MIKETZ 1994  
 
Today is Shabbos Chanukah.  It is also Rosh Chodesh. Today we also read the Torah portion Miketz. We took out 3 Torahs. This is one of the few Shabboses we take out 3 Torahs. We took out 3 Torahs because we had to read from one Torah for the Torah portion for Shabbos, we had to read the reading for Rosh Chodes, and we also had to read the reading for Chanukah. Chanukah is our longest holiday. It is 8 days. There is no other holiday which lasts 8 days. The other holidays are 7 days, not 8 days. Succos is only 7 days, but Chanukah, even in the land of Israel, is 8 days. Why is it that the rabbis should see fit that Chanukah should be 8 days? We know that Shabbos is very important to the story of Chanukah. The rabbis wanted to make sure that there was a Shabbos and if possible two Shabboseem in the holiday of Chanukah, because Chanukah speaks about Jewish spirituality which is encapsulated in the Shabbos. Shabbos is the holiday which teaches us, that things of the spirit are more important than material things, that the things that you cannot measure are more important than the things you can measure, that love and devotion and dedication are much more important than the things that you can measure.
The Greeks wanted to destroy the Jewish religion. The Syrian Greeks set out to make sure that the Jewish people would give up 3 main mitzvahs. They wanted them to give up the mitzvah of Bris Milah, of circumcision, the mitzvah of Shabbos, and the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh. That's why the rabbis arranged is so that on Chanukah we always bench Rosh Chodesh, we always start the new month. They could have arrange this holiday so that it would all be in one month. After all, the events of Purim did not take at the time that we celebrate them now. Many of the events transpired months earlier, and we know, too, that they could have done the same thing with Chanukah. They did not have to have Chanukah occur on the day that it occurs, but the rabbis wanted to make sure that there was a Rosh Chodesh in the holiday of Chanukah.
 
We also know that one of the reasons why the rabbis wanted to have Chanukah 8
days is because it is on the eighth day that we have the Bris Milah, the circumcision.
Antiochus was sure that he would succeed. He was sure that the Jews were ready
to give up their religion because the Jewish people were in great turmoil. They
had confronted the Hellenistic culture and many of them felt that the Jewish
religion was inferior to the Hellenistic religion and the Hellenistic culture.
In fact, they had even petitioned Antiochus that he should make Jerusalem like
the Greek city of Antioch and they wanted to establish a gymnasia in Jerusalem,
and a gymnasia was not just a school of Greek learning but it also included worship
and athletic events, which are also part of Greek worship and the Greek athletic
events were always done in the nude. Therefore, there were many Jews who wanted
to reverse the circumcision that they had undergone when they were 8 days old
because they wanted to deny their Jewishness.  They felt inferior as many Jews
50, 60, and 100 years ago did to change their names and their noses, etc. Therefore,
Chanukah is a holiday which proclaims that the Greeks could not overcome us,
that even though there were many Jews who actually gave Antioehus the idea that
it would be easy for the Jewish people to agree to give up their religion but
this was not to be. The high priesthood was even for sale.  It was even bought
by a man named Menalaus. Notice this was a Greek name. It wasn't even a Kohen
and before him there was a man named Jason, who at least was a Kohen, who had
purchased the high priesthood from Antiochus. The Jewish people in grave crisis.
You can even tell when the rabbis names, themselves, were GReek names. We have
Antigonus Eesh Socha, Antigonus the man from Socha was one of the rabbis names.
It is similar to today where there are many Jews who bear names like Luke and
Matthew and Mark and, of course, we all know that these are prominent names in
other religions, although their origin is found in Jewish names, but, yet, many
Jews felt inferior to the culture around them.  In fact, one of the very famous
rabbis in America his first name is Fabian, so we see that there is a big problem
 
