I think everyone has heard the expression, “It is always darkest just before dawn.” But how about the more darkness you see the more light you are actually experiencing? Of course, this isn’t true of the sun. We can’t deny that light is light and darkness is darkness when it is daytime. If the sun is out, it is light outside and possible to see and feel warm. But the moon is a bit trickier, and there is no wonder that it reflects the more hidden but no less real world of the soul rather than the physical world which is nourished by the brightness of the sun.
First, Jewish mysticism is all about light. It is basically a kind of physics of light, describing how the light that was born in G-d’s first utterance in the Torah “Let there be light” led to the creation and sustenance of everything. Second, the moon is quite important in Jewish thought. The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, every month we bless the moon, and most of the major holidays, like Passover and Succot, are either right in the middle of the month, when the moon is at its fullest, or at least at the first part of the month when the moon is getting larger. Why, then, does Chanukah, the festival of lights, fall at the end of the Jewish month when the moon is getting smaller every night until the end of the month when it is hardly seen at all?
The moon does not shine its own light. It is a reflected light from the sun. And contrary to what one would expect, the farther away the moon is from the sun, the fuller the moon appears to be. The closer the moon is to the sun, the smaller it is. When the moon is full and bright and glorious, it actually is farther away from its source of light, the sun. The full moon represents an aspect of our personalities when we feel independent, strong, self-contained (even though all of the light in our lives comes from a higher source). However, this feeling of independence, this light of the ego, is artificial and is merely a reflection of the ultimate light of the sun, just as our ego and feeling of independence is not real; all of our power ultimately comes from G-d.
When the moon is merely a sliver in the sky and seems surrounded by darkness, it is actually inhabiting the place of the greatest light, the source of the light. It shines just a tiny bit of its own ego and is bathed in what appears to us as darkness (because it is beyond our senses to comprehend) but is really the essence of the light. When we feel small, defeated and when the world looks dark and hopeless, like the fading moon, we are embraced in what seems to be darkness, but the favor of G-d shines brightly in our lives, even though we cannot see it. G-d is everywhere, but when the ego is put aside, and room is made for G-d, he dwells with us.
Chanukah, the holiday that occurs when the nights are at their darkest, reminds us of the essence of light that exists in what appears to us as darkness, and the real task is to be a recipient of the light and allow it to shine into our lives.
based on the teachings of The Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn