Shimon Ha'Tzadik by Rabbi James Kennard

so although these are as I said last time hey times of the year with Reon kipor very very soon we have a Seder in learning P which we will continue to do today and we come to the second mishna so we've discussed at some length the first mishna we saw the transmission of Torah from mosha to Yeshua to the zakim to Nim to the unsha to the men of the great assembly we saw what the men of the great assembly taught us and now we come on to sort of an epilogue to the story of the men of the great assembly because mishet starts by saying Shimon had shimad was one of the remnants or one of the last of theet and what did he do he said omed the world stands on three things Al t on Torah onod service we'll see soon a particular type of service and acts of kindness so we might already notice that we had three statements from the unshaken estola we have three statements from shimar sadik and we're going to find lots of trios of statements in Pat we already saw a reason from the Mahar why that should be so um and we're going to learn more about Shimon hadik and who he was and when he was and perhaps that will help us understand why he said what he said so I think we'll go straight to um well we'll go straight to number three because it's worth pointing out there's a mishner at the end of the per which we will discuss a long time in the future but let's just look at it now because it sheds light on our mishna so in number three we read mishna yud which says that as follows raim on shimel says on three things the world endures or goes on now notice straight away there's a parallel with what we had from shimad he had three things on which the world stands and Rael has three things on which the world continues or endures what are the three things ra Al Shalom on D judgment on EMT truth and on Shalom peace and then he brings apos to confirm that so I don't want to get into that one now because we'll get to it in the right place when we get to M but it's just worth pointing out that Rim has three things in which the world endures goes on so that sheds light on three things in which the world stands so rabish Shima sorry Shimon um at sadic can't be talking about three things that keep the world going because shim Gamel is talking about three things that keep the world going so RAB sorry shimik is talking about the three things on which the world was established in other words why it was created it was created for the sake of Torah which we'll now explain so I think we'll look at we have the banura in number five as I said the banura is is usually the first place we go to understand a anywhere in sh oh I'm sorry and so uh the banura gives us some explanation not the only explanation as we will see about what we're talking about here so he says in number five first line three things on which the world stands the world was only created for the sake of these three things he phrases it in the negative we'll take out the double negative and translate it as the world was created for the sake of only these three things and that fits in what I said a moment ago in that by comparing it to M he's telling us the mishet gives the three things on which the world stands in other words the three things which was the reason for the creation of the world in the first place and now he goes into more detail about which one what they all mean Al what does he mean by the world was created because of the Torah because if the Jewish people had not accepted the Torah then Heaven and Earth would not have been created and we have a to confirm that says if it were not for my decree my my Covenant in other words with the Jew je people day and night in other words they're doing something day and night not quite clear what and then the laws of Heaven and Earth I would not have placed I would not have created heaven and earth if it were not for my Covenant which the banura understands as the fact that the Jews accepted the Torah the word refers to the Jewish people and not here it refers to the Jewish people's acceptance of the Torah if it hadn't been for the Jewish people accepting the Torah um then the world wouldn't have been created okay then he continues in number six Al what do we mean by service so straight away we'll say and there's no dispute about this we mean the service of sacrifices the word avoda means a lot of different things but often in in rinic literature it means the what goes on in the bet mdash the offering of sacrifices and why was that a pillar on which the world stands we've learned in the now the Mad are actually people who stand um to represent their communities when it comes to the sacrifices we don't need to get into that it's a it's an indirect reference to the sacrifices themselves so the gumar is saying if it weren't for the sacrifices then Heaven and Earth would not endure so again we see that sacrifices are a prere it for the creation of the earth continues second line to number six so we have a very clear example of how sacrifices are essential to the continuation of the world namely Noah the Hashem chose to destroy Humanity but to start again from Noah Noah comes out of the Tava what does he do he offers