The Avodah of Chanukah – Choosing Perpetual Growth Over Permanence

The Avodah of Chanukah – Choosing Perpetual Growth Over Permanence

During a recent stay in London, I discovered a fundamental observation about the K’lal Yisrael – an observation that is central to our understanding of Chanukah and our avodah at this time of year.

For one reason or other, I had to visit the British Museum.  During the course of my tour, I walked through a whole vast exhibition containing all sorts of artifacts from all of the world’s cultures.  In the wing dedicated to ancient civilizations, I saw all sorts of relics from Egypt, Ashur, Paras, Madai and the like.  All the while, I found it interesting to compare and contrast what was happening in these various different cultures as opposed to similar eras in our history (as recorded in Tanach).

And then, it dawned on me that neither K’lal Yisrael nor its history was represented throughout the entire museum.  Now this was noteworthy because our nation clearly has a lineage dating back to (and before) these ancient empires.  After all, no one walks around claiming to be a direct descendant of Pharaoh; yet we know people who have traced their lineage back to Aharon Ha’Kohen, Dovid Ha’Melech, Chizkiyahu or the like.  So that simply begged the question, why was any vestige or reference to K’lal Yisrael conspicuously absent from the British Museum?

The answer had nothing to do with antisemitism; and everything to do with emunah.  For me, this unexpected observation provided a tremendous chizuk in emunah.  This observation revealed the subtle – but deep – difference between our own being Jewish and all other chachmas throughout the ages.  Be it Egypt, Paras, Madai or Yavan.  Let us explain.  

Written in Stone or Alive and Kicking?

In Tanach, we find the story of a man named Yiftach, who is the object of much discussion (and debate) among Chazal.  We find references to a big mistake that he made and a war that he undertook – so on and so forth.  Now, imagine if archaeologists discovered somewhere in the dirt, an ancient stone containing the narrative of the entire story of Yiftach’s military victory.  This would be hailed as the greatest finding in world.  It would be the most juicy thing you could imagine, and we would all set out immediately comparing the verses in Tanach to that story etched in stone.

Now, there is only one flaw to this make-believe scenario.  No one in the time of Yiftach made any such stone.  Why not? For it is not the nature of K’lal Yisrael to carve these type of statues or to produce such artifacts for eternity.  We don’t find that.  K’lal Yisrael simply doesn’t have that.  Why not?

The answer is – Because K’lal Yisrael is not meant to be frozen into any permanent, stony state.  To the contrary, K’lal Yisrael is constantly growing.  K’lal Yisrael is a perpetually changing entity.  This being the case, K’lal Yisrael simply cannot put behind glass.  [Even the notion of having seferim is somewhat antithetical to K’lal Yisrael.  After all, the Gemara (Nedarim) discusses how we could have existed with only the five books of Chumash and Sefer Yehoshua.  From this perspective, even the other twenty-four seferim of Tanach were only necessary to spare us from the clutches of avodah zarah).  Ostensibly, we see that K’lal Yisrael could endure as a living entity even without the seferim of Tanach or other works that were written only because it was an עֵת לַֽעֲשׂ֣וֹת לַֽיהֹוָ֑ה, a contemporary reaction to extenuating circumstances].

This is true even in the grandest scale – i.e., the Beis Ha’Mikdash itself. Even though the physical structure was of towering proportions, it only stood for so long.  It was only in existence so long as Am Yisrael was fit to serve Hashem.  The Beis Ha’Mikdash was a venue for avodah – but not eternity per se; but rather for only so long as we merited to have it.  

Going back to the British Museum’s exhibit, when one stands before these larger-than-life artifacts of all these pharaohs, we see relics that are overwhelming (your whole body is like the size of its nose).  But the objects themselves are more than just about being huge.  It bespeaks the very ambition of an ancient pharaoh. That was the ultimiate success – “when will I be in stone.”  “When will I achieve that non-movable, chiseled in stone accomplishment of eternality?” 

This whole ambition strikes us as totally foreign.  Why?  Because K’lal Yisrael is not a thing that ever aspires to be in stone.  We don’t yearn to be put behind any glass.  Quite the contrary, K’lal Yisrael is always developing and perpetually changing.  This is the fundamental idea I wish to get across.  The fundamental difference between K’lal Yisrael and every other culture of the world is as follows: For us, everything is a question of living a life of avodah; while for everyone else, the goal is to be put behind glass.

Understanding Chachmas Yavan

Turning towards Chanukah, the whole chachmas Yavan – not unlike the whole chachmas ha’olam – aims towards grasping things in a stoney, permanent fashion.  They perceive the world as a place that lends itself to well-defined conclusions.  The type of conclusions you can put behind the glass.  The type of perspectives that don’t call for avodah.   

