Another (Mis)Take on Chanuka

Posted on December 13, 2012 | 29 comments

        There are few Jewish holidays that are as popular and well-known outside the Jewish world as is Chanuka, and almost none that are subjected to as much misunderstanding and outright distortion. But a recent article in a Maine newspaper set a new standard for mendacity and misrepresentation, in rooting the support for same-sex marriage of an Orthodox rabbi in the miraculous events of Chanuka. The article can be found here (http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/at-hanukkah-rejoicing-over-peaceful-victory-for-same-sex-marriage_2012-12-12.html), and inverts the story of Chanuka on its head in order to make a political point that is shockingly shallow and entirely bereft of Torah wisdom.

     “The Jews fought for religious liberty.” This has become the trope by which Chanuka has assumed its place in the American tradition of winter holidays. But this news would come as a shock to those who actually began the uprising and waged the battles that freed the land of Israel from Hellenist domination and liberated the Holy Temple from those who had desecrated it. Even a Sunday School child is aware that the elderly Matityahu (father of Judah the Maccabee) provoked the rebellion by slaying a Jew who had dared to eat pork at the command of the Syrian despot. So much for religious liberty.

    Indeed, much of the war was fought against the Hellenist Jews who sided with the Syrian-Greeks and betrayed their Torah and their people. Chanuka was as much a civil war as it was a war against foreign domination. That is why the Maccabees were the “few prevailing over the many;” they were the few – unlike any other insurgent uprising in history in which the occupying army is always the minority – because they had to fight as well against the indigenous but unfaithful Jewish population. And when they won, no allowances were made for deviant interpretations of Torah, nor for alternative views, practices or lifestyles. They fought for Torah, period. Surely the rabbi knows this.

“With my very own eyes, I have seen a great miracle this year right here in Maine. A small group of people, homosexuals and their supporters, stood up for their equal rights in marriage.” Well, this is certainly a more subdued understanding of a “miracle” than one to which most of us have become accustomed, but since when is same-sex marriage a “religious right” or even a “rite?” If the battle of Chanuka is going to be mislabeled as a war for “religious liberty,” then what is the “religious” dimension here? The demand for same-sex marriage is personal and political, but not at all religious.

What makes the irony even more pungent is that the Greeks – against whom the Maccabees fought and prevailed – were avid supporters of and indulgers in homosexuality. It was just one of the immoral practices of the Hellenists that the faithful Jews found so repugnant, and therefore went to war in order to purge the land of it. In other words, to be faithful to the Chanuka story, the rabbi should have opposed same sex marriage. I.e., rather than succumb to the morality of the dominant culture and wrench the definition of marriage from its traditional moorings, he should have stood with the faithful Jews of yesteryear (and today) and preached the truth of Torah even if – particularly if – he would thereby remain in the minority. That is, after all, a dominant theme of Chanuka historically: that the Jewish people have survived not by mimicking the fluid morality of others but by clinging tenaciously to our own timeless moral norms. Surely the rabbi knows this.

“It was not easy for me to publicly support same-sex marriage.” The only inhibition would be a fidelity to Torah. That aside (literally, that aside), the easiest position for any public figure today to adopt is support for same-sex marriage. One receives acclaim and adulation from across “enlightened” society, and one gets to bask in the glow of endless praise about self-growth and moral development.  Much of that is self-praise; the preening itself can make one dizzy. Besides, who would want to be numbered among the “nasty opponents” of same-sex marriage?

No one wants to stand in the way of love, of course. But, then, the rabbi must now justify his opposition to incestuous marriages (of adults, of course), polygamy, polyandry, polyamory, and a few other polys. Why should any of these unions “be subject to discrimination?” They may not be my cup of tea, but admittedly I have not “grown.” Has the rabbi “grown” sufficiently to endorse any other form of marriage beyond same-sex marriage, and monogamous same-sex marriage at that? Why should those people with overwhelming amounts of love to share be limited to only one spouse at a time? That doesn’t seem very constitutional. And the world could always use more love.

