Chanukah 5785 Toras Avigdor Vayeishev 5785

The Chanukah Attitude

And so you have to say that there was a certain middah, a certain attitude of making it his own business, of feeling that it was his business. And that brings us to the heroes of Chanukah, the Chashmonaim and all the loyal Jews of that generation.

In the Al Hanissim of Chanukah we say to Hashem as follows: עָמַדְתָּ לָהֶם בְּעֵת צָרָתָם – We thank You for standing up for our ancestors at their time of trouble, רַבְתָּ אֶת רִיבָם – you stood up for their quarrel, דַּנְתָּ אֶת דִּינָם – and You judged their case. It means, You took up for them. You stepped in and fought their fight.

It’s a beautiful tefillah of gratitude that we say all eight days of Chanukah, but we’re going to see now that the language seems to be wrong. Because actually, it wasn’t “their fight”; it wasn’t “their quarrel” that they were fighting. And we’ll explain that.

Everybody knows that there’s a big difference between Chanukah and Purim. On Purim our enemies were making war on the Am Yisroel as a people; they wanted to destroy our bodies, לַהֲרֹג וּלְאַבֵּד אֶת כָּל הַיְּהוּדִים. On Chanukah, however, there was no such intention. Antiochus wasn’t a Hitler. He didn’t want to exterminate them; all he wanted was to destroy the Torah. We say that in the Al Hanissim: It was לְהַשְׁכִּיחָם תּוֹרָתֶךָ; it was only to make them forget the Torah.

Fighting Hashem’s Fight

And so when Matisyahu and the Jews rose up in revolt to uphold the Torah it wasn’t “their fight” at all – it was Hashem’s fight that they were battling. Because if they had been willing to yield His Torah and accept the Greek way of life then there wouldn’t have been any battles. They would have been like all the nations around the Mediterranean who all adopted the Greek ways and lived in peace. Alexander the Great had conquered them, so they accepted his ways.

The Egyptians had Greek ways now. The Syrians had Greek ways now. All over Asia Minor everybody had adopted the ways of the conquerors. They didn’t put up any fight and they lived peacefully. And the Jews could have done the same thing; they could have lived in peace. But the Am Yisroel rose up anyhow; they rose like lions – not to defend themselves, but to defend the Toras Hashem. The whole battle, the whole campaign, all those years that they sacrificed their lives and everything else was only for Hashem.

The Righteous Man

In the first chapter in Tehillim, the righteous man is described, אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים – How fortunate is a man who didn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. Even if he doesn’t do anything good, just not to go in the ways of the wicked he’s already a lucky man. וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד – And he doesn’t stand on the path of the sinners, וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב – he didn’t sit in the place where leitzim sit, kibitzers sit, empty people. No; he doesn’t mix with them.

So what does he do? If he does nothing, that creates a vacuum. If you’re not sitting in the gambling parlor, if you’re not standing in OTB, if you’re not hanging around the tavern, if you’re not in the salon, so where are you? כִּי אִם בְּתוֹרַת ה’ חֶפְצוֹ – His desire is in the Toras Hashem. That’s what this man does instead of what other people do. He’s ashrei! He’s the most fortunate one because his heart is in the Torah of Hashem.

But then, right after that, it continues describing that same person and it says וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ – and in his Torah, יֶהְגֶּה יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה – he thinks day and night. Whenever he gets a chance he opens a sefer and studies his Torah.

Whose Torah?

So the Gemara notices a change here. First it says ‘בְּתוֹרַת ה, he desires the Torah of Hashem. It’s called Hashem’s Torah. And then it says וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ – in his Torah he meditates. His passion is in his own Torah. So what is it, Hashem’s Torah or is it this man’s Torah?

So the Gemara says – and pay attention because this will help us understand what Chanukah really is – that in the beginning it’s Toras Hashem, Hashem’s Torah. But after a while it becomes Toraso, his own Torah.

Here a boy, a little boy, comes into yeshiva, and they show him seforim, books. They’re all strange. They’re not his books. He’s accustomed to little coloring books. He’s accustomed to books about Mendy and Hendy and now he’s being introduced to a strange world, a world of Abaye and Rava. He doesn’t know these strange people.

But after a while it becomes his; Rava and Abaye and Rav Ashi become his. The Gemara becomes his book. It’s not only that he feels that the chachmei haTalmud were a fine group, worthy of our admiration. He became identified with them – they’re his ancestors, his heroes, his people – and whatever they said, whatever attitudes they held, became his.

At first when you learn, you hear what the Mishnah says, alright, the Mishnah is saying it; but after a while, you become so imbued, so saturated with the ideals, that it’s your Torah – you want to carry it out. It’s my Torah! It started out being Toras Hashem but when you keep on practicing it and studying it and thinking about it and talking about it, after a while it gets into your blood and becomes who you are. The Torah ideals are coursing through your veins and they become your ideals. The attitudes of the Torah become your attitudes. And therefore, it’s called Toraso, his Torah.

