He claimed that “One day I will win, and I will bring secularism to the Jewish world.” Yigar (of Yigar Sahadusa that Lavan mentioned) has the Gematria of 213. Lavan was intimating that in the future, in the 213th year of the Second Bais Hamikdash, the Greeks will show you that you can bring a pig on the Altar. Yaakov’s response was that he will stay pure with the Lashon Hakodesh - it’s the same pile, but it won’t be in the goyish world (see the Megaleh Amukos). Now we can understand the Rambam we mentioned. It is true that every Mitzvah is beloved to us, but the Yom Tov of Chanukah is celebrating the conquest over the Greeks, who wanted us to know is that the greatest pleasure comes from superficial physical pleasure totally disconnected from spirituality. The winning of this war by the Kohanim – the ones most connected to Hashem – revealed to us that the success and pleasure that a Jew has is so much greater when connected to spirituality!
The Mitzvah of Chanukah isn’t just another Mitzvah that we also enjoy. Rather, the POINT of the Mitzvah is to enjoy, and unlike the Greek philosophy, the physical pleasure is greater when connected to spirituality. The war was certainly a miracle, but so many times we get carried away, and we start thinking we just must do the physical action. The lighting of the Menorah with pure oil at the end of the war teaches us that the purpose of the war – and the success of the physical – is to bring light, purity, and spirituality into the world, and that’s what they did after they won the war.
Let’s put this all together. The Jewish calendar year starts with Pesach, leading to Shavous; then comes Elul and the Days of Awe (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), capped off by the joyous time of Sukkos and Simchas Torah. Did we not reach the spiritual climax at that point in the year? What happens on Chanukah that makes it a step above everything that we have gone through? The answer is that until now, we built up the ruchneas, which is the part of Yaakov’s life before he got the Brachos. On Pesach, we start the relationship with Hashem and get married to Him on Shavuos. We then crown Hashem King on Rosh Hashanah and returned to Him on Yom Kippur and live with Him on Sukkos. Then, we go into the long winter months – symbolized by the second part of Yaakov’s life – having to go to work and fight battles against enemies (physicality is symbolized by the long winter nights). That takes place after we have built up the spiritual strength.
We take the spiritual connection of all the Yamim Tovim and bring that into our day-to-day lives. There isn’t a physical world and a spiritual world; the two are intertwined. Everything we do is about light, and everything can be a Mitzvah if we think of it that way - from shopping to doing bedtime with the kids; from going to work to speaking with our spouse. All the bitterness leaves when we realize that every last thing we do is serving Hashem in different ways and that every Mitzvah is precious. It’s not “my day is tough except those 90 minutes that I daven and learn.” If we are doing it for the right reasons, everything we do becomes a Mitzvah. The lesson of Chanukah is that we can enjoy the physical world if we see it through the prism of our spirituality.
