The SUPERNATURAL number | (MITZVAS NER CHANUKAH Class 1)

all right we're starting a new mimer um it's a kanah mimer from toin L that is well I'm trying to think if it would have already been 1978 or if it was still it was probably still 1977 because you know the English year changes in January and it's like a few months after the Jewish New Year so could be it was still could be I didn't do the date conversion to see it's probably sometime like December of 77 because it was 57 38 you guys following what I'm saying okay this is totally unimportant but the point is it's a it's a MIM from Kaneka of that year okay MIM from the Reb and the the opening words are from a br from a Rabin teaching from uh from the talmud in tractate of chabas our rabbis have taught the Mitzvah of the Kaneka lamp or light is ETC okay so most my mm start with a PK with a verse from scripture that's probably 90% of the time I would guess but sometimes the jumping off point of a mimer is a m Kaz a saying of our sages and that's the case here so as I said this is a teaching from the tractate chabas it's interesting there's no tractate devoted specifically to the laws of Kaneka but where do you find the section that deals with Kaneka it happens to be in the tractate of chabas why this is a total aside it has nothing to do with what we're learning today but because when it's talking about shabas candles and the Wicks and the oils that you can use for chabas candles so it takes like a uh goes on a tangent and speaks about the Wicks and the oils that you use for lighting the khek manura and then it speaks all about kanah okay at any rate that's not important to the main subject here it is here's a quote from that teaching B sh the school of Shai you're familiar with the school of Shai right famous School of Shai on the first day of Kan you light eight eight lights from on out you diminish one less each night until how many do you light on the last night one very good you ever seen that no because we don't follow for the h says the school of Hill the counterpart of B says on the first night of you light one light from there on out you increase one one at a time until on the last night you have how many lights eight eight you ever seen that all the time that's what we do okay time to bami and the talmud continues and says the reasoning of B Shi is to correspond with the bulls of the festival what are the Bulls of the festival the festival means suus what are the Bulls of suus carbonis there sacrificial offerings that were brought during the eight days of suus every single day there would be um a number of Bulls brought on the first day of sucus it was 14 on the second day it was 13 on the third day it was 12 12 amazing pattern recognition that's genius when you can establish a pattern with just two examples very good and then it goes lesser less and less until um the last day and then the total number is 70 which corresponds to the nations of this world the Bulls that were brought as a sacrifice during suus represent a gift on be that the Jewish people are bringing on behalf of all of the nations of this world to bring World Peace okay so the reason for bami saying you do one less light on the Mana every night is in order to be congruent with the bulls of the suus festival the sacrificial bows of the Suk festival and the reasoning of because you ascend in matters of Holiness anything that's holy you don't diminish you increase okay that's the excerpt of the teaching from the talmud it goes on there's more detail but this is the pertinent excerpt that the de brings here okay yeah we're good fine VI do and it is known the um how do you say a means he zeros in on a on a detail and sort of asks a question who does adok who's adok the AL the balat I told you before that the rebes mym are a study of all of the previous generations of mym the Reb is the seventh and he's taking all the that the from kabad taught in the previous generations and sort of putting it all together so theb refers back to something that the AL says where does the AL say this in what's it's a safer of my M of the Al I know there are a lot of people in this class who study t with me T yes is a book of the AL but then there are other from the okay so the AL says about this what does Kaneka the Kaneka lights have to do with the the Bulls of suus like what's the Thematic connection why we even I get it that that's what Bish is basing it on but why does he feel that that's something that he wants to base it out especially according to what the writes is the Al's grandson explains that in fact B Hill doesn't even dis doesn't even disagree with base shami's reasoning he just says there's a greater reason that overrides that reason you follow what I'm saying it's not that Bas Hill says no the the kanyes don't have a thematic connection to the bows of the festival it's just that they say it's more important to conform with the concept of miles of ascending and increasing in matters of Holiness so according to both B sham and Bas H there is a them atic connection between the Kaneka lights and the Bulls of the sukus festival why I don't know okay now you're going to say oh oh oh oh oh I know I know I know they're both eight days I've seen