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----------------------------------------------------------------------- Torah.org LifeLine -
"It is a tree of life to all who cling to it." D'var Torah and News from
Torah.org - learn@torah.org Volume XI, Number 9 -
Chanukah -----------------------------------------------------------------------
ON THE WEB THIS WEEK @ <a
href="http://www.torah.org/"> TORAH.ORG </a>: GRATEFULLY YOURS: Why do we
find it difficult sometimes to appreciate others?
http://www.torah.org/features/spirfocus/grateful.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This week's class is dedicated to the speedy healing of Azriel Yitzchak ben Chaya Gitel. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The holiday of Chanukah is
often misunderstood. First of all, great as it is, Chanukah is a minor,
Rabbinic holiday on the Jewish calendar. An excessive emphasis upon this
holiday, accompanied by a near-total neglect of major festivals like
Shavuos and Sukkos, sends our children the message that we're just trying to
keep up with the non-Jewish world, and Jewish holidays are but a pale
facsimile of what they have. Chalila! [Heaven forbid!] But there is more to say. Chanukah celebrates a
redemption from destruction. Although there was a military conflict, it did
not become a holiday simply because we won a physical war -- in fact, the
war wasn't even over when the miracle of Chanukah occurred. The true
victory, and celebration, is spiritual. Under the rule of Antiochus,
the Greeks did not want to kill the Jewish people. Rather, they wanted
us to share their ideology. Our Sages explain that they focused upon three
mitzvos, commanding the Jews not to perform them: The first of these was the
mitzvah of Shabbos, the Sabbath. The Greeks believed that the earth and
the universe had existed for all eternity. They believed that there was
no moment of Creation, no big bang. Yet the Sabbath "is an eternal
sign between Me and the Nation of Israel, that in six days G-d made the Heaven
and the Earth, and on the seventh day, He rested." The Sabbath
delivers the message that G-d Created the world -- so the Greeks tried to kill the
messenger. The second was Milah,
circumcision, which is the sign of the unique covenant between G-d and the
Jewish People, made with our forefather Avraham. The Greeks wanted
the Jews to be like them, rather than clinging to antiquated notions of a
special mission, purpose, and relationship. So the Greeks needed to remove
this sign as well. And the third of these was
Rosh Chodesh, the Sanctification of the New Moon. The Sanhedrin, the
Supreme Jewish Court in Jerusalem, would accept testimony each month if
people spotted the crescent of the new moon appearing 30 days after the
beginning of the previous month -- if this happened, the new month
would begin on that day, while if it did not, then the month would begin on the
morrow. This, too, signified a unique relationship which the
Greeks could not conscience -- because it indicated the belief that we can
control and change what happens in Spiritual realms. The Greeks also believed in
a spiritual world; most of us have learned small bits of Greek
mythology. But they believed that what humans did had no direct impact upon the
spiritual plane. The fact that human beings
decide when the month begins means that human beings control when the
holidays arrive. Judaism regards the holidays not merely as commemorations of
past events, but as times when unique "spiritual
energies" return to the world each year. So this, too, contradicted the
fundamentals of Greek beliefs, and once again, the Greeks needed to stop performance
of this Mitzvah. But finally, and above all, the
Greeks also commanded us to stop studying Torah. For as Rav Shlomo
Brevda points out in his work on Chanukah, "L'hodos
U'l'hallel," the Greeks recognized that the Jewish religion was fundamentally different than
all the others, which were built upon certain actions which were required
or prohibited. Although the Torah contains hundreds of different
mitzvos, the very fundamental of Jewish life is Torah study itself.
Therefore the Greeks felt the need to issue a unique decree, independent of their
prohibition against the three particular mitzvos mentioned above, to
cut off Jewish life at its very root. This is what we were
fighting, this is the war which we won. And, of course, it is so similar to
the battle we are fighting today. People have joked that the 614th
Commandment is the one against assimilation, phrased as "Thou Shalt Not Give
Hitler (ysv"z, may his name and memory be blotted out) a posthumous
victory." Yet the truth is that the victory would not go to him, but to Antiochus --
thousands of years after his own credo disappeared into the dustbin
of history. The Code of Jewish Law notes
that the Sages did not decree special meals on Chanukah or anything of
that nature -- for unlike Purim, which is celebrated with food and
drink, Chanukah is celebrated with special praises and thanks to G-d.
We respond to a threat of physical destruction with a physical celebration;
we respond to a threat of spiritual destruction with a spiritual
celebration. Let us permit not only the
image of the candles, but the message of Chanukah, to burn its way
into our hearts -- let us revitalize ourselves and renew our study of
Torah, for it is indeed the fundamental of all we have. This is something we
can and should do, right now -- for this is the energy which Chanukah brings
to us every year. Good Shabbos, and a Happy
Chanukah, Rabbi Yaakov Menken ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LifeLine, Copyright © 2003
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