6th Day of Hanukkah | Candle #7 Tonight
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Chag Urim Sameach! For the Festival of Lights, we hope these reflections on light will illuminate your week. As we reflect on the meaning of light, and our power to bring it into the world, we invite you to increase the light this Hanukkah with our Center for Tikkun Olam Hanukkah Give Back Guide.
Each year, as winter descends, Jews around the world gather around a hanukkiah, a candelabra that—when fully lit—will shine 9 candles out into the world. As we enter the darkest season of the year, our tradition demands that we, again, create light.
In the Torah, Aaron the High Priest and his sons were charged with the responsibility of lighting the menorah, and the lamps of the Tabernacle in the desert. In explaining the instructions, and the particular verb used, the medieval commentator Rashi teaches that the flames rise upward, and so an expression of ascending is used, implying that one must kindle them until the light ascends on its own. The priest, therefore, is like the shamash of Hanukkah, lighting each candle until it is strong enough to rise up on its own. In turn, then, each of us is charged with that role, lighting up the lives of people around us until they are strong enough to rise on their own.
Additionally, another lesson of the hanukkiah is that light only gets stronger when we share it. The shamash, the helper candle, does not dim as it lights the other candles; it glows brighter. And, in sharing the light, so do we.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer