Chanukah 5779 Day #4: The Ancient Debate on How to Deal with Inner Darkness

the yeshiva.net [Music] there's an ancient debate in the talmud how many candles do we light each night of chanukah it's a debate between the school of shama and the school of hilo based shama the school of shama says we go down the school of illinois as we go up so the school of shama says the first night of chanakya we light eight candles and then each night we decrease eight seven six five four three two and the last night of chanukah we light one flame the school of hillel says no we go up we ascend in order first night of chanukah we light one candle second night two three four candles and so each night we increased the last night of chanukah we finally light up the full menorah all eight candles the question i want to ask of you tonight is do we have to argue about everything can't we agree on anything even how to commemorate the great miracle and story of hanukkah you know in the last decades we have seen generally two approaches developing in the world of psychology in terms of therapy work and inner healing one approach focuses a lot on analyzing dissecting and confronting your toxic emotions your trauma your negative thoughts and feelings helping you extricate them from your psyche by understanding how they came there where they come from how they developed why do you respond this way and even if you can't extricate them from your system completely at least this will help you weaken or diminish their influence but there's another approach and the other approach says let your insane emotions be don't always deal with them analyze them understand them dissect them rather focus on your values focus on who you want to be make choices that cultivate what you really want of life don't dwell on the negative and on the dark so we have for example cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy we have what's called cbt therapy and act therapy generally two streams this argument though is not a contemporary one only of the last decades it goes back 2 000 years to the school of shama and the school of hillel throughout the entire talmud we see two different approaches by these two talmudic schools that developed in the jewish world in the first century before the common era and then continued for generations and this is at the core of the debate about chanukah when [Music] your own inner sanctuary has been contaminated tarnished as in the days of old and you want to rekindle a menorah in your life how do you do it both schools of judaism believe you can only battle your darkness with light a person in order to be able to heal and grow must always appreciate their potential for becoming a luminary to themselves and others you have to be able to see yourself in a positive light you can't look at yourself as a dark useless valueless mata you have to be able to see your potential for greatness and positivity but within this itself there are two paths the school of shama says you have to get rid of the filth before you can bring in the jewels so on the first night we gotta mount a ferocious attack you gotta go all out eight candles to burn out the toxicity the poison tomorrow some of the toxic elements are out so we can decrease the dosage of light and so each night we can decrease the attack on the filth on the toxicity until the last night one candle will do the miracle the school of hillel maintained that this path may take too long and sometimes it's not necessary instead let the darkness be for the moment let's focus on something positive on something of value let's do some good let's make choices that represent our desired destiny focus on who you want to be on how on who you could be focus on bringing in positivity into your life yes you may still have a lot of trauma you may still have lots of complicated emotions and thoughts that are driving you crazy but just kindle one light you may not be able to kindle eight or seven or six or five or four or three or two but one light you can kindle and yes around that flame there will be so many distractions and so many thoughts that are trying to delegitimize it but one candle you can light on the first night and you know what will happen it will dispel some of your darkness so that on night two you can double your light and then triple your light and on the eighth night your entire menorah will be a glow with eight candles we have a principle a lovely div these and these are both the words of the living god the two approaches are not mutually exclusive sometimes this path is necessary sometimes another path is necessary but generally speaking nowadays we say that the law follows the school of hillary in every situation of life focus on your positivity focus on bringing in something positive into your life on positive change your values the becoming the person you want to be and as you kindle your flames of hope and light the darkness will be dispelled happy [Music] this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w dot the yeshiva.net slash donate