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 ביַּמִָּים†הָהֵם†בזַּמְַּן†הַזהֶּ†; 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, מאַי†חֲנכֻהָּ†– 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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