The Hanukkah Light That Sits Low
To Begin You have a fantasy, and you know it well. “If only I could get out of all this: the pressure of making a living, the small arguments, the heavy days. Then I could finally be a real Jew. If only I had some quiet. If only I were on a high mountain somewhere, alone, breathing clean air. Then spirituality would come.” We all know this fantasy. And it is wrong from the ground up. Your Mission Is Here Hashem did not send your soul into this world so that it could float above it. He sent it into the world. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya (the classic book of Hasidic thought), lays down a foundation that the whole building stands on: “The purpose of creating this world is that Hashem desired to have a home in the lowest realms.” Not in the “higher” places. Not in the lofty spiritual worlds. In the lowest realms, specifically. That emphasis is not decoration. It is the whole point. The lowness itself, the physical world, the confusion, the complicated reality of life: these are not just the place where the mission happens. They are the raw material of the mission. What does this mean? Your struggles, your pressures and your heavy days are not distractions from your spiritual task. They are the task itself. The Soul Came Down to Light Up the Dark There is a deep idea in the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement: serving Hashem through the material world. Holiness is not limited to the hours of prayer or the pages of the Talmud. The soul’s job is to draw Hashem’s presence down and reveal it right inside the things of this world, inside ordinary, everyday life. Hasidic teaching puts it this way: a descent for the sake of a higher ascent. The soul comes down into a dark world. It does not come to run away from the darkness. It does not come to look for places that are already bright. It comes to light up the darkness itself. As King Solomon wrote, light has its special advantage over darkness, and that advantage comes specifically out of the darkness. Picture a place that has never had any light, and then someone lights a candle there. In that place the light shines all the more. So the higher you want to reach, the lower you need to go. This is not a contradiction. It is the very heart of what Hashem intended. Below Ten Handbreadths: A Law That Teaches Forever There is one place where this idea leaves the world of ideas and enters plain Jewish law. The Hanukkah candle is a commandment whose details are precise and carefully measured. The Code of Jewish Law rules that the Hanukkah lamp should be placed less than ten handbreadths from the ground. That is roughly three feet. Not on the roof. Not up in the heights. Down low, close to the floor. Hasidic teaching sees this law as a lesson for all generations. Your job is not to lift the light up to the sky. Your job is to bring the light down to the floor: to the place “below ten handbreadths,” to the low, heavy, dark place in your life. The holiest place in the world is not the top of a high mountain. It is the dark place in your life that you decided to light up.
Putting It into Practice
The next time you feel that your situation is “getting in the way” of being close to Hashem, stop. Ask yourself: Maybe this very situation is my place “below ten handbreadths”? Maybe my mission is right here, inside this mess itself? Don’t run away. Light a candle. Right here.
Questions and answers
Q: Would I be a better Jew if I could escape the pressures of making a living and family life?
Rabbi Landau answers: You have a fantasy, and you know it well. “If only I could get out of all this: the pressure of making a living, the small arguments, the heavy days. Then I could finally be a real Jew. If only I had some quiet. If only I were on a high mountain somewhere, alone, breathing clean air. Then spirituality would come.” We all know this fantasy. And it is wrong from the ground up.
Q: Why did Hashem send the soul into this world instead of above it, according to the Tanya?
Rabbi Landau answers: Hashem did not send your soul into this world so that it could float above it. He sent it into the world. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya (the classic book of Hasidic thought), lays down a foundation that the whole building stands on: “The purpose of creating this world is that Hashem desired to have a home in the lowest realms.” Not in the “higher” places. Not in the lofty spiritual worlds. In the lowest realms, specifically. That emphasis is not decoration. It is the whole point. The lowness itself, the physical world, the confusion, the complicated reality of life: these are not just the place where the mission happens.
Q: What does the Baal Shem Tov teach about serving Hashem through the material world?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is a deep idea in the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement: serving Hashem through the material world. Holiness is not limited to the hours of prayer or the pages of the Talmud. The soul’s job is to draw Hashem’s presence down and reveal it right inside the things of this world, inside ordinary, everyday life. Hasidic teaching puts it this way: a descent for the sake of a higher ascent. The soul comes down into a dark world. It does not come to run away from the darkness. It does not come to look for places that are already bright. It comes to light up the darkness itself.
Q: Why must the Hanukkah lamp be placed less than ten handbreadths from the ground, and what does that teach?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is one place where this idea leaves the world of ideas and enters plain Jewish law. The Hanukkah candle is a commandment whose details are precise and carefully measured. The Code of Jewish Law rules that the Hanukkah lamp should be placed less than ten handbreadths from the ground. That is roughly three feet. Not on the roof. Not up in the heights. Down low, close to the floor. Hasidic teaching sees this law as a lesson for all generations. Your job is not to lift the light up to the sky. Your job is to bring the light down to the floor: to the place “below ten handbreadths,” to the low, heavy, dark place in your life.
Q: What should you do when you feel your situation is getting in the way of being close to Hashem?
Rabbi Landau answers: The next time you feel that your situation is “getting in the way” of being close to Hashem, stop. Ask yourself: Maybe this very situation is my place “below ten handbreadths”? Maybe my mission is right here, inside this mess itself? Don’t run away. Light a candle. Right here.