Parashat Hashavua: Vayeshev

What an exciting weekend - and week ahead - are upon us; this Sunday night we will begin lighting our Hanukkiot, and for the next week in school we will celebrate Hanukkah in a myriad of ways - from reciting Hallel in morning tefillah, to daily games and activities to bring the joy of the holiday into our halls and classrooms, to closing each day with a festive communal candle-lighting. 

The Talmud - tractate Shabbat 21b) spends significant time discussing the central mitzvah of lighting the Hanukkah candles. In the midst of this lengthy discussion, there is a surprising reference to this week’s parsha, Vayeshev. Before doing so, the Talmud (21b), quoting Rav Kahana, warns against placing one’s Hanukkah candles more than twenty cubits above the ground - the logic being that, at such a great height, passers-by simply won’t actually take notice of the candles. 

But then the Talmud takes a turn to a tangent, citing another adjacent teaching by Rav Kahana. This teaching is in regards to the crucial moment in our parsha, Vayeshev when Yosef’s brothers throw Yosef into a pit, leaving him to die before eventually selling him to slavers:

מַאי דִכְתִיב ״וְהַבּוֹר רֵק אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם״? מִמַּשְׁמַע שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״וְהַבּוֹר רֵק״ אֵינִי יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁאֵין בּוֹ מָיִם? אֶלָּא מַה תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר ״אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם״ — מַיִם אֵין בּוֹ, אֲבָל נְחָשִׁים וְעַקְרַבִּים יֵשׁ בּוֹ.

[When Yosef’s brothers throw him into the pit] What does the Torah mean when it says “The pit was empty and did not have water in it”? If the text says “The pit was empty,” does that imply that there isn’t any water (and thus the second part is redundant)? Rather, when the Torah says “there wasn’t water in it,” it means to say that there wasn’t water in the pit, but there were snakes and scorpions. (Shabbat 22a)

But what does this teaching have to do with Hanukkah and the way in which we place the Hanukkah candles?

I’d suggest that Rav Kahana suggests that the pit in which Yosef’s brothers threw him was so deep that they simply didn’t notice the potentially deadly creatures therein - they aimed to leave him to die, yes, but they didn’t aim to execute him. But given the great depth of the pit, they simply couldn’t see the dangers therein. And, they were in such a rush to be rid of Yosef, they simply didn’t bother to take notice.

Much in the same way, this midrashic connection underpins the essential nature of the Hanukkah lights - that they not just be lit, but that they be noticed. That our candles cause a state of disruption from the norm, drawing attention to the moment, an essential recollection of the mitzvot that aided the Maccabees to their victory and their immediate reconsecration of the Temple.

But more than that, the Hanukkah candles should be a call to each of us, not only to recall the past, but to take notice of the present. In Man’s Quest for God, Rabbi Heschel writes, “We ring the hollow bell of selfishness rather than absorb the stillness that surrounds the world” (4). With the constant barrage of things in our lives demanding our attention - from work, to school, to every little notification ping on our phone - the Hanukkah candles come to demand of us to stop, to breathe, to be present. To really take notice of the moment and see what we don’t usually give ourselves time to see. To see God in the world, and to truly take notice of each other.

May this Shabbat and Hanukkah be joyful, restful, and above all else, filled with noticing. 

Shabbat shalom,
David Riemenschneider 
High School Grade 9 Dean & Limudei Qodesh Teacher