Hanukkah: Hanukkah in History

The symbol of Hanukkah has always been the spinning top, the sevivon: sov, sov, sov, “spin, spin, spin.” We adopted this top quite simply because the history of the Jewish people is right there, spinning in every direction, and it always confronts the same problems. There is someone up above who sets it spinning; as for us, in the end we merely follow the movement, the movement of four exiles that were programmed for us independently of our will, and that are inscribed even in the origins of creation. For our Sages taught us regarding “And the earth was tohu and vohu, and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Bereshit 1:2): “Tohu is Babylonia, the Babylonian exile; vohu is the Persian exile; choshech, darkness, is Greece; and al penei tehom, the abyss, is Rome.” To go and seek, in the time before creation, before light had yet appeared, the destiny of the Jewish people through its exiles!

That is to say that the various exiles are revelations in potential. It is out of this darkness that the primordial light bursts forth, and it is this light that we perpetuate through the light of Hanukkah, beginning with the small light that keeps increasing in strength and is destined to illuminate the whole world. So we were tested physically by Babel. Why? Because it tried to disintegrate us by depriving us of our national entity. Babel exiled us. We survived. There we developed the Talmud, the Oral Law. But Persia sought to eliminate us physically, first by trying to strike at our emotional attachment; and when it did not succeed, it decided on the physical extermination of the people.

We had to face that, and thanks to Mordechai and Esther we were saved from the total destruction that threatened us. It was our first Shoah, hovering in the air. Then comes Greece. Greece seeks to strike us spiritually, by substituting its universal values for our values. It wants to dissolve us into a nation among the nations. Today, too, the Mityavnim (Hellenizers) among us speak of a state like all other states, open to all cultures. Why not? And that, in sum, is where Yavan stands, but with the will not only to impose their values on us, since you know very well what measures were taken: the change of the calendar, the abolition of Rosh Chodesh, the suspension of Shabbat, the prohibition of brit milah (circumcision), and even the prohibition of maintaining academies of study. In short, a way of making the Jewish people a stranger to its own culture. Unfortunately, here they had some success, because the war waged by the Jewish people was waged above all against the Mityavnim, that is, against the tendency within the Jewish people to want to be like the nations and to let itself be seduced by Greek art, by Greek science, by Greek thought, at the very moment when the prophetic voice was falling silent and continuing only through ruach hakodesh (the holy spirit) by way of our Sages. And they, in the end, were contesting this passing of prophecy’s authority to our masters.

They were there, in effect, to try to tame us, to seduce us through their world. That is the underlying thought, the foundation, and we are right in the middle of this movement of Hellenization. It continued through Rome, which is why we are today in the era of Edom, in the galut of Edom. And the galut of Edom is the sum of all the galuyot (exiles). You will notice that Yishmael is not mentioned. Yishmael is not mentioned! Some include him in Paras (Persia). Others say: be careful, Yishmael has a reality of his own only thanks to Edom, because when Esav married Machalat bat Yishmael, the daughter of Yishmael, he made an alliance with the world of Yishmael; and Yishmael and Edom, so to speak, vie with each other there, in the persecution of the Jewish people: the oyev and the sonei.

There are two attributes, oyev (enemy) and sonei (hater). One is attributed to Esav, the other to Yishmael. So, as for this stretch of history in which we move today: despite everything, we are no longer in the world of Yavan. Yavan we have gone beyond. The exile of Yavan has been overcome, and we did not come out of it unscathed. In the same way that the struggle between Yaakov and Esav left the people of Yaakov limping, limping in its descendants, in its children […]. But nevertheless, says the Rambam, we must continue to press on with this illumination of the world by keeping alive the spark of Yaakov, because we are convinced that one day or another […]. There are two aspects in this struggle waged by the kohanim, because we must tell ourselves that Hanukkah, the struggle of the Maccabees, is a continuation of the golden calf.

Who took part in making the golden calf? It was Aharon. Aharon was the kohen, and he thought that the golden calf was, in a sense, not a real threat to the future of the Jewish people. Now you know that from the moment Judaism begins to conceive of itself solely in terms of a person’s emotions on the one hand, or solely in terms of a person’s reason on the other, without coordinating the two, there is a danger of deviation, because at that point we become a religion like all other religions. There is no Jewish religion that is solely an adherence of the heart. There is no Jewish religion that is solely a movement of thought. That is what degenerated into mysticism, producing mystical currents, on the one hand, and what gave rise to the free-thinking, secular Jewish movement on the other.

And at that point, we have lost our distinctiveness. In the same way, when we separate Judaism from its national entity, or the national entity from Judaism, we must realize that we have thereby distorted our Jewish heritage. The national entity is an essential mitzvah, all the more so since the Torah can be realized and fulfilled completely only in Eretz Yisrael. To conceive of it outside Eretz Yisrael is to mutilate it of half its power, of its virtues. That is what the Rambam sought to develop when he sought, to some extent, to justify the preservation of this festival beyond the threat of the Greek world: because, he says, there was the national dimension and the dimension of the Torah.

We were, in a sense, deprived of fulfilling the Torah on our land, because what they demanded of us was not to have a national reality, but to go on living our Judaism as a tradition, as traditions, a collection of traditions. That much they were willing to accept. But who first opened this path? It was Yosef. Yosef is the man who, after the Avot, after the Patriarchs, made the junction, if you will, the link between the world of the Avot and the great Egyptian empire. And in his dreams he had already separated the economy of the earth from the world of the spirit. So he was not like his father, who had set up a ladder between the world below and the heavenly world.

He had, on the contrary, drawn a distinction, saying that the spirit is what shines like the stars of the sky in the depths of the night. That is one of the faculties of the Jewish people; but the other faculty of the Jewish people is to be like the sand of the earth, and to build here on earth, together with the other nations, this world […]. Yosef realized, or shared with the Egyptian world, Marx’s theory, through the nationalization of the land. He bequeathed to the Egyptian people the world of psychoanalysis, the world of Freud: the solution of all dreams, the way to interpret them. And in addition he gave them faith in Elokim.

Faith in a plurality of divine forces gathered under a single name. For the word Elokim is the combination of elleh and mi. Remember, when Esav goes to meet Yaakov, he asks him: “Mi elleh lach”, “Who are these to you?” The world of elleh (“these”) is the world of the many, the world of diversity; to bring them back to a mi (“who”), to bring them back to a single source, that is difficult for the peoples. But when Yaakov answers him, he says: “The children with whom Elokim has graciously favored your servant” (Bereshit 33:5). They are the children that Elokim has given. Elokim here is the contraction of elleh and mi; that is to say, what we are, what we do in our faith, is to bring the many back to the One. It is the same when Yaakov seeks to determine (or rather, when he asks) about the identity of Yosef’s children, because Yosef was steeped up to the neck in Egyptian culture, even if he did not yield completely to everything, but he considered it his duty to serve Egypt. And Yaakov says to him: “Mi elleh, who are these children? What is left of them?” And Yosef answers: no, these are [the sons whom] Elokim [has given me].

Just as Yaakov had spoken of Elokim, here too: these are [the children of] Elokim, under the common denominator of a G-d who draws everything from a single source and who is the Author of creation. And I would point out to you that Elokim is the One we know through creation: “Bereshit bara Elokim”, “In the beginning Elokim created.” It is G-d who created the many. But when G-d must reveal Himself to the people, He says: “Anochi Hashem Elokecha”, “I am Hashem your G-d.” So this definition of Hashem, of the G-d who transcends everything, even Elokim, is that of love prevailing over justice. To return now to our idea about Hanukkah: this movement begun by Yosef will resurface through the sin of the golden calf.

