OTHER VIEWS

Kabbalah And Chanukah

St. Louis

K

aballah offers five interesting
thoughts about the upcoming
holiday of Chanukah.
• Candlelight is the symbol of wis-
dom. A light bulb above the head is
the cartoon maker's way to show that
Bugs Bunny got an idea. But we all
relate to how confusion or a lack of
understanding can feel like being in
physical darkness. You're not sure
where to turn, afraid of the next step.
Wisdom enlightens. True wisdom
brings pleasure to the brain, peace of
mind to the heart and confidence to
the soul. Just as the flame yearns to go
upward, your soul craves wisdom.
When vou see the Chanukah can-
dles, ask . d od to help you understand
your purpose better.
• Go beyond the call of duty; the
Almighty will respond in kind. The
spiritual realm is a system similar to
physics. There are rules. One of those
rules is that God responds to you with

Rabbi Max Weiman is the author of
`A Map of the Universe: An
Introduction to the Study of Kabbalah"
and operator of Kabbalah Made Easy,
Inc. (www.kabbalahmadeeasy.com)

events in your life based on your
thoughts and actions. If you are com-
passionate, people will be compassion-
ate with you. If you share your food
with others, when you are in need,
people will be there for you.
The miracle of the oil (lasting for
eight days instead of one) happened
because the people at that time put
their lives on the line for what they
believed in. They went beyond the call
of duty, so God went beyond the call
of duty for them.
This holiday reminds us not to be
satisfied with doing the letter of the
law, fulfilling the minimum require-
ments, but to go beyond the call of
duty and seek to fulfill the spirit of the
law, what the Almighty really wants
from us.
• Why eight candles? Eight repre-
sents the realm beyond the physical.
Seven defines our world as a whole.
There are six basic directions: up,
down, right, left, front and back.
When you put them all together and
unite them as a whole you make a sev-
enth unit. That's why we have a seven-
day week, because seven represents the
entirety, of the physical realm.

To take this one step further
you. With God's help you can
is to enter the spiritual realm.
overcome any moral challenge
The spirit is beyond the physi-
that comes your way.
cal, symbolized by the number
• A little light dispels a lot
eight. When you connect to
of darkness. One piece of wis-
the Infinite, you have the abil-
dom can change your life.
ity to transcend the physical
One insight into relationships
realm and its apparent limita-
can change your marriage.
tions.
One thought on parenting
MAX
Look for the things in your
can change how you treat
WEIMAN
life that you believe are limit-
your children for good.
Special
ing you, they may just be illu-
We all have moments of
Commentag
sions.
inspiration when God bestows
• We are here to perfect
some special thought in our
ourselves. Ritual circumcision symbol-
mind. Chanukah contains the poten-
izes the dedication of our physical
tial to tap into one of those special
nature to God. That's why it's done on thoughts that has the power to change
the eighth day, as it says in Genesis
your future, if you're open to it.
21:4, "Abraham circumcised his son
When I was younger, I read some-
Isaac at eight days old as God corn-
where the following quote that
manded him."
changed my perspective on the cre-
So eight not only represents going
ation significantly:
beyond the physical realm, it also rep-
"The chances that life just occurred
resents perfecting the physical. God
are about as unlikely as a typhoon
made mankind and the world imper-
blowing through a junkyard and con-
fect so that we would perfect things
structing a Boeing 747."
and thereby earn closeness to Him.
This Chanukah, ask God for one
Nothing is an accident. All of your
special little insight to change your life
personal challenges in life are designed for the better.
for your abilities. Nothing is beyond

Herzl's Divine Spark

New York

W

hile Yasser Arafat was being
buried and mourned by the
enemies of Israel, I retreated
to my study with a copy of the diaries
of Theodor Herzl.
I wanted to remind myself of what
kind of person founds a state. It's hard
enough to start a company; build a sus-
pension bridge or, for that matter,
launch a newspaper. But what manner
of man gets the idea of a state into his
head and causes it to be created? What
is the process like?
I was not thinking of any equivalence
between the idea of Israel and of
Palestine or between Herzl and Arafat. I
was just less in a mood to read of some-
one, like Arafat, who failed, than one
who, like Herzl, succeeded.
Herzl's quest for the Jewish state
began where Arafat's quest ended, in
Paris. The founder of political Zionism
was at the time a simple foreign corre-
spondent, albeit an exceptionally scin-

Seth Lipsky is publisher and editor of
the New York Sun and a member of the
board of ewish Renaissance Media,
owner of the Detroit Jewish News. His e-
mail address is lipsky@nysun.com

12/ 3
2004

38

dilating one, who wrote plays and nov-
els and tried to start newspapers.
He had been born in 1860, in
Budapest. His religious education, such
as he got, was decidedly liberal. He may
have been exposed to Zionist ideas as a
youngster. The histories are ambiguous
on the point, but the Encyclopedia
Judaica says that at the age of 10, he
decided to become the builder of the
Panama Canal.
The Viennese newspaper for which
he was corresponding from Paris, the
Neue Freie Presse, was a liberal sheet.
He had already showed a good bit of
gumption on Jewish matters, once quit-
ting a German students' society to
protest its anti-Semitism. But when he
fetched up with the assignment to cover
the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, he
came up against something much
greater. Herzl witnessed what the
Judaica calls the "riotous behavior of
the Parisian mob when the innocent
Jewish officer was publicly humiliated
in a ceremony stripping him of his mil-
itary, rank."
Herzl walked out of the Dreyfus trial
convinced that the Jews had to get out
of Europe and set up a country of their
own. His first visit, to the leading phi-
lanthropist of the day, Jacob de Hirsch,

met with rebuff. This sent him
and America, South Africa and
into a frenzy of scribbling and
beyond, all riven by ideological
note-taking that resulted in
and religious battles of their
what must be one of the most
own.
important pamphlets ever
The diaries record his nego-
issued, DerJudenstaat. From the
tiations with the Turks and
beginning, Herzl kept his
Germans, his writing for the
diaries, which run to five vol-
intellectual classes and his own
umes and recorded how the
SETH
literary and newspaper work
idea of a Jewish state was
— all conducted with earnest-
LIPSKY
brought to the world through
ness, civility and astounding
Special
diplomacy, organizing, plead-
Commentary determination.
ing, fund-raising into an incor-
Herzl was but 38 when he
porated institution. What a
convened the First Zionist
contrast with the way the Palestinian
Congress at Basel, Switzerland, where,
Arabs have sought to advance the idea
on the balcony of the Drei Koenig
of their statehood.
Hotel, the famous photo was taken of
him gazing off 50 years into the future
at the founding of the state he envi-
Complexity Uncloaked
sioned. I have been struck, reading
Not that the idea of a military effort
biographies of Herzl over the years, at
was alien to Zionism, a point for which
the extraordinarily high quality of the
Vladimir Jabotinsky is celebrated. Nor
individuals close to him, of their ideal-
was Herzl an uncomplex character.
ism and seriousness of purpose, even
The diaries veer between eloquence,
when differences were apparent.
megalomania and self-satire. But they
There was a purity and honesty to
also illuminate the emergence of a
Herzl and his followers. The kind of
leader of astonishing powers, a newspa-
graft that grew up around Arafat is
perman who, in his 30s, became the
alien to Zionism and Israel.
vessel for the hopes of a disparate popu-
It is no slight to Herzl to observe that
lation of Jews the world over, from the
he was wrong about many things. He
Pale of Settlement in Russia, to London
failed to anticipate the astonishing