Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Israel is a Sheep among 70 Wolves Shammai and Hillel

Tonight's dedicated to memory of this is the outside of Yoel Ben Abraham. The 6th of Tevet is his Yahrzeit and he should have an aliyah neshama. Amen. Amen. Uh I uh With your permission, we just finished Hanukkah. You know, Monday was the last day of Hanukkah. It's already uh technically Wednesday, Yom Revi'i, but I'd like to share one thought about Hanukkah that as we leave the hag because there is some enduring relevance in the idea that I want to present. And today I want to talk about the well-known machlokes Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. How do you commemorate the miracle of Hanukkah? According to Beit Shammai, you start with eight candles and you go down. And according to Beit Hillel, you start with one candle and you go up. And as is normally the case when you have a machlokes Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, the halakha is like Beit Hillel, which is why we go up rather than go down. But the question is, how do you understand the machlokes? Like what is the logic here? Up, down, down, up. Like what's the difference? Why is it significant? Now, all of us know that throughout the Talmud, throughout the Mishnah, throughout the Gemara, there are many, many disputes between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Hillel and Shammai were people and then they they founded yeshivas. They founded academies, Beit Hillel, Beit Shammai. And we know that nine times out of 10, not 100% of the time, it is Beit Shammai who tends to be strict and Beit Hillel tends to be lenient. Now, in fact, there's even a rabbinic body here in Eretz Yisrael called Beit Hillel, which is kind of designed to be a little bit more liberal in the application of halakha. They claim they're following Beit Hillel. Now, let me emphasize one very important point. When we say Beit Hillel is lenient and Beit Shammai is strict, that is not a conscious agenda. That is not that Beit Hillel wakes up in the morning and says, "Whatever question I get, I'm going to be lenient." And Beit Shammai says, "I'm going to be mean today." Rather, I think it's axiomatic in our tradition that when a godol is trying to decide halakha, they're not coming with a preconceived idea, "I'm going to be lenient or I'm going to be strict." They're looking for truth. But, what they perceive as objective truth is connected to what is called the shoresh, the root of their neshama. You see, God is infinite. Because God is infinite, within God, so to speak, there are all possibilities. But, where your neshama is rooted, so to speak, in the metzius of Hashem, is going to determine your particular orientation to the emes. So, seen in this way, Kabbalah explains in the following way. The Torah begins with Bereishis Bara Elokim. God created the universe in the beginning, but the name of God that is used is Elokim. Elokim is the name of God that is rooted in midas hadin, the attribute of strict justice. But, what happened? That was God's machshava. That was God's original thought. But, he saw that the world could not survive because strict din would mean every time you make a mistake, that's it. One strike and you're out. Ra'ah, Rashi brings this from the Medrash, Ra'ah she'ain ha'olam miskayem. He saw that the world, human beings could not possibly survive a world based on strict din. So, God combined rachamim and din. And that is why it later says, "Be'ol masot Hashem Elohim eretz v'shamayim." Hashem Elohim made heaven and earth. Hashem is Yud-Kay-Vav-Kay. That is the name of rachamim, of of mercy and compassion. Elohim is din. Which means, in other words, in the realm of what's called the olam hamachshavah, in the realm of God's perfect thought, the world would have been founded on din. But in the realization of that thought, God had to compromise or dilute his original intention by adding rachamim. In a sense, rachamim is kind of a cop-out. Rachamim is kind of uh it's not the way things really should be, but I'll cut you a break. So, in a sense, it's a diminution from the purity of Hakadosh Baruchu's original machshavah. Now, there's a deeper understanding here, too, which I'm not going to get into, and that is din itself is actually an expression of divine mercy in a concealed way. But be it as it were as it were, even if din is concealed rachamim, nevertheless, operationally, it is strict din. And that was Hashem's ideal. But the world is an imperfect approximation of God's ideal because he was meshattef, he had to combine rachamim and din. This is something that's very hard for us to understand because you think God can do everything. So, in what way would the world ever be an imperfect realization of God's plan? But, I'll give you another example where you see this same idea. Uh Rashi brings that originally when Hashem uh ordered the trees to produce fruits, originally the taste of the wood should have been the same as the taste of the fruit. Meaning you chew the wood of an apple tree and you taste an apple. And Rashi says, when the tree was ordered to produce fruit, the tree rebelled against God. And it produced the fruit, but the wood was not the same as the fruit except in the case of an esrog. I've never chewed uh esrog wood, but they say it has the you can have the taste of the esrog. Huh? Why not? Uh yeah, I well, I have just haven't uh been in contact with it. Uh well, I got I guess I could chew the top of the Yeah, I guess I could chew the uh the oak hits. Yeah, you're right. There There is a piece of wood in the esrog. Yeah, I haven't gotten to that, but okay. Now, Maharal explains, what does it mean the tree rebels? The tree doesn't have bechira, the tree doesn't have free will. So, the Maharal says this is really a metaphorical expression. And what it means is the following. God is totally spiritual and totally perfect. But once godliness gets translated into physicality, by definition, there are going to be imperfections and slippages introduced into the physical realization of something. The physical realization of a spiritual idea can never be as perfect as the idea itself, even with respect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Now, that's very hard to understand, but that that's kind of the nature of physical reality. And as a result, the ideal would be the the wood tastes like the fruit. The imperfect realization is that it doesn't. In other words, there is a slippage between the physical khumrei megusham representation of a spiritual idea and the spiritual idea itself. We see this in ourselves all the time. Uh our thought is not fully captured in our speech. Right? Our speech is an attempt to concretize, give a physical shape, so to speak, to the thoughts in our mind. But, you know, we don't get it right necessarily. It doesn't really capture what's going on. Language is essential for communication, but language itself is actually somewhat incomplete in conveying what you really mean. So, therefore, the same idea occurs in rachamim and din. Hashem's machshavah was the world of din. The realization of that machshavah is a dilution of that perfect idea by bringing rachamim into din. Now, the Shlah Hakadosh offers a beautiful pshat, if you remember, the famous midrash, when Rabbi Akiva was being tortured to death because he was teaching Torah. He was tortured by the Romans. And there were iron combs that were combing his flesh away from his body. And when his talmidim were crying, Rabbi Akiva said, "All of my life I was hoping to fulfill the verse that you should love Hashem with all of your heart, with all of your soul. Why are you sad? I'm now fulfilling exactly the directive of giving my whole soul to the Ribono shel Olam." But, it wasn't only the talmidim that were crying. The midrash says the malachim in heaven were crying to Hashem. And they said, "Zoo Torah the zoo Sahara? This is Torah and this is the reward? This is your reward to someone who gave his whole existence to learn and to teach Torah?" And Hashem's answer in the midrash is, "Stoke." Keep quiet. Cough a lot the Mach Shavuot the finale. This is my thought. Don't question it. Now, most people simply translate that as Hashem is saying, "Don't ask questions. It's none of your business. I'm not explaining anything." The Shulchan Aruch says, Hashem is giving a very specific answer. This is what Hashem means. My original Mach Shavuot was to have a world of perfect din. I compromised on that because human beings could not endure. But for the greatest of the tzaddikim, I judge them by the standard of my original Mach Shavuot, which was din. And this is very scary. Under strict din, even Rabbi Akiva doesn't make it. So, yeah. In the compromised world of Rachamim, Rabbi Akiva certainly didn't deserve anything. But Hashem says, "Cough a lot the Mach Shavuot the finale. My My Mach Shavuot was din. Rabbi Akiva's being judged with midas hadin. That's why tzaddikim like that explains exactly why tzaddikim are punished for aveiros that would not be regarded as so serious if done by anybody else. A person might even ask, "Does it pay to be a tzaddik? If I'm not a tzaddik, you know, so Hashem gives me more passes. If I'm tzaddik, every little thing, Moshe Rabbeinu had hit the rock, whatever it is, couldn't go to Eretz Yisrael. But, the short answer is, if you're a tzaddik, you don't ask those questions. Because a tzaddik is not concerned with what's good for him. A tzaddik is concerned with what's good for God. So, for a tzaddik to ask the question, why should I be a tzaddik? It's tougher on me. Definitionally, that's an oxymoron. Definitionally, a tzaddik could not ask such a question. That is not how a tzaddik thinks. Okay. So, now, back to Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. The Mekubalim say that the shoresh, the root of Beit Shammai's neshama comes from the Olam Hamachshava. Comes, as it were, from the mind of God, the thought of God. And since the thought of God was the world of din, Beit Shammai is connected to din, and that's why Beit Shammai is stricter. Beit Hillel is rooted in the aspect of God that turned into ma'aseh, turned into concrete realization. And since in that concrete realization, rachamim was added to din, the shoresh of Beit Hillel is to see the world in a more lenient way. Now, again, I want to repeat, this is not conscious manipulation. This is not like people do today in modern And they can go in both directions. Usually, it tends to be people who are very, very modern. They they they they want to have something that's allowed, so they say, they'll look for all the sources that will permit something. But, the truth is, even on the other side, there are people who want to be machmir, who will look for everything that's machmir. That's not the process here. The process of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is objectively looking for emes. But, what do you see as emes? You have two people. One person sees something as so clear that it's this way. And another person sees something it's so clear it's the other way. And they're both honest. They're both conscientious. They're both scholars. Cabalistically the concept is their nishamos emanates from a different shoresh. And that is why the Arizal famously declares that when the Mashiach comes and the world reaches a higher state of perfection the halacha is going to be like Beit Shammai. Because when the world is on a higher madrega Hashem's standard of judgment can be higher and we approach things the way they should have been rather than the way they have to be because of the weaknesses of human beings. So this explains the idea generally. We're going to go back to Hanukkah in a moment. This explains the idea generally why Beit Shammai is machmir strict and Beit Hillel is meikel. Now we come to a machlokes like Hanukkah. And apparently that has nothing to do with chumer or cooler. Beit Shammai says you go from eight to one. Beit Hillel says you go from one to eight. Same number of candles, 36 candles. It's not a question of chumer or cooler. But on a higher more abstract level it is thematically connected. There was a great great godol who died around 30 30 years ago, Rav Yosef Zevin, who by the way was the founding editor of the Encyclopedia Talmudis that that you were talking about. And Rav Zevin uh was a very unusual person. There was no one like him today because he belonged to many different miflagot, many different camps. He was a Chabad chassid. He was a Zionist. He was a member of Mizrachi, which I think Mizrachi is defunct now, but uh he was a you know, very strong Zionist. He was close to the Brisker Rav and the Chazon Ish. Now, how can you be a Zionist and be close to the Brisker Rav is really beyond me. That