Chanukah: A Celebration of the Power of Torah By Rabbi Anthony Manning

welcome and this is a very special Yun pran Yun um here at the uh OU Israel and besset Hani it's really special to be with you as you know I've been away for the last couple of weeks um uh driving around America and recruiting as somebody asked me if I'd uh had a nice vacation and I looked wistfully to the stars and said like Hali I actually I drove 1500 miles around North America and I spoke 24 times while I was there so vacation this is my vacation okay come be back to speak to you nice people um if I could ask you please to turn your phones off uh that would be very helpful in fact could also announce the sponsorship of the shear the shear is sponsored by Sharon and Michael Cronenberg um Nish Sharon's mother haran Rabat harav Shimon aser and the as a ma for the birth of a new grandson El Ben Shimon aser and I assume the Shimon Asha there is related connected are the sponsors here in the audience today oh very nice thank you very very very much I assume the shim Asha Gran is the shim Asha grandfather which is a great-grandfather which is a very beautiful closing of a circle um as barash the Jewish Community moves on to a new door of of uh new giborim and today's Shir actually is dedicated to the idea of G um I wasn't sure exactly what what did Rabbi Glazer just speak about glassa he spoke about the manura ah the Flames of history and the light of Destiny excellent um and this looks excellent I wish I'd been here I'm sorry I wasn't um and I'd like to speak about gu as well is a topic which is very connected with khah um but I'd like talk about a certain kind of of khah that sometimes gets a little overlooked as we're rolling out the khah songs um you'll all be singing in your head theik songs and there's the Israeli songs and of course one of the Israeli songs famous is you can sing it in your heads and of course that is an interesting take uh it's a very Israel it's a secularization of aim which isem so the Assumption there which I'd like to suggest is a false dichotomy is that the only way we can move from here on is to change to I mean it also Rhymes which is helpful for the song um but there actually is no dichotomy there and that's one of the classic mistakes of secular Israeli culture that they think that there is a there has to be a bre a reach a break away from theem in order to get to the is and actually we'll see straight away the beginning of the sh even if you don't look in kazal they'll say oh well kazal you know they're obviously religious they they're moving it to a religious place no not just kazal but sa makim itself will see very clearly that what they they felt in the time of the makim that they were fighting for or at least when they recorded the which is not that long after is not just but also they go together so let's make a start um let's start with Alim coming up soon in a near you may so back in the days of the wicked Greek Nation rose up against and the helist um the helist approaches rose up against Israel and the first thing on the list what is the first thing that they were trying to do they were trying to get us to forget and this word is a code word it's an important word it's not just a word that there thrown in randomly that the aim of this process of the Greeks as far as at least this angle is concerned is to make us forget our Torah to try and leave off from um observance of Mitzvah but the idea of forgetting the Torah is brought in clearly in in the speech the very rousing speech of yud and that's why I wanted to bring you a much less well-known Source in Source number two from that records here when the Jews when theim and their forces saw how many non-jewish soldiers were lined up against them the power the the weapons the missiles that they were forced to to face they said we go out there's there's relatively few of us and we are weak we haven't eaten we've been fasting we have we have no to fight these people how are we ever going to face up to all these nations many fronts a war on many many fronts against you know missiles that we haven't even can't even imagine and yud answers them and says and you see here in before the or the same time as it was written is is God not able to give over the many to the few God can save whether there are many or few against you God is the one who gives ultimate salvation okay and he won't help if people come at you with great numbers if God wants you to win you'll win they trust in their numbers in their weapons but they they are here to kill not just you as soldiers they're not interested in just killing soldiers they're here to wipe you out he says to the men they're here to kill you they're here to kill your wives they're here to kill your families and your children and to steal all your money we are going to stand we're going to save our own lives that's not that's not something which was added by that's added by so don't be scared Don't Run Away don't be scared in front of them and God will give us a Salvation And I I don't need to tell you how unbelievably exciting and inspiring it is to be in a in a in a in a loop of Jewish history and Destiny here in the land of Israel uh where the the fights and the wars and the inspiration of Yuda makabi resonate to us today in what we've seen over the last months and the last year the struggles the hardships the loss and yet the the Salvation it's it's quite remarkable and therefore I I find these words these lines from y Mak makab be very very impactful um and it's important that he's saying we're fighting for Torah what does he mean with fighting for Torah so the idea of G relating to Torah study is actually very Central and I think this is one of the main themes of khah which we're going to bring out here as well the idea