The story of Chanukah is well known and
beloved by all. It is a thrilling tale of the fight of the Jews
against the Syrian-Greek oppressors, who oppressed us and tried to
take our religion away. The heroic Maccabees fought the military occupation and miraculously won. Upon entering the Temple they found only one completely pure
flask of oil and it lasted for eight days. Accordingly,
we light candles, eat latkes, spin dreidels, give some gifts, say Al
Hanissim, and . . . that's about it. To quote a popular formula
regarding all Jewish Holidays, “They tried to kill us. We
won. Let's eat.”
Of course, our Sages found far more
depth in the story, and there is much commentary about why they
instituted this longest of Jewish Holidays (There are really only seven days of Pesach, and Succot & Shmini
Atzeret are separate holidays). It is a Yom Tov that is full of
meaning and relevance to those who take the time to look a little bit
below the surface. To illustrate, we really need go no further than
the Rambam's famous formulation “The Mitzvah of Chanukah is
exceedingly beloved חביבה
היא עד מאוד" (Laws of Chanukah 2:14).
Surely the Rambam was not referring to latkes and dreidels, but
pointing to something far more important.
If one looks then at the sub-text of
the story, it is clear that the main message of Chanukah that is
important to us is not centered on the struggle between the Jews and
the Syrian-Greeks. There were many military battles between the Jews
and their neighbors (fought by the Shoftim, Kings, etc) that are not
eternally memorialized with a Holiday. Rather, the struggle that
made Chanukah eternally important was the battle between two groups
within the Jewish people: The mainstream Jews and the Hellenists.
The Hellenists felt that the mainstream
Jews were backward, stuck in the past, close-minded to all the
wonderful new ideas that Grecian culture represented, which were in
fact amazing and mesmerizing. Perhaps no other nation in the
history of Mankind has so influenced the art, poetry, architecture,
math, science, government, theater, philosophy, and sports of the
world as did Greece. To be open to Greek culture was to be modern,
progressive, in step with the times, and current with the latest and
greatest notions of ethics, morality and freedom. How much more
exciting was it to subscribe to this great new modern culture than to
the (at the time) over 1,000 year old dusty Judaism! If you were
serious about being a modern Jew – you wished to be a Hellenist!
The
Hellenists ultimately broke completely with Torah and tradition, and
openly maligned and rebelled against all that was Holy to the Jewish
people and Torah values. They became allies of the Greeks in
defiling the Holy Temple and abusing the Torah, and engaged in
activities such as reversing
their circumcision, eating pork, bowing to idols and even became
self-hating enough to side with the enemies of Israel. Hellenism
threatened to annihilate the Jewish world through assimilation in
ways tyrants tried but could not do by force, as
they succeeded in influencing between one third and one half of the
entire Jewish people to join them.
Although
the Maccabees won the battle against the Hellenists in the Chanukah
story, it is questionable whether they won the long term war. The
problem of Hellenism continued throughout Jewish history until our
day, albeit in different forms and under different names. The basic
premises of the Hellenists were later adapted by the Saducees, later
by the Karaites, and closer to our time, by Reform. Although there
were clear differences between these groups, the common themes of an
over-emphasis on assimilating with the predominant culture, the
negating of the primacy of traditional Torah values, the denigration
of the authority of the Sages in determining Jewish law, and the
self-hating shame with which they looked at the parts of Torah and
Halacha that they found distasteful are very clear.
I
took a particular interest this year in trying to understand how
Hellenism began. Most sources point to the very good relations that
were established between Alexander the Great and Shimon HaTzaddik as
a starting point. Although it brought much good to live under the
benign rule of a friendly government, there were those who were
overly impressed by the allure of Grecian culture as above, and began
measuring their values, including their Torah values, by what was
consistent with the new, modern, progressive, “scientific” ways
of thinking, instead of having Torah and Halacha remain the yardstick
by which to measure how much of secular values were appropriate.
Many of the early Hellenists did not
outright reject the Torah and Halacha . . . they merely wished to
modernize it and bring it up to contemporary standards. They did
away with what was no longer in vogue, or politically correct, and
emphasized new innovations that were in keeping with Greek, as well
as some Jewish, values. They were an amalgam of Torah and
modernity, refusing to be bound by precedent, and focused more on
what they perceived would be relevant to the young, searching Jew.
Of course the story of Chanukah is a
story of the rejection of those notions – of the idea that Judaism
had to bend to the times and to be in step with Western values; that
the Torah and Halachah had to be remade to that conform to modernity.
By contrast, the Maccabees stood for Torah as the golden standard
to measure all new ideas. We must not seek to conform Torah to
modernity; modernity must fit with Torah values, or be rejected.
This lesson of Chanukah is thus as timeless
as it is vital. We must forever be on guard of knowing when, to
what degree, and how much we can take in contemporary values, as we
strive to forever keep the Torah as our golden standard, as our light
in the darkness of the surrounding world. Particularly so for those of us who do not take a blanket rejectionist stance vis a vis' the secular
world we live in, the light of Chanukah reminds us to keep Torah as
our ultimate standard by which all else must be judged.
This brings me to a painful topic; the
developing schism between those in the Orthodox world who have
traditional respect for the Halachic process and precedent on the one hand, and those,
particularly those associated with Yeshiva Chovevei Torah and Yehivat
Maharat, who unfortunately seem to feel that it is their sacred duty to break with
tradition on the other hand. Their modus operandi is to espouse Liberalism as the
highest value, and to twist the Halacha to fit their pre-conceived objectives by making any possible argument
that they are still within the Halachic process, relying on minority
positions that have clearly been rejected by most Poskim, or by new
readings into fundamental matters of faith that will “prove”
their contentions. As long as they can be seen in the eyes of their
adoring public as progressive, and to be upholding the causes of
Liberalism against the outmoded traditionalists, they will not stop
from creating new Halacha and rejecting traditional norms.
And yet, they bristle when their fealty
to Orthodoxy is called into question.
Let me clear – I am not accusing practitioners of Open
Orthodoxy of being Hellenists – yet. The leadership of those
institutions is made up of passionate Jews, some of whom I have met
and know, who consider themselves deeply committed to Torah and Yirat
Shamayim. I contend, nevertheless, that they have gone much too far
on the slippery slope that is leading away from Orthodoxy, and that if
they do not reverse direction immediately, it may be too late before
they lead thousands of our sisters and brothers towards the road that
can only lead to a modern form of Hellenism. There is much written on this topic that I am in full agreement with . . . please see here, here, and here for starters.
May the leaders of Orthodox world find
the way to continue to proudly represent traditional Jewish values
while engaging with the contemporary world and the many Jews that are
enmeshed in it, and to stand firm in the face of the modern-Day
Hellenists that plague our communities.
Happy Chanukah