that in places it says that Hanukah and suus are connected because they're both eight days I got it that's why that's why they're connected de that the number eight and eight is the number above isalus means the chainlike process of development of the Worlds how the infinite creates finite worlds increasingly finite worlds until it culminates in this physical world so there's a system of isas of World building and that system is associated with the number seven because seven is a number that rep it reiterates itself within the patterns of the the order of the world the order of the world we also have a word for that a one-word word a one-word word a one-word term for the system and the Order of creation it's called nature nature doesn't mean going out into the woods and hiking and taking a picture of an owl nature means the way things are because that's how they are whether we're describing the nature of I don't know the properties of water or we're talking about the nature of uh uh how how a how a plant reproduces or we're talking about the nature of I don't know human nature like the way people think or the nature of spiritual Realms yeah the like like angels have certain properties that are natural to them so nature just means the way things are that's the way they are built yeah is that similar or different to the code the code yeah it's similar it's it's a similar concept to the code that we were yeah it's not the same code that we were speaking about before but yes is a code that is embedded in the way things are it is the the rules for the way things are and we see seven repeated in nature the the world was created in seven days and then after the seventh day it Loops back around because seven is the the full cycle right you don't have the eighth day of the week you have you go back back to the first day of the week seven is the natural cycle and and we see it's interesting that in the colors of the rainbow you have seven and you have seven notes on the musical scale then you come back to to the original note seven is a natural number okay so eight is going Beyond nature eight means outside of the system kanaka and sukus or maybe I should say sukus and Kaneka because sukus existed before Kaneka khah is a Rabin holiday sukus and Kana both have eight days which shows that they both have a connection to this concept of eight which is the concept of that which is beyond the normal Order of Things aha that's why we want or at least Bame wants and Bill would want to make the lighting of the Mina conform to the Bulls of the festival because of the underlying connection between Kaneka and sukus both being a days and therefore both being Beyond nature that's our answer no it's not but that itself requires explanation deba says that itself that itself requires explanation what's the connection of suus and Kana to the idea of that which is beyond nature in other words you're saying though oh I know the connection they're both eight days cuz they're both Beyond nature yeah but explain that why they both Beyond nature Ian what does what does sukus have to do with that and what does Kaneka have to do with that and in fact that's what causes them to be eight days it's not oh they're eight days therefore they're beyond nature it's they are Beyond nature therefore came out as eight days so we have to understand that all right so that's one thing we want to understand yeah well so we're trying to understand why Kaneka and sukus are both considered to be holidays that have to do with that which is beyond the natural order of things also we know that the reason for the Kan lights was to commemorate the Mir irle that happened in the temple with the oil now the original mon in the temple had seven lamps seven branches seven lamps why does Hanukah have eight lamps and eight days yeah I know because the oil lasted for eight days but even that I could even that's not such a strong answer because it was one day's worth of oil the miracle was only the extra seven days so I have to understand why the Kan Mana is eight branches I have to understand why Kaneka is eight days I if it's really going to be um representative of the of the Mana that was in the B of mikdash then it should be seven okay so I'm just questioning what's the eight all right another thing we need to understand you guys know that in the beginning of a mare we ask a lot of question questions right you also understand that there's no prize for answering these questions right you also understand that one of my great pet peeves is trying to learn a mimer with people and they're like oh I know the answer like I don't want to hear the answer that's not the point you know what is the point by the way why are we asking all these questions it's the process the questions are going to force us to rethink some stuff that maybe we've been taking for granted so the answers are not even terribly important in fact I'll share a secret with you there are many times where where a mimer will ask a question and not answer it the answer was not the point it's the process that you go through and the way you change your thinking along the way okay another thing we have to understand that's mimer language for another question Ma sorry I got confused there was a sudden Yiddish word I didn't that it was a Yiddish word is also a Yiddish word yeah the means the comparison oh he says in parenthesis the comparison what's the comparison to if you're gonna say that Kaneka is evoke some type of this type of similarity or has some thematic connection to to suus okay fine but why specifically that aspect of suus why the the the Bulls of the of the of the holiday and the further asks like it's kind of weird that that's the aspect of suus that we're applying to the Mana of Kaneka because okay the Mana is a real thing in the Bas mdash they lit a Mana a candal abam um every day in the in the Holy Temple now the the P are are animal sacrifices that was brought on the altar the outer altar in the courtyard those are two different areas in the temple two different um two different vessels two different areas two different levels of Holiness so it's kind of funny that we're like smushing them together let's read what it says seemingly doesn't make sense because the is related to the after all the the mitvah of lighting the is to commemorate the miracle that happened with the the the Bulls of the festival are brought like any animal they're brought on the outer Altar and the are two different vessels especially as is explained in kab the like the inner meaning of these two vessels they're not just like two spots in the temple two different uh physical objects they really have completely different spiritual meanings lighting the lighting the lights of the man and bringing animal sacrifices are two different avas they're two totally different ways of serving AEM so what's again what's the why are we comparing one to the other to the extent that okay now I got to give a little background story it's says yours the N are greater than theirs the carbonis that's a story the story is you remember pares n all the nium bring their Carbones they bring their gifts all the heads of the 12 tribes bring their gifts and then uh but the tribe of Ley is not one of those 12 and then Ain feels bad and that's the end of NOS so that's the end of No and then the beginning of B which is the next para basically is Hashem telling Arin who's the and thean are from the shavit Ley he says don't feel bad that your tribe wasn't represented in bringing sacrifices yours meaning your Mitzvah of lighting them is greater than theirs meaning their gifts that have to do with bringing carbonis so from that story we know that the Mana and the animal sacrifices although both occurring in the Bas MDES are two totally different categories and in fact as the the the uh promise to Ain is made when when Ain is comforted for his tribe not being represented in those gifts yours are greater why there's a reason given because your lights will never be extinguished what does it mean your lights will never be extinguished it means that even when the bigdash is destroyed although the animal sacrifices will cease the Mana Al be in the in another form in the form of the Kan Mana will continue okay so the point is there're two totally different C categories why are we using one to inform us about the manner of Performing the other meaning why are we using the diminishing Bulls of sukus to teach us how to light the lights of Kaneka so far so good okay if you're at all not following it's because you're using too much of the part of your brain that's trying to answer these questions and you shouldn't be don't try to answer these questions at all okay you know what that means we have to understand what does that mean was that code for in mimr language I told you five minutes ago another question great another question in case you didn't have enough questions lighting the man the time for lighting the man the Mitzvah of lighting starts when the Sun goes down it's known this is a known question the in theik in the temple was lit during the daytime specifically at PL which is an hour and a quarter Before Sunset and the khuk Mana is properly lit only from Sunset and on into the night since lighting the Kan is supposed to be uh commemorative of the lights of the man in the B especially uh because we know that any rinic enactment was supposed to be similar was supposed to follow the themes of the biblical concept that it is jumping off from it would have made more sense seemingly that the lighting of the should be at the same time as the bik meaning while it's still sunlight out so why is the are specifically lit after the sun goes down okay so we had a bunch of questions you want to Rattle them off what are the what are the basic questions we're asking remember the conne yeah what's the connection between the Bulls ofus and Kaneka right and don't tell me it's because they're both eight because then I'll ask you why are they both eight right why are they both above nature superal right superal yeah then you're going to then I'm going to say why specifically that aspect of sucus are you drawing upon meaning the the Bulls because that's the The Altar and the Mana is the Mana which is totally different concept and then one more thing the timing yeah why why why is it being done at night when the original manota was done during the day okay another question is just Bulls we're talking