that you have to be very strong to be committed to a life of tah and to learning Terah specifically T shabal and I'm not just talking about the traditional learning sitting in yes with but the life devoted to and dedicated to Torah look at number three t a life of Torah can only be fulfilled and can only be lived M it put someone they have to kill themselves over it not literally obviously but they have to really dedicate themselves to it it's not something for the fainthearted in with the now obviously he's playing with those words it's not theat level it doesn't mean this is the Torah of the person who kills themselves but the kazal is saying this is the Torah this is what Torah requires a person Adam who dedicates themselves 100% And of course this is not relevant to just to men this is relevant to all Jews the Mitzvah of dedication to Torah as and and and don't forget specifically when the ramban brings down the Mitzvah of connecting to God of loving to loving God this is a Mitzvah which applies equally to men and to women this is Mitzvah number three of 613 and when the rambam says there how can we doem how can we be so dedicated but these are not just words they're very impactful he says well look at the next line by the answer to how to do this is learn these words study these texts understand these ideas this is the idea of connecting to God intimately we'll see even more of that in a few minutes through learning Torah what's the first word in the first word be be a gior you every Jew this is not again talking to one group every Jew has to wake up in the morning like a gibor like an Arie like a lion and again it doesn't mean like a like a a lion wakes up if you look at lions in the zoo waking up they're pretty sleepy for for hours and hours on end that's not what he he's saying with when a lion has his mind on something he does it to to do avoid AEM I could I actually recommend I didn't put it on the sheet but I should have done Where's My Water gone here um there was a a wonderful wonderful essay written it was a speech given by ra aronstein at the opening of may not high school may not high school in uh tenek uh some of you here will be familiar with it it's if you're not it's worth a visit there it's a wonderful institution I've often been into Maya not high school and one of the things I I asked the young lady studying in Maya not high school is have you read Aron Lenin's speech when he opened my are not high school and every single one of them just looks at me like you know no it should be required reading and the whole speech the whole rash is about learning AEM and in particular as it relates to women of course it relates to everybody but the there he's saying is don't think because you're women you do not have this this is a very very fundamental idea and T shabal in particularly the oral number four there was this is during the time of the who was the great grandson I think if you work it out of there was a a good for nothing man with him a really evil-hearted man says to the the minds the hearts of the Pharisees that's our guys the what became kazal they are against you they're plotting against you so he says what can I do and he goes through a whole suggestion of different things that He suggests and eventually he says he says to him if you want to hear my advice wipe them out destroy them completely crush them so Yan says what's going to be with Torah if I kill all the rabbis so he says noar and zavid what do you mean Torah Torah is over in the corner of the room in the Aon kodes you have a saer Torah he's a king he has a saer Torah right have a saer Torah over there anyone who wants to learn can learn who needs rabbis you don't need rabbis to learn Tora it's like I say you know when you meet Christian atheists they have a problem with God when you meet Jewish atheists they have a problem with with rabbis they don't have a problem with God Jewish atheists they like gods they just have a problem with rabbis telling them what to do if you want to learn Torah go and open the Torah who needs a rabbi's head there must have been at that point heresy because he should have answered him okay I get it the written Torah they can just open and learn to but what's going to be with the oral Torah you can't just look that up you need a relationship with that you need you need a rabbi a mentor a teacher then terrible things broke out from that point and kills the rabet he goes in on a rampage killing out the rabbis of the time and this is of course after the Kaneka story this is the descendants of Yuda makabi who fell back in to the ways of the hels became hels became themselves Sadducees later and then the Civil War of aristois and hukus is not a story that ends well it's a story that begins well okay and it's important to remember that when we when we learn about the whole Jewish world was wiped out and there's a story of who was of course the brother-in-law of yan and the story of how He restored Torah in that way which I'm not getting into but again the focus there is on the oral Torah why the oral Torah number five says the through the oral where is the oral Torah not lying in the corner it's in your mouth it's in your mind it's the billions of neurons sparking off each other in your mind right now that is where the oral Torah is therefore the oral Tor is you is deep embedded in your very person it's not and he's obviously referring to this idea he's not written on a clap on a parchment in the corner which is obviously detached from you it's written with ink on a cow skin it's not you whereas that is you it's not the is not on its own it stands within you God didn't create a covenant with the Jewish people he on the Covenant is that joins two things together The Giver of the Covenant and and the receiver of