sacrifices and Hashem says because the sacrifices you offer they they were so good they were super super sacrifices the result will be I will not bring another flood so we see a connection between sacrifices and the world existing and the third uh thing that shimik tells us about is in the fourth line of number six acts of kindness are also a prerequisite for the world to exist build a world of of kindness what does it mean it means to make a a couple happy at their wedding to bring consolation to MERS and to visit the sick and to bury the dead and similarly other examples so the banur is doing what he normally does which is giving a explanation of what the mission is talking about but there's a particular thing that the banura said in number five that the to yam has something to say on in number seven the to yam appears in the mishna um so usually sort of opposite the banura and the to yam amongst other things sometimes questions the batan Nora's explanation and he has a problem with something the banura said here so in number seven the to says on the words alhor and he saysay which refers to the B so the B has explained T if the Jewish people had not accepted the Torah the Heaven and Earth would not be created now you might have noticed already the way the banur explained the three things there is a significant difference between what he says about Torah and what he says about what he says about because when it comes to Torah he said banura said in number five that refers to a particular historical moment what was that historical moment when the Jews accepted the Torah had they not accepted the Torah the world wouldn't have existed when it comes to Corban it's the ongoing practice of sacrifices when it comes to it's the ongoing practice of kindness but when it comes to Torah say referring to the one-off event of the acceptance of the Torah so the to Factor number seven says um well start in the middle of line two he quotes thean and he says says the that the banura had a problem with this missioner because and I already said I pointed out but he explains Torah in a in a slightly strange way and say the problem is what do we mean by Torah if we hadn't read the banura we would assume that Torah means practicing the Torah fulfilling the mitzvot of the Torah and what do those Mitzvah include they include a offering sacrifices they include um acts of kindness some people have this mistaken idea the acts of kindness are like separate from the Torah he keeps the laws of a Torah and he's also a very kind person well if he keeps the laws of a Torah he is a very kind person goes without saying one's absolutely included in the other it's not the tot to Al ity of what's in the whole Torah but it's a major part of the whole Torah so says the to yam but the banura looks at these three things and says I've got a problem Torah includes a so why does the mission list Torah as separate from and the to thinks that Ban's answer is that's why he explains Torah as referring to a historical event and not the practice of Torah he explains as we saw that Torah is the acceptance of Torah oneoff event in history not to be confused with keeping the Torah because that's covered by things like aod so gives us that insight into the Ban's thinking but he doesn't agree and he says uh now go to the fourth line of number seven in the middle of the line Vash and I've got a problem with the way B is dealing with this as in which case when shim sad talks about Torah there's no literally warning there's no instruction there's no something that we have to do and it's not like the other two when it comes shim says you've got to do aod ah I know what that means I've got to go to the mdash I've got to offer sacrifices sh says you've got to ah I know what that means I've got to be kind to people I've got to visit the sick I've got to bury the dead shim sad says we got to do Torah but the banur said Torah means something that happened through 3,000 years ago it doesn't happen anymore the re the the re the acceptance of Torah on haras so what what about the fact that we're not giv C anymore we'll come to that oh good don't worry we'll cover that hopefully today if not today next time um so yeah so the toam thinks that it doesn't make sense for shimik to be saying you've got to know about Torah if it doesn't involve keeping the Torah for shim sadic to say You' want to know about Torah and the banura says that means you've got to understand that 3,000 years ago the Jews accepted the Torah that doesn't make sense it's got to be something that impacts on us today so he says in line five number seven therefore I think that what shimad sadik says you the Torah is one of the things the world stands on it's the ongoing study of Torah it is in this case distinct from the practice of Torah because that's covered by a but it means the study of Torah so what does Torah mean if it doesn't mean keeping the Mitzvah it means learning Torah and that's what I the to think is shut is the explanation of the word Tor in the mishna and he brings a nice proof for this and he says uh End of Line five now we missed out a bit where he said that that P yahu the gamar quote if I if it weren't for