Yet, today, in many respects, it seems we are like one step away from being a part of the British Museum.  Rather than encouraging growth to take place in an organic way; we are drawn more and more to a sense of permanence.  

By way of example, take your typical yungerman.  Now, we have essentially tried to “mummify” this individual.  We have created the perfect, twenty-first century standard of a ben Torah.  He has a certain look (with the well-trimmed beard and the peyus behind the ears) and a certain, static course (and pace) of study.  Everything is exact and precise.  We admire this “ideal” and seek to live up to it; yet we remain totally blind to fact that this is essentially an enormous problem.  We have taken the whole aim of K’lal Yisrael and rendered it immovable.  Our whole ambition has been chiseled into stone.

We think this is praiseworthy; yet this is so against the Torah.  The Torah doesn’t want that “one-size-fits-all,” monolithic standard.  The Torah wants you to grow differently than someone else.  Your own, unique development.  Today, sadly, people don’t want that.

Don’t Set Our Gedolim In Stone

We make a similar mistake in our assessment of truly big people.  We somehow have a problem acknowledging that a particular gadol modified his perspectives throughout the course of his life.  Why should we have a problem with that?  The Mashgiach was not like that.  Nor was Rav Hutner zt’l.

The following story with the Mashgiach brings out this point.  One of the reasons why the Mashgiach was sympathetic towards me was on account of the fact that we both spoke German.  One day he mentioned to me a certain book authored by a Norwegian biologist with innovative perspectives on how to look at the natural world.  In short, the Mashgiach praised the book as worth reading – why?  Because one could gain a lot of visual pictures in emunah.

Although the book was hard to find in print, my mother was able to photocopy an edition from a local library.  Sure enough this work, through its innovative way of looking at the natural world, was indeed a fruitful source of phenomenon that strengthen one’s emunah.  

Fast-forward twenty years later, and I see a copy of the very same book on a table in the Mashgiach’s home.  The Mashgiach, then eighty-seven years old, asked if I was familiar with this book.  He continued (surprisingly) not to praise the book but rather just the opposite.  “It is such a strange thing,” he explained, “how a person writes about nature without the Borei Olam anywhere in the picture.”  In any event, the very same book that was praised twenty years earlier was now being dismissed as strange and nonsensical.

What happened here?  The answer is that I saw a different person with my own eyes.  The Mashgiach at age sixty-five was not the same person at the age of eighty-seven.  At age sixty-five, he was thinking about how to bring emunah to the people.  In that capacity, he was searching for instances of emunah in nature.  At age eighty-seven, however, he was much closer to the world of the Borei Olam than was to the physical world at-large.  Accordingly, the very same book was assessed by a different measuring stick.  

Now, if I were to tell this story over publicly, the standard response would be, “yes, we really knew that conclusion all along; just that the Mashgiach was not yet ‘complete’, so his original impression was mistaken.”  Wrong.  Very wrong interpretation.  Big people, like K’lal Yisrael itself, are always developing.  What is valuable at age sixty; might be nonsense at age eighty.  Yet we don’t want to hear that.  

Along similar lines, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt’l was once in Eretz Yisrael for a convention.  Now it was well-known that, until the age of eighty, Reb Yaakov didn’t forget anything.  Furthermore, as a Kelmer, he surely could not speak a mistruth.  

Although I was quite young at the time, I recall Reb Yaakov sitting in his hotel and telling story after story about the Brisker Rav zt’l dating back before the War.  The stories he gave over, however, presented a very different Brisker Rav than the one we are used to.  Reb Yaakov spoke of a man with a relaxed disposition, of one who joked around and did a lot of chesed.  Would you believe it?  All the Briskers who had come to listen left one-by-one.  Why?

Because they didn’t want to hear about that Brisker Rav.  They wanted a Brisker Rav – like that pharaoh in the museum – that was stoney and unmoving.  They wanted to hear stories about a gadol – but a gadol that was etched in stone.  About a persona that experienced neither development nor change. 

This whole approach is very wrong.  Stony things belong in the British Museum.  But part and parcel of our blessing of “shelo asani goy” is that we are constantly changing.  The Torah itself changes us all the time.  The klal and the individual are always in flux.  The current today, sadly, is urging to close down all that growth in favor of a well-defined, well-cut standard of conformity.

Where Should We Unearth the Seeds of Emes

Once in a while growth requires one to sift through the dirt in search of seeds of emes.  The problem, however, is that we don’t want to be a part of that process.  No, we’d rather just receive information in a well-defined, clear-cut way that will pave the way to growth.  With this attitude, however, we miss the point that what really makes one grow is the seeds that are already present in our own life.  For within these small kernels of emes lies the possibility of real, sustainable and discernible growth.  That’s where we can develop.  Too bad most of us don’t even think to look for the emes within us.

