We depend on our investments, our great job, our beautiful car. Perhaps we are gratified by our influence in the community, our popularity, our lifestyle, our vacations, our sporting events, our wilderness adventures with the family. We have a sense of stability based on the habits we have formed over a lifetime. We are comfortable with our lives.
Now the world in which we have all grown up, those familiar surroundings, are going away. God is calling out to us, “Lech Lecha.” The end of history is approaching. A new world is almost here. This is not a fairy tale. Our sages tell us that if we stick like glue to God and His Torah, we will make it through whatever comes our way and we will live in that beautiful new world.
Although Eliezer was a great man, he lived in a different realm from our father Avraham. Only Avraham answered to “Lech Lecha,” and in so doing he became a servant of God. This unique gift of service to Hashem he bequeathed to us, his children, and thus we say, every morning, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, for not having made me a slave.”
In a few weeks, we will kindle lights in the darkness. Chanukah, the holiday that falls on the darkest days of the year, comes to remind us that absolutely nothing stands in the way of the Total Redemption God promises His children. We light eight candles. Eight is the number beyond nature, beyond the logic of this world.
No matter how dark this world looks, and it looks pretty dark right now, the full and complete redemption promised in the Torah will come.
If we kindle those candles, if we live the purity of Torah in this impure world, if we cling to Truth in this world of falsehood, if we follow God in this world of idolatry, if we fulfill our tradition of eternal service to the Master of the Universe, we will emerge in the glorious light of a new world and bask in the glory of the Bais Hamikdosh and the glow of Moshiach, son of David.