here with the Jewish people's feeling that their religion was worthwhile, was worth fighting for and worth keeping. There were many Jews who felt that it would be best if the Jews assimilated into the Greek environment of their day.
We also know that the Maccabees felt that they had to light the Chanukah menorah immediately because they were afraid that if they would not light the menorah immediately maybe that spirit of Judaism would go out and there would not be any future for the Jewish people because they had to keep that inner flame of Judaism alive, but it is strange that they would have sought to keep the flame alive in this way. For example, we know that the menorah took 3^ Logs, which is approximately 21 eggs in order for it to be lit, that it had 7 branches and each branch contained a half a Log. We all know that it would take a half a Log, a huge quantity, 21 eggs is a pretty huge quantity of oil.  It would take that much for a menorah to burn all night, but the rabbis say that we all know that the menorah was lit at night and that because it was lit at night only the central shaft burned during the day, that the nights differ. In the summer the nights are short.  In the winter the nights are long, and so, therefore, the Kohanim were able to control how long it took for the oil to burn by the thickness of the wick. The thicker the wick the quicker the oil burned, the thinner the wick the longer the oil burned. The rabbis all ask the question, why is it that the Maccabees had to put in a regular wick in the oil if they only had enough oil to last one night, why didn't they put in a wick that was only an eighth as thick as normal and the oil would have lasted for the whole 8 days. Why did they have to put in a regular wick?
The answer to this question is the same answer to the question why it is that we have to light the Chanukah menorah outside.  If the Lubavitchers are really right when they put these huge Chanukah menorahs outside. The original custom was to light the Chanukah candles on the left of your door as you face coming
 
into your door with the mezuzah on the right but with the Chanukah candelabrum
on the left, and that these lights of the Chanukah candelabrum could not be used
for anything else. They could not be used to read by, to sew by, to eat by.
They were not like the Shabbos candles which are supposed to be used on the Shabbos
table to see with and to eat by, but these candles could not be used for anything
at all because these candles stood for Jewish pride. The Jew should be proud
that he is a Jew and he should demonstrate it entirely to the whole world that
Judaism is worthwhile preserving. He should be filled with Jewish pride and
be proud of his Jewish identity. Therefore, you could not use these candles
for anything else. You could not pretend that these candles were being used
for eating or sewing or for reading or some other activity and so, therefore,
they really do not stand for Jewish pride. They were to stand for Jewish pride,
and that is why the Maccabees felt they had to light the menorah with a regular
size wick because the menorah stood for Jewish pride, that the Jewish people
were not going to assimilate, that the Jewish people believe that there is something
unique and special in their religion and that they were as good as any other
people and that their religion contained truths that the other peoples needed
and that these truths had not all been assimilated into the world's culture and
that the Jews had to survive because G-d had chosen them to be the light for
the world.
That is one of the reasons why we read the Torah portion Miketz because Joseph was proud to be a Jew. He was proud to claim that he was an I.vri, a Hebrew. He was proud to proclaim before Pharaoh that it was G-d who interpreted his dreams. He recognized the spiritual significance of Judaism even in the court of Pharaoh. Therefore, the very first element of Jewish continuity, of Jewish survival according to the Maccabees was Jewish pride. We know that in our society Jewish pride was greatly lacking until the late 1960?s when Jewish pride once again began to assert itself especially on the college campus. No more do we find Jews changing their
 
