Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: During the holiday of Hanukkah, we all celebrate the miracle of oil.
That the oil that was supposed to be burning only one day lasted for eight days.
We know that this is the main focus of the heart of Hanukkah, when there were others who were trying to make the main focus, which would be the military victory.
You know, for example, that other religions.
There is a book called the Book of Maccabees, and this book is accounting for the events of Hanukkah.
Surprisingly, it's not part of the Torah. It's not part of the 24 books of Tanakh. And we have a book which is describing the story of Purim, the Book of Esther. And Hanukkah happened just a couple centuries later.
Why don't we have the Book of Prophet Hanukkah? Actually, there were people who wrote this Book of Maccabees, but it was written under the orders of Hashma Naim, the family that won the military victory. And they wanted to underscore their strategic military resume.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: And the entire book was written about their war.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: And the sages were insisting that the main miracle was with the oil in the temple, because that was the purpose, why they were fighting.
We see very often people are getting consumed with the fight so much that they forget in the process of what they were fighting for. And the fight itself becomes an end to me, an end by itself.
So that's why the rabbis were not happy with this course of events. And they were insisting that the purpose was to light the menorah or have service in the temple to be restored. And military victory was just a means to an end.
So the entire holiday of Hanukkah is about the miracle of oil. That oil was lasting for eight days.
I will now pour cold water on that whole idea.
Guess what? This miracle has already happened before.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: And we even know it from the Torah. We know it from the very first book of Torah, the book of Bereshit is telling us about Sarah, Avram's wife, the mother of our nation.
She was lighting her Shabbat candles, and her Shabbat candles would last from Friday.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Night, when she would light it, till the next Shabbat.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: So it was, I guess you could say, slightly less of a miracle.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: It was burning for seven days instead of eight.
But it's still pretty big miracle.
So why is everybody making such a.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Big miracle about Hanukkah?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: It has already happened.
Not only that, it says that when.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Yitzhak married Rivkah, he was finally comforting himself after the loss of his mother. What was his consolation.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: His consolation was that he saw that.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: The miracles that his mother had in her house were happening to Rivkah as well.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Namely, her candles were also burning during the whole week.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: If you'll think about it, Avram and Yitzhak both were observant Jews. And the Torah says that if there's a lady in the house, it's her responsibility to light Shabbat candles. If there's no lady in the house, who does it? The man does it.
If a man lives alone, you can have Shabbos without Shabbat candles.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: So he lights. So obviously, after Sarah passed away, Avram lit the candles.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: And Yitzhak, if he was on his own, not in his father's house, you also, I'm sure, lit his Shabbos candles.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: And obviously we understand from the context that their candles were not burning from.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Shabbos to Shabbos, they were putting the same amount of oil, and the candle was burning only as long as it.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Was meant to be burning.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: How long does a one Shabbat candle last? Back then, all candles were oil. It wasn't wax oil. It wasn't a wax candle. It was an oil candle. So how long was it burning?
Whatever.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Few hours.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: And then they saw this miracle. This is when Yitzhak knew that Rivkah is the one, that she is the right woman for him, and that he was comforted after his mother's passing because he saw these miracles.
And I'll tell you something else. Guess what?
Sarah and Rivkah were not the only ones in the five books of Moses.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Who this miracle happened to.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: And we're going to see it in a minute.
Now, when you speak about how this oil candle was lasting for seven or eight days, how is it possible?
[00:04:35] Speaker B: There are two ways how it's possible.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: That it would happen. First of all, that it was a.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Different kind of oil.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: It was a slower burning oil. You know, there are oils that burn faster. Then there are oils that burn slower rate. There's extraversion and everything else. So maybe God made a miracle that he converted this oil into a different kind of oil that burns much slower.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: It's miraculously slower.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Even the slowest burning oil would not burn that slow.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: But God made a miracle. He changed the nature of the soil. Now it burns slower. That's one way of looking at it.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Another way of looking at it is that the oil actually was not burning at all for the first seven days.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: In Hanukkah situation, and only the last day started burning.
So for seven days, it wasn't burning at all.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: And then it started burning.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: And the same thing with Soros candles. Maybe for the first six days it.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Wasn'T burning at all.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: And then it started burning.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Medras tells us that it's the second way that in the Hanukkah story, when Jews filled up the menorah with the oil, it was supposed to be burning one day.
It was burning one day. Where did they look?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Look inside. The cup was full. It's not that cup was little bit used. Cup was full.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: They saw it's a miracle.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: They said, okay, now it's going to burn on the second day. It didn't burn in second day and.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Third day still didn't burn.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: So it was a miracle that it.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Wasn'T burning at all.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: So where did we see this miracle? In a different place in the Torah with Moses.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Moses had a burning bush.
You know, they say President Bush sees Moses in the airport. He comes over to him and Moses is not talking to him. He's like, I'm the president of the.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: US Why aren't you talking to me?
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Do you know what happened last time when I had to speak to a bush?
Moses did not want to wander in the desert again.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: So Moses sees a bush which was burning and was not being consumed by its fire.
It's the same miracle as with sorrow and Rivkah and as with Hanukkah. So now we see a pattern here.
The miracle of Hanukkah was not unique.
It happened before and it happened very specific times with very specific people.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: What is it?
