A few weeks ago, one of my friends was on his way to Israel. When he got to JFK airport, he went through the EL AL security. The guard asked him the regular questions. Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you going to Israel? And then he asked him “Are you Jewish?” He replied yes.
"Are you affiliated with any congregation?” Yes. “Which one?” Chabad. "Which Chabad?" Chabad Center of the Upper West Side. "Well," the guard said, "which Jewish holiday did we just celebrate?" My friend answers "Gee, I don’t know." So the guard says "Well, which Jewish holiday are we going to celebrate soon?" So my friend answered: "Thanks giving…"
At that point the guard called his superior and a few other guards and they took my friend to another room where they checked all his bags and clothing from top to bottom.
As Jews we thank G-d all the time. We celebrate Thanksgiving every day, not just once a year. However, when an EL AL security guard asks you which Jewish holiday is coming up, PLEASE know that the answer is Chanukah!
This story takes us back 2100 years ago, to the year 164 BCE, two centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans. Israel was then under the rule of the empire of Alexander the Great. A Syrian ruler Antiochus the 5th ascended the throne and he was determined to impose his values on the Jewish people. He set up a statue of Zeus in the Temple, and systematically desecrated Jerusalem's holy sites. A small group of Jews, led by the elderly priest Matityahu and his sons, rose in revolt. They fought a brilliant campaign, and within three years they had recaptured Jerusalem, removed sacrilegious objects from the Temple, and restored Jewish autonomy. It was, as we say in the Hanukah prayers, a victory for 'the weak against the strong, and the few against the many.' Religious liberty was established and the Temple was rededicated. Hanukah means "rededication."
But what was at the core of the conflict between the Jews and the Greeks during the Chanukah time?
Why did the Maccabees revolt? It was not political independence they sought, nor was taxation--with or without representation--the issue. Matityahu and his sons took up arms because the Syrian-Greeks, who ruled the Holy Land, wished to “make them forget Your- G-d Torah and violate the decrees of Your –G-d will.”
To the Greek, the human being was supreme. The body of the athlete, the mind of the philosopher—was the pinnacle of existence. If Man was perfect, he was god. To have suggested that there might be anything more transcendent than man's crowning glory, the intellect, was heresy.
The essence of Judaism is the conviction that G-d, the author of reason, transcends the universe and even logic. The ultimate value of Torah is that it is inner will, His intimate desire, beyond reason. We do the mitzvah to connect and be one with G-d in His intimate essence and purity.
Let me give an example from marriage: There are things your wife will ask you to do, and they make sense to you. But there are things your wife needs or wants, which you—like most men—will never ever understand. It is a fact of life, we men do not get women. A good marriage does not mean that you say: Ah, my wife must have some reason for her desire, I will understand it one day and hence let me do it. That is a Greek marriage!...
A good marriage is when you say: It is irrelevant if I understand it or not; I don’t care if it makes sense to me or not. This is what my wife wants, so I am here for her…. This is a Jewish marriage.
Chanukah is the holiday of children, because it is the holiday that represents the “pure oil,” the essential purity and holiness of Yiddishkeit.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky