Yosef’s Tears, Chanukah’s Light: A Love and Yearning that Transcend Time

Beautiful direction. Here’s a clean-read version of your draft with sources noted inline.

Title

Yosef’s Tears, Chanukah’s Light: A Love and Yearning that Transcend Time

Clean read

The first months of my pregnancy were among the darkest of my life. I had just separated, was pressured to return, and felt crushing shame. I was starting a master’s in Speech Therapy and didn’t know how I’d provide for a baby. We were warned how terrible divorce is; no one taught what to do when life breaks the script.

I learned I was pregnant after Purim and moved between Passover and Shavuot. I waited to discover the gender. If a girl, I would name her Ruth, inspired by the Scroll of Ruth I was studying. For a boy I never doubted: Menachem Chaim, after my brother, of blessed memory. The night before the bris I reversed it to Chaim Menachem — life first, then comfort.

That order became an anchor. Menachem means comfort, and classic sources list it as a name of the Messiah (Eicha Rabbah 1:51; Yerushalmi Berachot 2:4; Ruth Rabbah 1; Sanhedrin 98b). “Chaim Menachem” — a living comfort, a living hope.

In that confused season I clung to a teaching about Yosef and Binyamin’s tears. When they reunite, “He fell on his brother Binyamin’s necks and wept, and Binyamin wept on his neck” (Genesis 45:14). Rashi explains: Binyamin cried for the Mishkan in Shiloh in Yosef’s territory that would be destroyed, and Yosef cried for the two Temples in Binyamin’s portion that would be destroyed. Their tears were not self-pity; they were love that saw beyond the moment, mourning what would fall to plant the seed of rebuilding (Rashi ad loc.).

Then a melody I learned in England returned to me: “Roni vesimchi, bat Tzion — Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion, for behold I am coming” (Zechariah 2:14). And later in the same haftarah: “Not by might, not by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). This is why we read Zechariah on Shabbat Chanukah — the vision of the menorah and the triumph of spirit over force.

Yosef and Binyamin teach us to cry for what will fall; Zechariah commands us to sing for what will rise. Hold both truths. Mourn honestly, yet rehearse redemption. That is how you survive exile without drowning.

Notes (concise)

Mashiach ben Yosef: a strand in our sources that frames hope and struggle before final redemption (see Sukkah 52a).

Haftarah of Shabbat Chanukah: chosen for the menorah vision and the message that righteousness outlives power (Zechariah 2–4).

Origins of haftarah reading: ancient and pre-Mishnah; commonly linked to persecution-era adaptations and to affirming the Prophets publicly.

Personal thread: discovering that my song’s words are Zechariah 2:14 and 2:16 made the haftarah a lifelong anchor.

Appendix: “Menachem” as a name of Mashiach

Eicha Rabbah 1:51: “What is his name? Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: His name is Menachem... ‘For the comforter who should restore my soul is far from me’ (Lamentations 1:16).”

Yerushalmi Berachot 2:4.

Ruth Rabbah 1.

Sanhedrin 98b.

Years ago, waiting for dawn, I chose a name that would teach me how to live: first life, then comfort. Chaim Menachem. Yosef’s tears taught me to mourn what was lost; Zechariah’s charge taught me to sing for what will be. So I light, I weep, and I sing: “Roni vesimchi.” Not by might, not by power, but by a light that refuses to go out. My son carries that promise, and so do we.