Why? Because the people said “Aseh lanu elokim asher yelchu lefanenu”, “Make us an elokim that will go before us” (Shemot 32:1): the people asks Aharon to make it an elokim, to give it this elokim that will lead it. That is not the Hashem of Sinai. It wants to content itself with this elokim that is common to all peoples, the one to which the peoples can indeed have access, because when they serve their divinities, it is facets of this multiplicity that they serve. It is at that moment that Moshe wages the struggle of “Mi laShem elai”, “Whoever is for Hashem, to me!” (Shemot 32:26), the struggle that the Maccabees will take up again. And those who wage this struggle, the kohanim, are the ones who actually lead the movement, because they are the ones charged with preserving this Torah in its entirety as a unity of thought, and not tainting it with any contribution from outside, because otherwise there is no end to it.

Everything crumbles afterwards. So, the festival of Hanukkah is a rabbinic festival, and our Sages said: we recite a blessing, “who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us”. And so the question was asked: where did He command us to kindle the lights? Indeed, in the brief account we give of the victory of the Maccabees, we emphasize rather the miracle of the armed struggle of the clay pot against the iron pot, and of this victory over which G-d watched, once again with a hidden hand, as at Purim. These are, if you will, the two festivals of exile, Purim and [Hanukkah], while we await the third festival, which will also be the work of man, that of the messianic awakening, but which would also be supported by G-d. And the answer given is:

“Ask your father and he will tell you; your elders, and they will relate it to you” (Devarim 32:7). That is a first answer. The second is “Lo tasur min hadavar… right or left” (Devarim 17:11): not to deviate from what the elders taught, neither to the left nor to the right. In other words, there are two important teachings to grasp. First, to attach oneself to the history of the elders, to continue that line of history. Second, to preserve all the laws of the Torah in their entirety and not begin adapting them to the situation, to the politics of the surrounding world, to please the other peoples. The Land of Israel is conceived to be the academy, the international university of the whole world, where all values are cultivated, analyzed and weighed, measured according to the criteria of the Law.

It is there that all ideas and all human actions are tested. That is how the Land of Israel was conceived, and the Jewish people who dwell in it. And to want to submit these values to the criteria of others is already to distort them. So, at first, the festival of Hanukkah was celebrated above all through the recitation of Hallel, through the recitation of praises, the acknowledgment of G-d’s unseen hand: al hanissim ve’al hanifla’ot. Nissim are the miracles that were performed, and nifla’ot the wonders. And the miracle is indeed that of a tiny flask of oil […] which had the capacity to burn for eight days.

Now, this miracle of the eight days was not instituted by the rabbis; it was the people. For when the Greeks forbade the practice of circumcision, how, in the resistance, could one announce to others that in this house a boy had been born who was to be circumcised in eight days? So in that house they would place a light in the window on the first day, a second light on the second day, a third light on the third day, so that passers-by knew that in this house there would be a milah, since the lights were increasing, kindled up to the eighth day. And so our Sages adopted this tradition of the people, this resistance of the people, through the kindling of the eight days of Hanukkah. For it is not only a matter of the light itself […]: one could, after all, light with any oil, even if the oil of the kohen gadol had not been preserved with the seal of the kohen gadol in its original purity.

One could light with any olive oil at a time when oil was truly lacking. One could light the Menorah, for what remained of the Menorah, what remained of the Temple, was the Menorah. It is the Menorah that allows the holiness of Israel to be carried, through its lights, into every Jewish home. What endures in each Jewish home is not the Sanctuary, not the Temple service, but the light of the Menorah. Yet the image of the light of the Menorah is not within the nature of creation; it is beyond the nature of creation. For we are told that the first time, the world could not bear the primordial light.

Why could the world not bear it? Because there were not yet any tzaddikim, because there were no righteous in whom it could be stored away, set aside in trust. “He hid it away for the righteous in the time to come”: He kept it in reserve for the righteous, in the heart of the righteous. And when we light our menorah there, at the threshold of the house, it is simply a way of saying: here is the primordial light, created beyond these worlds that persecuted us, which burst forth at G-d’s command, and over which we keep watch today, and we are carrying it through time beyond the world of creation. And that is the reason for the eight days; for the eight days are connected not only to the brit milah, but also to what the brit milah brings about, to what it sets in place.

