Body and Soul: Feasting on Purim, Praise on Chanukah

1aIn Al HaNissim, the prayer of thanks we add on Chanukah, we say: “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton into the hands of those who engage in Your Torah.”¹ Notice how long the wording is. It could have said simply “the wicked into the hands of the righteous,” and that would include everything. We must also understand the words of the Taz, R' Dovid HaLevi Segal, in his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch.² The Shulchan Aruch rules that the meals of Chanukah are optional, since Chazal did not establish those days for feasting and rejoicing. The Taz asks: what is the difference between Chanukah and Purim, which Chazal did establish for feasting and rejoicing? He answers that on Purim the decree was “to destroy and to kill,”³ so the heart of the miracle was the rescue of the body. That is why, when the Holy One, blessed be He, saved them, those days were established for feasting and rejoicing, which belong to the body. Chanukah is different. There the decree, in the words of Al HaNissim, was “to make them forget Your Torah and to turn them away from the chukim of Your will,” the chukim being the Torah's decrees whose reasons are not given. So those days were established only “to give thanks and to praise.” So far his words.

1bBut his holy words need explaining. After all, our whole life in this world is meant to give nachas ruach, satisfaction, to the Creator, blessed be He. We make a festive day for the body only because if the body is lost, the soul is lost too. So the festival is really for the fact that we can serve Hashem with the body that was saved. If so, Purim too should have been established only for giving thanks and praise, since there too the heart of the miracle is the service of Hashem, just as on Chanukah.

2It seems that we can explain this. On the subject of eating, there is a well-known teaching of my holy great-grandfather, the author of Divrei Binah, in his sefer Yesharei Lev.⁴ He was explaining Chazal's saying “An additional soul is given to a person on the eve of Shabbos.” Rashi explains: “An additional soul, which broadens his mind for eating and drinking.”⁵ But does the additional soul really come for the body's needs, for eating and drinking? Surely the additional soul is spiritual! My great-grandfather explained that a person's perfection lies in this: everything he does for the service of Hashem should leave behind a holy power and imprint even after the mitzvah is done. That is the idea behind the korbanos, the offerings, of which Chazal said, “The Kohanim eat and the owners are atoned for.”⁶ By the power of the korban's holiness, an imprint of holiness remained in the eating of the meat left from his offering. Through the Kohanim's eating of the korban, the one who had brought it was stirred to return in teshuvah, and in this lay his atonement. The same is true of eating the foods of Shabbos: they are meant to influence the weekdays, and this is what the additional soul accomplishes. That is what Rashi meant when he wrote that it gives a person a broad heart for eating and drinking. It influences the eating and drinking of every day of the week, so that they will be holy, as they should be.

3Let us explain this more fully. A person's task all his life is to make his body, too, into a kind of soul, each according to his strength. The body, after all, is a separating screen that keeps a person from doing the will of the Creator. An ordinary person can reach this level only if he gives the body no more than it truly needs. We know from the Ramban that forbidden foods dull a person's mind.⁷ In the same way, if, Heaven forbid, a person eats more than he needs, even kosher food makes the body a separating screen. But if he is privileged to eat what he needs with holy intentions, the body receives its due and itself works to remove the separating screen. In this way we can reach the level where the desires and thoughts of our heart are bent to His service.

4This is why we find that Avraham Avinu drew the world close to Hashem by giving people food and drink. As Chazal said, “Avraham would feed passersby. After he had fed them and given them drink, they would bless him. He said to them, ‘Have you eaten of what is mine? You have eaten of what belongs to the God of the world. Thank, praise and bless the One Who spoke and the world came into being.’”⁸ Why, then, do we not find that he drew them close through learning Torah? Because Avraham Avinu feared that the separating screen would keep him from bringing them back in teshuvah. So first the body had to be given its due, but with holy thoughts. Through this a spiritual abundance would flow down to the soul, and they would be able to reach complete teshuvah. This was also the way of the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples. They drew their fellow Jews close, under the wings of the Shechinah, through festive meals among friends.

5About Purim, the Gemara says that “the enemies of Israel” in that generation were liable to destruction because they partook of the feast of that wicked man.⁹ So the Jews of that generation were on a low level, and only through eating in holiness could they repair the damage they had done. That is why the sages of that generation instituted feasting and rejoicing. On Chanukah, however, it is well known that the Chashmona'im, the Hasmoneans, stood on a great level. Chazal tell us that they gave their lives for kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of Hashem's Name. So for them there was no separating screen, and they could turn at once to spiritual things. That is why the Sages instituted only giving thanks and praise. This, perhaps, is what the Taz meant by the difference between Chanukah and Purim. On Chanukah the miracle came through the power of the soul, since they gave their lives for the holiness of Hashem, and not through eating and drinking. That is why, even for later times, those days were established only for giving thanks and praise. Purim is different, because there they first had to rectify the body. This also explains the extra wording “the impure into the hands of the pure” and “the wanton into the hands of those who engage in Your Torah.” It teaches us that the Chashmona'im were people of high spiritual levels: not only “righteous,” but also “pure” and “engaged in Your Torah.”

6Doing everything leshem Shamayim, for the sake of Heaven, is a very high level. But at the very least a person must take care to say each blessing with kavanah, true concentration. My holy father and teacher, zt"l, often explained Chazal's words “One who prays must turn his eyes downward and his heart upward.”¹⁰ He should turn his eyes “downward,” to the lower matters of eating and drinking and how he goes about them, and raise them “upward” in his heart. This he does through the blessings he says before and after eating. “His heart” means prayer, which is “the service of the heart.”¹¹ So at the very least his eating and drinking will be “upward,” since he blesses them as he should. With this my holy father explained the verse “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.”¹² When will I “speak” in prayer as I should? When “the earth” [our earthly eating] properly “hears the words” of the blessings as I put food “to my mouth.” That is the gist of his words. And when we bless our food properly, we will be privileged to give thanks and praise as we should.

7Through this may we be privileged to go from the light of the Chanukah lamp to the light of Moshiach, speedily in our days.