Chanukah: The Light and the Splendor

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com welcome everyone I have wonderful news to share with you we were just we were to just now just moments ago to go to print on a brand new saer the saer is in English the name of the saer the name of the book is the light and the Splendor which speaks about the yam of khah but before I begin I want to thank our very wonderful host first I want to thank kazak for hosting tonight's event and I want to thank my very very dear and Tyra Friend R rabi Newman of chickens for chabas for sponsoring tonight's Shear chickens for shabas is an incredible organization they it's an organization that just feeds Jews that's all they do it feeds our brothers and sisters and especially it feeds malam it feeds R because with R there's no CL so basically they're CL they're supporting CL and they support women who are divorced or aunos or in general they they support yiden who really really need it so if anybody could uh give of themselves to try to help out this very wonderful institution chickens for chabas then it would be a great Merit for you and the up for the upcoming days of Kaneka and for your families so I want to speak a little bit about this saer the light and the Splendor so first thank for giving me the opportunity to be able to put many of the shm that have been available to the seore whether on Torah anytime or various venues into the written word um what a great it is to be able to share t with other and should continue to give us this um in good health and we should always be able to share Torah together now I want to thank a very dear friend of mine Rim Mohler Dr Kim mhler a renowned cardiologist who really created the manuscript of this work listening to the sh and putting the ideas onto paper and uh is uh extremely busy uh with his in in the medical field and yet somehow he's able to carve out so much time which is required to to put together a book like this it really requires so many hours you would have expected only somebody who is fully dedicated but Rim was able to create the manuscript from which is the backbone of the light and the Splendor and we have a wonderful team of editors at artscroll read by led by Mrs Feliz uh Eisner and others so we thank everybody for their participation in bringing this to the light of day I would like to especially thank two very dear who are instrumental in disseminating a lot of the shm and a lot of the uh uh lectures first I want to thank my good friend R Arin subar of myy for Faithfully sending out the emails and people have questions regarding the material or the source material or in general andarin fields that Faithfully every single day for many years and he's really mased um many additional listeners and followers through his uh messages and I also want to thank my dear friend RB Galia Schwarz also who has really uh enhanced and expanded the viewership and readership of the material R Galia is in Norfolk Virginia and um he's created many Whats App groups that really have expanded the viewership internationally so I want to be my dear friends that should continue to give them good health and happiness and now uh the book sort of opens up in the introduction and in the acknowledgements with a question that is raised by R fi what is more valuable is it more valuable to give a Shear to the rabim or perhaps it's more valuable to write a saer Andi says actually the influence of a safer is greater than air because AER you're limited to the audience in front of you so if you live in uhan like did and you give a so that's where the sh begins and that's where the she ends but if you write a sa we're disseminated across the globe and therefore says because of the greater dissemination and because of the fact that a safer could continue to influence even after the demise of the author it is more to write a saer than to give a Shear but one may ask in our times one could give a Shear it could be recorded it could be disseminated to the ends of the world in a split second I want to give a shout out to my dear friend rabm of Northeast India one of the B manasha who already has the light and the Splendor that's right even though many of the listeners don't have it rakm in Northeast India he has it already so nowadays perhaps the advantage should go to the she over the well maybe you could say look on shabas though you can't listen to a Shear you can only read the and and there is something about AER it's letters make a person wise but the truth is you know uh like it says Ines um it says meaning do this and don't slack in from this you try to do as much as you can whatever the is and in the discusses the concept that is enunciated in is finishing now about theud who are revealed their meaning they were they went to Great Lengths to be as much as possible and says that even though he personally is Marb through his but nevertheless through the written word you're able to reach that one extra person and if you have that ability and you have that capacity you need to do so because the says one who is his learning will be sustained and upheld so we also we hope that we could be in some small mest way to the of that through this saf we hope that didn't enjoy it and are able to learn from it and then this will be um very gratifying so again thank you to all who have made it possible and may theam bless everyone with only basur T so let me Begin by maybe speaking about the name of the book a little bit I could just imagine people want to know you know the first safer is called the mystery and the Majesty so you know you're going to have to have a name with a uh D and the you know something like that it has to rhyme it has to be an alliteration so first I thought the light and the Legacy and I'll give you some of the behind the scenes no that was uh that was Ned because what does legacy mean in under these uh in this context it it was not thought that Legacy would be a meaningful word used in this context text then ultimately here's how we came to the light and the Splendor well light is not uh light is obvious you know it's not rocket science what light has to do with Kaneka let's talk a little bit about the Splendor if we may the famous B now um I do want to share with you we already found one little error so if you're reading uh the footnotes on the introduction the B of course is is in Sim somehow that got uh there's a mistake in that it says it's in a different SI but the good news is after you buy the the light and the Splendor you have to buy another volume which is updated and corrected obviously you know how it works but the B but all kidding aside the most famous question in Judaism is the question of the B safe you know famously there's a safe a Nara that offers 100 answers to to the B's question and I was in Lakewood about a year ago and I saw a safer there with 500 answers to the B's question and of course the question is they found enough oil to last for one night miraculously it lasted for eight so let's think for a moment why would we celebrate Kaneka for eight days if the miracle was only seven days they had enough for the first day the miracle was only s days we should only celebrate Kaneka for seven days so there's a very famous answer given by the altar of kelm and the alar of kelm cites the story Inus about the daughter of R who they were very poor and they could not afford uh fuel for their shabas candles and the daughter of accidentally lit vinegar and it burned and she went and he told her father and she was very upset because she was m she seemed to have bothered God to cause her vinegar to burn and famously said the one who said that oil should burn he should say vinegar should burn the lesson is obvious that we take it for granted we're used to the fact that oil burns but if we would try to break it down to the depth of the science it cannot really be explained exactly how oil burns that's a process we're used to but we can't explain it it is in a way a supernatural process so say the alter of k seven days of kanar to celebrate the miracle that the oil which did not have enough oil to burn for 8 Days burnt another seven days but never take for granted the mere fact that oil burns that itself is a miracle we can never take for granted the natural processes so in honor of my friend Robbie Newman who's sponsoring tonight's sh who I know is a big student of rder Miller so I'm going to share with you you know there's something Riv Miller would say and uh something we should always bear in mind you know there's so many natural processes that we we completely take for granted I remember very clearly when I was a B I had the Hashem gave me a little good sense and when I was 20 years old for 3 years I had this walk to Victor Miller from Avenue and East 31st to his SCH on Ocean Parkway I was to speak with him I to see him to ask him questions and he said many times water you know what kind of great miracle water is you have if you're thirsty so what are you going to do imagine trying to take some hydrogen to quench your thirst hydrogen is not going to do anything for you imagine if you're thirsty and you take oxygen that's also not going to do anything for you if you're stuck in the Sahara Desert and with just hydrogen and oxygen you ain't going to make it but the master chemist he takes two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen and he fuses it together to make H2O and you drink it and it's Mish wow how Del there's nothing more delicious than water but let's even say more than that you know water starts off in the ocean in the ocean imagine if someone is in was thirsty and was a sailor Sailors would die at sea because you can't drink the sea water it's too salty the expression went you know water water everywhere but not a drop to drink not an ounce to drink so what does God do he takes this big circle of fire that's 93 million miles away from planet Earth and he shines the fire on the ocean and this fire called the sun heats up the ocean water evaporates the ocean water then the does another miracle the water vapor from the ocean is lighter than the air and it rises up it rises up it rises up and it forms something called clouds okay what good is a cloud going to do over the ocean so Hashem made a big fan and hasem blows and blows and blows it's called The Wind and The Wind takes the clouds over the dry land and the water falls down and when the water falls you could catch it in your cup the water is sweet the water is sweet you thought it was a miracle when took a stick stick of a stick and he put it into the sea and it turned sweet Ah that's not a miracle you know what a miracle is regular drinking water made a sun he created evaporation he made wind he was able to fuse together two atoms of hydrogen one atom of oxygen to produce water that is a great miracle you think it's only a miracle when oil that's supposed to last for one day lasts for eight days it's a miracle that oil burns in the first play so therefore says the alar of K says and the seven days for the miraculous nature of the oil and one day for the natural process of the oil in facta says if you look in the Alan it doesn't say anywhere anything that they found enough oil to last for one day and lasted for eight days it just says they lit candles they lit NYS you know why says the I Miracle is not that it lasted another seven seven days it's through the open Miracle they came to recognize that huo lighting the candle itself is a miracle okay so that is the answer in fact says that's why in the in the I want to be the first to sing to it's bave but we got to get going already that's in the we say sons of understanding they established eight days why do we say that the who established are B men of understanding what Bina was required for them to establish kanah well says it it required great be because the miracle of the Y of is through the hidden through the open Miracle of the seven days they came to be mo and recognize the absolute Miracle of nature of the first day so they needed beina means from the open miracle that the oil lasts in extra seven days they came to realize it sunk into their head that the first day was also a miracle that was Bina that's why they're called B BINA but here's my question I have to share with you honestly I was always bothered by uh this answer you know I was Bo bothered by this answer because then you should tack on an extra day of yam to to every single day you know why don't we say p is seven days because God killed the firstborn and God split the sea and let's take on another day of pesak for the miracle of water in general or you know we have PM one day for the miracle that God saved our life and let's have two days because there's another day of PM because the heart beats I mean once you're making a yum for the for the natural processes which indeed are miraculous we're not questioning that of course Ran's most well-known words writes that from the open Miracles we come to recognize that everything is hidden Miracle so there is no question that nature is miraculous the question is why tack it on to Kana isn't that doesn't that bother you is this really a good answer oh you know goes eight days seven days for The Miracle part and one day for the miracle of oil burning I mean you could add on an extra day of yum to any yum that way so I want to share with you uh the approach that we bring in the introduction and I saw this in the and he bases this on a uh an idea which is taught by the holy malum the malum in many places in he teaches us that there's a difference Ines between the words and the words many say that in tanak there is something called synonyms two words that basically have the same meaning and it's just stylistic the for example or other examples of words that perhaps uh mean the same thing and the malum vehemently argues that there is no such thing as shim there are no synonyms in Hebrew every single word has its own Nuance of different of meaning and one example that the malum explains in a number of places is the word and the word the word Hadar says a album refers to external beauty preat Hadar had refers to the shape of the esrog the form of the esrog the color of the esrog it's beautiful externally or we find the example with many people it brings external beauty to the but there's a word called says the Mal H does not refer to external beauty H is what is called z p inner Splendor inner shine and these are not just two words that have different connotation but there are difference in attitude and in a world view the yanim were a people of hardar and we the Jewish people are a people of H the yanim believed in external beauty Body Sculpting body building muscle form the yanim believed that you could tell the character of a person by how they look if they're beautiful if they're handsome they're worthwhile if they're ugly if they're not appealing then the person does not have worth but we don't judge things that way we are not a people of Hadar we are a people of H sometimes you could have someone who perhaps objectively is not the most beautiful or handsome individual however they have an inner glow they have they have wisdom they have humility they have mid and that good character and that internal shine and Splender makes it that when you see them you see grandor you see the it's not not because of their objective form or objective looks it's because there's some inner quality that transcends the phys their physical makeup the Jewish people are a people of H the yanim are a people of it's interesting we know that one of the cabalistic teachings based on and really the is very much based on this is the um tph interestingly one of the SP is is the eighth SP the says that is the Y of that's why Kana says the the is eight days because somehow rectifies the of is the of internal beauty but let's take this a little bit deeper in a word world ofar in a world of external beauty you only see the processes that are recognized IED and measured by the eye and the human brain so you see evaporation condensation digestion and it could be predicted it could be measured it could be tallied and that was Yan's view of the world they were a people of science they recognized the Arts they recognized all processes that are measurable that are calculable that that you could see and C and measure they valued external beauty and therefore they valued nature nature so to speak is the H of the world the external facade of the world but we the Jewish people believe that behind nature behind condensation and digestion and evaporation and behind the process that oil burns is the same Yad Hashem the same miraculous hand of God that performs open miracles of splitting the sea and taking us out of Egypt and even allowing oil to burn an extra seven days the extra seven days is the obvious overt external beauty of the miracle but the inner working of nature nature itself is H but the inner working of nature is the Y Hashem the inner Splendor the H of nature the H of nature the inner Splendor of nature ises the purpose of obvious Miracles the whole function of it is to be able to detect that the hidden Miracle nature is as miraculous is just as miraculous the AA of a Jew and the AV of kanah is to counteract theim theim only believe in what they see and what they could measure the external beauty of the world and the natural processes of the world the entire en objective of Kaneka is to pull away the veil ofar and to see that behind the external beauty is the internal Splendor of the world and the internal Splendor of is the Y Hashem as ran writes from the open Miracles we come to recognize that everything is The Hidden Hand of Hashem so the whole objective of Kaneka is to pull away the veil and see it is H God's hand behind all the natural processes so we're not just tacking on one extra day to Kan oh by the way once we have seven days for the open Miracle why don't we just tack on an extra day to recognize that the fact that oil burns itself is a miracle no that is the function of kanak that's the purpose of Kan which is connected the sphere of to recognize that not just there is a in the world but God has given nature an inner light and Inner Glow and that is hashem's miraculous hand in all natural processes hence the name of this book is the light so to try to bring out a little bit of the O and the light of the especially the Splendor the Splendor and recognizing Hashem in the hidden Miracles that he does for us and also to recognize the beauty the light and the Splendor of the so I just want to share with you a few um nuggets of insight that are discussed in the saer in the first chapter which is talking about gratitude um which is based on a beautiful piece of RAB and also the writings of or RTI has a few amazing you know the gar says that Kaneka was enacted um what my they they didn't have enough oil and they enacted eight days Hal which Rashi says is saying and now Rashi says is saying Al but what's amazing is the ram when he codifies what we have to do on the r does not mention we need to say Al why why doesn't the r talk about well the r talks about it in that when you you should say but the way Rashi learns is the backbone according to Rashi Hal is the recitation of Hal and is the recitation of Al and the r doesn't even say anything about Al in even more amazing as asks is the gamar forgot to mention the main Mitzvah of Kaneka lighting the Mana on Kana you ever hear about that Mitzvah you ever hear uh you may have heard that on WE Jews we light the you ever hear about that well it's not in the gamar why in the world did the gar omit lighting the Mana furthermore if you look in the r the r writes that on WE light the and he does not say on we give gratitude so the gamor talks about giving the gamar doesn't mention lighting the Mana the r writes about writing lighting the man the ram doesn't say you have to thank Hashem says rabol he quotes one of the r says the following when he's the words of the G when the ri says over the words of the gar he says we thank by lighting the candles you hear what the riy is saying the ri is saying the way we fulfill on is by lighting them the reason why the gar does not mention liting the man is the gar talks about what the purpose of liting the man is the ram doesn't talk about thanking Hashem because the ram writes about the Mitzvah with which we thank Hashem lighting the Mana the gar talks about the objective the r talks about the act with which we do an expressing the lighting the very interesting all other mitv are just we shake the lul because God said so what are we trying to accomplish I don't know it doesn't matter we're fulfilling the word of God the Mana is different according to the ri the purpose and the function of lighting the Mana is it's a mitvah with which we thank this explains says why the r says that the lighting of the is a very beloved Mitzvah why is lighting the man such a beloved Mitzvah because thanking is the purpose of creation as a ran that we mentioned before says there's no other Tas in creation other than coming before the re and thanking him and saying you created us the whole function of us being alive in this world is what is good in this world to thank Hashem that's what we're here for that's our mission that's our function in this world that's what's good in this world and therefore the lighting