The eight sparks here hold powerful ideas that can be shared over each night of Chanukah

During Chanukah, we thank Hashem “for the miracles You did for our forefathers in those days at this time,” reminding ourselves that this holiday not only commemorates the miracles of long ago; it is also about the miracles of today — the startling yeshuos, the unexpected moments of salvation, and the light that continues to shine for our people in every generation. The eight sparks here hold powerful ideas that can be shared over each night of Chanukah, shedding light on what makes this Yom Tov so meaningful, so relevant, and so precious, this year and every year.

Spark 1

Curiously, in al hanissim, we thank Hashem not only for the miracles, the salvation, and the mighty acts, but also for the wars — “al hamilchamos.” Why should we give thanks for the milchamos? Surely we want to avoid the perils of war?

A great talmid chacham once spent Shabbos in the home of a wealthy baal habayis. The seudos were magnificent, but something kept distracting him. In a cabinet filled with gleaming gold and silver stood a cracked, empty bottle. When the rav asked about it, the host’s eyes filled with tears.

“That bottle is my life,” he said. He explained.

“I grew up in a home of erlichkeit — one filled with the sweetness of Shabbos, the glow of Yom Tov. But I lost my parents when I was young. And then… I drifted. Little by little, everything faded — the Yiddishkeit, the warmth, the meaning.

“One night, riding through a small town, I saw a Jewish child crying on the street corner. I stopped. ‘Why are you crying?’ I asked.

“He told me it was the first night of Chanukah. His father, who had no money, had sent him to borrow a few coins and buy some oil. On his way back, the bottle slipped from his hands and cracked, spilling all the oil.

“ ‘How can I go home?’ he sobbed. ‘The bottle is broken. Abba trusted me… how can I face him?’

“In that moment, it was as if someone tore open my heart. Suddenly I remembered my father’s hands lighting the menorah. The glow on his face. The warmth. And I thought: One day I will have to face my father in Shamayim. How can I return empty handed?”

He paid the boy three times the cost — enough to repay the loan, to buy the family’s oil, and to buy a bottle of his own. And that night, when he lit the menorah, he broke down in tears of teshuvah. And he kept the precious cracked bottle that had awakened him.

Why thank Hashem for the milchamah? Because sometimes the breaking is what shakes a neshamah awake. Sometimes the storm forces us to search for that last pure drop of oil still inside.

After these past two years of sirens and fear, we say al hanissim differently. We thank Hashem for protection. But more, we thank Him for the awakening: for the tears that became tefillah, for the soldiers putting on tefillin, for families lighting candles again, for captives returning with mitzvos they never kept before.

This year, we thank Him not only for the salvation — but for the shards that brought us home.

Spark 2

It was Erev Shabbos, Zos Chanukah, December 31, 1932, in Kiel, Germany. Rav Akiva Baruch Pozner, the rabbi of Kiel, set up the menorah in his home. His wife, Rebbetzin Rochel, saw the candles framed in the window, and behind them, the Nazi party headquarters across the street, flying a large swastika banner.

The sight captured the stark contrast between two world orders, so she decided to capture the moment with a photo. She developed the film, and on the other side of the picture she wrote:

Chanukah 1932

Judah will die, thus says the flag

Judah will live forever, thus say the lights

A few days later, Germany elected Adolf Hitler to be chancellor.

For the following 15 years, the flame of Judah came so close to being extinguished. But more than 80 years later, Rebbetzin Rochel’s grandson Yehudah Mansbach lives in Haifa. Each year on Chanukah, he takes out his grandparents’ menorah, lights it in the presence of his children and grandchildren, and with Rebbetzin Rochel’s photo in hand he reads his grandmother’s chilling words. Then he asks, “Who was right?”

Shelo echad bilvad amad aleinu l’chaloseinu — not once, not twice, but in every chapter of our history, forces have risen with the mission to erase us from the world.

And today is no different. We stand ringed by those who openly thirst for our destruction — from the murderers in Gaza and Lebanon to the Western countries that once called themselves our friends. Their streets are filled with flags declaring a single chilling message: Judah will die.

And yet — our people light the menorah.

We look back and see a mosaic of miracles that defy every rule of nature. From hostages returning to enemies who towered over the Middle East for decades suddenly brought down in ways no strategist can explain.

The flags scream: Judah will die. But tonight the flames rise in Jewish windows across the globe and cry: Judah will live.

Spark 3

Maalin bakodesh v’ein moridin — we ascend in matters of kedushah. We see this upward climb manifested in the Jewish calendar: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succos. We stand with the shofar in hand, with vidui on our lips… And then comes Chanukah.

A regular weekday. No shofar, no vidui, no succah, no dancing. Just a few candles at night and a longer davening. How is this a step up to a higher level?

Rav Shimshon Pincus explains that Succos represents moments of great closeness with Hashem, akin to a chasunah. Under the chuppah, everything shines. The joy is electric, the excitement overwhelming. But ask any chassan or kallah, “Was that the deepest moment of happiness in your lives?” — and they will pause. Because as beautiful as the wedding is, the bond is still new, still fragile. No one knows what the day after sheva brachos will bring.

