Tuesday 27 December 2011

The Eighth...

Tonight is Zot Chanukah.  It is the Eighth, the point in time where reality meets the divine.  The Maharaal in Tiferet Yisrael likens the Torah  to the Eighth.  The Torah is divine and it is that with which we refine ourselves and the world around us.  In a sense it is this that the Hashmonaim were fighting about.  The Yavanim (Greeks) believed in only what they saw and could rationalize. They believed in an intellect unguided by revelation.  The Torah is beyond that, it  represents the fusion between the divine and the physical.  It is our brit with the Creator which forces us to draw the divine light into reality through out actions. We believe in "Moshe K'Bal Torah M'Sinai." K'Bal...Receive.

Zot Chanukah is the culmination of the increasing kedushah.  It is one beyond the completion of 7 and yet that moment of moving beyond the natural order is more than just a digit, it is one that is complete change.  Ultimately that is the idea behind Moshiach.  He is like us, flesh and blood, but he is beyond.  In a sense his anointment with oil is our anointment, for he is "the heart of the Am."  One moment we are a nation with a heart of stone and the next moment we are one with a heart of flesh.  Redemption is about moving from the seventh to the eight.  We are still here, the natural order is unchanged, but inner clarity is complete and beyond.

The Midrash says points out while Moshe was the seventh, it was David who was the eighth and it is David who will reign at the end.  More than complete, a fusion of the divine and physical, a clarity of our covenant, and renewal of our Kingdom.

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