Tonight, possibly the very moment you are reading this, Chanukah begins. While the way we light the Chanukah candles may seem obvious to us nowadays, in the time of the Talmud, it was not so clear.
The great schools of thought, Hillel and Shammai, debated the manner in which we light. Hillel maintained we start with one candle on the first night and increase each night until we light the eighth candle on the eighth night. Shammai argued the opposite: we light eight candles on the first night and decrease until we light one candle on the final night.
Before you write Shammai off, let’s try to understand why he wants us to light in that order. One explanation the Talmud (Shabbat 21b) gives is that Shammai has us light looking toward the future, as in the days that remain in the holiday. Hillel has us light looking toward the past, toward the number of days we already observed.
While Hillel won the debate in the end, I invite us to not dismiss Shammai. I appreciate orienting toward the future in addition to the past. That feels very Jewish to me.
Where do you find yourself this Chanukkah, oriented toward the future or the past? What would help bring you into the present? You might find that living in the present is the best gift of all.