the Covenant and that's not the same as the written Torah which is not in you which is a very very important idea that the oral T at the end of the day is the ultimate bond between us and God because it the Torah of God in whatever way you understand Torah it's a whole complicated issue but it's embedded within the psyche and within the mind of the person itself there was a wonderful program uh on the BBC and you don't often hear people say that these days uh but there was many many years ago it was the sounds of religions I mentioned this before what's the sound of the different religions so they had people you know exploring the sound of religion so of course for Islam they had muin calling people to prayer for Christianity they had Bells ringing for Buddhism okay they had a Gong you know so what did they do for Judaism that the sound of laas frying no they didn't do that the guy went into the miva and recorded 5,000 men screaming at each other screaming and he just they just played this cacophony of people screaming and they said that is the sound of Judaism people engaging directly passionately with Torah and of course that's all T shabal that's what they're doing it's not K Tor in which is T it's the the learning of Etc and the concern always when you're learning is look at number six surely says the would have been better to put the oral Torah in writing because the written Torah can never be forgotten it can be corrupted it can be translated into Greek and and that was obiously a tragedy you can read the the ideas of the rabbis on why that was a tragedy but the Tor tal can be forgotten why didn't they put it in writing requested in M on this the answer is has to be in your mind it has to be the Torah is a it's a Heritage the Torah is bonded to us is engaged to us is married to us it's a bonding of two things it has to be with us it has to be in our minds the it's not possible in any other way and therefore the danger the danger of tal is how we how we going to avoid forgetting it how we going to go over over it how are we going to remind ourselves how are we going to keep it fresh in our minds and that's exactly what we saw in they came to help them to to to enable a forgetting a putting aside of the Tor and now maybe you understand we understand better in number seven look at the quite a famous but now perhaps better understood Mission what does say anyone who forgets one thing from his Mish from his learning is liable as it were for their life it's like a death penalty event ofense be very careful says the be really really careful don't forget the things that you saw and the B has beautiful piece where he says this is not talking about that if you forget it's as if you know it's a capital issue you can just go look it up again this is talking about Torah shabal and of course now the Torah shabal is written down that makes this a little bit easier but still at the end of the day T shabal is something which is very very very precious so what's this got to do with Kaneka so I want to explore with you a an idea that I find personally very engaging which is this um um transition we've talked about some elements of this in before I learned with you a couple of years ago R Cook's piece but I'm not going to have time to learn that today I'd like to look at some other angles today the idea of the transition from prophecy to T to the oral law and that is exactly what KH is all about the G the the discipline of creating a system of oral law is what's going on here so let's have a look at some of these ideas together number eight is very well known talks about the the Tora the chain of Tor not going to learn it all in detail but as you know M yesu this process of M M it's handed on down to Yeshua Yeshua to theim and then it says theim the elders handed it over to the prophets okay they seem to be part of the chain of tradition they went to the the super San hedrin at the beginning of the zeni period the men of the great assembly and then you have Shimon hat sadic mishari kesa he was one of the last of the Kessa and then antigonus is who you immediately see has a Greek name this is not like a bad Greek name this is obviously good he was one of the leaders of the Jewish people I gave a share many years ago about having a Jewish name or a non-jewish name and the issues it's one of the sherim online there um I feel particularly connected with this idea because even though my name is Abraham uh because you know that's my name and I'm very happy and I'm married to someone called Sarah which works really well actually it's a it's a great you can imagine what they told me at the Chev brers every night you know you know was a was was a gift we have a son named Yak he's absolutely right um but we do not we do not have any ishmael's at all so uh we're not talking about that right now no maid servants I can assure you um uh so so uh we have a dishwasher I don't if that so um what's going on here with the but I'm saying even though I'm called Abraham on my passport it says Anthony which is a non-jewish name the question is like how does that work in in America I'm called out that all the time because they say you can't be a rabbi and be called Anthony because they're two things don't work together you know C Anon is are Italian American whatever not for now so anous and then you have the pairs and then you have Yeshua yud sh and finally H and shamai now I brought you in the little sort of chart here what was going on at the same time as these people and there are some important things to just pull out shim had sad the famous midash about him meeting who Alexander the Great more about that in a little bit um antigonus of Soo during his time there was the septu again the translation of the tanak into Greek and that translation is a