the that we do ises right why is the Mana eight why is the Kan Mana eight when the original Mana was seven right we also mentioned that exactly so we have a lot of questions okay I don't want to try to answer any of this I just want us to open our minds and go on a journey okay chapter two chapter two you know what a is like a point so the point of explanation meaning there's an idea there's an a there's a point here that if you start to get this idea a lot of your questions are going to answer themselves you get what I mean in other words the the mimer is trying to get us to look at Kaneka in a new way and if you'll look at Kaneka in a new way then a lot of these questions will either disappear or they'll have obvious have obvious answers okay the general concept of the Kana lights is to illuminate the darkness both literally and figuratively okay the theme of Kan is lighting up the darkness remember the kanah miracle transpired when the Greeks entered by the way technically they weren't Greeks that wasn't their ethnicity that was their culture they were syrians ethnically but they were hellenists culturally but I don't want to be pedantic and say the Syrian Greeks every single time I read the word yonim yes it calls them yonim they were not ethnically yanim they were culturally yanim there was a whole oh little kanah background there was the whole uh culture war with the helenistic culture spreading through Europe and the Middle East and that was haneko was one part of that they were heniz all over the place and the holy land was but one place where they were heniz at any rate so Hanukah is about lighting up the dark and the original story of Hanukah takes place at a very dark time when the um Syrian Greeks came into the temple and they defiled the oil the spiritual Darkness was so great that not only did the Greeks enter the temple and managed to defile not only did they enter the temple they managed to actually defile the oil and what does that mean why is that like a greater why is that more egregious not only the reached the area and they entered it and they defiled the area but they they managed to defile the oil why is that like to add insult to injury sh is identified with the level called like we say holy anointment oil the wordes is a word by itself um I think what that means grammatically is it's a noun KES is a noun it is a thing as opposed toes which is an an adjective and a modifier therefore it needs a word to modify so KES is a higher they both mean holy but KES is a more intrinsic level of Holiness than KES and as he was about to explaines Vin contains a v the V indicates um sort of a secondary status well we we'll we'll read the words inside oil is like it's it what it represents spiritually is um seen in its physical property that it floats on other liquids and remains distinct from them so oil represents this level of Holiness that remains untouched it remains above it remains aloof not in a negative way but it's uh sort of uh intrinsically separate so it's a very high lofty level and then to to to defile that is obviously a real a real disaster so it's OD therefore that this that they defiled all of the oil in the Holy Temple that's even more egregious than the fact that they defiled the the holy area meaning it's not just they entered the holy area the he but they they got the oil the oil is special the oil like like physical oil floats floats on top of other liquids it's it the physical occurrence represents something was happening spiritual spiritually that the the darkness of that time was such that the the heniz were able to do some real deep damage some real deep damage they were causing spiritual defilement to levels that are normally Beyond uh be beyond the the normal grasp like you have to understand we're going to speak about it in this mimer but they weren't trying to kill Jews at least not at first that wasn't their agenda I mentioned a few moments ago that there was a culture War it was a very successful culture War I mean we should talk about the rampant assimilation uh among the Jewish people that happened at that time the helist were almost successful I mean those who rebelled among the Jews were a minority of the Jews so it wasn't just a minority the Jews being smaller than the than the Syrian Greeks it was like a minority among the Jews minority from from within a minority so at any rate it was was a really dark time it was a very dark time it was a time when when our holy tradition was really at risk so that's what we're saying that kekah comes from it symbolizes the light overcoming the darkness because it occurred at a very dark time okay a we know that the level of the H is a very lofty level within the 10 levels of Holiness there are 10 like areas of Holiness um it has to do with Purity and impurity and and sacrifices but you know there's the like the level of the land of Israel itself and then there's the within the walls of Jerusalem and then there's the Temple Mount so the area that the Greeks entered is like a very high level so just entering that level is already a major damage but the fact that they got to the oil that's like even worse okay dka and this is this also is brought out by the aspect of the story that um even after the Jewish people entered the temple and were able to purify the sanctuary they were Reliant upon a miracle in order to light the Mana again in other words things were so bad they couldn't just be put back it required a miracle to reinstate things and the first miracle is not just that the oil lasted as long as it did the first miracle is that they even found any oil that had been untouched they found oil that still had the Seal of the high priest yeah and then he explains this is the infinite light that is above hisas like we explained what hisus is that that order that creative order that on that level that is above the natural order even Darkness does not obscure no to the contrary not only does Darkness not obscure on that level but on that level Darkness shines following what we're saying things were so messed up there was no natural rectification for it the only way to fix things was not to make them normal they could never go back to normal the only way to fix things was to take a light that is beyond the normal system system what we call the on that level that's beyond the system it transcends the normal rules so Darkness doesn't obscure in fact why not Darkness can even shine that doesn't make sense within the system but we're drawing from a level beyond the system and that's that would that was the only thing that would have fixed what was broken at that time so so what we're seeing is that the healing that happened during the time of Kaneka was that that which is normally beyond the order of nature the system of the worlds entered the world where we had a light that is so powerful that even Darkness can shine is that different than before the Greek is it different than before yeah it's one of those instances where the breakage leads to a healing greater than what we had previously he explains further there's an expression um it's from uh it's from a verse from the book of base and hav God will illuminate my darkness God will illuminate my darkness but it says with the V which means and and Hashem will illuminate my darkness so what does that mean what does that v mean that V which means and it's the conjunction and V is that straight line so it means and adding something and how is it adding straight line it's bringing something down in other words when you draw down from above the system then then even my darkness will be illuminated now we understand why the Mana is is lit during the dark why do we wait until night to light it why cuz that's the whole point of Kaneka that the Mana can take on the darkness that's the whole point the whole concept of kanah is to illuminate the darkin the or make the illuminate yeah well you're right that's how we illuminate the dark we make the dark illuminate you're right yeah is it a miracle to lay the candle and it illuminates in the dark or is it more of a miracle for the dark to illuminate itself mean what what what's more miraculous yeah what's more miraculous is when the dark shines because the whole definition of dark is that it is the absence of light so to light up the dark is to override the darkness the effect of the darkness to cause dark Darkness to shine is much more miraculous it's to to change the the essence of Darkness but we're not doing that when we physically light a candle yeah we're lighting a candle you're right but what it represent spiritually is the concept of turning Darkness into light and that we do all the time and KHAK is what gives us the power to do that when we not only overcome from spiritual darkness and get past it but we turn spiritual Darkness into a spiritual asset that's that transformative effect which Kaneka really is the the source of that okay um and that's also why there's eight of them that you understand right that's how can because eight what's eight Supernatural Supernatural what does that mean Supernatural eight is beyond seven what's seven nature nature the regular system the regular cycle eight is outside of that beyond that things were so broken the only way that they were fixed was to take something beyond the regular system and bring it into the system so that's why it's eight that's why there are eight days there's eight lights eight days he actually said first that's why there are eight lights and then in parenthesis that's why there are eight days because the number eight can as we said in chapter one is indicative of what that which is above the normal natural order of things because that's the level specifically that is required in order to turn Darkness into light okay that's the end of chapter two which darkness is turning light like when this happened I'm assuming it'sing about this moment that they found this oil that's so I was saying before that this was a very spiritually dark time I was explaining that helenismo and threatening to destroy the Jewish people from within so that's that's pretty dark we're going to explain a little bit more as we continue in the mimer exactly what how this Darkness manifested meaning what what was under attack specifically I understand it was something that was a pervasive threat to Torah and Judaism itself but we're going to get into more specifically what idea was was being threatened what was the