""How fun that our holiday is eight days and theirs is only one day," the granddaughter tells me in a heavy American accent.
""It's not a holiday," I quickly respond, startled by the comparison.
This Hanukkah I was privileged to "spend" in New York. A family trip, a business trip, and of course, mostly a spiritual trip because I'm staying in the Rebbe's neighborhood.
It turned out that this year our eighth day "fell" – "It’s Chanukah", on January 1st.
For me, it was a signal from above that made me hope and wish that after the eight days of miracle our And the recognition that God is God, the eyes of the nations of the world will also be opened to recognize the fact that God, the God of Israel, reigns and that He is the One who determined that the Land of Israel, in all its parts, belongs to the people of Israel.
After the miracle of Hanukkah, it will be clear to them that we are here to stay. That we cannot be erased. That long before the vote in the Security Council, they already tried and failed to erase us.
But apparently, just as then, so now, the Hellenists are our problem - your destroyers and your destroyers will come from you...
Day after day, I went to Manhattan to witness the lighting of the world's largest menorah. The person who designed it was Yaakov Agam, the artist who became close to Chabad Hasidism after his wife, Kalila, who was a descendant of the Baal Tanya, passed away. However, the person who overrode the engineering plan designed by Agam was the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself. It was the Rebbe who determined that the world's largest menorah had a halachically permissible height, which was no more than twenty cubits.
Decades ago, the Rebbe led his followers and the entire world in the Hasidic approach, the Chanukah approach: The only way to banish the darkness is to illuminate it. By adding light. Not just any light, but many lights, and not just any light, but a great light that will illuminate the entire world (the "outside") with divine light.
Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, lit the sixth candle and offered blessings under heavy security. At the end of the lighting, journalists and reporters from American media networks crowded around him, and Danny demonstrated "Gaon Yaakov" in front of them. I stood there thinking to myself, here he is - Danon - doing "Nisa commercials" in the strictest sense of the word.
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A new fashion that began years ago is spreading in America. It's called "Kabbalah studies"... Jews, and to be more specific, Gentiles, of all kinds, are flocking together and studying Kabbalah.
But what? The teachings of Kabbalah, when disconnected from the Torah, are barren and, God forbid, even capable of doing harm. Instead of talking about God, they talk about a "great light." Instead of keeping the commandments, they talk about a spiritual connection. Instead of talking about the evil inclination and the work of nullification, they deal with the "ego." This is not learning and this is not Torah.
""And you loved" is a universal slogan, but let us not forget that the only time that love for God appears in the Torah, it appears as a commandment that we must fulfill. To fulfill in actual action. It is not enough to love God in the heart. Love must lead to action even though it is a commandment in itself, as appears in the parasha immediately after the verse and you shall love the Lord your God. With all your heart – in both cases...
The educated "study" in the teachings of Kabbalah allows us to historically research the holiday of Hanukkah, but does not allow us to reach and find the jug of pure oil. We always wish a פרילאחן הנוכה (Happy Hanukkah). The word שמח is the acronym for thatdaughter, fromYella, HAnd there is no joy except in the case of a mitzvah.
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Sometimes it seems to me that what most of the world understands, or at least accepts as fact, that the people of Israel own the Land of Israel and that it has chosen to serve as a light to the nations, is not understood by just a few of us. That minority of left-wing extremist Jews who are still left to flee, who are constantly trying to turn the nations against their own people.
A Jew who devoutly refused my husband for six years when he asked him to put on tefillin, told him that if Trump wins the presidential election, he will agree to put on tefillin.
The result is already known to everyone, but there are still those who think Hillary was better. Women's organizations will see me as an enemy and an anti-feminist. Nevertheless, I will repeat it again: Thank God that the woman this Not elected. The woman who is a balanced cocktail of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.
Don't get me wrong. I have no interest in Trump any more than I have in Clinton. Nevertheless, the reactions to the unfortunate expressions of the Israel-hating Hussein, who has lurked like a snake for eight years, testify like a thousand witnesses to who the Israeli left sympathizer is.
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The eight days of Hanukkah have passed. In contrast, the eight years of Hussein Obama have passed (miraculously, it must be said). Now is the time to embark on a new path while recognizing the fact that the Greeks were not Gentiles but part of us. And if we just turn on the light for them, accept every Jew with love and appreciation and not with aggression, then even the most extremists on the deep left will want to take part in this miracle in which the walls will fall and the people of Israel will be stronger than ever!
A minute before we say goodbye to these eight joyful days, in which joy abounds even without festive and formal feasts, and perhaps because of this... I want to say something about "This is Chanukah.".
On this day, eight candles are lit. One against this day and seven more against the "days that have passed" (against the days that have already passed). The teaching from this is that even though a Jew behaved properly during the past seven days, and has already corrected all the days of the week, when he lights the eighth candle, by this power he immediately lights all seven candles against all the days that have passed.
This means that every good and positive action we do on this day adds to and illuminates all the days that have already passed for our good and blessing.
• Miri Shneorson – presenter, lecturer, and media representative. To book a lecture, leave your details: lp.770marketing.com/miri_shneorson
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