מאי חנוכה? What is Chanukah? And as Rashi explains, the Gemara's question is, for which miracle were they metaken this Yom Tov of Chanukah? And the Gemara answers: שכשנכנסו יוונים להיכל, when the Yevanim entered the היכל, entered the בית המקדש, טימאו כל השמנים שבהיכל, so they were metame all the oils of the היכל. וכשגברה מלכות בית חשמונאי ונצחום, and when the מלכות of the Chashmonaim overpowered them and came out victorious, בדקו, they checked, ולא מצאו אלא פך אחד של שמן, they only found one jar of oil, שהיה חתום בחותמו של כהן גדול, that was sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. And they were sure that this jar was not tamei. ולא היה בו להדליק אלא יום אחד, and it only had enough to burn for one day, נעשה בו נס, a miracle happened with it, והדליקו ממנו שמונה ימים. And they lit with it for eight days the menorah. לשנה אחרת, next year, קבעום, they established them, ועשאום, and they made them into ימים טובים, into special holidays, בהלל והודאה, with praise and thanksgiving to Hashem. So the Gemara tells us here that the main way we celebrate the Yom Tov of Chanukah is through Hallel v'hodaah, through praising Hashem and thanking Hashem, which means we say Hallel every day and we thank Hashem. In addition to that, we know that the יום טוב חנוכה is celebrated by lighting the candles. That every day we light the נרות חנוכה, and in a form of mosif v'holich, we go on and on, every day we add another candle. So we see here that there is a difference in the way we celebrate the Yom Tov of Chanukah and the way we celebrate the Yom Tov of Purim. Purim, the way we celebrate it is through simchah. There is even an obligation to have a seudat Purim. There's a mitzvah, one of the mitzvot of Purim is to have a seudah. And the mitzvah is to have simchah in such a way, as the Gemara says, that חייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי. He's supposed to drink a lot, so much that you don't even know the difference between ארור המן and ברוך מרדכי. So we celebrate it in a very physical way, by eating and drinking, etc., while Chanukah we celebrate in a more ruchniyusdike, spiritual way, by saying Hallel, praising Hashem, thanking Hashem, lighting the menorah, which is also a mitzvah, a ruchniyusdike mitzvah, that is not something that affects the person's body. While on Purim, we celebrate the Yom Tov through eating and drinking, etc. So there is this famous Levush, where he explains that the difference is based on what the miracle was. Chanukah, since Chanukah was more a ruchniyusdike war, a spiritual war, because what the Yevanim wanted was to have the Yidden go away from their religion, and therefore we celebrate the victory also in a ruchniyusdike way, while on Purim, the main gezeirah was on the body of the Yidden, because what Haman wanted was להשמיד ולהרוג ולאבד את כל היהודים, he wanted to kill all the Yidden. So the gezeirah was not on the neshamah, so to speak, on the ruchniyusdike part of the Yidden, but on the physical part of the Yidden, and therefore the way we celebrate it is also in a physical way.

To explain in detail what exactly was it that the Yevanim wanted: we say that it was a spiritual war, they had a spiritual gezeirah, they were not against the body of the Yidden, but they were against their neshamah, against their way of serving Hashem. So we have to explain in detail what is it exactly that they wanted. In different Midrashim we find different things. In one Midrash it says that the main gezeirah was on the three mitzvot which have the ראשי תיבות שמ״ח - שי״ן, מ״ם, חי״ת - which is Shabbat, milah, and chodesh. We also find in a different Midrash, in בראשית רבה פרשה ב׳, and in other places where it says that they made a gezeirah and they said to the Yidden, כתבו על קרן השור, write down on the horn of an ox, שאין לכם חלק באלקי ישראל, that you don't have a part in the God of the Yidden. And in different places we find different details of what exactly they wanted. But in one place, we find a general explanation in what this was exactly, what the Yevanim wanted, and that is in the davening, in the nusach of Al Hanissim. There we say: כשעמדה מלכות יון הרשעה על עמך ישראל, what did they want? להשכיחם תורתך ולהעבירם מחוקי רצונך. They wanted to make them forget your Torah, and to make them go against the chukim of your will. These few words give out exactly what the gezeirah of the Yevanim was. It doesn't say here that the Yevanim wanted להשכיחם התורה, to make them forget the תורה, ולהעבירם מהמצוות, and to make them go away from the mitzvot. The expression in Al Hanissim is להשכיחם תורתך, to make them forget your תורה, ולהעבירם מחוקי רצונך, to make them go away from the chukim of your will. So we see a few diukim here. One diuk is where it says תורתך and not Torah. The other one, where it says חוקי רצונך, and it doesn't just mention mitzvot, it mentions the word חוקים, חוקי רצונך. Plus it doesn't even say להעבירם מהחוקים, it says מחוקי רצונך, to make them go away from the chukim of your will. The meaning behind this is that what the Yevanim wanted of the Yidden was that they should forget that the Torah is the Torah of Hashem, that they should not keep the chukim in a form of doing it because it is the will of Hashem. And the pshat is as follows: There is a famous Midrash where it says that if someone will tell you that תורה יש בגוים אל תאמין, that the Goyim have Torah, don't believe it. If they will say חכמה יש בגוים, that the Goyim have wisdom, תאמין, you should believe it. And the question that is asked, what do we mean when we say that the Goyim don't have Torah? The truth is there are few Goyim who study Torah, but nevertheless there are Goyim who study Torah also. So how can we make a general rule that the Goyim don't have the Torah? And the answer is that the Midrash doesn't mean that the Goyim cannot study Torah. It means that the way the Goyim study the Torah, it is not really the right way of Torah, but it is only a Chochmah. Because we know that the Torah is also a very, very deep Chochmah. As the Pasuk says כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני העמים, that this is your wisdom, your Chochmah and your Binah in the eyes of the nations, which means even in the eyes of the nations, in the eyes of the Goyim, the Torah is a very, very great and deep Chochmah. But in addition to that, and the most important part of the Torah is not that this is a very deep Chochmah, but the fact is that this is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, this is the wisdom of Hashem. And being that this is the wisdom of Hashem, as the Rambam says הוא וחכמתו אחד, השם and His wisdom are one, so therefore the Torah is not only the wisdom of Hashem, but the Torah is actually Hashem Himself. And this is what the Midrash means, that the Goyim, even if they study Torah, it is only as a Chochmah. The Goyim cannot study Torah in such a way that they would realize the truth and have this feeling that the Chochmah of the Torah is really the chochmah of Hashem, and when you study Torah, you're studying the wisdom of Hashem. The way a goy approaches the Torah is that the Torah is a fine chochmah, a deep chochmah, and therefore he would like to learn it. So the Midrash says if someone will tell you that the goyim have Torah, don't believe it, because even when they study Torah, they don't really have what the Torah really is. But if you say חכמה יש בגוים, they have chochmah, that is true. When they study Torah, the Torah to them is a good chochmah, and that is true. And this is really what the Yevanim wanted. The Yevanim wanted that the Yidden should continue studying Torah, but they should forget and not realize, and not have this approach to the Torah, that the Torah is תורתך, it is your Torah. And that's why it doesn't say the loshon here that they wanted להשכיחם התורה, to make them forget the Torah. They wanted to