B"H
Happy Chanukah everyone!
This afternoon, before Shabbat, we light our final 8 candles of the menorah.
I hope the holiday has gone as great for you as it has for us here in Jerusalem.
From dancing at an army base to lighting the menorah by the Western wall, things have been quite fast-paced & exciting here.
Now I don't know about you, but every year it seems my digestive system asks me the same thing: "What's with all of these donuts and Latkas!? Enough already! Spare me, please!!"
Now, I know. You'll tell me that the whole miracle of Chanukah that we commemorate, centers around the finding of oil and that's why we eat all of these oily foods. But let's take a deeper look.
What were the Syrian-Greeks trying to stamp out from the minds and hearts of the Jewish people?
Unlike during the times of Purim where a decree was sent to kill the Jews, the oppression of our people by the Greeks was not on our bodies, but rather on our souls and our beliefs.
The Greeks valued beauty.
Art, music, philosophy, intellectual pursuit. Socrates, Plato, Homer, Aristotle. If one were to look back to the Story of Noah & his 3 sons after the flood, this love of beauty makes perfect sense. Noah cursed Cham (look there for reasons why), blessed his son Shem (whom Abraham descended from) w/ spiritual truth, and blessed his son Yefes (from whom Yavan, the father of the Greek Empire descended) with beauty. Noah wished however, that this beauty "should be found in the tents of Shem." That TRUE beauty should only truly be found when in a G-dly, spiritual context.
Now the Torah is a beautiful work.
It's the #1 best-selling book in History!! [ed. note: I'll have to check Harry Potter statistics later]. Now that's not too shabby. It has a great Author as well you should know.
So what was the Greeks' problem? They should have rejoiced in the fact that they could fulfill the wishes of Noah, that spiritual beauty and aesthetic beauty can bind together in perfect harmony. It's even known that there was a point in history when this harmony resided. It's recorded that the mighty Greek ruler Alexander the Great, when greeting the great Jewish sage Shimon Hatzadik, 'alighted from his chariot and bowed down before him...he exclaimed: Blessed is the G-d of Shimon Hatzadik!'
The later Greeks' annoyance however, centered not on the Torah's intellectual beauty. They liked that. No, the Greeks disliked that the Torah didn't remain just intellectual beauty. Mitzvot and Jewish ritual weren't considered by the Jews as mere customs and tradition. Jews considered Torah and Mitzvot to be G-d's Divine Will.
That there's something beyond what the human intellect can reach on its own.
That there's a higher, divine reality.
Now let's get back to the oily Latkas and Donuts.
Stay with me here, I'm going to need your head on this one:
Jewish mysticism likens oil to the Essence of Torah.
Many examples are given why, one being that just as oil's nature is to pervade through and through whatever it comes in contact with (just ask your mother who had to clean your pant's stain the other night), so too the deepest truths of Torah pervade every fabric of our reality. As the "blueprint of the world", every aspect of our lives and of our world can be found in Torah on some level.
But unfortunately, oil can't be consumed raw!
{There's a discussion in the Talmud as to whether there should be a special blessing for oil. Just like wine has a distinct blessing from its grape source, shouldn't oil have a special blessing from olives, like "borei pri ha'zayit?"
In the talmud its decided against this, since oil on its own is damaging. Try downing a full cup of olive oil every morning...}
For consumption of oil, it has to be cooked or fried with something.
Spiritually speaking (for we are taught that everything physical has its root in the spiritual), this need to mix raw oil with dough, or potatoes and onions, or some other more tangible food, represents the need for the Essence of Torah (oil) to come down in a more tangible, "edible" way.
On its own, pure G-dliness would be too much for us mortals to handle.
It's too lofty; its beyond us.
But through "cooking" and "baking" this divine wisdom into words and teachings that we can understand, we are able to digest and internalize this divine wisdom and message. This is the idea of Torah, and primarily the mystical aspects of it.
G-d Actually cooked the oil (his Essence) into a latka! :) Into the words of our Torah - in its mystical and very much practical teachings and directives.
But Why?
What's the point of this cooking of Divinity into digestible letters? Letters that on paper can even appear as only a beautiful wisdom (As it did to the Greeks).
Ahh, but here's the catch.
Torah, primarily its inner teachings, have a special ability to reveal the essence of our souls. The Supra-rational bond of soul with G-d, Beyond intellect - a bond which the Greeks sought to destroy. The 'oil in the Latka,' the Essence found in Torah & Mitzvot, seeps into one's very being to its core & reveals its essence.
Torah has the ability to reveal our essence, since the soul, Torah, and G-d are all essentially ONE.
May we all take advantage of the 'donuts & latkas' (i.e. Torah and Mitzvot) in our midst throughout the entire year beyond Chanukah, and let the Essential oil reveal our essential connection to Hashem.
And may the 'beauty of Greece' be found in 'the tents of Shem' - the tents of divine purpose and meaning.
I hope your donut & latka eating will never be the same!
Happy Chanukah & Shabbat Shalom!
-Daniel
Jerusalem, Israel
No comments:
Post a Comment