Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Celebrating The Light of Torah over the Darkness of Greece

You [music] see your [music] tomorrow [singing] [music] [music and singing] [singing] Okay. Hi everybody. Uh thank you for coming. Uh first as always uh we dedicate the share to uh pray for the lasting unity of Amy Israel. Thank you. Thank you. Which will lead to a ultimate victory and for all of those whose health has been affected by terror. [snorts] Um yeah. Uh there are are are no other special dedications but uh whichever nishamos need aliyah should have aliyah whichever need rafua should of course have rafua. Uh next week there will be a class but there will be a kanuka party right here starting at 7:15 p.m. Uh the class will begin at 8:30 as usual. So you can come for the food and leave if you want to but there will be a cheer at 8:30. Uh please RSVP in advance for the event. And in addition, Iboness Khanaka and end of the year campaign is underway. Uh we can partner with Ibonet and help continue to help so many people through the programs, the social events, and the Torah classes and the special dedications are available uh to honor uh the memory of loved ones. Uh more information about how to contribute can be found on the Banet website and in the YouTube description uh box box below. And again want to wish everybody uh a meaningful inspirational Kaneka Kaneka full of full of light. Uh I wanted to talk today actually about about Kaneka a little bit. Um it'll probably be a two-parter because obviously at the Kaneka party I will talk about Kaneka as well. Uh but there's enough uh material so to speak that it's worthwhile to talk about. Uh first of all, you know, the Maharal has a little safer, a relatively short safer on Kaneka that's called ner mitzvah. Very very fascinating safer. And um it's kind of funny because ner mitzvah well in the older editions there are no divisions at all. It's just one interrupted one uninterrupted text of around 50 pages. But in the Rahman edition that annotates and everything else he divides the mitzvah into three is not about it is about the four kingdoms the four exiles of which Yavan is only one of them. Part two is about Yavan and Khaneka. And part three is a long digression about Jews who were not careful in keeping the laws about drinking wine that's touched by non-Jews. Now what does that have to do with Kaneka? Is very very interesting. Uh the moral used it as an excuse basically uh because there is a Gmorrah that says Haril bener if you are conscientious in the mitzvos of lighting candles and shabas candles you are given the reward of having children who are because Torah is compared to light but then it says if you're conscientious in getting wine for kdish you will be z to a lot of wine and the morel explains that refers to the wine of call them haba and the moral used this as a fascinating excuse to give a lot of to something that's almost inconceivable to us but apparently there were many religious Jews who were not conscientious about drinking the wine that was prepared by Gentiles and the moral gives a lot of toa in his book on Kaneka so if you want to know where does the moral talk about yay he talks about it in the last five pages of near mitzvah but I'm not going to focus on part three obviously but I do want focus on part one because before the maral segueed into discussing Yavan, he wants to discuss Yavan's role as part of the four exiles that the Jewish people have to go through before there is a Mashiach. Now in reality there's actually a precedent for the Marel's approach here and that is none other than the song that we sing after we light Kaneka candles the very beloved song Maur uh if you look at the stanzas of Maur and by the way it's a very intricate poetic structure in terms of halflines and lines rhyming and and the like but if you look uh you will notice that most of mo is not about kanuka [snorts] at all it is essentially re going over the history of the Jewish people and God redeeming us from all of the exiles. The first stanza is a general idea that Hashem has protected and will protect ami Israel and we will eventually have a basikdash. That's stanza number one. Stanza number two talks about the Egyptian slavery and servitude. Stanza number three is the Babylonian exile and basikdesh. Stanza number four is Persia and Hmon. Stanza number [clears throat] five is Yavan. That's the only one about Kaneka. That's why it's a separate niggan. And stanza number six is the prayer that just as Hashem has redeemed us from all of the other exiles, so may he redeem us from the gullus of Edim, the gullus of Asov that we are still in. So essentially, I'm not sure if this was conscious, but the Maharal's approach inf of Nitzvah is essentially paralleling the song Maur, which sees Yavan not as an isolated phenomenon, but sees Yavan as part of the archetype of the four exiles that we have to go through. The notion of the four exiles, the moral brings a medish is built into the very fabric of creation as a necessary condition for messianic redemption. That somehow the moral writes that in all creation there is a flaw. Hashem is perfect. But as a boru makes a physical world, inevitably there are going to be defects and distortions in physical reality. And Hashem made it that way. Of course, Hashem didn't have was not bound by anything. He could have made the world perfect. But Akareshu introduced imperfections into the world so that we become cocreators of the perfect world by our Torah and by our mitzvah and our chuva. And the medra says already in the very beginning of braces there is a rem to the four malos. Let's look at the PK right before God started creating the world was astonishing. The world the universe really was astonishingly empty. Tahu is emptiness. Buu is confused jumble. Now you already see there's