names and changing their noses and trying to pretend that they were completely
like the gentiles. This, of course, is why the Greeks tried to banish circumcision
because that was the mark that the Jew was different and that the Jew was proud
to be different, so, therefore, they attacked circumcision, but Jewish pride
alone is not enough to ensure Jewish survival. We know that even from the Maccabees
that the whole kingdom of the Maccabees only last 78 years, that after the Jewish
people won back the Temple they still had to fight for another 25 years until
they got independence in approximately the year 141, but then 78 years later
there was a civil war between two claimants to the throne, and they went to Pompei
who was had conquered Syria and they asked him to settle the problem. He did
settle the problem by coming down to Jerusalem and appointing Herchanus as king
but Herchanus then became a puppet king and Rome really ruled Israel, Judea,
from that time on, so that Jewish pride is not enough. You can have Jewish pride
but if you act exactly like the Greeks in every other respect except that you
are proud of your past you will quickly assimilate, too, as the Maccabees, themselves,
assimilated into Greek culture. Those who had stood staunchly against the inroads
of Greek culture slowly gave way to Greek culture because in order for the Jewish
people to exist there are two other elements that are necessary, and that is
why Antiochus attacked them.
i The second is the Shabbos, where as I said before, this teaches us that spiritual
things are more important than material things, and that is why it is so important that this project of reclaiming the Shabbos catches hold in our community and throughout the United States because until the Jewish people recognize that they have to have spirituality in their life, that their life is more than money, that life has within it all sorts of hidden potentialities, that man has to be man the appreciator as well as man the creator, we will have a hard time maintaining our religious bearings in this country.  Therefore, the Shabbos was under attack
 
by Antiochus,
The third thing he attacked was Rosh Chodesh because Rosh Chodesh stands for renewal. Every month the moon seems to disappear but then it comes back and that is the symbol of Judaism, the ability to come back. Every religion believes in building a temple but Judaism believes more in rebuilding a temple. We know exactly the date that the temple was destroyed but we have no holiday for it, but we have a holiday for rededicating the temple because anybody can build a temple, but can you rebuild a temple? Can you come back again after catastrophe? Can you come back again after persecution? Can you renew yourself? And, of course, Jewish renewal has always been based upon learning and learning is what causes us to reattach ourselves to our religion and to its practices because we see how much they add to our life. We can see that here even in our synagogue, too, that those people who attend our classes are renewed in their Jewish vigor and that Jewish learning is the essence of Jewish renewal. There were these three elements that Antiochus knew had to be destroyed among the Jewish people. One was Jewish pride, Jewish identity, the other was Jewish spirituality, and the third was Jewish learning, Jewish renewal:, the capacity of the Jew to renew himself. We have seen in our day in the Soviet Union how it looked like those Jews were going to be completely assimilated, that although physically they would exist spiritually they would be dead and we were talking about the Jews of silence, but miraculously communism disappeared and Judaism is flourishing there. Perhaps it will end up to be even greater than the Judaism of America. The real story of Chanukah happened again in our own day where it looked like the Jewish people would not have the strength to persevere but somehow when the Refusenik came upon the scene there were still a few old Jews who remembered Jewish religion and culture and beliefs and they were able to teach the young, and now there is a flourescence of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, and we salute those Soviet Jews who never gave up hope, just like the Maccabees never gave up hope.
MIKETZ - CHANUKAH 1994 Rabbi Joseph Radinsky Page Seven
That is what is happening, too, in our country today, in America. Jews are beset by assimilation and it is a race between whether the Jews can renew ourselves here before we are completely assimilated. We know that secret of how to continue, how to make Jewish continuity. The secret is Jewish pride, Jewish spirituality, a and Jewish learning. If we can inculcate these three principles into the life of every American Jew then Judaism will survive in America.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a professor who was giving his class
time to complete the test. Everybody completed the test except for one student
who was constantly flipping coins into the air. The professor told him he had
to finish because he had to go. The student asked for 5 more minutes. The professor
said, "Okay, but why are you flipping a coin in the air?" The student said,
"I'm checking my answers." In America today we take one survey and another survey
to try to figure out how to save Judaism, how to assure Jewish continuity, but
the answer is clear.  It has always been clear since the time of the Maccabees.
If Jews will be committed to Jewish pride, if they will be committed to Jewish
spirituality and Jewish renewal which means Jewish learning, then they can rest
assured that Judaism will survive in America and1 the race between Jewish continuity
and Jewish assimilation will be won by Jewish continuity. Let us all hope and
pray that the Jews of America will realize that we must have Jewish pride, Jewish
spirituality, and Jewish learning, and if we will have these things Judaism will
survive so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day. Amen.