Chanukah 5770/2009 - Jewish Infertility

Chizuk
The Age
of Illumination
Some Thoughts and Introspection
on the Nature of the Chanukah Lights
Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Feuer
– Reprinted from Seasons of the Soul, Mesorah Publications
in conjunction with Agudath Israel of America.
SHAAREI TIKVAH/ CHANUKAH 2009
Our progressive age, by virtue of its countless advances
and discoveries, has been endowed with
a great variety of names: the Space Age, the Atomic Age,
the Jet Age – to name but a few. May we suggest yet another
descriptive label: the Age of Illumination.
For many, many centuries man was actually halfblinded.
Daylight allowed his curious eyes the liberty of
roaming at will, but come night, man’s free vision was limited
by a blinding darkness. Candles, oil and wood fires
were among the only means of dispersing the enveloping
gloom. These were costly, hazardous, steady, malodorous,
dim, short-lived, or all of these. In those days, wax meant
wealth, and adequate light was a luxury reserved for the
privileged. Many a mastermind developed, and many a
masterpiece was painstakingly created by the meager light
of pale moonbeams.
Only recently – barely a hundred years have elapsed
since the invention of the light bulb – did the genius of a
man transform the bleak situation. Today, mankind’s blindness
is banished by billions of powerful and enduring bulbs.
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