Dvar Torah for Chanukah

Based on Likutey MoHaran II, Lesson #2

For those of you in search of your significant other - and for those of you who would simply like to advance the peace process within your own home - now is the time. “By praising and thanking God, and by studying halakha, individuals merit finding their true mates.” This entry from Advice (Marriage #4) is from our lesson du jour. Rebbe Nachman starts the lesson by saying, “The days of Chanukah are days of thanksgiving as is written [in the al hanisim prayer-addendum], ‘and so they established these eight days of Chanukah to thank and to praise....’”

Rebbe Nachman points out two ways in which thanking/praising Hashem (God) and studying halakha are similar. The first is that both are intrinsic elements of Olam HaBa (The Future World). “In the future all sacrifices, with the exception of the Thanksgiving-sacrifice, will be discontinued” (Vayikra Rabbah 9:7 [see Jeremiah 33:11; this verse that the Midrash brings as a basis for its teaching is paraphrased in one of the blessings recited during the wedding ceremony]). “Anyone who studies halakha every day is a denizen of Olam HaBa” (Nidah 73a).

What is the common denominator between these two activities? Rebbe Nachman writes that praising/thanking Hashem and knowledge of halakha both indicate an awareness of Hashem’s presence in life (daat). The former stems from the emotional side within us: we count our blessings; we stop to appreciate the beauty, the ironies and subtlety of living; we consider the guiding and protective Hand of God in history, personal and national. The knowledge of halakha impresses upon our intellect that what we do, and how we do it, counts. Lighting candles late Friday afternoon changes the realm of time in a way that lighting them on Tuesday morning never will. Meeting or not meeting the conditions of a contract will determine whether our money is kosher, whether “to Jew” somebody is a compliment or an insult. Halakha makes us intellectually aware that every moment is valuable, for there is no situation in which we cannot connect with Hashem.

These two different and sometimes conflicting sides of us can both bring us to daat, but only if they work together. Working together means that there must be peace, a harmonious balance between the energies they use and the energies they produce. For a Jewish home to be a Mikdash Me’at (Holy Temple in microcosm) husband and wife have to balance their individual talents (and shortcomings!) and responsibilities in such a way that their home is a place where not only their own family comes to be aware of Hashem, but where their guests will too.

When the Greeks took control of the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) they did not desecrate it by forcing its Owner to leave. Rather, their desecrated it by introducing other “gods” and declaring that God was just one force among other forces, that God and His Torah have only a vote, but not a veto. The Hasmoneans, and all that joined them, took exception to this. They understood that all those forces to which the Greeks ascribed independent power were already present in the Temple. The animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms were all put to use in the various services that were performed in the Beit HaMikdash. They had been tamed by the human kingdom which had submitted itself to Hashem. Nothing was, or could be, independent of Hashem.

The Hasmoneans, kohanim (priests) who by nature, as the descendants of Aharon HaKohein, and by function were people of peace (Numbers 4:22-27), took upon themselves the dangerous and unpleasant task of waging war in order to restore harmony. When they succeeded in driving out the Greek occupiers they then had to clean and purify the Temple grounds. Only then could they search the Beit HaMikdash for olive oil with which to light the Menorah, the symbol of daat. Rebbe Nachman occasionally cites the holy Zohar that olive oil, in contradistinction to wine, pours quietly.

There are many battles and unpleasant tasks that must be taken care of before one can have the quiet and light. May Hashem help each of us to succeed in those tasks and may we be worthy of seeing the coming of the Mashiach, soon and quickly. Amen.

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!