Chanuka 2 |
Why
We Fight
This
week we celebrate the holiday of Chanuka. As we know, when we celebrate holidays
we are not simply commemorating an event which occurred two or three thousand
years ago. We are in fact reliving this same event. As the great Kabalistic
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato writes, the same spiritual energy which was brought
into effect at the time of the miracle, is also present at the same time every
year. So
the miraculous story of Chanuka is not an event where we sit around the fire,
tell ancient stories of the great military victories of the Maccabees, and give
each other the latest toys based on insipid television show characters. It is an
opportunity for us to regain the inspiration and passion for G-d and the Torah
that our ancestors fought so hard to preserve. What
made them fight for these ideals? When the Greeks forbade the Jewish people from
performing the commandments, the Jews fought back and ultimately were able to
gain their religious autonomy (later they were able to gain political
independence as well, but this political independence is not commemorated by any
holiday). There
is an interesting paradox. Why, in the story of Purim, when King
Achashverosh (Xerxes) decreed death upon the Jewish nation, did the Jewish
people not fight, but instead prayed, while in the story of Chanuka, they fought
and prayed? In
order to understand this, we must first look at the dynamics of these two
exiles. In the Persian exile, when the story of Purim occurred, the decree was
to simply annihilate the Jewish people. But
the decree imposed during Chanuka, in the Greek exile, was not one of physical
annihilation, just spiritual. In fact, many Jews were on the side of the Greeks
against the observant Jews who persisted in their “outdated and antiquated
ways”. The
Talmud in several places mentions the rule: everything is in the hands of Heaven
(G-d), excluding the fear of Heaven. This means that the actions that we perform
shape our judgment. So our fear of Heaven, which is manifest by exercising our
free will, will dictate how things out of our control affect us. The only way
which we can change our decree is to change our will. This is done through
prayer. So in the story of Purim, the Jewish people were subject to such a harsh
decree because of their actions. The only way to change this decree was to
change the will. The only way this could be done was through prayer. When
our religious freedoms are in danger that is not something in the hands of
Heaven. Such a situation falls under the category of “fear of Heaven”, as
our observance of the commandments is dependent on our own free will. In such a
situation, although prayer is a helpful tool used to strengthen our relationship
with G-d, the fact is that only we can change the decree. Therefore
the Jewish people, led by Matisyahu and his five sons, fought the Greeks,
although the Jews were hugely outnumbered. When we relive Chanuka this year, we must remember how much we can accomplish just through our desire to observe the commandments. Rabbi Jay Spero is the rabbi of the Saranac Synagogue in Buffalo. |