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12 December 2023

Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt”l – TorasAvigdor on Vayeshev and Chanukah (Part 2 of 3)

Part II. Miracles in the Mind

Flame of the Mind


Now, what is the flame trying to tell us? The truth is, many things. Everyone

knows that something is awakened when gazing at the burning lights. As it flickers

and dances it arouses something within us. Don’t you remember even as a child

you sat and stared at the Chanukah lights and you were thinking? Not only about

Mattisyahu and his heroic children who gave their lives fighting for Hashem's

Torah; you were thinking of many things – because that's the magic of a flame – it

brings forth from the depths of our minds various emotions. And the Sages knew

that; they wanted the flames to inspire our souls and teach us many things.

And yet, even though it’s many things, more than anything else the flame is

trying to tell us about what we really accomplished ביַּמִָּיםהָהֵםבזַּמְַּןהַזהֶּ; that it wasn’t

what took place on the battlefield that was most important. If the battlefield is

your concept of Chanukah, it falls very short of the truth because the greatest

accomplishment, the greatest miracle, took place far away from the battlefield –

the greatest accomplishment took place in the privacy of our own hearts, in the

battle for our minds.


Culture Shock


I’ll explain that. If we’re going to really understand what the light of the

menorah represents we have to first understand that the Syrian-Greeks came not

only with the power of a tremendous army but they came with the power of a

tremendous culture. That was more powerful and more threatening than the army.

The civilization of Greece was behind them. It wasn’t just the Syrian-Greek army.

It was their way of life; it was the Greek culture they were facing and at that time

it was the culture of the world.

It was the entire civilized world they were facing. To the north, there was

Syria. Then there was Greece and the whole Mediterranean sector of the world.

Egypt was already entirely Hellenized. Asia Minor was all Hellenized. And Italy was

under Greek influence. And so the entire civilized world at that time was Grecian


If you were anybody in this world, you had fallen under the spell of Greek

enlightenment.

They had everything – everything that was considered important in those

days. They had philosophy. They had a certain understanding of chemistry. They

had mathematics, geometry and trigonometry. They had a very big literature. And

not only a literature of serious philosophy. They had a literature of entertainment,

a big romantic literature. They had the drama; Greek theater was very much

developed. They had art and music. They had sports on a big scale, hippodromes.

In one word, the Greeks were the exponents of civilization in those days.


Rejecting Man-Made Culture


Now we, the Am Yisroel, up till that time, we were isolated from all the umos

ha’olam. We had our own ‘culture’ lehavdil, our own ways, and there was no

interest in what the world had to offer. It was the Jewish attitude to remain within

their own four cubits because our Torah is a Torah not made by men; it was given

by Hashem at Sinai and therefore we didn’t want to water it down by bringing in

manmade ideas.

The Greeks, however, when they saw this little enclave of the Israelites, the

Jews, they thought it would be the biggest favor if they could import Greek

civilization to this benighted people. It’s always like that – if you don’t understand

Torah attitudes, Torah living, so from the outside you imagine that you have what

to offer. And so when they began proposing to the Jews that they adopt the ways

of the Greeks, they were surprised at the reluctance of the Jews. And they became

offended because it seemed so stupid to them – these savages, these superstitious

and backward people are actually opposing us.

Not only offended; a hatred developed. After all, everybody else willingly

joined into the Greek celebrations. When the time came to get drunk at the Greek

festival, everybody joined in. If it’s wine and women and song, everybody is a

customer for that – especially if you give it the name ‘culture’ – and therefore at

the festivals of the Greeks, everybody was there!

Of course, a Babylonian, let’s say, who still had his own gods, so after he

finished with the Greek festivals, he’d go and the next week get drunk at the

Babylonian festival. He had no objections, however, to the Greek festivals. He

joined in with all his heart!


The Fifth Column


Now we shouldn’t shy away from the fact that they were encouraged in this

by the Hellenizers. Just like you have today, quislings, weaklings who aren’t loyal

to Torah ideals but they couch their weaknesses in wanting to bring light to their

fellow Jews, then also there were certain Jews who had tasted of the gentile ways,

and they buckled. Of course, they didn’t say that – they had ‘pity’ on their fellow

Jews. This old kind of life is only for backward people and it’s time that we taught

our nation that there are more important things in life; we’ll teach them to enjoy,

to understand what’s better. And therefore they encouraged Antiochus to force

Greek culture upon the Jews in Eretz Yisroel.

