Our Chanukah Chomework (4-Minute Mommy Peptalk)
3 simple tools from Rabbi Nivin and Rabbanit Yemima to access Chanukah’s miraculous spiritual power.
OK, JewishMOM, here is your Chanukah Chomework. 3 JewishMOM assignments for Chanukah.
The first thing we need to do is finally address the problematic standing of Jewish women in their homes.
We accomplish this, Rabbanit Yemima explains, by sitting down for a change:)
For half an hour, every night of Chanukah, I (and 1000s of other JewishMOMs) sit down and watch the Chanukah candles. I do not get up for any reason.
It is one of the highlights of my year to sit absolutely still in the middle of the somewhat controlled chaos that is the Weisberg family.
What do I do for that half hour? I contemplate the Or Ha Ganuz, the spiritual light hidden away since the Creation of the world, which is contained in my Chanukah candles. I connect with the power of those little candles to light up the darkness and imagine the power that you and I have to brighten up the world as well!
Assignment #2
Rabbi Nivin’s Chanukah Chomework is to choose an issue you are struggling with and recognize that Hashem can help.
We tend to think–OK, G-d runs the world, but just the important stuff. My issue that is not budging, that is driving me crazy- with my child, my husband, my weight, my finances, my health, that just, like, IS. Hashem has nothing to do with that stuff.
But Chanukah, this time of miracles, comes to remind us misled JewishMOMs that G-d runs everything! The smallest flask of pure oil. As well as the small irritating stuff in your life that is not budging.
The first step to bring about a miracle in your life, Rabbi Nivin explains, is to recognize that Hashem is there too. In YOUR problem. And He can make it go away.
For about a year I have been dealing with a minor health issue that is extremely frustrating. So I decided, for my Chanukah Chomework, every day when I take the pill that is supposed to be helping, but hasn’t yet, I say “Hashem, I know everything is from you. Please make this problem go away.”
Chanukah Chomework, Assignment 3
Rabbanit Yemima points out that if you place a lit menorah in your windowsill, it turns that window into a mirror, so instead of looking outside, you look inside your home.
This window/mirror, Rabbanit Yemima explains, is an אספקלריה מאירה, a kind of shining window that grants the person who sees it perfect spiritual clarity.
The war of Chanukah was, in large part, a war over the Jewish home.
The Greeks made decrees that threatened to uproot the Jewish family–brides taken directly from their wedding feasts to be raped by a Greek ruler, forbidden to perform the most basic Jewish mitzvah, circumcision for all Jewish boys.
Lighting Chanukah candles, significantly, is the only mitzvah that is performed as a family unit–נר איש וביתו (a candle for a man and his home).
When we look into our window turned into a shining mirror behind our candles, let’s take a long look, with the spiritual clarity of vision afforded by this annual אספקלריה מאירה, at our homes, our families.
And feel deep within us our ongoing victory, every single day of the year, over the Greeks of Chanukah as well as modern-day Greeks who belittle and threaten the power of solid Jewish family that is the essential backbone of the Jewish people.
To feel deep within us the blessing of being a JewishMOM of Jewish children in our very own Jewish homes.
Happy Chanukah!
Love it! Thanks for adding a boost of spirituality and practical ideas to implement them.