Chanukah and Purim can be described as the legs, the thighs, on which the edifice of Judaism stands. They correspond to the traits of Netzach and Hod. This is actually a Kabbalistic concept, but we will attempt to explain it on a simple level.
Parshas Vayishlach describes the struggle between Yaakov and Eisav. This struggle is ongoing. The dust they threw up while wrestling is still in the air. Yaakov prevailed in the end, but Eisav’s ruling angel managed to injure Yaakov’s thigh. Consequently, we are still limping on our thigh to this day. In other words, the rest of our spiritual limbs and organs are intact. The Jewish mind thinks pure thoughts, its eyes are free of improper sights, its mouth and ears avoid lashon hara, its heart is pure. But its legs sustained some damage. This requires explanation.
The course of the year has six Yamim Tovim that are called Mikraei Kodesh. There is the first and last day of Pesach, the first and last day of Sukkos, the one day of Rosh Hashanah and the one day of Shavu’os. In addition, we have Yom Kippur and Shabbos. All these are called Moadim.
What about Chanukah and Purim? They are not Moadim in the Biblical sense of the word. They are Rabbinic in origin, but they are still an intrinsic part of the system of Moadim.
On the Moadim there is a great downpour, a virtual deluge of kedushah, the purpose of which is to revolutionize our lives. We go through the holidays every year. But imagine what would happen if chas v’shalom a year would go by without Shavu’os or Yom Kippur. We could not continue to exist!
The kedushah of the Biblically-ordained Moadim separates us from melachah, from creative work, from all the things we need to do in order to physically sustain ourselves in the material world. The Moadim lift us above the world, above derech hateva.
Chanukah, too, comes to revolutionize our lives, but in a different way.
First let us understand what we are lacking without Chanukah and Purim.
At the end of each of the above-mentioned Moadim, the sun sets, it grows dark, and we recite Havdalah, in which we declare that until now, we were in a world of kedushah, and now we are entering the mundane world. We are leaving a world of true Jewishness, of supernatural connection and closeness to Hashem, and now we will live the coming days on a worldly plane.
Yes, we wish to take the kedushah of the sublime days with us into our mundane lives, and indeed this is the goal. But how does it happen, practically speaking? The next day we wake up in the morning and start running the race of daily life again. How do we hold onto the kedushah of the Moadim?
This is exactly the problem with how we practice Judaism. It lacks proper support to hold it up. The Moadim give us a golden opportunity to experience the beautiful, ideal picture of Yiddishkeit. But it all falls down when the weekdays start again. It lacks a proper foundation to hold it up.
In other words, it lacks “legs” on which to stand. That’s why we have Chanukah, which is the “legs” of the edifice of Judaism. Chanukah is able to accomplish this because it is a Moed, but at the same time, it is also mundane weekdays, on which we may perform all manners of work. This is an amazing combination.
Chanukah is all about the struggle between Yisrael and Greece. The Greeks are descendants of Yefes and they value beauty above all. Chazal say that the ancient Greek tongue was a beautiful language. Beauty is tied up with nature, with the natural world.
Nature and Kedushah
Nature is tremendously beautiful. The Greeks claim all the beauty and all the benefits of the natural world for themselves. They concede pure spirituality to the descendants of Shem, to the Jews, but cannot accept that we take part in the material world as well. How can we eat meat and drink wine on our holy days? How can we wear fine clothing on Shabbos? How can the Kohen Gadol dress in magnificent garments when he serves in the Beis Hamikdash? What has all that to do with the spiritual heritage of Shem??
The Torah outlook is that we should live kedushah fully, with every fiber of our being and every limb of our body. We should serve Hashem with fine clothing, with food and drink. We should bring kedushah into the realm of natural living. We don’t sacrifice our life for kedushah, we rather bring kedushah into every aspect of our life.
Just as the Greek outlook seeks to separate the holy (which belongs to the Jews) from the mundane (which belongs to the Greeks) so it seeks to separate the holy days from the mundane weekdays. To the Greeks it is unacceptable to try and bring kedushah into the secular workdays because the two don’t mix. It’s okay to have holy days, but when they’re over, they’re over.
And so it was until the Chashmona’im came along. They innovated a new type of Mo’ed. A new concept. It goes like this: The natural world on its own is meaningless to us; we can and should live on a supernatural level even within this world. A Jew lives a “natural” life that is, in fact, a life of kedushah. In other words, you can make a Mo’ed on an ordinary weekday. And so they did. It is called Chanukah.
The mundane can be sanctified through the power of mesirus nefesh. This may be understood as follows. A person has a lot of natural desires, but the strongest desire of all is the will to live. A person will give anything he has to save his life.
However, there is one thing that is more precious to a Jew than anything else. It is even more important than his very life. This expresses mesirus nefesh. Giving one’s life means breaking the force of nature. Mesirus nefesh means a person is not living within the bounds of the natural world; he is above it. This is the power of the Chashmona’im, who, through their mesirus nefesh, got rid of the Greeks.
The Chashmona’im did not kill out the Greeks. Rather, they created a new reality. Their new reality is that every Jew, through mesirus nefesh, can live a life of kedushah even on the mundane weekdays. This is the message of Chanukah.
This gives us “legs” to stand on. We can carry over the sublime kedushah of the Mo’adim, which represent true Jewish living, into the ordinary workdays. We have a solid base to support us.
We all feel a pull to the beautiful things that the world has to offer. We appreciate wisdom, we are interested in scientific and technological developments, we enjoy beautiful music, we want to know what’s happening in the world and follow the news. All this beauty belongs essentially to Yefes.
As long as we are attached to it, we are bound to fall down. We may spend many long hours in the beis midrash, and even in the Beis Hamikdash, but when we come out, which must happen sooner or later, we fall. Why? Because we don’t have “legs.” When we leave the place of kedushah, we have nothing to support us.
Mesirus nefesh, Chanukah, is the answer. Even when we are living and acting in the mundane world, we are not truly attached to it. We don’t belong to it. We live a supernatural life of kedushah even in the workaday world.
We just light a candle and banish the darkness of this world. In a life of kedushah we will find every pleasure. We will lack nothing.
