Tag Archives: Sukkot

20 Things That Will Happen When Mashiach Comes

This week’s parasha, Vayikra, begins the third book of the Torah. The parasha is unique in that it is only one of two parashas (along with next week’s Tzav) where the word Mashiach appears. All four cases of the word in the Torah refer to the anointed High Priest, not to the messiah at the End of Days. Nonetheless, on a deeper level it certainly is alluding to the messiah of the End of Days. All the verses in question deal with the anointed High Priest (“HaKohen HaMashiach”) atoning for sins—both his own and the people’s—and purifying his nation. Indeed, one of the roles of Mashiach will be to prepare Israel for that final purification at the End of Days. This includes identifying one last Red Cow to produce those special waters which alone are capable of removing the impurity of death.

The early Christians saw these verses as allusions to their purported saviour, Jesus. In one place, for example, they wrote:

the Law [ie. the Torah] made those high priests who had infirmity, and who needed daily to offer up sacrifices, first for their own sins, and then for the people’s; but our high priest, Christ Jesus, was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. (Hebrews 7:27-28)

For the Christians, Jesus was the ultimate anointed high priest. Yet, Jesus accomplished essentially nothing of what Mashiach is supposed to. This was perhaps best explained in the 16th century by Isaac ben Abraham of Troki (1533-1594). He was a Karaite Jew, and a renowned Karaite scholar. His magnum opus was a book called Hizzuk Emunah, “Strengthening of Faith”, written to debunk Christianity, silence missionaries, and convince Jews to remain Jewish. The book was so popular that it spread like wildfire, not just among Karaites but all Jews, and even Christians. In fact, it played an important role in the start of the Enlightenment, leading countless Christians to abandon their faith. One of these was the French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778), who called the Latin translation of Hizzuk Emunah (first published in 1681) a “masterpiece”.

Because it was a Karaite text, traditional rabbis were wary of consulting it. The great Rabbi Menashe ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro, 1604-1657), who opened the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626, ultimately refused to print it. Still, Abba Hillel Silver, in his A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (pg. 225), points out how Troki’s text borrowed from earlier Rabbinic texts, including Mashmia Yeshua, “Announcing Salvation”, of Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508).

Silver goes on to summarize the sixth chapter of Troki’s Hizzuk Emunah, which includes a list of twenty clear prophecies in Scripture that must be fulfilled upon the coming of Mashiach—none of which were fulfilled by Jesus (thereby necessitating for Christians some future “second coming” yet to materialize after nearly two millennia). Briefly going over these twenty events is enlightening both as a reminder for why Jesus could not be the messiah, and for what to expect when the true Mashiach does come.

Living Waters and Dead Waters

‘Israelis – The Ingathering of the Exiles’ by Saul Raskin (1878-1966)

The first prophecy is the return of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In ancient times, following the reign of King Solomon, the Twelve Tribes of Israel split into two kingdoms: the southern Judah and the northern Israel (or Ephraim). The more sinful northern kingdom was eventually overrun by the Assyrians, who exiled its tribes. These are sometimes referred to as the Ten Lost Tribes. It should be noted, though, that they weren’t necessarily ten tribes, nor were the tribes completely expunged. In reality, there were many Benjaminites, Simeonites, and Levites already living inside the Kingdom of Judah, and members of all the northern tribes fled to Judah when the northern kingdom was destroyed.

What happened was that all the tribes eventually assimilated into the larger, ruling tribe of Judah. Over time, the tribes lost knowledge of their lineage, and today everyone is simply a Yehudi, a Judahite, or Jew. (Levites, because of their unique role, retain knowledge of their ancestry). One of the prophesied events of the End of Days is that the identity of the Lost Tribes will once more be known. Though this idea is much more developed in later Rabbinic literature, it comes from numerous places in Scripture. Troki chooses to use Ezekiel 37:15-22:

And the word of God came to me, saying: “And you, son of man, take one stick, and write upon it: For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions; then take another stick, and write upon it: For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and of all the house of Israel his companions; and join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand… And say to them: ‘Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land…’”

Related to this is the second great prophecy, that of Gog u’Magog. This refers to the great world war at the End of Days, described in detail in Ezekiel 38, among other places. During the course of this war, Zechariah 14:4 states that the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem will be split in half. Then, new “living waters” will go out of Jerusalem to make Israel flourish (Zechariah 14:8).

Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (Credit: Skilla1st)

Meanwhile, Isaiah 11:15 states that God “will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea; and with His scorching wind will He shake His hand over the River, and will smite it into seven streams, and cause men to march over dry-shod.” The identity of the “Egyptian Sea” and the “River” is unclear, though Silver has it as the Red Sea and the Euphrates. On the possibility of the Red Sea drying up, we know today from geological records that the Red Sea had once (and possibly more than once) become a dry chunk of land due to the narrow and shallow Bab-el-Mandeb closing up.

As for the “River”, in context it would make more sense if it referred to the Nile, the lifeline of Egypt. Today, we are indeed seeing the Nile drying up rapidly, and the Washington Post recently reported that the Nile Delta is losing as much as 20 metres per year in some areas. With this in mind, when Isaiah prophesies that the “tongue of the Egyptian Sea” will be destroyed, it may be referring to the Nile Delta, which opens up into the Egyptian Mediterranean, ie. the “Egyptian Sea”. The Post article is quite an accurate realization of Isaiah’s prophecy, with images of men that “march over dry-shod”.

(Having said that, the Euphrates River isn’t doing much better than the Nile, so whether Isaiah meant the Nile or the Euphrates is irrelevant in light of the mass devastation that has plagued both rivers.)

A Renewed Jerusalem

The sixth prophecy in Troki’s list is also from Zechariah (8:23):

Thus said the Lord of Hosts: “In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall take hold of the garment of him that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

The tremendous anti-Semitism that Jews have experienced throughout history, into the present day, will finally end. The nations will be at peace with the Jews, and wish to learn from them. This is related to another prophecy: that gentiles from all over the world will come to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel on every Rosh Chodesh and every Shabbat (Isaiah 66:20-23):

“…upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” said God, “as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel into the house of God. And of them also will I take for the priests and for the Levites,” said God. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me,” said God, “so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, said God.

The gentiles—“all flesh”—will come to Jerusalem, upon every kind of transport. One of these is a rekhev, “chariot” in ancient Hebrew, and “vehicle” in Modern Hebrew. Another two of the transports are unique words that aren’t found elsewhere in Scripture and are impossible to translate: a tzab, and a kirkar. It is possible that the former refers to some kind of slow transport (as the word is written the same as that for a “turtle”) while the latter conversely refers to a very fast form of transport. In our day and age we have no shortage of either.

Troki lists separately a related prophecy from Zechariah (14:16): “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” Once a year, during the holiday of Sukkot, those nations that warred against Israel at the End of Days will come to Jerusalem to worship. The fact that it must be during Sukkot is no coincidence, for it is during Sukkot that our Sages say the offerings in the Temple atone for all the gentiles. This is why the Torah requires seventy bulls to be offered over the course of the holiday, corresponding to the seventy root nations of the world.

A Renewed World

If all the nations are coming to worship the God of Israel in Jerusalem, there is certainly no need for any “idols… false prophets… and unclean spirits” which God will entirely “cut off” (Zechariah 13:2). Zechariah further adds: “And God [YHWH] shall be King over all the earth; in that day God shall be One, and His name one.” (14:9) There will be world peace (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3), which will be ensured and enforced by Israel, to whom all the kings and nations will listen (Isaiah 60:10-12, Daniel 7:27). Even the animals will be at peace with each other, as Isaiah (11:6-8) famously writes:

And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox…

On that last prophecy there is an interesting debate. Will the animals miraculously stop fighting and consuming one another? Or, is the prophecy only metaphorical and the natural order will remain? The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1135-1204) held by the latter. Silver translates here that peace will be “between wild and domestic animals”. When reading Isaiah’s verses, this makes perfect sense: a wolf with a lamb, a leopard with a goat; calf and lion, cow and bear. So perhaps what Isaiah meant is that farmers and ranchers will no longer have to worry about wild animals devouring their livestock—once a common, and particularly disturbing, problem. (Or maybe there will be no need to raise livestock at all, for we are now at the dawn of the synthetic meat revolution.)

Israel will finally be completely righteous and free of sin (Deuteronomy 30:6, Isaiah 60:21, Ezekiel 36:25), and lead the rest of the world in doing the same (Jeremiah 3:17). There will no longer be any kind of suffering or sorrow in Israel, for the prophet said “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying” (Isaiah 65:19).

‘Going Up To The Third Temple’ by Ofer Yom Tov

Finally, the prophet Eliyahu will return (Micah 3:24), and the Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40-45). The Shekhinah will return to Israel (Ezekiel 37:26), as will the ability to prophecy (Jeremiah 31:32-33), and there will be great knowledge in the world (Isaiah 11:9). The Holy Land will be redistributed among the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Ezekiel 47:13). Lastly, at the very end, will come the long-awaited Resurrection of the Dead (Daniel 12:2).

To summarize:

  1. Return of the Lost Tribes
  2. Gog u’Magog
  3. Mount of Olives splitting
  4. Egyptian Sea and River destroyed
  5. Living waters emerge from Jerusalem
  6. Gentiles declaring to Jews “we will go with you”
  7. Israel’s former enemies coming to Jerusalem each year on Sukkot
  8. Gentile pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to worship on the new moons and Sabbaths
  9. Destruction of all idols, false prophets, and unclean spirits
  10. One religion around the world, and recognition of one God
  11. Israel’s recognized leadership on the international stage
  12. World peace
  13. Peace between wild and domesticated animals
  14. A sinless Israel and a sinless world
  15. No more suffering or sorrow in the Land of Israel and for the Jewish people
  16. Shekhinah and prophecy return
  17. Eliyahu reappears
  18. Rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem
  19. Redistribution of the Holy Land among the restored Twelve Tribes
  20. Resurrection of the Dead

Secrets of the Mishkan

A Modern Replica of the Mishkan in Timna, Israel

This week’s parasha, Terumah, begins with God’s command for the Israelites to build a Mishkan, an Earthly “dwelling place” for the Divine. God tells Moses (Exodus 25:2-8):

Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My offering. And this is the offering that you shall take from them: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson wool; linen and goat hair; ram skins dyed red, tachash skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the incense; shoham stones and filling stones for the ephod and for the choshen. And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst…

God requests that each person donate as much as they wish to construct a Holy Tabernacle. He concludes by stating that when the sanctuary is built, He shall dwell among them. The Sages famously point out that the Torah does not say that God will dwell in it, but in them. The sanctuary was not a literal abode for the Infinite God—that’s impossible. Rather, it is a conduit between the physical and spiritual worlds, and a channel through which holiness and spirituality can imbue our planet.

In mystical texts, we learn that the Mishkan was far more than just a temple. Every piece of the Mishkan—every pillar and curtain, altar and basin, even the littlest vessel used inside of it—held tremendous significance and represented something greater in the cosmos. In fact, the whole Mishkan was a microcosm of Creation. This is the deeper reason for why the prohibitions of Shabbat are derived from the construction of the Mishkan. The passage we cited above appears one more time in the Torah, in almost the exact same wording, ten chapters later. In that passage, we read the same command for each Israelite to donate the above ingredients to build a sanctuary. The only difference is that in the second passage, the construction of the Mishkan is juxtaposed with (Exodus 35:1-2):

Moses called the whole community of the children of Israel to assemble, and he said to them: “These are the things that God commanded to make. Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have sanctity, a day of complete rest to God; whoever performs work on this day shall be put to death…”

