Published December 24, 2009
Here we are again, post-Chanuka. We’ve probably heard Divrei Torah and even whole shiurim on the sub-surface issue of the Chanuka story - MILCHEMET ACHIM, civil war. While the publicized part of the Chanuka story is all about the battles against the Yevanim, we tend to gloss over, at best, or not notice, at worst, the deeper problem for the Jewish people - the internal conflicts that tear us apart and weaken us terribly.
Parshat HaShavua these weeks have focused on the enmity of Yosef’s brothers for him, and on the terrible deed that resulted.
The Midrash says: G-d said to the Jewish people - YOU SOLD YOUR BROTHER INTO EGYPTIAN SLAVERY! I swear by your lives that every single year you will say, AVADIM HAYINU L’FAR’O B’MITZRAYIM, we were slaves to Par’o in Egypt.
Chanuka is always celebrated with the backdrop of these weekly sedras. The Chashmona’im not only battled against the Grecco-Syrians, but against the Hellenist influence that was stealing Jewish lives in greater numbers than the physical threats to the oppressed population.
There is a vast difference between Yosef vs. the brothers, one the one hand, and the Chashmona’im vs. the Mityavnim (Hellenized Jews), on the other.
So too, in our time, there are very different splits within the Jewish People. One cannot compare Ashkenazim vs. S’faradim or this sect of Chassidim vs. another with, let’s say, religious vs. secular or Orthodox vs. Reform.
Yes, there are differences, but there is one glaring common feature to all the splits were suffer from - the two-letter abbreviation, vs. Versus. One against the other. That’s the common problem we face regardless of who are on the two sides of the vs. Whether it is Yosef HaTzadik and Shivtei Kah or whether it is a pair of polar-opposite Jewish groups.
Differences of opinion don’t hurt us, per se. It is the way the differences are acted upon that is devastating to us and our vital need of Jewish Unity.
The solution is not tossing our brothers into a pit or selling them to a passing caravan. Nor is the solution a weekly violent protest that desecrates the Shabbat more damagingly than does the protestee. Nor is the solution to bury converts on the other side of a cemetery fence. Nor is the solution the perpetuation of SIN’AT CHINAM that destroyed the Beit HaMikdash and keeps us in an obscenely long exile.
Negative, negative, negative. So what’s THE solution?
It starts with an imortant distinction that is sadly too often forgotten. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed in his works called Peninei Halacha said it well when he describes the continuing battles of the Chashnona’im after the Chanuka story, as being against the Yevanim and Hityavnut. Look at his distinction. The enemy on the outside are the Yevanim. But the internal enemy is Hellenism, not the Hellenists.
Rabbi Zev Leff points to the ending of the bracha in the weekday Amida of V’LAMALSHINIM. We describe G-d as a SHOVEIR O-Y’VIM, the One who breaks the enemy, but UMACHNI’A ZEIDIM, One who humbles the arrogant. Not destroys the arrogant; humbles them.
The ZEIDIM are fellow Jews, whom we would like to teach and inspire towards Torah, its values, its observance. We want to draw them near, by showing them the beauty and pleasantness of the ways of the Torah. This involves their being humbled from their arrogant abandonment or distortion of Torah - not, G-d forbid, their demise or even their forced submission.
Ahavat HaShem, Ahavat Torah, and Ahavat Yisrael are potent and powerful and we must use them well.
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