The War to Remember - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

Shalom friends uh this has been a very special Hanukkah not only for me personally right lighting the menorah holding my beautiful little daughter davash and my son Shilo in my arms seeing the lights in the most beautiful way imaginable right seeing the holy candles of Hanukkah reflect it in their eyes it's like a dream come true beyond what I can explain but that's not the only reason I also I also really feel like as I look around the world today it feels like the messages of Hanukkah are more needed and more relevant than ever before right we have Liberation from foreign rule not only political role but also spiritual rule from the uh you know the aggressive colonialist attack on our deepest beliefs by empty nothingness right by superficial Hellenism which seems to be being spearheaded by the West really but but in a larger sense by the entire world on social media on all the platforms on Tick Tock YouTube Facebook Instagram everywhere the internet all around the world and as we've said before the hellenists believed what did they believe that what is beautiful is good and the nation of Israel what do we believe we believe what is good is beautiful which is a much more novel and a much more revolutionary idea an idea which was mutually exclusive with the immoral superficiality which the Greeks were propagating around the world after all in the Hellenistic Society much like the West today with the identity politics and the critical race Theory and all of that stuff what was on the outside decided everything if a child was deformed disabled or even just ugly by at least by the conventions of that time kill them leave them to die that was back then now it's just social Pariah you just don't matter you're invisible you don't exist and don't even think twice about it don't feel guilty after all the very concept of guilt in the first place was a Jewish invention but according to the nation of Israel what is good is beautiful kindness compassion Mercy it doesn't matter it doesn't matter whether it's done by a GQ model or a fashion icon or anyone else if it's an act of goodness that is what defines true beauty not merely what's on the outside but how did we get to this deep truth how did we arrive at this novel idea what's the secret to piercing through all the superficial externalities to sing the deeper inner secret dimensions of existence well here in our fellowship we know the answer to that question that's why we're here it's what we dedicate our time to every single week and it's what ideally we devote our entire lives to pursuing and fulfilling the Torah and that's why you know as my friend Rabbi Wilds points out in the famousim prayer we remember that the true nature of the war of the Greeks against the Israelites was that they should be successful at causing us to forget to forget our holy Torah God forbid their hope continues to this day to be that they would be successful in distracting us with their coliseums and their gymnasiums and their vomitoriums with their flashy and attractive distractions which catch the eye and often yes do appeal to the senses and all this would cause us to Simply forget their Hope was that our our ancient Scrolls and our legal manuscripts will not be able to compete with their with their flashy seductions and indeed many of the Jews of that time did become hellenists and embrace that superficial empty stupidity but uh but there was that obstinate few that unyielding unreasonable Remnant that refused to give in and through those small few the nation was saved and the Greek seleucid Empire was brought to their knees and friends today feels no different The Superficial secular distractions of of emptiness and immorality are reaching to the far ends of the Earth through these Behemoth social media corporatocracies that seem so strong and compelling that it feels impossible to even try and resist but resist we have write and resist we do and while they may think that they have already been successful and they've won the battle and the rest is just details what they don't know is that the fight is still on and this Fellowship is a prime example of the unreasonable fight of a single candle against a world of Darkness you know one of the ongoing debates are on Hanukkah that I love so much revolved around what the nature of the oil that was lit in the temple because yes we know that one day's worth of oil lasted eight days but did it happen that the first day's portion of oil was fully consumed naturally on the first night in the new miraculous oil was replenished each following day because that is one opinion but in this beautiful book that train and I have been enjoying this Hanukkah called the light that unites they bring the opinion of salivaichik that says such a thing would have been impossible because the oil that we're commanded to use is supposed to be natural olive oil so according to that opinion the seven subsequent Knights would have been invalid because it would not have been natural olive oil but miraculous olive oil which is not kosher I I always love The Clash of rationalist legalism with the dimension of Miracles but anyways explains something that feels true and and even intuitive he teaches that it was natural olive oil but it was miraculously made more potent Hashem didn't change the quantity of the oil as the first opinion posits rather some change the quality of the oil he changed it qualitatively by causing only 1 8 of the oil to burn in the time that it should normally consume the entire amount of oil therefore lasting eight full days that's the deepest essence of the message of the Torah to the world of the message of the Jewish people to the world Ezra of goldsider brings from Deuteronomy chapter 7 when Moshe tells the nation of Israel it is not because you are the most numerous people that the Lord has set his heart on you and chose you indeed you're the smallest of peoples the Torah shows us that it's what's inside the camps that's where even the smallest flicker of fire of Torah and Faith where that fire is an entire world of Darkness can and will be defeated that it's not the quantity of anything that matters that it's the quality that matters that the entire world can feel like it's closing in on us and their foreign values those those values that seem so alien to us they may have even violated our own homes or even times in our own minds but if we're still here if we're still logging into this fellowship if we still have that one vial of pure oil within us then the war is on and we will be victorious we will be victorious because they want to distract us and they want to overwhelm us and they want us to forget but we refuse even at the pain of death and that my friends is what makes us Maccabees or at least for me you know aspiring Maccabees there's another debate that I love that I want to share with you even though I may be running out of time and here's the debate do we start with one candle and then build up to eight or do we start with eight candles and then go down each night to one and the the nature of this debate isn't just a technical debate it's whether what we're lighting here is fire or it's light so according to the opinion that it's fire well we want to destroy all evil from the world and fire is a fire of Destruction so we start with eight and we keep going down down all the way to one until there's no more evil in the world than when you've destroyed it all all with that fire but according to the opinion that it's light well we start with one little bit of light and that light magnifies and grows and amplifies and amplifies until the entire world is lit up and that's what we believe that the the light the candles of of Hanukkah are light and we're here to shine a light to the world and that's what we are doing my friends and that's what we see happening in the world right now these little light of our Hanukkah candles this night when we're lighting all eight of them that light is shining to the world well we know that miracles happen then because we bless Hashem on this day we say blessed you Lord our god king of the universe who performed miracles for us in those days and in these times the miracle is happening now my friend I love you so much shalom shalom