Miketz 

The sicha for parshas Miketz is in Sefer HaSichos 5751 and is also on Chanukah.

Concerning Chanukah the Gemarrah says, that whoever is careful in the fulfillment of the mitzva of ner Chanukah, is rewarded in children who are talmidei chachamim, Torah scholars. Rashi says that the connection between the candle and the Torah is in the verse, ki ner mitzva v’Torah ohr, through the candle, which is a mitzva, we are rewarded by receiving the light of Torah in that our children are Torah scholars.

The question is what is the relationship between lighting candles and having children who study Torah.  The question really is how can the mitzva of lighting the Chanukah candles which is a finite mitzva bring the light of Torah, which is infinite.  Now the difference between ner, a candle and ohr, light, is a candle implies a limited finite light, whereas ohr implies an endless light, infinite light.  So how could it be as a result of lighting the Chanukah candles, you get rewarded with an endless light of Torah, when in fact, Torah is the source of all mitzvas, and a mitzva is only a detail in the Torah. How do you get from the detail, a reward of the entire Torah? Also the ner mitzva that Rashi quotes refers to every mitzva. Every mitzva is a candle, not only Chanukah or Shabbos. Every mitzva is a candle and so for every mitzva, we should be rewarded that children who are Torah scholars.

The Rebbe explains as follows:

The significance of the Chanukah candle, the meaning behind it, has to do with the time during the first Temple period, when the Greeks ruled in Israel and tried to prevent Jews from living as Jews, particularly from seeing the Torah as a G-dly revelation. So they really wanted to separate Jews from the essence of Torah, from the infinite part of Torah.  They were comfortable with Torah as a human product, with a finite significance.  But Torah in its limitless, infinite form, the fact that it is G-d’s will, this they objected to.

Hence the victory of the Jews over the Greeks was really a victory of all of Torah. By lighting the Chanukah candles, we are really celebrating the survival of Torah Ohr, the victory of the endless Torah that the Greeks tried to destroy.  And so by lighting the Chanukah candles it is appropriate that you be rewarded in that the Torah will continue through you and your children, to your children's children and so on.  Therefore we see that the lighting of the Chanukah candles, even though it is a specific mitzva, performed at a specific time of year, only eight days out of the year, and during those eight days the mitzva is that the candle only burn for a certain amount of time, in the evening, yet through doing this mitzva, we are actually tapping into something infinite and endless – Torah Ohr.

To understand this a little bit better, we find that the lighting of the menorah in the Bais HaMikdash before Chanukah is described in the Torah as being a mitzva to light ner tamid, an eternal light.  And yet the actual performance of the mitzva of lighting the menorah was to light it ben haarbai’im, in the afternoon.  And according to most opinions it had to burn only from evening to morning, it did not have to burn during the day. Although it was lit only at a certain time of the day yet the Torah refers to it as an eternal light.  Because it was lit every day, regularly, that is called an eternal light, tamid. So it has a certain degree of endlessness even though it is performed and fulfilled in a finite manner.

And this is true also of the sacrifices.  We are told that there has to be olas tamid, a constant sacrifice in the Bais HaMikdash, and yet bringing a sacrifice in the morning and a sacrifice in the late afternoon fulfilled the olas tamid. And this had a permanent effect, a constant effect, as the Gemarrah says that the sacrifice of the morning brought forgiveness for the sins committed during the night, and the sacrifices of the late afternoon brought forgiveness for the sins of the day. So these two sacrifices had an effect that influenced the entire day.  As a result it is called tamid, a constant sacrifice, because the effect is constant.

We find other mitzvas, like the mitzva of tzitzis, where the mitzva is a constant one and yet you fulfill it when you put on the tzitzis in the morning and then it continues through the entire day as long as you wear the tzitzis. The act is a one-time act and yet it affects the entire day. The Rebbe points out that there is an interesting connection between tzitzis and Chanukah.

