Parasha Thoughts
By Rabbi Avraham Moeinzadeh
Despite it being only a Rabbinical holiday, Chanukah is one of the most well kept holidays amongst all the Jewish people regardless of how religious they are. We celebrate Chanukah, rejoicing and thanking Hashem for the miracles and the redemption that he has done for our fathers in the time of Chashmonayim.
But what lesson does Chanukah teach us that Chachamim decided to make it into a holiday? The “Bach” tells us that the whole decree of Greece was a punishment to Klal Yisrael for their attitude toward their comfort in performing Mitzvot. They took the privilege of being free to do Mitzvot for granted and did not use it responsibly. As a result, Hashem took away the privilege until they realized their mistake and did Teshuvah.
Chanukah reminds us of the importance of awareness of our privileges and dealing with them with a sense of responsibility.
We also see the same idea in this week’s Parasha. Rav Mosheh Feinstien writes that the reason Yaakov Avinu had to go through the ordeal of Yosef was because he decided to be lax on supervising the behavior of his children since he saw that they were all growing up in the path of Hashem. The incident of Yosef and his brothers taught him that no matter how old a child is, a father (or a teacher) cannot take his responsibility in Chinuch lightly.
Chanukah is an antidote to the light-handedness that the Galut of Yavan is injecting in us and by internalizing the message of Chanukah, Hashem will grant us back the privilege of Geulah Shelemah.