Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Power of A Name and Intro to Chanukah

[Music] okay hi everybody Shalom and thank you for coming um again the sh is dedicated uh for praying for the victory of our Kim in Gaza Lebanon and Syria for the lasting Unity of people of Israel and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war AA for B beneda and R and for kzar and once again tonight's class and uh the next class are dedicated nishas Rabbi and Mrs philli finlin by a fry manomi finlin as always I mentioned the great influence they had on Me growing up in Hartford Connecticut and uh for as well for the grandfather of a good friend of mine RI fine uh Shu Ben aigor sh Ben aigor uh again Rabbi find himself a MAG give that are very very good you might you might come across them so Al finishing touches are being made for the new community center special thanks to a few generous donors we were able to start the renovations uh please consider various ways to help complete the work as a special dedication list will be on the ban website within the next few days uh General contributions can be made directly for this project using the link below in the YouTube description box and on the website again very very exciting I'm I'm looking forward to having hot tea during the year so it should be much much uh for the for the project um I know I came across n spoke to the un uh this week was that is that right I don't know I just came across something in which some things don't change it reminded me a little bit of Mosher raenu you know mosh Renu right after Yas M hit the rock and he was told to and 40 years later he had to hit the rock again and some of the offor him explained that his frustration was that people haven't changed in 40 years and Nan just mentioned the little bit that I heard was he says 40 years ago I was the ambassador to the UN uh telling the UN not to pass a resolution condemning Israel says and 40 years later I'm doing exactly the same thing he says nothing has changed you've learned nothing you've grown nothing you understand nothing somehow he got a lot of Applause uh in there so uh could be that even even they know that they haven't learned anything in in in 40 years but uh that's a real that's a really big you know um Sorrows are always challenging difficulties are challenging but they become truly truly tragic if we don't grow from them if we don't learn from them if we don't improve because of them that compounds a tragedy on top of a tragedy a person has to look at every experience in life both individually and communally as kind of a message fromes that we need to grow from it we need to learn from it we need to change for the better uh from it and we shouldn't be like the United Nations which is the same now as it was 40 years ago uh no change whatsoever and and the like um by the way I have to share with you a total digression so if moja Renu is justifiably upset because they're the same as they were so what what is hasm angry at mosha Raben so I once heard a a thought from Rabbi France he says there was a tiny little bit of difference 40 years before they accused mosenu of wanting to kill them 40 years later they just say lamos you took us into the desert so we would die they didn't accuse him of trying to kill them just you just took his and he says that's progress you have to look at every small movement as a sign of progress and you know don't give up you know if I accuse 40 years ago I accused you of being a murderer now I just say you're you know you're going to let me die well I'm a little different uh than I was that should be appreciated that's also a message for parents a message for teachers uh and and the like okay so um next week I'm actually going to probably give the next three classes uh about khaka although it'll be integrated with the paraa as well because Kaneka there's a lot to talk about you know it's very very interesting that there is Aus within the reform movement every year about should we make Kaneka an important holiday or should we make it an unimportant holiday and the reason this is called the December dilemma because obviously Kaneka occurs around the same time as a well-known Christian holiday so R Hey listen we're competing with the Christmas holiday uh if we want our kids to be Jewish on some level we have to build up Kaneka to make it as significant as the non-jewish holiday uh and therefore we have to build it up in every way because that's the only way we're going to compete and no what do you mean Kana is not a y Kana does not have prohibitions of M although they don't keep regular either but okay Kana doesn't have a etc and it is wrong it is imitating non-jewish culture to make Kaneka into a big big holiday so you'll see different writings primarily among those who are not Hally observant that someone to make kanah a big deal someone to make kanah a little deal uh because they say we have to teach our kids values to understand you know what is Major what is minor Etc so my own position is not really my position I mean I think the position of of Aras is that Kana is an enormously important time yeah it's true how it's not a how Lally it does not have prohibitions of doing work except perhaps during the duration of the lighting of the candles itself nobody is saying it's a y right we don't have a mus on KH we don't have a Kish on KH okay we know that but the messages of Kana are so significant and they're so beautiful and they're so powerful the image of the light piercing the darkness is exemplary of so many different ideas that it gives a person hope in moments of darkness and hopelessness and of course the Torah is compared to light and the sh is compared to light and all of those things come to play the Goos is compared to Darkness so we'll go over some of the different ideas of Kaneka and in fact I do want to start with a thought from last week's partial that I didn't complete I did not say and it's going to be connected to Kaneka last week if you remember sometimes sometimes it's it's to my benefit if you don't remember because then I could repeat but if you remember we did talk about yakob struggle with the angel of Asa so I want to add a point that I did not mention at all but it's indirectly very relevant to khaka Yakov is fighting