Lynch pin here there not a physical visual Darkness well it's also a physical darkness which that's precisely why we light the Mana when it's physically dark outside this like illumination from Darkness versus light what we're talking about the miracle in the times of Kaneka the original Kaneka was not that there was a physical light it's I mean the physical light is symbolic or it's uh representative of the spiritual Victory what was the spiritual Victory they lit the man manura was was representative of the spiritual Victory the spiritual Victory is that there was an incredibly powerful popular movement that was so embraced by the entire world at that time that Jewish people almost voluntarily spiritually destroyed themselves sounds pretty scary huh might even sound familiar there was a threat to eradicate Judaism by taking over the Jewish mind in a very subtle very gentlemanly way where the Jewish people themselves would invite it and feel that they were still Jewish while it was happening we're going to explain it we're going to explain it because this is what the MERS is going to get into next okay chapter 3 Let's do chapter 3 OB [Music] beo um I I saw recently a podcast Jordan Peterson was talking about doing his biblical thing and he was talking about how Ben Shapiro was on talking about the book of Exodus and he was boning the fact that Ben mind was wasted on the culture war and he said he should be he he like he said it very respectfully I mean they work together obviously they're they're they're friends or at least colleagues so Jordan Peterson said you know the real important ideas are Theology and philosophy and uh that that's what the great minds should really be devoted to and he said uh Ben is using his mind to fight the culture War he was like bemoaning that is like a loss and I was thinking about that a lot like oh and and then at the same time that this very same day actually it was yesterday the day was yesterday somebody sent me a clip of Ben Shapiro uh saying why are there not more Orthodox Jewish thinkers out in the public sphere fighting the culture War so it was like it it wasn't a direct response to that in fact I think the second video I saw chronologically occurred before the first video that I just described the point was I was thinking about it a lot I still haven't come to a resolution but should I guess I'm not asking this theoretically I'm asking about me should I be commenting on current events or should I be learning my modem and I'm grappling with that um obviously anything of worth that I would have to contribute would come from these my modm so I'm thinking maybe it's when we learn the my modem we just try to have in mind the practical application to what's going on in the world today although you can make an argument that you know at best a few thousand people are going to watch a video of learning a mimer and if you make a clickbaity title about some current event then you can get a thousand times more people instead of it's a few thousand it could be a few million I don't know these are the things I'm grappling with it's of your concern you don't have to worry about it just putting it out there for whatever it's worth let's try to quickly do chapter 3 okay let's do chapter three quickly let's explain all these matters in terms of our personal service of a meaning what does this look like when we apply it application Yen maybe our answer maybe my answer to my present conundrum will be found in this chapter of the mimer okay let's find out so the Reb introduces something a concept from his father-in-law's M remember I said that is always drawing upon the previous R's teachings this that the Greeks defiled the oil was because they were fighting a spiritual war in other words from a military strategy point of view there was absolutely nothing advantageous perhaps you would even call it a waste of time to ritually defile the oil it's not like stealing the enemy's fuel or even to destroy the enemy's fuel this is ritually defiling it which practically doesn't really accomplish anything the only damage is spiritual damage and the debba says in the name of his father-in-law yes that was precisely the point they were trying to inflict spiritual damage they were fighting a spiritual war they knew exactly what they were doing they were not just fighting a material War they were fighting also a spiritual war the heniz originally had no desire I say originally because eventually things did come to um military conflict but originally the heniz had no desire to physically arm the Jews that was not part of their agenda they were heniz they were making the entire world culturally Greek which was a pretty liberal approach um meaning to say the hellenists didn't really eradicate local cultures as long as you could sort of integrate your local culture with theirs they weren't very particular about it it wasn't like they demanded that you uproot any trace of your of your whatever whatever your local uh beliefs and and Customs um so they were they were looking to do the same thing with the Jews Ella rather their main agenda was and now we're going to take words from the alanam prayer the alanam prayer is a special paragraph of Thanksgiving