The Fifth Candle: The Light That Turns Darkness Around

A Night Unlike the Others Tonight is different from the other nights of Hanukkah. On the fifth night, for the first time, there is more light than darkness on the Hanukkah lamp. Four candles are only half of the eight. Five are already more than half. This is the turning point. But there is something deeper here. It is not only that there is more light. The Jewish mystics teach that the fifth candle points to the first of the two letters “H” in Hashem’s holy four-letter Name. That letter stands for deep understanding. It belongs to a world above the ordinary order, the normal step-by-step way in which Hashem’s light comes down into creation. So this candle is not just one more candle. It is a completely different kind of light. Two Kinds of Light King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes: “And I saw that wisdom has an advantage over foolishness, as light has an advantage over darkness.” This verse speaks about the advantage of light: light pushes darkness away. In the daytime, when the sun shines, there is no darkness. The light wins. That is one level. But there is a second level, much higher. The prophet Micah writes: “Though I sit in darkness, Hashem is a light for me.” He does not say “when I get out of the darkness.” He says that inside the darkness itself, Hashem is the light. And in the Book of Psalms: “Even darkness is not dark for You. The night shines like the day. Darkness and light are the same.” This is no longer a light that chases darkness away. It is a light that enters the darkness, becomes one with it, and turns it into light from the inside. The difference between these two kinds of light is not about how much light there is. It is about what kind of light it is. The first light belongs to the ordinary order of things: light against darkness, one force against another. The second light is a completely different kind. It comes from Hashem’s own infinite Being, which is above all the limits of that order. It does not “fight” the darkness. It turns the darkness around. The Heart of the Matter: The Darkness Inside Young married man, here comes the point that really touches you. When Hasidic teaching talks about “darkness,” it does not mean only the bad things outside: the exile, the trouble that comes from a neighbor. It means the corner inside the heart. The place nobody talks about. We all know what this is. The inner struggle you are ashamed of. The fall that happens again and again. The thing that feels broken and beyond repair. The “place” where a person feels completely alone. You cannot share it with your wife or with a friend, and certainly not with a mentor. Some people think: “When I am better, when I have fixed myself, then holiness will come to me. Right now, in this darkness, I am far from Hashem.” This way of thinking is where pain comes from. This is where despair comes from. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, teaches that there are two ways of returning to Hashem. When a person returns out of fear, his deliberate sins are turned into mere mistakes. When he returns out of love, the deliberate sins themselves are turned into merits. The Talmud says: “His deliberate sins become like merits.” Notice the exact wording. Merits do not come instead of the sins. The sins themselves become merits. The darkness is not pushed away. It is turned around. This means that the very deepest point of a fall is exactly the place where the deepest light, the light of Hashem’s own Being, can be born. The Inner Point The holy Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught that every descent is for the sake of a higher ascent. The rise does not come in spite of the descent. It comes through it. The soul goes down into dark places precisely because that is where the hidden sparks of holiness are. Those sparks can be lifted up in no other way. And what feels like a fall is sometimes exactly the preparation for a revelation from above the ordinary order. This is the secret of the fifth candle. It is not that the light comes to the darkness and defeats it. The light enters the darkness, shines from within it, and turns the darkness itself into light. If you are right now in a place you do not talk about, know this: you are not alone there. This light is not waiting for you outside. It is looking for you right there.