Chanukah and Shimon HaTzadik

^{Chanukah 5776/2015}

Chanukah

Rabbi Jeffrey Fox

Rosh Yeshiva

The rabbis of the Talmud do something shocking. They choose to shift the focus of the Chanukkah Holiday away from a miraculous military victory of the few over the many towards the more spiritual miracle of the oil. This dichotomy is still preserved within the rabbinic canon as the text we recite as part of the amida and birkat ha-mazon focuses primarily on the war, while the Talmudic passage in Masechet Shabbat is about the miracle of the one cruise of oil lasting for eight days.

The Maharal, in his masterful commentary on the narratives of the Gemara wrote:

Here the Maharal is aware of the shift the Rabbis made and explains simply the miracle of the oil was meant as reminder that the military victory was itself miraculous as well. Perhaps people would have been tempted to dismiss the military victory as one of strategy or preparation; says the Maharal the oil reminds us the war itself was only won with divine assistance.

I would like to offer a different approach to the rabbinic decision to make Chanukkah about light. Here is the classic passage from Masechet Shabbat that tells the story with which we are all familiar:

Given that the Rabbis understood the military victory to be miraculous, what value is there in adding another miracle into the story? Many answers have been offered to this question. Some focus on a matters of history and others remind us of the political enmity between the Rabbis and the Maccabees. I would like to offer a different approach that shifts away from these concerns and forces us to think about more fundamental issues.

Chanukkah celebrates the victory of a small group of Jews over the Seleucid empire. It reminds us we can defeat Greece as well as Greek culture. The Rabbis tell of another encounter with Greek culture that took place well before the time of the Maccabees. In order to understand its meeting we need to meet a great man known as Shimon ha-Tzadik.

We are familiar with Shimon ha-Tzadik from the second Mishna of Pirkei Avot where we learn what has become the mission of every synagogue in America. He teaches us that the world rests on three pillars - תורה, עבודה וגמילות חסדים - Torah study, service (worship) and acts of loving kindness. What is more interesting to me is that he is introduced in this Mishna as - משיירי אנשי כנסת הגדולה - of the final remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly.

That means he may have known people to whom we relate as prophets. Shimon ha-Tzadik, in this telling, represents the transition from prophetic Judaism to Rabbinic Judaism. The Gemara in Masechet Yoma tells a fascinating story about Shimon’s encounter with Alexander the Great. We learn that the Samaritans convinced Alexander that the Jews in the Temple in Jerusalem are planning to rebel. They lead Alexander to Jerusalem with the intention of destroying the Temple. Shimon learns of the plan and he leaves the city wearing his priestly garments, in violation of Halakha, to greet Alexander as he arrives in Jerusalem.

When Alexander arrives he dismounts his horse and bows before Shimon. The Samaritans are shocked, and the following conversation ensues, as recorded in Massechet Yoma:

What I would like to extract from this story is that Shimon was able to defeat Alexander. Athens was on its way to Jerusalem and Jerusalem emerged victorious. This is a common trope in Jewish writings. It appears in numerous places in the writing of Rav Shlomo Wolbe, Rav Shimshon David Pincus and Rav Noach Bersovsky.

How were the Jewish People impacted by the coming of Alexander to Israel? The Midrash makes a radical claim about what happened when Alexander arrived:

Shimon may have been able to best Alexander in that fateful encounter, but the coming of Alexander wrought a fundamental change in the history of the Jewish People - prophesy was brought to an end. As Hellenism spread over the Land, prophecy was lost. The same Shimon who saved the Temple from the onslaught of Alexander and the Samaritans was also responsible for this shift. In the rabbinic view the same man who was of the “final remnants of the Men of the Great Assembly”, who may very well have known Chaggai, Zecharya or Melachi, the concluding prophets, also brought prophecy to its end.

What does it mean that the coming of Alexander brought an end to prophecy? What the Rabbis may be saying is that we now have a new way to access the divine word. Sadly, we no longer hear the voice of God from heaven, but we can still access the divine will through the application of the tools of human reason to God’s Torah. It is this process of the unfolding of Halakha that grants us the access that was taken away.

In some small way, the Rabbis are telling us that we needed Greek rational thinking to get to this next stage of Jewish life. Shimon defeated Alexander, but he also learned something that would become an essential method for the understanding of God’s commands in our life. Jerusalem may have defeated Athens, but Jerusalem would never be the same.

In fact, when you look at Rambam’s commentary on Avot 1:2, something surprising emerges:

In Rav Kapach’s Hebrew translation of Rambam’s commentary on the Mishna we see something startling. Rambam says when Shimon ha-Tzadik uses the word “Torah” what he means is המדע - Greek philosophy. For Rambam the Arabic term אלעלם - el-’alam - refers to the philosophy of his day. In Rambam’s read Shimon may have defeated Alexander, but the Greek philosophy that Alexander brought to Jerusalem became part of the Torah. What Shimon was able to do was to encounter the world and take the best that it has to offer and appropriate those ideas into Jewish life.

Chanukkah celebrates the ability to engage the world and find the aspects of modernity that are meant to be incorporated into our lives. What then, does the story of Shimon have to do with the miracle of light? There is one last piece of the puzzle. Shimon was the High Priest during the second Temple. We know the office High Priest was not so prestigious during the Second Temple, however, Shimon was exception:

Shimon served as the High Priest for forty years. Longer than any other High Priest of the second Temple. And finally we are told:

For the forty years of Shimon’s service as High Priest the western candle remained lit. If you thought one cruise of oil lasting for eight days was a miracle, imagine one candle lasting for forty years! Perhaps when the rabbis of the talmud shifted away from the miracle of the war and towards the miracle of the oil, what they meant to do was move our attention back a few generations to another miraculous candle?

When we read about the small cruise of oil, I think we are meant to be reminded of Shimon ha-Tzadik and his momentous encounter with Alexander. The Rabbis are pointing us in another direction in an ever so subtle fashion so we can put together all these bread crumbs and gain a deeper insight into the celebration of Chanukkah.

The victory of Matityahu and the Maccabees was short lived; but Alexander and Shimon ha-Tzadik’s meeting is felt in every generation. After all, that is the challenge of living in modernity - going out of one’s comfort zone to greet the surrounding culture, appropriating the best the world has to offer, while maintaining a commitment to core Jewish values. Shimon left the walls of Jerusalem and put himself at great risk. Would he be able to overcome the destruction and seduction of Alexander? Thank God, Shimon was successful and we are the beneficiaries of that moment.

This year, when you light your Chanukah candles and share the story of the cruise of oil with your family, take a moment to thank God for the blessings and challenges of modernity. We live in a world that has so much to offer and, at the same time, can be so destructive. May we be granted the wisdom of Shimon ha-Tzadik to understand which values of the 21st century are meant to be part of Torah.