Chanukah Is A Celebration Of Victory Over Ourselves

Chanukah seems like a childish, not very serious holiday. But, in fact, it is the most significant holiday because it speaks about a person’s entry into the spiritual work, his first step, his crossing the border between the material and the spiritual worlds.

In order to cross this border, a person must go against the “Greeks” in him, against his egoism. He defeats these impure, egoistic forces because he stands against them and is not afraid.

Yet, we reveal that we have no strength to stand against the egoistic desire. Where can it come from if we are a complete product of this egoism and all we have is a tiny spark that opposes it.

But if we hold on and don’t back off, then a miracle happens—again and again comes the Upper Light, performs its work, and “conveys the strong into the hands of the weak.” Our desire to bestow is very weak so far, almost imperceptible. However, the miracle happens and help comes from above, giving us the force of bestowal, the altruistic intention, and faith, through which we can win.

The victory comes when a person, on the one hand feels that he is obliged to win this war, but on the other hand has no strength and he reaches despair, having exhausted all his possibilities. We see from history that many Jews left the path of light and adopted the Greek’s approach to life. Only the Maccabees remained, a small handful of the people who started the war.

“The Greeks attacked me,” and at the same time a person feels that he must continue to fight with his last strength, without any hope for success. He can’t give up, because otherwise he will remain enslaved by egoism. Then a miracle happens and he wins this war. The Exodus from Egypt and Chanukah, the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, are all stages of the same war.

This entire war is on the border of the material and the spiritual worlds, between egoistic forces and the forces of bestowal and love. A person sees that between him and the spiritual world is a wall. Only if he can give up his egoistic desires and thoughts, will he begin to feel the spiritual world in this vacant space.

This realization doesn’t come immediately but after a long time and much effort because it is necessary to find new measures and new sensations so that a person will obtain the connection with the spiritual. Then he discovers the “Greeks” that he didn’t see before and realizes that he will have a war with them.

It is a great joy because he finally discovers that he faces a formidable barrier. This barrier is inside the person, in his perception of the world and reality, and in his previous life’s values.

Now he needs to dress into a new person who thinks and sees differently, prefers other values, and acquires completely new feelings, mind, and perception of the world. So begins the Maccabean War with our internal “Greeks.”
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From the lesson on the topic “Hanukkah by the wisdom of Kabbalah” 12/20/16