Maintaining the Flame: Nurturing Exuberance Through The Holiday of Chanukah

Show Notes
Transcript

Have you ever wondered why we sometimes abandon our commitments in search of something new? Why do promising relationships falter, careers shift track, or why do Torah scholars leave their studies for more worldly pursuits? This episode delves deep into these questions, presenting a fresh perspective. We argue that the issue may not be our search for novelty but our inability to maintain a sense of newness and vitality in our existing commitments.

Today's conversation illuminates the importance of keeping our lives, professions, relationships - and even our commitment to Torah - fresh and lively, as if they were brand new daily. We discuss the Hellenistic approach, which started the downfall of the Jewish people due to service becoming habitual and lackluster. Drawing inspiration from Matizyo and his sons, we advocate for maintaining a youthful exuberance in our commitment to our Jewish heritage and the importance of understanding the depth of living as a Jew. Let the spirit of Chanukah remind us to keep the flame of our commitments burning bright, to keep our lives new and exciting.

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Transcript

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Why do couples get divorced?

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Why do promising young business executives suddenly change courses in their profession to seek new adventures?

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Why do young, promising Torah prodigies suddenly close their gemaras to go seek fame and fortune out there in the real estate world?

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Why don't we finish certain talks or songs that we listen to, or finish chapters that we're reading when we're scrolling through social media?

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But why do we have to go on to the next thing?

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To see what lies just ahead Is often the very same answer.

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It's just burnt out, the job isn't very exciting anymore.

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My marriage isn't what it used to be.

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The learning I just don't feel it.

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We want something new.

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Perhaps the problem isn't that we want something new, but it's in fact that we lack the commitment to keeping our objectives and our lives new and fresh.

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See, chanukah brings with it a certain excitement.

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The word Chanukah itself actually comes from the word chinukh, which means a new beginning.

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Chanukh, chinukh, linar, begin, the child Chanukah's ha-miz-beach.

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It's an instituting, an inauguration.

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Chanukah is in the middle of the cold and dark winter and we celebrate a new beginning.

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In fact, the Torah coaxes us to keep our relationship to Torah new and fresh.

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It should be every single day, as if the Torah had been given.

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Wake up with a mo-da-ani with an excitement.

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So maybe, yes, one is not faulted for wanting to keep his 50th anniversary as fresh as the Shana Rishona, or his business to be his most exciting thing, or his Torah to be like his very day of his upsharing when he just met the alephes.

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The goal is to keep it like that as much as possible.

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The ultimate tragedy that began to be followed by the Jewish people, the Hellenistic approach, it all started to fall apart because, says the Bach, sayyidina Maharam and his Rashal B'Avoda.

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Back then, the service became melanchol.

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Our service of Hashem became habitual by rote.

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It was just blasé, it was just meh, it was bland.

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Matizyo and his sons, they were moisture-nephich because they understood the worth and it was new, it was fresh.

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So they went out and said this is something worth fighting for.

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A youthful exuberance, chanukah, let it be that it says to you, not burnt out.

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But I understand the erich, the depth of what it means to live as a Jew, and I understand why everyone wants to take it away from me and why the Yates-a-Hard try so hard and the Romans and the Greeks have all tried to remove my Jewish spirit, because we know that life without a soul, life without our Jewish religion and heritage, there's not a life at all.

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