Chanukah has come and gone. The menorahs are back in their boxes, the silver ones back in the breakfront. The oil spills are cleaned, the wax scraped off the windowsills, and the last jelly donut long long long since disappeared, and with the quiet return to routine comes a familiar, unspoken question: What now?
Because Chanukah, for all its warmth and beauty, never pretends to be an ending. It is not Pesach, which promises redemption. It is not Shavuos, which brings revelation. It is not even Purim, with its explosive joy and sudden reversals. Chanukah sits deliberately in the middle of winter. It may light up the calendar, but in many ways it seems like a bridge to nowhere. The Chashmonaim evolve into a corrupt clan, whose descendants become the antithesis of any yichus, and the Mikdosh itself is ultimately destroyed. The corruption of the Kohanim of that era played a great role in its demise.
It all feels pretty anticlimactic.
The months that follow Chanukah are not easy ones. The excitement fades. The weather hardens. The world does not grow gentler. There is no Yom Tov to lean on, no built-in simcha to buoy us, no immediate spiritual crescendo waiting just around the corner. From Teves through Adar, we walk through a long corridor of uncertainty, where challenges linger and clarity often feels distant.
Reb Sruly Bornstein quoted the Chasam Sofer who points out a “dovor nifla.” The month that follows Chanukah, Chodesh Teves, is a month in which Klal Yisroel suffered kefel kiflayim, double calamity. On Asarah B’Teves, Nevuchadnetzar laid siege to Yerushalayim, a beginning that the Chasam Sofer calls half the tragedy. On the eighth of Teves, the Torah was translated into Greek, plunging the world into three days of darkness. On the ninth of Teves, Ezra Hasofer, who was equal in stature to Moshe Rabbeinu, passed away. And it was during this period that news of the churban reached the bnei hagolah.
Because of this convergence, the Chasam Sofer insists that Teves is a zeman aveilus l’Yisroel, a month intrinsically marked by loss and spiritual diminishment.
What makes this especially striking, he says, is the contrast. For the nations of the world, this same period marks the beginning of their season of celebration, their new year, the start of their joy. By contrast, when Adar and Nissan arrive, our months of simcha and rising mazel, those same nations enter a period of inuy and deprivation that extends until Pesach. Though they have no intent in this alignment, the Chasam Sofer sees it as an expression of ule’om mile’om ye’ematz. In the battle of Eisov and Yaakov, when one rises, the other falls.
Perhaps, we can surmise that Chanukah does not negate those following months. It equips us to survive them.
The miracle of Chanukah was never about overwhelming darkness with blinding light. It was about sufficient light. One small flask. Eight quiet nights. A flame that did not conquer the night but refused to surrender to it. The menorah did not chase away all the darkness. But for those near it, they saw light and hope.
Now that Chanukah is behind us, I am no longer looking at it as the end game, but rather as a most important and critical booster rocket to help propel us during the tekufah that follows it. We do not always need an end game. We need light. We need strength, and we need resilience.
We kindle neiros without guarantees. We place a flame at the window knowing the street is dark, but knowing that the light will kindle our homes. It’s not mere symbolism. It’s training for dark times. And then, there are no more candles. There are memories, and there is hope. Hope despite incursions into our lives and our spirituality and our emunah.
The horrific tragedy in Bondi, Australia, was one such incursion. It was violent, senseless, and shattering. Although it took place at a Chabad-sponsored event, and among those murdered were a Chabad shliach and members of that kehillah, I would not frame it as a Chabad tragedy. It was a Klal Yisroel tragedy. They were not targeting shluchim or a public menorah celebration. They were targeting Yidden.
Almost instinctively, the words that surfaced, the phrases that steadied broken hearts and gave voice to resolve, have long been part of the vernacular of Yidden throughout every generation. “A little light dispels much darkness.” “We fight darkness by providing illumination through strengthened observance of Torah and mitzvos.”
Such comments have forever echoed in the halls of Yiddishkeit world over. Because that is the story of Chanukah. And it is the story of the aftermath. The aftermath of the Greeks. The Romans. And ISIS murderers who wear different uniforms but carry the same hatred.
There is a danger in the weeks after Chanukah. The excitement and hislahvus can fade and flicker. And like the candles on the ninth night, they can be extinguished. There is a tired voice that says, “I already had my inspiration. The dancing is over. I put away my menorah.” Like Shlomo Hamelech says in Shir Hashirim, “Poshateti es kutonti.” I am already in my nightclothes and ready to sleep. I did not only pack away the menorah. I packed away the inspiration that came with it.
But that should not be the case. Once we lit eight candles, we have ignited the booster rocket that transcends the seven of nature. It must give us the strength to battle the forces of a world that begins to celebrate precisely when we are meant to be sober and steady.
The Jewish calendar is not random. It is engineered for endurance. After the spiritual quiet of Cheshvan, Kislev erupts with light. That light must then last us through Teves and Shevat, through cold months where uncertainty lingers and headlines grow heavier. And just as that fuel begins to wane, another ignition occurs. Purim arrives with the power of salvation we need after encountering forces that are the antithesis of all we stood for on Chanukah.
And then comes Pesach, the Yom Tov that defines Jewish history itself. The eternal declaration that in every generation there are those who rise to destroy us, and that we endure not because the threats disappear, but because redemption ultimately does.
Pesach is not merely a Yom Tov of freedom. It is the Yom Tov that gives expression to our reality. “Shebechol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloseinu.” Every generation has its Haman. Every era has its Paroh. It has its October 7ths and its Bondis. And yet, we are still here.
We were never meant to travel this journey on a single burst of inspiration. We were given stages. Light for the dark. Joy for the fear. Faith for eternity. These are moments in time that replenish spiritual oxygen before it runs dangerously low.
Purim will come, be’ezras Hashem, with its noise and clarity, its laughter and reversal.
Just Saying.But it does not arrive on its own. It is a process, and every candle we lit was part of it.
Just saying.
