Torat HaTzeva for Tevet / Vayigash
The Higher Feminine: Holding Opposites & (more on) Optical Patience
5 Tevet 5786 / 25 December 2025
For us Baby Boomers…
we are at the turning point.
The quieting of comparison.
The shift from outer imitation,
to inner illumination.
* * *
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Tevet
It arrives quietly,
hidden within the Chanuka Lights
which no longer are burning
warming our home.
How do we find meaning in the silence and the darkness?
This is the month
that asks for trust
in processes that unfold beneath the surface…
in light that has stopped shining outward and has begun its deeper work within.
Parashat Vayigash opens with a movement of closeness:
וַיִּגַּשׁ — “and he approached.”
Not conquest.
Not explanation.
Approach.
This is the movement of Tevet.
A feminine
inward approach,
where Malchut is black,
silent, concealed…
yet is in truth
saturated with
becoming.
This is where optical patience lives.
Not psychological patience.
Not waiting with effort.
But optical patience …
the capacity of Binah · בִּינָה
to let light separate naturally before
forcing meaning.
This is the avodah of Ima Ila’ah · אִמָּא עִלָּאָה,
the upper הֵא of Havaya,
the Divine Name.
ה
She does not rush full illumination.
she allows the phases of darkness
to hold the light long enough
for it to reorganize itself.
In this patience,
Leah Imeinu descends
from the realm of thought into embodiment
while the keter crown
of Rachel rises
Malchut lifting upward
This is not movement we can see.
It is movement that requires trust.
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi writes,
*“The S’fat Emet teaches that the 36 candles of Chanukah do not end with the 8th night. They continue to illuminate the 36 days from the first night of Chanukah until the end of Tevet* יְמֵי טֵבֵת · yemei Tevet — days known as יְמֵי חֹשֶׁךְ וְהֶסְתֵּר · yemei choshech v’hester, days of darkness and concealment.”
The healing
is introduced
before the descent.
The light is planted
before the darkness
is felt.
In the language of Torat HaTzeva,
this is not about more brightness, but about optics:
the difference between
light that scatters on the surface (christmas lights)
and light that is absorbed into depth. (chanukah lights)
Outer light lives on the visible spectrum.
Inner light enters the unseen one.
*****
I wake before dawn
in Lakewood NJ
on Christmas morning.
Its still dark outside.
As I look out the window,
the wintery scene feels surreal
the houses across the street
are decorated with
blinking, colorful
insistent Christmas lights;
And inside — something quieter.
The glow of bracha בְּרָכָה.
The inner lights of Chanukah
no longer visible,
no longer performative.
Hidden now.
Memory-based.
Integrated.
Not competing
with the outer / chitzoniot lights.
Not explaining itself.
Simply present.
The 36 lights
are not only a number.
They are a threshold.
In Torat HaTzeva language:
Tevet is when the light stops scattering / refracting
and begins to absorb.
*Outer light fragments into color.*
*Inner light gathers into black.*
Black is not absence.
Black is total reception / mekabel
This is Tevet.
Not the absence of light …
but light that has gone underground.
What appears dark
is often an optical illusion
masking a deeper transformation already in motion.
the work is now internal,
not declarative.
Hashem said the ״light is goodטוב ״,
but where is that
goodness טובות
perceived?
This is no longer about
naming אור light.
It is about maturing the eye that knows how to see the nekuda tova
the good point
Not the blinking colors outside
but the quieter glow within
This is spiritual growth and development in our galut existance
For our generation
the baalei teshuva
baby boomer generation,
the in America
this was our long stage
of outer being.
Wanting to belong.
Wanting what others had.
Christmas lights, trees, decorations
symbols of belonging & visibility.
And beneath that:
feeling deprived,
different, needy, lacking.
Jew”ish” — but not yet at home
not yet aligned.
It was immaturity of light.
An early stage of consciousness,
where the eye still needs spectacle
because it has not yet learned to trust its own glow.
Tevet marks the maturation
The turning inward.
