The story and miracle of chanukah and Yidden's Mesiras Nefesh, By Rabbi Yossi Paltiel

this is Hanukkah so we'll talk a little bit about Khan again first of all let's start from the very beginning really is the only universal holiday only holiday that we all keep that did not affect the whole Jewish people the reason they did not or the the way we see that it did not affect any everybody is from the fact that if you're familiar with the history when the second base was built a minority a small percentage of the Jewish people made I guess you would call today Aliyah the rose up to the base if you read the gamara you find that Not only was it only a minority that went up to the base but it was the inferior minority the elite in quotes remained in Bravo remained in Babylonia and the gamada tells us that when Ezra the great prophet Ezra went up it was called shivasian and the second return and he took with some Jewish people he made Bothell like sayless Nikia Ezra went up and he designed it in such a way where he deliberately left the choices the best in bubble any person who's yes whose genealogy whose family ties were unquestionable um as the left all the problem he took along with him all the speakers there's a lot of major situations then within the marriage and and things of this sort editor all the questions with him he left the silence the choice of Jewish people in bubble that's what tell us that is considered inferior in terms of to brother like a dough is to find flour and the whole world is Issa itself is like a dough like a mixture is like a tumult compared to other and Ezra went up to Israel one of the first things that as it did was uh people one of the great Endeavors was to trace people's genealogy and put them where they belong their code should be cutting them should be living people from each savitch and belong to their shave it and unfortunately he exposed a lot of illegitimacy and he had to deal with all those questions and it says this is a very great controversy that kind of a year has to take place but the gamada uses a very beautiful line but the peoples who got assimilated to the Jewish people whose Vehicles is not so ideal they're not disposed of they're not pushed away they're simply they lose they don't belong to a tribe and therefore they have a different relationship to the Holy Land and so on whatever it is the entire event of Hanukkah happened in the Holy Land so that group that movement of people that remain behind the Babylonia didn't even know what happened and maybe they knew what happened but it certainly did not happen to them it happened someplace else it happened in different part of the world um and yet Hanukkah is a yamtif that we all keep right foreign Jewish people happen in the desert we were all in one place Purim was unique the Jewish nation was already dispersed and Scattered and disintegrated and you know all over the place but akashvadesh ruled over the whole planet or at least the Civilized world and by consequent by as a result he ruled over the Jewish people over they were there's no place to run and hide Chronicle on the other hand was only over 80 throw now the The Logical reason why hanake separated from other holidays that we all universally celebrated even though it affected a segment portion of the Jewish Nation um because it was in relationship with the base it was in conjunction with the base and I guess ultimately that would have to be the resolution to this you know chronic is one of those things that even though it affects a portion it affects the whole because it's centered around the house of God the based on English belongs to all the Jewish people foreign having said that there's a fuel there's another dimension to it and the other dimension to it is that there's two reasons to celebrate the miracle to celebrate an event within the framework of Judaism the first is a miracle happened historically the Jewish nation is a nation of Miracles we are an existent people who lives on Miracles that's why we survive it's what we are and the devil always talks about the the refusal of some of us or all of us on some level to concede to admit to ourselves so to speak that we are miraculous people and unfortunately when we fail to identify ourselves as a nation of Miracles we sort of speak push the Miracles away um and when a miracle happens to to the Jewish people the average wants us to celebrate these Miracles and to thank Hashem and to make a party and so on the reason to do this is not so much because Hashem needs our gratitude but we need to show our gratitude to him we want to demonstrate to him our appreciation for our sake this is a miracle is one of the great things that Hashem infuses or inspires within the framework within the fabric of creation to remind people of his dominance of his being in charge so to speak in the world that quite often seems to run out of control and have its own agenda in its own inertia so we are supposed to celebrate miracles but Miracles as such are narrow in scope meaning to say if a miracle happens to me I have to celebrate it you're my friend you come to my party but you don't celebrate like I said it's my miracle um how many years am I going to celebrate the miracle well it has to do with how large the miracle is has to do with how far reaching the miracle is because I'll speak about commemorating Miracles that happen to your parents or grandparents right the gazal Tells much as a blessing that you say you come to certain spaces you say God did America of me in this place or she also to my father's to my my ancestry in such and such a place but when we perform a a service or a an expression of Thanksgiving as it were like we had last week of showing gratitude Hashem for a miracle that he performed at a certain point it becomes stale when people move from one place to another when the identity of the people who relate directly to the miracle either personally or through lineage disintegrates just to hang on to events that have happened in the in the past that don't have meaning to specific people in a real way is not it's not it's not it's not you described it's not logical it's it's what they call it's get stale after a while and you describe likes to keep things fresh so Miracles are celebrated intervention the miracle just goes away it goes away by osmosis you don't take it away it ends you know I'll give you an example in the country in the negative for many hundreds of years Jewish people in Poland used to fasten the 20th day of seven to Mark thee the uprising of malinitsky the programs of 1648-49 and even earlier than that that day was declared a fast because of the blood levels nobody fast seven the rabbit points out when the previous level lived in Poland even while in Poland he didn't fast former came in in declaration we're no longer fasting cough seven it just sort of speak dissipated you know during the era of the blood libel during the area of you know it was just so appropriate to Fast Craft Steven you fasted but it eventually just by osmosis it's brought in and people don't fast the 20th of seven and the same is true in Jewish history many communities had personal problems not on the 14th of other some given day of the year where great miracle occurred and they established upon him where they would celebrate in a purim-like fashion you know when their lives were in danger with their potentialism eat and drink and be merry to remember Davis's Miracle what happened to all these purims you could read about them in the history books you read about them in you know in in in incredible terrorist sources and for so many decades or so many centuries even there was a Purim celebrated in Istanbul or celebrated in Damascus was celebrated in Baghdad or celebrated in Alexandria and Egypt or Cairo or pheasant Morocco and so on what happened all these they just seem to go away by themselves an ecological logical because you celebrated when the yante has meaning to you and the young of thesis have meaning for you you stop celebrating it um historically Hashem performed many miracles even for the whole Jewish Nation not every miracle that occurred even to the nation of Israel as a whole is a celebration that we keep for all times it was kept for a while a generation two generations three generations and it goes away it dissipates it just sort of melts into the you know it just goes into the past um certainly Miracles that occurred to a segment of the Jewish world after a certain point they dissipate there's a there's a there's a bison there's a tractate which is not mummish in the Shasta it's not like an addendum to the Shasta that's called magilla's Tinus Miguel status needs to scroll of fasts to give us tyness is a book that enumerates scores of days literally many times 20 days um the Jewish people had semi-yumptives quasi-kind ofs and you're not a lot of fast on those days you're not allowed to say you know a lot of fast you're not allowed to say eulogies I mean how doesn't say ologies but in certain communities when somebody passes away they make a eulogy but if he passes away on holidays if you're making a funeral on days so you know how to be Mass but you have to lessen the veils less than the morning in the hysteria and so on we don't keep magilla's tightness anymore we don't do it people do fast on those days people don't Mark those moments in time there are various reasons for them for one of them is because was destroyed and most of these houses have two at the base now there is time time they become historical events rather than personal events there's a handful you can count them on one hands that don't go away they're just part of the fabric of Jewish life forever and it's a whole different story why because we are not of celebrating these events merely because Hashem from the miracle Miracles like everything else occur in the framework of time in the dimension called time and one of the uh inexorable details about time is you can only travel in time one way at a certain predetermined speed uh pretty much and uh and when an event happened at a certain point in the fabric of time and you travel far enough away from it it's so far in the past you can't even look back and see it anymore the reason we celebrate the handful of holidays we celebrate is because they're not just miracles they're much much more than a miracle to say it in the Hasidic form these events actually predate the miracle that inspired them the how they of pesach came into being in the year 2448 because of the great miracle of the killing of the firstborn of the Egyptians and the miraculous and dramatic excess of the Jewish people from Islam so the holiday called pesach where we commemorate what we honor where we celebrate Jewish faith Jewish birth the birth of the Jewish people Jewish humility and some other nice stuff right to be sure this Moment In Time the 15th day of the month of Nissan represented this concept much before the event ever occurred in other words when the average that created the world when Hashem created the world he created time is an entity it's a creation it's a thing the thing unto itself according to our belief that ever has a letter where he distinguishes these two types of time there's relative time which he says is what Einstein is discussing the time and space and matter are interdependent made it and it's not just one big chunk of of of of of of of of of passive uh existence that allows things to journey through but it's made up of units of Parts like spaces made up of Parts time is made up of Parts as well or units and not all units of time are created the same energy there's ordinary units of time there's extraordinary units of time for example Shabbos is special Shabbos is not special because we keep it we keep shopping because today is special when it comes the seventh day of the week if there's not a single man or woman on the planet to celebrate Chavez Chavez is special it's the time the energy of the time is distinct it's different than the energy of a Sunday and a Monday the same is true of our holidays comes pesach the events that ha that happened that led to the establishment of the haldia pesach really didn't create the holiday they revealed the holiday they exposed to us part of the fabric of creation is in the 15th day of this month you're going to celebrate freedom you're going to celebrate Faith you're going to celebrate humility and so on and the same is true of shuis and the same is true of sukis and the same is true of put them in the same is true those events have survived the history of the Jewish people better than other events not only because they were more significant but because there's a book in the church scriptures the book on the Tanakh written to represent them they survived because spiritually they are Transcendent in other words the story of Purim is not the reason for the celebration according the story of Purim is simply what told us about this day the story of Hanukkah is not celebrated exclusively only because of the events that led to the establishment of this holiday the the celebration of Hanukkah has to do with the fact that this day has an energy that's worthwhile to be celebrated every year from the beginning of the time till the end of time it is only that as the plastic states does everything on an appropriate and in a healthy system a healthy schedule and as a result the time has to be right for the holiday to become revealed so there's something which separates pesos honey can put him from various other holidays and that is most of the holidays are the result of an event something happened we make a holiday well eventually we forget about the event we stopped keeping the holiday these five holidays are not the result of that they're the cause for an event the reason we went out of time the 15th day of Nissan is because this day is destined to redeem and the reason we received the title on the 6th or the seventh of Stevens because this day is destined for the day of the giving of the title and the same is true of the others but everything has a Time it comes this day in a particular Year God reveals to us through the events through the Miracles the significance of these holidays this is why most holidays come and go and a handful of holidays just stick around they stick around not because they just somehow have better luck but because they're spiritually connect at the time and when this event that happens again the next year spiritually the energy is here all over again we celebrate in conjunction with the sanctity of the house of God put in we celebrate Mercedes nevish in conjunction with the framework of that even on a level where the Jewish people are thrown to chance and random call the goethal put him what does puta mean a lottery perfectly chance perfect you know chance arbitrariness still is a favoritism of Hashem to the Jewish people and there's a long philosophy to each of these naturally to be most involved but the essence of it is the times of these holidays is not because they just had better luck but because spiritually that they're more meaningful than the events that Inspire them in the first place which is why I don't know if I mentioned it here but I've certainly mentioned it in other places we seem to find certain things that have a tendency to fall on certain days one of the examples of this is Hanukkah itself one thousand years and some before the miracle of Hanukkah there was another event that occurred on the 25th day of kisler and that is that in the year 200448 when the Jewish people left Egypt they made the golden calf and got them out told them to build them a home they started to build a home the day after Yom Kippur in the year 2449. they finished building the ABC's home on the 25th day of Kiss Live and the Jewish people came to Malaysia and said we're all finished let's put it up let's get to work and what she said let me go consult my boss or our boss and David she said wait till the end of other wait till traditions so it's broken spotted that the day complained and said that's not fair I'm sorry the um the uh was completed and this day why am I being displaced by another day in the calendar and David said your time will come and then a thousand or so years later the same day became an occasion to celebrate the same type of an event the event of Hanukkah renewing the house of God just waited a thousand years and of course there's an involved discussion this itself doesn't make sense why why should the Wait A Thousand Years and maybe I'll talk about in a moment but the time this is of these holidays is not just because the enormity of the Miracles the times of these holidays because these holidays transcend the Miracles that Inspire them I believe I mentioned this to you last week is a celebration of the autonomous Redemption from prison about 550 or 600 years before the outlet ever lived it was a great Sage who wrote a book called Charles that means to say basically responsive in heaven questions and answers from Heaven you would communicate with the heavens and they would answer his questions it's a cool book he would ask questions and put him under his pillow and get answers and in one of the many troubles in the safe and he has the chuva which he finishes with the following words today is Tuesday the 19th day of the month of Kiss Live and there's a day for basura for good news at the time that this was written nobody understood the significance of this day and then 550 600 years later all of a sudden this kisser becomes a holiday so whatever refers to this event refers to this in in his writings on YouTube and he explained this is proof of this notion of that created the world he created time and he created special units in time Utah Schism is a special unit in time but the time for the revelation of that special unit was not yet era hadn't yet come so a day is special we don't know yet why and how yes we're celebrating the event no questions also miracles for our ancestors okay within our patriarch uh in those days at this particular time that's true but that's a certain energy associated with the holiday of Hanukkah that is timeless Timeless not only in the future but also in the past from year one of creation Cafe kiss level special people simply didn't know about it for about 3 500 years and of course the question becomes okay so then what is special about hanuk so you have to examine the events you have to examine the the heroism of the Jewish people you have to examine the Miracles and at that basis try and figure out what it is about Hanukkah that rented Annika a special day and in a nutshell in essence it has to do with uh I'll say it two different ways an irrational commitment to sanctity to holiness or said alternatively that the relationship that Hashem has the Jewish people is inherently super logical it's bigger than reason it's bigger than wisdom the story of Hanukkah is essentially a story of Messiah of self-sacrifice the miracle of Hanukkah is the miracle of self-sacrificing self-sacrifice prevailing winning the the story of The Jug of oil and there's brought in so many spot and what makes it so special is that it was an unnecessary miracle according to Jewish law when the whole Community is unclean spiritually unclean you can offer up the oil in an unclean state I'm sorry the fact that the Jewish people did not offer up the oil was a stubbornness was an insistence no we're going to do it right it was beyond the letter of the law now we're going to bring pure oil what was the whole big deal the big deal was we just gave our lives precisely for this we gave our lives for what not for the for the Jewish people not even for Judaism but for the sanctity of Judaism which is what the Greeks have such a major problem this notion of transcendence of Holiness of spirituality of quote more than meets the eye this is what God under the skin of the Greeks that's what the Greeks had a problem with that was their issue and yet not just for themselves for their own Survival or even for the survival of their culture they were amazing the survival of the sanctity so the oil for the essence for the richness for the soul that is the Jewish people and the Jewish faith and the Amish they made a nest they used to perform the great miracle for us that uh that we found one jug of pure oil and it burned eight days Hashem sort of speak responded Hashem let us know through his reaction that he agrees with us but yes it was worth sacrificing themselves for this cause even though arguably Not only was it not logical it arguably was irreligious it may have been against Judaism to do what they did and yet the English to demonstrated his support for it by providing them with just one jug of oil that remained pure at any event so that's just an Insider Technica so why do we keep Hanukkah if it's if it's narrow if it didn't affect the whole Jewish people because it's not a matter of how many people that affect it it's a matter of how spiritually significant of an adventurous is not only the celebration of a miracle it's a big mistake because we've had many miracles we've had many many miracles occur in our history why don't we celebrate the victory at antevi and the truth of the matter is those people who participated to do it every year to make a party and to celebrate the miracle of God why don't we celebrate I mean the Jewish people the victory had the miracle we had last week you know unfortunately Miracles are happening in front of our eyes but they're Bittersweet so we just we go numb not that we're not known without it there were six Jews I think killed in Kenya they shot two two heat sensitive missiles and a plane loaded with people there is no explanation why one wasn't enough to not to play none of this God but we just don't see we just don't