with this Angel all night the angel of ASF although it's not identified in thees and in the morning the angel has to go and according to the Rabin teaching the angel has to go because it's his turn to say to praise Hashem and this may be his only chance and he says to Yakov let me go and yakob said I will not let you go until you bless me and the angel says your name shall no longer be Yakov the heel your name shall be Israel you have Tri with God Etc and the angel gave him a a Blessing by the way I once heard from an old a very again it's just a funny observation he pointed out that the angel is a no rush to God the angel spends the whole night fighting with Yakov it's only when Yakov asks him for a blessing all of a sudden the angel says huh got to go means that's the D of son is when it comes to sorus affliction they got all the time in the world when it comes to ask for a I'm in a rush okay but that that's a that's a Dr I mean I'll PE shut the morning was the time for the praise in sh okay so then this is the part I did not discuss so then Yakov asked the angel tell me your name and the angel says me why are you asking My Name by you and the angel blessed him the simple is that that is offered by Rashi from the medish in which an angel's name is reflective of his mission at a given time and Angels say I don't have a definite name uh because it depends on what my job is now there are certain Angels you might call them the the highest rank that have fixed names Mikel Gabriel Rafel they kind of have their names but other Angels you know today they're this and tomorrow they're this and the day after they're this because their name changes with their job description that particular day so the simple is when the angel says why are you asking my name he's saying my name changes but raan brings from his rebi who is the Mas a great in muser that why do you ask my name is the angel's name the angel is ask the angel is answering the question yakob says what is your name the angel says my name is why do you ask my name uh the old-timers here I may recall Abid and Costello um who's on first I see even the young people remember know that and this is exactly the scenario your name is who you know why do you ask my name so what type of name is why do you ask my name what type of name is that so rasman gave a musall very powerful mall he said imagine you have a peasant a Polish peasant illiterate not that intelligent necessarily and he comes to the big city for the first time he comes to a fair to partic to buy stuff and he buys this and he buys that and then he's told if he buys a ticket and goes into a dark room he will be able to see people and animals coming out of the wall in other words essentially it's a movie uh he says you buy this ticket and you're going to go into an empty room and out of magic people and animals are going to come out of the wall so this peaked the Curiosity of the farmer of the peasant he buys a ticket he walks into a room that's totally dark he sits down and all of a sudden people and animals come out of the wall the picture starts it looks real to him he thinks it's real he actually thinks people and animals are coming out of the wall now he doesn't understand how that was possible because when he entered the room he saw the walls were solid there were no doors on the side there were no windows in the side how did they get in so he pulled out his big powerful flashlight that he had just bought and he shown a light on the wall to see if there's some secret entrance that he missed but of course when you shine a bright light on a a on a movie screen you're not going to see it's going to obscure the picture so people were screaming at him they were yelling at him they were saying shut off the lights we can only see in the dark so said this is a beautifulman said this is a beautiful mall forah is called the world of darkness and in the world of Darkness all sorts of things look real which are actually Illusions whether it's wealth whether it's power whether it's control when you're sitting in the dark it's so real it's so significant it's so meaningful and you really think it's there but you turn on the lights and then it goes away you realize it's nothing at all turning on the light of Torah the light of understanding the light of thinking about life so here's the thing when you sit in the dark there are two things that are that happen things that you think are real now there's things that are not real you think they're real you're sitting in the dark and the other thing is things that are real you're not going to see you could be sitting uh next to a a whole bag of diamonds if you're in the dark you may not even notice it when you turn on the light these two effects are reversed the things that are not real disappear and the things that are real you get to see turning on the lights in many many ways the tless of a Jew is to turn on the lights turn on the lights identify what is important in life what is Meaningful what is true what is enduring what is Trent what is unimportant what is insignificant we we face this challenge all the time interpersonally you know we might have grudges and anger and and and be upset over all sorts of things but at the end of our Lives you know we might wonder about all of that energy that was diverted to things that in the long run just didn't matter they just didn't make a difference and there's an old saying I think it's a secular uh expression that nobody ever left this world wishing they spent more time in their office she why didn't I go in that one Sunday I didn't go to when there to sell Sunday's work day but America why didn't I go to the office that Sunday that's not going to be like our final thought you know so turning on the lights is very significant fact the bar Reb from a different Source the Barb Reb used to describe that every Jew has to be a Lamplighter right there used to be before there was uh just electric lights there were gas lights gas lanterns in the street so there was somebody whose job it was every night to kind of light the lantern in the dark and a Jew has to be a Lamplighter a Lamplighter for others and really a Lamplighter for ourselves so based on this mus says the following we know that the angel of asov has many different associations