my Brit day and night so the to sorry the banura seems to be reading that as my Covenant which was established when the Jewish people accepted the Torah and he sort of rereads that posk but says the B says look the says like we have another P that says in yosua the y Vala you shall study it day and night what's the it there Torah so y Vala he says a sort of connection that the P go about I wouldn't have created the world if it weren't for my Covenant Yaman Vala that yam Vala is compared to the yua which refers to the study of Torah so that's what I wanted to show from these two commentators Rah believes that Torah means the acceptance of Torah that took place at harini it's a one-off historical event the to have questioned that and says that doesn't make such sense to me because it should be something that impacts upon us today we're dealing with a slight technical problem in the mishna that Torah cannot include aod it must be something distinct and therefore banura says it's the acceptance of Torah that took place historically and toam says it's the study of Torah that we have to do day and night okay I want to uh oh no let's go I was going to miss over number eight but since you asked the question well let's look at number eight ham continues to explain and he says Al regarding the sacrifices the sacrificial procedures that took place in the bet mikdash he says for if you were to say and he's actually quoting the G that's okay when the temple stood AAL Mish mishar my but now it's been destroyed and we can't offer sacrifices what can we say sounds like a big problem it is a big problem if the world stands on sacrifices and now we can't offer sacrifices what's going to happen to the world so that's the question it's actually the gara's question he says you might be worried about this reading this missioner so he says in the second line you could say that the world was created looking forward to the fact that there would be a bet mikdash there isn't anymore but there was a bet mdash and that justified the world's creation and something else I think a better answer the the reference to the aod the to the think the corbon being a source for the existence of the world he quotes the gar soor he's just giving you the reference s not says Hashem even without the mdash I have set up for them the S the order of sacrifices I fix that for them what does it mean the order of sacrifices comes clear in the next few words end of line three calls whenever they read them they the Jewish people read about the sacrifices when the Jewish people learn the laws of sacrifices it's as if they have offered them this by the way is a big principle but extends Beyond sacrifices but it's it's an important point because the importance of the bet mdash the truth is when we sit and learn gamarra there's a lot of halaka which is not relevant to us today because bar we're living in the land of Israel but we still don't have a bet mdash um the kadua of er Israel may or may not be the same as it was in the past there's lots of MIT that don't apply anymore yet we still learn about them why do we learn about them well one reason is in mem they will apply soon and we better be ready but another reason is by learning about them it's equivalent on some level to performing them so by learning about Mitzvah even though the Mitzvah are no longer applicable and will be again in the future by learning about them it's as if we are performing them and the classic and the most significant example is coronat themselves so when we learn in the gar in the about the coronat it's as close as we can get to offering them I'll just point out that the SAR coronat is written in the Sid where at the very beginning of Shak before bar we learn about the sacrifices we have we say a per of mishna it details the place and the procedure for every one of the sort of key sacrifices it's unfortunate that many people who don't come to shore quite on time um as the joke goes the first thing they sacrifice are the sacrifices and as you can see from what we've just learned here that's a big mistake because if the world only stands because there are sacrifices and the way that we get the equivalent of fulfilling that today is by reading and learning about the sacrifices and kazal put it in the Sid at the beginning of our day and we miss that out it's not it's not it's not brilliant for the world so please note the beginning of shakar that's where we learn and we say the sacrifices which is the equivalent gar uses the word equivalent to performing the sacrifices yes I'm sorry around ah okay well that's a good segue into what we're going to do right now okay um well by the way there is a simple answer to that is that yeah shim sadik said you got to offer sacrifices and we also have to fit in an interpretation of what how we do that today because shimik said sacrifices are one of the three pillars of the world so we've got to find a way that we can m main that pillar but there is a better answer and yes I thought that that replaced yep that the sacrifices what you're saying yeah that that's another incate that's another answer that's given that that's another answer given that that the the aod sh the aod