a contradiction in those two terms. Total emptiness and a jumbled confusion. And there was darkness [snorts] on the face of the deep. The spirit of God hovered above the water. And Hashem said he or let there be light or now these areim that you know when you read these pukim you can't help but be moved that there's something remarkably powerful here but we have no idea what it is something something is being said here so listen to what the medra says I mean this is one of many many midjam the medra says taou astonishingly empty is to Babylon which emptied the world of the basiktas created a vacuum by so to speak banishing Hashem's active connection of the Shina Bayou confusion refers to Persia as McGillis Esther said when when Hmon promulgated his decree of genocide against the Jewish people and Akash approved it even the city even the didn't know what was going They were confused. It didn't make sense. So is and is py darkness is yavan and antio who darkened the eyes of the Jewish people with their decrees against the Torah. Al pim on the face of the depths. [snorts] That's a reference to the gullus of Edim, the gulus of Rome, which is so long, it's seemingly without end. It's like an a bottomless ocean that you drop something, you don't you don't even hear it hit the bottom. Now, the ru the spirit of God is the kayak of Mashiach that'll bring redemption to the world hovering over the water. The water represents chuva. This is this is a little bit of a new twist. We know Torah is compared to water. But here the medra says chuva is compared to water. As the puss says in a very famous song, pour out your heart like water before God. And the med says that's referring to Chuva, right? The ru the ru of mashiach will come through the water of chuva. And then what will then happen? Hashem says let there be light. That is the light of redemption, the light of perfection, the light of kaduca. So the medish is teaching me already encoded in the very fabric of creation is this message that there will be these negative khos in the world the four called the four golot now mitim is not counting mit is a pre gullis gullis because um we talk about gullis only when we were initial then we were exiled against our will mitim we came on our own And then we were stuck. So Mitraim is what you might call the pregolus golas. So we don't count that in the four but the four are said to be poras yavan ed and they are encoded in the now there are many many other places where [snorts] the make reference to the formal uh among them The most explicit references are in the book of Denal. Now Dunil say for Denal is a absolutely fascinating book of Nak which is unfortunately ignored even by people who learn Nak. In other words, most people ignore Nak. So that's a general problem. Even the people who learn Nak they they ignore Safer Safer Denil. Uh but the four kingdoms emerge both in the Bkhatneter's dream that Denil interprets. Don is very much like Yoseph. Donil became great in Ibkader's palace through his dream interpretation. And Bukuetszer had a dream of a statue that was a human form, a huge huge statue of a human being. And the head of the statue was gold. And the chest and the arms were silver. And the abdomen and the thighs were copper. And the legs, the lower legs were iron. And a stone, a big stone was torn off a mountain and it knocked down the statue. And Donal said to this is a remner is the gold is Bavl and the silver is paras and the copper is Yavan and the iron is Rome because iron destroys and the stone is basically Hashem that is called surrael we say every day the rock of Israel you know that's a big I I never I think people are too critical because if you want to be critical You'll find faults with everything. But you know, one of the criticisms people have about the Israeli Declaration of Independence from 1948 is it does not mention Hakodes. It does not mention God, which even the American Declaration of Independence mentions, but it simply says we put our faith in Sur Israel. So people like to darian. So for the people who believe in Hashem, Hashem is S Israel. the people who don't believe in Hashem, it's Jewish destiny or whatever it is. So they like to knock. They say Israel was deliberately used not to enshrine an open and unequivocal reference to Hashem. Okay, I don't know if you have to be so negative on on everything, but okay. But here in in Nuadzar's dream that sore is Sor Israel. Now Dil does not identify what these four kingdoms are. The only thing he says to is you are the head of gold and the other three are going to come after you. He doesn't say who they are but kazal say over and over again that after b is paras which actually is in tanak after paras is yavan after yaban is ed. Denil himself has a very frightening vision of a sea in the middle of the night, a turbulent ocean and the waters are turbulent and and and waves and out of the ocean emerge a night. It was a two-day twoight vision. Night number one, three beasts. The first is a fearsome lion with the wings of an eagle and the next is a bear and the third is a leopard. Right. So, lion, bear, leopard are night one. Night two is a monster that is huge and it's not even described as a known animal with teeth of iron. And these are the four malas. Again, the notion is the first three balas yavan. Rome gets its own night because the Roman galut is much much longer than all of the guloses combined. Right? So again and there are many many other sources as well. Maral collates many many makuros regarding the four kingdoms and the four kingdoms we have to go through their their rule and their evil and their oppression until the msiach comes. So just as a matter of interpretation I want I just want to raise two simple questions about the four malios and that is khazal assumed for a de pashot that we are in golus number