Is the darkness inside me stronger than I am?

Rabbi Landau answers with something a person told him: “My depression controls me. I’m in a war with my own mind.” His response: “Darkness has never won a fight.”

Darkness, he explains, is not a personality disorder. It is what happens when light is absent. “You can wrestle shadows for 40 years and make zero progress. Because you don’t fix darkness, you expose it. The moment you bring a drop of light, darkness disappears.”

That is the lesson of Chanukah. “The Maccabees didn’t analyze Greek culture or take courses on internal darkness. They lit a flame, one jar, one candle, and the empire folded.” Hashem did create darkness as a real force, he says, but He created it with a nature that must surrender to light. “Your darkness isn’t strong, it’s just unchallenged.”

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that you don’t need to conquer your whole inner self in one day. All you need is one small act of light: one verse, one song, one act of charity, one good thought.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Rabbi Landau teaches that darkness has never won a fight; it is only unchallenged.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

A person feels controlled by his own mind, as if he were at war with himself.

What may be behind it

Wrestling with shadows gets nowhere. You don’t fix darkness; you expose it with light.

Deepest human truth

Hashem created darkness with a nature that must give way to light. One small act of light is enough to begin.