itself is a superhuman achievement. Uh he was even new Rav Kook. He was he was a young man, he he became close to Rav Kook back in the 1930s when he made aliyah before the state. And he was a phenomenal Talmud Chacham. Uh for for many years, he would write book reviews of Seforim in various religious newspapers. And he would go through the most difficult dense She'elos u'Teshuvos like you would read a novel. Like you would just say, "Oh, on page 500 of this Sefer, the Mechaber forgot Tosafos in Zevachim or didn't quote Tosefta in Ohalos." Obscure references. He just had like really great Shlita, great mastery of all types of sources, including Chassidus and Kabbalah as well. And in addition, he had a beautiful Hebrew style. He wrote in my kind of a modern Hebrew style. Uh and that's why in some yeshivas, I know in the United States, some yeshiva high schools that want to teach their students the modern Hebrew, but they want to use books of a Torah content. So, standard rabbinic literature is not modern Hebrew. You can't you can't just take a Sefer. I mean, the closest is Mesillas Yesharim, which is kind of in fact many people credit the Ramchal as being the founder of modern Hebrew even before Eliezer Ben Yehuda. But some use Rav Zeven's Seforim because Rav Zeven was such a beautiful stylist, so clear. I'll tell you a little piece of gossip about about Rav Zeven in translation. Uh one of his most famous Seforim is Moadim baHalacha, which is a beautiful beautiful Halachic survey of all the Yom Tov. It's not a book of Halachas. It's not just a book of rules. It's a book explaining the background, explaining the analytical framework. Uh and ArtScroll even translated Mo'adei B'Halacha uh in two volumes called Festivals in Halacha. But, interestingly enough Rav Zevin goes through everything: Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Taanit. The last chapter is about a more recent holiday called Yom Ha'atzmaut. Cuz Rav Zevin felt Yom Ha'atzmaut deserved to be celebrated. And he went through with his customary Halachic thoroughness. Different arguments, different Yeah, he didn't pasken, but he would go through all the debates, Halelu not Halelu, and he would give the reasons for it. When ArtScroll translated Mo'adei B'Halacha they just left out the chapter without indicating that there was an an editorial deletion. Because basically their target audience would not appreciate it. So, those those people who are aware of it were very very outraged. It's one thing if you have a personal shita not to be chogeg Yom Ha'atzmaut, okay, good, that that's your view. You can write a sefer and don't include it. But, when you're translating somebody else's sefer and that somebody else included it what gives you the right to simply take it out? So, ArtScroll gave a whole teretz. They said, "Well, if Rav Zevin would have been alive with this Halacha of the Medina, you know, he he would have been cholel shabbat." Okay, you got me. I You're making stuff up. There's no way no particular basis for that. Again, I I don't mean to bash ArtScroll in particular. ArtScroll has done tremendously good good work and important work for Klal Yisrael. So, people like to criticize them here and there. In fact, I'm guilty of it myself just now, but but I I do want to couple my little criticism with a tremendous admiration. You know, tomorrow night is the Siyum of Shas Daf Yomi, the 7 and 1/2 year completion of the Talmud by really tens of thousands of of Jews phenomenally. And you should know that the phenomenal growth of Daf Yomi is is in recent years is due precisely to the ArtScroll ArtScroll Shas. So, uh the number of people they brought into learning Gemara on a regular basis is truly amazing. And I have to say too that something to think about the the the the editor for the past uh years was just nifter literally just um 2 months ago. Rav Chaim Malinowitz was a chaval d'vracha. He was a raven Beis Shemesh and he was the uh the editor of the ArtScroll Shas. So, it's in a way it's uh I mean, his his his whole his whole death was very very sad and very sudden, but in a way it's so sad that right before this great Siyum he was taken from the world. And I'm sure they're going to make a very big point uh maybe dedicating it in his memory, but again his neshama certainly will get much much nachas from the Siyum. So, uh even though I just knocked ArtScroll, but I also want to put in a compliment for the tremendous work that they that they have done. So, why am I bringing in Rav Zeven? So, Rav Zeven was as I say a phenomenal uh Talmud Chacham. And in one of his other books, not More D'vach but a safer called the Or Halacha, he has a long essay called Lishitos Beis Shammai U'Beis Hillel. An explanation of the Shitos of Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel. And he develops this idea based on Chassidus and Kabbalah that Beis Shammai is rooted in the Olam Hamachshava, God's original thought, which was din. Beis Hillel is rooted in the Olam hamaseh, uh which is the imperfect realization in action, which is the shutfus of din and rachamim. But now he says the following. Um if you understand that Beis Shammai is rooted in thought, and Beis Hillel is rooted in action in terms of that abstraction, you could actually now understand the Chanukah machlokes along the same lines. Because Beis thought represents potential that's not yet realized, right? When I think I want to do something, I haven't yet done it, but there's a potentiality that's been created. So, when Beis Shammai commemorates a miracle, he is commemorating the miracle in terms of the potential that God put into the briah. So now, let's look at the oil. The oil naturally should have been able to burn only one night. But, God put into that oil a potential that it could burn for eight nights. So, day one, the potential of the oil, the koach of the oil, was eight. Day two, it was seven. Day three, it was six. So, Beis Shammai, who's rooted in the olam hamachshavah, and machshavah represents koach, potentiality, and not realization, then his understanding of the miracle of Chanukah, which focused on potentiality, which diminished with time. Right? By day eight, there was only one day of oil that was left. But Beis Hillel, who is rooted in the world of active realization, olam hamaseh, he views the miracle not in terms of potential, which diminished, but in terms of