With the passage of time, we clearly see how destructive wisdom becomes when not fenced in by moral constraints

This article originated in a conversation that Rabbi Wein ztz”l held in 2023 with the editors of Kolmus, Mishpacha’s Hebrew-language Torah supplement.

Ancient Greece dazzled the world with its culture — but it was a way of life shorn of the boundaries that the Torah sets forth. With the passage of time, we clearly see how destructive wisdom becomes when not fenced in by moral constraints

Greece is not just a historical period. It is a worldview — an outlook on life that still dominates the world today.

The genius of Greece was something unique. If you compare it to the paganism that Avraham Avinu saw, or the idol worship that Moshe Rabbeinu encountered in Egypt, those were primitive and foolish cults. In contrast, Greece was home to what Chazal refer to as chochmah Yevanis, Greek wisdom, which brought literature, theater, music, and art to the world. And in a certain sense that wisdom has a place — even in the tents of Shem.

There were really two Greeces. There was the popular Greece of the masses, and the Greece of thinkers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. The masses celebrated with gods; the philosophers understood that these were myths. Plato even reached the idea of a First Cause, a prime source that moves all things.

But the problem with Greece is its lack of limits. The inner essence of the Torah is to establish boundaries. In our world, everything has a limit. It’s called lo saaseh.

The Greeks, like the modern world, recognized no limits. And as time goes on, we see how destructive wisdom becomes when it’s not fenced in by moral restraint.

When Alexander the Great came to Eretz Yisrael, he met Shimon Hatzaddik, one of the last members of the Great Assembly. Shimon Hatzaddik influenced him not to destroy the Beis Hamikdash, and they reached a compromise. In one version, instead of placing a statue of Alexander in the Temple, all the Kohanim’s sons born that year were named Alexander — a name that remains in the Jewish people to this day.

Another compromise was that the Jews themselves would collect taxes for him. It seemed practical, but it opened the door to corruption and division. A third concession was cultural: The Greek language and script entered Jewish life. Inscriptions from the Second Temple have been found in Greek. Knowing Greek became like knowing English today — a condition for success.

Alexander himself never decreed against Torah or Jewish practice; perhaps that is why his name remained honored. But through language came influence, and with influence came danger. It was a compromise — the kind of compromise that looks wise at the time and proves disastrous later. Minds and hearts were swept away. A new class arose within the Jews — the Misyavnim, the Hellenists — who decided that the beauty of Greece was greater than the holiness of Torah.

Now trouble came from within. In the days of the Second Beis Hamikdash, the Hellenists ruled. We know the Mishnah that describes how on Yom Kippur the Kohein Gadol was forced to swear that he would follow the tradition of the Sages and not the doctrine of the Tzedukim, the Sadducees. The Tzedukim were the heirs of the Misyavnim.

After the miracle of Chanukah, when the Chashmonaim defeated the Greeks, they themselves later became the Tzedukim. History, as usual, repeated itself.

When Alexander died, his empire was divided. The Jews got along with the Ptolemies of Egypt, but the Seleucid kings of Syria tried to impose Greek culture by force. The Land of Israel was caught in between. The Misyavnim joined the oppressors to “make Israel forget the Torah.”

Then came the decrees: No circumcision — because the human body was “perfect,” no Shabbos — because a day of rest was “bad for the economy,” and eating forbidden meat — because it was “healthy.” Anyone who kept the mitzvos risked his life.

Mattisyahu and his sons rose in revolt. The war lasted almost seven years, not eight days. Four of his five sons were killed, and only Shimon survived. They won both against the Greeks and against the Misyavnim, and they purified the Temple.

According to Chazal, that purification — the restoration of holiness — is the main story of Chanukah. The military victory was only a means to an end. And from that time, the great project of recording the Oral Torah began. The early Tannaim realized that the Beis Hamikdash would not last, and they began to record and teach the Torah shebe’al peh so that every Jew would carry the tradition within him.

But then came the fatal mistakes. To prevent another invasion, Shimon HaChashmonai made an alliance with Rome. It saved them temporarily but doomed them long-term. The Romans never left; they became the rulers, and they destroyed the Second Temple.

Another error was uniting the priesthood with the monarchy, which belonged to the House of David. Shimon called himself “Prince and Friend of the Jews,” not king, but his descendants abandoned that restraint. By the time of Alexander Yannai, the Hasmoneans had become Tzedukim.

Greek culture can be beautiful — but it has no boundaries. When nothing is forbidden, everything decays. They spoke of democracy, yet lived under tyranny. That is the great lesson Greece teaches: Without fences, civilization collapses. The Torah serves as a brake. It is the safeguard of true freedom.

Even within Torah there are limits: kavod habriyos, kavod hatzibbur. The Torah itself teaches moderation. Zealotry has never succeeded. I once heard from the Ponevezher Rav that he never saw a stone thrown at a car on Shabbos bring anyone to teshuvah. The Chazon Ish wrote that in our time we must draw people [in] with ropes of love. The foundation of Torah life is self-restraint.

That is what it means to be a Jew. Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei speaks not of the wicked but of the fool — the one without perspective. To be a Jew is to be wise. The message of Chanukah is to embrace the fences of Torah, to see the whole picture. The mitzvah of Chanukah demands a public display, pirsumei nissa, because we must publicize the idea of boundaries, of light defined by darkness.

The Chasam Sofer wrote in German and even signed “Moritz Schreiber,” yet he fought that German not be spoken in synagogue. That was his geder. Perhaps without secularism and Reform we would have been different, but they forced us to raise our walls higher.

History — a Greek word — teaches the same lesson. A person who lives without history is like one reading a book with the first and last hundred pages torn out. He cannot understand the story. Every ben Torah must know history: how we came to have seven million Jews in Eretz Yisrael, how Divine providence works through centuries.

Sometimes the Almighty directs events through angels; sometimes through an ordinary “man” who doesn’t even know he is the messenger. Without the perspective of history, you miss that vision. History leads to emunah, because only from a distance do you see the whole picture. “From afar, G-d appeared to me.”

Those who don’t read history read newspapers. They see the headlines, not the pattern. They miss the story they are living in.

So when you light the Chanukah lights in your doorway, remember the story they tell. Empires have risen and fallen; the Jewish people endures. Our secret is the Torah — the boundary, the light that never goes out.

(Pendulum: Chanukah 5786 appears in full in Mishpacha, Issue 1091 )