of the is the one Mitzvah which fulfills the of and therefore it's it's so beloved because it's fulfilling our mission in this world and therefore has amazing if someone lights the man and you say why are you lighting the man and he says oh I'm lighting the man because because hasem told me to you're not y because you didn't think I'm lighting the to thank you imagine says this would answer a promise that the gar offers us you know the G says anybody who is in the habit of lighting the will have children who are Torah Scholars so now I don't know if I would ever ask this question or I would ever have enough guts to ask this question but there's a the son of the rid who asks everybody lights the Mana but not everybody has children who are why but the gamar gives us a promise that anyone who likes the Mana will have children who are and the answer say is yes we all like the but do we all light the man with our hearts Ablaze with gratitude to we don't all light the Mana that way but if we would we could be guaranteed and vouch safed from the holy gamarra that if we light the Mana as an expression of genuine gratitude now on side note regarding this question of why the man why the gamar in the G does not say there's a mitvah to light the there's an amazing to answer this question now I have a very strong attachment to rishu my Z's grandfather was a tal of rishik and helped him publish the yesu andik I believe in the says you know why the G doesn't say there's a Mitzvah because when was formulated there was no no how could that be there's no because you know what the mitzah of lighting the Mana is it's a replica of lighting the Mana in the B mikdash and in the times in the miracle of Kana there was a man in the so why do we need a zar and Remembrance to how they L the in the B mdash they lit the man in the B of mdash the man was standing it was only after the B of mdash was destroyed they were later m in the mid of lighting the Mana now this gives us an amazing insight into what we are doing by lighting the Mana our Mana is literally a replica our Mana is taking the place of the b in fact the ran writes that the reason why you not to get Hanah from the light of the Mana is because you're you're Mana in your house literally is a replica of the man in the B MD so now we have to be very careful how we treat our mana and how we value our homes you know I wasn't going to mention this but now that we're at it you know the there's a St in the MRA and the MRA says that by Milla a and yet cannot be God in reading the m and yet the says that a could light the for his father it's a this is why does the by cannot read the for a and by could light for say says in amazing and we write about in the that the Mitzvah of man was different from all other MIT the Mitzvah is not on the individual the Mitzvah is on the house the Mitzvah is on the bias the Mitzvah is on the house the Mitzvah of the of the Milla is on every individual so if you're a you can't be but the Mitzvah of the the Mitzvah divves is on the bias the bias has to have a Mana from the Mitzvah of Mana we see the sanctity of the Jewish Home you're bringing into your home something which is actually a relic a a model of the actual in the you can't use it because you're being therefore even cite the Mana as long as the house has a Mana you know why kazal formulated the Mitzvah of Mana that it devolves on the bias and not on the individual I once heard from a great R in England with Isaac Bernstein that he who who said that he saw an article from one of the russas in CRA that if you look in the writings of the rambam one of the gazer of the yanim was they decreed that the doors have to be removed from every Jewish Home in the times of Kaneka because they realize that without a door a home has no modesty has no dignity the yanim were out to defile the sanctity of the Jewish Home and therefore the purpose of the Mana is to restore the sanctity of a bias of a Jew and therefore as we prepare for Kaneka let's look at our homes let's make sure that the home is a resting place for the let's make sure that the husband and the wife we speak to each other with the utmost respect because a Isa represents the and the way we treat her is how we treat the and if we are our wives then the comes to our home and if we ensure that our homes are toar from allowing in outside influence then when we light the Mana we bring the into our homes I want to share with you another point that we discussed in the sa the famous Kasha the P Yeshua what we need the miracle in the first place we could have used T oil everybody knows this is probably the second most famous question on Kana namely that if the majority of the Jewish people are T we could use impure oil why did we need to use pure oil and the famous answer is this is the answer of rfel the beginning is different when you do something for the first time it has to be perfect and the Jews were inaugurating the B mikdash this was the kanuka the inauguration of the temple when you inaugurate something when you begin something it has to always be perfect and we develop a very important idea and I would like um if you have the opportunity to look in the safer of how we start off our day because the same way the beginning of the bdash has to be pure the beginning of our day has to be completely pure the writes the first