This year more than most, I have really been feeling like I need the light of Chanuka, to show me where on earth I’m going in the world, and to illuminate the good.

Not least, the good within, because the last few months since everything blew up with The Vaccinator, I realised I have been struggling a lot to see the good in myself.

That doesn’t mean I’m perfect, or ‘only good’.

It means that along with all my copious faults and flaws, there is also a lot of good, and when I remember that ‘good’ is also mixed in with the package of bad middot that is me, that puts a very different colour on a whole bunch of things.

==

Yesterday, I was looking at the Chanuka candles at home for a few minutes, after we’d been by the Rav for his lighting.

The traffic was awful, so by the time we got there we’d already missed the actual lighting, but we were still in time for an hour of singing and dancing and clapping.

The place was packed.

‘The place’ being the outside carpark that functions like a shul, facing the Rav’s balcony where he stands for hours and hours every night, no matter what the weather, no matter how cold, hot, rainy, uncomfortable.

I honestly have no idea how he does it, and it’s an example of an ‘open miracle’ that is still so hidden most people don’t get it’s happening.

==

Yesterday, there was a lot of good ruach at the Rav.

It’s been such a long slog, for years, for months, that even the prayers at the Rav have been feeling a little ‘flat’ recently… Like we all just ran out of energy and are exhausted.

But you could feel the light of Chanuka yesterday, and there was more energy, more joy, than I’ve felt for a while.

Me and my husband went for chips afterwards, sat on a bench in a Jerusalem park eating them, then came home and lit our candles.

==

This year is the first in this apartment, so it took us a while to realise we had no menorah suitable for lighting outside in our current apartment.

So, we decided to ‘make one’.

That meant going to Max Stock to pick up some very cheap little glasses and a cheap little wood tray, that we could stick outside on a wall and hopefully no-one would steal it or break it.

The plan was to decorate the glasses ourselves, to make them more ‘festive’.

Of course, we got home so knackered that we had to change the plan to begin on Day 2. After we lit the regular menorahs indoors, we spent an hour decorating the glasses together, listening to corny, but surprisingly good, ‘Chanukah songs’ from the Maccabeats.

If all you had was the Maccabeats to keep you Jewish and ‘connected’ to Judaism, that would be a pity. But, as a nice little addition to first night after we’d been at the Rav, they were fantastic.

==

We read Day 1 of the special kuntres Shivivei Or put out for Chanuka, where the Rav equated the first candle with shmirat eynayim.

It really spoke to me.

I am trying very hard to ‘guard my eyes’ at the moment, and to try and stay focussed on what God really wants.

That includes ‘seeing the good’.

Especially in myself.

And I’ve really, really been struggling with that, the last few weeks.

==

When you find it hard to see the good in yourself, you also find it hard to see the good in the world, and in others.

I’ve been kind of stuck there recently, and I’ve been praying a lot about it, asking God to give me some clarity, and help me to focus on what He really wants me to be doing with myself.

Being the ‘bad guy’ that keeps pointing out the lies and upsetting people is not an easy job. I have been doing a ton of hitbodedut again, really asking God is this what You want me to be doing? Should I be doing other stuff? Please help me out, God!

==

The answer at the moment appears to be: keep going.

After all the AI video stuff last week, I thought maybe God was showing me an ‘out’ – a way to content create in a fluffy, light way where I could even make some money and not upset people.

Then in the middle of watching more tutorials on how to do it, my eyes went ‘funny’.

Then, my credit cards stopped working when I tried to purchase more credits to play around with AI generators.

Then, I got a couple of other strong steers that God wants me to carry on with the heavy, controversial research, and to leave fluffy videos about hitbodedut that could make a fortune online to other people.

So, that’s where I’m at. Again.

==

It’s the metaphorical job of ‘cleaning the toilets’ and ‘taking out the trash’.

I don’t know what I did in a previous life, that I have to now rectify it by cleaning the toilets and taking out the trash.

Part of me so yearns to be one of those ‘content creators’ who actually makes some income and gets people applauding their work.

But at the moment, it appears that’s not the path.

And, I have to work really hard to still like and appreciate myself, while I’m stuck cleaning the toilets and taking out the trash.

==

We like to think we’re in control of our lives.

Really, it’s just God.

It could be after 120, I’ll get upstairs and discover all this ‘cleaning the toilets’ was actually a big punishment, after all. But the one thing that gives me peace of mind is that I really do just want to try to make God happy, and to give Him what He wants.

I spend a lot of time asking Him what that is.

And that’s all I can really do, from my end.

==

I give us all a bracha that we should see and feel a lot of ‘light’ this Chanuka.

Especially, the internal light, that comes from within.

That whispers at us that despite all our flaws and failings, we have so much good inside, so much of our own light to share, still.

And that God should help the light inside each one of us to strengthen, and to shine out brightly.

Even when we’re stuck cleaning the toilets.