whole Shir of itself which I can't go into now it's found in in Jewish sources it's found in Pho of Alexandria which you could also say is a Jewish Source but it's slightly different kind of Jewish Source it's found of course in the letter to of aristas which is an ancient um second uh second third Century BCE Greek source which also records it and it's all recorded in slightly different ways in each of those and that would be maybe we should have a Shear on what exactly was the problem of translating the Torah into Greek um although now that we have a Torah in Greek kazal pasan and the ramban paskin is that if a saer Torah is written in ancient Greek it's still koser which is fascinating meaning if a saer Torah has one letter missing missing in Hebrew it's possible he can't use it but if the whole Torah is written in ancient Greek then it's a kosher Torah leaving aside whether we have access to ancient Greek today to be able to do that accurately that idea is a very in interesting idea of the connection there again of Greek Greece and Torah which we're not getting into so much today but then the khah story you'll see yes Bell um during during their time it was the kanah story and then Yan Civil War and then the Romans came in and Jude was captured and destroyed eventually by the Romans but the nvim the prophets who were part of that that whole um chain of M are obviously Central to Judaism just look for a second in number nine When God says to the Jewish people how where are you going to get your tabal from who is going to give you God's word that is is not written down in the book who's going to do that so look at number nine so mosha says to the people in these other nations that you're going into conquer the Canaanites Etc who do they turn to soothsayers magicians astrologers that's where they get their if you like oral law God doesn't let you do that that's just that's nonsense superstitious God's going to give you listen to the navi instead of the soothsayer and The Magicians listen to the navi listen to the and he says just like you asked in when God Appears to the people at sin and they say this is too much we can't cope with this anymore we don't want it anymore let's let's give it give it to us through through you mosha and God says great that's a good reaction and Moshe says okay you are you spoke well and you're now going to get Torah not directly from God but through a na'vi so the navi if you like was the the NVA was the original Source brought down here of the non written Torah um and therefore nvim were an essential part of our entire life as Jews the question which we're going to look at in the second is well is that does that include or does that not include is that just life coaching just very important life coaching what is exactly is this Torah of the na'vi that we have to listen to just go over to page number three and you see of course Nim originally were not so uh not so uh popular if you like there weren't so many Nim when shuel hears his NAA he was the the first real main principal na'vi after the Torah was written obviously Yeshua is a na'vi as well but shoel was much much more important the so was living with Al as a servant there as a Ley in the mikdash God's word was very precious very little very few people had it this word is very important seeing the navi understood things with a Clarity of sights okay allbe through through a lens which was somewhat foggy but there was a seeing when you look through a lens you see something Kazan prophecy was not so commonplace but shmuel was the one of course he didn't know himself he was getting it he was one of the first to if you like bring prophecy into the world in a significant way we'll see soon why that was but eventually prophecy became enormous look at number 11 T RAB there were 48 male n and seven female and we'll see that wasn't the only ones the but they never changed to Chang the written Torah they never changed the written Torah did they change the oral Torah not clear apart from millat Esther that was added in to the to the uh to the tanak but the prophets themselves didn't change the Torah in that way so what did they do we'll see in a minute number 12 just before we get to that and there were many many prophets twice the number that came out of Egypt okay that mean be a literal thing that they were literally 1.63 million or whatever but they were hundreds of thousands of prophets but we have in our whatever was needed of Prophecy for the generations whatever wasn't needed we don't have but it wasn't just 48 prophets and seven nvot prophetesses it was thousands tens of thousands if you were living in the time of the first Bas of mikash it's trying to say to you you if you had a if you had an issue you go to your sister-in-law your brother-in-law your un your nephew was a prophet your niece there were prophets in your family Prophet nvim all around you and and they were there the question is for what what were they there for so there's a fascinating and fundamental debate about this which is not necessarily resolved although you only ever hear one side of this debate in most circles the rambam is absolutely clear that a na'vi may only input in nonh halakic issues nonh halakic issues look at number 13 says the rambam in introduction to to the Mish Torah introduction to the Mish excuse me you must know thisi doesn't do anything to explain the T of the Torah teaching using interpretation thei doesn't do anything whatever yesu the original were doing in terms of Torah learning in terms of ruling fascinating whatever Yeshua and Pinas were doing it was not using their prophetic side it was the same as Rina and Rashi meaning they were working ason they were working as the rambam says there's an absolutely strict separation of powers if you were