Identifying With The Torah

That’s what it means to be a Torah Jew, when the Torah becomes your business. Tznius, for instance, is not something we do because the Torah says so. No, tznius, that’s my business! That’s how it has to be! Anything else is disgusting to me; it’s nauseating how they dress in the street.

Chesed? I do chesed not because it’s an obligation. I do it because it’s my business. A man, he takes out his checkbook from his drawer and he’s writing out a tzedakah check, he’s doing his own business. Supporting the poor kollel man with fifteen children, that’s his business, no less than when he writes checks in the factory, making orders, paying his employees. To help his fellow Jew, to do mitzvos, to marry off orphans, to smile at his fellow Jew, that’s his business.

And therefore after a man becomes identified with the Torah, that man now is ashrei. How fortunate is a man that now it’s his business! You’re not fighting for Toras Hashem. You’re fighting for your own business; it’s your private business.

He’s not fighting for the rabbis. He’s not fighting for the yeshivos. He’s fighting for himself. Supporting Judaism, fighting for Judaism, it’s his business. וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ – Now it’s his Torah!

The Torah’s Enemies Are My Enemies

And when he has to stand up against the wicked people, the wicked ideals, he’s not standing up only against enemies of the Torah. They’re his enemies! הֲלֹא מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ ה’ אֶשְׂנָא – Hashem don’t I hate Your enemies (Tehillim 139:21)? If they’re the enemies of the Torah, I hate them too; they’re enemies of mine. The reformers, the atheists, the reconstructionists, the evolutionists, they’re enemies of my ideals, of my attitudes.

You cannot be wishy-washy like the Modern Orthodox, “Oh, the mushchasim? We have compassion on them. Let them be members of the shul. Let them get married in the synagogue.”

What do the Orthodox Jews say? I’m talking about the real ones. “Nothing doing! It’s toeivah! We’ll demonstrate against it! We’ll fight against it! We’ll mobilize public opinion against it! Because you’re an enemy not only of Hashem’s Torah. And I won’t pass the buck, because it’s my Torah! It’s my business and I won’t let the ideals of my Torah be trampled underfoot.”

Part II. A Priestly Nation

Your Business Is My Business

Now we understand what it means in the Al Hanissim that we thank Hashem for fighting our fight. Because in those days, they lived up to the ideal of לְבַסּוֹף נַעֲשָׂה תּוֹרָתוֹ, that it becomes your Torah in the end. When the Chashmonaim and all the loyal Jews saw that the Greeks were tearing down the Torah and abolishing mitzvos, they didn’t say, “Well, let Hashem come and He should rescue His Torah. After all, it’s His business. We’ll do our part if it’s required, but it’s His business so let Him come and do miracles.”

You know why they didn’t say that? Because they didn’t think like that! It didn’t occur to them that they were fighting for Hashem’s Torah – doing Him a favor. “It’s our Torah and it’s our business,” they said, “and we’re ready to lay down our lives for it.”

The Inseparable Couple

That’s how they considered it. קוּדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא וְאוֹרָיְתָא וְיִשְׂרָאֵל חַד הוּא – The Am Yisroel and the Torah are one (Zohar, Acharei 73a). They’re inseparable! The Jewish way of life, that’s the only way a Jew can live. Like Rabbi Akiva said, just like a fish cannot exist out of the water, a Jew cannot exist outside of the Torah. And therefore, to suppress the Torah meant to suppress the souls of the Jewish nation. They cared about the Torah. And they cared for it to the utmost because it was their Torah, their business, their life.

It was unimaginable to them; it was impossible that the Jewish people should continue existing without their Torah. If a Jew is without his Judaism, he doesn’t want to live. Like the king who said, “Either I wear the crown or I don’t want to live!” Either you wear the crown of Yisroel or otherwise, life is a waste. Because we’re not interested in just existing, in being like the nations of the world. Just to live like a rabbit? Like a tree? כְּמִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאֲדָמָה, like the nations of the earth? By no means! We live only with the crown of Torah on our heads. Otherwise, life is not worth living.

And that’s why they arose in revolt like lions. Because they could not tolerate the persecutions against their Torah way of life – it’s the only way to live – and so they rose up in great indignation, in a holy fury, to defend their existence as a Torah nation.

Fighting Our Fight

Now, they didn’t have any army. They were not organized. They were few and weak, and here was a king with a powerful army. It was a hopeless cause. But what does hopeless mean when they’re coming against our way of life, our existence, our Torah?

And so, they persisted in their “hopeless” cause. But there was no thought of doing Hashem any favors; they fought for themselves. It’s our battle, our own personal cause. That’s what they were thinking. And therefore, when Hashem saved them, they felt like He was doing them the favor and they owed Him a great debt of gratitude for taking up their cause. מוֹדִים אֲנַחְנוּ לָךְ – We thank You, Hashem, רַבְתְּ אֶת רִיבָם – that You took up their cause. You helped us save the cause of our Torah, our business! Torah and mitzvos is our nation’s business!

