Light

We can sit and gaze at it for hours. What is it about a burning flame that captures our imagination?

When you use something physical, it gets “used up” and diminished. With spiritual things, the very opposite is the case

Is the light of the Chanukah menorah so faint that it can only illuminate its immediate vicinity? And as such must be lit after dark, and in direct proximity to the darkness it wishes to counteract?

Turn any mitzvah inside out and you’ll see a light—an active and energetic light that looks to shine in every black corner. Turn any mitzvah inside out and you’d see . . . a menorah.

By defining themselves in perfect contradistinction to one another, "light" and "darkness" enter into a symmetrical bond which attests to an underlying unity forming their common source

Why do we call Chanukah the Festival of "Lights"? Why not "Commemoration of Oil" or "Miracle of 8 Days"?

If you recorded every word in your day you would find hundreds of references to light

What does light give? The details. The color and texture. The fullness and the goodness.

"One must listen to the Chanukah candles." As it turns out, the candles are master educators. Four messages the candles impart to the educator.

His pulling and pleading become more insistent and I ignored him. I knew his cries were a result of being tired and cranky and I had thought that he could wait...

On the essence of shamash, the "servant candle" of the Chanukah menorah

Two mitzvot are connected with the doorway: the mezuzah and the Chanukah lights. The mezuzah points inward, while the Chanukah lights are oriented outward

In the first few days the menorah always seems very empty and incomplete. Wouldn't it be more logical to kindle these flames in single candlesticks, adding one each night

The three significant differences between the menorah in the Holy Temple and the Chanukah menorah: Day and night, inside and out, seven and eight

We are creatures of the actual. We judge people by their conduct; reality, to us, is what is

Each day has a purpose, so each of the menorah's lights must have a distinct lesson. Let us explore eight lessons we can learn from these little lights...

The Mitzvah of the Chanukah lights is similar in two respects to that of the mezuzah

The mitzvah of Chanukah entails lighting one candle each night for a person and his household

The teacher has locked his door, the mentor has disappeared, and one's own soul has turned dark and cold. When no solution for the darkness is in sight, this can only mean one thing: the darkness itself is the solution

The flame represents Torah study (knowledge) and the wick stands for mitzvot (action). The knowledge of morality and spirituality becomes the shining light that guides and illuminates our existence...

Darkness doesn’t necessarily mean evil; it means the absence of light. When life’s meaning seems inscrutable, when I’m running from task to task oblivious to the need for meaning, that’s called darkness.