to go to yes hanavi and say to him I need life coaching I need to know uh you know should I marry this man should I take this job should I live in this place should I be part of this community that community help me out here yes shahu would have had or whoever was the Novi that you were most close to and there were thousands and thousands good advice for you let me go into prophetic mode Let's like talk to God let's see what God wants that if you like was your oral connection with God but if you'd have gone says the rambam to yesah anavi and said you know something I'm really sorry to say this again but I've just Dro my milky spoon into my chicken soup again and I want to know what the Hala is so apart from him saying well you know you should know yourself by now because this is the fifth time you've asked me that Chila um he would say he would have to say Okay stop I need to go offline off with a Novi hat and on with the hat he has to go offline he has to kind of turn off the Wi-Fi go on to air airplane mode or whatever they did no Wi-fi because I cannot the rambam says yesi would say I cannot give you aack based on on N why not because that's called Lish and that's called Source number 14 and there he goes into in detail he says if AI gives a based on they are obligated in the death penalty they are a they have to be executed and the reason is at the say at the end he says because of La last line of number 14 that's why the say they can't make anything new up in this is often taught but this is not the position of the kar the says very interestingly number 15 as follows how could it possibly be okay how does go with Mitzvah not to add not to take away from the Tor the the rabbi answers the king fascinating this idea of not adding on to the Torah that was just said to the regular people people like me you know the H why so they wouldn't make stuff up people are going to say oh I know I have a great halic interpretation of the Torah it means this or it means this and they just be from their own minds they they make up their own Torah from their own analysis just like the kites do so the people the everyday people were told you can't add to the Torah and therefore he's telling you listen to the even after from the priests and from the from the judges we just saw that what does mean don't add on what to what completely different to the r says the the job of the Nim and the N was exactly that Torah shabal they were the ones interpreting the Torah and giving over creating tab not like the ramb and actually Rook makes it very clear in number 16 the view of the is thees is part of the process of not like the r who makes a very strict separation between them and in fact R says and that's why it says in P that theim handed it on to the what theim Asim the whole thing's about the beginning of p is about the the transmission of so why does it say that zakim gave it to the Nim if the Nim had no halakic role he said that makes no sense of course the Nim had a halakic role so how do you understand this mlus it's like completely contradictory the rambam says no Torah stops at Sinai that kind of Torah and the Nim have no ability to continue it and the Kari says no on the contrary Nim are a continuation of the Sinai process so look at this wonderful posk in number 17 and then we'll get into khah in a couple of seconds says the says that God SP spoke this at sin to all of your congregation on the m what was it a great voice that never y never what Whata mean Rashi number 18 it never ended there's no sof there's aof there's no end to sin Revelation sin Revelation goes on because the voice of sin goes on forever alternative explanation says the says rash it did not continue was there was no more Revelation wow two completely opposite understandings of Rashi laaf means it never continued and laaf means it never ended you know take your pick which one you're going to well one is the one is the rambam that it never continued it was Sinai and not the Nim and one is a kusari which is it never ended because NAA was a constant chain of uh of Revelation and in fact and I want to now bring it to R sad R of Lublin talks about this a lot he's very interested in this transition from the nvim why did the nvim end why why were there no more Naim in the second temple we don't hear of any Nim in the second temple other than the very beginning Zar and also important question where were the rabbis in the first temple meaning look at second temple time look at yanai look at the stories of the it's always the The King The Sim versus the rabbis the Sanhedrin the Sanhedrin said that why do we not hear anything about the Sanhedrin in the first temple period it was a sanedrin it's in to put together 70 zakim plus mosha that's 71 but why why did they not figure in Jewish history in a major way in the first temple so RAB sodic says and you can read this you know in England in English later he said it's obvious because during the time of the Nim he goes with the kar the Nim were the people who were giving over T shabal they were the ones giving over t shabat to the people and the rabbis had a much you know smaller role they were judges they were adjudicating cases Etc but the role of Tor shabal was the N when they stopped it was handed over to the rabbis and therefore t shabal as we know it today as a rabbinic institution was really kickstarted in the second temple period at the story of Kaneka and we'll see this in a minute as being absolutely critical but his understanding here is that we listen to theim and then we hand it over to the why and how did that happen look in 23 so let's look at this quickly and we'll see how Kana Works number 23 so tell us that ended the beginning of this first temp the second temple period the last um they came up from from B