Continuous Growth - Rabbi Michael Hoenig

how many candles do we light on the first night of Hanukkah this is the well-known Mach Locus between beijama and base Hillel bayshama rule on the first night we light eight candles and then throughout Hanukkah we go in descending order eight seven six five four three two one base hello rules the opposite on the first night we Light One Candle and then we go in ascending order one two three four five six seven eight fascinating Mark Locus the gamar explains the rationale behind the ruling of Base hello we need to be modeling the kodesh go up in levels of caducea the aim Meridian and don't go down to keep increasing the light each and every single night what an incredible lesson in life it becomes very easy to be complacent to rest on our Laurels to just relax the Gomorrah reminds us we need to be modeling because keep pushing ourselves striving for Greater Heights elevating ourselves exerting maximum effort to ensure we are reaching the best version of ourselves [Music] when he was a fugitive running away from the bloodthirsty brother and Ace of he had a dream he dreamed of the malachin going up and down the ladder he dreamed of the celestial forces fast forward many years he's worked in the house of love on he's been manipulated exploited very difficult situation it's time to leave and he calls for his wives to meet him in the field and he speaks to Rocco and Leia and he tells him he's had a dream and in the dream there are sheeps and goats and they're mounting each other and he describes it and he says came to him and said yaakov it's time to go home I've heard from Stephen Berg the CEO of H something so beautiful yaakov originally was dreaming of angels of malachim now he's dreaming of sheeps and goats time to go home time to go back to your roots time to go back to your homelands because the year needs to keep dreaming our dreams need to be stronger greater than the past and sometimes we have dreams in the past and we forget them we get frustrated we have to keep dreaming keep pushing keep grinding forward so on Hanukkah when we light the candles when credible Mitzvah and each night we add another light another light it's a great reminder to keep pushing ourselves look for areas to work on add more and more light to our lives and more and more light to everybody around us