four which is called the gulus of adom the gulus of asaf so the question is why are we called in the Roman gulus at all the Roman Empire is long gone hasn't been around for quite a long time the western Roman Empire The official date for its demise is 476, which is quite a long time ago. And although the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire survived in Constantinople much longer until the Islamic conquest, but that's the famous date uh in world history of 1453, the fall of of Constantinople to Islam. So be it as it may, in what way are we in the Roman Golos? Right? So there are three short answers I'll give you and you know each of these answers could have a great deal of elaboration. Answer number one is this. Hey we don't care if there are Romans around or not but the Romans destroyed the B mikdesh and put us into gullus that gulus has not been reversed may or may not be part of the redemptive process. That's I'm not going to get into that. But we certainly haven't totally gotten out of that gullus because we don't have a basia. So as a result, we can rightfully call this the gullus of Edime even even if Edim is not involved actively because the gullus they perpetrated has not been reversed yet. So this is called golus edime. That's answer number one. Answer number two is that Rome basically is the source of what is western civilization. Now it's true that the foundations of western civilization actually come from Yavan. Greece laid down the philosophy and the metaphysical structures uh even ideas of democracy and government. Virtually everything that's in western civilization that's not connected to the holiness of the Torah comes from Greece. But Rome was the intermediate party that spread it throughout the world. So western civilization is Greece may be the originators but Rome is the source of how it got to the European countries and then eventually to the Americas uh and the like. Uh even the legal system, it's true that let's say in England and the United States uh the legal system was based on what's called common law. uh but common law itself has Roman law Roman law roots and the like. So therefore we could say that Asov has morphed to become a kinoi a nickname for western civilization. And it's true that there are great eastern civilizations in the world but Jews are primarily historically under the domination of western civilization which is golas edime. And the third answer is the relationship of Rome and Christianity. We know we know that Rome at some point even though Yashka and the apostles who were all Jewish uh were all in Eric Israel but Peter Shimon as as we know him we know him by his original name Shimon uh kind of moved to Rome. He was the first bishop of Rome becoming [snorts] the head of the Catholic Church which for hundreds of years was the uh was Christianity basically. Then there was the reformation. But still we identify the fact that the fate of the Jewish people has been linked predominantly to Christian oppression or Christian assimilation. You know either either side of the coin and therefore in a sense just as of Rome morphed into western civilization as of Rome morphed into Christianity. And the two overlap Christianity western civilization they're kind of all all connected. In fact, that's the okay, whatever. That's the the famous line of the anti-semites, meaning to say that, hey, if you're not Christian, then by definition, uh, you're against Western civilization, which is fundamentally Christian. Be it as it may, I just gave you three reasons why we're still in the gulas of Asaf. As of are the challenges of hedonism, the challenges of materialism, the challenges that take us try to take us away from kaduca. But [clears throat] I'll I'll get back to this. Now, a second question one might ask about the four exiles. And this is a question of the ebenezra. The ebanzra asks, why do we not include the gulus of Yeshua? Now Ishmael was the ancestor of the Arabs. Now Ishmael was not a Muslim. I mean Muhammad wasn't born until years later. But Yeshua is the ancestor of the Arab nations. The Arab nations were pagan and they eventually most of them became Muslim. Some became Christian uh and [clears throat] the like. And in the Ebenezer time, the Ebenezer time was in the 11th century. uh the Islamic Empire was huge and most of the Jews in the world were in fact under Islamic domination. So the Ebenezer didn't understand why doesn't Danil have a fifth kingdom so to speak which is Malus Ishmael. And the truth of the matter is that's a question that still exists even today. Because even if it's true that in terms of territory and in terms of dominion over Jews, uh Islam is not a major force. There are not that many Jews who live uh directly under the rule of Islam. But in terms of the impact on Jews in the world, it is a tremendous impact. Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic terrorism. Uh we we're just coming off the the two tragic years uh starting in October 7 and then go back in the United States to 9/11 and all sorts of things in between. So even if the question is not the same way as the Ebenezra raised it, right? The Ebenezra raised the question because there was this huge Islamic empire under which most of the Jews were subjugated. Even if that's not the question, we still have the question that why is the power of of Malus is not recognized. And the short answer is that indeed uh Perzar which is a medish actually says that the last gullus that we are going to experience before Mashiach comes is the golas of Ishmael. And that's even the meaning of the famous messianic phrase taken from Zakaria. Mashiach will be impoverished. He will ride on a donkey. Yeshel is sometimes poratively described as a nation that is like a donkey. The Mashiach will ride on the donkey of Ishmael. And pirate rabbi Elazar says the gulas