Parashat HaShavua - Hanukkah 2021
Why is the blessing on lighting Hanukkah candles in the singular, ve’tzivanu lehadlik ner shel hanukkah - “who commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah light” - if we are actually always lighting multiple candles? And even if we say that the shamesh is not included in that count, then the singular applies only to the first night, and after that we should be saying “who commanded us to kindle Hanukkah lights!”
One possible answer is very practical. The Talmud teaches that the mitzvah to kindle lights for Hanukkah has three levels. For the basic levels only one light is being kindled each night: either “one candle per household - נר איש וביתו,” or “a light for every person - נר לכל אחד ואחד.” (Bavli Sabbath 21a) In that case, saying a blessing for kindling a single light makes sense.
Almost universally, however, we kindle lights according to the highest level - hamehadrin min hamehadrin - which starts with the shamesh plus one light for the first night and culminates with the shamesh plus eight lights for the last. Explaining the singular “light” in our beracha based on the basic levels is unconvincing as we glorify and exalt Hanukkah at the highest level.
Rav Kook, in his commentary on the siddur Olat Re’iyah, offers a spiritually expansive explanation of this:
החנוכה...היא מציירת את כל המאורות שצריכים להאיר באומה, אור התורה, אור הנבואה, אור החכמה, אור הצדק, אור הגבורה, אור השמחה, אור החסד, אור האהבה וכיו״ב. אך בטרם הוכרה התכלית העליונה של החיים נראים לנו, כל אלה האורות הרבים בפרטיותם כאילו הם דברים נפרדים… ועיקר הברכה היא ברכת השלום, והיא תתקיים בעתיד בהיות ההכרה ברורה לכל, כי כל המאורות כולם פרטיותם הכל הם נר אחד, ע״כ לא נרות נאמרו בברכה של חנוכה, שהיא נושאת דעה עד...העתיד היותר עליון.
Hanukkah illustrates all the lights that are needed to illuminate the people: the light of the Torah, the light of prophecy, the light of wisdom, the light of righteousness, the light of heroism, the light of joy, the light of kindness, the light of love, and more. But before the highest purpose of life is apparent to us, all these many lights in their detail seem to be separate things… The essence of the beracha of “lehadlik ner shel hanukkah” is a blessing of peace, and it will be fulfilled in the future in a way that is clearly recognizable to us all, because all the the lights in their detail are actually all one light, and therefore the beracha does not say “lights” of Hanukkah, because it is raising our awareness about a future that is loftier.
This Hanukkah, even as we value the individual and singular importance of those around us - each and every person who illuminates the world in their own way - may we also perceive that all the different people in our lives and in the world are in fact not separate entities but part of one light, harbingers of a loftier and more peaceful future.
Shabbat shalom and Hanukkah sameach!
Rabbi Jack Nahmod
Middle School Judaic Studies Head
Rabbinic Advisor