| This following outline is of the Chassidic discourse of Rabbi
Sholom Dovber of Lubavitch which he delivered on Shabbat Chanukah 5643/1882.
The section-paragraph format of the original was maintained in order to allow
easy interaction with the full Hebrew original. A
1)
It is written in the Gemorra:
a. The Rabbis taught: "The
mitzvah of the Chanukah candle is to place it in the outer part of the doorway
of the house." Shabbat 21b b. This is when
the door of the house opens onto a public thoroughfare. But if it opens
onto a private yard, the candle is to be placed by the front gate of the yard.
Tosafot c. The reason why the candle should be outside is
to publicize the miracle of Chanukah. Rashi d.
Unlike Tosafot, Rashi deems it sufficient to set it by the door of the house even
when the door opens on to a yard. Beit Yosef ch. 671 2)
The Gemorra continues:
a. Where in the doorway do we place it?
At the left side, so that the mezuzah is to the right of the person lighting
and the Chanukah candle is to his left. Shabbat 22a
b. If for some reason the doorway does not have a mezuzah, the
Chanukah candle should then be placed on the right side. Tur ch.
671 3) We must try to understand:
a. From the above,
we see the most important thing is for the Chanukah candle to shine towards the
outside (either to the public domain or to the yard--unlike the mezuzah, it has
no intrinsic connection to the door of the house). Why? b.
What is the significance of placing the Chanukah candle on the left side? c.
Since the Gemorra states that the reason the Chanukah candle is placed at the
left side of the doorway is in order to be opposite the mezuzah on the right,
this indicates that there is a relationship between the two objects (and only
when there is a mezuzah is the candle placed at the left; otherwise it is put
on the right). What is this relationship? B
1) Before
we can understand the above, we must first consider the verse [Proverbs
6:23] "Ki ner mitzvah v'Torah ohr..." - "For the mitzvah is a candle and
the Torah is light..." Just as physical light is generated by a candle,
the light of Torah is generated by a mitzvah candle. Without the candle of mitzvot
to dispel the darkness there can be no light of Torah! Through the mitzvah
candle we attain the Torah light, which is the inner light of the Essence of G-d
- the source of light that has to shine below in order to transform the
spiritual darkness of this world into light. 2) Briefly, the explanation
of this is as follows: Mitzvot can be performed only with physical
substance. For example: tsitsit [tallit fringes] are made of physical
wool, the Four Species waved on Succot are physical plants, and a mezuzah
is written on physical parchment. Though doing mitzvot with physical objects
we can transcend the separateness of the physical that we perceive with our senses
and realize our true nothingness in relation to G-d: that the created existence
is nothing and the Creator is the true existence. Then G-dliness
can be revealed through us and to us. C
[a one-sentence
summary] When we meditate upon the verse "I, G-d have not changed" [Malachi
3:6], we understand that the apparent change (during Creation from spiritual
into physical through the concealment of the spiritual) is only from our
perspective; from G-d's perspective there is no darkness or concealment
of His Infinite Light. D
[a one-sentence summary] We
contemplate further and we intellectually realize that even from our perspective
there is no darkness and no concealment - only G-d's Infinite Light. E
[a one-sentence summary] Thinking about this truth evokes within
us an intense desire to actually experience it. How can we accomplish this?
Through learning Torah, the embodiment of G-d's wisdom and will in this
physical world, and through fulfilling the mitzvot, G-d's inner will (especially
when we do so with joy). F
1) Now we can understand
why the Chanukah candle is placed outside the doorway, on the left side. 2)
The Greeks defiled all the oil in the Temple chambers. Wisdom is compared
to oil. The Greeks wanted to contaminate the wisdom of the Torah (Divine
wisdom) with their intellectual wisdom. The positive wisdom of the Torah
brings about a level of self-nullification in the one who learns it that enables
him to fulfill Torah and mitzvot and generally to be a good person. The
negative wisdom of the Greeks brings the one who learns it to feel himself to
be a separate existence. He does whatever he wants to do, rather than what
G-d expects of him. The Greeks wanted to neutralize the positive wisdom,
the True Reality, with the negative wisdom, the perceived reality. They wanted
to make the Jews forget that the Torah is G-d's Torah, and to deny G-d's existence
by not allowing the Jews to do the chukim [statutes], those mitzvot decreed by
the Torah which cannot be understood (and rationally justified) by human intelligence.
3) The Chashmonaim [Maccabees] overpowered and defeated the Greeks
through their complete devotion to G-d, to the extent that they gave up their
lives (their existence) to reveal G-d's existence (the idea of the mitzvah candle,
see B). Afterwards, they instituted the lighting of the Chanukah candles,
which is the same idea as the Torah light. The Chanukah candle is a revelation
of the light of the future redemption, the light of the essence of G-d, the light
which automatically dispels and transforms the darkness. 4) This is
why the Chanukah candle must be placed outside the door facing a public area.
The outside, the domain of the public, reflects the idea of plurality,
of separate existence. The Chanukah candle contains the capacity
to light up even the realm that represents a denial of G-d's existence and a rebellion
against Him. This darkness is automatically nullified by the light of Chanukah.
5) The source of the negative forces is the left side.
The Chanukah candle is placed on the left and shines towards the left; it lights
up the negativity (darkness) of the left side. 6) Rashi (according to the Beit
Yosef, see A) rules that it is permissible to put the Chanukah candle outside
a front door that opens to a yard. The numerical value of the Hebrew word
for yard, çöø, is equivalent to that of áéðä-âáåøä-äåã,
Binah-Gevurah-Hod [Understanding, Severity, Splendor], the three divine attributes
of the left "line" [when they are schmatically configured]. Therefore, whether
the Chanukah candle faces the public domain or the yard, it still accomplishes
the same thing. 7) This [effect of the Chanukah candle being placed
on the left] is operative only if there is a mezuzah affixed on the right.
Mezuzah is considered equivalent to all the mitzvot combined. The mezuzah on the
door of a house shows that everything in the house is nullified before G-d (that
everything in it is for the sake of G-d). It is on the right side, the side
of holiness,the right that attracts. It brings the physical close
to the Divine and enables it to be nullified before G-d. Thus, we see that
the mezuzah expresses perfectly the idea of the mitzvah candle. First we
need to have the mitzvah light of the mezuzah on the right, and then we can have
the Torah light of the Chanukah candle on the left. 8)
If there is no mezuzah on the right we put the Chanukah candle on the right, because
it is also a mitzvah. In such circumstances, placing the Chanukah candle
outside on the right is enough to reveal the light of Torah.
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