Oil embodies the essence of the Chanukah narrative and serves as the main focus of the festival of lights. This is strange. The miracle of the oil, it would seem, was of minor significance relative to the military victory. Besides the fact that this was a miracle that occurred behind the closed doors of the Temple with only a few priests to behold, it was an event concerning a religious symbol without any consequences on life, death and liberty. Why the emphasis on oil?
In our lives, we must learn how to become “oil-like.” We must learn to cultivate the four properties characterizing oil.
A) The crushing and pressing of the olives, which allows you to become oil, represents the notion of humbleness, the antithesis of arrogance and self-inflation. Seeing ourselves for who we really are, being open to discover our biases, blind spots and errors, allows us to genuinely grow.
B) The direct result of this “pressing” is your ability to become oil-like and, just like oil, penetrate others deeply. When you’re haughty and pompous (usually because of a lack of self-confidence and hence the need to create a delusional self-confidence), you are incapable of sharing yourself with others, or allowing them to share themselves with you. You hide in a bubble, afraid of being vulnerable and authentic. You can’t be in a real relationship. Only when your fake ego is crushed a little bit, either by choice or by life’s circumstances, you have the courage to show up in the world, and to show up to other people, with the real “you.” You can then connect with other people’s hearts profoundly.
C) Humility and genuine relationships must never allow you to be pulled down and completely defined by the relationships. You must never forfeit your individual identity and to dissolve in the emotions or choices of the other person. The beauty and magic of a relationship lay precisely in the fact that two distinct individuals choose to share themselves with each other. Just like oil, you know how to feel and experience another human being deeply, while still not becoming consumed and nullified by the other’s identity. Like oil, you must always retain your distinctiveness.
D) This threefold process of crushing yourself, bonding with others and at the same time retaining your distinctiveness, should ultimately cause you to rise—just like oil—to the top, and “float” head and shoulders above all which is around you. Realizing that you are a “piece of the Divine,” and that at every moment you are an ambassador of G-d to our world, allows you to experience yourself as invincible, wholesome and way above the gravel that you may encounter in yourself or others. This comes not from arrogance, but from realizing that your core is part of the infinite. Just like oil, you, too, rise to the top.
The Talmud states, “The messenger of a person is just like sender.” If G-d chose you and sent you on a mission to this world, you are G-d-like! If you can only identify that space within yourself, nobody can compare to you.
This was the deeper mystical significance of a miracle that caused oil to increase. And it is why we celebrate with focusing on oil, for this story captures the rhythm of life. For me to become a glowing menorah, casting light in me and around me, and lighting up the world, I must be oil-like: First, I must discover the art of humility and integrity; second, I must allow myself to show up in my relationships genuinely and wholesomely; third, I must retain my distinctiveness and individuality; fourth, I must always recognize that part in me which is always “on the top.”
Judaism, particularly its festival of Chanukah, comes to teach ordinary human beings how to become oil-like. If we wish to ignite a fire in our lives, we ought to take a good and deep look at the olive oil in our menorahs. Happy Chanukah – let’s go easy on the physical oily foods, but not on the spiritual message of oil.
Rabbi YY Jacobson
