Bob Schwartz

More light!

The famous story is that on his deathbed, the German poet, novelist, playwright, and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) exclaimed:

Mehr Licht! (More light!)

This is such a remarkable and memorable display of a spiritually enlightened final moment.

Except…

Historians now suggest that Goethe was merely asking that the shutters in his room be opened.

Oh well.

Each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, we light a head candle (shamas) and an increasing number of candles, from one to eight. That’s a total of 45 candles, 45 flames. That’s a lot of fire. That’s a lot of light.

Imagine if Hanukkah lasted a year and we had 365 nights, adding a candle each night. A really big menorah. We would be lighting a total of 67,160 candles—366 on the last night alone. That’s a lot of light.

Hanukkah will be over in a week. After that, feel free to keep lighting candles, figuratively or metaphorically. More candles. More light. Less darkness cursing.

Happy Hanukkah!