On Chanukah the menorah has significance in that it is placed opposite the mezuzah, the menorah is on the left side of the doorway, and the mezuzah is on the right side of the doorway, so that there is a kind of a combination, a double effect, of two mitzvas coming together, the mezuzah and the menorah. But the Rebbe says, we find in She’ultes, that when a person is lighting the menorah, the mezuzah on the right side, the menorah on the left side, and he himself standing between the door posts, wearing a garment that has tzitzis on it, then you actually have a triple mitzva, a combination of three mitzvas that somehow form a triple thread, that is stronger and not easily severed.

We find also the mitzva of tzedaka, that it is a mitzva to give tzedaka any time during the day, and all day, whenever requested and yet the communities established the custom of opening the charity office three times during the day - in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening.  Particularly, we find in the mitzva of study Torah, where there is a mitzva to study all the time, it is a constant mitzva, and yet it is fulfilled by studying a chapter in the morning and a chapter in the evening. As the Gemarrah says, not everyone can devote their entire life to study of Torah, and those that have tried were not necessarily successful. So by doing the studying twice a day, morning and evening, we are actually fulfilling the mitzva of studying constantly, because the effect of the mitzva, or the quality of the mitzva is a constant and endless one, even if the performance of the mitzva, or the halacha of the mitzva, is a limited one.

And so we understand that even when a mitzva is time oriented  - it has a certain time of the day, and it can't be fulfilled any other time, which means that not only is the restriction of physical one, but a human being can only do one thing at a time or can only do so much at a time, or the restriction is in the mitzva itself, you can't do more, once you've lit the candle you can't light another one and increased the mitzva, once you have fulfilled the act of the mitzva for the duration of the time that the halacha requires, after that there is no more mitzva, it seems - and yet, this restricted mitzva has an infinite, endless effect on the day. And not only on the day but also on the year, as we find it in the mitzva sukka, where you have to build the sukka for the purpose of the mitzva - any time during the year that you build the sukka with the intention of using it as a sukka, it is kosher even though there are many months away from the days of Succos.

So now we see that in the mitzva of lighting the Chanukah candle which commemorates the lighting of the menorah in the Bais HaMikdash, and in fact is even greater than that, because the lighting of the menorah in the Bais HaMikdash was interrupted, during golus it can't be lit, whereas the Chanukah menorah can be lit even the times of golus, and as Ramban says, they will never be discontinued, even after Moshiach comes we will light Chanukah candles, there is an element and an emphasis on its constant and endless effect.  Although it is only for eight days, and a certain time during those days, we find many elements of permanence and of endlessness in the lighting of the menorah.  First of all it increases, every day another candle is added, which is unique to the mitzva of Chanukah.  Also it is light, it actually illuminates, it actually brings light into the house, which is reminiscent of the light of Torah. Thirdly, it is lit on the outside of house, not restricted to the house itself but even outside, just as in the days of Chanukah when the Hasmoneans reclaimed the Bais HaMikdash - we are told that the mitzva overflowed the borders and the menorah was lit outside in the courtyard of the Temple rather than inside the Temple.

In general, we see that a restricted mitzva is restricted only in its performance but not in its content.  And therefore a mitzva that has a certain time limit, the reason for that limit is not a reflection on the essence of the mitzva, but rather on the effect of the mitzva.  Since the mitzva is meant to affect the physical world, time and space, therefore, the mitzva, which in essence is endless, takes on a time and space quality, so that it influences and affects time and space. The same is true of mitzvas that are restricted to certain people, mitzvas that are for men only, for women only, for all human beings, Jews only, for kohanim only - those restrictions, those properties are meant to apply the endless effect of the mitzva to the finite reality of the world. But in essence the mitzva is infinite.

With this we will understand another thing.  When we asked a Jew to do a mitzva, he does the mitzva with his neshama, and the neshama of course is a part of G-d from Above, an infinite, endless G-dliness, and yet when you tell a Jew to serve G-d, you tell him to do it with restrictions.  So the question is how can you expect from a part of G-d, a piece of G-d, which is above all limits, and how can you tell a neshama that his service of G-d should be with a limitation, in that you may not add mitzvas. There are only six hundred and thirteen mitzvas and you are not allowed to add any more.