in our heart um is well it's certainly in a sense in this temporary phase when we don't have a bet mdash it has replaced the aod on the BET mdash um I I I think you can find a source that says it's equivalent to offering sacrifices but that's not quite what we said here okay the abar banel whom I named this time nalotel n yep on number nine thank you for pointing that out um he interestingly enough as I've said many times he has a lot to say and I've just extracted a few paragraphs but these few paragraphs they start with a his history lesson a biography and uh it's interesting that the abarbanel goes off on quite a long tangent to tell us all about shimik and in particular to tell us about the time frame in which he was operating and that's what we're going to see now and then we'll find out why the abar felt it important to give us this history lesson so he says in number nine it's it's appropriate that it was shim sadik who was one of the last of the unshaken hola who said these things who said what he said in the mishna and exactly why it was appropriate it'll take a little while to get to but we will get to it he says I've already written this sadik was not just a Rabbi I suppose a member of the knesset Hoda he was a Coen godd and he was Aid and he was yay and that's particularly it's worth saying because not every Coen God particularly during B sheni which as we will see is when shimik was functioning not every Co was a sh it was a time particularly the later part of B Cheney that people would buy from the Roman um Pro the Roman governors um the right to be Coen godal and they would not do a very good job and they would not be very sincere and often they didn't live out their time because they went into the Kadesh kashim on yam kipur and if they weren't fitting they didn't necessarily come out at least not uh you mean Kohan bought from the Romans yep so the Romans had control of the temple uh at yes well when they were in when they were in control of the whole Province they they were the Masters yep it was bad time bad time anyway so that's why the now points out that this shim sadik he wasn't like necessarily some of the other he was and he also had another name that sometimes you find in the sources he was called Kan who says that Kad yosan who is yosan Josephus whom um he said well he was one of us then he went over to the other side but his books um my husband had his SP okay his his books are pretty important and and fascinatingly archaeology as far as I understand is confirming generally what Josephus wrote in his books um so it's not inappropriate to quote him anyway nikua now we're talking not about Josephus but we're back to shim sadik his father was called Yeshua shab Z not the who came back with zerubavel to build the second B mikdash so we've talked a lot about this and the the an we've said existed sort of at the time of the transition from B Rishon to B sheni with 70 years of Exile in between and we're now told by the Abel that shim sadik was one generation after the start of the second temple because his father came to was one of those who came back from BBA to build the second temple and then he had a son who was the father of shimad was himself the son of another person who had been a CO back in the time of the Kings at the end of sorry Father uh I think grandfather grandfather if I read it correctly was was the King was one of the last kings and that was not related to sh no no erra was his uncle uh we'll get to Ezra in a moment um just give me a moment but let's go back to oh yes sorry were you reading ahead so this Yak who was the grandfather of shimik was himself the father of Ezra so as you say Ezra was there his uncle he in the lineage he's it's a good it's a good line three on our page and served for 40 years as Coen godal which is a long time especially as I said towards the end of B sheni most of the candidates for Co didn't live out a year we're told about him in that part of the gar there were many great Miracles that were done for him while he was the co but in the AO took place in the mikdash for instance for in two days time there was a lottery uh to which of the goats would be used as the scapegoat and which would be sacrificed to Hashem and the the way the lottery worked is the K would put his hands in a box and put out two um cpot uh two ballot papers as we would say today and it was a if the one in his right hand said lashem which he would then put on the head of the goat on his right side and that would be sacrificed as opposed to the other goat which would be sent away so it was a good thing if the goral that said Lem came up in his right hand and it happened every time for shimad every one of the 40 years that he observed at yon kipor the Goro came up in his right hand um I think I will jump over because we don't need to go through all the details of all the other Miracles that were done for him but he was a really really special guy he was a Coen godal he acted with integrity and he was rewarded with Miracles it's the time FR doesn't work out well saying he lived at time of the Romans he grandson and he's the the nephew of of Ezra but you've got you've got you've gotal you're quite