A Nation Of Priests

And this brings us to the entire role of our nation among the peoples of the world. Because it’s not just Chanukah. The days of Chanukah, בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה, that’s when the nation was tested if they’d live up to this ideal. It’s an attitude for all year long and it’s for everyone. It’s a fundamental role of the Am Yisroel – that we live with the attitude that Hashem’s Torah is ours.

You recall when Hakadosh Baruch Hu was about to give the Torah, He told Moshe Rabbeinu that he should go down and tell the people a certain message, and among the points in that message was the following: וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים – You are going to be for Me a nation of kohanim (Shemos 19:6). “I’m giving you the Torah now,” Hashem said, “and I want you to know that along with the Torah comes a certain responsibility, a certain role that you must undertake in this world: You’re a nation of kohanim.”

The Essence Of The Nation

Now, we have to understand what that means. What’s the function of a kohen? It’s somebody to whom a certain charge, a certain responsibility, is handed over. He was born into kehunah and he has a special interest in upholding that service, because that’s what makes him who he is. His entire identity stands on that worship. He has a personal interest in maintaining the worship. The business of kehunah is his business. It’s who he is.

And therefore when Hashem said, “You’re going to be for Me a nation of kohanim,” it meant that the function of a Jew in this world is that the business of Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to be his business. Not like the people in the other nations who feel that it’s the business of their priests. “Let the priests worry about it. They’re running this show and we’re only spectators.”

Trading Idols

That’s good for the nations of the world. The priest says “Boo!” so they say “Ooh!” That’s why when a king in Europe came and told his people, “I have decided that from now on you’re all Christians,” so they said “Thank you for the good news,” and they all accepted it. It was no problem.

Because what difference did it make to them? It wasn’t their business anyhow. They were interested only in pleasing their king and getting along with him. So instead of bowing down to the idol of… I won’t say its name because you can’t say a shem avodah zarah; I can spell it however – instead of bowing down to W-o-t-a-n, a certain Anglo-Saxon idol, now they bowed down to a different idol, to a dead man, J-e-s-u-s. The same idol. What difference does it make to them? It’s the business of the priests anyway.

But at Matan Torah we received a role not like that; we became a mamleches kohanim, a nation of priests. Not a nation ruled by priests; mamleches kohanim means a nation where all the citizens are kohanim.

Of course, there’s a priesthood that serves in the Beis Hamikdash, a certain technicality, but actually, there’s a bigger truer picture: וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים –

Each of you is a priest. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “You’re going to be a nation of kohanim where every one of you has to be concerned about the Torah like it’s his own private affair. To fight for My Torah is going to be your business.”

Combative People

And so, not so long ago when the Maskilim first came to Russia from Germany to try to persuade Jews to yield their ancient Torah ways and walk instead in the ways of the Haskalah and Reform, you know who opposed them? Not the rabbanim. The people in the street! The plain people arose like one man and they pursued them in the streets. Little children pursued them and tried to chase them out of town. Because the entire Jewish nation felt that the Torah is רַבְתְּ אֶת רִיבָם, that it was their business.

That’s why when you come into a shul sometimes you find that people speak up and give an argument to the rav. Every Jew feels like a rabbi. That’s the truth. Walk into a synagogue, you find that simple Jews are arguing with their rabbis about customs. Not because he has disrespect; it’s because he’s concerned. He can’t overlook it, it’s his business.

The Chasam Sofer said that once. He said the greatness of the Am Yisroel is that even a great man, a great Torah authority has to be afraid of public opinion because the people will not stand for any deviation from the Torah tradition. Among Jews, if somebody would get up and try to change even a small minhag there would be a revolution, a revolution of the balebatim.

Non-Combative People

Lehavdil in the church, whose business is it? If the galach would say today the opposite of what he said last week – and they do; they’re changing all the time – but who cares? “It’s not our business,” the people think. “You want to add Mary to the trinity, so do it.” Because what’s the difference to them if it’s a three-in-one shoe polish – they have in the stores a three-in-one polish; it has the black color and the oil and the grease, trinity shoe polish. So what does matter if it’s three-in-one or they add a fourth ingredient and now it’s four-in-one polish? Who cares? It’s the business of the priests, that’s all.

But try something like that among the mamleches kohanim and you’ll find yourself with a lot of enemies. Because you’re playing with their Torah.

Of course, even among the Jews, in the ignorant places where the people are mamash like gentiles, the rabbis can do things like that. They can change whatever they wish – and they do. But wherever Jews are Jews, wherever they’re still a Mamleches Kohanim, you’ll find a very big resistance. Because it’s not the rabbi’s business. It’s not the business of this or that Orthodox organization. It’s our business. Judaism belongs to all of us.

That’s what it means, his Torah. That’s how life should be. Not only Hashem said it and he goes along with it. No. He understands that this is how it must be! It becomes his own ideas and attitudes and he’ll fight for it like he’s fighting for his own life.

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