   “The truth of their hearts helped me overcome my wall of religious textual evidence that helped justify arguments for the other side. Now I know with complete faith that the love of homosexuals should be respected as equal by society. I am an ordained Orthodox rabbi…”  That “wall of religious textual evidence” is known to us as the Torah. It is our lifeblood, and contains the definitive code by which we govern our lives. It is not a “wall” that has to be “overcome” to allow us to live the way we want to live, but the “wall” that sanctifies our homes and our lives, and connects us with G-d’s eternal truths. Those truths are so eternal, that we fought for them on Chanuka and have been martyred defending throughout our history. Surely the Rabbi knows this.

   How then can a self-described (and ordained) Orthodox rabbi invoke “G-d’s blessings” on unions that G-d has prohibited, except by invoking a “god” of his own creation? The Torah prohibits same-sex relations, much less marriage, for Jews, and the same is prohibited for non-Jews as one of the Noachide laws. Surely he knows the Talmudic statement (Chullin 92b) praising the Noachides for “not writing marriage deeds for males,” notwithstanding their debauched conduct in private. Even the “miracle of love” cannot overcome G-d’s will, at least not in the religious tradition with which I am familiar.

    “Still, we should not impose our belief system on others and certainly should not discriminate against other human beings.” But all law is a reflection of a belief and value system, the only issue being whether that value system is of divine or human origin, and all law imposes restrictions on people. That is the very purpose of law. Yet, on the political left, we hear very little uproar about the imposition of belief systems when the system encroaching on our freedoms comes from believers in “global warming” or Mike Bloomberg’s campaign against the sale of large, sugary sodas. I’ll take the divine system any day.

The opposition to same-sex marriage, which is now being forced underground, is a classic example of a value that has extended from the Torah across the entire civilized world for millennia. There is a reason why civilized society depended on marriage for the maintenance of its basic foundations. The family, moral traditions, a sense of continuity and an allegiance to ideas that transcend the self are dependent on it. The alternative is to mandate, for example, that children be taught that it is acceptable to marry a man or a woman. The simple question to a child implicit in the new morality – “do you think you want to marry a man or a woman?” – is cause enough to understand why there is such confusion over sexual identity among today’s teenagers, rampant unhappiness, and a collapsing family structure.

The Defense of Marriage Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 1996, by votes of 85–14 in the Senate, and 342–67 in the House. Haters all? I think not. It was not that long ago. Credit the homosexual lobby for marketing its cause well, and for wrapping itself in the mantle of “equal rights.” That is a chimera, for a number of reasons, but especially because the “equal rights” issue has been resolved by the creation of “civil unions” which provide the legal framework for rights of survivorship, visitation, etc. There should be limitations though in the extension of equal treatment to any voluntary pairing in society.  Two roommates can also be a “family,” of sorts, but only in a society that is seeking to devastate the family as we know it.

  “We have witnessed a miracle, as a small group of people of faith won victory over strongly entrenched, wrong beliefs.” Wrong beliefs? But those were your beliefs, rabbi, until you renounced your heritage, abandoned the Torah, and embraced the political correctness of the age – just as the Hellenist Jews did in ancient times.

Surely, that is your right as an American. But please leave Chanuka out of it, once and for all.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Our War With Greece

Posted on December 10, 2012 | 2 comments

     The Talmud (Shabbat 23a) asks: What blessing is recited on the Chanuka lights? [Is it] the familiar one, blessing G-d “who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the light of Chanuka”?.[The discussion continues] “And where precisely was this commanded (since Ner Chanuka is a Rabbinical law)? Rav Avia [derived the source] from Lo Tasur, ‘do not deviate from the word they [the Sages] will command you, right or left’ (Devarim 17:11). Rav Nechemia stated, from ‘Ask your father and he will relate it to you, your elders and they will tell you’ (ibid 32:7).”

      One opinion roots the source of the blessing in the general mandate to obey the commandments of the Sages, and the other in the directive to heed our fathers and elders. What’s the difference? And why is this question raised regarding Chanuka, and not about, e.g., Megila, which preceded Chanuka?

     And perhaps the greatest paradox about Chanuka is the unusual relationship we have with Greece. They were enemies to be sure – “‘the darkness upon the deep’ – this is Greece that darkened the eyes of Israel with their decrees” (Breisheet Rabba 2:4); and yet, we also are taught that“G-d will extend Yefet,”- i.e. the Greek language – “and it will reside in the tents of Shem, as a Torah scroll can be written in Greek” (Midrash Agada 9). The Greek language was not only beautiful but also had the unique privilege of being the only language, aside from Hebrew, in which the Torah could be written. Isn’t that strange? In one context, ancient Greece was an enemy who filled the world with “darkness” and tried to stamp out the Torah, and in another, Greece was– if not embraced – at least ushered into the world of Torah. How can that be?

Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Pachad Yitzchak, Chanuka, 4) explained this dichotomy in a way that sheds light on the struggle of Chanuka – and why the wars of the Maccabim were not limited to that one time. Jews do not just commemorate the defeat of our enemies; there are many victories that go unremarked. Rather, our Sages highlighted particular types of enemies so that when we would again encounter them, we would recognize them and know how to respond.

It is always easier to combat enemies like Pharaoh, Haman, etc. They cause great harm – but not lasting harm. They threaten Jews, not Judaism. The greatest danger to Judaism always comes from an enemy that assails us on our own turf and speaks to us in our own language. Rav Hutner said that good and evil are two paths that are diametrically opposite, but nonetheless they can, for a time, travel on the same road. “G-d’s ways are straight – the righteous walk in them and the sinner stumbles” (Hoshea 14:10), i.e., he doesn’t always reject those divine paths. Sometimes, the sinner just stumbles. He walks on the same path along with the tzadik, but eventually errs, and then stumbles. But while on the same path, the righteous man and the sinner share points of connection.

The point of connection – the turf we shared with ancient Greece – was wisdom. They valued wisdom and knowledge; they had a defined way of life, with one major difference: G-d’s will came to us in two forms – through the ten utterances of Creation, and through the Decalogue of Sinai. The difference between creation and Sinai is that creation is compulsory. There is no free will in nature – it is “a statute that will not change” (Tehillim 148:6) – while Sinai is all about free choice.

The external world presents itself as completely pre-determined and fixed – but the world of free choice is neatly folded into it, and has to be exposed. This Greece was unable to do. They accepted the wisdom of the universe and accepted the world of the compulsory, but they stumbled – they saw everything as causality, as man following his natural instincts, and developed an entire philosophical system around it.

Ancient Greece was the only enemy to fight us on our own terms – in the realm of wisdom, arguing over what is truly G-d’s will – and on that battlefield, Greek wisdom has its place. Its language is welcomed into the tents of Shem. But that wisdom left unchallenged ultimately darkens our world, because it negates the very idea of free will, reward and punishment, the uniqueness of Israel, and a relationship with G-d; indeed, it cannot tolerate the existence of a nation that lives by a creed that emphasizes free will and minimizes the role of causality in the world of man.

That creed was a legacy of the Avot (our forefathers), who showed us through their lives how to make choices and how to respond to G-d’s will. They too recognized the G-d of Creation, but they showed us the way to rise from recognizing the G-d of nature to a higher level. Indeed, Greece came to induce us not only “to abandon the Torah,” to destroy the potential of Israel implicit in the lives of our forefathers – the source of our relationship with G-d – but also “to take us away from the laws that reflect Your will,” to destroy the fulfilled version, the people of Sinai, who harness their free will to observe the commandments.