right but I didn't mean to say he lived at the time of the Romans I said later on in the time of the Romans when the Romans took over Judea they controlled who was Coen God but he was before that time okay okay long time before yeah but thank you for pointing that out okay now in his time there was a major event which had huge repercussions and he played a part in it paragraph 10 ubis Mano alexandros mdan who's alexandros mdan Alexander the Great Al he came with an Army against macadonia he came from his land of Macedonia meas to wage war on Darius the King of Persia so this is the war between the macedonians and the Persians and it was a big war which Alexander eventually won but before we get to that he came to wage war on end of line one beginning of line two his enemy and as was the way in ancient times he wanted defeat his enemy and to defeat all the allies of that enemy and when you Alexander came to there was great mourning amongst the Jews you'll recognize these words which are borrowed from Aila but and there was fasting and there was crying and there was eulogies there was General General Terror and fear P at her ear mdash less Alexander destroy the city and destroy the mdash with his strength and with his multitudinous army because the people of Yehuda that's what was left of Israel after the 10 Northern tribes disappeared um the people of Yehuda were allies of the Persian king Darius Darius sorry I'm not remembering over details of the time frame at the end of the Exile but the Roman the Persians had now given permission for the Jews to go back and rebuild the B mdash that was the time frame Alexander the Great was a little bit later and I I I do question the chronology here a little bit because I think the time frame between the beginning of B sheni and Alexander is a bit longer than sort of sounds like here we do uh the gumar tells us that shadik lived a very long time and that might be relevant in order to make him there at the same time as Alexander but Alexander comes to w war on the Persians the Jews are allied with the Persians the Jews are now afraid that Alexander will therefore destroy them like he wants to destroy the Persians and that's why they're very worried that he will come and destroy and destroy the mikdash middle of line four and they cried out to Hashem because of the troubles that they had alexand El and when Alexander came to the face of yush here we have this event which is described in detail in the gar y shim shim came out to greet Alexander wearing his entire Priestly gar all the eight garments and with him with the Elders of jeruselam to implore before him to plead with Alexander not to destroy the city in the mikdash but what happened was as follows alexand when Alexander saw sh he descended from his Chariot what a plot twist Alexander instead of demanding shim sadik bow to Alexander the reverse happened Alexander bowed to Shimon and he said to the Kings and the officers who were with him who must have been amazed at this turn of events don't be surprised at what I'm doing because you should know that I have seen the image of this man this shimad without knowing who he was I've seen him I've always seen him before me in the wars in which I've been Victorious so Hashem had prepared the way for the Jews to survive even when Alexander the Great and the Greeks come to ER Israel Alexander did not destroy the city because he revered Shimon sadik because Hashem had sent him images of Shimon sadik before Alexander's regular victories the was prepared absolutely absolutely and he continues to say three lines from the end and even just now just last night says Alexander I saw his image in a vision of the night in a dream and he commanded I'm not quite sure if that shim sadik or Hashem commanded me in my dream to do so to bow for him and then obviously sh sees this is a good time to ask for favor he says please don't destroy and that the people of Yuda should now be allies of him of shim of Alexander Alexander and Alexander agreed to do so and that is the way the gar tells the story of Alexander um we identify him with the Greeks even though technically he was from Macedonia but he this was the beginning of the time when the Greeks came to erit Israel now a few things to say so we often talk about the four kingdoms that took over erit Israel there have been more than four but the four played A Very Special Part the Babylonians who replaced by the Persians who were replaced by the Greeks who were replaced by the Romans uh actually between the Greeks and the Romans there was a period a short period when the Jews were in charge of themselves that was after the rebellion of the mbes but that's for kanah another thing for khah is is to say talk about the interrelationship between Torah and helenismo this was when the Greeks came to Israel now the Greeks came to Israel initially in Harmony and that's what we've just been learning about that's what just happened Alexander didn't destroy anything he let the Jews do what they wanted to do the gamorra says that that year as a mark of respect for Alexander all the baby boys that were born were called Alexander Alexander is a Jewish name it doesn't sound very Jewish it sounds a bit Greek but it's actually a Jewish name for this reason I often wonder and this is my uh High School my school principal experience what would happen when the teacher takes the register that day every day in the following years if she ask is Alexander present here then she's going to have problems because every baby boy was called Alexander for that year anyway so at the beginning Alexander comes shim sadik is there Alexander brings Greek ideas and Greek culture and initially there is some sort of harmonious relationship between Torah and Greek culture they the Greeks feel right at home in Jerusalem later on it changes and we know that by the time we get to the Kaneka Story the Greeks and the Jews are not fitting in so well and there's a big clash a clash of armies a clash of national sovereignty and a clash of culture and ideas but that's for Kaneka the point that the abarbanel is stressing here is that Shimon had sadic was there when the Greeks came in at the beginning of B sheni so or sorry not quite the beginning the beginning of B sh was the Babylonians and the Persians and then later on the Greeks so if we go on to number 11 um no sorry number yes number 11 now um I've missed out a long section he quotes various other people explaining what's the significance of the three things that shimad talks about and now the Baran now says that's all very interesting but I think all those maor have got it wrong I will tell you what these three things are and their historical significance and their connection and the appropriateness of Shimon had sadik being their author and he says End of Line one of number 11 what seems to me b so let me remind us uh what we said last week that the abar had this interesting way of explaining the first misser the first misser says I remind you MOS received the Torah from Sinai he handed it over to Yeshua yushua to the Zak zakim to the Nim the Nim to unshaken haola and they said three things and the ababel said who's the they everyone thinks the they is the unshaken but the Abel thinks that the they is the n and he thinks the Nim were giving a message to the unshaken at the time of transition from the Nim to the the were telling the these are three things you got to be careful about so says the Abel the same thing is happening at the next stage in our mishna the Nim said to the unsha times are changing there's no more n therefore you've got to be aware of these three things that were happening mishna Al and shimik is at the end of the knesset haola he's handing over to the next group and he's got a message for them so just as the Nim handed a message to the unessa that's what the abarbanel explains so the end of the unessa gadola who was Shimon had sadik passes a message to those who come after him so um I'll just jump to end of line three of number 11 so therefore it's fitting to explain that because he was at the end of the that means at the end the last of them so he's also at a time of transition he did the same as the did he saw with his spirit and his wisdom interes he puts the two together because they're not the same thing spirit is like a special indication you get from Hashem andma is what you work out for yourselves he worked out but the time was coming when but this per period of the B sheni was not going to last forever we've already got the Greeks we can see somebody who's very preent can see that the future is not going to be Rosy and we're going to go into Exile and even the sages of Israel are going to go into Exile Torah and the king and the ministers will be amongst the Nations where there will be no Torah sorry mikdash and even even though shim sadik was at the time of the B mikdash the second B mikdash he is foreseeing a time when there will be no more aod and the bet mikdash he was I'd say a v the way the Abal is describing he was a Visionary who looks at what's happening to him now namely the arrival of the Greeks and sees that this is not going to end well there's going to be a time of galut and B bet mikdash and cancellation of what goes on in the B mikdash so in the middle of line six but he also saw that there's going to be when they an exile Jews going as we would say today off the D pritz is really sort of going through the wall today we'd say off the DK they're going to be affected in not a good way and therefore he wanted he tried to warn them to prepare them for all this and he wanted to give a message to the scholars and the scholars of the mishna who came after him just like as I said says the that at the end of the period of the gave a message who came after them so we're about to get to paragraph 12 where he actually dissect all these three things but the scene that he is setting is that shim is preparing for a bleak future a future where there will be Exile a future when Jews will be mixed up in other cultures and I think that's the implication of the arrival of the Greeks and when there Jews will be in places where there is no Torah and where there'll be no more bet mdash so he's saying listen to people of my generation Pro I'm now the end of the unshaken esola it's a period of transition be prepared for a difficult future and how do you