The Root of the Greek Decree
The Greek empire sought to make Klal Yisrael forget the Torah and abandon the chukim of Hashem’s will. It gave rise to a severe phenomenon among the Jewish people—the misyavnim, those who wished to cast off a life of Torah and assimilate into the wicked tarbus Yavan, whether out of genuine admiration for Hellenistic culture or out of fear of the harsh decrees.
This horrible trend spread widely because the nation had grown lax in avodas Hashem. Only the steadfast and fearless stand of the Maccabees against the entire Greek empire succeeded, in the end, in saving Yisrael — so that Torah would not be forgotten from among them. As the Bach writes (Orach Chaim, end of siman 670): “On Chanukah, the essence of the decree was because they had become lax in the avodah; therefore the decree was to uproot avodah from them… And when they returned in teshuvah and were willing to give their lives for avodah, Hashem saved them… in the merit of their readiness to die for the sake of avodah.”
Mesirus Nefesh: The Only Weapon That Prevailed
The only response that enabled Yisrael to withstand Yavan was mesirus nefesh—complete
willingness to surrender one’s life. Against the laxity that had invited the terrible decrees and the tide of Hellenization there stood mesirus nefesh—their willingness to die for the fulfillment of the avodah—and only through that merit did they become worthy of victory. Mesirus nefesh is the kodesh hakodashim of Klal Yisrael. We must therefore clarify its true meaning. Does it have relevance for us today? Can we, too, wage battle against contemporary tarbus Yavan with this same weapon?
What Mesirus Nefesh Is—and Is Not
Many people mistakenly believe that mesirus nefesh means supreme effort or extraordinarily intense avodah in order to attain some goal. This, however, is a distortion that profanes the concept, because when a person actually gives over his nefesh, he dies—and once he is dead he can no longer accomplish anything. We are therefore forced to conclude that genuine mesirus nefesh is not a strategy for achieving any particular outcome. What, then, is it?
The lifelong task of a Jew is to draw down a higher order of life into the mundane, physical world. At the very least, a Jew must carry within him a clear inner vision of how his life could be more exalted than his lowly, actual existence. As long as he fails to perceive and reveal in his own existence a point that transcends his ordinary existence, he is missing the essence of the Jewish neshamah.
Readiness for mesirus nefesh arises from the recognition that life in its present form is simply not worth living—so much so that death is preferable. And although after death there can be no further avodah, nevertheless, in the current condition it is impossible to go on existing even for another moment.
The Chashmonaim went out to war, though, humanly speaking, they had no chance of prevailing in the battle. Yet they were prepared to die because they understood that life in the current situation—in which tarbus Yavan was sweeping through and engulfing Klal Yisrael—was not a life worth living; death was preferable.
This is not suicide, chalilah; this is mesirus nefesh al ha’avodah. The Chashmonaim were ready to offer their lives and to touch the kodesh hakodashim of Klal Yisrael in order to proclaim that the life that must be revealed in the world is an entirely different life—infinitely higher than a life rooted merely in human intellect, like chachmas Yavan and its tarbus.
Living the Mitzvah So That Without It There Is No Life
This is, without question, one of the most difficult forms of avodah. The yetzer hara grants us the vivid sensation that our life is bound up with ta’avah and that without it we are deficient, whereas the yetzer tov does not naturally produce such an intense feeling. Yet
from the chag of Chanukah we learn that we are obligated to examine our lives and ask: Can we say about even one mitzvah that a life without it is not life at all?
Gedolim lived the mitzvos to such a degree that their very bodies would be transformed while performing them. We, by contrast, perform mitzvos, but we do not truly live them; consequently, we are unable to surrender our nefesh for them. From this chag we learn that our cheshbon hanefesh must not be a mere tally of actions—whether I did or did not—but rather: Where do I actually live? Is my nefesh present in what I do? Do I live the mitzvah? How can we declare that without Torah our lives are worthless?
When a person has toiled over a sugya until he has distilled its central yesod—the foundation upon which the entire sugya rests—he becomes incapable of allowing that yesod to be lost; he feels that without it his entire world collapses. This is precisely how we are meant to relate to Torah and mitzvos as a whole. We must strive to live at least one mitzvah so deeply that we can say: Without this, there is no life. In that zechus we will be shayach to the ma’alah of the Jewish people—the ma’alah of the Chashmonaim, who gave their lives to proclaim that ordinary life, as it is, is not worthwhile—that the essence of our life is to reveal a higher, more exalted plane of existence.