Chanukah Night IV: Finding Meaning at the Midpoint

Tonight is the fourth night of Chanukah. The midpoint. As a little girl, on this night my excitement suddenly became tempered by the wistful awareness that the holiday was halfway over. As an adult, I see it in a new light; a light tailored by a couple more decades of life experience and candles that naturally burned out long after I'd left the room. The fourth night is not inherently a time of greater sadness or necessarily even greater joy for me. It is a time, however, of palpable--even visual anticipation. I almost experience a sense of urgency. It is a sense of standing on the threshold of something both long awaited and barely known. Tonight as I dwell comfortably in the quietude of my apartment--a silence only occasionally broken by the soft sizzle of the hot oil tickling the flames in my menorah, I am both comforted and inspired by the meaning one can glean from The Midpoint.

Four candles lit, four left to go. Come nightfall tomorrow, we will have surpassed this unique intersection at which there are (not including the shamash) equal parts of both light and darkness--equal potential, in a sense, to go either way. For me, it highlights a very human characteristic. How often in life do we meet this intersection? How often do we come to that proverbial fork in the road?

Faced with The Midpoint, we are like the Chanukah candles in that we have a G-dly ability to spread light on our path. We are, however, unlike the Chanukah candles in that we also have the human quality of free choice. A candle has only the will to burn when lit. As humans, we are all Divinely lit and yet, we live in a world of such darkness, sometimes this light does not seem to be enough to guide our footsteps. Perhaps we become afraid and we make a decision in haste. Perhaps we ponder the decision so cautiously that, G-d forbid, we become complacent. At times we stumble and even fall. The light that is yet to be revealed can be as blinding as the darkness itself.

There is, however, another unique difference between human light and candlelight. A candle, once it burns, has nothing left. Its flame, its heat, its light and life are all gone. Its body is no more and it is as if it never existed at all. Like the candle, our bodies are a vessel that face the test of time. Unlike the candle, however, we enter and exit this physical world with all of our light and potential intact. Even as the vessel ages and weathers, the light within it only grows stronger and more complete. Time eliminates the barriers of filters and dilution. We are in a perpetual state of becoming in which time can only complete us, not destroy us.

Perhaps if we truly knew and felt how full of light we are, it would be impossible to contain it. We would glow unfiltered, uninhibited, and untainted. Maybe there already are moments in which we experience that to the truest degree possible: moments of pure and unadulterated bliss. In these moments it doesn't matter if the glass was half full or half empty because the vessel is overflowing! Unfortunately, we often see these moments as part of the journey when, in reality, they are the journey. We aren't merely here in this darkness trying to get to the light; we are the light!

So tonight, on the fourth night of Chanukah, may we all glean inspiration and comfort from the pending reality that tomorrow, the amount of light will officially outweigh the amount of darkness. At the Midpoint, the energy of anticipation wells up inside. Imagine for a moment how life might be different if we could see with the same certainty with which we see that another candle will stand tall and aglow tomorrow that, so, too will we stand tall and aglow tomorrow. That fail is just another 4-letter-F-word. That there's no need to quantify whether the glass is half full or half empty because it's OK for it to spill over! It's OK to live abundantly and wholeheartedly and to throw caution to the wind--even if just for a moment. And whether we choose in that moment to turn left, turn right, or turn back around altogether--home is wherever we make it and the light is always on.