You know that one of the elements of the revolt, what set off the revolt, was first of all the altar that was built at Modiin, where, in return for a large purse, a large reward, any Jew was invited to offer a pig on this altar. That was the first spark of revolt: that someone was found who wanted to do it. Why not? And the second: as a way of stripping the Jewish people of its rights of marriage, for three years and eight months there was a decree that every new bride had first to be deflowered by the governor of the city; she had to go to the governor of the city and surrender her virginity to him before returning to her husband.

So this was an attack on the descendants of the Jewish people, on the purity of the woman. Now, who set off the revolt? It too was a woman. That is the reason why a woman is obligated, although this is a time-bound mitzvah, to celebrate it, to kindle the lights. Why? Because “they too were part of that miracle” (af hen hayu be’oto ha-nes). The daughter of Yochanan Kohen Gadol, the daughter of the High Priest Yochanan, was getting married, and they were celebrating. And at the end of the celebration, she was to go to the governor. What did she do during the celebration? She tore all her garments, her wedding dress, and presented herself naked before the crowd.

Her brothers and sisters, her family, and those present were outraged. So she said to them: “Listen, it is you who should be ashamed, because you let this happen. What does this mean? I, the daughter of the High Priest, must go to the governor shortly. I will not go.” Thereupon the movement of revolt broke out, the governor was killed, and thereupon the people was offered the chance to keep only its traditions but to renounce any aspiration to a national entity, and Yehudah the Maccabee would hear none of it. So these two movements, these two components of the revolt, mean that the light we kindle at the door of our house, opposite the mezuzah, is a way of telling ourselves that beyond this life turned in on itself, on one’s own household, we indeed intend to share our light with the world, but we must do so gradually, without effrontery, without a spirit of arrogance, without seeking at all costs to colonize minds.

We have no such intention at all. It is from the door of the house that these lights must radiate, until they reach those limits beyond the natural world. And that is indeed the hope of the messianic era: “veneged zekenav kavod”, “and before His elders, glory” (Yeshayahu 24:23). Veneged zekenav kavod: as we have said, the last letters of veneged zekenav kavod, remaining faithful to the elders and granting them the merit and the respect they deserve: that is David. The final letters of veneged, zekenav, kavod spell David, the kingdom of David. So when we ask our elders, it is solely in order to bind ourselves to our origins on the one hand, and to project our messianic advent on the other. The light is the light of Avraham, [as it is written]: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth behibaram, when they were created” (Bereshit 2:4). Here is the genealogy of the world, of heaven and earth, at the moment of creation, with light.

This light we are, little by little, leading to its final destiny through the light of Hanukkah. Now, the light of Hanukkah comes on the 25th of Kislev. What is the 25th of Kislev? It is the day on which the first Sanctuary was inaugurated. The first Sanctuary was inaugurated on the 25th of Kislev, although it had been ready […]. And to whom was the lighting of the Menorah entrusted on the first day? To Aharon HaKohen and his sons. When the Sanctuary was inaugurated, all the tribal chiefs brought their offerings, each chief on his own day, which is also why there were twelve days of festivity, twelve days of inauguration, and each tribal chief brought for the inauguration the gift of his tribe, representing his tribe.

And there was only one that had not been designated to bring an offering for its tribe: that of Levi, that of Aharon. So Aharon was dismayed, and G-d said to him: know that the Temple is destined to be destroyed. So what they bring will come to an end one day or another. But you, what I will give you is the lighting of the Menorah. And this lighting of the Menorah will continue beyond the Temple, through the nights of exile. For it is through this spreading of light that the true destiny of Israel among the nations is fulfilled. I will stop here; if you have any questions…