ed notes

Permit me to share with you my paraphrase of a Chanukah thought expressed best by the legendary Mirer Rosh Yeshiva (Dean of the Mir Torah Academy, transplanted from Lithuania to Jerusalem and NY) Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz (1902-1978) in his collection of discourses entitled Sichos Mussar.

The Jewish People were physical endangered during the Second Temple period, but more prominently they faced spiritual annihilation at the hands of the Assyrian Greeks and their assimilated Jewish accomplices.  In a miraculous turnaround the Macabees, giants of the spirit but hardly bearing great military prowess, were granted a stunning victory over the Greek armies and the Jews were spared the impending spiritual doom.  In conjunction with that victory the Temple was rededicated from its defilement at the hands of our mortal spiritual enemies and a flask of uncontaminated oil was found which sufficed, again miraculously, to kindle the candelabrum (Menorah) in the Temple for eight days.

Given the magnitude of the existential threat to the Jewish People it is therefore surprising that the smaller and seemingly incidental miracle of the oil became the halachically required manner for marking the events of Chanukah.  Surely the miraculous victory of the Macabees warrants far greater attention than the miraculous flask of oil.

We might even intensify the question by pointing out that due to a technicality in Jewish law we did not actually need the ritually pure oil that was found and lasted.  When everything in the Temple is impure, then the standard for ritual purity is lowered and that would have been the case in the defiled Temple.  We desperately needed the miracle of the Macabean victory and we hardly needed the miracle of the flask at all.  Again, why is the smaller miracle central to Chanukah?

The answer can be best understood by imagining a family in which an heirloom gem had been passed through the generations.  The priceless gem was misplaced; somehow it got lost.  Obviously the family went into a state of emergency and the search commenced.  After great efforts a young child in the family came upon the gem.  When presenting it to his father he was rewarded with a kiss on his head from his father.  Now this child celebrated the finding of the stone together with the rest his family, but he had something else; he had a kiss from his father.

A gift expresses additional intimacy when it is over and above one’s essential needs.  Indeed, once one’s basic needs are met it is fair to say the following formula: The less a gift is needed the more intimacy it carries.  We needed the salvation of the Macabean victory; we did not need the flask.  That was a pure kiss.  The intimacy that we enjoy with our Creator and Master was manifest in that small flask and it is that intimacy that colors the celebration of Chanukah.

I hope that you’ll pause to consider and experience the warmth and intimacy with the A-lmighty to be found in those little candles as you light and view them.

My apologies to those who are not familiar with baseball; hopefully the message will be clear even to those who do not share that childhood experience with me.

Legend has it (I’ve not seen it confirmed anywhere) that baseball great Ty Cobb once commented that Babe Ruth (the home run king of his time) didn’t play real baseball.  That is, by hitting the ball out of the park he was missing the point of baseball; the careful placing of hits so as to move the players forward.

When I heard the above I wondered why it is that a ball hit out of the park is considered a home run.  After all, hitting the ball out of the playing area to the right or left is considered a foul ball, while hitting it past the outfield fence is a home run.  Strange.  I cannot imagine the same thing in another sport.  Imagine throwing the football into the stands past the end zone and having that be called a touchdown?  Hitting the ball hundreds of feet past the hole and getting a low score in golf?  Slamming the ball past one’s opponent in tennis without hitting the court and getting a point for it?  It really is a rather strange rule; a fluke of baseball.

Upon reflection though, I realized that there is a great depth to this fluke and one which bears a great deal of analysis.  Man was created to toil (Job/Iyov 5:7).  That means that the ‘game’ of life involves steady and persistent effort to perform Mitzvos; to study Torah; to perfect one’s character; to earn a livelihood (Avos 2:2).  In a word, there is no substitute for Ameilus (toil) in the pursuit of a Torah life.  That’s the name of the game.  We are even taught that the severe reprimand/warning (the Tochacha) written in the Torah is essentially hinged on whether or not we toil in our service of G-d (those wishing to see for themselves should see Rashi on Vayikra 26:3 and 26:14).

This does not imply that such toil is meant to be depressive.  Quite to the contrary; if someone does not toil with joy then they have missed the plot.  But clearly we are speaking about toil.  And toil is one well-placed hit after another.  Toil is not home runs.

Yet we are living, it seems, in the home run era.  I have met with many people who are trying to find a way to become a millionaire.  They are not looking to take small steps; they are looking for the big win.  When setting forth their service of G-d I have seen many people take on all sorts of commitments that they cannot uphold in their efforts to score the big win in their divine service.  I meet with students of Torah who are relying on their genius and not on their diligence and I see yet another home run desperado.  I certainly don’t know how to turn this around, but I know that without turning it around in an individual’s life there will not be genuine growth.

Home runs are a fluke of baseball; but they have become a fluke of modern times.  There are few signs of laziness as clear as the passion for a home run.  Careful, thoughtful play-by-play is the name of the game called life.  A paradigm shift is clearly required if we are to be happy with our lives.  Erasing the passion for the ‘big win’ must be accompanied by a joyful acceptance of the terms of our lives and a celebration of every moment that we are blessed to be in the game.