"…After Avraham left the cave, his heart was yearning to know what force it was that ruled this world. So he turned to the celestial bodies to discern which of them was God. He saw the moon lighting the sky from one end to the other and figured, hey, that must be the one! But when dawn came and the sun rose, Avraham reconsidered; 'With brightness like that, it must be the sun that rules.' When the moon and stars came out again that night, it was clear to him that another must be the ruler over all of these orbs." So goes a Midrash that saw Avraham as the primordial "Man in search of God." Noticing the miraculous nature of the world, Avraham looked to put a name to the faces of God he was seeing in the world.
" 'And Noah walked with God (while Avraham walked before God).' Rebbe Nechemia said, 'Compare (Noah) to the beloved of the king who is stuck in dark alleyways. The king peers out of his palace to see his beloved stuck in darkness and bids him to come walk with the king instead. But Avraham, compare him to this: The King is stuck in dark alleyways, and his beloved peers out of the palace to see his king stuck. He then shines a light from the window for the king. Says the king, 'Instead of lighting at the window, come and shine your light right in front of me.' So said Hashem to Avraham Avinu: 'Instead of lighting the way for me over there in Mesopotamia and its environs, come and make light before me in Eretz Yisrael.' " INCREDIBLE! For Rebbe Nechemia, in this Midrash, God is in search of Man.
Alright, alright. Those are some nice stories we learned with Rav Chanan this week, but why in the world would the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE need one of us to get him out of the mud? I think an answer can be found in the question (as usual). The CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE is always stuck in the mud. Intimidating titles, archaic language, bad translations, ignorance…that's all mud! God needed to put his teachings in an intelligible form, but the form he chose can only exist in this world in a single form. Without us to internalize the words, without us to FEEL those words, they're just black streaks on a page. Ever since we could crawl, we were all expert mess-makers! You name it, we muddied it. But now, when the world needs clarity so badly, we have to shine a new light on the situation.
Kislev, the winter month. It's the month of the most darkness, but also (thanks to Chanukah) the most light. In Rebbe Nechemia's Midrash, it's not enough, as far as God is concerned, to shine this light anywhere. Rather, God wanted Avraham to shine from the source, to come close and light a fire in Eretz Yisrael. A land where things go straight, "yashar el." That's Israel, the land of little patience for small talk, the land of brutal honesty and undying passion, the land where to get anywhere you simply walk "yashar, yashar."
I bless us all, on this Shabbat, to light Shabbat Candles and picture that light burning in the heart of Eretz Yisrael. See it clearing away the darkness, see it drying up the mud, leaving it to flake away in the breeze. If you can't BE in Israel, then light from YOUR straight place. Light from the place inside you that responds without hesitation, that burns even without intellectual understanding…and "let it shine wherever you go."