The Chanukah issue of the COLlive Magazine, published this past month, once again included the “8 Nights, 8 Lights” feature. This time it profiled 8 maggidei shiurim dedicated to teaching Torah, Halacha and Chassidus in Crown Heights. The project was done in conjunction with the Irgun Torah organization.

Chanukah #1:

Rabbi Dovid Dubov

I give shiurim on the teachings of the Rebbe’s father, Harav Levi Yitzchok Schneerson, organized according to the Parsha. The series is called Yalkut Levi Yitzchok, and there are five volumes so far. I explain the weekly Parsha according to Reb Levik, and if there is a kabbalistic explanation, I try to clarify it. We are in the middle of working on Shemos right now.

About Chanukah, the Rebbe’s father asks: We have a seudas mitzvah for every other Yom Tov. But why isn’t there a mitzvah to eat a seudas mitzvah on Chanukah? The main mitzvah of Chanukah is to light the menorah and watch the flames burn. The eating of latkes is only a minhag.

Reb Levik explains: the attack against Jewish people was not to kill us physically. The Greeks liked us as people very much, but they did not like Hashem’s Torah. The purpose of eating is to build physical health, but the attack was against our spirit.

The neshama is symbolized by fire. In total, we light 36 flames during 8 days of Chanukah. The 36 candles correspond to the 36 mesechtas of Gemara. The message of Chanukah is that the neshama and the Torah will live on.

The Rebbe’s father wrote a phenomenal commentary on every part of Torah. Unfortunately, most of his writings were lost. But today, we have two letters he wrote to the Rebbe from 1929-1939, and what he wrote in prison in Kazakhstan.

Since paper and ink were scarce, his wife Rebbetzin Chana made ink from herbs, and with that ink, Reb Levik wrote in the margins of pages of seforim that he had with him. Because of this, the writing is very condensed. Sometimes, Reb Levik quotes only two words of a Midrash or Gemara – there wasn’t space to write the whole reference or quote. This makes it hard to understand, but ultimately, there are so many unbelievable questions and special diyukim (explanatory points). People think the Rebbe’s father only wrote kabbalah, but there are beautiful explanations on pshat (the literal meaning) and many remazim (allusion).

This year, I gave out sections of the Parsha with explanations in Hebrew, and the Chayenu study booklet now translates that into English. Shluchim in France, South America and other countries print and translate it too. It’s amazing how Reb Levik’s teachings are being published around the world.

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Rabbi Dovid Dubov is the Director of Chabad of Mercer County in Princeton, New Jersey, and author of Yalkut Levi Yitzchok, an anthology of commentaries collected from the works of Harav Levi Yitzchak, of blessed memory. His shiurim are posted weekly on COLlive.com.