of Ishmael will be the hardest and most difficult gulus of all. Now I have to be careful because I know it's people call to my attention that um Islamic groups whenever I I talk about this sometimes whenever I mention the power of Yes Ishmael they will take the three sentences out of context and say rabbi says you know Arabs are going to win type of thing. So I I got to be careful. And people ask me, actually I'm not going to be careful. I'm not I'm not going to censor myself. But people ask me, how are you going to respond? And I say, listen, the only way you can respond to this, the only way you could stop this is by not saying anything. If you say something, your words can be distorted. So I guess the question is, is it better to talk or better not to talk at all? That is a good question, by the way. uh but right now at least I am going to talk even though I I do rethink this all the time. uh and that is Perk Rabbi Alzar says the fight against Ishmael is the most difficult battle that we engage in because Asov is primarily brute force as Yitzkavu said the voice is the voice of Yakov Yakov has the power of the voice Torah learning toil yadim brute physical strength is asaf and since it's a dra pashut that spirituality will eventually always overcome physicality maybe not in the short term but in the long term for sure so we can be bak that our will overcome the gullus of edim but Ishmael the med says has spiritual merit underlying its physical brutality They have the merit of circumcision that was given to Abraham. They have the merit of prayer to Hashem. Although they may employ the prayer for evil ways and that itself is a very difficult idea that somehow there's still a merit of prayer. It's a very very difficult idea. They have the merit of at least external external modesty. Although in private life that's not necessarily going to be the case. There are spiritual zuyot. And if that's the case, Yeshel will not be defeated exclusively by military strength or strategy. Yeshel can only be defeated. I mean, you need the I'm not diminishing the importance of the but you need the strength of Torah, the strength of Kadusha because Yeshua comes with certain strengths that it got from Ara. But since most Jews do not live directly under Yeshua, they live under Asaf, Western civilization. So the way we look at it is we regard the gulus as an intensification of the Roman gulus gullis ed. So it's gulus edime version 2.0. It's not a separate gulus but it's an it's an intensification of gullis ed. And the moral throws out a thought seemingly out of nowhere in [snorts and clears throat] which he says that the gulusim will involve a collaboration with Paras. Meaning that somehow Yeshel will link up with Paras for the final attacks on the Jewish people. This is quite frankly quite astounding. Paras is Persia. Persia is Iran and Marel simply says he doesn't even document it. He just says like like a a simple observation that is a do pash that is will be with paras to seek the destruction of the Jewish people but this will occur [clears throat] in the tail end of goladim. So [laughter] this is like a junction of all the bad stuff. uh you got Asaf Galadim, you got Yeshua, you got Parus, they all kind of come together and even if they're fighting each other, but they all they have they have a common enemy meaning in their in their fighting each other there's a common enemy which happens to be us and that's kind of the pressures that are the birth painans of Mashiach that are the [snorts] Mashiach and the like very very very fascinating I mean certainly the N mitzvah is written in a very abbreviated way. So the moral does not fully develop all of these implications. But now one could certainly write a book kind of spelling this out and applying it to current events. Although the Rambam himself would would not be in favor of that. The Rambam actually didn't like when people try to match up current events to the messianic era because the Rambam says we're never going to know until after the fact when Mashiach comes. will then be able to understand how the pieces fit in. He was kind of against doing it ahead of time. Okay. But be it as it may, this is what the moral says. Now, we haven't mentioned Kanek yet. We've just talked about the four exiles. But the moral then develops the idea that each exile poses a distinct danger to the Jewish people. And that is BL simply involved persecution and enslavement. Now we see this is an interesting mistake that we make. You know we tend to look at all bad guys as bad in the same way. We think oh didn't want people to do mitzvah didn't allow people to keep shabas. That wasn't true was an but he didn't care. If you wanted to do, you could do what you want. Goal was power. Goal was conquest. Did not destroy the basikdesh because he was rebelling against God. Destroyed the basikdash because he saw the basikdesh as a center around which the Jewish people would revolt against him. And yo, indeed Yer Mio told the Jewish people, "Do not wage war against the Babylonians because if you do, God is not going to protect you and you're going to lose the temple." Meaning, in other words, had the Jewish people decided not to wage war and had they listened to your Mio, the Bikers could have been averted. So Maral says Bavl represents the persecution of the UMotam that is not necessarily directed against religion. It's not directed against religion. It is simply power domination subjugation and BL was the one that took away our political independence. Right? So that's BL. Above all the striving for power which results in enslavement and persecution. Paras [snorts] Persia which was a relatively short period in our history but the most important event uh there was the story of Porim and that represents genocide that represents the hatred of Amalik that seeks to destroy