From this clear connection, the Sages learn that the actions required to construct and maintain the Mishkan are the same ones we must abstain from on the Sabbath. There are 39 such melakhot in all. On a more mystical level, these 39 works are said to be those same actions performed by God in creating the universe! For example, the first prohibited work (see Shabbat 7:2) is zorea, “sowing”, or seeding the earth, just as we read in the account of Creation that God said (Genesis 1:11) “Let the earth bring forth grass, herb-yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, in which its seed is found on the earth.” Perhaps the most famous prohibition, mav’ir, “lighting” a flame, parallels God’s most famous Utterance, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). Such is the case with all 39 prohibited works. In this way, when a Jew rests on the seventh day from such actions, he is mirroring the Divine Who rested from these works on the original Seventh Day.

A Periodic Table of the 39 Melachos, by Anshie Kagan

The Mishkan and the Holidays

The Zohar (II, 135a) comments on this week’s parasha that the ingredients of the Mishkan symbolize the Jewish holidays. The first ingredient is gold, and this corresponds to the first holiday of the year, Rosh Hashanah. The second ingredient, silver, corresponds to Yom Kippur. This is because silver and gold represent the two sefirot of Chessed, “kindness”, and Gevurah, “restraint”. The latter is more commonly known as Din, “judgement”. In mystical texts, silver and gold (both the metals and the colours) always represents Chessed and Gevurah. Rosh Hashanah is judgement day, which is gold, and Yom Kippur is the day of forgiveness, silver.

The third ingredient, copper, corresponds to the next holiday, Sukkot. The Zohar reminds us that on Sukkot, the Torah commands the Israelites to sacrifice a total of seventy bulls, corresponding to the seventy root nations of the world. This is why the prophet Zechariah (14:16) states that in the End of Days, representatives from all nations of the world will come to Jerusalem specifically during Sukkot to worship God together with the Jews.

‘Vision of the Four Chariots’ by Gustave Doré

The Zohar explains that copper is Sukkot because copper (at least in those days) was the main implement of war, which the gentiles use to build their chariots and fight their battles. This, the Zohar explains, is the meaning of another verse in Zechariah (6:1), which states that “…there came four chariots out from between the two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of copper.” The Zohar concludes that the Torah prescribes the sacrifices to be brought in decreasing order (thirteen on the first day, twelve on the second, eleven on the third, etc.) to weaken the drive for war among the gentile nations.

The next ingredient is the special blue dye called techelet, which corresponds to Pesach. As the Talmud (Sotah 17a) states, techelet symbolizes the sea, and the climax of the Exodus was, of course, the Splitting of the Sea. Only at this point, the Torah states, did the Israelites believe wholeheartedly in God, and his servant Moses (Exodus 14:31). The Zohar therefore states that techelet holds the very essence of faith.

Following this is the purple dye called argaman, which is Shavuot. It isn’t quite clear why the Zohar relates these two. It speaks of purple being a fusion of right and left, perhaps referring to the fact that purple (or more accurately, magenta) is a result of a mixing of red and blue. This relates to the dual nature of Shavuot, having received on that day the two parts of the Torah (Written and Oral), and later the Two Tablets, in the month whose astrological sign is the dual Gemini. There is a theme of twos, of rights and lefts coming together. We might add that Shavuot is traditionally seen as a sort of “wedding” between God and the Jewish people, with the Torah being the ketubah, and Mt. Sinai serving as the chuppah.

The sixth ingredient, tola’at shani, red or “crimson” wool, corresponds to the little-known holiday of Tu b’Av. Although the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:8) states that on Tu b’Av the young single ladies of Israel would go out in white dresses to meet their soulmates, the Zohar suggests that they also wore crimson wool, based on another Scriptural verse (Lamentations 4:5).

Tu b’Av is actually the last holiday that the Zohar mentions. The remaining nine ingredients correspond to the nine days after Rosh Hashanah, through Yom Kippur, ie. the “Days of Repentance”. This brings up a big question: The Zohar relates the ingredients of the Mishkan to the major Torah holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the three Pilgrimage festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot). Naturally, it omits Chanukah, Purim, the fasts and minor holidays, which are not explicitly spoken of in the Torah. So, why does it mention Tu b’Av? Before we even begin to answer this question, we should already recognize the huge significance of Tu b’Av, strangely one of the most oft-forgotten holidays on the Jewish calendar.

Tu b’Av: a Torah Holiday

The holidays that are not explicitly commanded by God in the Torah were all instituted by future Sages. Purim was instituted by Esther and Mordechai, and first celebrated in Persia. Yet, the Talmud tells us that the majority of the Sages in the times of Esther and Mordechai initially rejected their call to establish Purim as a holiday! (See Yerushalmi, Megillah 6b-7a.) Interestingly, historians and archaeologists have not found a single Megillat Esther among the thousands of Dead Sea Scrolls and fragments, suggesting that the Jews who lived in Qumran did not commemorate Purim. Clearly, it was still a point of contention as late as two thousand years ago.

Chanukah, meanwhile, is not found in the Tanakh at all. Although two Books of Maccabees exist, the Sages did not include them in the final compilation of the Tanakh. Similarly, the later Sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic era did not find it fit to have a separate tractate for Chanukah, even though there is a separate tractate for every other big holiday.

The fast days are not festivals, but sad memorial days instituted by the Sages to commemorate tragic events. Tu b’Shevat appears to have no Scriptural origins. Yet, Tu b’Av does. The Talmud (Ta’anit 30b) tells us that one of the historical events that we commemorate on Tu b’Av is the fact that the tribe of Benjamin was permitted to “rejoin the congregation of Israel”. In the final chapters of the Book of Judges, we read how a civil war emerged in Israel, pitting all the tribes against Benjamin because of the horrible incident where a woman was brutally raped in Gibeah. The tribe of Benjamin was subsequently cut off from Israel, with their men forbidden from marrying women of other tribes. The ban was eventually lifted on Tu b’Av. The men of Benjamin were told:

“Behold, there is a festival of God from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.” And they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying: “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and take every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin…” (Judges 21:19-21)

The Tanakh is clearly describing what the Talmud says would happen on Tu b’Av, when the young ladies would go out to dance in the vineyards to find their soulmates. The exact Scriptural wording is that this day is a chag Adonai, “festival of God”. This is precisely the term used by Moses during the Exodus (Exodus 10:9), possibly referring to Pesach, or more likely to Shavuot (as Rabbeinu Bechaye comments). It is also the term used later in the Torah to describe Sukkot (Leviticus 23:39). Thus, Tu b’Av is evidently a Torah festival, too! And this is why the Zohar singles it out from all the other, “minor” holidays. It seems Tu b’Av is not so minor after all.

The Zohar concludes its passage on Terumah by saying that although we do not have the ability to offer Terumah today, and there is no Mishkan for us to build, we nonetheless have an opportunity to spiritually offer up these ingredients when we celebrate the holidays associated with them. When one wholeheartedly observes Rosh Hashanah, it is as if they offered up gold in the Heavenly Temple, and during Yom Kippur one’s soul brings up silver. Over the days of Sukkot, there is an offering of copper up Above, and on Pesach it is techelet; on Shavuot, argaman, on Tu b’Av, tola’at shani, and on the Days of Repentance the remaining ingredients. On these special days, we help to construct the Heavenly Abode. And this is all the more amazing when we remember that Jewish tradition maintains the Third Temple will not need to physically be built as were the first two, but will descend entirely whole from Heaven.

Courtesy: Temple Institute

Chanukah: Did the Jews Really Defeat the Greeks?

“No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy and art have been the main guiding light in modern faith and culture. Personally, I have always been on the side of both…”

– Winston Churchill

Chanukah is perhaps the most famous of Jewish holidays. The nine-branched candelabrum, the chanukiah, is instantly recognized by people around the world. One reason for this is because of the halakhah of pirsumei nissah, literally “publicising the miracle”. Although just about every Jewish holiday revolves around some kind of miracle, it is particularly with regards to Chanukah that there is a special mitzvah to publicize its wonder. And so, one can find a glowing, public chanukiah on display in pretty much every major city on the planet.

Chanukah Around the World

The purpose of the chanukiah is well-known: after defeating the Greeks and recapturing Jerusalem, and its Holy Temple, the Jewish warriors led by the Maccabees discovered only one cruse of oil for the Temple menorah (this one with seven branches, as the Torah commands). Although the oil was meant to last only for one day, it miraculously burned for eight, the amount of time necessary to produce a fresh batch of olive oil.

Temple Menorah Replica by Jerusalem's Temple Institute

Temple Menorah Replica by Jerusalem’s Temple Institute

This is the story as recounted in the Talmud. However, the more ancient Book of Maccabees (which is part of the apocrypha, scriptural texts that did not make it into the official Biblical canon) provides a different reason for the eight-day festival. Here, we are told that since the Temple was still in the hands of the Greeks two months earlier, the Jewish nation was unable to celebrate the Torah festival of Sukkot. Of all the Torah-mandated holidays, Sukkot is most associated with the Temple, and was celebrated with many offerings on the altar, along with water libations, and eight days of revelry. Since the people were unable to commemorate Sukkot properly in the month of Tishrei, they decided to commemorate it in the month of Kislev instead, now that the Temple was back in Jewish hands. So, they kept an eight-day festival, with offerings, libations, and revelry, both in honour of the belated Sukkot, and to celebrate their victory over the Greeks.

A David and Goliath Story

Chanukah is a beautiful underdog narrative. The mighty Syrian-Greeks (better known as the Seleucids, to differentiate them from the mainland Greeks in Europe) are imposing their Hellenism upon the conquered and impoverished Jewish people, still struggling to rebuild after the decimation of the First Temple period. The Greek king, Antiochus, demands the sacrifice of a pig upon a Jewish altar, and the Jews refuse. Well, at least some of them do.

Bust of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of Chanukah fame, at the Altes Museum in Berlin (Credit-Jniemenmaa)

Bust of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, of Chanukah fame, at the Altes Museum in Berlin (Credit: Jniemenmaa)

At the time, there were many Hellenized, assimilated Jews among the masses that were very much okay with a pig on the altar. (It seems that history repeats itself: the first graduation ceremony in 1883 of Hebrew Union College, a Reform seminary, consisted of frog legs, crabs, and shrimp, among other non-kosher foods, earning it the nickname, “the treif banquet”.) Matityahu the High Priest wouldn’t have any of it, and together with his five sons—soon to be known as the “Maccabees”—started a revolution.

More than anything else, this was a civil war between traditional Jews and the Hellenized ones. Of course, the Hellenized Jews had support from the Greek government, which soon brought in some 60,000 troops, together with war elephants, according to the Book of I Maccabees (4:28-29). The Maccabee forces managed to scramble 10,000 mostly-untrained, guerrilla warriors. Ultimately, the 10,000 overpower the professional Greek army. The Seleucid Empire would never be the same again, and less than a century later, would totally come to an end.

Spiritual vs. Physical

Today, the Chanukah story often carries the same message: the Greeks were materialistic, promiscuous, Godless people, while the Jews were moral, spiritual, and God-fearing. Chanukah, then, celebrates the triumph of righteousness over licentiousness, religion over secularism, spirituality over physicality.

While the above description of the Seleucid-Syrian-Greeks may be true, it presents a false image of the Greeks as a whole, and one that isn’t at all consistent with traditional Jewish holy texts, especially the Talmud. In truth, the great Jewish sages of the Talmud valued and respected the Greeks. They stated (Megillah 8b) that it is forbidden to translate the Torah into any language, except Greek, which the rabbis considered a rich and beautiful tongue. The rabbis also adopted the Greek style of democratic government, with elected officials sitting on the Sanhedrin, from the Greek root synedrion, meaning “sitting together”.

One of the earliest known synedrions was established by Alexander the Great, made up of representatives from across his vast empire to assist him in government. The Talmudic sages spoke highly of Alexander the Great. According to legend, Alexander saw a vision of the Jewish High Priest before coming to conquer Jerusalem. There are several versions of this story, but all agree that Alexander was grateful to the High Priest, and spared Israel from his destructive conquests (as well as from paying tribute, according to some sources). In turn, the rabbis adopted “Alexander” as an honorary Jewish name. Indeed, one of the sages of the Talmud is Rabbi Alexandri, and many other rabbis have Greek names, such as Hyrcanus, Teradion, Antigonus, Dosa, Papa, Symmachus, and Tarfon.

These rabbis gathered in various learning academies across Israel and Persia (producing the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, respectively). Their academies were very similar to the Greek academy. In fact, the successors of a Greek academy spoke very much like the rabbis of the Talmud, quoting teachings from previous generations and debating them, while citing an uninterrupted chain of tradition all the way back to Plato, much the same way that rabbis cite an uninterrupted tradition back to Moses. Many of their modes of reasoning and dialectics were the same, too, even lesser-used forms such as gematria, another Greek word adopted by Judaism. The Greeks had also used their alphabet for numerology (an art that they called isopsephy).

Greek traditions appear to have even found their way into Jewish holidays. In ancient Greece, families would get together for symposia, parties in which they would recount the history of Greece and its great victories. According to the Greek philosophers, it was best to drink three cups of wine at a symposium, while drinking five cups was considered excessive and inappropriate. Thus, most people drank four cups. They would lie on couches, specifically on their left side. Recounting history while drinking four cups of wine and lying on one’s left—sound familiar? Let’s not forget that afikoman is itself a Greek word (epikomon, literally “that which comes after” or “that which comes last”, referring to either dessert or the concluding festive songs).

While the ancient Greeks certainly held onto a number of abhorrent beliefs and practices, to suggest that all the Greeks were atheistic, unjust, or not spiritual is certainly untrue. Socrates was killed for criticizing Athenian injustice, Plato preached how illusory this physical world is, and Aristotle described metaphysics and theology as the “first philosophy” and most important of subjects. One of the earliest known preachers of reincarnation was Pythagoras, who also wrote of three souls, much like the Jewish conception of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. Nor is it a secret that some of the angels mentioned in the Talmud bear Greek titles, among them Sandalfon and Metatron.

So, did the Jews really defeat the Greeks? We certainly defeated the immoral and oppressive Seleucid Greeks in battle, but definitely not the Greek spirit as a whole. In fact, some might argue that Judaism is the best preservation of ancient Greek culture in the modern world! Whereas the rest of society has moved on to other methods of education, we still have a yeshiva system like the ancient Academy. While others celebrate their holidays with gifts and formal dinners, we gather in symposia, reliving the words of our Sages, who openly bore their Greek names. And of course, while most of society is primarily concerned with what’s happening on television, we’re still trying to be philosophers, debating the finest points of reality.

The Greeks had a profound impact on all of civilization, and Judaism was not immune from it. Perhaps this is why, over time, the holiday became less about defeating Greeks and more about the miracle of light. Chanukah is a holiday celebrating Jewish resilience, and symbolizing the power of light over darkness, and hope over despair. It is a lesson in resisting assimilation and being true to ourselves; in standing up for what’s right and upholding our customs; and most importantly, in the longest, blackest nights of winter, Chanukah teaches us that although the world may be full of evil, one tiny flame can break through all the darkness.

[This is part one of a three-part series. See here for part two.]

The article above is adapted from Garments of Light: 70 Illuminating Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion and Holidays. Click here to get the book!