it it really represents not just ASA it represents Yater Hara the Kos of Tuma the things that distract a person the things that take a person away from Hashem that is what this negative Force represents we also know that the concept of a name what is your name the arisal teaches cabala that your name identifies the source of your spiritual energy the source of your soul that's why the Aral says the name that parents give their children give their sons at the time of the bris or the name that a parent gives a child a daughter at the time of Crea Torah is actually a prophecy from God the parents may not know this the parent may name him after Uncle Charlie or whatever it would be but it's actually a prophecy identifying the spiritual essence of the child now we're not always sophisticated enough that we understand what is the difference in the spiritual essence of a or Yakov or or mosha I mean we we could maybe address it in very general ways but we don't really have Mastery over the Shish the root of the Nish but that is a real it these Nas have roots and The Roots get different types of spiritual K and the name is therefore very very significant so we talk about changing a name when someone is sick but you but you may also encounter the idea that there's sometimes a great reluctance to change a name because that could also affect a person's spiritual uh Destiny a person's spiritual nature in this sense I'll tell you two quick stories I which I once witnessed in one week just a few days apart and they seem to may be contradictory it was the same Roshes was involved in both um I was at a bris bris number one and um the grandfather I think it was the mother's father was honored to name the baby but the mother's father did not like the name that his daughter and son-in-law chose so when he uh named the baby he used a different name so instead of whatever schlomo which was mosha whatever it was and I I remember to this very day hearing it hearing a a a cry from the yes no you know kind of from whatever and the Rosa said this was the name proclaimed at the bris this was God's Divine decree this is the child's name okay that was Story number one I was surprised but that was Story number one so then a few days later I'm at bris number two and the same rashba is like the sadic or officiating or what whatever it is and here there was a different type of mistake of the you know the whoever was announ you know the mo not the mo but the one who's naming the baby so you know how it is there's a whisper you know when it's time to say the name the father Whispers the name into the one who's supposed to name the baby and the one who's supposed to name the baby didn't hear it correctly so he said the wrong name and then the question was can you correct it and the r well of course you can correct it was a it was a mistake of course so I was thinking to myself is there a little contradiction or maybe maybe this rashash had such a backlash from the first story that he had to reconsider his position in the second story but but lisea there there is a difference between what you might call conscious conscious deviation versus a hearing mistake okay be it as it may a name is important so now when Yakov ainu asks the angel tell me your name revman explains he's actually asking the angel what is the source of your power over people meaning your name is your power how do you get people to fall into your trap because if you think about it in theory in pure Theory maybe you know not living in accordance with hashem's law is just foolish it's just stupid from a pragmatic level because whatever you think you're going to gain by deviating from the will of God you're certainly going to lose a lot more and whatever inconvenience you will have by following hashem's law the benefits are certainly going to be infinitely greater so just if I'm just a rational person I'm not athetic I'm just a rational person why would I Fritter away my life when there's such a potential for that which is good what's your name how do you trick people meaning what is the source of your power the answer is people don't ask meaning people don't think they don't turn on the lights they get fooled you see why are you my name is don't bother to ask about me don't think about me don't think about the consequences when you don't think about the conse quences then yeah you're in the dark when you're in the dark things that are not real look real things that are real right in front of you you don't even notice that's it in other words the secret of the angel of asov is people sleepwalk through life when you're sitting in the dark you're capable of everything so once again one of the metaphoric ideas of kanaka is to turn on the light quite literally we're in the dark we light when we light we perceive reality perceiving reality is very very significant because when you have the right perceptions it's far more likely that you will have the right Behavior I don't want to say it's inevitable because even when we have the right understandings we have yaras we have agendas we have Tyas that can lead us astray but if you don't have the right orientation then for sure you're not going to go in the right path it's like a person um who's you know he's driving at a very good speed but he happens to be going in the wrong direction so no matter how much he drives No matter how conscientious is his travel he will be getting further and further and further from where he has to go uh it'll just get worse before it gets better even what do you mean I'm driving I'm uh conscientious I don't take breaks yeah well Hal you would take a break then you would know you got to go in the other direction right so this was just one thought I wanted to share from last week uh the idea of the ater hara's name is don't ask my name don't bother to ask my name that's how I fool people that's how I trick people okay so now I want to start off a little bit with the history of Kaneka the history of Kaneka itself is very very interesting and just to answer a very simple question why is there a a holiday called Kaneka what exactly is it celebrating what does it represent again uh the answers might be a little bit surprising in order to understand Kaneka we have to go back a little bit to the biblical period remember