Based on a verse in Tehillim (85:12) “the truth will sprout from the earth,” the Medrash (B. Rabbah 8:5) records a dispute in heaven amongst the angels and emes.  Without unpacking the back-and-forth over there, the Borei Olam decided that he would throw emes down to the earth and from there truth would sprout. Chazal are teaching us that emes has to grow – not from the ground per se – but rather from within you, like a seed grows from the earth.  

Where do we look for emes?  Mistakenly, we so often look for emes up in shamayim.  We look for emes in the Maharal.  We search out emes in the Gra.  We seek emes in all the upper realms; when we should be seeking the emes within our own life.  We are not (yet) courageous enough, however, to explore the emes that lie within us. Those points of emes can reveal themselves when we encounter a particular difficulty or a unique challenge; or even a place where things went with ease or where we harbor a certain connectivity to something.  Wherever we find these seeds, this is where our own growth will germinate from.  Precisely from the emes that is found here amidst the earthiness of our lives.

What is an example of what this looks like?  I prepare these va’adim – sometimes five in one day.  I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot just prepare our of a sefer.  I cannot simply learn-up a maimar in the Michtav M’eliyahu and give it over in Chevron.  I have to think and, after a while, this thinking and preparing simply drives me crazy to the point where I need a break.  Now, when I reach that point, what is taking place – is the break needed or is it really an exercise of throwing off the yoke?

The Mashgiach, himself, he would say for sure this is the latter.  For myself, though, I already call it a question-mark.  How do I know?  Well, let’s take a look at what this break entails.  I go to make a tea; but … I don’t go for the ready-made instant tea, but rather for the (more time-consuming) tea bag.  I then dip it in-and-out of the hot water fifteen times or so, I add the sugar, I mix it up every so slowly; wait a little bit, drink it slowly and go back to the beis medrash.  That would be a break.

When I take a break, I invariably end up looking in some other sefer.  That break, already, took too long and falls in the parameters of shirking the yoke. So on the one hand I need the break, yet on the other hand, there may be more to this break than just taking a break.  Now, right here in this episode plucked right out of my everyday life is the truth I need to deal with.  Here is the very challenge from which I can grow.

In truth, I’d much rather think about something else.  Something more lofty.  For sure I’d rather look for the emes in the Maharal or the Gra or some Chazal somewhere.  That’s much more enticing than thinking about the dirt in my own life.  Much more refined than assessing whether my tea was a legitimate break or an illegitimate rebellion.    

What do we do? We forsake the emes in our own lives to search for emes in seemingly more substantial things.  We look for emes in shamayim; even though the verse told us openly that the place to find emes is in the dirt of our own lives.  It’s much less glamorous and it’s never going to make it into a schmooze or a “sefer zikaron” but this crazy doubt is a real kernel of emes from which one can grow.  

Generally, speaking, our community is not involved in this type of avodah.  I once saw a diary of adam gadol.  Now we wonder why don’t we publish these types of things and we think the reason is because of all the “juicy stuff” that the author writes about his colleagues. This is wrong.  The reason is simply because there is nothing there to publish.  It’s simply his seeds of emes which caused him to grow.  Thus, it simply won’t do anything for you.  The whole purpose of such writings was not simply to write a diary that would come to light after 120 as a sefer zikaron with some small insights that we can put behind glass at the British Museum.

Just the opposite.  It’s a personal thing and personal things don’t belong behind glass. Similarly, our own writings should relate to our own things they we personally have to go through.  It’s our own episodes of bitul Torah or throwing off the yoke.  It’s our own dirt that accumulates throughout the day. But what lies within is truly priceless – because there I can find my point of emes.  We have to look for that and grow from there.

When I mention points like this, I feel, to a certain degree that I am speaking Chinese.  After all, a large part of our community presents itself as one general persona.  We only value those things in Torah that can be communicated to others in a general way.  If it can be shared then it is valuable; and if not is something personal, we feel it’s not worthwhile.  This is a big mistake.  These personal points of Torah is where we could be growing from – where we should be growing from.  

Conclusion

So this was my big revelation from my tour of the British Museum.  It was the biggest chizuk in emunah walking through all those exhibits and seeing no trace of the  k’lal Yisrael depicted there.  When we dig up archaeological sites in Eretz Yisrael, all we have – and all we need – is spelled out in Tanach. There is nothing more to excavate.  There are no ancient stones to be put behind glass. 

And this is ultimately, our teshuva to the Yavanim.  The chachmas Yavan was built upon stony things commemorating conquest.  That’s not for us. K’lal Yisrael doesn’t want historical exhibits.  We want development.  We want organic growth.  We want an evolving vitality which is simply something that cannot be contained behind any glass.