make them forget תורתך, that this is your Torah. Because as we know from history, the Yevanim at that time were very smart people. They were, in amongst the nations of the world, they were the most cultured and most intellectual people. So therefore they appreciated intellect, they appreciated wisdom, and therefore they said, we understand that the Torah is a very deep chochmah, and therefore they actually didn't mind if the Yidden would continue studying Torah. What they didn't want was that the Yidden should study Torah in a form of realizing that the Torah is תורת השם, it is תורתך, it is your Torah. To learn Torah just because Hashem wants us to learn Torah, and realize while you learn that this is the wisdom of Hashem. They said, learn Torah, but feel the Torah is a chachmah, and you learn the Torah like lehavdil you learn other chachmot. But to learn Torah because Hashem said so, and to realize that the Torah is תורתך, this is what they didn't want. And also the second part, when it came to mitzvot, what they wanted was להעבירם מחוקי רצונך, to make them go away from the chukim of your will,

because we know that in mitzvot we have three categories: edot, mishpatim and chukim. The mishpatim are those mitzvot that are understood, and if the Torah wouldn't have been given, then we would have kept these mitzvot anyway, because they are logical. As the Gemara says in Eruvin: אלמלא לא ניתנה תורה, if the Torah wouldn't have been given, היינו למדים צניעות מחתול וגזל מנמלה. We would have learned out anyway to be tzniyusdik from a cat, and we would have learned out anyway not to steal from an ant, because these are things that make sense, and even animals keep them, so we would have learned it out from them. So, this is the mitzvot of mishpatim. Really, it includes most of the מצוות בין אדם לחבירו, most of the mitzvot between man and man, like לא תגנוב, ולא תרצח, ולא תגנוב, all these different things. Then we have mitzvot which are called edot, or sometimes they're called mitzvot. These are mitzvot that do have a logical explanation, but nevertheless, if the Torah wouldn't have told us to keep these mitzvot, on our own we wouldn't have kept it. For instance, the mitzvah of Pesach. We understand why we have to keep the mitzvah of Pesach. It is a zecher for Yetzias Mitzrayim. But nevertheless, if the Torah wouldn't give us the mitzvah of Pesach, we wouldn't have kept Pesach on our own. So these are the mitzvot which are called עדות. The reason they're called עדות because the word עדות means testimony. Most of these mitzvot are a testimony to certain things that happened, or certain things that we want to show. So they have a reason, even though if the Torah wouldn't tell us to do it, we wouldn't do it. Then we have the mitzvot which are called חוקים. These are mitzvot that have no reason at all. As the lashon is that חוקה חקקתי, גזירה גזרתי, השם says, I made a chukah, I made a gezerah, I made a decree, ואין לך רשות להרהר אחריה. You have no reshut, no permission to think about it, to think into it, why it's so. And therefore, it says that these mitzvot, the goyim bother the Yidden about. They don't bother the Yidden why we keep the משפטים or the עדות, because they understand if it has a reason you should do it. And even if there are mitzvot that on our own we wouldn't do it, but after it's told to us and we have a reason, they say, well, we also have things that we do because of a certain reason. So they don't mind. But what they can't understand is the חוקים. How can we do things that don't make sense at all to us and we don't know why we do it? The reason a Yid does these mitzvot is only because Hashem commanded him to do it. He knows that this is the will of Hashem. And this is what bothered the Yevanim. Just like we said by the Torah, they didn't mind if the Yidden study Torah. What they didn't want was that they should study it in the form of תורתך, knowing it is Your Torah, doing it only because Hashem wants us to do it. The same is with the mitzvot. They really didn't mind so much that the Yidden would keep mitzvot. They understood that every nation has their own tradition, etc., and therefore, you want to do certain things to show that you're Jewish, okay, go ahead and do it. But the חוקים, these are the mitzvot that don't make sense, and the only reason you do it is because Hashem wants you to do it. It is חוקי רצונך, the חוקים of Your will. The only reason we do it is because it is רצונך, it is the will of Hashem, not because it's our will. As far as we are concerned, we would never have done it because it makes no sense to us. The only reason we do it is because they are רצונך, Your will. This is what they didn't want. They didn't want the Yid to have a connection to Hashem. As the Midrash that we quoted before, that they