"A spark from Yosef can consume all of Esav, who is likened to flax." According to a parable, a camel with a huge load of flax was passing through. When someone wondered how that huge load would pass through, someone just suggested that the load could be burned to ashes by a single spark.
Is it not simpler to torch the entire volume of flax if it causes trouble asked a wise man. This is what the wise man in the parable said. But why the need to torch it? Is it not enough for the smithy can merely stand with his torch in front of his shop and when the camels bearing the huge bales of flax see him, they themselves will be afraid to advance.
The explanation of the parable is that Hashem reveals to Yaakov that he need not worry. The fire will save him. "All you need do is enter the beis medrash and delve in Torah, which is fire!"
Torah study with bren, fiery enthusiasm which produces sparks, will be enough to chase Eisov away with fear.
This can also be applied to Chanukah when Hashem delivered the wicked to those who delve in Torah. The victory comes from those who apply themselves to Torah study.
Those who fought on the battlefield were not the ones engaged in the real battle. Rather, Hashem delivered the Greeks into the hands of those who were engaged in study, that is, in the hands of Mattisyahu, who did not fight but sat in the beis medrash immersed in Torah, which is fire. It was in his merit that the Greeks were defeated.
And Yaakov referred to this when he said, "...which I seized from the Emori with my sword and bow." Shimon and Levi killed off all the men in Shechem, and Yaakov takes the credit? Yes. He sat and prayed for their success, so it was in his merit that they were able to kill the entire city.
"We must be cognizant," says HaRav Drabkin, "that we have been in a state of a great and difficult war for over a year. This war is being fought with soldiers, tanks and airplanes. The Medrash teaches us that victory is not dependent upon their bravery but on the strength of those who sit in the beis medrash and study Torah with bren, fiery enthusiasm, which shoots off sparks of fire! This concentrated study deflects all of the enemies.
"Some do not understand this truth. They see tanks and planes fighting the battle and winning. But along comes the story of Syria, a fully armed country which simply fell apart. Who disintegrated it? There was no war with tanks and planes. Rather, those who sat and studied with 'fire' succeeded in dissolving Syria.
"The lesson of Syria extrapolates to all the fronts. Undeniably, we see tanks and airplanes fighting a war, but the core of the war is being fought in the beis medrash. `The House of Yaakov shall be fire, and the House of Yosef, flame.' The reinforcement must lie is the beis medrash. The study must shoot off sparks, for this will bring the victory, b'ezras Hashem."
