Watching Reb Yitzi’s eyes channel his neshamah’s thoughts I was reminded of the well-known Targum Onkelos that translates the words in Bereishis (2:7) “Vayehi ha’adam l’nefesh chayah — Man became a living soul” as “V’havas b’Adam l’ruach mimalilah — And it was a speaking spirit within Man.” Reb Yitzi’s eyes which people tend to regard as the “windows of the soul” through which others peer into a person’s internal world are the vehicles for speech which per the Targum is the defining element of the soul.

When I visited Reb Yitzi who is a prolific mechadeish of Torah thoughts through his weekly divrei Torah on the parshah and haftarah I asked if he could send me a Chanukah insight developed especially for our readers. Here straight from his neshamah to yours is an insight not only into Chanukah but into the great light aflame within Yosef Yitzchak ben Bracha yachlimeihu Hashem v’yirapeihu:

The way that our parshiyos are set up we always read about Yosef on Chanukah. And since everything in Torah is exact even what our great sages enacted we must ask:

What does Yosef have to do with Chanukah? What lesson can we take from Yosef and Chanukah to help us deal with difficult times?

In the story of Chanukah there were miraculous victories: Strong in the hands of the weak many in the hands of few etc. But when the Talmud tells us what Chanukah is all about it refers only to the miracle of finding the pure oil and that it burned for eight days. When Chanukah was established as a holiday only one mitzvah was ordained: to light the lamps of the menorah. Why is there no mention of the great victories? And why isn’t there a mitzvah to have a meal like on Purim?

The question is: What do you choose to focus on? In the story of Chanukah the Greeks did not want to hurt us they didn’t want to fight with us. What they wanted was for us to put ourselves before Hashem. The only mitzvos they took issue with were the ones that we have no reason for other than because Hashem said so. In other words be Jewish because you enjoy it not because Hashem wants you to be so.

We went to war to put Hashem first which in essence is what being a Yid is all about. To focus on the war or on a meal would take away from the message of Chanukah. The most spiritual thing we have in this physical world is light and lighting the menorah sets our focus on the spiritual and on Hashem. It is all about Hashem.

This now brings us to Yosef. Despised by h

is brothers sold into slavery and thrown into jail on false charges. An orphan alone in a foreign land. Yet we don’t get the feeling that Yosef was depressed or down at all. He seems positive able to rise above and succeed in every situation. How was Yosef able to stay positive?

Yosef’s paradigm was the key to his positive outlook. Yosef saw himself as part of Hashem’s plan he saw every situation as part of that plan. When you perceive the world from this perspective every difficulty hardship and challenge is nothing more than part of Hashem’s plan and therefore positive. To Yosef it was all about Hashem.

Our perspective is the key to our happiness. When we only see ourselves we are stuck with the difficulties the pain the hurt the anguish the suffering etc. However when it is about Hashem and you see everything as part of Hashem’s plan every situation is seen as an opportunity. The crazier and stranger the situation the more meaning can be found in it. Instead of being knocked down by the difficulty you are uplifted.

We are happiest and strongest when we are the way Yidden are meant to be focused on Hashem. This idea has kept me positive as well. Ever since I was diagnosed with ALS I felt that I was chosen by Hashem for a special mission to strengthen and lift the spirits of Yidden.

Though I daven every day to be healed as long as I am in this predicament I will use it to do what Hashem wants. Through making our lives be about Hashem we will merit the end of all the difficulties and darkness.

REB YITZI’S WORDS DOVETAIL beautifully with an explanation I have given in the past for why the role of the Kohanim and the Kohein Gadol in particular seems to figure so prominently in the Yom Tov of Chanukah.

We find for example that the Ramban (Bamidbar 8:2) explains the Midrashic teaching that Hashem told Aharon HaKohein shel’cha gedolah mishelahem that his role of hadlakas haneiros would be even greater than that of the nesiim as referring not to the hadlakah performed with the menoras Hamikdash but rather to the kindling of the Chanukah lights which continues on after the Mikdash is no more. As we each light our own little menoros we all stand it seems in Aharon’s shoes reprising his role in the Beis Hamikdash of yore.