blessing that we say on Kaneka we say it when we pray every day in Kaneka we say it when we eat a meal we say the grace after meals so in the alhan prayer it says um that the Greeks sought to what to make the Jews forget your Torah Torah your Torah we're speaking to Hashem in the second person here and to remove them from the laws of your will again speaking to Hashem in the second person okay so to make you to make the Jews forget your Torah meaning hashem's Torah and to remove them from the laws of your will I want to just preface the word here for laws H which is grammatically not a word that stands alone is when it's when it's combined with another word but the the word the noun that would stand by itself is a is a particular type of law generally there are three categories of Mitzvah or laws in Torah there are is just plural for same word a is a suar rational law that has no basis in human intellect aidus are laws that they don't make sense you wouldn't have come up with them on your own from a city council meeting but after they exist you're like oh I see why like for instance um the holidays you're commemorating something okay I get it that's that's what you're doing um you know hookim is something like don't mix wool and linen like that makes no sense MIM are things that you would have come up with just by being an intelligent person like don't steal right don't don't uh dig a pit in the in the public uh thoroughfare and uh leave it uncovered okay fine when theists were fighting against their main fight wasn't against to Mitzvah per se but against the spiritual or Godly aspect or quality of the Mitzvah in other words if the Jews would have agreed to preserve Torah Mitzvah as a culture meaning we do this because this is what our fathers did and this is our culture the heniz would have had no problem allowing them to continue to do so as long as they combined with it helenistic culture the problem was the Jews said no when we do these Mitzvah it is specifically because of the Divinity of these Mitzvah it's not just because of tradition no it's not just because this is what we do this is because God told us to do it they didn't like that that they didn't like that's crazy talk intelligent people shouldn't speak that way by the way the helist were particularly perturbed by the Jews because the Jews are so intellectual they thought that the Jews would be sympathetic to their approach to secularize Judaism because you're such smart people should you should embrace the idea of doing things because it makes sense and by the way way doing it because it's tradition also is a reason that makes sense that you can you can be a secular conservative you can say I'm doing these things that are that are rituals and I know they're they're they're meaningless but they're meaningful to me because my father did them that would have been fine but the fact that Jews said no no no these mitzah have inherent spiritual value yuck the heniz were not okay with that but they must agree what they must agree they must agree why do you say that that they have spiritual value they weren't saying don't do it but they didn't want that spiritual value attached to it because that changes right they didn't want the spiritual value attached to it correct that's what their that was their contention okay so let's let's continue here it's just interesting that thean GRE would recognize and appreciate value in those Torah and MIT I don't know so much they recognized it really as as much as they understood that that was the main factor that would pose an inherent um unresolvable conflict as far as assimilating the Jewish people I think they understood that their success had been um that is you can allow people to hold on to their culture you know I think their success had been that they were dealing with people who were also okay with the idea that they it their way of life wasn't necessarily absolute morality there's a certain moral relativism here um once you say that these laws are categorically different than all other laws that's what bothered them like every society gets together and has its thinkers and legal philosophers that try to come up with good rules but you're saying your rules are categorically different like they're not subject to popular opinion that really I think the Syrian Greeks were actually pretty correct in assessing that as an existential uh threat to their their agenda at least you know in in in the holy land okay let let me continue here because I want to finish this chapter that's why it says that they sought to make the Jews forget your Torah meaning meaning the Torah that belongs to you to to Hashem meaning they didn't mind if it was a Torah but divorced from Hashem you can learn the laws go ahead you can have a college course in talmud and study the Jewish lore and uh just don't attribute any sanctity to it the heners did not care so much that the Jews learned they could learn they just wanted it should be a purely intellectual Pursuit learn it because it's clever the talmud is so clever the the the intricacies of its dialectic will sharpen your mind or like the verse says that the Torah there's a verse in Deuteronomy Dum 4: 6 which is the Torah will be considered