physically the Jewish people. Okay. So if Bavl is about enslavement and persecution, Paras is about genocide, Paras is about Hitler. Now again, uh it didn't make a difference. Hmon did not care just as Hitler did not care if you were religious or non-religious if you were Jewish. You had to go. Although in a deeper sense, Hitler is a bit more complicated and I'll get to that. But at least Hmon Hmon was not into religion either. Hammon just wanted to get rid of Jews because of the insane jealousy he had with Morai. That's another question if you ask why did Hmon hate Jews? Well, our answer would be he comes from a Malik. But the McGillah's answer is he was angry at Morai for not bowing down to him, which is kind of insane, but that's what the McGill says. Okay. So once again, BL persecution and enslavement paras genocide yavan yavan is very very very different and yavan of course is the story of kaneka. It is true that the story of Kaneka involved a war and it's true that in that war Jews were killed and Antiocus killed Jews. But you have to remember at its inception [snorts] this was not a war against the Jews as Jews. This was a war against the Torah. Antio's promagated decrees that were specifically focused on the Jewish people abandoning the Torah, not to practice circumcision, not to keep shabas, not to keep kosher, women not going to the mikvah. Fact, people don't realize this. Antio, which is post-biblical, this is after Tanakh. Antio was literally The first king in history, first non-Jewish king, actually we had Jewish kings that made Gazeras, Manasha and the like, but the first non-Jewish king in Jewish history who tried deliberately to take Jews away from the Torah. Pyro didn't try that didn't try that. Akash didn't try that. Yavan tried it. This is a major difference of Yavan and the others. Yavan was a war against the Torah. It happened to be by the way most of the Jewish people [clears throat] went along. They assimilated. This is part of Helenism. Hellenism was a movement started with Alexander the Great more than a hundred years before Antio to spread the culture of Greece throughout the world. And the truth of the matter is many many many Jews perhaps a majority of the Jewish people became assimilated to Hellenism without coercion. In many many ways Antiocus didn't have to do anything. This was the natural process that was happening. But Antiocus got impatient. He wanted to hurry it hurry it a bit. And he said there are too many Jews still keeping kosher. Too many Jews still keeping Shabas. Too many Jews still learning Torah. They are preventing the Hellenization and the spread of Greek wisdom. And therefore, I will have to use coercion. And the Mcabes who refused to go along, they started a revolt and they started a fight. But it was all about as the Alan says says Alisim says it to theim made decrees [snorts] to cause us to forget the Torah in a perverse way in a very perverse way. One could describe one could describe Antiocus as a very enlightened king. He wasn't anti-semitic. Seemitic. If you go with the plan, if you assimilate, if you give up that which makes you different than anybody else, you will have full civil [snorts] and political rights as a citizen of my empire. That was it. It wasn't like the Nermberg laws, but you got to go. You got to go with the plan. So moral says the characteristic of gullis yavan is not persecution or genocide. It is assimilation. Assimilation starting as a voluntary thing. Come join us and then turning into a coercive thing. But it was direct against the Torah. And the moral points out that in a way it's paradoxical because Yavan is blessed with the greatest the greatest wisdom. So one might even assume they perhaps ought to be allies with the wisdom of the Torah. But the moral quotes the gammorrah that says sonaso people you know people who are in a profession they hate the competition meaning we're competitors to yan they have reached the epitome of human wisdom Torah gives us divine wisdom yavan hates Torah because Torah relegates their wisdom to an inf inferior position visa v Torah and that's why it's padded yavan that is the mar the source of that wages war against to hashem see the brutees the brutees I I I'll get to Rome in a moment the brute doesn't care if you keep mitzvah as long as you pay your taxes as long as you listen to him as long as you keep to yourself and don't bother us Right. Nick Fuentes, right? Famous getting to be famous anti-semite. He doesn't care what you do in your show. Unless maybe it's a nephew Zionist thing. Uh he doesn't care what you do in your show. Yeah. Keep your mitzvah. Just keep your mouth shut. So the brute doesn't attack the Torah. The brute just attacks Jewish power, Jewish finances, whatever it is. But Yavan is much more subtle. Yavan attacks Torah itself and therefore all of the assimilation is an aspect of Golas Yavan. So now now let's talk about Golis Edm and you'll see how relevant this analysis is. Golos Adine in Danil's vision is not given any description that we could name meaning Babylon is described as as a lion and this is in the Neil's dream and Persia is described as a bear and Greece is described as um a leopard but Rome is described as an amorphous monster that is not described as anything And the moral says that's because the gullus of Edine which is so much longer than every other gullus is a composite of the other three guluses together. So there is in the long 2,000 gulus ad there is going to be the bell of adim there will be the paras of edime and there will be the yavan of edim and in different places and in different times we are experiencing different aspects of edim that are mubar connected to bavl paras or yaba. So which means there are going to be times and places where Jews are simply persecuted and degraded. There are going to be times and places where Jews