Episode Details

 There is a thought that when I see
someone else’s candle and it is not lit or its flickering, I have a
responsibility to light their candle. People sometimes fear that lighting
someone else’s candle will diminish my own, but in fact it’s just the opposite,
not only do I not diminish my own, but I am bringing more light to the world.
Yesterday our family had the unfortunate task to bury our cousin, Rhonda
Shoshana bat Frieda - Rhonda Tawil A'H 

Rhonda was someone who suffered for many
years, but she always had a smile and cared about everyone else bringing light
to all  

We don’t eulogize on Rosh Hodesh and
more so on Hanukkah, but these words of Torah I believe reveal some of her
essence and a lesson to all of us.  

Each month in Musaf of Rosh Hodesh we
have a Kavana or though to modify the permutation of the name of Havaya in the
blessing of the month. Each of these permutations relates to a verse from the
Tanachand helps us to understand what we hope to accomplish in the month. 

The verse for Tevet is a verse we
mention when we take the Torah from the Ark.  

גַּדְּל֣וּ לַהֹ’ אִתִּ֑י
וּנְרוֹמְמָ֖ה שְׁמ֣וֹ יַחְדָּֽו׃  

Exalt the LORD with me; let us extol His
name together. 

The Benai Yissaschar suggests that our
goal is to draw the ligh of Chanukah into the darkness of the month of Tevet.
We do this on Rosh Hodesh and also tonight when we complete the lighting with
Zot Chanukah. 

The Talmud
tells of Adam and this month of Tevet. Adam saw that from the time of creation through
winter each day became shorter and worried that the light of the world was
coming to an end. Once he saw that the season of Tevet, i.e., the winter
solstice, had arrived, and saw that the day was progressively lengthening after
the solstice, he said: Clearly, the days become shorter and then longer, and
this is the order of the world. He went and observed a festival for eight days.
Upon the next year, he observed both these eight days on which he had fasted on
the previous year which preceded the solstice and these eight days of his
celebration, as days of festivities. He, Adam, established these festivals for
the sake of Heaven, but they, the gentiles of later generations, established
them for the sake of idol worship.  

The fast of the
Tenth of Tevet (this year we will observe it on the 10^th of January,
2025) commemorates the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, which
led to the destruction of the First Temple. This day is the first—in terms of
the chronological order of the events it commemorates—of four fast days that
denote the stages of the destruction of the First Temple, as follows: 

 10 Tevet: Babylonian siege of
Jerusalem begins 

 17 Tammuz: The walls of Jerusalem are
breached two and a half years later 

 9 Av (Tisha B’Av): The destruction of
the First Temple by the Babylonians. Many years later, th