Candle 3

When the enemy enters the Temple in order to defile it, he manages to touch only what is visible to the eye; he breaks stones, topples walls, defiles oils, and in effect shatters all that appears outwardly. But there is a region his touch does not reach at all, a sealed and deep region that Rav Kook describes as a place where the inner secrets remain whole, pure, and protected from foreign touch, and this is what the Maccabees find upon reaching the ruined Temple. The Rav sees in this not only a historical description but a deep parable for exile, for distance, and for the moments when, even in personal or national life, we feel as though something within us has been burned from the outside, grown distant from the source, and become foreign to itself. One of the great secrets of our people is that there is a depth that cannot be defiled and that does not surrender to any darkness, and from it the light of Hanukkah begins to be renewed.

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