are actively being wiped out the holocaust. So that's the Persia that's the paras. And then there are times like in modern western civilization where the biggest nission we face is not physical survival but the pressures of the assimilation of western civilization. The hedenism, the intermarriage, the lack of interest in spirituality again that comes and goes. So in many many ways Kaneka is very very relevant to a modern Jew because the big I know people talk about anti-semitism and of course we had October 7th so the issue of physical survival is still very much with us. I'm not suggesting we're out of that water. But for most people, most of the time, I think it's safe to say that the primary challenges that we face most of the time is not physical survival, but it's retaining our spiritual essence against all of the assimilationist pressures that exist in the hedenistic world. This is absolutely a challenge for people who are not yet committed to Torah and mitzvah. But the truth of the matter is it's a challenge even for an Orthodox Jew who is committed to Torah and mitzvah. Because we have to realize as Ra Hersh remarked more than 150 years ago. He says in some ways the modern Orthodox Jew, he was talking about in the 1800s, the modern Orthodox Jew is the opposite of the Morirano of Spain. The morirano of Spain was a on the outside and a Jew on the inside. We barak Hashem are able to be Jewish on the outside. But what is our internal value systems? What is it? Meaning even the person who shar mitzvah are they animated? are our passions, Torah, mitzvah, hashem, or do we look at the Torah sometimes as 613 problems that we have to navigate around in order to achieve what we really want to achieve in life. Now, the truth of the matter is if someone has that attitude, I still respect them because they're still saying I got to work within the 613 mitzvah. That's a madrega. That is a madrega. But you see how it is an inferior type of madrega because instead of looking at my life is serving God and I have to figure out how to make a living while I'm doing it. Sometimes it it turns out to be the opposite type of thing. My life is about being a successful professional but I got to figure out a way to achieve that goal you know within the framework of the Torah and which you know which is primary which is the meaning of our lives and if serving and again I I don't mean to give anyone I mean I'm talking to myself as well uh so I don't mean to put any anyone down in any in any possible way but if our animating passion in life is not a vodashem. We are being influenced by golas as which is the part of golis as that's connected to yavan that the of yavan becomes more significant to us than the of the of the Torah. So that's why kaneka is a very very important time because kaneka is the victory of the light of Torah. the light of Torah which is car light over the of Yava. Now it is a difficult issue for the following reason. Let's go back to Noah. If you remember after the flood Noah got drunk and Noah's nakedness was exposed. Why did he get drunk? The simple reason why he got drunk is uh he was depressed. He was in despair. He comes out of the table. I mean, imagine it's like how like these Twilight Zone things, you know, uh you were in a bank vault when the world was destroyed by nuclear holocaust. You come out of the bank vault and you're the only guy in the world. It's kind of a depressing idea, he got drunk, but as his nakedness got exposed, so either called attention to it or did something worse, castrated him, whatever it is. And then you'll remember shame and yees walked backwards with a blanket to cover him up. And as a result, Noah gave special brah. He cursed. Actually, he cursed son Kanan. That's also a question. Why is he cursing the son of if is the one that did? Okay. Uh but I want to focus on the braha. He gave yaf a special braha. He saidim, this is a pun. Hashem should give beauty. God should give beauty to ye theem and he should dwell in the tents of Shem. Now in English that sounds bad, the tense of shame. But but remember Shem is the son of Noah. So this is a braha. He will dwell in the tents of Shem Ben Noah Rashimal Hersh. And we know that Raf Hersh was in Germany, great great rev of Frankfurt for many many years. And he basically saved this was acknowledged even by the Eastern European Gdolan who did not agree with him in terms of secular education and the like but it was acknowledged that he basically saved German jewelry which was totally conquered by the reform movement and he managed to rebuild orthodoxy Torah observance and the like. So Rav Hersh developed a school of thoughts that is called Torah imit sometimes abbreviated Tide T I D and that's not referring to the laundry detergent uh but Tide is Torah imit which again what it what it exactly means is in itself subject to books and arguments but on the most simple level it basically means to try to integrate uh an un uh yielding commitment to Torah and mitzvah and but also be connected to secular wisdom and secular culture and one of the as opposed to the Eastern European model of Satka the Lithuanian yeshiva that basically considered the secular culture to be tra and no good etc. Okay, it was a big mahlo, right? A big mahlo. Rafersh was acknowledged as a great great sadic by everybody. But there were those who disagreed with his approach of integration. And this maklocus goes on even to this to this very day. Uh this maklo goes on. But one of Rav Hersha's foundational texts on toim is his interpretation of vishem. He says that Noah envisioned from his children who are the progenitors of humanity the human race. There are two primary missions humanity has in the world. The first and most important mission is to promugate godliness and kaduca and subservience to a creator who is the source of ultimate morality