So for this we have to understand what was the whole idea of this miracle.
We know that in the Jewish tradition, light, flame is compared to a soul.
And this comparison can be traced on many different levels. First of all, when a flame is burning, it is always flickering. It is in constant movement, just like a soul. We say a soul is never still.
Your soul is constantly moving. Generally, we know that's the difference between a body and a soul. Body wants stasis.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Body wants to come home, sit on.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: The couch and not move. Body doesn't want to get out of bed. That's what body wants.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Body likes being relaxed.
Its soul is what gets it. Get up and move around.
Just like when a person is dead, when he doesn't have any soul, he is lying without any movement.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: So they say this is how the soul is as well.
The soul is tied to the body, which is the bottom, and is striving.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: To go up all the time.
Now you tell the soul one second. Do you understand that you Will have much better life in your body. If you'll strive to go down, don't strive to spiritual. Don't do spiritual stuff. Do physical stuff.
The soul is selfless.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: That's the whole idea of a soul.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: It's not looking to enrich itself. It's not looking to make itself bigger and better.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: So that's where it's compared to a flame as well.
We also know that the flame is a source of warmth and light. And the soul is also a source of warmth and light.
What is a light?
We know that a dark room has all the same objects that a light room has.
So why don't people like being in dark?
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Because they have all the same objects.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: They can't use them because they don't see them.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: So light allows us to use the things that we have around us, same as our soul.
Our soul tells us, listen, we live.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: In this world and we might not even know what are the resources that.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: We have here and how we can use them. And soul is enabling us to see what things are made for. I would think that things are made for just gluttony and eating and having fun.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: The soul tells us, no, it's not.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: What it's made for.
Just like when you're in dark room, you see there is some square object. You don't know what it's made for.
You would think maybe it's just a metal box. If you'd have a light on, you would know it's a computer. You could use it for something much more than just sitting up.
But if it's a dark room, for you, it's going to be a box.
Also, we know that, like we said.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: A soul is a source of warmth. What is warmth?
Warmth is what is allowing us to have emotions, our emotions associated with warmth. When people are more emotional, they're called warmer people.
Emotions give us the warmth that we can have to relate to the world around us that is our soul.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: So you see all of these levels.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Of comparison between soul and a candle.
But then there is even a more important one. Usually when two objects touch each other, nothing happens.
If a flame touches something, what happens? It ignites whatever it touches.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: So a flame has a unique property of making other fires, just like a soul. One soul could ignite another soul.
When a soul touches another soul, it ignites it.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: That's. This is why. All these reasons are why our tradition compares a flame to a soul.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: But soul has one problem.
A flame has one problem.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: It burns out.
Flame uses whatever oil was given to it or whatever Amount of wax or whatever other fuel it has, it uses.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Up the view and that's goes out.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: The whole idea of a soul is a flame that does not burn out.
That's the whole uniqueness of a soul. And where do we see it?
[00:11:04] Speaker B: We see it in three places. First we see it by the first Jew, or actually Jewess more specifically, because we know that Jewish soul is transferred through a mother. So we see the situation over first Jewess Sarah and then Rivkah. It was passed on to her. That's the first time when we see it.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Where do we see it the second time?
[00:11:23] Speaker B: We see it the second time.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Before Moishe Rabbeinu, Moses was supposed to receive the Torah. Jews were in a very oppressed state.
They were at the lowest point in our history.
You could do it only with the relation of your soul.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Your soul has to shine in order to do that. And Jews were in such a deep exile that physically they were not able to liberate themselves. Only their souls were able to allow.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Them to break out of this slavery, of this servitude.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: So this is why God had to introduce the whole idea of taking Jews out of Egypt through this burning bush. You would ask, why did God make this Hollywood production?
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Over there, in the middle of a desert, there's a burning bush and Moses has to go over there.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: If God wants to talk to Moses, tell Moses what you want.
You don't need all of these theatrics, all these power effects.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: This whole miracle with the burning bush.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Took place because God wanted to remind Moses about the Jewish soul.
Because without that component, the liberation of Jews from Egypt would be impossible.
And now we also understand why it happened during Hanukkah.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Because Jews were also at a very, very low point.
Maybe they were not as low as when they were in the slavery of Egypt, but they were pretty darn low.
They were Hellenized. And we know that.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Besides for having to fight the foreign.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Oppressors that the Jews had to deal.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: With, besides to fight non Jews, Jews.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Had to fight Jews as well. There was literally a civil war going on in Israel because unfortunately most of.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: The Jews were very assimilated, like it.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Happened many times during our history.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: And the Jews were taking the side of their non Jewish oppressor.
And Jews thought that it's not cool to be Jewish. You need to be living with the times and you need to be modern and you need to progress. And these were all of the quote unquote progressive Jews that did not want the Torah because it's too old, and it's outdated.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: So Jews were at a very, very low point. How can you lift yourself up from that beginning of the Jewish nation?
That was possible only because of our soul, only because we had our own. Because we were told that we have something which is higher than this world. And we were able to use something to lift ourselves higher than this world. This is what allowed us to, first.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Of all, to be Jews.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: This allowed us to receive the Torah, to come out of Egypt, and then to rededicate the temple after it was defiled by the worst antithetic rituals to what we stand for.