that the Babylonians which was an Empire that was situated in Iraq the Babylonians destroyed the First placeas of mikdash and the Jewish people were exiled from Eric Israel for a period of around 70 years now what happened was shortly after the Corbin of the BAM mikdash uh the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonian Empire I conquered the Babylonian Empire and uh the uh the very first king uh was Darius the first uh he died after less than a year but then you have korish Cyrus the Great and Cyrus the Great 52 years after the Corban 52 years after the Corban issued an announcement giving permission to all Jews who wanted to come back to ER Israel and to rebuild the BAM mikdash again pay attention to the years 52 years after the destruction of the basam mikdash was the announcement of Kes in fact KES is regarded at least at at at a given point in his life as a righteous King and in fact the nvi isay that prophesied that there would be a king that would allow the Jews to come back is actually called mashiah KES is described as God's anointed one it's very interesting that um when Harry Truman uh recognized the state of Israel in 1948 and this was over the objections of the state department that were anti-semitic then as they are as they are now uh Harry Truman did announce recognize he was uh the US was the I believe the second country that recognized Israel the first was Russia stalinist Russia for whatever calculation they must have had it was not love of Jews that's for sure but whatever it would be uh Truman did so because Truman had a business partner they went bankrupt together uh Eddie Jacobson and Eddie Jacobson would really harass Truman Day and Night Etc and Truman you know gave in but whatever it is but uh Truman was honored from that day forward until he died Truman was honored by all the Jewish organizations and they constantly said you are the Cyrus you are the korish you are the non-jewish king who allows the Jews to come back to their land so he became very enamored with that title he was a student of the Bible too so uh whenever at a banquet honoring him they didn't mention that he was Cyrus he would always pull the coat of they would say you're this and that you're great and you're a leader and wonderful wonderful wonderful that he he would always pull the coat of this of the speaker and say you forgot to say Cyrus I'm Cyrus okay so koresh entered this now how did the Jews respond to kish's announcements not that well only a small group of Jews returned and the the the numbers are given in the book of Ezra and it was around 42,000 Jews returned under the leadership of a governor who was called zuru B that was his name zeruel right so if you remember the mosur song so there's a line that kids love to laugh at because of the rhyming Kate b zeru b uh it may have been a nickname zuru Babel he was conceived in Babylonia it may have been uh a son of YH Etc mashiach is going to be descended from zerubabel and the truth of the matter is z rub could have been mashia had more Jews gone against it's a very scary ideaa that essentially the shivat could have been the Messianic return to seon had more Jews responded now we don't really know what percentage we know we know how many Jews came back 42,000 but we don't really know what percentage they were but most mafor assume it was between 5% and 10% which means to say between 90 and 95% of the Jews remained in the gut now what then happened was that there were enemies of the Jews so so the Jews began not you know the 42,000 Jews began to build this is all the book of Ezra these things these events are in the book of Ezra uh the Jews began to lay the foundations for a second temple they brought carbonos and rosashana sukos Etc but then something happened there were enemies of the Jews who basically slandered them to Cyrus stating that these Jews were building a temple uh to be a source of rebellion against the Persian Empire and to stop paying taxes and the like according to kazal according to kazal it's not in the narrative the people who issued this slander were none other than the 10 sons of ham and as a result kores withdrew permission to build the temple and that withdrawal that cessation lasted through the the reign of kores who was followed by his son-in-law aash of poor in Fame and Rashi points out that whenever tells Esther hamalka not knowing that she's Esther I will give you whatever you want I will give you up to half of the Kingdom he says that L Rashi says I will give you up to the thing that is in the middle of my kingdom that's the B of Mikes meaning he didn't know she was but just in case she is don't ask for the B mikdash I'm not going to give it back to you so this Beetle b mikdash as a result of the Yamin the enemies of yehud bamin who are the main two tribes that returned lasted for 18 years which is the reign of kores the reign of AOS where the porm story happens until the reign of aash F's son who is Darius II dares Hasen dares hasheni I'll discuss who he is in a moment he removed the restriction and he allowed the Jews to rebuild the basa mikdash in the second year of his Reign and the mikdash was completed in the sixth year of his Reign and a year later Ezra came with another group and then we have the rest of the book of Ezra rebuilding yides kite rebuilding Torah creating the men of the great assembly the okay so this was the Persian out have a tradition it's not beish in the in the biblical verses that A's son daresi Darius II was in fact a son that he had from Esther hamala so Darius was actually Esther's son now that's very fascinating because that would mean that Darius II the Persian king who allowed the rebuilding of the basam mikdash was Hally Jewish now there's a lot of mystery here did Darius regard himself as Jewish how did he Define himself was Darius a closet from yid the Darius where filling know people say there may have been Jewish popes and and everything else and some even say Peter the First bishop of Rome we'll actually talk about this SES uh was not only Jewish of course Peter was Jewish that that for sure is the case but he actually was a religious Jew who kept the mitzvos in private so we don't know okay so be it as it may therefore if you think about this this is why the Babylonian exile was 70 