and founded the second Commonwealth the second um Mal by the way is associated with M as well may is Mor and that's obviously the PM Story 25 says who is which of course aak is of course um Venus the star of Venus you know phosphorus and vorus vorus in the evening phosphorus in the morning which of course is the same star which is aate which is the Esther is from is her non-jewish name right her her Jewish name is hadasa and Esther is her non-jewish name and a is where the English word star comes from the word star is from the ancient goddess the ancient Babylonian goddess Persian goddess which is Esther's name she is the Morning Star what does this mean why is Esther compared to this morning star in the morning the dawn of a new day just like the morning is the end of a dark period a s so too Esther is the end of all n the end of all miracles now before we even finish the source that's strange Miracles were a dark period and Esther represents the end of the darkness and the beginning of the Dawn now that's not how would have thought it would be also Esther represents the end of Na as well we'll see in a minute she's the last of than nvot basically the last so that's also the end of a dark period and the beginning of a new door says the what are you talking about miracles this is no no no no we're talking about miracles in the written Torah in the written T therefore kazal points out khah has a completely different identity it has an identity in the oral Torah think about it who saw the miracle of Kaneka nobody almost nobody it was in the manura who who was looking at the manura a few coim that were walking in there every now and then it wasn't a public miracle in the way that the Jews felt puim the entire Jewish Nation Madu Kush felt that they had experienced this miraculous saving of of of Esther and hamon and M there cannot be a more public Miracle okay a miracle in the sense that you know fire came down from the sky but that's the whole point of the Milla right to understand that this is no less miraculous that God works through the historical process there cannot be a greater contrast between pu between puim and khah puim the miracle that most people in the whole of History saw and Kaneka the miracle that the least people in in all of history saw fim in the mikdash saw this miracle of the of the flame um and he says that's a different category completely okay 26 and then we're into khaka so when did really end what was the makes what was the point what was the moment what was the key uh the key uh impetus to end the miraculous age number 26 from predicts Danielle says the king will arise a great king a gior with powerful King ra he'll have an enormous Kingdom he'll be able to do whatever he wants say here say which which is attributed to rabi yose who alexandr moon this is a reference to Alexander the Great and he reigned for 12 years and he of course his kingdom was all the way from Greece all the way to India so what's with Alexander says the G up until this [Music] Pointes up until this point we had we had this this Lifeline to truth through up until this point from this very Point onwards nowarn to put your ear out and now now listen to the meaning themselves are telling us this is a turning point this is the axial sort of point at which we're told to stop listening to N there will be no more n there'll be no more there'll be no more Vision in that way what they will be now is thinking understanding T shabal that you mustn't forget that you need to revise the central to Judaism and that is actually a critical issue and we'll see now the direct relationship with Kaneka number 27 very famous gorra where God took the Jewish people to sin and I'll tell you this outside you know this you've all heard this a thousand times that that we stood under the mountain and the mountain was held over our heads and we said you know nishma very nice okay fine but the gamor then said uh yeah but that's what happened then I mean that was by force how can you tell the people that they really accepted Torah when they were forced to what's the answer when it came to K is written without a V at the end as if if it wasel as in one person a reput a repetition of Sinai and again you've heard this 100 times the idea that puim the T was re-accepted in a more voluntary way I the people saw god without having a mountain held over their heads I.E meta metaphorically speaking I don't need you to give me a miracle out loud you know as a fire from the sky in order for me to see the miracle in God they saw it in the puim story but less well known is this midrash number 28 the the Jewish people didn't accept the Torah originally until the mountain was over their heads if you accept the Torah great if not you'll be buried here now says the mid if you want to ask that God forced them to receive the written Torah by putting a mountain over their head this is an obvious question how can we say that the original Torah was given to them by force by coercion with this as it were Mountain over their heads metaphorically they said now doesn't sound very false they said we'll do it completely sorry a line Second yeah that's because the written Torah is relatively easy how hard is it to learn tanak how long is it you can do it very quickly not very quickly but you can do it it's a it's a an achievable goal but when God said to them there's that as well all the details easier ones harder ones it's like death learning tomorrow you know it drives you crazy page after page after page of tiny little diim and ddim about something you don't really care about anyway like how I'm never going to learn this the it's like hell I mean this is a really really strong Source okay it's like it's it's terrible here's what I said before because can only be learned by someone