actualization that increased. Day one, we only saw one day burning. Day two, we saw two days burning. By day eight, we saw eight days burning. So, Rav Zeven's shiddush, so to speak, is that he takes the general idea that Hillel is makeel and Shammai is machmir, and he connects it to an abstraction of machshava versus maaseh, koach versus poel, potentiality versus actualization, and then he could bring the Chanukah machlokes into that paradigm. He gives one more example of the same type of process. Yeah. Does the Rav mind sharing what Rav Zeven might have said about the words of Shammai himself regarding the downfall of the going in terms of the korbanos? Yeah, we'll get we'll get to that. But, now, the truth of the matter is that that's the second reason the Gemara gives. This is actually an explanation of the first point of the Gemara, because the Gemara says that Beit Shammai looks at the days that are coming, and Beit Hillel looks at the days that are past. That's a bit of an enigmatic statement. This is the koach and the poel. I'll I'll get to the second explanation. Now, there's a machlokes in Maseches Berachos about how you make kiddush. We know kiddush Friday night has two berachos. There's a beracha borei pri hagafen, and then there's a longer beracha, mekadesh ha shabbat. What order do you say those berachos? Beit Hillel says exactly what we do. First, you make a beracha on the wine, then you make a beracha on the shabbat, and then you drink the wine, right? That's what Beit Hillel says. That's what everybody does. But, you know, Beit Shammai actually says you do the opposite. You first make the beracha on shabbat, and then you make the beracha on wine. Now, here, too, uh strict and lenient doesn't really fit. I mean, it's the same thing. It's just a question of what the order is. But, Rav Evan says, "Potential and realization actually does fit because here's the thing. Shabbos, of course, is ultimately a day of spirituality, a day of godliness, a day of holiness, a day when our capacity to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is greater. That is the meaning of the phrase neshama yeseira. Neshama yeseira, well-known phrase, on Shabbos you get an extra soul. Or an enhanced soul, or an enlarged soul. What does that mean? Your soul is the capacity you have to link up to Hashem. On Shabbos you have a greater capacity. On the other hand, we have another aspect of Shabbos where we eat, we drink, we indulge in physical pleasure. We sleep, right? Sleep on Shabbos is a pleasure, right? Shabbos is said to be an abbreviation, sheina b'Shabbos taanug. I remember, you know, just as a little story, when I I came to the Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Baltimore as ninth grader, just began high school. And, you know, ninth grade kids, I don't think, you know, you don't take naps in the afternoon, you know, that's you stop doing that in kindergarten. So, I remember my first I still remember this, my first Shabbos in Ner Yisrael, like everybody went to sleep after lunch, like nobody I was wandering the halls, like nobody is alive, nobody's around. I couldn't believe it. Yeah, right. By the second week already I was acculturated, but but that first time I couldn't imagine the concept of sleeping in the afternoon. What do they say? We say as adults we all regress, you know, kids rebel against naps, but as we get older we kind of, you know, we kind of enjoy it. But, okay. Uh, but in any case, the question becomes this, Shabbos is ruchni. So, what is this business about cholent and eating and drinking? Like, why why am I why am I doing all of that? So, there are two ways of looking at it. Beis Shammai is the idealist looking at the way things should be in their ideal state. In the ideal state, this is how you connect the gashmi and the ruchni. I am so excited about my connection to Hashem. I feel so elevated. I feel so joyous that I have to celebrate. Meaning, the ruchniyus brings me to the gashmiyus. The physicality is an expression of my spiritual ecstasy. That's why Beis Shammai says, first you bless the Shabbos, and then you say the bracha over the wine, because it's the holiness of Shabbos that is pushing you to want to celebrate by taking a glass of wine. Beis Hillel is a realist. He says, maybe that's the way it should be. But, many times we're not so inspired by pure spirituality. It's the other way. What gets us excited about Shabbos is, wow, there's cholent and challah and fish and soup. It's the gashmiyus that puts us in the framework where we rejoice in the spirituality. That's why you make the bracha over the wine, instead of saying the Shabbos brings you to the wine, it's sometimes the wine that brings you to the Shabbos. Now, they tell a story that they chossid once asked his rebbe, it's a chutzpadik a question, "Why are you better than me? Um you know, when I before I eat a banana, I make a bracha. Before you eat a banana, you make a bracha. I mean, you know, what's uh what's the difference here?" So, the rebbe said, "I'll tell you the difference. You in the middle of the day get hungry. I have to eat. I have to have a banana. I have to have an apple. But nebach, you can't eat until you make a bracha. So you make a bracha in order to eat an apple or a banana. Your desire is to eat a banana and the bracha is enabling you to do what you really want to do and eat the banana. The Rebbe said, "I'm the opposite." The Rebbe said, "In the middle of the day I'm starving to say a bracha to Hashem. I have to praise the Almighty. But nebach, I can't just stand say a bracha. That's a bracha of a batala. So I got to eat the apple in order to be able to make the bracha. So the difference is, are you making the bracha because you want to eat the apple or are you eating the apple because you want to make the bracha, right? That's all the difference in the world. And that's the machlokes Shamai and Hillel. Beit Shamai is saying, "Because I love Shabbos, I want to honor Shabbos by eating and drinking." Beit Hillel says, "Because I love to eat and drink, that's how I'll come to honor Shabbos." Right? So it's a question of ideal. Interesting, I'll tell you a a non-Chassidic version of a similar story with the Brisker Rav. The Brisker Rav who came to Eretz Yisrael after the after the Holocaust, lived in Yerushalayim, but he spent much of his time in Switzerland. He had a he had a nephew in Switzerland and uh he had asthma and the climate in Switzerland was a little better uh than in Eretz Yisrael. And he stayed in in a hotel that was run by obviously a very very frum, you could imagine, that the Brisker Rav was if he was someich on the kashrus, an extremely devout Yerei Shamayim couple. And the woman that ran the hotel, she always wanted to make special things for the Brisker Rav, special food, but he never asked for he never asked for anything. He didn't want anything. So, she always felt bad she couldn't do something special for him. But one Shabbat he finally said to her, "If it's not too much trouble, uh after Mincha for Seudah Shlishit, could you add an apple and a banana?" And she was so as simple as this was, she was so overjoyed because it was literally the first time she could do an extra favor for the Rav. So, she comes after Mincha, she brings an apple and a banana. And the Brisker Rav says, "Thank you so much. I'm sorry to matrieach you, but I don't need it now." So, what's the story? The story was that you're supposed to make 100 brachas every day. Every day 100 brachas. That's the din. Now, how do you get 100 brachas? You have to calculate it, but during the week it's much easier than on Shabbos because if you have three Shmona Esreis, Maariv, Shacharis, Mincha, each Shmona Esrei is 19 brachas. So, you already get 57 brachas just from the Shmona Esreis itself. 57. More than half of what you need. On Shabbos, even though you have four Shmona Esreis, Maariv, Shacharis, Mincha uh Musaf and Mincha, but each Amidah only has seven brachas. So, instead of 57 brachas, you only get 28. So, you're missing 29 brachas. You know, you say everything else is the same, but you're missing 29 brachas. I mean, you have Kiddush and you have a few extra things on Shabbos that you have to put in, but that is why that is the excuse we use for eating extra food on Shabbos cuz I got to make all those extra brachas. So, the Brisker Rav was making a cheshbon that he was short two brachas in his me'ah brachas. He couldn't figure out. So, as a result, he wanted an apple over which you make borei pri ha'eitz. And he wanted a banana over which you make borei pri ha'adamah. But, when Mincha came, he was called up for an aliyah as a Levi. He didn't know he was going to have an aliyah. And since he was called up as a Levi, he had his two brachas. One is the bracha you recite before the Torah, and one is after. So, the Rish Garav didn't need the apple or banana anymore because the only reason he wanted the apple and banana was to be able to make the the brachas. So, this is the machlokes Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Okay. So, this is explanation number one. In other words, Beit Shammai looks at potential, which diminishes. That's what the Gemara means by the days that are coming. Beit Hillel looks at actualization, which increases. Now, then though, the Gemara goes on and gives a different explanation. And this also needs a lot of a lot of commentary. That is, Beit Shammai says the candles go down because we compare it to the bulls, the parim, that were brought during the holiday of Sukkos. On Sukkos, the Torah tells me in parshas Pinchas, a total of 70 bulls were brought as korbanos, but they were brought in descending order. Meaning, day one, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7. That gets you to Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day. And if you add up all those numbers, you get 70. We'll talk about the significance of that in a moment. And they went down. So, Beit Shammai says, just as the parei hachag go down, so too the neiros of Chanukah go down. Beit Hillel says, no, we don't compare it to Malim Bakodesh. In holiness we go up. We ain't more reason, we don't go down." Now, here they still all seems to be relatively self-evident. We always want to go up. But the real problem is they try to what on earth is the connection between the Purim of Sukkot and Hanukkah? Now, as a little aside before I I I proceed to that, let me just tell you a a very very nice grammatical observation that a Rav made about the phrase that they still all uses. Malim Bakodesh, in holiness we go up. We ain't more reason, we don't go down. Now, I actually mistranslated the statement. The statement does not mean Malim does not refer to you going up. Malim is always bringing something else up. If you wanted to say in holiness we go up and we don't go down, it should have said "Olin Bakodesh below your dim." Just as it talks about the angels in Jacob's dreams, my life my life looking Olin the your dim. Malim Bakodesh is a beautiful little remiss that in your process of going up in your service of God, you have to bring other people up with you. Malim Bakodesh, always try to bring up others. Below more reason, and don't push them down. Sometimes in our attempt now, it's interesting, there's a lot of subtlety there because it doesn't just mean bring them up and don't bring them down. It can actually mean in the process of your trying to bring them up, don't push them down in that process where we try to make our children more religious or our students more religious. And we can denigrate them, we can degrade them, we can humiliate them. When you bring people up, when you try to bring people up, don't push them down in the process. That's a little aside. Grammatically, malin bakodesh for no reason. But back to the main question. What is the shiyachus? What is the connection between the Purim of Sukkos and Ner us Chanukah? So I'm going to give you two answers. One is an academic historical answer and the other is a chasidish or kabbalistic answer. The historical academic answer, which is actually quite interesting, can be found in the second book of the Maccabees, Maccabin Bet. And we talked about I think 2 weeks ago that this is not part of Tanakh, this these are not holy books. These were written after the age of Nevuah, but they are deemed to be historically reliable chronicles that the Rishonim did rely upon to reconstruct the history of the Chanukah story. And in Maccabees 2, there's a very strange origin given for Chanukah. And that is the Yevanim had taken control of the Temple, of the Beis Hamikdash for 3 years. That means for 3 years we could not observe any of the Shalosh Regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals in the Beis Hamikdash. And when we finally you