Parshat Vayeshev and Chanukah - פרשת וישב וחג חנוכה

"וַתָּסַר בִּגְדֵי אַלְמְנוּתָהּ מֵעָלֶיהָ, וַתְּכַס בַּצָּעִיף וַתִּתְעַלָּף, וַתֵּשֶׁב בְּפֶתַח עֵינַיִם, אֲשֶׁר עַל-דֶּרֶךְ תִּמְנָתָה: כִּי רָאֲתָה, כִּי-גָדַל שֵׁלָה, וְהִוא, לֹא-נִתְּנָה לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה - And she put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the entrance of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she was not given unto him to wife."

Thus starts the intriguing and almost puzzling episode of Tamar, the widowed wife of Yehudah's son, Er. Prior to this Pasuk, Er had passed away and so, following the Jewish law of Yibum, whereby a childless widow is married off to her husband's brother, (ostensibly so that the family name may continue into future generations,) Tamar was then married to Onan. Because Onan failed to reproduce with her, Hashem had him killed.

At this point, Yehudah regarded Tamar as being accursed and was reluctant to hand her over to his remaining son, Shelah. Yehudah advises Tamar to behave like a widow until Shelah grows up, but when he does, Yehudah still refuses to allow Tamar and Shelah to marry.

The next part of the text seems highly controversial - after Yehudah's wife dies, Tamar acts in a rather peculiar manner; she "put off from her the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the entrance of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah." As we read on, we understand that Tamar concealed herself as a prostitute and seduced Yehudah. To the causal reader, this appears to be bizarre behaviour. What on earth is going on?

To understand this passage, we need to know who Tamar was. Tamar was no ordinary woman - she was of fine stock; the daughter of Shem, and a Prophetess in her own right. As such, Tamar was an exceedingly great individual, and to imagine that her thoughts and actions were base would be a gross misjudgement.

Rather, Tamar knew that she was to be one of the ancestors of Mashiach. When she did not have children with her first husband, and then her second, she was deeply worried. When Shelah wasn't even married to her, Tamar knew that she had to take matters into her own hands. According to one opinion, this state of affairs occured as a result of the effors of the angels attempt to prevent the Mashiach from being born, (apparently, they were concerned by his tremendous holiness,) and so it had to be done in the lowest form possible, in a manner that would "slip under the radar."

Tamar knew that she had to was part of the chain that led to the birth of Moshiach, and as such, she strove to ensure that this happened. Even though her action constituted prostitution, the ideal and the manner in which she did the deed was on the very highest level. Another aspect to be understood is learned by tracing the geneology of our Mashiach. In contrast to other religions, our Messiah is not immaculate; he is the polar opposite of a pure-blooded Messiah; he comes from a rather dubious background indeed. His lineage is shadowed and shameful: his father descended from Moab, a product of incest between Lot and his daughter after Sodom's destruction, and this chain goes all way down to Ruth, of whom he is a direct descendant of Ruth. Again, Ruth is no "pure-blood" either; she is a convert to Judaism. The lesson we may learn from all of this is that although some of the components leading up to King David and Mashiach are rather "shady," we see that this does not prevent their seed reaching the highest heights. I find this lesson particularly apt, given that Parshat Vayeshev always occurs in close proximity to Chanukah - the shared lesson is that out of the deepest darkness comes the greatest light.

Rav Avigdor Nevenzahl, former rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, raises an intriguing question about the Chanukah story. To perform the mitzvah of lighting the Menorah, two things were needed: שמן זית (pure oil) and the מנורת הזהב (The Golden Menorah). In the Chaunkah story, the magnificent Menorah of gold was stolen by the Greeks and although the Maccebees managed to take back the Bet Hamikdash, they were stuck without this glorious artefact.

As such, they were forced to make do with an impromptu, temporary solution; the Maccabees took their spears and cast them into a rudimentary menorah and a replacement forged of tin-coated-iron was made. Only years layer could the Jews replace this with an higher quality silver Menorah, and only decades afterward di they finally exchange this for a splendid Golden Menorah that was worthy of its place in the Bet Hamikdash

The question that Rav Nevenzahl poses is that if God decided to show the Jews where the last bottle of pure oil was hidden, why didn't He similarly produce another miracule whereby the Menorah would have been revealed to the Jews' eyes so that the oil would be utilised in the proper manner?