Does anyone think that Greece the enemy has been defeated and has disappeared ? On the contrary, it is more active than ever. Greek wisdom (although not its modern economy) is a dynamic force –wherever Jews try to mold the Torah to contemporary mores, whenever Jews are embarrassed by the Torah’s morality and perceive modern “morality” as superior and the measure of all things, wherever Jews subordinate G-d’s wisdom to man’s wisdom, whenever Jews are intimidated by the claims against our rights to the land of Israel or the divinity of Torah, and wherever Jews talk it into ourselves (laymen and Rabbis) that self-control is superhuman and power over one’s instincts is inconceivable – there we experience the power and perversity of the Greek idea.

To all those critics and carpers we say that the source of our law is not only Lo Tasur – a requirement to heed the words of the Sages – but also “Ask your father and he will tell you” – it is because we still relate to our fathers, who gave us life and direction, and their worthy ancestors, who, at great personal sacrifice, went to war against the world’s dominant ideology and culture, and prevailed, with divine miracles and wonders, in that time, in this season, as we will again.

Happy Chanuka to all !

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Abbas in Wonderland

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 5 comments

Oddly, we are a week into the alleged birth of a “Palestinian state,” as decreed by the UN General Assembly, and nothing seems to have changed. Life “after” the state is remarkably similar to life “before” the state, and his people must be suffering from even more frustration than is their norm.

For example, Israel’s announcement that it will build new housing right outside Jerusalem, between Jerusalem and its suburb (five minutes’ drive) of Maale Adumim was greeted with shrieks of horror and howls of protest from across the world – from the Americans, the Europeans, the Asians and of course the Arabs. There scarcely walks a terrestrial – an inhabitant of Planet Earth – who did not leap to criticize this decision allowing Jews to build new homes where Jews have lived for the last 3000 years. Why such dismay?

    Ostensibly, as the new “state’s” media outlet put it, because the new construction will “kill any chance for the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.” Hmmm… but wasn’t that state created already? How is it possible for a few thousand apartments and houses to “kill” any chance for the creation of a “contiguous Palestinian state?” Doesn’t a state – to be declared and recognized – have to have defined borders?

Well, yes, in the real world, or as real world as international law ever gets. Since 1648, there are more or less established procedures by which states are formed and gain international recognition. None are formed – or ever have been formed – by a UN General Assembly resolution, which are non-binding and have no force under international law. In fact, the standard procedure would have been for the Palestinian Authority to declare itself a state, and then apply for UN recognition. It did not do that. Their pretense is that they already declared statehood, either in 1988 or sometime in the last decade, and therefore need not do it again. But no one paid attention to their past declarations, and none should today.

Traditionally, a state is established when a lawful government exercises control over a distinct population within defined territory, and can conduct foreign relations accordingly. The PA does not qualify as a state even in diplomatic wonderland. It has no lawful government; Abbas’ term in office expired around the time that George W. Bush left the presidency. He has declined to have elections since then, because he knows he cannot win. Nor does the PA have a defined territory – for sure; if they did, they would not be protesting this new Israeli construction. Nor does the PA govern a defined population; it pretends to rule over Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, and even those Arabs have tired of Abbas’ autocracy and failures. Arabs who live in Gaza do not accept the jurisdiction of the PA, and the primary absence of contiguity is not the construction outside of Jerusalem but the distance between Judea and Gaza. They have effective sovereign control over nothing. Some state.

Well, what kind of “state” is this? They are great in symbols but woefully lacking in substance. They are now seeking their own passports, but they do not have airports, seaports or control over any border that would allow them to leave. That has to be done under Israeli supervision. They have no indigenous economy, and their institutions are propped up by persistent infusions of cash from some Arab countries, the Europeans and the United States. Their primary exports are terror, incitement and Jew hatred, each serving a (malign) purpose in the world but not especially attractive foundations for a lucrative economy. Their national history is a complete fabrication. There is no Palestinian “identity” that is not inherently linked to the destruction of Israel. Try to name a “Palestinian” from the 19th century, let alone from the 16th century, and it becomes clear that they do not exist in the real world. Indeed, this mirrors the biblical admonition to the Jewish people that when we fall short of the national standard that G-d ordains for us, He will “provoke us with a non-people” (Devarim 32:21). The “Palestinians” are this “non-people.”