know, when the Maccabee finally reclaimed the Beis Hamikdash on the 25th of Kislev, the day that became Chanukah, the Jewish people wanted to somehow make up at least one regal that they had missed. And the most recent regal that they had missed was of course Sukkos, which is 7 days followed by the chag of Shemini Atzeret, 8 days. And therefore Chanukah was an 8-day festival, says the second book of the Maccabees, not because of the miracle of the oil. It was eight days because it was a makeup for Sukkot. And Maccabees 2 even says that the Jews took the lulav and the etrog for eight days to make up for Sukkot. Now, halakhically, that's a meaningless thing. You can't make up for Sukkot. The Torah says Pesach you might be able to make up partially, but even that's only the korban Pesach. You can't make up a chag. You miss a chag, you miss a chag. So, I think we have to understand Maccabees 2 that Maccabees 2 is not discussing what the chachamim did. They are discussing kind of a folk minah that the people on their own had such a desire to make up for a lost opportunity that they tried to do it even though it didn't count. But actually, it did count spiritually because their intention was to glorify Hashem. Now, this very unusual statement of Maccabees 2 is not quoted by Chazal at all. Chazal never state that Hanukkah is a makeup for Sukkot because halakhically, it isn't and it can't be. But I would suggest academically that perhaps this is the remez of Beit Shammai that when Beit Shammai says the lighting of the Hanukkah candles should parallel the par ya chag, perhaps this is so so that we will remember the good intentions of the uneducated Jew who so much desired to make up Sukkot that they made an eight-day festival. In other words, in a sense, it's giving honor to the am ha'aretz who acted with sincerity of devotion. Okay, that's kind of an academic answer. Isn't the words that the going or the street that the going goes down that's not mentioned in the Gemara? No. No. No. No. No. That's not the Gemara just says that's all it says. Now, explanation number two is from the Sfas Emes and that's that's where you're going. And that is let's go back to the idea of why are there 70 bulls and why do they go down? So, the Gemara in Maseches Sukkah already tells me that the purpose of the 70 bulls they represent the 70 nations of the world. And even though the United Nations has more than 70 nations, that's because they split up nations into more than one uh country and the like. Now, those 70 nations are described as wolves and we are described as a vulnerable lamb among 70 wolves that would like to rip us up. The nations want to destroy us. Now, they want to destroy us in different ways in different ways. There are some nations that would physically want to murder us to this very day. There are other nations that might destroy us by intermarriage, by assimilation. Kill you by kindness. Sometimes both things coexist in the same nation. Let's consider the United States. The United States by and large as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said has been a malchus chessed, has been a benign kingdom or govern not a kingdom but a government of kindness. The Jewish people, there's no question the Jewish people owe tremendous gratitude to the United States. And in fact, many have pointed out that the unparalleled success that the 13 colonies achieved over the course of 200 years becoming until maybe recently the most powerful nation in the world. Now, there's some discussion exactly, but for much of the 20th century, the United States was the most powerful nation of the world. It was because of the way they treated the Jews, because Hashem told Avraham, I will bless those who bless you. And make a little or war. And those who curse you, I will curse. So, there's no question that the main challenge a Jew faces in America is not threats to physical survival, but assimilation and intermarriage. The very kindness and goodness and liberality of the United States, which is something we're tremendously grateful for, absolutely, creates tremendous challenges in terms of assimilation and intermarriage. On the other hand, we see in just recent days that even within a society that was so kind to Jews, there's all sorts of murderous hatreds that bubble up. You'd think almost out of nowhere. Right? A Hanukkah party in Monsey. Person comes in with a machete. And as it says Hashem, that the people that were hurt should have a full shlema. In Jersey in Jersey City, there were people who were killed. So, it's a funny situation. I I I don't want anyone to be paranoid. You know, people like people always say, "Oh, I can't live in Israel. It's so dangerous." And you know, Baruch Hashem, uh you know, it's not that not that much safer in America. In fact, it may may be a lot less safer in America. It's safer here. That's right. That's that's That's in in truth, that's the case, you know. Uh here, I can see little children out walking around at 12:00 midnight. I don't know why they're not asleep, but you know, they're walking around, you know. You're not going to see that in any any city in the United States. Uh so, we live in a very hostile world. A world where we are a vulnerable lamb surrounded by 70 wolves. The carbonote of sukkos are to protect us by diminishing the power of the umos. And the reason why the purim go down is a remez that as we approach yemos hamashiach, the powers of evil are going to be reduced and diminished as the world achieves a more perfect state. That is what the par yaish represent. Now, you may ask a question. How can we talk about the powers of evil being diminished? Don't we seem to see a rise? We see a rise of Islamic terrorism, uh even the Holocaust already, which is still within living memory, was such a triumph of evil, at least for 12 years. But the answer is we don't fully understand, but the answer is just as a candle right before it goes out has a final burst of energy, just as a human being often right before they die, there's a convulsion. So, too, the death of evil will be accompanied by a temporary spasmatic assertion of power, which are really the death throes of that koach of ra. Now, I want to point out though that the gemara itself has a different take on the 70 nations. In other words, the way I just described it, we're bringing korbanos to weaken the 70 nations. But the