What is Chanukah? This question was asked by the great Jewish sages in the times of the writing of the Talmud. This essay published at A7s website does a good job of investigating what the core issues which make Chanukah relevant to the religious Jew of today.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9204Chanukah: Imagination
by Dr. Aryeh Hirsch
Imprisoned by our imagination."The time to light Chanukah candles is sunset... although some authorities say that one may light as early as one and one-quarter hours before sunset, as long as there is enough oil for the lights to burn until tichleh regel min hashuk ('until the last pedestrians leave the marketplace') that night. If a person forgot or intentionally did not light Chanukah candles at sunset, he may light ad shetichleh regel min hashuk." (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, chap. 772, par.1-2).
"The imagination desires to picture the details of the world according to how they appear in the mind of the individual who is imprisoned in his imagination." (Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, Maamarei HaReiya, quoted in L'Emunat Iteinu, vol.7,p.193)
This time frame, ad she-tichleh regel min hashuk, is a unique one, appearing only in the laws of Chanukah. The marketplace is where Jacob, Yaakov Avinu, first went when he entered the land of Israel after returning from Lavan's Aram Naharayim (Breishit 33:18). In fact, Yaakov actually established markets for the people of Shechem (Talmud, Shabbat 33b). Yaakov did this to counter the economic activity of Eisav, later to show up in history as Rome and its markets, and those of Western civilization. Yaakov thus paved the way for kosher financiers and businessmen, from the Rothschilds to the Reichmans. These men established "the fundamental basis for Jewish survival among unfriendly nations: economic self-interest." (Rabbi Matis Weinberg, Frameworks, Breishit, p. 204)
The problem with markets and money is that one can certainly get so caught up in them that one sees the all-powerful dollar as the determining factor in the world. Thus, we saw Yehudah in last week's parsha of Vayeishev saying to his brothers: Ma betza ki naharog et achinu? - "What profit is there in killing our brother," rather, 'let's sell him.' (Breishit 37:26) Imprisoned in a "reality" that existed only in their own imagination, the brothers saw only a teen-aged dreamer who played with his hair and clothes, who announced that in the future he would be their leader. Rabbi Weinberg explains that the brothers were so caught up in a mechanistic model of reality that later (in parshiyot Mikeitz-Vayigash), when Yosef drops numerous hints as to his identity, they couldn't recognize him.
Yosef's son hits Shimon and throws him into a dungeon; Shimon reacts: "That's a blow that could only come from the House of Jacob," but he doesn't get it. Yosef seats the brothers in order at a meal, makes all kinds of remarks about their home life as children, and the brothers still don't get it. He returns their money and they still don't get that its not the mechanics of trade that interests Yosef. They are truly locked in the matrix of their imagination, seeing only 'Joe the idiot dreamer' from two decades earlier: 'That kid, he's gonna lead a nation with an economy and an army and a government - with dreams and vision and that charisma, that chein, of his? No way.'
The Aznayim L'Torah notes the words of the Vilna Gaon on ma betza, the brothers' philosophy. Yehudah was saying that if they kill Yosef, the Almighty will never again listen to their prayers, which are represented by betza - "b" for boker, morning prayers; "tz" for tzahayim, afternoon prayers; and "a" for arvit, evening prayer. On another level, we see here that it is not only materialism that can be betza and mechanistic. A person may pray to G-d and still think that he is pulling imaginary strings of cause-and-effect: 'I pray and Manna should fall automatically from Heaven.' But it's even more than that. Like the brothers, we believe that we should "make things happen," whether it is in the realm of our livelihoods or politics or bringing Moshiach.
The ma betza, mechanistic attitude has us fighting Israeli cops and soldiers as they destroy Jewish homes in the Land of Israel, because in mechanics, it's the results that count. This not only leads to an "end justifies the means attitude," which is bad enough, but it is opposed to the Chashmonai spirit of Chanukah.
The Greeks looked up at the scoreboard because to them only the final score matters. But to the Chashmonaim, it was all in how one plays the game: they fought "the few against the many" sure that they'd already won, because they were in the right. The final score - that was pure mechanics and its success was in the hands of G-d.
This same idea is seen in another Halacha (law) of Chanukah. Kavsa lo zakuk la - if one lights the Chanukah menorah and the wind blows out the candles, one need not relight it (Shulchan Aruch, 773, par. 2). Rabbi Mordechai Shternberg writes that this law also shows that a man need only do what he's responsible for: to act in a way to publicize the miracle of Chanukah, even if he does not merit to actually publicize it. Once he does his mitzvah (Divine command), a Jew has no further responsibility for the results.
Of course, the final results do matter: for the nation. Rabbi Tau (Emunat Iteinu, p. 194): "Every individual wants to fulfill the picture of his imagination," but according to Rabbi Kook, "the intellect strives for the recognition and potentiation of things as they are, and binds a bond of unity between individuals, and between sectors of society, as its all-encompassing view binds all the individual details." The nation needs success (a winning final score) to reach history's fulfillment: the Or Haganuz, the light of Chanukah, of Moshiach, which will only come when tichleh regel min hashuk; when the last mechanistic, ma betza spies disappear from our nation.
To counter Yehudah's ma betza mechanics, Yosef charged him and the brothers with: Meraglim atem - "You are spies" (Breishit 42:9); for spies look for any little advantage that they can find, any weakness in others, so that the final score is in their favor. And the final stop for the meraglim-brothers would have been the Egyptian prison (meitzarim) of their imagination, never to unite as the Nation of Israel, had ma betza mechanics been allowed to rule.
Ma betza is still not dead: we have leftist politicians who look only at Arab oil and population, and Western economy and power, and tremble. We have a Chief Commander of the Army who claims to have "no Illusions," but whose imagination doesn't allow him to see that our Roshei Yeshiva (heads of yeshivas) will not compromise on evil.
Rabbi Shternberg again: "A Greek cannot see the need for 'pure oil' (shemen tahor). If it's clean, isn't that good enough? And so a Greek will compromise with evil. But a Jew needs 'pure oil' to light, because the power that pushes him to the good is G-d Himself. The pure, G-dly soul within the Jew is his engine, and he will never make peace with evil (and evildoers, like Palestinian terrorists); he will never lower himself to evil, will never adopt evil, and will never conduct himself according to evil." This is our Chashmonai spirit, which moves every Jew (secular and religious; Emunat Iteinu, vol.8, page 75) in this hour of the first flowering of our Redemption.
Kislev 29, 5770 / 16 December 09
Topic: Chanukah : Some insight, and some light (Read 530 times)