My frum neighbors became grandparents just over a week ago. It's a bit strange, since we've known their daughter since she was eight years old. But, that is life.
Either way, it was an interesting pregnancy.
It seems that early in the pregnancy, according to all the scans that they did, the baby had only a small percentage of brain mass. They were told that the baby will never live, since, well … simply put, the baby doesn't have a brain. Of course, they were pressured to abort, and they decided to go see Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein.
The night before the husband went, he had a dream that he was visiting the Rav, and the Rav would open up the Shulchan Oruch and point to the section dealing with honoring one's parents. After waking up from the dream, he fell back asleep and had the exact same dream.
The next morning, he went to see Rav Zilberstien, who listened, and waved off the doctors predictions and said, "Focus on the mitzvah of honoring one's parents, and everything will be okay".
They next went to daven in Meron where they promised that if the baby were to be healthy, they would name the him after Rebbe Shimon to publicize the miracle.
Needless to say, they received a very healthy baby boy ….
I have a small addiction listening to a podcast called "History for the Curious" (https://rabbiaubreyhersh.podbean.com/), which I recommend to all my friends and enemies. It's an amazing podcast on Jewish history, and is presented where you come out with a lot more information on a subject then you thought was possible, in the most clear and concise way.
This past week, they did a lesson on Chanukkah, and some of the history behind it. So, I will do my best to say over some of the important parts in a very concise way.
We have three big questions regarding Chanukkah.
The first: Why do we celebrate Chanukkah? There used to be a "book," mentioned in the Gemara, called "Megillas Taanis". In it contained the dates of many different minor holidays that were decreed because of different miracles that occurred during the time of the Beis HaMikdash. Some of them, just as big as Chanukkah. Yet, when the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the holidays were cancelled and that was that. Yet, Chanukkah remained. So, what made Chanukkah so special? And even more important, why do we even celebrate Chanukkah?
If you say it's because of the war, the war didn't end for another 23 years! In the meantime, many of the original Maccabees were killed in battle, and things were never really under their full control. Even at the time of Chanukkah, Yerushaliyim was not fully under their domain. And even after 23 years of war, there was no Greek surrender or retreat, it was more of a ceasefire. The Greeks remained in control of Eretz Yisroel.
If you say oil? They had no need for pure oil. We know that when the majority of the nation is impure, one is allowed to enter the Beis HaMikdash in an impure state and use impure equipment. Why did they rely on a miracle of finding pure oil when they had no need to, and more so, why did Hashem provide one?
Second question: Why does every Jew in the world keep the most stringent opinion regarding lighting the menorah? The halacha is clear that if one lights just one candle on every night, no increasing them at all, he does the mitzvah. However, there is a stringent opinion that says that we should increase the amount of candles every night. And this is the accepted practice by every Jew! Even Reform has changed this around.
The third question: Why is this called an exile? When we say that there have been four exiles, we are speaking of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman exiles. The Egyptian, Babylonian, and Roman, I understand. We were/are truly in exile. But the Greek? We were in our own land with the Beis HaMikdash standing! How could this be called an exile?
When the Greeks started to gain power in the world, two major and parallel things happened. The desire for Avodah Zorah (idol-worship) was practically eliminated and along with it, the power of Prophecy. Both of these are linked together and both of them had their "legs" cut out from underneath them (and this is another story).
Being that, the intellect came in to replace Avodah Zorah and Prophecy. For the rising Greek world, intellect was the ultimate key to success for a human being to attain. For the Jews, with the spiritual loss, intellect became our primary tool in serving Hashem through our learning Torah. So, with intellect, the Greeks had their secular wisdom and the Jews had their Torah wisdom.
And this is why, even today, Jews are so attracted to the Greek/Secular world of the intellect. Before this time, we had nothing in common with the outside world. However, now we do. We share a desire for wisdom. Yes, they have their wisdom and we have ours, but the underlying thing is wisdom itself.
The main difference between our wisdom and the Greek wisdom, is that they put intellect over everything and we put Torah over everything, including intellect. This is why they outlawed Rosh Chodesh. According to the intellect, we know when Rosh Chodesh will be. However, according to the Torah, we go only after witnesses … not the intellect.