gemara itself actually says we're bringing korbanos on behalf of the 70 nations so that Hashem should bless them. Ad kedai kach that the Gemara actually says, if the umos ha'olam would know how much blessing we brought to them by our sacrifices on their behalf, they would never have destroyed the Beit Hamikdash. So, which is it? Are we bringing korbanos to weaken them? Are we bringing korbanos that Hashem should bless them? And if it is the latter, that we are bringing korbanos that Hashem should bless them, then why would why does it go down? But the short answer is that these two ideas are not inconsistent. We are bringing korbanos to weaken their powers of evil, not to destroy them, but to weaken their powers of evil, so they too will turn to Hashem. And when they turn to Hashem, Hashem will bless them and lift them up. We're not praying for the nations to be destroyed. We're praying that they should abandon their evil ways. Look look look at the Navi Yeshayahu. He says, he talks about how all the nations of the world will come to Jerusalem. Ki veisi beit tefilah yikarei l'chol ha'amim. My house will be the Hashem says, will be the house of prayer for all the nations of the world. He doesn't mean they're going to become Jewish, but they'll they'll they'll recognize God and they'll recognize the Jewish people and the centrality of Eretz Yisrael. Some of this is even happening today. I know Rabbi Poston is involved in some of this. Where there's in fact there's even a bit of a movement halachically, it's fascinating. I don't want to get into the details. Halachically, non-Jews are allowed to bring korbanot. Jews are not allowed to do it. We're We're allowed to bring korbanot until we have a Beit hamikdash. But non-Jews are allowed to have bamot. They can have private altars. Uh they could bring a carbon. So, there's even some discussion in some non-Jewish circles about bringing offerings to Hashem on the Mount of Olives. It sounds like a crazy idea and I would not recommend it. I am not in favor of it. But in terms of pure halakha, it is absolutely permitted. Uh the Rambam says explicitly that non-Jews are permitted to bring carbonot on bamot even bizman hazeh when there's no base hamikdash. I say it's not a good idea because I think it would create some uh well, two reasons. Number one, I think it would confuse a lot of Jews who might jump to the conclusion that if the can do it, I can certainly do it. When in fact, it is absolutely assur for a Jew to bring a carbon today. And number two, I think it would uh create um much more antagonism that that we don't need at this particular uh juncture uh in our in our history. But be it as it may, there is no contradiction between having their evil power diminished and having Hashem bless them because that itself will be the source of their of their blessing. Okay. That is pare akhat. Now, here is Beit Shammai's associative connection. If indeed the reduction, the uh in number of the pare akhat represents the defeat of an evil that is external to us, the ner Chanukah refers to defeating the evil that is internal to us. How is that so? Because we know that a human soul is compared to a candle. This is a famous verse in Mishlei, Proverbs. Ner Hashem nishmat adam. The candle of God is the soul of a human being. In fact, even the word nefesh nefesh, the Kadushas Aryeh says, is rashei teivot, it's an abbreviation. Ner Ner means a receptacle for oil. The pei is petilah, a wick. And the shin is shamen. What is a human being? I am a candle waiting to be ignited by the spirit of God. So, what's my job in life? Prepare the candle, meaning to say, oil the mitzvahs, the middos. And then Hashem ignites me with passion and devekus, cleaving to Hashem. So, Beis Shammai says, when you look at the neiros of Chanukah, you're looking at your soul. And in our soul, there are going to be many imperfections. We have sins that we've committed. We have pigamim, we have defects, we have middos ra'os. And Beis Shammai says, your job, our job, is to attack that evil and burn it away. Eish is soref umchaleh es hara. It burns and destroys the evil. If that's the process, if the neiros represents sereifah v'chilayon, burning and destruction, just like the par ya'aleh v'yavo is diminution of evil, this is burning away the evil within me, it makes sense that it goes down because if I'm achieving progress, I have less to work on with time. Meaning, I start with eight bad things I got to eradicate. Seven, six, five, four. So, Beis Shammai is saying, baruch Hashem, the eish is burning all that bad stuff away. So, what's Beis Hillel's argument of malchin bakodesh? He says the following. Once again, he's playing the realist. It is true that ideally I should be able to confront my flaws and fight them. But in reality if I get too preoccupied with all of my failures that can often paralyze me. I become overwhelmed. I look at all the things I have to fix. And I say I just can't do it. I get depressed. I get paralyzed. I get immobilized. So Beit Hillel says to Beit Shammai in the sect instead of focusing on all the things you got to get rid of take those things that you're already good at. Take your strengths. Take your koach. Take the part of Yiddishkeit that you already do well, that brings you simcha, that brings you accomplishment. And increase that. Fight the darkness not by attacking the darkness with a baseball bat. But fight the darkness by generating light within you. And therefore both Hillel and Shammai are looking at the neiros of Chanukah as a metaphor for my neshama. But the question is what is the image of fire? Shammai is looking at fire as that which burns and destroys the evil. Beit Hillel is looking at fire as that which gives warmth and light. Cuz fire has those two characteristics. It is soref and it is me'ir u'machamem. Beit Shammai emphasizes the soref. Beit Hillel emphasizes me'ir. It gives light u'machamem and it gives warmth. Now, I'm going to say something that is a stereotype and it is certainly an oversimplification, but it has a more than a kernel of truth. You could say according to the Sfas Emes that the Machlokes Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai is the Machlokes Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel is between Mussar and Chasidus. We know in the 19th century Rabbi Yisrael Salanter started what is called the Mussar movement. And the