among among the world as the wisdom hashem's wisdom among the Jews so yeah great be wise and the the Helen ISS you know they they they enjoyed having different types of cultures under their banner and they knew Jews are famous for being smart so like hey yeah you smart Jews be smart under our helenistic Banner the the entire thrust of their attack was to make us forget your Torah meaning T to make the Jews forget that Torah is hashem's Torah like continue to learn it teach it become experts in it just don't think of it as God's lawz and similarly with the Mitzvah with the actual laws the Torah means the concepts the ideas Mitzvah means the code the behavioral code the war that the helist were fighting against the Mitzvah was against the Divinity of the Mitzvah they didn't mind if they were preserved as cultural practices or relics they didn't want us to attribute Divinity to it the idea that the mitz was are God's will that they didn't like that's precisely the wording here is that word superrational laws of your will God's will that it's ultimately it is moral because God likes it not that God likes it because it's moral it is right because that is the will of God they like that kind of stuff there are two levels of meaning to this that the other two categories of Mitzvah other than what I called before the and the that they were okay with because that had some basis in rationality and really the only war that the Y were fighting was against the superrational laws so they just wanted to make us not observe things like don't mix wool and linen and crazy stuff like that okay Maven because those Mitzvah it's pretty clear the only reason you're doing it is because God said so so one explanation is that's all the Greeks were trying to uproot just get rid of those Mitzvah those Mitzvah that don't have any intellectual explanation pet Bas but then there's a second explanation it's a deeper the says it's a deeper explanation when it says they were trying to remove us from it doesn't just mean the laws the superrational laws it really means they wanted to remove us from all of the Mitzvah but not even to remove us from the Mitzvah to let us continue to practice the Mitzvah but to remove from us the feeling of divinity that's even in those those other laws in other words ultimately the fact that in Jewish law it says that the if if you damage somebody's property you have to pay for it the reason that a Jew does that is not because that's convention that's what moral people seem to all agree is normal but rather because that is what God Almighty has deemed to be the truth and His Infinite unknowable Wisdom well what's so infinitely unknowable about the fact that if you damaged somebody's property you should pay for it there is such a concept that ultimately even behind the most rational laws of the Torah there is a Divine core that is incomprehensible to Mortal intellect which is where does this surface where do you see this become relevant when a law that is normally considered ubiquitous or ubiquitously moral becomes inconvenient and then we begin to rationalize because if after all we conform to the Mitzvah because of its rationale well when it starts to offend our sensibilities whether for you know selfish reasons or even for for more lofty reasons it offends us on a philosophical uh basis so then we start to figure out loopholes to get around it because you know God wouldn't want that surely he wouldn't want that you know this causes too much trouble this is too or this is too intellectually untenable so we just dismiss it and move on but if you follow the Mitzvah even the Mitzvah that make sense if you follow even the MIT of the Mak sense because God said so well then you have to do it no matter what CU God said so even when it's inconvenient for you so one explanation is that's what the Greeks were targeting they wanted us to which is really deep if you think about it like they didn't even have the internet how are they going to do this what they wanted to do is this is a crazy agenda to somehow accomplish that there would be a Torah observant Jewish community on under their under their governance which would continue to observe Torah study Torah and do Mitzvah but have no feeling of divinity in regards to any of it and the crazy thing is they were almost successful in accomplishing that and the fact that they didn't required drawing down a light that is what we call eight beyond the natural order in order to repair that that that damage and that's what we're representing symbolically when we light the eight branched manura in the dark at the at the time of Darkness after the sunset yeah I think what I was trying to get UPS clearly that it's infinite okay so the qu the great question you're asking is and I have have this question not only about this mimer but about many mm where the rebba will explain the the thought process of our foes whether it be H onur or in MIT and the question that often we ask or I've asked is did these bad guys know all of this were they conscious of this because if so that makes them pretty spiritually tuned in right why didn't they just join and that is the definition of evil they understood exactly what it was and they chose to oppose it