prepare the difficult Future these three things paragraph 12 and just like we saw in the first mishna that as explained by theel the warned the UN about three matters and those three matters were be deliberate in judgment Etc he so he is going to also follow the pattern of giving three important points but they're different points now we will see later how we can perhaps match up shim sadic three things to the unshaken gas's three things because it's not hard to make them match up but the barbanel is not saying they match up he's saying on the contrary they are different things because they apply at a different time a time of transition but a different transition so for shimik the three things are um middle of line three so your quo yes no paragraph 12 you're ahead of me you've jumped ahead so we're still in the maharal so the maharal as I said gave us two paragraphs of history but he needed to give it those two paragraphs of History because he thinks that the coms of shim and sadik are very appropriate to the times in which he lived so the three things that he stressed middle of line three of paragraph 12 Al as if he was saying take care to preserve and guard the Torah lest it come into heresy and people who've got a different agenda for and people who deny the reception the recipient of a tal as we know that in the time of bay sheni as as well as the hna the great sages of the T there were people who took a different path there were the Sadducees there were other subgroups who said in particular their particular bone of contention with the Torah true Jews was about the Torah shabal the oral Torah um of which the missioner is really the the Fulfillment or sorry the uh the manifestation so at the very same time that the mishna was being developed in the period of B sheni that was the time when people were saying we don't believe in the T we don't follow what theim are telling us so shimik is saying be careful to avoid these snares these traps these heretical influences by being careful about the Torah um so that's why the Torah is the first thing that shadik lists and the second thing so this is the fifth line of number 12 his be careful be protective of the service in the mdash lest the enemies come and negate it and cancel it so we said in the previous paragraph he knows it's going to happen doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen now but while we still have a bet mikdash preserve it look after it perform the sacrifices in the way they should be performed that's why the second of his pillars is aod and then he said End of Line five his also be particular in acts of kindness lest those Jews who've literally broken through who've gone away from torat true Judaism create not just an argument but a Civil War in which they kill people um and they Smite them with the sword and they kill them and they are lost and it sounds pretty extreme and as I'm saying it sounds pretty extreme we introduced the idea that there were Jews who had different idea suddenly we're saying there's going to be a civil war well that's exactly what did happen there was violence there was murder between these groups um in a sense uh it carried on for a very very long time so shim sadic implies the Abel saw that not only would there be a crisis where there would be Jews led into heresy but that itself will lead into a civil war um I often like saying we we think kanuka was a war of the Jews against the Greeks it wasn't it really wasn't it was a war of the Jews against the Jews the Torah true Jews against the helenistic Jews uh when the Torah true Jews saw the helenistic Jews behaving in their helenistic ways uh their approach was by and large not to invite them for shabas and Makar of them and make them sensitive to the beauties of the Torah but was to kill them with the sword there was a war going on so says shimad we've got to prepare ourselves to avoid the consequences of that war don't get fall into a civil war situation and that is why he said be careful with the third of his pillars G so the end of line six and his literally his warning his instruction was about these three things in particular as he was looking to the future he was looking to the end of all generations he was looking towards the vast scope of Jewish history because in these three areas in Tor in they were literally they were stumbling at the end of veni at the end of veni they were not uh so proficient and versed in the Torah which is perhaps one of the reasons why the mishna had to be written down even though it was T shab because people were forgetting what the Torah said at the end of veni by definition the bdash was going to be destroyed and there' be no more a and the Jews would be fighting amongst themselves so there' be no more so that is why says the Abel at that particular time roughly a third into F cheni that's when shim sadic was there the Greeks came shim sadic forsaw a time of Exile destruction emnity assimilation and he said these are the three things which we need to guard against now um I've got more from the maharal on the page but I think given the time I'm going to pause there and then we will meet again in 3 weeks time and we will carry on with this