who has real dedication Real Love forem Like I said before therefore what's it saying what did the Jewish people accept willingly at sin the written Torah but the oral Torah who needs it who wants it we don't want that says God I'm sorry guys it's a package deal Mountain overhead you got to take the whole thing okay you insist we don't want it but we'll take it later at the poring story they were able to be more mature they were able to say you know something I think we're ready for this now we're able to take this they accepted willingly what did they accept willingly they accepted willingly the Torah shabal that they'd been forced to take before and radic creates a whole um narrative out of this which is fascinating he says the Jewish people were originally meant to accept T but they were immature at Sinai they wouldn't do it they wouldn't take it they didn't want to put the work in like you know kids and teenagers they don't want to do the hard work so God says I'm sorry for now I'm going to have to force you you'll do it did they do it not really then Ren comes and brings all these um goras that said they asked Yeshua oh please uh you know go to God and ask him directly and Yeshua says no it doesn't work that way anymore you've got to do it yourselves and the people says no no I don't want it they say to shm you go to God and ask him directly and schm says to them it doesn't work that way anymore and but they won't take it So eventually what does God do God says okay you know something for now says he says I give him I'll send you na I'll spoon feed you I'll give it to you yeah fine you you can't deal with it fine go to a navi ask them a Shila they'll tell you the answer don't bother having to work it out yourself don't bother going through all the analysis go to an Navi go toia like the Keri says and they'll spoon feed you eventually R says the people worked out and they said you know something we can work this out for ourselves and Hashem is saying oh that's exactly what you were meant to have done all along but now you're able to do it now you've realized that you actually have the autonomy the ability the responsibility to think through ter yourself and it's actually fascinating there's a whole discussion about something called an axial age that around about the time of the khek story the pur and the khanah story many civilizations all around the world stopped turning to direct voices from God and started turning to their own analysis we were not the only people that did this James cougal actually has a very interesting book about this if you're interested in that area of uh but for example think about the Greeks the Greeks would go to the Oracle at Delphia and they would ask for this voice to come out and tell them what to do and at a certain point you know Socrates and the presocratic and the Aristotle said you know something that's just a load of nonsense we we really need to work this out for ourselves and going to the Oracle of Delphia is actually not the way forward again laal between the two but there are a lot of examples of this in other places too and therefore R has that idea look at number 30 where does this connect with if someone light AA candle they have to make a br what's the BR my what do they make the is so the says one second where is the command God commanded us to light the candles so the answers it's the Mitzvah to listen to the rabbis the Mitzvah to listen in the tah Mitzvah in the tah to listen to rinic law which the people had not really been prep to do up until then oh we learned that out from vu in khah so when we write the Kaneka candles we're really saying God commanded us to listen to the rabbis and the rabbis commanded us I don't mean today's rabbis I mean the rabbis is part of the process in the gumar ETC the rabbis commanded us to light K Candles now let me ask you you could have asked this question on every single the Rabin mitzah that we make a br on why does it say why does it say so many Al you can you can list probably 30 bras he could have picked and said oh where was the command oh the command was to listen to the rabbis no the one that he picked was kanah daah because at Kaneka that's when the switch was made which where we went from Novi to and that's why it stresses it so uh much and actually there's a there's another interesting idea in terms of gor the idea of systematizing of categorizing of making its structures said Source we just skipped over that the tabal as we know it really started at the time of khaka these are the names think about which are the first people that we see mentioned in the mishna they're the rabbis from the time of Kaneka and that itself is a kind of gur it's a kind of um of organization there's the creative process of Hala and then there's the organization the discipline of Hala that comes later with the rabis let's look at the last page and I think you'll see some fascinating ideas that we can we can finish with look at number says from when the bik was destroyed the was taken from the this must be in the first B because there were no in the second the the was taken from and given to the says the don't have any of their own no even though was taken from the from sorry it wasn't taken from the from that says is better than Ai and I'm not getting here into a an analysis of what's the difference between NES the rambam talks about this they they can mean the same thing they can mean different things that's a that's a whole other share not for now but the gamor here says you might have thought that the Nim were on a higher level than the oh they talk to God directly no remember we just learned Esther was the end of the darkness the end of the Miracles that was a time of immaturity for the Jewish people now they can do it alone they have their