years because we were given permission to end it after 52 years but the ban bet mikdash was delayed for for 18 years until they began building it in the second year of Darius okay this is where tanak ends the biblical period of our history essentially ends with the rededication or the dedication of the second base am mikash after the 18 years under the reign of Darius II and then we have the coming of Ezra and neia which goes a few years after that in fact I believe the latest state in tanak Darius II ruled many years so he authorized the rebuilding of the temple in year two and it was completed in year six I believe the latest date in na is the 30th year of darius's Reign that's as far as you go and that's the end of the biblical period right so Biblical history ends with ER Israel being under the rule of the Persians with the second Bas MDES being dedicated now shortly after the end of Na Darius has ruled for more than 30 years there was a cataclysmic event of world history and that is Alexander of Macedonia who had conquered much of the known world had a huge War with the Persian Empire and the Persian Empire was toppled essentially Alexander succeeded in conquering the Persian Empire and since Erich Israel was part of the Persian Empire he succeeded in conquering ER Israel this was uh just to give you a secular date around 319 before the Common Era is the conquest of Alexander of erit Israel but again it wasn't so much a war in erit Israel it was an overall conquest of the Persian Empire this is the third of the four kingdoms remember we have four Exiles we have Babylon Persia Greece and then we'll have Rome coming later down right so this is the beginning of the third galus the Gus of of yavan Alexander in history called Alexander the Great we don't necessarily call him the great we call him Alexander mtan Alexander of Macedonia was indeed though quite an extraordinary person um his father was Phillip who was king of Macedonia small little country eventually Alexander expanded it to Greece and then a world Empire um he died at a very young age he died at around 31 uh he died of plague as he was Waging War in Africa some said he was poisoned some say he was murdered different interpretations exactly what happened uh but Legend there's a famous legend about Alexander that Alexander died out of heartbreak because he said he had no more worlds to conquer he had conquered virtually the entire Known World and he had nowhere to go after after this there are a few stories in the gamorra about Alexander a few different stories uh one is a very very famous story in Muma that Alexander had heard that this old accusation that the Jews were using the basa mikdash as a military Fortress to throw off Foreign rule which is why Cyrus withdrew permission for 18 years resurfaced in Alexander's Reign and he actually had an army to yusim to destroy the Bas of Mikes and there was a man who came out to plead with him that was none other than one of the early kimim of the second temple that was Shimon shimad is by the way considered to be the first Tana of the mishak period the earliest Tana in pavos he has the first one that is mentioned by name and he is the one just to remind you he is the one that taught the immortal teaching that the world stands on three pillars Torah Divine service and that is the teaching of shim is located and shim and shim's K is a very very holy site um you know the the Min of giving your child his three-year-old haircut his um up sharing uh by the Kev of shim in meon so people who don't go to meon will will often give the haircut at the Kev of shimad now the truth is I don't know the connection other than Shimon Shimon there's no particular connection to that but shimad K is a holy place people don't like to go there always because it's East Jerusalem but still it's a relatively relatively safe place there in fact there's a Jewish Community uh actually there okay now uh so shimad came out to plead for the Jewish people and he was wearing his Kahuna garments his big deuna actually Hally there's actually a whole sh how could he wear them outside of the mikdash but he wore them and as soon as Alexander saw Shimon at sadic he got off his horse and he bowed down to the ground and he said this is the man that I see in my dreams before every war that tells me if I will be successful he gives me messages is from Hashem and he recognized what a holy person it was and in recognition of shimon's intercession Alexander canell his plans to be M the BET mikdash and the gamar says that year all Jewish boys that were born were given the name Alexander to commemorate this event and that is why Alexander although it is a Greek name it is not of Hebrew origin Alexander is called a shame kodes it is called a holy name a person can be named you can name your child at a bris Alexander and one can be called to the Torah Alexander in yish sender sender is is short for Alexander uh and that's based on thisara right so that's one set of stories uh there's another set of stories about Alexander in which he had various debates with the about uh metaphysical matters of Shay and Etc and then uh there's a third set of stories about his encounter with a bunch of women in Africa like kind of Amazonian women uh that had a very powerful Kingdom and he tried to conquer them and at some point uh he said to them ordered them bring me bread and they brought him uh gold bars shaped like bread and he said I can't eat gold he says well he says surely you have bread in your country you came here for the gold you didn't come here for the bread so we're giving you giving you the gold whatever it is and it mentions that uh they kind of bested him in their various debates and he left them alone so we have the story of shimad and we have the story of Alexander and the and we have the story of Alexander and the Amazonian so we have a few different stories about Alexander M but as I said he died very very young now Alexander interestingly enough was not a native Greek Alexander's Macedonia but he thoroughly thoroughly absorbed Greek Greek culture and he was enamored with it he loved the philosophy in fact just to show you money can buyue everything Alexander had a private tutor his father Phillip paid for a private tutor who was Alexander's private