Mind on the Phone Call
The Ribbono shel Olam has designed the world’s timeframe so that most people light the menorah when it’s practically in the middle of the day—which brings to mind what the Trisker Maggid mentioned in the name of the Ba’al Shem Tov about the greatness of a Yid who stops everything he’s doing to daven Minchah.
There are eight days of Chanukah, and it’s quite common that on one of these nights, when it comes time to light, a person will find himself smack in middle of handling something sensitive and important. After all, we can’t stop our lives for a week. Chanukah is expressly not a time when we don’t work... it’s the weekdays, and our schedules proceed as usual.
The person may be preoccupied with truly good and important things... askonus, tzedakah, and so forth—wonderful and important things that take place every day in the course of our busy lives. But this may bring about a situation wherein this Yid can’t light the Chanukah licht with the proper thought, meditation, and presence of mind.... His heart and mind simply weren’t there.
A Most Ideal Preparation
But the truth is contrary to our superficial outlook.
There are Yamim Tovim that the Ribbono shel Olam has expressly placed into the weekdays, to illuminate the darkness of these times—precisely so we should take the light of the Yom Tov and proclaim: Today, our avodah will take on this hue... This year, we’ll be illuminating this challenge and difficulty. This headache was my greatest preparation for my avodah of חנוכה נר.
If we were preoccupied with getting a bachur into yeshivah, we must have in mind that the light of the ner Chanukah permeate and illuminate that suffering boy’s neshamah! As we light, we must supplicate and implore Hashem to be worthy of such a sacred mission—just as Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, davened to be worthy of his mission. Help me, Ribbono shel Olam, that the flame should illuminate, and that I should be able to carry out my mission.
If he’s busy giving chizuk to his daughter in a hospital overseas, he must reflect that the power and the greatness of the flames should illuminate her personal darkness.
If he’s dealing with an interpersonal matter or dispute, he can draw out the greatest chizuk from the light of Chanukah. “I may not be able to distract myself completely from my situation—perhaps a tzaddik could—but the חנוכה נר has the light and the answer to all my problems.
The Ribbono shel Olam can illuminate this too!