The quieting of comparison.
The shift from outer imitation
to inner illumination.
In galut, the light is fragmented.
(Christmas decorations)
In Eretz Yisrael, the fragments begin to re-combine and re-unite.
This is a core of the Torat HaTzeva teaching, brought by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, drawing from Isaac Newton’s prism experiment.
Newton first showed how white light fractures into many colors through a prism.
But what is less spoken about is the second step of the experiment:
He took another prism.
And when the refracted colors passed back through it,
they returned — not to many hues — but back to one white light!!!!
This is not physics alone.
This is consciousness.
Galut is the first prism.
Fragmentation.
Refraction.
Identity broken into colors.
Each light appearing separate, competing, dazzling, demanding attention.
Eretz Yisrael is the second prism.
The return.
The recombination.
The remembering that
all color originates
in One White Light.
Remembering is Geula
This is not erasure of difference.
It is reunion.
Yichud
****
I walk down the streets of my home in the Old City of Tzfat.
I see Chanukah candles
flickering outside.
Unashamedly.
Tiny.
Quiet.
Bold.
Brilliant.
No spectacle.
No apology.
Feminine lights.
In Israel, during Chanukah, it is not only something you see.
It is something you hear,
something you breathe.
The streets themselves
become vessels.
candles glowing in doorways,
from every direction
different niggunim drift outward
soft Breslover melodies, slow Chabad strains, old Sephardi tunes, wordless chants carried on the mountain air.
They overlap.
They do not compete.
They weave.
Women gather
each morning for Hallel…
singing, dancing in circles that widen and narrow,
voices rising from stone courtyards and narrow alleys,
not rehearsed, not staged, but inevitable.
This is what oneness sounds like when it begins to return.
Not all at once.
In flashes.
In frequencies.
Moments
when the separation thins
and something higher leaks through.
These are glimpses of geulah
not dramatic…
but appearing with greater and greater frequency.
A higher light
a light of Gan Eden
not descending from above,
but remembered from within.
And all of this happens
without breathlessness.
Because in Eretz Yisrael,
the body and soul do not need
to strain to believe.
The air itself carries memory.
The stones remember footsteps.
The light knows where it is going.
****
This is Ima Ila’ah / Rachel HaGedola
returning upward
not by force,
but by recognition
back into the One White Light:
the אוֹר
Not scattered anymore.
Not refracted.
But gathered.
This is the end
of the optical illusion.
This is the גִּלּוּי · gilui
we are living now
each of us holding a portion,
each of us returning our color
to its Source.
Everything already written
now rests inside this atmosphere…
the prism, the recombination, the feminine return,
the quiet boldness of the candles.
Not imagined.
Lived.
And increasing.
Torat HaTzeva Meditation
Black as Absorption
Sit comfortably.
Allow the eyes to close.
Bring awareness to the color black
not as darkness,
but as absorption.
In Torat HaTzeva,
black is the place where
all colors are received.
Imagine the 36 Chanukah lights
no longer outside you,
but entering inward.
White light / the Ohr ein sof
refracts into color.
Breath and see the colors
Now see the
Colors gather in yesod,
the womb area
and dissolve into black.
Breathe into this blackness.
Say inwardly:
זֶה לֹא חֹסֶר — זֶה קִבּוּל
This is not lack — this is reception.
holding the process.
No rush.
No demand for clarity.
Let transformation happen
below the threshold of sight.
Remain here for several breaths,
trusting
what is reorganizing itself
without
your intervention.
*Reflective Questions*
1. Where in my life am I being asked for optical patience — to allow light to reorganize itself without forcing meaning?
2. What part of my inner work is happening in blackness, in absorption, unseen yet alive?
3. Where might the illusion of darkness be masking a deeper movement toward geulah?
חַג הַמּוֹלָד · Chag Ha-Molad means Christmas.in Hebrew.
Literal meaning:
• חַג · chag — holiday / festival
• הַמּוֹלָד · ha-molad — the birth
So it translates as “the holiday of the birth.”