tutor Aristotle Aristotle was the most learned and most famous no non Jewish scholar in the world and he was Alexander's private private tutor right so money money can get you everything uh so uh Alexander was an intelligent person uh he was a learned person in terms of theas of yavan and Alexander issued a policy that became known as Hellenism in all of the countries that he conquered he wanted to bring in helenistic culture now it's important to understand again forgive me for elaborating on the history but I think the more of the history you know the more you'll understand Kaneka Alexander spread Hellenism in non-coercive ways he did not prohibit the practice of religion he didn't say oh if you keep chabas you know you're going to die rather he did it by assimilation he did it by persuasion he did it by building all sorts of edifices and buildings and and the like and helenismo is simply the Greek name for gree Greece helenistic culture became spread throughout the Mediterranean re uh region and I want to point out it was spread by voluntary assimilation not by coercion not by coercion people liked it it was cultured it was interesting it gave them a broader view of the world so they thought and it was not specifically directed to Jews Jews happened to be swept up in helenismo was not targeting CLA Israel for this this was his General policy throughout his throughout his Empire Alexander died as I said he died at the age of 31 um he had a baby son from uh his mistress roxan the baby son also died mysteriously after Alexander now with Alexander there's a mocus was he murdered or not murdered uh the baby almost certainly was murdered because this baby would be the successor of a huge Empire and what immediately happened was Alexander huge Empire there was a huge succession crisis because there was no child that survived between four generals and eventually what happened was each General took a portion of the empire for Jewish history purposes we only have to focus on two of the four generals Tom me p t o l m y and ccus tell me took over Egypt and North Africa ccus took over Syria and Turkey right these were two generals of Alexander Tom me established a dynasty that controlled Egypt and North Africa socus uh established a dynasty that controlled Syria and turkey what they call Asia Minor now if you can picture this on a map you can see that ER Israel is a football lying between the toic Empire and the ccas Empire and indeed there were a succession of Wars over a century long in which some times er Israel was under Tomic control and sometimes it was under sald control it went back and forth in that way now in terms of Claus it kind of made no difference life was oppressive no matter who you were under I mean what's the difference like um you know you're under uh Iran or Iraq I mean even Kissinger once said that they says the only problem with Iran Iraq uh um Wars is only one side could lose you know the best thing would be if both sides would would lose but be there's a certain football now initially Eric was controlled by the Tomic d by the way I want to point out that all of this is predicted in the Book of Daniel the last chapter not the last chapter the next to the last chapter danial has 12 pren but in peric Al there's a very long chapter that describes in great detail the wars between the King of the South and the King of the North most maam understands that the King of the South is the toic Dynasty and the King of the North is salusin and and they actually Trace in the book of danal that was written at the very beginning of the Babylonian exile a prophecy about all of these m right so based on that tme is the King of the South and sucus and their successors are the kings of the north and it goes back and forth back and forth back and forth if you look at a commentary like the abarbanel theel tries to precisely Define how each PK is a remes to different historical events that actually happened by theel time it happened Dan Neal's time it was a getter of a prophecy okay now initially we were under toic control and here we have a few stories now remember that the capital of the toic empire was the city called Alexandria and as you could probably guess Alexandria was built by Alexander and he named it after himself but that became the capital and in the toic uh Empire uh we have the famous story of the translation of the Torah in into Greek one of the great institutions in Alexandria was a library and this ancient Library wanted to have a copy of every book in the world there weren't as many books then as now but they wanted everything so they wanted the Torah and they wanted a translation of the Torah so this is the famous story of the septu aent which in Hebrew is called tum has in which 70 this so this is prean we haven't gotten to kanak yet U this is after Alexander died so uh 70 elders are put into 70 different rooms and they are told to translate the Tor into Greek and lo and behold they came up with an identical translation including deviations even when they deviated for reason I'll mention in a minute they were the same deviations this was a miracle this was Divine Providence and this is called the tarim or the uh Greek term for it is the septu aent I think it's the Latin term actually the Latin the the translation of the 7 now let me just point out something if you were to buy a sep I I don't mean in Greek unless you know Greek ancient Greek that's not likely but the secep itself has been translated in Hebrew and English you'll actually see a sep on all of tanak but the other books other than the Kish came much later they came much much later the original septu agent is only the only thees of course I once heard again witticism from he says people say the miracle was that although they were in different rooms they came up with the same translation he says the bigger Miracle would have been if they would have been in the same room and they would have come up in the same translation because at that point there's always M say okay so didn't want didn't want to make it too big of a miracle so he put them in uh in different in different rooms now let me point out that uh one of the great great leaders during the Tomic era and this is after the septu weent was a man called Pho of Alexandria now Pho is a very