own gur they have their they've grown up they have their own relationship with Torah look at this amazing M 32 RAB AKA and his co- rabbis who dared the Dr was their the process of interpretation they perceive things that Moshe Renu never perceived if it hadn't said said this in the midash then you would have thought you can't say such a thing wasn't mosha the ultimate NAA yeah he was the ultimate na but he was a NAA in a different way radik says looking 34 for a second why does it say there that famous story where mosu goes to theid of RAB and he doesn't understand what they're saying that this is exactly this point why does mhe not understand we're on the second line of 34 after even though it says no come on there was never a like Moshe no one ever came like M that's no one ever perceiv through is the same word perception through sights no one ever perceived like Moshe perceived through this prophetic idea even what a later student would understand M was had the greatest and the furthest he knew on a certain level what RAB would do but it was a through sight through a certain prophetic Vision the Lord d what's intellectual analysis mhha didn't have that mhha didn't do that that's what rabi AKA did and that's why rabi AKA on a certain level was on a uh was on a much higher level than moshu and in the last two pieces of uh of the the r which I'll explain to you outside first of all he says that people who are on a lower level who are if you like on the in the dark compared to others can perceive light better than people who are in the blinding light he says there's something about a blinding light like the blinding light of Prophecy I don't know if was in front of us if yes was in front of us if was in front of us it's just we just can't cope with it it's a blinding light of n you can't see if the light is sha in your eyes you can't see that but if it's dark and your eyes get used to the dark then a tiny little flame illuminates the whole room he says and that's what he means that theim were of course objectively speaking on a lower level than Moser and the Nim but in terms of the amount of Illumination they could give to the people they were on a higher level and then he invokes in number 36 this beautiful idea of dwarves on the shoulders of giants which is not originally a Jewish idea by the way you find it first in Christian sources in the Middle Ages but then it finds its way into the the sort of Jewish repertoire people quote it as a great oneliner there are others like that as well stuff that you see quoted in the ran which originally comes from from Augustine it's very interesting but that's not for now in terms of the great one liners dwarves on the shoulders of giants Isaac Newton also used this line a lot meaning what meaning we're always bought into this narrative that everything gets lower and lower and lower as each generation goes on and actually that's you could even challenge that narrative and say maybe that's not the only way to see the world you know when people say this to me I I usually ask them do you really feel that you live in a world Which is less you know a world you want to live in than 500 years ago you know I don't think anyone in their right mind would have wanted to live 500 years ago okay but uh but anyway even if you subscribe to that it's the the rodic says it's not like we have to start from scratch in every generation yeah we might be smaller than the last generation but we sit on their shoulders they don't close off everything and we start that's the that's the frustration of teenagers right that they have to kind of find make the mistakes all over again and they won't listen to you when you say like I already tried that it doesn't work please try something else okay got to find that out for it's Adam and in Ganan right God told them what's good for them but no they've got to do that thing but in principle you stand on the shoulders of giants Therefore your our can actually cut through that just with a last thought in the last minute um that's one of the reasons why um we make a special broa on two Foods when you squeeze um fruit when you squeeze a fruit it downgrades because you can't do better than the natural fruit you take an orange it's spray PR eights you downgrade it to shahak any other fruit this two exceptions two exceptions what are the two exceptions there's grapes meaning if you squeeze grapes it upgrades the BR toen and olives olives is the other one says the gamar really really when you squeeze olives you should make a new BR B but we can't say B Because Z is too ambiguous because the Z is the word for the tree and also the word for this for the fruit which is GFF and it's not okay so he says you know what if you're drinking olive oil in order to be healthy or whatever but you actually taste nice whatever usually you drink it in something else or you just drink it as medicine you make a b that's the BR on olive oil B because of all all the different fruits wine and olives wine represents puim olives represents Kaneka there are the two areas in which actually when we get involved we're saying we actually upgrade the idea it's not downgrading it is saying to us you engage in the T you upgrade the Torah you have the don't forget it and UPG graded and we can make an even higher BR than the way was originally created there are so many ideas here which are related to Kaneka um please think about them uh talk to me about them talk to your family about them haneka is an amazing festival and and it's not just about a little light a light that you're not even meant to use because it's not a light as a light it represents the light of Torah please God we should all be blessed and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren should be blessed with that light ad May ES