Ask them a few months later: “When did you feel the greatest happiness?” They will not say that it was their wedding. Instead they will mention the day after they had an argument. The moments when they realized: “Even when we fall, we return. Even when we drift apart, we find each other again.”

That is the message of Chanukah.

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Succos lift us to breathtaking heights. But we leave those days with an open question: Will we hold on? Will our kabbalos survive the long winter ahead?

Today is the day to look back at our Ne’ilah, to revisit our aspirations. And even if we’ve slipped, today we can come back and reconnect.

Spark 4

The owner of a large bakery chain was absorbed in a high-level meeting when the door suddenly opened. His young son, Moishe, walked in, clutching a single chocolate-chip cookie.

“Daddy… we got cookies in school today. I saved mine for you.”

The father’s face instantly lit up. He stood, wrapped his arms around his son, and kissed him on the forehead. The executives around the table looked on in confusion.

“You own thousands of bakeries,” they said. “Why does a cookie move you so much?”

He smiled. “It’s not the cookie. It’s the love behind it.”

That is Chanukah.

V’chi l’oram Hu tzarich? Hashem doesn’t need our little flames. Chanukah is not about the light. It’s about the yearning and whispering, “Hashem, I want to come closer.”

Spark 5

We are familiar with the famous question of the Beis Yosef: While the oil burned for eight days, the first day’s light surely wasn’t a miracle. Why do we celebrate eight days?

In the days of the Chashmonaim, Klal Yisrael was drowning in darkness and spiritual gloom. And in that pitch-black darkness, a small group of Yidden stood tall. They said: No. We want kedushah. We want to live for Hashem. Then they walked into a Beis Hamikdash that was shattered and looked hopelessly broken, overturned, tamei.

Naturally, they could have said, “We tried… but what can we do now?” But they didn’t. They searched. And then they searched again until they found the jug.

That search — in the darkness, in the destruction, without giving up — that was the first and biggest miracle of Chanukah.

And today is no different. We are living through times that test us. The world is thick with nisyonos, drowning in tumah, and it can feel so hard to keep moving forward, to keep fighting for kedushah, to hold on to closeness with Hashem. Yet we do, and Chanukah is the celebration of that struggle — that courage to keep going.

Spark 6

Every Yom Tov has a masechta of its own. But Chanukah is different. It has no masechta. Its halachos are tucked into Maseches Shabbos.

Why?

Shabbos pours enormous kedushah into the world — but only for one day. As soon as Havdalah is made, the light begins to fade. How do we hold on to it? How do we bring Shabbos into the week?

Through Chanukah — because Shabbos gives us the light, but Chanukah teaches us how to let it shine on, how to carry it into every dark corner of the week.

Spark 7

At the end of World War II, a young Jewish soldier named Winniger was helping to liberate the towns shattered by the Nazis. One night, while patrolling, he spotted a figure running. He shouted a warning, but the figure hid. He chased him and discovered a frightened young boy clutching a menorah.

The boy, Dovid, had survived the horrors of the Holocaust and had watched his parents murdered. Terrified of anyone in uniform, he begged for his menorah.

Winniger gently assured him, “I’m Jewish. I’m here to help.”

He took Dovid into his care, grew deeply attached to him, and eventually brought him to New York as his adopted son.

Years later, on Chanukah, Dovid lit his precious menorah in Winniger’s home. After he went to bed, a knock sounded at the door. A woman with a German accent stood there, staring at the menorah.

“My family once had one exactly like this,” she whispered. “May I look closer?”

He welcomed her in and explained that it belonged to his adopted son and called Dovid down.

Dovid stepped onto the staircase, glanced at the woman — and froze. Then, with a cry that tore through the room, he shouted, “Mama!” and ran straight into her arms. They held each other tightly, a reunion that no one present would ever forget.

That is Chanukah. In the cold and darkness of winter, a single flame reconnects what seemed lost forever. It is the Yom Tov when Hashem reaches down to us wherever we are, and by the glow of the candles we discover that the bond between a neshamah and its Creator can never be extinguished.

Spark 8

Throughout Chanukah we kindle the candles, filling our homes with light. But on Zos Chanukah, when there are no more flames to add, we reach the apex of the Yom Tov. How is this so?

A man climbs a mountain and by the time he reaches the top, night has fallen. Rain begins to fall, fog settles in, and he loses all sense of direction. One wrong step could send him tumbling down the cliff.

Suddenly, thunder cracks. A bolt of lightning rips across the sky, and for a split second, the entire mountain is illuminated. Most people would savor that brief burst of brightness. But a wise person uses that moment to find the path downward.

That is the essence of Zos Chanukah.

The candles may no longer be burning — but the light they gave us remains. It showed us a path. It revealed how to step into the long winter ahead uplifted, strengthened, and closer to Hashem.

Rabbi Yehoshua Frankenhuis is the rav of Kehillas Bnei Aliyah in Ramat Beit Shemesh and mashgiach at Yeshivas Heichal HaTorah. He is a sought-after speaker and the author of several works, including the best-selling Miracle Baby (ArtScroll).

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1090)