After lighting the Menorah of Chanukah, its customary to sit nearby and watch its flames for some time. Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, 6th Rebbe of Chabad (known as “The Friediker Rebbe” or the Previous Rebbe) would say: “We ought to listen to (the stories and messages) that the Menorah’s flames tell us.”
Not sure that there’s a specific story the flames say, it may be different for each of us and the stories and messages may vary from one Chanukah night to the next. But there’s lots of messages and Chassidic teaching to be gleaned from flames themselves. Here are a number of such visual thoughts (in no particular order):
(1) Tanya 19 describes the tension in every candle. The flame seeks and yearns, dances and strives upwards, heavenward. But it is tethered and kept below, grounded by the wick and fuel. It’s a tug of war beween existence and transendance, between yearning and returning, between passion and purpose, “beyond the world and within the world.” A flame can defy description and predictability, not so the fuel which can be quantified and measured.
(2) Tanya 35 teaches (from the Yanukah in the Zohar) that Wicks R’ Us! We are the wick. A wick is a conduit, a connector, a simple valve of sorts, that determines, regulates and modifies the flow of fuel to the flame. Depending on the wick’s material, its thickness, its position, the wick affects the size, quality and duration of the flame. Of course, us humans are more complex wicks, and we can adjust and improve “our wickiness” and conductivity!
(3) Chassidus speaks of the brighter fire vs. the darker fire. Look closely at a flame: the part that’s closest to the wick is a darker fire, further from the wick the flame gets more luminous, even translucent. The brighter flame may be prettier, but the darker flame is hotter. Chassidus says that the darker flame represents our spiritual service that is more challenging, more difficult, has more grappling. Like #AlterRebbe‘s “Beinoni” in Tanya.
(4) Candles are widely used for Chanukah observance and are most certainly Kosher but some prefer to use olive oil, as the original Temple Menorah miracle happened with oil. Rebbe points out that oil has opposing dual properties: Oil permeates and penetrates deeply, it can be a challenge to extract, yet at the same time oil doesn’t mix well with other liquids, it rises to the top and stays apart. Same in a sense can be said for our or Torah’s worldly involvement, engagement and entanglements.
(5) The flame is the flame, but that’s only part of its story. Much of the flame’s story are the rays which emanate from it, which disperse away from the flame, and dispel darkness further out. Rays are not usually visible in and of themselves more so as their effect and impact.
(6) “A Little Lights Dispels Much Darkness!” an idea going back to the Chovas HaLevavos that Alter Rebbe often quoted and Rebbe turned it into empowerment of the mission. We inscribed it (wood-burned it actually) on our Shabbos candlelighting table. This is a good message year round but especially relevant on Chanukah as it epitomizes the Maccabee resolve to fight a much larger, better trained & equipped, more formidable Syrian-Greek army. The little light can overcome a much larger darkness!
(7) Light is used throughout Chassidic writings as a metaphor for spiritual emanation & flow, for divine revelation. Some of the reason for light as this all-important metaphor has to do with light being utterly dependent on its source, having absolutely no existence once removed from the source; the property of light being so transfomative even with so little identity & entity of its own; and how light reveals that which already exists. Even GE has a bulb titled “Reveal”.
(8) Light can create a focal point, as spotlights and stage-lights do. Highlighting adds emphasis, draws our attention. Prioritizes and illuminates what’s most important.
This, like Chanukah, like ourselves, is a continuing work in progress. Maybe to add more to this list of ideas to be gleaned and learning while “listening to the flames”…