What is revealed in the end (Sof: Samech-Vav-Peh)?
What does the dream reveal?
What does Chanukah reveal?

In this month of Kislev we always read about Yosef, (Yud-Vav-Samech-Peh), the dreamer and dream interpreter. We noted last week that the letter Samech is highly represented in the account of Yosef and his dream interpretation to Pharoh's royal baker and "bartender". Yosef as a dream interpreter is able to foresee the future, the hidden reality is apparent to him. As a dreamer, his name, containing a Samech, indicates that the dream of Yosef reveals the end- a time when all the brothers will be collected together- Yosef, meaning, will be gathered (his mother Rachel called him Yosef on the prayer that another son would be "gathered" to her).

If we understand the Samech in light of its revealing what is to come in the end- the unforeseen at this moment, we can appreciate its connection to dreams. The Rabbis teach that a dream is 1/60th of prophecy. To believe in the experience of prophecy, to be aware that dreams connect us to our soul's perception, is to move beyond our rational sense of reality. There is not only an unconscious world in our psyches, there is a spiritual dimension in which perception can lead to sensing the Divine.

At the time of the Macabees, the enemy of the Jews, who vanquished Jerusalem, remarkably chose not to destroy the Temple. Perhaps they saw the Jewish Temple as a beautiful building. Aesthetics and beauty of form were Greek values. The decrees against the Jewish religion ( specifically, Shabbat, circumcision, the lunar calendar and Torah study) were aimed at destroying the Jews connection to their belief in G-d , Who is intimately involved in the world.

For the Greeks, the Menorah was a beautiful piece of art. One could marvel at its design, sing praise to its fashioner. For the Jews, it was the vessel for lighting, for performing a Mitzvah and connecting with sublime beauty- the revelation of the spiritual dimension.

Chanukah then is a celebration of spiritual light shining through the darkness of a pantheistic world view. Their is a Creator Who is not tied to nature, because nature is merely a creation. Oil can burn "naturally" and it can burn miraculously (Miracle in Hebrew is Nes,Nun-Samech).

Chanukah reveals that their is a hidden reality that supports apparent reality. We often only experience this when we see or hear the end (of the story). The secret (in Hebrew, Sod, Samech-Vav-Dalet) is to see that the "end is enwedged in the beginning" and that G-d's Will is always present, determining the course of events.
The letter Samech, as a word means, to support. The spiritual end is that which is supporting our physical reality. May we merit to see the light of the Menorah rekindled in our time and experience the warmth of those flames as our aesthetic of beauty.