and values. That mission was given to Shem the son of Noah and through Shem it eventually came down to Avitzk Yakov B Israel through that process of elimination. But initially it was entrusted to shem. Godliness kadusha >> before the questions are before the questions are before the questions are >> but there was a second mission given to humanity that was a beautiful mission as well but it was in secondary importance and that is to create beauty in the world. Now beauty can exist in many forms. There's the beauty of art. There's the beauty of music. There's the beauty of literature. There's the beauty of of of culture of even athleticism, sport, the human body. And that was given to ye. And remember, Yus's son was Yavan. So the same way went from shame to Avan. And Yavan had this mission to create beauty in all of its different guises. And again by beauty I don't mean just physical beauty but I include intellectual beauty, philosophy and all of that. So what does Noah says? God has given beauty to Yas but only when it dwells in the tense of Shem meaning that's telling you two things. Number one Shem can admit it. Shem should not expel it. You see? And number two, Yavan has value when it's subordinated to Shem, but not when it stands in opposition to Shem. So Rafers use that uses that puzz as really the foundational principle of of um Torah. There's no question which is number one, right? It's not imra but maintained that the beauty of Yavan which is western civilization coming through the Romans but it started with Yavan and again just from a just from an objective standpoint. Uh the Greek accomplishment in all of these fields is quite a phenomenal accomplishment. But when it stands in opposition to Hashem, then it becomes destructive. It becomes oppressive. It becomes suffocating. It becomes a war against Hashem. And then it has to be destroyed or at least reclaimed. Reclaimed, recaptured. Okay? So this is why the war against Yavan is a difficult war because unlike Amalik that's totally evil and Amal got to be destroyed. Yavan is not totally evil. There is there is beauty. It's evil when it's not brought into the house of God. But there ought to be a mechanism by which it can be brought in. And indeed what what does the f famous med say? The famous med says if someone says to you is there is there wisdom among the goyam the answer is yes. Is there the Torah among the goyam that is no that's a certain measure that's the divine wisdom as it were. So that's the great challenge. The great challenge of the against Yavan is the goal is not to obliterate that enemy, but to reclaim that enemy and integrate it within our framework so that the beauty of Yavan Yas which is the beauty of Yavan is bashem lives within the tense. of Shem. That's a big challenge. It's a very big challenge. Just, you know, it's much more, it might be easier to totally reject something. Okay? If I have a philosophy of rejecting, I reject it. That's fine. Or if I have a philosophy of embracing it, that's also destructive because I'm simply making the secular culture my morality. What a Jew is supposed to do is you don't embrace it and you don't reject it. you selectively reclaim it and then it becomes integrated and suffused with kaduca. That was the goal of Torah in der. Now there's a lot of subtleties here which I'm not going to address. Um you know yuhim university officially has a philosophy that is called Torah um and uh they go to great lengths to try to differentiate it from Torah. But at the end of the day uh it's like the garra says they're trying to put an elephant through the eye of a needle. the the distinctions they make are very very subtle and I don't I personally do not think they're that meaningful to that is there is a recognition that secular wisdom secular beauty can enhance one's spiritual identity if you subordinate it to Torah and Mits but I'll tell you an interesting thing you know um [snorts] I'm sure many of you have heard of Lander the Lander colleges so Lander colleges were founded by Professor Lander, Dr. Lander. What was his first name? I don't remember his first name, but um Bernie Oh, Bernie Lander. Yeah, Bernie Lander who died a few years ago. And uh he was quite quite a person. Uh I mean, he named all the colleges after himself, but but still uh he was a real go-getter. I I once had occasion, he was in his 80s, and I was I think in my late 50s, early 50s, and I had occasion, for some reason, I had to hang around him for a day, and I I was absolutely exhausted. He was going from place to place to place to place unlimited energy and he told me a very cute word. He had been in YU for many years and then he left YU and he started his own colleges. So he said you know I don't go for Torah derets. I don't go for Torah Maja says my motto is Torah Parnosa. uh meaning to say I'm not his position was I'm not going to glorify secular wisdom as you know it gives you deeper spiritual insight which maybe revir would say and and the like aren't zona would say that you can get spiritual insight from Shakespeare says I don't go there he says I just want ben tora to be able to make decent livingings to support their family so he said that's a different approach he viewed secular education not as some spiritual thing of bringing the beauty of Yavan into the tense of Shem, which is kind of a grandiose utopian vision of integrating the secular and the holy. He said it's simply a practical pragmatic concern of giving people the tools to be able to make a living. I have to pinosa doesn't have the cache so to speak of total mada but this is what uh Dr. Lander uh told me and I have to say that probably was the position of my own rush. You know I I attended ner Israel yeshiva and Israel allowed us uh to go to college in the evenings and I remember at the 50th anniversary it was I think it was during