Thoughts for the 2nd Night of Chanukah

Image: Menorah with 2 candles and shamash lit. (innareznick/shutterstock)

The first night of Chanukah is always a bit chaotic at my home. We’re all excited about the holiday, but we can’t find the matches, oops, did we buy candles? and where IS the electric menorah we put in the front window?…

And I look up the blessings and make sure that the tunes are in my mind. One verse of Maoz Tzur and I’ve got it…

Sometimes I wonder if the real reason the sage Hillel said, “Light the candles so the light increases night after night” was that he suspected that some of us would burn the house down if we lit all the candles the first night! However, that’s not what the Talmud says.

The Sages taught in a baraita: The basic mitzva of Hanukkah is each day to have a light kindled by a person, the head of the household, for himself and his household. And the mehadrin, i.e., those who are meticulous in the performance of mitzvot, kindle a light for each and every one in the household. And the mehadrin min hamehadrin, who are even more meticulous, adjust the number of lights daily. Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagree as to the nature of that adjustment. Beit Shammai say: On the first day one kindles eight lights and, from there on, gradually decreases the number of lights until, on the last day of Hanukkah, he kindles one light. And Beit Hillel say: On the first day one kindles one light, and from there on, gradually increases the number of lights until, on the last day, he kindles eight lights…

The reason for Beit Hillel’s opinion is that the number of lights is based on the principle: One elevates to a higher level in matters of sanctity and one does not downgrade. Therefore, if the objective is to have the number of lights correspond to the number of days, there is no alternative to increasing their number with the passing of each day. – Shabbat 21a

The second night, I am calmer.  I know where everything is, I’ve been humming the blessings ever since last night, and even the food tastes better, because the novelty of the first night is behind us. 

I appreciate a holiday that goes on long enough for me to really settle in to it and get to know it. Tonight is the 2nd night. There’s much to contemplate: the tiny spectacle of two little candles against the dark, the continuing miracle of Jewish existence, and the wonder that every year, we push back on the darkness and it does, indeed, recede. 

Chanukah sameach! Happy Chanukah!