Timing
is everything. This is true in financial matters, personal choices, national
decisions, as well as in historical events. Nevertheless, we are able to see
that the present is not necessarily the past and that options and opinions that
are currently relevant and popular once held no sway. Our ancestors the
Hasmoneans engaged in the same type of struggles, physical as well as
spiritual, that challenge us today.
Surrounded
by enemies meant to destroy the Jewish
state and faith, and beset by a substantial amount of internal enemies willing
to become Greeks, the Hasmoneans fought both enemies strongly and successfully.
But they were fortunate that in the second century before the Common Era there
were no NGOs, EUs, no media bias and a plethora of do-gooders.
The
Hasmoneans would undoubtedly have been accused of war crimes, aggression, and
of becoming occupiers of the land that in truth belonged to them. However,
their timing was impeccable. By current day standards, there could never be a
Chanuka holiday. This is not to say that hypocrisy and double dealing did not
exist in the days of the Hasmoneans. Human nature has not changed significantly
since Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden.
However, with the development of civilization,
technology and the wide dissemination of information – both true and false- we
must agree that the implementation of hypocrisy and false and unfair judgment
has reached a new high in our time. And unfortunately, our small state and
great people are the primary victims of this new, exalted perfidy.
Perhaps
the Rabbis of Old, when establishing the holiday of Chanuka, realized that
there would rise a later generation, Jewish and non-Jewish, that would not be
proud of the courage and fortitude of the Hasmoneans. There would arise a
generation that would have preferred that the Hasmoneans engage the Greeks
rather than defeat them in battle. Perhaps this is why the Rabbis chose to
emphasize the miracle of the light of the oil lamp as the basic theme and
commandment of Chanuka.
It is hard to find fault with a small flame
that somehow burned miraculously for eight days when it had only sufficient
fuel for one day. This miracle of the small flame came to justify the entire
epic of the Hasmonean struggle against the Greeks and against the Hellenists.
If the Hasmoneans were in fact wrong in conducting their struggle against the
Greeks in a forceful fashion, then the Lord would not have provided the miracle
of the flame.
The
rededication of the Temple and its purification from pagan defilement was again
another indication of the correct struggle of the Hasmoneans, of their tactics,
and behavior. The preservation of the Jewish people and of Torah values within
that people is the ultimate strategic goal of our nation since the time of
Abraham. This goal has not changed in our time and, in fact, all current events
have brought it into sharper focus. This is the central issue which dwarfs all
others in Jewish society and worldview.
The
Rabbis framed one of the blessings over the lights of Chanuka as recognizing
the events ‘bayamim hahem,’ in those
days’ bazman hazeh,’ in our time. We
always have to look at how past events play themselves out in the current
scene. We have to make certain that national errors and wrong policies that were
present ‘bayamim hahem,’ in past
times, do not repeat themselves ‘bazman
hazeh,’ in our current time.
And,
we also have to be aware that the wisdom, traditions, and good sense of the
past not be easily discarded by current fads and transient mores in order to
fit ourselves into a perceived modern, politically correct time. This balance
between the past and the present, between what was and what is remains the
challenge of our generation.
Discarding
our past has proven to be spiritually and even physically fatal to millions of
Jews over the last centuries. And, ignoring the realities of the present,
handicaps us in dealing with the problems and the struggles
that we must yet endure. The lights of Chanuka serve to remind us that at one
and the same time we live ‘bayamim hahem,’
in those past days and ‘bazman hazeh,’
in our current world as well. The flames of Chanuka have survived for almost 23
centuries and remain the inspiration for our faith in our eventual achievement
of Jewish sovereignty in our holy land and in the expansion of our spiritual
values, Torah knowledge and observance.
Shabbat
Shalom and Happy Chanuka