An Understanding Heart

Seeing Lessons We have all heard of music lessons and driving lessons. But seeing lessons? Seeing is something that a healthy person is born with the capacity to do automatically, why would one need lessons?  It is just that - learning to see- that one of the primary observances of Chanukah asks us to do. In the Neirot Halalu –the piece of liturgy said immediately after the lighting of the Chanukah lights we say “And we have no right to make practical use of them (the lights), they are only to be looked at”  This is actually quite curious, in as much as the other types of lights we are asked to kindle as a Judaic precept- The Shabbat and Holiday lights are specifically designed to be used for illumination. With Chanukah, we are asked to do nothing with the lights except to look at them.   Every Jewish holiday carries a lesson that has the capacity –if absorbed- to enhance our lives throughout the entire year. A key component of Chanukah is to use the lights of the Chanukiah as a tool f