Rav Nevenzahl's answers by examining the qualities of the two components of the mitzvah of lighting the Menorah. One part is the pure olive oil, and the other is Menorah itself. The Golden Menorah was an emblem of physical beauty, and signified all that which is external. A menorah is only good for lighting as long as it has candles or oil in it. While it might be nice to look at, it serves no real purpose. The pure olive oil, on the other hand, represented a more refined type of beauty - it was the spiritual ingredient and was symbolic of that which is internal. So, says Rav Nevenzahl, the miracle of Chanukah was "limited" to the finding of the oil, and not to the finding of the Menorah. Through His actions, Hashem sent out a crucial message - that the inner, the more spiritual, is always more important than the outer, more basic and physical. Whereas the Greeks and the Helenists valued physical beauty, Hashem showed the Jews that real beauty will always out.

Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom and a Chag Urim Sameach!

An insight as to the nature of miracles.

I know it's the end of Chanukkah now, but I haven't made an entry and I really wanted to put something down so here goes...

I was in a shiur today, and the Rav mentioned that we follow Hillel's way of lighting the Chanukiah, adding a new candle each night, starting with one flame and adding a new light for each successive night, ending up with eight lights. Shamai's view on the other hand, was that we should start with eight, and remove one flame for each successive night.

The Rav giving the shiur posed a question: What's the reasoning behind Shamai's method? We can all easily understand Hillel's logic; that for each extra night the flame burned the נס, the miracle, became that much stronger and special, thus meriting an extra light. Shamai's method seems illogical. Why remove lights? Surely the flame's continued burning became more miraculous as one day's worth of oil turned to two, two to three, and so on?

The Chassidic master the S'fat Emet presents an answer to this very question. He said that if we look at another debate between Hillel and Shamai we may understand his logic. The debate is well know - the debate of preparation for Shabbat. Various sources, (notably the Ramban,) say that the Mitzvah of Zachor et Yom HaShabbat L'kadsho refers to an obligation during the week. On Shabbat it is no problem to remember that we are keeping Shabbat, it's obvious; the Shabbat spirit surrounds us. The real Mitzvah is to remember Shabbat during the week. It is for this reason that in Hebrew each day of the week is a reference to Shabbat - Sunday, for example, is called Yom Rishon because it is the first day after Shabbat. It is important to be conscious of Shabbat's higher reality during the mundane reality of the week.

With this in mind, the debate between Hillel and Shamai was thus; how do we prepare food for Shabbat? Shamai's point of view was that if a man was to find a nice cut of meat on Sunday for example, he would buy it and save it for Shabbat. If he were then to find a choicer piece of meat on Monday, he would then buy that, reserve it for Shabbat, and eat the other piece. Shamai's approach was to save the best for Shabbat. Hillel on the other hand, followed the rule of Bitachon Yom-l'Yom, to trust that Hashem will give us what we need each day and not to rely on our own (ultimately futile) efforts, to have daily bitachon in Hashem. Hillel's opinion was that one should live on a day to day basis and enjoy whatever came one's way. If one deserved a choice piece of meat for Shabbat, he would find it on Friday. Both points of view are perfectly understandable, and through their logic here we can understand their opinions on the Chanukah lighting poser above.

Hillel viewed each day of the chanukah as an extra dimension of the miracle being revealed. The miracle was ultimately complete on the eighth day, and thus for each day Hillel adds a light, building up to eight. Shamai, on the other hand, does not view the נס of the last remaining bottle of oil as the עיקר of the חנוכה story. His opinion was that the oil that was found, the oil that gave us enough time to get us back on our feet again, was actually the secondary aspect of the story. The miracle by itself would be rendered a neat trick, but pointless, were it not for what followed it. The נס was special because it enabled us to get back to the state whereby we were producing oil again and lighting the Menorah on a daily basis. Therefore, each day that passed was a day in which the miracle headed towards ending, a day headed back towards normality, a day headed towards the time when we would function after Hashem's covert intervention. It was the "9^th" day that interested Shamai, the day when we returned to performing mitzvot in the Bet Hamikdash like we should.

Through this example we have an insight as to the nature of miracles. Hashem only performs acts that are above the realm of nature when it enables us to do something we merit. (There are apparent exceptions, but let's not go ther.) There is no point in performing a miracle for people who will not build in the base given to them. Shamai's understanding was that the miracle of Chanukah was all counting down to the point where Chanukah was over and the true light of our work, the light of Avodat Hashem would burn again.

In a similar fashion, may we merit the coming of the Mashiach and the imminent arrival of the third Bet Hamikdash. Amen!