The fact that the neshama comes down to this world and is restricted by the body and physical conditions, this is understandable, because even in its restricted state, the G-dliness of the neshama remains intact.  When you tell the neshama that its service of G-d should be restricted, this seems to go against the nature of the neshama.  Also the input that the neshama has when he performs a mitzva is b’chol levavcha, b’chol nafshecha u’b’chol meodecha, with all its heart, all its soul and all its might, the neshama serves G-d with endless energy and yet it is doing it in finite mitzvas.

So we must conclude that a Jew does mitzvahs all the time, that because we are created to serve our Master, it must therefore be true that every moment of my existence fulfils that purpose, that a Jew is constantly serving G-d. Even though the mitzvas all have their time limitations, but the effects of the mitzva and the quality of the mitzva goes on constantly so that the Jew is serving G-d in an endless fashion even though he is doing it through mitzvas that are restricted. And the simple expression that we do Torah and mitzvas, that Torah which is endless is expressed through the mitzvas, and the mitzvas have their time and space limitations.

And with this, we will understand a little bit the idea of Miketz.

In the meaning of the word Miketz, we usually assume that it is talking about the end, the ketz, of something negative. In other words, “ketz” is good news. It is the end of trouble, the end of darkness, the end of something bad. In this case, “vayechi Miketz”, there is an interpretation that says that it refers to the Torah – “vayechi miketz she n’sayim yamim”, that it was at the end of two years. Those two years are a reference to the two thousand years that Torah precedes creation, in other words, the part of Torah that is higher than creation. Not the limited part of Torah, the mitzvas that are performed in time and space, but the endless part of Torah, the joy and enthusiasm of Torah, the pleasure in Torah that is endless, that precedes creation.

But sometimes we put a restriction, a limit on the Torah, and that limit needs to be removed. So here is the significance of these words. Yosef means an increase in pleasure, an endless pleasure in G-dliness, that whatever G-dliness there is, Yosef comes along and brings a hasofa, an addition, Yosef means constantly adding. Yosef, which is the neshama, and every Jew is called Yosef, and so every neshama has this endless capacity for pleasure in G-dliness, for enthusiasm in G-dliness. And that is why over thousands of years, the enthusiasm has not been destroyed or lost.

But this neshama, Yosef, comes down into the prison, is imprisoned. The prison refers to this world, with its limitations and restrictions. It restricts the soul like a person in prison. And in this world, in the physical universe, there is also the condition of golus. The condition of golus is, that in addition to the limitations that are natural to the world, there is also the additional limitations of being asleep, or having lost our sense of direction and so on, where we are like dreamers. That is why it is says when Moshiach comes, we will be like waking up from a dream. So dream is a state of golus.

When Yosef is imprisoned and the people come to him with their dreams, that’s the neshama experiencing both the restrictions of being in this world, and the restrictions of golus, of the dream state. Then there is the butler, in the prison with Yosef, who forgets Yosef and does not remember him. This means that the pleasure represented by the wine, the enjoyment and pleasure in G-dliness is forgotten. The Torah is now viewed as a limited entity, as wisdom, as goodness, but all limited, within human reach, not bigger than the world. And so there is a ketz placed on the Torah that is really two thousand years higher than the world, higher than the limitations of nature.  But because Yosef overcomes these limits, because Yosef breaks through the limits of holiness, he overcomes this ketz and then you have “vayechi miketz” vayechi means it was, past tense, that this limit on Torah was temporary and it is now something of the past, it is gone, because we have been able to see past that limit, and see the Torah in its true essence which is endless.

So this is the story of Miketz, that from the end of last week’s parsha, where the neshama Yosef is imprisoned and in dreams, and therefore sees Torah as a limited entity - he overcomes that by being Yosef, which is reflected in the fact that we light the menorah in the highest form, mehadrin min hamehadrim, we break through all the limits, even the limits of Torah, and look for the pure oil, and inevitably find it. Then we see the endlessness of the light of the menorah, and also the light of Torah, and then the restriction on Torah is a thing of the past, “vayechi miketz”, and then we come to the growth and the progress that the next parsha speaks of, where even in Mitzraim you have Yosef, who is a tzaddik, and not only for himself, but also his children, and his children’s children, who were born in Mitzraim and grew up in Mitzraim, and yet they had Torah Ohr, they had the endless light of Torah, even in the lowest condition.

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