The Flame the Greeks Could Never Extinguish - Rabbi Dr Yitzchak Greenblatt

[music] There are many differences between Kaneka and Purim, but because I'm Jewish, I'd like to focus on the food. And I don't just mean lutkas and hamashan. I mean that as part of Purim, there's an obligation to have a suda, a festive banquet. Quite apart from the question of whether we should drink or not drink. Let's leave that on the side for now. But on Khaneka, there's no such obligation. Of course, there is a long-standing custom to have meals and parties on Khaneka, and that's codified in the Hakic works as a good thing, especially if there's singing and praise of Hashem involved. But the question is, why wasn't it made mandatory? The Lavush has an interesting take on this. He says that on Purim, Hammond and Co were trying to destroy us physically. It wasn't a battle against our religion, per se, but against our very existence. So, it makes sense to celebrate the survival of our bodies with a banquet nourishing our bodies. But Khanekus says Lavush was a battle against Judaism as a spiritual system. The Greeks weren't interested in genocide of the Jews. They just wanted us to submit to their philosophy. You Jews aren't special. [music] So our official commemoration then is to light the minora. Not just to remember the miracle of the oil lasting for 8 days, but also the victory of the light of Judaism over the darkness of Greece. This darkness is alluded to in the very beginning of the Torah. the home. The medish tells us that with all their anti-Jewish decrees, the Greeks darkened the eyes of the Jews and they made them right on the horn of an ox that they had no portion in the God of Israel. What's the meaning of this portion in the God of Israel? [music] Well, one understanding is that a Jew, every Jew, no matter how far away from observance he may seem, has a special portion. That's his connection to Hashem. It's a flame that flickers, sometimes deeply buried, but there nonetheless hiding out [music] in the basement of his soul. A few years ago, a rabbi here in Israel had a student who was slowly becoming more connected and started coming to shore on Shabas. But he would leave after the Torah reading to go to work. And when confronted, he just said, "I'm sorry, rabbi, but I I just can't lose my job." So the rabbi, because he was a good rabbi, went to this man's boss, a completely secular Jew. Long story short, the boss agreed to allow the man to take Saturdays off, but he said, "Rabbi, I'm not a religious man, [music] but I don't think that he should do this. If he takes off Shabbat, then I'll be hiring another Jew to work on Shabbat in his place. Now, my father, who was an Awitz, told me that there [music] if a Jew could save his own life at the cost of another Jew being killed, he wouldn't do it. So, this man shouldn't keep Shabbat either at the cost of making someone else break Shabbat. Impressed, the rabbi took this question to Kyfki. Rheime said, "It's [music] true. You can't evade a negative thing by passing it on to another Jew." And he told him the source for this it's a Mari Barv really talking about taxation but he said this [music] case is different. You see in the camps the Jews had no choice over being killed. But here every person has free will and he doesn't have to take the job on Shabas. Also said Rubim [music] whoever does take this job would probably have been breaking Shabas anyway. So let him at least get the the benefit of helping another Jew to keep Shabas. [music] Go tell the boss that his father was correct and also tell him everything else that we discussed. So the rabbi went and told the employer everything that had said. He [music] was astounded. You people are living in a different world. He said, "One Jew is going to go to work and Riim's worried about the of the other one for his keeping Shabas. I'm closing my business on chabas. I want the I want the merit of all my workers not working on chabas and he closed his [music] business." How's such a thing possible? Where does it come from? The answer is that in him the flame of Kaneka burns still. The Greeks failed then. [music] The Greeks of today fail and the Greeks of the future will fail too. [music]