In Hebrew usage, חג המולד specifically refers to the Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus, observed on December 25.
Lakewood, New Jersey · Christmas Morning
Dec 25, 2025
We are going through so much…
and I am noticing something.
By bringing more consciousness and da’at into what we are living, something begins to transform.
The klippot don’t disappear — they shift.
They become revealed protection.
They become wrapping paper.
Tiferet is like the green rind of the watermelon.
Not the sweetness itself —
but what holds it intact,
what allows the fruit to ripen without spilling.
I am contemplating this as the dawn breaks in galut.
Christmas morning in Lakewood
Dec 25, 2025
I open my eyes.
Sleeping in my granddaughter’s bed,
as a savta.
I look out the window
in the moments before sunrise.
I see the faint midnight blue
breaking the black of night.
I look at my phone. 6:13.
The dawn will break soon.
I awaken the dawn —
bringing back the teaching of Rabbi Nachman.
I glimpse the lights in the house across the street.
Christmas lights.
They are full of meaning for me,
as I will try to convey here in these words…
The lights
hold polarities:
the chitzoniut of Christmas,
the pnimiut of Chanukah.
אוֹר פְּנִימִי · inner light
אוֹר חִיצוֹנִי · outer light
Are they beautiful lights?
I used to tell my children,
driving through wintery country roads
or in the lobby of our building in NYC,
“Oh look at the beautiful lights!”
Trying to spin it positively…
finding the nekudah tovah,
always optimistic by nature.
The word itself catches.
Do I say Christmas
or the frum way, “xmas”?
I choose, 90% of the time, to say Christmas.
And my insides slightly cringe.
I never asked her —
that part that cringed —
why are you cringing?
So now I ask.
When I look at the lights,
I ask that part:
why are you cringing?
I am in galut.
I am with my family.
The nekudah tovah, the bracha,
everything is perfectly imperfect.
This situation was created by the Creator.
I am fine.
I am happy.
But—
I look out of my bedroom window on Christmas morning.
And what do I see?
In the middle of this ghetto —
this street of 90% frum Jews —
two houses across the street
are displaying Christmas lights.
I contemplate the stirah
(two things coexisting that don’t make sense).
How do I hold this?
I bring in a pnimiut teaching of soveil hafachim —
holding opposites.
This picture I am staring at
is a prime example.
Of hirchavat ha-da’at —
expanded consciousness.
I am here in New Jersey,
and not in Tzfat where I live,
on Chanukah, on Christmas,
to expand my consciousness.
I expand.
I hold it.
I breathe with it.
Hashem, why???
is being answered in this vision.
I jump out of bed with zrizut,
hoping to capture a better view downstairs
of this example of soveil hafachim,
holding opposites.
Racing through my mind—
It’s Christmas morning.
As a five-year-old girl,
I raced into my living room.
In front of the eastern windows
were sparkly presents, all wrapped.
All of them for me.
A spoiled Jewish girl
in a quaint New England town
of 99.9% Christians and 0.1% Jews.
The Jews living on Village Street —
my neighbors, my extended family —
a shtetl on Village Street in Millis.
And there I was.
Christmas morning.
Santa Claus wouldn’t forget me.
I remember the next year.
My friend Beth told me Santa Claus was not real.
I didn’t tell my parents I knew the truth,
because it meant
I figured I wouldn’t get presents.
“Can we have a Christmas tree?” I asked my parents.
“No. We are Jewish.
We don’t have a Christmas tree.
We have a Chanukah menorah.”
The next year they said
no presents on Christmas morning.
Instead, you are going to have
eight nights of Chanukah,
and each night you are going to get a present.
Eight nights instead of one.
The following year
I went to the toy store
and picked out my own presents.
Mommy wrapped them with such love and care,
and each night I would choose one.
Fast forward many decades…
back to Lakewood, New Jersey.
My children and grandchildren
are now frum, living in Lakewood.
I hear them talking about the lights.