They spoke to fellow Jews too. “Look. You see what’s happening. This is the

wave of the future. After all, these people are educated. They have all their luxuries

and have all their progress and that’s what’s happening all over the world today!

And you’re going to oppose them? The Greek culture,” they said, “is conquering

the world!”


And so we have to understand what a test our forefathers had, what an

ordeal they had. Not merely as we thought, an ordeal of battling against a superior

military force, of fighting an empire. No, that was nothing compared to the real

battle. The actual battle was the ordeal of withstanding an onslaught of ideas and

attitudes; of culture and enlightenment and advancement and good times. It was

a battle not only of the sword. It was a battle of the mind. That was the real battle

we were fighting against the Greeks


Acid Tests


And it was a most difficult kind of battle. It’s not easy to oppose a world

civilization; that was the acid test that our forefathers were confronted with. I

know it was a bitter test because I saw with my own eyes what happened in

America many years ago when the greenhorns were still coming to America from

Europe. The first and biggest nisayon was that they came from shtetlach, small

towns. Most of the towns had no electricity at all – maybe all of them. In 1900,

1905, they came to America and everywhere there were gas lights. Gas light was a

very great invention in those days. The streets were well-lit. In the homes also you

had gas lights. And so they came to a place that wasn’t backward.

And that was the biggest factor. They were small shopkeepers, small-town

people from little villages, who never saw any of these inventions that they had in

all homes in America at that time, and because these greenhorns were terribly

impressed, they became batel to the culture of America. They caved in entirely.

They were overwhelmed by this powerful superior culture and they thought ‘we're

batel; we're nobody’. Not only we're nobody but our whole tradition is nothing.

And they caved in and got lost.

It was so difficult that even people who learned in the yeshivos caved in. I

remember I saw a Telzer yeshivah man who had a grocery store open on Shabbos.

He sat in the store on Shabbos and between the customers he learned Gemara.

That’s how it began, a little bit of weakening. What happened to his children?

Gone. All gone. One child is in a nunnery. It was a generation of Jews that was

swallowed up in the crematorium of America. Baruch Hashem a little bit remained.

A sha’ar yashuv, here and there, but most caved in under the pressure of a new,

more ‘advanced’ culture.


Keeping Our Promise

But in those days it wasn’t one in a thousand that remained loyal. In the time

of Chanukah the spirit of the Am Yisroel did not falter, didn't yield, and a great

majority remained loyal to the Torah. Not only they fought fiercely and bravely on

the battlefield – but more important is what they were fighting for. They were

fighting for the promise they had made to Hashem many years before on Har

Sinai. They had made a promise - naaseh v’nishma – and they weren’t going to

budge an inch. That’s why they fought – because they didn't want to yield to the

power and the wealth and the culture and the influence that was being exerted

against them.


In those days the Am Yisroel demonstrated the fire of their spirit, that no

matter how great and powerful and cultured and wealthy your opponent is, we are 

the Am Hashem; the old traditional ‘backward’ people of Hashem. We’re facing

backward from the whole world and that’s how it’s going to be no matter what you

entice us with.


Keeping His Promise


And that’s what the nes of the shemen came for. Because they were so fiercely

loyal to Hashem, because they lit that flame of loyalty in their hearts, they were

rewarded with a tremendous demonstration of approval by Hashem. Hashem

encouraged them with that nes: “Yes, you are loyal to Me, and I’m going to be with

you.”

When they saw that flame burning beyond the time – eight days it burned;

one day’s supply of oil burned eight days – they saw that their loyalty was being

requited. They went wild with happiness: “The Shechinah is among us! And so

we’ll continue fighting. We’ll continue!”

You know after they kindled the neiros, they fought for thirty more years

before they finished the wars. They fought because the flame of loyalty was

burning strong. And therefore, מאַיחֲנכֻהָּ– what is Chanukah? Chanukah is the

great symbol of those who, no matter what, would keep that flame of loyalty

burning.




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