When the plot thickens, so does the light

I’ve noticed something lately. Many people I speak with are waiting for something to finally make sense. People say things like, “Once this settles down …,” or “Once I get past this chapter …,” or “When life gets back on track …” as though clarity is a package scheduled for delivery next Thursday.

But life rarely arrives in neat, labeled boxes. It shows up in fragments. Unanswered questions. Detours we didn’t choose. Pits we never saw coming.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeishev, opens in exactly that kind of uncertainty. Yosef has big dreams, dreams that feel so real he can practically touch them, yet everything seems to push him in the opposite direction. Instead of rising, he falls. Instead of getting support, he is betrayed. Instead of purpose, he faces a prison cell.

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If this were the whole story, it would be heartbreaking. But buried in the mess is a truth we only see later: The very twists that seemed to break him were actually building him.

This is the Torah portion that greets us as the holiday of Chanukah shines into our calendar.

Chanukah is a holiday of stubborn light. The Maccabees returned to a devastated Temple. The menorah had been smashed, the walls stained with the residue of chaos. Everything “reasonable” screamed: “It’s too soon. Don’t bother kindling the menorah. Wait until conditions improve.”

But they lit it anyway. They lit it because darkness is not something you negotiate with, as it doesn’t respond to reasoning. You must overwhelm it, one flame, then another and another.

The miracle wasn’t only that the oil lasted eight days. The miracle was that anyone believed a tiny flame was worth igniting in the first place.

Several years ago, on the afternoon before Chanukah began, I met a man at one of the spots I was placing a large public menorah in Monroeville. We spotted each other and exchanged that classic “you look Jewish, I look Jewish” nod and started talking.

He admitted he hadn’t connected with his Judaism in decades. “I guess it just faded,” he said. “Life got busy. I don’t even know where I’d begin again.”

I suggested he start now with the next mitzvah opportunity, lighting the menorah. He thought for a moment and said he used to love lighting the menorah as a kid.

So that year, on the first night he lit one candle, the next night, two. And slowly, something reawakened. The flame on his menorah rekindled the flame inside.

Months later, after getting involved with the Jewish community he told me, “That one candle changed the direction of my life.”

That’s Chanukah. Not fireworks. Not perfection. Just a fragile flame, refusing to go out.

The Torah describes the pit Yosef was thrown into as “empty, there was no water in it.” The sages explain: There was no water, but there were snakes and scorpions. Because when we’re down, the mind fills the empty spaces with worst case scenarios.

But from that same pit, Yosef’s rise began. The descent was not a detour, it was a trajectory.

How many times has a setback actually been a setup? How many moments of confusion were really invitations to grow?

A miracle doesn’t arrive by physically removing darkness. It comes when we discover the light we’re capable of bringing into it.

Chanukah is not a holiday of grand gestures. It is the celebration of a single spark making a comeback.

So, this Chanukah, light something, kindle something, begin something, reengage in something.

Visit someone who needs company.

Give tzedakah before you overthink it.

Bless the Shabbat candles even if you’ve missed a few weeks (or years).

Take on one mitzvah that feels meaningful to you.

Don’t wait for everything to be fixed. Don’t wait for the pit to make sense. Don’t wait for the jar to be full.

Our world doesn’t need more perfect people — it needs more glowing ones.

Chanukah is a reminder that your smallest flame might be someone else’s sunrise. And the chapter you think is falling apart may just be the one where the miracle begins.

Wishing you a holiday of light, hope and revealed miracles. PJC

Rabbi Mendy Schapiro is the director of Chabad of Monroeville. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabonim of Greater
Pittsburgh.