Parshat Vayeshev & Chanukah (and friendship)
"I want you to know, sweetest friends, when I see someone else putting on tefillin, I don't have to say a blessing over it...
I don't need to make a bracha over someone else fulfilling the mitzva.
And the same thing is true of all the commandments except one - Chanuka.
If I go for a walk on the street and I haven't yet kindled the light in my own house,
and I pass by someone else's house and I see his Chanukah candles, I have to make a bracha.
Do you know why? Because ...
all year long. I don't really care if somebody else puts on tefillin.
I pretend that I do, but I don't really care.
But on Chanukah, when I see somebody else serving G-d, it blows my mind.
I say to myself, "I knew my neighbor was beautiful , but I didn't know he was shining so much.
So I make another bracha over my neighbor's light.
Then maybe later that night, the same person takes a walk and passes by my house....
and says ..."Master of the World, I
made a bracha over my light. But my neighbor's light is so much more beautiful.
Thank you, G-d, for my friend's light.
Friends do you know what this is? Do you know what would happen if this was the way people were to each other?
It mamesh would be the redemption of the world. ...
Yosef was on such an exalted level - it was like after the coming of Mashiach.
He thought he could tell his brothers, ...
"that I can bring Mashiach, that I can be the king."
But his brothers weren't on the same level yet. ...
they still have jealousy inside them. They couldn't be happy for their brother. ...
this was the beginning of the downfall of the world.
When you cannot stand somebody else being beautiful
Do you know how sad it is if your heart isn't deep enough to say a blessing on somebody else's light?
So during the same week that we read the story of the brothers selling Yosef,
we make a great fixing - by kindling Chanukah lights.
Good Shabbos! From Rabbi Shlomo
Happy Chanukah
Chanukah lighting begins next Sunday night December 14
