The "Perpetual" Oil

Take-home Chanukah Message by Elissa Blaser

Among the many things we all think about, is the future. Will something last? Does it have a “long shelf life”? Will this continue for a long time? We look for the “perpetual” gift, the gift we can continue to count on in the future.
Chanukah comes to reassure us. Our blessings from Hashem, the gifts we receive from the Divine, come from the well of Infinity — they have no end. Oil which should have lasted a short while, lasted for 8 days, lasted past ordinary laws into the laws above nature, symbolised by eight. There is a hint in the lights of the Menorah. When we are blessed from Above, and enter the domain of eight, above natural laws, we are in a “perpetual” Bracha. The oil renewed itself; our Brachot renew themselves; and the question: Can this last? Yes, it can.