T orah P ortion
The Most Important Chanukah Candle
BY RABBI ERIC YANOFF
Parshat Vayeshev
A 7-YEAR-OLD member of
my synagogue once asked
me, “Rabbi, which is the most
important candle on the chanu-
kiyah (Chanukah menorah)?”
What a great question!
At first I wondered aloud:
Is it the shammash, whose
job it is to light the others?
Perhaps. After all, we learn in
the Talmud (Shabbat 122a):
“Ner l’echad, ner l’me’ah” — a
candle that can light one other
has the same kindling power
as a candle that can light a
hundred others without itself
being diminished.

Indeed, that is the role that
rabbis, educators, parents,
guardians and others embrace
for ourselves — that we gain
emotional strength and inspira-
tion by lighting a spark in others.

Are we, like the shammash, the
most important candle?
But then, the tables were
turned, and my young congre-
gant reasoned aloud, “But
rabbi, the shammash doesn’t
even count toward the number
of days on the chanukiyah!
Sure, it makes the other ones
count, but if it goes out, we’re
still fine, the mitzvah is still
fulfilled, right?”
I paused. I smiled. And
as has happened in many of
my best times as a rabbi, the
tables turned: I wondered
who the shammash is now?
Who is lighting whom? Who
is teaching whom? And then
he offered a different interpre-
tation: The most important
candle, he suggested, is the
next one to be lit.

Yes, the next candle is most
important. After all, each
successive night of Chanukah
we light the newest day’s candle
first. It is in keeping with the
sage Hillel, who famously
explained why we add a candle
each night with the overriding
Jewish value ma’alin ba-ko-
desh v’ein moridin — that we
should always strive to grow in
holiness and never to diminish.

We should constantly seek that
next candle, that newest spark.

And here’s why that next
light is the most important
light: Because at the moment
just before it is ignited, it
could go either way. The
flame, the relationship, the
curiosity, the Jewish connec-
tion could be nurtured — or
extinguished. That’s also why
it’s so important, what we do
with each of those opportunities
to “light up” a person curious
about Judaism. It’s why we are
desperate to not miss a single
chance — each chance, each time
— each candle, each child, each
person of any age, seeking to be
“lit up,” Jewishly, a little bit more.

In a sense, when I was asked
that question about which
candle is most important,
the asker was the answer.

The fact that this young asker
was curious was my chance
to light the newest and, in
that moment, most important
flame. Because each time, it
can go either way. Each time,
it’s that crucial.

We learn this from the last
verse of our Torah portion
this week: After Joseph, locked
in a dungeon with Pharaoh’s
cupbearer, interprets the wine
steward’s dream to mean
that he will be freed, and he
is, we read: “V’lo zachar sar
ha-mashkim et-Yosef, vayish-
kacheihu — The cup-bearer
did not remember Joseph, but
rather forgot him entirely”
(Genesis 40:23). This person,
brought forth into freedom,
quickly forgot that there was
another person who had given
him hope in the darkness of
Pharaoh’s dungeon.

CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
Dec. 11
Dec. 18
The commentator Bekhor
Shor interprets the odd repeti-
tion in the verse — both that the
cupbearer “did not remember”
and that he “forgot” — with
the understanding that this
forgetfulness was not out of
purposeful, mindful hatred,
but that Joseph simply fell out
of his thoughts. Joseph and
his impressive dream inter-
pretation faded benignly away,
not due to malice, but like a
skill that falls out of practice,
it atrophied, fell to the side,
dehabituated and unattended.

The cupbearer just moved
on from that interaction that
had sparked a candle of hope.

He just kept going, living his
life, as if that miracle had not
happened. And once forgotten,
if it does not remain, appre-
ciated and remembered and
embraced and inspiring —
then it might as well have not
happened. We cannot forget like that.

In this moment, we, too, are in
a dark time. Though I am in
awe of our sense of innovation
and resilience, many of our most
redemptive practices (Jewishly
and otherwise) have fallen into
disuse, out of necessity to protect
against the pandemic — how
we gather, celebrate, comfort
4:18 p.m.

4:20 p.m.

and hope. Desperate after these
many months for some glimmer
of hope, we may now see the very
beginnings of a light to guide us
along a path ahead. Let us not
forget that the next step, the next
spark, if we choose to ignite it,
may be the most critical.

Because we know, from all
of the less-than-encouraging
news over many months, that
that next light is far from a sure
thing. And yet Hillel reminds
us, ma’alin ba-kodesh: The best
is yet to come. Candle by candle,
moment by moment, despite the
odds, we add light, we improve,
we illumine a path through the
darkness, raising ever higher in
holiness and hope. l
Rabbi Eric Yanoff is one of the
rabbis at Adath Israel in Merion
Station and is co-president of
the Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia. The Board of Rabbis
of Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed in
this column are the author’s own and
do not reflect the view of the Board
of Rabbis..

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DECEMBER 10, 2020
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