said, כתבו לכם על קרן השור שאין לכם חלק באלקי ישראל, that's what they wanted, that the Yidden shouldn't have a part in Hashem. They didn't care that the Yidden will be a nation, that the Yidden will learn wisdom, even if it's the Torah, they didn't care if the Yidden will do mitzvot, but the chukim, that's what they didn't want the Yidden to do. And be'emet, we could go even a step further. It doesn't even say that they wanted להעבירם מהחוקים, it says להעבירם מחוקי רצונך. What they didn't want was the Yidden should do even the chukim because it is the will of Hashem. Because there are two ways to perform the mitzvot of chukim, even the mitzvot of chukim. There could be a person who in his mind thinks, even though I don't understand the reason for this mitzvah, nevertheless, there must be a very good reason for it. I don't understand it, but I know that Hashem who gave us the mitzvah understands it, and that is the reason I do the mitzvah. But there could be a person who goes a step even further. He doesn't do it because he has the true belief that there is a good reason for it. As far as he's concerned, he doesn't even care if there is no reason for it. The main thing is that this is the will of Hashem. This is even a higher level, that you don't do it because you know there is a reason, so then sof kol sof you're doing it because of a reason. Because it's logical in his own mind that Hashem who is greater than him probably understands more than him, and therefore has a good reason. So really, why does he do the mitzvah? It is because of a reason, because his logic tells him that a person or a being that is greater than you understands more than you, and you have to rely on him. Just like when a child listens to his parents, even though sometimes he doesn't understand the reason for why his father told him to do a certain thing, but he understands his father is smarter than him, so probably his father has a good reason. So it is logical for him, sechel'dik for him, to do what his father wants, because he understands with his sechel that not everything he's able to understand, and probably there is a good reason for what his father wants him to do. So if you do that, then you're really doing even the chukim because of a sechel. You don't have the individual specific reason for this mitzvah, but nevertheless, you have a general understanding in your sechel that there must be a reason, and you do it because you understand there must be a reason.

The truth is, a Yid has to do the chukim, and really all other mitzvot, not because he believes that there is a reason. The truth is, there is a reason, but the reason he's supposed to do it is just because Hashem wants him to do it. And that's really what bothered the Yevanim. It is possible that if the Yid would say, I'm doing the chukim even though I don't understand why, but I understand that there must be a good reason for it, that wouldn't have bothered them so much either. It definitely would have bothered them, and they would be against it, but not as much. The main nekudah that bothered them was the fact that you do the מצות, רצונך, because it is the will of Hashem, just because Hashem wants you to do it, not because you understand in your sechel that there must be a reason for it. And that is why in the על הניסים, which gives out in just a few words the whole idea of what happened at that time and the whole idea of the miracle, it says there the לשון, להעבירם מחוקי רצונך, the main thing that they wanted was to make Yidden go away from the chukim, and the nekudah was מחוקי רצונך, from the fact that the Yidden do the mitzvot because it is the ratzon of Hashem. And being that this was their gezeirah, so when we had the victory and Hashem performed the miracle, it was really a ruchniyusdike miracle. It was a miracle connected to the גזירה רוחניות that they had. And not just ruchniyut against Torah u'mitzvot, but against the whole depth of what a Yid is and his connection to Hashem. And therefore, when it came to celebrate and to be kove'a this as a Yom Tov, the keviut was also in a ruchniyusdike thing, for הלל והודאה and for lighting the candles. And this also has a specific connection davka to lighting candles, and also connected to the fact that they were metamei the שמנים שבהיכל, the oil of the היכל. That because of what they wanted, that's why the way they wanted to harm the Yidden was by being metamei the oil, and because of that, specifically the mitzvah that we have to perform is the mitzvah of lighting candles, because this all is connected to the idea of ruchniyut as we explained before, as we will explain in the next shiur. Network's Dial-A-shiur, general Torah programming for the entire family, 24 hours a day. Our next program on Dial-A-shiur begins at 20 minutes past the