I had just lit the menorah on the first night of Chanukah when the telephone rang. A long-time friend a well-known figure in the educational world was on the line. No sooner had I said hello than he launched into a passionate monologue. He was so intent on getting his message across that I could hardly get a word in.

“You’ve lit your menorah already haven’t you?” he said. We go way back so he has no problem being blunt. “And of course you thought deeply about the meaning of the brachos as you recited them. I’m sure you sang Al HaNissim and Maoz Tzur. Maybe you’ve even had some latkes and doughnuts already and sat down for a game of dreidel with the grandchildren. So you’ve fulfilled the mitzvah of Chanukah perfectly. Listen I have no complaints against you. I just want to tell not to miss the boat.

“ Forgive me for being rude but we’re old friends so tell me what did you have in mind when you said ‘…Who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days at this time’? No no don’t answer. Just let me talk. I know what you had in mind. It was the same thing that all good Jews around the world have in mind when they light the menorah: that HaKadosh Baruch Hu performed miracles for us in those days the days of the Chashmonaim. At this time — that is the twenty-fifth of Kislev. And today we thank Him for the miracles He did for us then which made it possible for us to live as Jews today. Baruch Hashem; everything’s all right everything’s wonderful.

“Was I right? Wasn’t that your interpretation of the brachos you said as you stood before your Chanukah lights? Now don’t tell me it wasn’t. But I’ve come to the conclusion that something much deeper is contained in those words. I’ve thought for a long time about whether to talk about this or not and I trust you so hear me out.

“What you’ve got to understand is that the war of the Chashmonaim never ended. They won a battle but not the whole war. There was a Divine illumination that came as a result of the Chashmonaim’s total self-sacrifice for the Torah and the truth of Judaism. After the devastation wrought by Greek culture which had conquered the hearts and minds of many many of our people the ones we call misyavnim the Chashmonaim reintroduced the Jewish alternative. But this wasn’t a victory that allowed them to rest on their laurels. The soldiers couldn’t go home and enjoy the fruits of their victory and leave us with nothing to do but recall their glorious triumph and thank Hashem for the miracles He did for them during the war.

“Because my friend Greece was not defeated. And she still hasn’t been defeated to this day. The Greek culture of that time is the Western culture of today. A culture of darkness that permits everything a culture of pleasure for its own sake in a deterministic world without free choice and personal responsibility…. Now I’ve started talking philosophy which wasn’t my intention. My intention was to show that the situation that prevailed then still exists today and our people the Jewish nation are still there locked in the embrace of that foreign culture.

“No I don’t mean those people who have a fir tree standing in their houses with a menorah next to it. To them Chanukah with its miracles and heroism means nothing; they’re living in an ideological fog. I don’t mean them I mean us -- we observant Jews who celebrate the festival properly according to halachah. When we light our menorahs do we slay a certain portion of the Hellenist lurking in our hearts? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says of the mitzvah of wiping out the memory of Amalek that every Jew is obligated to eradicate his own personal Amalek the one in his heart. Aren’t we obligated to do the same to the Hellenist within us? You wonder what I mean so I’ll explain: Aren’t many basic axioms of the ambient Western culture involved in the choices we make and the way we live? Judaism which is supposed to be an alternative can’t exist as part of a meat-and-milk mixture. And any attempt to compromise between the two cancels out Judaism’s vitality and originality to a great extent.

“Let me be more specific. Why are so many young people leaving us? Why doesn’t Yiddishkeit speak to them? Even more than that — and I say this to you in my public capacity as an educator — why are there so many people in our community who look frum on the outside but are basically secular on the inside and act accordingly when no one is watching them? Howis it that all those years of study in our wonderful institutions hasn’t given them any sense of identification with Torah with HaKadosh Baruch Hu? Believe me this is the grim truth. Instead of hiding our heads in the sand let’s think about this as we stand before our Chanukah lights: Why isn’t a miracle happening to save us?

“Because so much of our chinuch is merely technical; it’s not part of a vision. We teach a lot about what the Torah doesn’t allow and very little of the vast field of freedom that all these Torah prohibitions open up before us. We do a lot of talking about Olam HaBa and not much about Avraham Avinu’s task in this world and ours as his descendants. It’s great that we know so much about the 613 ‘trees ’ baruch Hashem — but we can hardly see the ‘forest’ of Judaism itself the outlook of Judaism in contrast with the rest of the world the depth of the concept of Avraham the Ivri standing opposite the whole world. And mainly we’re failing to inculcate Jewish pride the feeling of being privileged to be a son or daughter of the King with a sense of mission a task to be accomplished in a world that opposes us a duty to be Avraham Avinu or Mattisyahu the Kohein Gadol in our daily lives by continuous eradication of the Hellenist lurking within each of us.  

“I don’t know if I’m explaining myself properly. Maybe my emotions are getting in the way of clarity. It’s just that I can see the disaster spreading. You know that the Alter of Slabodka went to Rav Yisrael Salanter to ask him on what basic principle he should found his yeshivah and Rav Yisrael answered him with a pasuk that we say in the motzaei Shabbos prayers: ‘To revive downcast spirits and to revive dejected hearts.’ Do you see? The principle is to elevate the Jew! To foster a sense of greatness in him; to inculcate Jewish pride. To make him feel he’s an important link in the chain that extends from Avraham Avinu to the present generation. That he is a Chashmonai! Otherwise we’ll never defeat the Greeks. This sense of greatness when a Jew knows that his every deed is important that it’s part of a vision is a powerful barrier to the outside influence that opposes Judaism.”

“The last of the Ten Commandments is lo sachmod you shall not covet. The question asked by the commentators is how can an emotion like coveting be subject to command? The Ibn Ezra explains this with a long allegory. In brief it says that a peasant feels no yearning to marry the king’s daughter because it so clear to him that she is completely outside of his sphere. This is how we ought to feel when tempted to desire anything that isn’t ours.

“But Rav Meir Chadash a talmid of the Alter of Slabodka who became mashgiach in Yeshivas Hevron in Jerusalem used to say the reverse: How could the King’s son — a Jew — wish to marry a peasant’s daughter?’

“Do you see? If the Chanukah lights only tell a story from the past then we have a problem. But if the Chanukah lights cause us to identify with the battles of the past and to know that these are also the battles of the present if the Chanukah lights aren’t a token of remembrance but a task to be carried out then there’s a chance that we might yet correct the flaws in the education we’re giving.

“Pay attention” he said. “Those little flickering flames are able to chase away darkness because the flame itself contains not a speck of darkness. Happy Chanukah my friend…”

Food for Thought

The Greeks didn’t pour out the oil in theTemple

Rather they made it impure.

That is to say they continued lighting the menorah but with tumah.

(Rav Betzalel Zholty from Kemotzei Shalal Rav)