Filling the Void: The Choices We Make When Life Feels Empty

A few years ago, I met with a group of teenagers who had stayed in Boca for the summer. This was a different Boca than the one we know today, with fewer programs, fewer constructive outlets, and far more empty hours. The boys had spent their summer doing things they shouldn’t have done. Their parents were concerned and wanted us to speak with them, not to punish, but to understand.

So we asked them a simple question: Why?

Their answer was disarming in its honesty.

“Rabbi, we’re bored. We have everything, big houses, fancy cars, every device imaginable, and yet we’re bored with life. So we spent the summer numbing ourselves.”

That sentence has stayed with me.

Because when a person feels empty, very little good follows. Emptiness is dangerous. When life feels hollow, people instinctively look for something, anything, to fill that space. And too often, they choose what feels good rather than what is good. Some numb the void with substances: drugs, alcohol, food. Others drown it in distraction: endless scrolling, shopping, or compulsive habits.

We look for artificial ways to fill that emptiness. But, these are not solutions. They are substitutes or artificial fillers poured into a very real emptiness.

The Torah gives us a timeless portrait of this struggle in the story of Yosef.

After being sold into slavery, Yosef finally finds stability and success in the home of Potiphar. But just as his life begins to regain some footing, he faces a new and far more dangerous test. Potiphar’s wife repeatedly attempts to seduce him, offering companionship, validation, and escape from his crushing isolation.

At that critical moment, the Gemara tells us something striking: Yosef sees the image of his father, Yaakov in a window.

Why a window? Surely Yosef could have imagined his father anywhere. Why does the Torah specifically emphasize that it was in a window, a Chalon?

I once heard a profound insight from Rabbi Zvi Romm, Rabbi of the Bialystoker Synagogue in Manhattan. He noted that the Hebrew letters חל appear in many words that all share a common theme: emptiness, absence, or void.

Chullin: refers to meat and other items are lacking holiness.

Chalal: describes a lifeless body, a physical shell without its soul.

Chalon: is a window, which in ancient Egypt, was not glass, but simply an empty opening in a wall.

Each time those letters appear, they point to something missing, a void waiting to be filled.

Yosef didn’t see his father in spite of his emptiness; he saw him in the very place where the emptiness was.

Because Yosef was empty. He was alone, disconnected, and vulnerable. Suddenly, someone noticed him and reached out, offering to fill that void in the most destructive way imaginable.

At that moment, Yaakov’s image appeared in the chalon, in the emptiness itself, and silently asked: “Is it really worth it? Is this how you want to fill your void? With a fleeting moment of passion? Or can you fill it with meaning, restraint, and purpose??”

Yosef understood the message, and he ran. Not because the void suddenly disappeared, but because he chose to see emptiness not as a weakness, but as an invitation to growth and transformation.

Every one of us carries a void. For some, it’s an existential emptiness, filled with questions like "What am I here for?" or "What is my life all about? For others, it’s an emotional emptiness that stems from loneliness, disconnection or feeling unseen. And for many, it’s the quiet ache of stagnation. The sense that life isn’t moving forward, that they’re not growing into who they could be.

The question is never whether we fill that void. The only question is how?

The Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of Chanukah, offers a remarkable clue. The Menorah, we are told, should be placed in one of two locations:

1. In the chalal ha’pesach, the open space of the doorway, or

2. In the Chalon, the window.

Chanukah teaches us that we do not deny the void, rather we illuminate it. By lighting the Menorah, we make a declaration: we will not fill our emptiness with numbing, distraction, or self-destruction. We will fill it with Torah, mitzvos, purpose, and connection. We will fill those voids with light that doesn’t merely distract from the darkness, but transforms it.

Every human being longs for a meaningful life. Every human being carries an empty space within. The void will be filled. The only question is what you will choose to fill it with.