Breaking the Fence
Avraham Marks
Chanukah 5766
There are only three Mishnayos referring to Chanukah in all the Mishnayos. Two of them are found in Mesechta Middos, the tractate describing the layout of the Temple in Jerusalem. These two Mishnayos describe the damage the Greeks did to the Temple when they conquered Eretz Yisroel. The first Mishna, Middos 2:3, describes how the Greeks broke 13 holes in the Soreg (fence surrounding the Temple, which non-Jews could not enter). Each of these holes corresponded to one of the gates into the Temple. The Greeks even made breaches into the two Western gates, which were left unused and didn't even have names. The other relevant Mishna in Middos (1:6) describes the chamber in which the Chashmoniyim stored the stones from the Mizbeach (the Altar), that the Greeks had defiled with idolatry.
What about our Temple bothered the Greeks so greatly? We must first understand the two central traits of Greece, their love of grace and beauty and their love of knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, the Greeks only loved Greek beauty and Greek wisdom both of which centered around the human form. They felt the epitome of beauty ascribed such a form to their idols. When confronted with Judaism, however, they met their exact opposite. We too consider human beings to be sacred, because man was created in the image of his Creator and has the ability to make himself holy. We too value wisdom, but our wisdom is that of the Torah, holy wisdom that allows us to learn the will of our Creator, so we might better serve him, not that we might be able to bend his creations to our will. We too value beauty, but only for the service for our Creator, that we might glorify Him and cause our physical side to serve him, not in order to engage in the vanity of self-indulgence.
The Temple is the physical heart of the entire world. There we do the main part of our divine service and there sits the Sanhedrin (the High Court) who taught Torah to all of Klal Yisroel. Additionally, it was a truly beautiful structure, decorated and inlaid with gold and silver. It possessed all of the things the Greeks prized, but directed all of them to the service of G-d, not to the glorification of man and this was a challenge the Greeks simply could not accept.
The Greeks were not after our physical destruction; they simply wanted us to assimilate into their culture and declare it to be superior. The Temple therefore represented a major challenge to them. Not only did it represent our defiance and our refusal to submit to their crooked ideology, but it also excluded them. Not only would we not assimilate, but we would not even let them in fully. This exclusion and resistance is what they saw in the Soreg. Thus they responded by breaking it at every entrance to the Temple to show us that they could enter whenever they choose.
The Altar is the representation that our service is directed to G-d not to man. Thus, they could not be satisfied by simply stopping our service; they felt the need to show us that they’re number one, that they have replaced our way of life with theirs. Therefore, they used our Altar for the service of their idols.
Thus when the Chashmonyim conquered the Greeks, they first lit the Menorah, burning pure oil, uncontaminated by the Greeks, representing the light of Torah that the Greeks were unable to extinguish. They built a new Altar, one undefiled by Greek idolatry. And they patched the holes in the Soreg, symbolizing that this is our holy place and that their ways are not welcome here.
This is what Chanukah celebrates. It commemorates a miraculous military victory, but it is not the victory, but its results that are truly important. On Chanukah we celebrate that we are an Am K'shei Oref (a stiff-necked nation) that does not give in. Even in the darkness of exile, we light a ner mitzvah, a mitzvah candle and publicize that we have not given in, we have not assimilated, that their ways have not become our ways and that we still serve our Creator as He commanded us on Mount Sinai.
When we light our Chanukah candles to publicize the miracle, we are not simply publicizing a miraculous victory of a small band over a mighty army or oil burning for longer than it should. After all, the Vilna Gaon said, miracles in Eretz Yisroel are not incredibly surprising. Rather, we are celebrating the miracle of being able to rededicate our Temple and to keep its flame burning even in our long exile. When we light our Chanukah candles we are celebrating and publicizing the miracle that we are still able to light Chanukah candles.
Chanukah 5766
There are only three Mishnayos referring to Chanukah in all the Mishnayos. Two of them are found in Mesechta Middos, the tractate describing the layout of the Temple in Jerusalem. These two Mishnayos describe the damage the Greeks did to the Temple when they conquered Eretz Yisroel. The first Mishna, Middos 2:3, describes how the Greeks broke 13 holes in the Soreg (fence surrounding the Temple, which non-Jews could not enter). Each of these holes corresponded to one of the gates into the Temple. The Greeks even made breaches into the two Western gates, which were left unused and didn't even have names. The other relevant Mishna in Middos (1:6) describes the chamber in which the Chashmoniyim stored the stones from the Mizbeach (the Altar), that the Greeks had defiled with idolatry.
What about our Temple bothered the Greeks so greatly? We must first understand the two central traits of Greece, their love of grace and beauty and their love of knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately, the Greeks only loved Greek beauty and Greek wisdom both of which centered around the human form. They felt the epitome of beauty ascribed such a form to their idols. When confronted with Judaism, however, they met their exact opposite. We too consider human beings to be sacred, because man was created in the image of his Creator and has the ability to make himself holy. We too value wisdom, but our wisdom is that of the Torah, holy wisdom that allows us to learn the will of our Creator, so we might better serve him, not that we might be able to bend his creations to our will. We too value beauty, but only for the service for our Creator, that we might glorify Him and cause our physical side to serve him, not in order to engage in the vanity of self-indulgence.
The Temple is the physical heart of the entire world. There we do the main part of our divine service and there sits the Sanhedrin (the High Court) who taught Torah to all of Klal Yisroel. Additionally, it was a truly beautiful structure, decorated and inlaid with gold and silver. It possessed all of the things the Greeks prized, but directed all of them to the service of G-d, not to the glorification of man and this was a challenge the Greeks simply could not accept.
The Greeks were not after our physical destruction; they simply wanted us to assimilate into their culture and declare it to be superior. The Temple therefore represented a major challenge to them. Not only did it represent our defiance and our refusal to submit to their crooked ideology, but it also excluded them. Not only would we not assimilate, but we would not even let them in fully. This exclusion and resistance is what they saw in the Soreg. Thus they responded by breaking it at every entrance to the Temple to show us that they could enter whenever they choose.
The Altar is the representation that our service is directed to G-d not to man. Thus, they could not be satisfied by simply stopping our service; they felt the need to show us that they’re number one, that they have replaced our way of life with theirs. Therefore, they used our Altar for the service of their idols.
Thus when the Chashmonyim conquered the Greeks, they first lit the Menorah, burning pure oil, uncontaminated by the Greeks, representing the light of Torah that the Greeks were unable to extinguish. They built a new Altar, one undefiled by Greek idolatry. And they patched the holes in the Soreg, symbolizing that this is our holy place and that their ways are not welcome here.
This is what Chanukah celebrates. It commemorates a miraculous military victory, but it is not the victory, but its results that are truly important. On Chanukah we celebrate that we are an Am K'shei Oref (a stiff-necked nation) that does not give in. Even in the darkness of exile, we light a ner mitzvah, a mitzvah candle and publicize that we have not given in, we have not assimilated, that their ways have not become our ways and that we still serve our Creator as He commanded us on Mount Sinai.
When we light our Chanukah candles to publicize the miracle, we are not simply publicizing a miraculous victory of a small band over a mighty army or oil burning for longer than it should. After all, the Vilna Gaon said, miracles in Eretz Yisroel are not incredibly surprising. Rather, we are celebrating the miracle of being able to rededicate our Temple and to keep its flame burning even in our long exile. When we light our Chanukah candles we are celebrating and publicizing the miracle that we are still able to light Chanukah candles.