very interesting person Pho appears to have been an observant Jew but he was a helist he he absolutely absorbed Greek culture even in his he wrote biblical commentaries even in his perim he uses Greek allegory and the like and he seems not to be familiar with the Tores of Al remember Pho was living during the time of Hill and shamai so Pho was as from as you got Alexandria was an extremely assimilated helist wealthy and politically well-connected Jewish Community but it was very very assimilated very not religious and not connected to the Toral of Isel Pho was the the firest of the group but once again his religiosity is is a bit unknown to us and in fact some have even said he didn't know Hebrew his only access to the Torah was through the septu so keep in mind at this time you have two major Jewish communities bille is not a major Community right now ER Israel is the major community and Alexandria is the major Community they're not too far away in terms of distance but Rus Alexandria is wealthy assimilated helenistic erel also has helenistic influences that they're already there but were the tan and of course the not the and theik right there's still a lot of kadha there now if you understand this history there are certain passages of the mishna that that makes sense in a way that you wouldn't understand it unless you had a little bit of the historical background the Mish Milla discusses are you allowed to have a safer Torah written in other languages can I read from a torus scow in SCH that's written in another language so when you first read that it's kind of bizarre I mean I mean you can go to any synagogue in the world even a very very non synagog nobody's going to think of a Torah SC in another language and then you have the of R shim that says well the only other language you're allowed to read the Torah in is Greek where does that come from because you have to understand Alexandria was so assimilated that most of the people didn't know how to read Hebrew so kazal had to make different rules okay you can read the Torah in Greek another thing do you know the famous description M of the synagogue in Alexandria the Great synagogue of Alexandria uh in which it it talks about thousands of people would come in and it was segregated by professions all the gold Smiths were here and all the silver Smiths were here and all the tailor were here and and it was so huge oh yeah and the leaders were sitting on Thrones of gold and silver Thrones kadras and it mentions it was so big that nobody could hear thein when he would finish a so they used to have a flag that when you answer now some people say that's because of talking and some some Modern you know some shows today are like that you know you need a flag but the gamarra clearly is talking about size now one way of understanding a gamarra like this this may be a little slightly daring not too much so is this is actually sarcastic parody The Who live in poverty but they're committed to Torah and MIT and they look at this secular assimilated ignorant societ that's not connected to Torah but is full of money by this grandiose description might actually be making fun of the oh they're so they're so rich and so affluent that you can't even hear a men in their synagogues I did not see a source of this but it is not Beyond possibility that kazal are kind of criticizing this because you understand why you have to do that I mean this is a a challenge that people face even today oh I want to go to America cuz I want to be rich why should I live here in poverty and and whatever I can go and you know be a millionaire be Elon Musk or whatever it is so sometimes you got to kind of show The Emptiness of that type of Life as a way of a person realizing where they should be so I think it's possible that kazal occasionally use sarcasm to point out the excesses of gashat the excesses of material materialism that existed there now I'm digressing a little bit but again I I think ultimately you know we have two more sessions on this I think it'll it'll give you a good perspective of things what is our attitude or what was the attitude towards the translation of the Torah into Greek so the gamar tells us that the day the Torah was translated into Greek Darkness descended upon the world it was dark it was a bad thing now the gumar does not indicate what was so bad about it I mean after all you're making the Torah accessible it's like art scroll or whatever it will be right what's so bad about that you're making you're allowing people to read the Torah who would otherwise not be able to read the Torah so there are a few possibilities possibility number one is that yes you've made the Torah accessible to Jews but you've also made it more accessible to non-jews who could then distort it and misapply it although L mice I think there is a Kasha because the book of Yeshua records that the Torah was translated in 70 languages even before then although we apparently lost them so one possibility is you're making it accessible to non-js the second possibility is the distortions that they introduced were tragic and I'll discuss that other words they change certain things a third possibility is that although it's a good thing that the Torah is made available in an easier reader user for format maybe it's a tragedy that we need the crutch meaning once again let's imagine somebody's legs are smashed and they get a set of crutches so there's going to be a mixture of happiness and sadness I have the crutch but it's so sad that I need the Crut so that's actually relevant to today you know everything is translated that is great but it's a that that everybody needs a translation so kazal did not look at the subagent in such a positive way for the three reasons that I mentioned and yet Pho records Pho records Jewish holidays and he says in Alexandria we have a special holiday uh to commemorate the day that the septu agent was finished so in Alexandria it was a yam kazal looked at it like a tragedy see a different perspective there you see and assimilated Community will welcome it I remember when art SCH came out you the very first art scroll and really uh the head of art SC he was he was a he's a gra he was a graphic artist he's not alive anymore he's a graphic artist he was doing invitations and cassos this