Shabbat Miketz - Shabbat Chanukah 2024

“The miracle of Hanukkah, is yes that the oil lasted and yes that we overcame, but it is also in the Jews ability to hope at all, to live through a time of terror and not completely give in to experience the reign of the Greeks and still hold on to their own inner light. The beauty of the story of Joseph, who sat in wait for two long years, is that just like The Hanukkah story, God’s name does not appear, Joseph doesn’t talk to God face to face, like so many before him and like Moses after him, he, like many of us, sits and waits and feels alone, but yet the Midrash asks mi michakeh, who sits and waits in anticipation with us? God is there the whole time? As is the case with most miracles, it doesn’t happen all at once. You can’t rush it. The Midrash tells us that miracles take time, and God is there, not just in the end result, but in that horrible, agonizing middle with us too. Don’t quit before the miracle.”

Rabbi Werber spoke about the biblical story of Jacob, the two years that he spent in darkness – and the connection to Chanukah of winning light amidst that darkness, along with the importance of waiting, of miracles, and of making it through the dark times.

Rabbi Yael Werber delivered this drashah at Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday, December 27, 2024 / 27 Kislev 5785. 

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