see the hand of God in our lives I I'm so convinced of this that I'm even saying it we are a miraculous people we always where we are noise will be everyone has all cooked up about the tragedies that have befall in the Jewish people and it's a terrible time and it's a reminiscent of the Holocaust here all kinds of terrible things people are saying let's not forget a couple of things number one pardon me for being so realistic our destiny is in our own hands and nobody else's this hasn't happened in a very very long time and that's a problem because you can't pray to God When God says I've given you what you need to do just do it and there's another part of this also and that other part of it is the way that Eva would say it Hashem has been performing miracles for us since the Holocaust that are very unusual he just doesn't like when we tell him no thank you we've been telling you no thank you far too many times you know when when when when a week or two passes and there are no suicide bombings in the land of Israel yeah so we all relax yeah what we don't know is that that means that every minute for those three weeks through a Miracles happening how many of them were we're we're thwart we're prevented we're that's whatever it is yeah so what do we say the IDF what who watches the Jewish people watch them so how come sometimes tragedies occur so first of all obviously the ravish just don't want us to live in this world and second of all you can trace you can almost directly link every unfortunate tragedy to a weakness on the part of the Jewish people now why is appeasement such a terrible thing and why is the lab is so opposed to a peace treaty and to to appeasement and to getting along why does it ever say that anytime you show weakness you're going against it and it ever said more than once you've never said that when you keep a war started that episode War is the consequence of the ceasefire this is before your time it's even before my time why are we winning huh we waited how many people did we lose Israel was never the same after never The Pride Pride that Israelis had was killed in 60 is and we did it to ourselves because you're trying to appease this one up in the other one why the answer because there's a there's actually laws this Jewish law there's a religious mandate about how you fight Wars and part of that mandate is that when you have an enemy you cannot uh uh put yourself in a situation where you are not fully protecting yourself against your enemy I guess that's the way to say it you're not allowed to put yourself in the slightest position of danger no matter what the so-called political um benefits maybe it's against Jewish law Jewish law does not allow a Jew to put himself in danger it certain does not allow himself to put somebody else's life in danger it still does not allow them to put them the millions of lives in danger and the person says yeah I know but with temporary putting people's lives in danger and at the end it'll be safer unfortunately Judaism does not allow for that stipulation doesn't give you that option doesn't say well weigh the options you know politics is not does not exist and the laws of Kings you don't have to read a lot it's one or two chapters where the Raman discusses how you have to behave and work on and you'll see you're not allowed to be you're not allowed to be weak it doesn't make sense militarily and it's against haters push it against Titans against Allah so the devil keeps on saying that if Jewish people would have a little pride and push it follow what potato says they would see not just Miracles they would see only miracles of the age did but anyways I got a little carried away there um um hang on a second um but we are a nation of Miracles that's that's that's what we are the reason certain Miracles and we have to celebrate every Miracle the reason certain miracles are celebrated without an end it's because they're more than Miracles if they were Miracles alone we would have forgotten about Hanukkah a long time ago we'd have 50 Hanukkah since then Hanukkah is still here because it celebrates not an event but an idea a Transcendent truth that is connected to this time go ahead I got myself into this mess now I got to answer everybody's questions if you're not allowed to endanger yourself right like you're not allowed to walk to Hebron to go to it's a very interesting question and it's a question for adov and if you can ask it off he may tell you not allowed to go seriously you should know that in the late 60s when they were establishing the community in heaven so those days it was the left the far left that was all about teachers of him settling the land at nakalut to settle the territories and they came to the rabbit and asked the rabbit that he should encourage hasidim to settle in heaven made an issue in Trust but not in heaven not bislature so the rabbit told him then 1968. I hear that you're planning to give it back and they told that but what are you talking about it's out of the question this is ours yeah and and the rabbit said and they told the devil that you know you have to and the devil said to them there's no Kiev and Theta to be Mason nephesh for you you don't have to risk your life to settle a lot of Israel if to sell a lot of Israel but not at a danger to your own life and the empathy refused to make an official so to speak the lab is Vision it wasn't because he didn't trust God he didn't trust the government okay