Furthermore Maharal teaches that Yavan (gematria 66) held sway over and thus was able to defile the Heichal (gematria 65) along with all the oil flasks within it — save for one which bore the Kohein Gadol’s seal. And indeed the Kohein’s gematria 75 reflects his ability to remain impervious to Yavan’s defilement because his kedushah is rooted not in the Heichal but in the Kodesh Hakodoshim. It like the Kohein is represented by the number 75 which is the sum of Heichal (gematria 65) plus 10 (the number that always represents kedushah — Ha’asiri yihiyeh kodesh) indicating a place with an even higher level of kedushah than the Heichal.

Finally the nusach of haneiros halalu stresses that the wars were fought by the Kohanim and the Tur (Orach Chaim 684) writes that we begin the special Krias haTorah for Chanukah with the verses of Bircas Kohanim in tribute to the central role the Kohanim played in the events that Chanukah commemorates.

To understand what links neis Chanukah with the Kohein Gadol and gives him the power to vanquish Yavan we return to the first appearance of a Kohein Gadol in Torah — Malkitzedek or as Chazal identify him Sheim ben Noach. From the episode of Eisav’s sale of the bechorah we learn that prior to Matan Torah kehunah was vouchsafed to the firstborn. Why then did not Yefes who was Noach’s first-born son (Sanhedrin 69b) serve in that role?

Perhaps Yefes as bechor was indeed possessed of the privileges of kehunah but only until the fateful episode of Noach’s drunkenness. As their father lay in disgrace within his tent Sheim and Yefes jointly took a garment and covered his shame. But the pasuk ascribes the act of taking the garment only to Sheim which Chazal teach indicates that Sheim exerted himself in this mitzvah more than Yefes did. Why?

Noach himself provided the answer with a penetrating delineation of his sons’ respective destinies: “Yaft Elokim l’Yefes” he will be one who best appreciates and creates aesthetic beauty and even employs it to enhance the tents of Sheim. Yet “v’yishkon b’oholei Sheim” it is exclusively in those selfsame tents — in which Yaakov Avinu would later toil ceaselessly in Torah — that the Shechinah will choose to dwell.

Perhaps we can discern in this pasuk an echo of Chazal’s statement “Chochmah bagoyim? Ta’amin; Torah bagoyim? Al ta’amin.” Yefes’s path is that of chochmah the arts and sciences beauty and brilliance in abundance. But to study a Torah capable of bringing Shechinah down to this earth? Of that only Sheim’s progeny Yisrael is capable.

Two brothers witnessing their father’s utter disgrace arise to restore his honor but one struggles to do so while the other does not. Is the latter more virtuous than the former? To the contrary: Gadol hamitzuveh v’oseh m’mi she’eino mitzuveh v’oseh. One who honors his parent because Hashem commands it in His Torah must first wrestle free of his yetzer hara (see Ritva Kiddushin 31a). Not so one who accords that honor based on logic or sensitivity or his sense of the beautiful and who indeed thinks himself wonderful for doing so.

The central issue in this drama unfolding in that tent — and in life as a whole as Reb Yitzi identified it — is this: Is G-d the measure of all things or is Man? Hani kohani shluchei d’Rachmona (Nedarim 35b) — the Kohein is Hashem’s agent in this world and the Kohein Gadol is the ultimate such agent. They exemplify the truth that everything revolves around G-d and we are here to do his bidding.

That is why right there in Noach’s tent Sheim took the mantle of kehunah from his first-born brother Yefes by exalting G-d and His Torah over Man and his chochmah. Later on the Gemara (Nedarim 32b) teaches Sheim himself would be forced to relinquish the kehunah to Avraham for doing the exact opposite blessing man before G-d.

And on this Yom Tov celebrating the restoration of Torah to its rightful place above that of mere chochmah and of Hashem to His place at the center of all that exists we all take our place as members of a mamleches Kohanim. And thus do we light our menoros just as the very first Kohein Aharon did long ago.