At the time of Chanukkah, things were going well for the Greeks and assimilation. When Antiochus IV came around, things became worse. Suddenly, it wasn't a choice, but rather forced upon us. And THAT is when the Jews began to rebel. Not because of territory or politics, but because of our spiritual survival. The Greeks wanted political control? No problem. They wanted their own religion? No problem. They wanted Jews to join them? Okay … problem, but what are you going to do about it? They want to force all Jews to leave Torah? NOW, that's a problem. And for that, the Maccabees were willing to go to war, knowing full well that there is no chance of winning. Better to die as a Jew with Torah than to live as a Greek without one.
And this answers our first question. Which war did we win? Certainly not the physical. As mentioned, even during the time of Chanukkah, the victory was brief and Chanukkah itself was not declared for an entire year, when they knew that the war was far from over and not going their way. But the war that was won was the spiritual. The war to remain a Jew, even if it meant dying, was the war that was won. Simply by declaring war did they win this war.
Unlike the Babylonians, when Greece conquered Yerushaliyim, the Beis HaMikdash was not destroyed. And this makes sense. To the Greeks it was a thing of beauty. However, for us, a Beis HaMikdash without spirituality is an already destroyed building. Simiilarly, the Greeks didn't destroy the oil, they made it impure (this is specifically mentioned in our prayers regarding Chanukkah). They simply had to touch it to make it impure. They removed the "soul" of the oil, not the body. Now that it's impure, it's simply a physical and not spiritual object. It's no longer Jewish. It's now Greek. The Greek world takes something spiritual and makes it a commodity. We take a commodity and turn it into something spiritual. This is why we are not allowed to have any physical pleasure from the Chanukkah lights (not like Shabbos where we are). This is something that is only spiritual and we want to show that we have no desire to "secularize" it.
Chanukkah is the only holiday which was made when there was no prophecy. There is no direct communication between us and Hashem. So, Hashem performs an unnecessary miracle via the oil in order to communicate to us His love for our love for Him. We showed that we wanted our spiritual work to be completed undiluted from the Greek world. Even though we could have used impure oil, we wanted, at least in this case, to have nothing to do with impurity. Our service should only be with holiness, especially when the outside world tries to make it impure.
And this is why it's considered an exile.
While the Maccabees held the belief and were willing to and did die for this belief, most of the nation, including the Kohanim themselves, did not. In fact, they openly allied themselves with the Greeks. And because of this, we consider the Greek exile an actual exile. For there is no greater exile for the Jewish people then when they are living in their own land, with the Beis HaMikdash standing in their midst, and still they are willing to trade it away for the foreign god of secularlism. Without getting into the politics, because it's a really complicated issue, this concept is something which is an underlying issue today in the modern State of Israel. And, it has real ramifications in the religious world.
And this is why the entire Jewish world takes the most stringent opinion in regard to lighting the Menorah. We go the extra step to counter the feelings that the Jews had at that time. Back then, they did not show interest in their spiritual service. They did things by rote, if they did anything at all. But we are showing that we WANT to show interest and do everything properly, and in order to show that, we take the most stringent manner possible to show our interest..
In 1945 there were around 5 million Jews in the United States. Now, in a country without persecution, there are around 6 million. According to the population growth in the United States, we should have been around just over 12 million. Why? Because, we have fallen in love with the American Greeks. We're fighting the same war as we were 2000 years ago.
And the reason we still celebrate Chanukkah is because on Chanukkah we regained our Jewish morality and our Jewish identity. It wasn't a war to be victorious. It was a war to say, "We are Jews. We live as Jews and we die as Jews." Living or dying does not mean victory or defeat. Rather, the fact that we were willing to go to war over our being Jewish means we won. Because THAT is the goal of such a war. We won that war 2000 years ago and we continue to win that war today.
When we light the Chanukkah candles and we specifically don't take any physical benefit from them, we are reminded about what the war was and is about. While the rest of the world takes the spiritual and makes it physical, we are to take the physical and make it spiritual.
Have a wonderful Chanukkah/Shabbos!