Chanukah Kavanot: 7th & 8th Days

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The Ramchal in Kitzur Kavanot explains that Chanukah is the Tikkun – fixing – of the verse, ““From on high He sent a fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He spread a net for

my feet. He hurled me backward. He made me desolate; sick throughout the day.”

(Lamentations 1:13)

VII. The Strength To Endure

Usually if a fire is sent from heaven it will immediately and totally consume us. Part of the punishment of the destruction is that we were kept alive to suffer and did not experience relief from our pain. (Rabbi Shmuel de Ozediah)

However, the same strength we were given to endure as punishment, was used by the Chashmonaim, and Jews throughout the thousands of years of exile, as a means to grow no matter the environment and suffering. We transformed the punishment into blessing and accomplishment; we transformed darkness into light.

We should intend when we recite the blessings over the Chanukah candles to be able to continue to use the strength to endure, not just to survive, but also to grow, and to transform all the darkness in this world into light.

VIII.”This”

“The fire went earthward,” (Exodus 9:23) the fire of the plague of hail, is the same fire that was sent from on high. The fire existed in water. The opposites did not conflict, but worked together to prove that, “There is none like Me in all the world.” (Exodus 9:14)

Those who acknowledge, as did the Chashmonaim, “there is none like God in the world,” can achieve, again, as did the Chashmonaim, the miraculous. (Based on the thought of Rav Binyamin HaKohen Vital)

The eighth day of Chanukah, “Zot Chanukah,” – “This is Chanukah” – can rise above the “this” – the realities of the physical world, into “Zot Chanukah” a life without boundaries and limitation.