thing we think about should be the moment you wake up don't think oh I have a tin on him and I'm angry at this person and I have to get back the first thing that comes into your mind Reb I'm alive nature itself is a miracle I woke up again thank you the first words we say should be gratitude I saw in the pis the first thing we look at should be the mza the first thing we we look at should beades because the way something begins sets the tone for its whole future I heard from Freedman the of bells the author of sh Pinas don't start off your day by looking at your phone message email WhatsApp app no grab the opportunity to start the day only badusha save your phone till after daving what a beautiful cabala don't look at your messages don't look at your phone until after the and he said if you accept that upon yourself you are vouch safed that on that phone you're going to see you're going to see Good Tidings you're going to see good things don't even bring it to the pandemic is coming to an end we hope we hope and we have to be very Vigilant to make sure that all the calos that we made especially regarding Kad we adhere to and we stick to and included in that is we leave the phone outside so this is a very relevant concept that Kaneka teaches us now I want to te uh share with you something that didn't quite make it to the safer part of it did and part of it is too sensitive for the safer but I want to share with you personally no gamar anywhere talks about the story of Kaneka at length there's no abouta you have a few lines ofab it almost seems like this is something we're trying to cover up we know there's all perms one day we have a 30 BL should be 240 BL no two and a half BL in the we sayik how about just say it straight God delivered the Gentiles to the Jews and the answer of salvic says in a very amazing essay is that Kaneka is not a celebration of Jews over Gentile Kaneka is a celebration of Jew over Jew yid over miss a dedicated Jew over a hellenized Jew and this is something that's so painful to us we cannot say it we can't talk about it it's not in Al it's not in the gamar it's too painful to talk about it but you have to know about it you have to know Kaneka is the filtering out of the dedicated over not over the go over Jews who are slowly being washed away Kaneka is celebrating the P which the safe of the sh writes you know what the gamar means that there was one flask of oil it's a MH there was one little segment of Jews who are dedicated to dedicated to Tyra dedicated to mitz dedicated to kadas and that small group of Jews nobody would have ever thought that CLA would be able to regenerate from that small group of Jews but it lasted 8 Days meaning that small dedicated group of Jews was able to develop and spread t of this is the miracle of Kan that a small group of dedicated Jews could continue on the T now it's very interesting there's no M for and I once heard from Miller and this was really too sensitive to write about that the reason why Kaneka was not ever incorporated into tanak is because the Nim have a big problem God spoke to the last prophet and then hundreds of years later they spoke according to the they claim God spoke to their Prophet hey why hasn't God been speaking to people for hundreds of years in the interim so what the do is they stuff Kana they canonize khah and they make khah the book of the makab and they make it part of tanak to bridge the gap between the end of Prophecy and Mal however the teach and P are what is called called two friends they're the two pillars of the T they are called you know why they're the pillars of the T says because we have aasha Pur has a Milla M why doesn't Kan have AA oh you know why Kan doesn't havea because prophecy stopped but the say God spoke to their that's nonsense God didn't speak to people anymore only p as doesn't have a Milla so Kan and Milla the Z says support the Tyra you know why P has a Milla doesn't have a MIG why why not because when the temple stood in between God was still speaking to got stopped so that means God never spoke to any false prophets according to the other religions so and are consider two friends that are that literally support the whole Ty these are just a few short and brief ideas from the saer the light and the Splendor and um I would be so honored and very grateful if you're able to get the safer you could go to Art scr website and uh order it it's 20% off or you could go to Torah anytime go to speakers go to gladstein you click on the light on the legacy on the bi bio page and uh the safer is available you'll have it in no time I want to take this opportunity to thank kazak for hosting tonight's sh and should be aware of the amazing work that kazak does Yaniv and ravilan and uh thank you Robbie for the opportunity and aside from everything they do most importantly they bring so many kids to Yeshiva out of uh public school and of course thank you so much to my dear friend rababi Newman and chickens for chabas which is literally has just to feed Jews who need support who need encouragement and who need food so whatever you could do to support this worthy organization if you feed the children of there's no question it will be and your thank you so much for the opportunity wishing everyone and a wonderful evening you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tor anytime.com