When we fight our battles properly victory will be ours.

Family life has a lot in common with the holiday of Chanukah. Chanukah is the story of light triumphing over darkness weak over strong humble over arrogant. It is the story of faith in Hashem and all that’s fair and right: good prevails in the end. And so it is in family life. Goodness prevails.

The War at Home

Chanukah has much to inform us about the war we fight in our family lives. Yes war happens at home as well and often it feels as if it involves a life-and-death battle. We are always “the good guy” and our opponent is the evil one (at least in our eyes). Sometimes it’s our own mother we are fighting (the battle has been going on forever). After all these years she is still attacking and we are still defending our fragile fort. She is the strong powerful enemy; we’re little in comparison. Or perhaps it is Father who is still towering over us intimidating and controlling holding a supply of arrows strong enough to penetrate deeply when we are not vigilant.

Sometimes the enemy is our husband. A cruel domineering man of war he crushes our spirit. (Or it is our wife — a cold heartless queen who slices through us with her bitter tongue.) Sometimes the enemy is our parents-in-law. They use their power to pull our spouse away from us. They step on us. They demand absolute obedience and threaten to cut off our supplies should we demur.

The enemy can even be our own children. Disguised as innocents they wield powerful tools of manipulation and tyranny wearing us down day after day. They terrorize us alarm us exhaust us and humiliate us.

Whether the enemy is close at hand or at a distance (siblings and siblings-in-law can fire from afar as can the cousins aunts and uncles) we must be prepared to do battle. But how?

Winning the War

The lesson Chanukah teaches us is that Hashem is on our side. When we are behaving properly and calling out to Hashem to help us we can count on His salvation. We believe that no matter how things look in a material sense (i.e. the enemy appears large and all-powerful) Hashem can turn the tables and make us victorious. Therefore we need not despair.

In family life this means that we shouldn’t be deceived by appearances. While it may look like a relative is controlling our situation it is none other than Hashem Himself. Therefore Hashem can bring about a drastic change in circumstances. Knowing this we can relax. No need to fall into depression. No need to lower our own behavior to the same cruel level exhibited by our enemy. We can fight a fair battle as the Jews did way back then confident that when we do what we’re supposed to do and put our faith in Hashem the victory will be ours.

In Practice

Let us say for example that a woman has a verbally and emotionally abusive husband. The social workers read her the statistics (“abuse gets worse not better”) and advise her to get a divorce. She’s afraid to take the plunge but she is miserable every day. Her husband is always critical; she lashes back. He refuses to help her when she is in a rush; she screams that he is selfish. He slams the door in anger; she refuses to talk to him for days on end.

Her “enemy” has not only hurt her but he has also brought out the worst in her. They descend together each blaming the other for “starting it.” However had this woman taken on the mentality of Chanukah she would have taken a different route. To begin with she would have internalized that Hashem is with her. She would have been able to maintain her own dignity knowing that Hashem would fight her battle for her and “win” it if He saw fit. Through praying behaving properly in Hashem’s eyes and taking appropriate steps to set boundaries and initiate changes (i.e. fight the “battle” with counseling and/or rabbinic guidance) she would have done what she could do in her private “war.” The outcome would be up to Hashem. Perhaps the marriage would dissolve anyway. But she would have at least maintained her good character — her soul would remain untarnished by war and this itself is a major victory. Perhaps Hashem would reward her trust in Him by turning the situation around for her.

Chanukah teaches us that the impossible is actually possible. Hashem can pacify the enemy even when this seems “unrealistic” to us. Faith prayer and good deeds are our weapons of war. Miracles do occur.