This View of Life - By the end of parsha Vayeshev, Ya’akov is completely enveloped in darkness and confusion. His wives are deceased, his daughter has been raped, Reuven has dishonored him, Yehudah has married a Canaanite, and his favorite, Yosef, is presumed dead. Wherein lies hope for Ya’akov? It can be found in the roots of Chanukah, when Ya’akov, alone, went back for his pachim katanim (“little containers,” which merited the small cruse of oil that miraculously burned in the Menorah for eight days). The real grandeur of our lives is found not in great spectacles, but in the small things that are ours by virtue of our investment in them. Thus, even to God, the glow from our tiny candles is more precious than the light of all the galaxies. And just as something as small as an olive is able to express the energy within the entire cosmos, so too, can every person who cares deeply reveal the light of the entire universe. Hope – for Ya’akov and for us – lies not in physical might or power, but in the indomitable human spirit manifesting all the complexities of mind and relationship. (BW)

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