my chevra but I attended a lunchon with my my new wife. Uh so somebody got up and said made a speech that raidan had the foresight to understand how important it was to integrate secular basically he said raers's approach that secular needed to truly be in hashem soak raman wasn't there raviakovineberg sra who became who is raman's son-in-law and he became the he got up I was like shocked he got up in the middle of this banquet and he said I have to register a protest I have to issue a mah. This was not my father-in-law's intention. His intention was to provide an economic safety net for yeshiva students so they they could support their families. He never would have glorified secular studies as kind of an end in and of themselves. So you see this was actually a debate that burst out even at this banquet. Uh I'm not here to address it, but tonight I'm I'm emphasizing Rafersh's debate and that that that is actually why the war against Yavan Yavan the Khan war is a difficult war because it's not about destroying the enemy. It's about reclaiming the enemy and utilizing it in positive beneficial ways. Okay. So this is kind of a little bit of an introduction uh to the Kaneka uh story and I just want to point out I I'll end with the Maral's observation that if we ask ourselves why is there a holiday of Kaneka? Why why did our enact an 8day celebration of Kaneka? And most people will say well because there was a miracle that the candles which only should have burnt one day burnt for eight days. So we have a Kaneka celebration of eight days. Putting aside for now, we'll talk about it next week. The Bash Yose Kasha. Well, if that's the case, Kaneka should be seven days, right? The world's most famous Kasha because there was enough oil for one day. And I will tell you, I can tell you there are at least 500 answers to this question because I have a safer that gives 500 answers to this question. But putting that although I think there's a lot of cheating I think like answer 36 is a tiny little variation of answer 13 whatever I think you know at some point at some point you just okay but putting that aside moral makes a more basic uh problem. He says we don't make holidays [snorts] every time there's like a miracle. We don't make holiday when the fell etc. We make holidays when the Jewish people have been saved from a danger. In other words, you don't make a holiday because the candle's burnt for eight days. That's not a reason to make a yamtiff. Maral says it's a dra pushet that the reason we make a yumpt of kaneka is because we were liberated from the oppression of Greeks, Greek rule, which would have taken us away from the Torah. The miracle is symbolized by the miracle of the manura because that represents the to light of Torah. You see the difference? It's not that we have a holiday because of that miracle. We have a holiday because Yavan was not successful in taking us away from the Torah. And Hashem gave us a miracle to kind of highlight the primacy, the victory, the ascendancy of the light of Torah over the KMA of Yan. So that's what uh that's what Khan is. Kaneka is the victory over the spiritual dangers that we face in the modern world. And these are dangers that very much apply today. That's why it's such a an interesting [clears throat] irony. Maybe it's an unfortunate irony that you know we have what are called the Makabe games. So the Makabe games are the Jewish Olympics [cough] [clears throat] and they're called by the name of the Mcabes. Now, [laughter] one one of the things that the Mcabes were fighting was the Greek cultural events such as the Olympics where people would go nude to what other they were fighting against uh that type of activity. So to put their name on an activity that has its Greek origin is a little strange. Although although maybe I gave a terrorist to it. you're taking you're taking the yavan and you're trying to incorporate into Judaism. But but that's only true if it's according to the Torah, right? That wouldn't be true if it's not according to the according to the Torah. Okay? And that's why, you know, somebody Okay, I don't want to get involved in too many political things. Uh around 10 years ago, there was a bill in the Maine in state of Maine legislature about legitimating gay marriage. You know, as you know, in the United States, this is a a big issue all over the place. I mean, even in Israel, unfortunately. So, an Orthodox rabbi testified. It was around Kaneka time. He testified in the state legislature and said to allow such a thing would be in the spirit of the Mcabes who stood up for personal autonomy and the right to make whatever decisions you think are the right decision. So Judah the Makabe, I mean it would be funny if it wouldn't be sad. Judah the Makabe would support gay marriage as an exercise of human autonomy. That kind of misses the boat. I mean truly it miss I mean you know it misses the whole meaning that Kaneka is the other way around. Kaneka is about submitting to Hashem and not allowing these secular forces [snorts] to take you away from the Torah. Right? It's not about personal autonomy. I mean, again, that's the secular take on Kaneka because if you don't live your life with Torah and mitzvah, but you want to celebrate Kaneka, so you have to redefine Kaneka is Kaneka is the holiday of freedom. Well, yeah. freedom from those who try to take me away from Torah in order to keep the Torah, right? It's not about freedom. But as I say, uh, Kaneka has unfortunately um had has had its redefinitions sometimes in a very very incorrect way. So anyway, I wish you all a happy Kaneka, a light, a Kaneka of light and uh may the light of the neos inspire us to new dedication. Kaneka means dedication uh in our service of Hashem and then recognizing our true priorities in life. [music] [singing] My [music] birthday is your [music] >> [music]