Similar to the Advent season, the eight days of Chanukah offer a special time for quiet reflection, prayer, and opportunities for personal enlightenment, family enrichment, and community empowerment. One of my favorite sections in this book is found on pages 80-81, and refers to seeing and freeing our habitual patterns and routines. The lighting of the menorah at the end of the day offers an opportunity to see anew the special essence of our life which we may have replaced with other to-dos.
Apisdorf writes:
The marketplace is where the rhythm of everyday living is transformed into the repetitive cadence of routine and monotony. We get up, read the paper, go to work, have lunch, go back to work, go home, run to the dry cleaner, the supermarket and the video store, watch television, go to sleep, get up, read the paper and go to work; over and over and over again until our lives become little more than moving from one all-too-familiar routine to the next. And then comes Chanukah and the lighting of the menorah.
Within the lights of the Chanukah menorah is a spiritual energy that is able to help us reconnect with that which is inspiring and uplifting in life. Chanukah is a time for innovation. It is a time to break free of routine and introduce a sense of freshness into life. But how do we do this? The answer is one part effort and one part inspiration from above.
The effort required on Chanukah involves putting aside some time to recall those moments in life when you felt inspired and uplifted, when you felt connected to a larger sense of reality that transcended yourself. When was the last time you felt that being alive was awe-inspiring and not boring? When was the last time you felt a sense of odyssey in life? When was the last time you felt your soul to be the most powerful force in your life? When was the last time you were aware of the presence of God?
The “marketplace” has an insidious way of replacing that which is able to illuminate our lives with the hazy clouds of routine. Chanukah is a time of war and the battlefront is the marketplace. When, during Chanukah, one strives to reconnect with even one thing that can provide a deep sense of meaning, inspiration ad aliveness, then the power of the Chanukah lights can step in and do its part. As we seek inspiration, we will be inspired. As we reach for meaning, we will find that opportunities are right in front of us; and as we yearn to dispel the darkness bred by routine, we will discover that we are surrounded by sources of light that are just waiting for us to reach out and grasp them.
Moving forward with a listening heart,
vision, inquiry, and action,
~ Mary