Last night my granddaughter said
her friend wears sunglasses
so as not to see the Christmas lights.
Yesterday my grandson,
on the way home from playgroup, asked:
“What are those lights?
Are they Christmas lights?”
I have to go now.
The children have awakened.
They don’t know it’s Christmas morning.
Oh—but yes they do.
Soveil hafachim.
There is no bus service to school today.
So me, savta,
will be getting them ready.
I will be picking them up later.
And how else do they know?
The cleaning lady didn’t come yesterday.
So they hired a special cleaning lady today,
because the house needs cleaning every day.
And the restaurants will all be closed today.
That’s why we had take-out from Mike’s Chicken last night —
because the workers in the stores are not Jewish.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
This is so triggering for me.
And I know…
it’s all Hashem.
He is doing everything.
They are here in America.
He planted our roots here.
I am a fourth-generation American Jew.
My children are fifth.
My grandchildren are sixth.
How much longer is this galut, Hashem?
And then I see my husband.
He sends me a picture
from our home in Tzfat,
captioned “Boker tov.”
From our window:
almond trees, cows grazing.
Every morning I sit in my mommy’s chair —
the only piece of furniture I brought on our aliyah —
and gaze at the mountains, Har Meron.
In the foreground, on many days,
I watch cows and calves grazing.
Tranquil.
Peaceful.
Green tiferet.
Nature.
I am in Atzilut.
Heaven.
I breathe.
I learn pnimiut Torah
with my chavrusas and rabbanit.
And I ask:
Is this real?
Or is this real—
Lakewood on Christmas morning?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
I’m feeling rather bipolar.
What is this word in Hebrew?
Who is the real me?
Savta —
driving all day,
racing to Gourmet Glatt for lamb and kishka,
to Seasons for flanken,
cooking chicken soup
for sick children and grandchildren,
running to Target for pajamas and Chanukah presents,
shopping on Shein, Target, Amazon for birthdays—
nekudot tovot,
seeing all the brachot?
Or mashpi’ah,
teaching Torah in Tzfat?
This Torah by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
is saving me here.
“When I spend the day in the concentration camp
and I am half-dead…
then my little girl calls me at night…
and all of a sudden life is good.
All good. Very good.”
Now I say that line
when I am triggered by the talk.
“And then my little girl calls me,
and all is very good.”
I look into their eyes.
I see their neshama.
He said being Jewish
is being children-conscious.
And then—
all the Christmas lights,
all the xmas lights,
all the Christmas songs in Target,
all the shopping and cleaning-lady talk—
they blur.
They fade.
Soveil hafachim.
Christmas songs in Dunkin’ Donuts
in the morning.
Sitting with my grandchildren yesterday morning,
a birthday breakfast
for my ten-year-old granddaughter
on 4 Tevet.
And this is where גַּם זוּ לְטוֹבָה · gam zu l’tovah quietly enters.
This teaching comes from Rabbi Nachum Ish GamZu,
as we learned together in the Torat HaTzeva Cheshvan class —
not as a philosophy,
but as a lived orientation of the neshama.
Not as a slogan.
Not as a way to shut down feeling.
But as a quiet trust
inside movement.
Not only when things settle.
Not only when life feels clear or resolved.
But this too.
Tevet carries this teaching in its name.
Tevet can be read as טוֹבוֹת · tovot —
many goodnesses.
Not one obvious good,
but goodness that unfolds slowly,
as the neshama learns how to hold more light.
Sometimes light arrives
before the vessel is ready.
That does not make it wrong.
It makes it a process.
This too
is gam zu l’tovah.
****
My 4-year-old grandson sings
I want to be like Zusha singing songs
I wanna be like Ribo selling out shows
I wanna be like Schwekey playing out loud
I just gotta sing from my heart, from my heart…
it’s only me, connecting with You
hoping all the words and the melodies come through
it’s just me… singing to You.>>>>!
And everything melts…
it’s all more than ok
its all
very good
Dawn in Galut