is really quite amazing how Hashem directs your path a very good friend of his died suddenly so he decided he would write a millas eser with an anthologized commentary by the schan his cavana was I'm going to put out a onetime millas Esther to commemorate the P of a friend and then I'm going to go back to invitations and kumas the Milla sester proved to be uh popular so the other so okay I'll do the other millas basically what happened and then you have art SC I mean sh you know everything uh so it's quite quite amazing the whole claa was changed certainly Ritz's life was totally changed but the impact on hundreds of thousands of people amazing amazing amazing but I remember when the Arts grow came out so people were writing articles this is wonderful wonderful wonderful but somebody wrote a counter article remember the darkness on the day of the septer right remember that kazal saw this not as the most positive thing right so there's always that there's always that aspect by the way uh as as you probably know although this according to the gamar and Milla the tar the seent was authored by it calls them these were these were our people and yet the seent is not used in Jewish learning the septer agent had a huge influence on Christian understanding because most many of the early Christians of course could read Hebrew but as fewer and fewer could as time went by they learned the Old Testament through the Greek translation so the sepen which is a product of is became much more influential in Christianity than it became in Judaism uh and in point of fact fact pho's writings Pho is Jewish as well became much more influential in Christianity than Judaism Pho is not part of our m in fact it's interesting the um one of the leading world's experts listen to this uh in Pho uh was a woman who's not alive anymore Naomi Cohen she was a professor at the University of Kaa I think and her husband who's also not alive was RAR Yos Cohen who is the r harashi of K so she a very Orthodox couple so it's interesting when she she in her book on Pho listen to this so she writes in the introduction you know it's customary to always thank your spouse for helping you in this work he says although I'm very very grateful to my husband for everything that he does I must emphasize he had nothing to do with this work whatsoever now she had to say that because in the circles Pho is like aepic corsus right so she has to say I need to State my husband had nothing to do uh with this work because it would have been bad for his reputation to be connected to to to f uh Dr Samuel Belin Rabbi Dr Samuel Belin who was president of Yu a t of the and one who got from the r uh was an expert in Pho and he wrote a very interesting book in which he Compares pho's biblical interpretations with the midashim of kazal and he draws comparisons and differences and it's a hard to get book but a it's a very very interesting interesting study so I'm just want I just want to paint a picture to you of what was life like uh uh in the toic Empire and er Isel at various times was actually under the control of the toic Empire it was it did have helenistic influences but much much less than Alexandria itself Alexandria was America so to speak erel was still erel although it was a bit secularized now as I indicated erel is a football between Tomy and sucas back and forth back and forth back and forth pingpong ball um our story now takes us to BC so remember Alexander conquered in 319 BC this is 175 175 there was a king of the sucus Empire he was antios I 4th and he conquered ER Israel from toak and this will be the beginning of the Kaneka story okay so everything I said tonight is prehistory of khaka and now this history of Kana begins 175 BCE when er Israel becomes under the rules so now I hope you understand this right you may have had a question uh why do we describe antios as Greek antios is not Greek antios is uh from Syria but you understand the reason they're called so they say Syrian Greeks well what on Earth are Syrian Greeks I mean they're not Greeks the answer is very simple Alexander created a Greek Empire when he died his Empire was split socus in Syria took over part of that Empire both parts of the empire were committed to panhellenism that's what they were doing and therefore the culture uh that antios is promulgating as Tomi did and you know or the successor Kings is Hellenism right so whether it's Greek or Syria or Egypt it makes no difference it is the culture of Greece now again I'm going to stop here we're going to continue this uh but I just want to point out out that antias took helenismo this was his Kish in the world Alexander had already started a helenistic process and indeed he was quite successful in many many ways Antiochus didn't have to do what he did to accomplish his aim but he wanted to speed the process he thought assimilation is not fast enough there are too many Fanatics too many Kim Too Many religious people who are still sticking around so antios wanted to accelerate the process by creating what you might call compulsory Hellenism and these are the different gazerro against chabas against circumcision against rodes we'll talk about what they were but you understand that essentially he is trying to advance the agenda of Alexander the Great by persecu and coercion and in fact it's been pointed out that he is literally quite literally the first king of the ancient world who had anti-religious laws I mean even if you go back to the bad guys go back to parro in Egypt who destroyed the B mikdash they did not pass laws against Jews practicing religion I mean they destroyed the Bas ofas this was their conquest and and and and the like but if you want you to worked filling or learned Torah you know he didn't he didn't care one way or the other the very first king who Target it I mean Han didn't Target religion the very first king who targeted religious observance in the ancient world was antias he was actually unique unique in that uh in that in that way later there were later people who imitated him but this was his his Kish and this will get us into the makabe rebolt and and and the like okay so maybe we'll stop here so again this is uh by way of introduction uh so I know we're kind of in the middle of a story but we we'll continue [Music] here