through the generations. By such means we will be privileged to see a new light shine over Tzion, speedily in our day, Amen.

BeSorot Tovot. 

Looking forward to complete salvation,
With the Love of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael,

Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach.