Pure Thought: The Oil the Greeks Defiled

20Perhaps we can explain further the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l,¹ quoted at the start of these Chanukah teachings: why was the miracle established for all generations on the blessing found in the cruse, when that is a common kind of miracle? We will explain it through Chazal's account at the head of this maamar, from the oils the Greeks defiled in the Heichal, the inner hall of the Beis HaMikdash, to the one cruse the Chashmona'im found after their victory, which burned for eight days.² Chazal's words need explaining. The plain wording of the Gemara makes it seem that the Greeks entered the Heichal for one main purpose: only to defile all the oils. What did they gain by that? They would have done better to turn to the precious stones, the silver and gold and the priestly garments that were in the House of Hashem of Hosts. We must also ask: why did the Chashmona'im search afterward? True, if we hold that impurity is only set aside for the community, it makes good sense that they searched, in case they might find pure oil.³

21aPerhaps we may explain it by the ways of avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem. The accursed Greeks saw and knew how precious and important in Hashem's eyes is a pure and holy thought from a Jewish soul, and in their great impurity and wickedness they wanted to defile the inner core of thought and to corrupt the minds of Israel. That is the meaning of “when the Greeks entered the Heichal,” in the sense of the verse “Hashem is in His holy palace (heichal).”⁴ As the holy sefarim and the holy Shelah write, the palace of the Four-Letter Name is Adnus (אדני), “my Master”: heichal (היכל) has the numerical value of Adnus, sixty-five. For the Name Adnus, spelled out in full, is the sheath and the vessel of the Four-Letter Name, and the inside of the palace is the Four-Letter Name, the Four-Letter Name interwoven with Adnus.⁵ So “Hashem,” the Four-Letter Name, “is in His holy palace,” in the Name that is its sheath. The aim is to draw havayos (הויות), true being [of the same root as the Four-Letter Name], into Adnus: that is, to bring being even into the vessels. All this comes when a person takes to heart the greatness of Hashem. Who is it that brings all beings into being and causes all causes? By whose power does he live? Who gives strength and life to all his limbs? With this thought he draws the Four-Letter Name into Adnus.

21bThe accursed Greeks made it the main aim of their will to put an end to this, and to turn Israel away from thinking such a holy thought, so that Israel could not draw the Four-Letter Name into Adnus, but would say instead that everything runs by the way of nature, as their accursed and impure philosophy holds, which accounts for everything by the intellect. That is what Chazal meant by “Cursed is one who teaches his son Greek wisdom.”⁶ This answers why the Greeks went only for the oils. Chazal's words “when the Greeks entered the Heichal and defiled all the oils” hint that they defiled the inner core of thought. Oil hints at thought, which is the inner part of the lamp, and the lamp hints at man. They were defiling all the minds and thoughts of Israel, so that Israel could not draw down and bestow being into Adnus, the vessels.

22a“When the kingdom of the house of the Chashmona'im grew strong and defeated them (nitzchum)”: this is the attribute of Netzach, enduring victory, as in “Delights are at Your right hand forever (netzach),”⁷ and as the verse says, “The Eternal One (Netzach) of Israel does not lie.”⁸ This is also why the Chashmona'im searched: when they saw that they were still defeating the Greeks, they perceived that there were still holy and pure thoughts which no impurity and no touch of the idolaters had been able to reach. “They searched and found one (echad) cruse of oil”: this is the unity of His great Name, and faith in the Oneness and the existence of the Creator, blessed be He. For there “no thought can grasp Him” at all,⁹ and this is the essence of faith in Hashem: simple faith, not a faith that rests on too much contemplation.

22b“And it lay with the seal of the Kohen Gadol”: this is in the spirit of Chazal's saying at the end of tractate Menachos, “Michael, the great prince, stands and offers” every day [and by one Midrash, what he offers is the souls of the tzaddikim].¹⁰ That is, the Creator, blessed be He, the Father of mercy, Who looks and sees to the end of all generations, saw and foresaw at the end of days that in the harshness of the exile and the darkness of the times Israel would sink very low. There would be no one to make a fence, no one to stand in the breach and plead for them. What would the poor of the flock do? So Hashem, in His great mercy and kindness, made shine the light of the merit of the holy tzaddikim, who are hidden away in the heavens, to give light to their children when they need it: someone to awaken the light of mercy for them and to shine for them out of the darkness. As Dovid HaMelech said, “You did a deed in their days, in days of old”:¹¹ all the deeds and the good You did in their days come from days of old, in the merit of the early ones. They are the tzaddikim's inheritance to their children's children, for when they need it. This is “it lay with the seal of the Kohen Gadol”: it lay in the merit of Aharon, the great Kohen, all of whose holy thoughts were for Hashem alone.

23a“And it held only enough to light for one night, and a miracle (nes) was done with it.” As the holy Arizal writes, nes (נס) hints at the union of Mah (מה) and Adnus (אדני).¹² The holy sefarim explain it this way: when a miracle happens, people wonder and ask one another, “Mah zos, what is this?” And the answer is Adnus: there is a Master over all deeds, Who works wonders. This is what the lighting of the Menorah won for them. The Holy One, blessed be He, lit up their eyes and their hearts to understand and to know the true knowledge, that there is a Master of the world, and He gave them a pure mind to think holy thoughts: that He brings all beings into being and causes all causes.

23bAnd afterward they were granted the pleasant light, to purity of mind and to holy thoughts, so that they could draw down and bestow an abundance of life and wisdom. This was the heart of their joy, a joy “exceeding in dignity and exceeding in power,” for the Jewish soul is made whole above all through purity of thought and of mind. As the verse says, “More than all that you guard, guard your heart,” more than all the limbs you guard, “for from it are the sources of life.”¹³ And as the holy Arizal writes, the secret of the head-tefillin is the union of Ehyeh, the Four-Letter Name and Ehyeh, whose numerical value is chaim, life.¹⁴ The head stands for the brain, the higher mind; it draws life into the brain as a soul, and bestows an abundance of holy life on the mitzvos and deeds done for Hashem, so that they will be alive. And the union of the Four-Letter Name with Ehyeh is the third bond of the three unions whose sum is the value of ner (נר), lamp.¹⁵

24There is clear proof of all this, that the Jewish soul is made whole above all by guarding the mind and thought: the accursed Greeks aimed only at defiling thought. They did not turn to any of the precious and splendid things in the Beis HaMikdash; they only “defiled all the oils.” This is what Dovid HaMelech meant: “From my enemies You make me wise.”¹⁶ From the very fact that my enemies pursued this and wanted to stop me from doing this mitzvah, I grow wise and see that it is Your will and Your desire, and that this mitzvah is precious in Your eyes.

25a“Your word is a lamp to my feet”:¹⁷ the mitzvah itself is “a light to my path.” We know that the lighting of the Chanukah lights stands for great and wondrous unions, reaching to the very highest heights. Yet we do the mitzvah without knowledge, for “there is none among us who knows how much,”¹⁸ and we act with the deed of our hands alone. We have no one who can make the unions whose sum is ner. Even so, we have our faith, a simple faith, in the spirit of “and Your faithfulness in the nights,”¹⁹ that is, through the mitzvah we do at night. And we have “count the stars” [the call that led Avraham to believe],²⁰ for the lighting of the Chanukah lights is one of the mitzvos that stand at the height of the world.²¹ As the holy Arizal writes, Sarah's words chamasi alecha (חמסי עליך), “my wrong be upon you,” are formed from the initials of Chanukah (ח), milah (מ) and sukkah (ס).²² And since these lights are done at night, we will be granted the light of the eyes.

25bThe same lies hidden in Chazal's saying that the time for the Chanukah light is “until the foot (regel) is gone from the marketplace.”²³ The holy Arizal wrote kavanos, mystical intentions, and Divine Names on this: the time lasts until the light called regel is gone from the “marketplace,” which stands for the worlds.²⁴ But in a simple way, we may say that “until the foot is gone from the marketplace” speaks of the simple people of the treasured nation, who stand in the marketplace. Chazal hint at this too in saying, “It is a mitzvah to place it at the entrance of one's house, on the outside”:²⁵ the light of Chanukah reaches even those who stand outside, in the marketplace. They do not grasp or feel the holiness and the bright lights; they only believe, with a simple and complete faith, in the Oneness and the existence of Hashem. And faith without knowledge is called “feet,” as is known. In their time of trouble and in their lowest state, they believe that they have not been sent far from “the light of the King's face, which is life,”²⁶ and that they are still joined and bound to “the cord of His inheritance,”²⁷ Hashem's own portion, for the sparks of the flames of fire have not yet gone out. They are granted the light of the eyes, in the spirit of “For You light my lamp; Hashem my God illuminates my darkness.”²⁸