Mussar movement was very introspective. A person looks into himself. He identifies his flaws. He identifies what needs to be corrected. And works hard with a lot of dedication to uproot the Middos Ra'os. Now, even the Chazon Ish, who had great admiration for the Mussar Gedolim and he knew the Alter of Slabodka, he knew them and he considered them to be holy and great. The Chazon Ish said there were some problems with the Mussar Shita. Because by making you kind of obsessed constantly as to your sincerity, your motives, every time you do a Mitzvah, you ask yourself, "Did I do it for Hashem? Did I do it because of Kavod?" And you make yourself crazy with it. The Chazon Ish said that could make a person depressed. And therefore he actually felt it's better not to think about these things. At least for certain personalities. Just do the right things and don't worry about, "Was I sincere?" or whatever whatever it would be. The Chazon Ish felt it could make people depressed. It could it could play on obsessive-compulsive tendencies. And and the like. Chasidus, on the other hand, emphasized the idea of looking at the godliness within you and celebrating, even if you're the most simple, uneducated Jew. Get a Nachas. Right? So, if you drink a glass of water, drink or you have a you know, instead of saying, "Did I make a brocha with kavana, say I made a brocha and I have a nice glass of water. Now, this is an oversimplification I want to say right off the bat because there are many types of mussar and there are many types of chassidus. There are certain types of chassidus that are very introspective and demanding. And on the other side of it, there were shitos of mussar that emphasized the greatness of the human being, the nobility of the human being. Slabodka, for example, so there's a lot of intermingling between the chassidic approach and the mussar approach, but as a generalization, I think it's somewhat useful that mussar stressed burning away our negatives and chassidus stressed building on your positives. Now, it's interesting that since the halacha is like Bezalel, it would appear chassidus wins. But of course, this whole explanation is from the Sfas Emes, who was a chassidic rebbe, so so it's not unusual that he would interpret the machlokes in a sense to be a validation of the shita of chassidus. But lahalacha l'maaseh, as is true for many machlokes for many machlokesim, this is an example of elu v'elu divrei Elokim chaim, that both opinions are 100% true. It is There is no question that our responsibility in life is to identify our our flaws and our mistakes and work on them. But there's also no question that sometimes we're not ready to do that. Sometimes a person has to have the wisdom with the guidance of the rebbe or the rebbetzin or the teacher to understand that now is not the time to work on a certain issue. It's too big for me. It's more than I can handle. And I shouldn't make myself constantly feel bad about that because then it's going to poison all the good things I'm able to do. So, sometimes it is endless that you have to say this is not the time for that right now. But just because it's not the time for that doesn't mean it's not the time for this. And then what happens is through the this that you're able to do you have more light than your neshama and the light vanishes the darkness. And then from the from the this you will come to the that. So, the truth of the matter is Bezalel is giving you a strategy that sometimes you got to start with your strengths and then you'll be able to vanquish your weakness. Uh many of you have probably heard of the uh Hollywood actor. I don't know if he's alive anymore. Kirk Douglas. Is he still Is he still alive? Kirk is still alive. I know that. Michael is alive. Yeah. So, Kirk wrote a an autobiography uh years ago called The Ragman's Son cuz his father was a Russian immigrant a Jewish Russian immigrant who sold rags. So, he tells a story about his father. His father was not religious at all. But this is a pheno- I remember reading this. This is a phenomenal story. He says his father was a heavy smoker and when the Surgeon General in the US came out in the '60s that smoking is not good, it it causes for lung cancer and emphysema. So, his father stopped smoking. Which is very hard thing to do. But his father kept a cigarette in his shirt pocket. And whenever he had a desire to smoke he would take out the cigarette hold it in front of his face and talk to the cigarette. He would say, "You think you're going to be my boss? You think you control me? I control you. Now, that's really Musar. He could stare his problem in the face and like Nancy Reagan used to say, "Just say no." But we know that we got to we kind of have to hide the cigarettes, right? We have to do that. In fact, something there was another Godol Mu Os, even the great Bobby Musar talked about the difficulties of stopping smoking. There was a great a truly great person who was giving a shmooze that in ruchniyus, you can do whatever your mind sets out to do. There are no limits. And then in the middle, really says it's really a tribute to the honesty of of our Godol he said, "Yeah, you can do anything you want to do." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He says, "So why can't I stop?" He was giving Musar to himself. "So why can't I stop?" Started crying, you know. So, what I'm saying is, if even a Godol be Yisrael, you know, had this problem, Kirk Douglas's father could have been a Mashgiach, you know, who knows could have had an alternative life. He could have been one of the big Bobby Musar had he had the right chinuch and hadracha. But as they say, that's a very very high and hard standard. And most of us have to at least initially start with Beis Hillel. So, that would be the explanation number two that Beis Shammai says, "Identify your flaws and burn them away." Which goes down. Beis Hillel says, "Sometimes put it on the back burner and strengthen yourself through the ribui or and the or itself will be doche the choshech." So again, I apologize for uh talking about Chanukah, but I think again, I think it's a lesson that continues well into the rest of the year as well. Be'ezras Hashem, we should be zocheh to identify the light that is within us, to increase that light, and thereby have the strength to then work on the middot that we have to be metaken. So, have a good week.