It is fascinating, and bizarre, that this new “state” is wholly incapable of self-sufficiency and is completely dependent on the enemy that it has sworn to destroy – Israel – for its energy, water, food and vital supplies. It remains weird that Israel continues to supply Gaza with fuel that enables it to mass produce the rockets and mortars that Gazans then fire at Israel, including the vicinity of the power plants that are the source of the energy in Gaza. Jews respond too quickly to tales of the “humanitarian crisis.” Those who create the “crisis” should be held responsible. That is the consequence of war. The Allied firebombing of Dresden and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki created “humanitarian crises;” perhaps that is why those wars ended, as opposed to this interminable conflict. When the governments of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could no longer tolerate the mass civilian casualties and devastation of their infrastructure, they surrendered.

Instead, Israel sustains its enemies, even in wartime. Little recognition is given, nor certainly is any gratitude ever expressed, for the medical care Israel offers to its Arab enemies, especially their children. In one infamous case, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba treated a pregnant Gazan woman – saving her pregnancy – only to have her show up a few weeks later with a bomb strapped around her large stomach in an attempt to blow up the maternity ward. She was caught at the entrance to the hospital and arrested before she could blow herself up. Often, the Jewish heart prevails over the Jewish head. One would think a “state” would be able to provide health care to its own citizens, but not in Abbas’ wonderland.

Israel is fully within its rights to renounce the Oslo Accords, as these unilateral moves strike at the very heart of the agreement. It should, and thereby partially rinse the stain of Oslo from its statecraft and from Jewish history. It should, but it won’t, all part of the dance of performers in this staged melodrama. It should, because only an abrupt reversal of the political dynamic can undo some of the damage of the last two decades.

Abbas’ declaration, and the UN farce, only has meaning in the context of the continuing attempt to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. That has become the primary weapon in the Arab world’s century –old effort to first thwart and then strangle Jewish statehood. Arabs today are thankfully incapable of defeating Israel on the battlefield. The primary Arab enemies of Israel – Egypt and Syria – are now engaged in civil wars and are cauldrons of instability. The Iranian threat looms large, and its aggressive designs are abetted by assertions of Palestinian “statehood” that are ill-disguised attempts to undermine Israeli statehood – and the sovereign existence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.

The very essence of statehood is the notion of “self-determination.” But this new “state” can determine nothing by itself – not its existence, borders, prosperity, security, even authority. It is a chimera, a fantasy, a mirage – conceived in sin and born under intimidation and duress. Shame on Israel for acquiescing to the idea even in principle, and shame on those nations who supported the charade at the diplomatic world of make-believe known as the United Nations.

New construction in an area designated for Jewish homes for decades already is a start, but should not be a political tool. It should be done for nationalistic reasons, in line with Israel’s long-term interests. When it figures out what those interests are and prioritizes them – sovereignty over the land of Israel, security for its citizens, and the implementation of Torah values in the lives of the people and laws of the country – then their policies will become coherent and an era of stability will dawn. And even the Arabs who reside in the land of Israel will benefit from that prospect, certainly more than from the proclamations of Abbas in Wonderland.

5 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Aguna Update 2

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 4 comments

You may recall that earlier this year, I sat on a Din Torah that directed a recalcitrant husband to give his estranged wife a get. The man launched a vicious attack upon me, to which I responded in two pieces, the second one naming the miscreant (https://rabbipruzansky.com/2012/04/03/aguna-update/).

I am absolutely delighted to inform you that several weeks ago, the individual in question gave his wife a get  (!) in accordance with Torah law and she is now free to re-marry and move on with her life, as is he. And so she informed me, with palpable joy.

I have therefore removed the name of the miscreant from the article referenced above, and wish him success in life as well. The last few words I wrote are sweeter than ever: “All these attacks on me and others will be worthwhile on the day that (Deleted) frees his wife from the torment to which he has subjected her for several years.”

-RSP

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