By Ohad Ezrahi
Translation by Yasmine Ariel
Man Is The Center Of His World
We light Hanukah candles to remind us of the meaning of the menorah light in Solomon’s Temple, and when there is no temple a man’s home is his temple, and within it is God.
I would like to show how the ancient Kabalistic viewpoint is that man is in the center of the world but God is neither marginal or secondary. Man stands at the center and God is in the center of man himself.
Lighting Hanukah candles symbolizes this awareness, and I believe it is important to see ourselves in the centre of our lives.
And When Man Is Not In The Center
It is my opinion that a spiritual religious viewpoint that puts man in the periphery and God in the center (of significance and consciousness), makes man feel like a servant and not a master.
Many times something in man’s soul is lost because with God in the center he may become enslaved to the religious system he lives in. An example of this can be found today in fundamentalism.
Whenever we believe that God consciousness equals God in the center and man in the periphery, this actually causes a distancing of God’s presence. Human life becomes more insignificant in the face of religious ideology.
What becomes obvious to me under the magnifying glass of fundamentalism is the slow deterioration of human worth and the inability to acknowledge ourselves as powerful beings.
Actually, this problem not only exists in religion, but in any situation that turns the individual into something insignificant. It could be a big company whose employees have lost a sense of connection to God because they are controlled by rules that don’t acknowledge them as human beings. Perhaps economic profit is more important than the well-being of the workers. We also see this situation when a country, community, or society fails to honor the people that it is comprised of.
The Essence Of Religion
When you want to understand a certain religion, one of the best way of doing so is to examine the essence of the structure the religion has chosen. Every religion’s temple has a reflection of its spiritual philosophy built into the architectural structure.
King Solomon’s Temple testifies to the idea that man is at the center of his world. One of the basic notions of the Jewish temple is that the pattern represents the human body.
A wise Hasidic orthodox Jew once said: ‘It is explained in the holy Zohar and the Books that the shape of Solomon’s Temple, and everything in it implies the shape of man.’
Kabala also reveals what is at the foundation of ancient architectural religious consciousness: Man is the temple and the temple symbolizes the complete shape of man.
The Jewish philosophy is concentric. Jerusalem was considered the center of holiness. Within Jerusalem is the Temple Mount, and within the Temple is the holiest of the holy, and within that is the tabernacle, and within that the shrine, and within the shrine the Ark of the Covenant and the angels.
If we understand that the temple is an architectural mirror of the human shape as a whole we will find that at the center of the Jewish religious philosophy stands man. And, inside of man there is divinity.
What Does It Matter?
It matters a lot because in this philosophy human kind is not secondary. His strengths are not denied. He doesn’t look outside of himself to bigger authorities that tell him what is good and right, and where God is. Instead he looks inside himself, and he finds divinity. Divinity is significant but not as something separate from us.
Sometimes in our modern Western civilization - the continuation of the Greek Hellenist culture, man has become detached from his inner strength and what is divine in him, and can see himself as a leaf blowing in the wind.
Nietzsche understood this. He recognized that modern man had lost his power, and he spoke about rejuvenating the philosophy that man is a powerful being whose strengths lie within.
We Are Co-Creators
Thus we can see man as a partner in the creation process - a co creator, if you like. The Hasidic Jews see the man of right action, and right consciousness as a whole person and walking temple, able to bring blessings and salvation to this world, like the Divine.
The lighting of the Hanukah candles is done to remind us of the essence of the Menorah light in the ancient Temple. And, when there is no temple a man’s home is his temple.
Therefore lighting Hanukah candles in our homes helps to remind us of the possibility of living a life in which our bodies and our homes have great significance - they are temples and within them is the light of God.