Hannukah

This might be rather long. Bear with me. Hannukah is not a straightforward holiday at all, reflecting deeply ambivalent traditional Jewish views toward Greece and its culture.
On the one hand, there is respect. Yavan, the eponymous biblical ancestor of Greece, is seen as the greatest inheritor of the blessing of Yaphet, Noach's son, wherein it is prophesied yapht Elokim l'Yaphet (God will enlarge-materially/enlarge-intellectually/beautify Yaphet). Rav Hirsch takes that further, seeing the Greeks as some sort of partner with the Jews, preparing the way for the second portion of the prophecy, that God/Yaphet/that-which-God-bestows-on-Yaphet will dwell in the tents of Shem. Sorry for the slashes, Hebrew is hard to translate. The wisdom of the Greeks is acknowledged, at least with regard to observable matters; on at least one occasion, the rabbis of the Talmud acknowledge that the Greek view seems superior to their own. Perhaps most astonishingly, Greek is said to be the only language other than Hebrew that can be used to write a kosher sefer Torah.
And yet, there is the other hand. Greece is one of the four empires of oppression, putting the imposition of Greek culture and law on a par with outright slaughter of the entire nation as threatened by Persia in the Purim story, or with the destruction of the Beit HaMikdosh as executed by Babylon and Rome (with distinctions between them that I won't go into now; maybe a future post can compare the rest of the empires). Of the four, Greece is characterized in the vision of Daniel by a four-headed, four-winged leopard signifying its particular ferocity and that it will cover the entire world. Fierce and world-spanning even in comparison to Rome, mind you. In the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, Greece is the copper belly, loins, and thighs of the statue. I haven't been able to find a satisfying explanation of that symbolism, so I won't really address it, but feel free to speak up if you see a way that it fits. Most relevant to Hannukah, in the second verse of bereishit, Greece is identified with choshech, darkness.
How can we reconcile these views? First, I think it is important to note that Hannukah was more a civil war amongst the Jews with Greek involvement than a simple revolution. The Greeks did not interfere with Jewish religious practices until the Hellenized Jews asked them to. So, the struggle and the victory was not really against the Seleucid empire, it was against something wrong with the Jewish people. Surely, though, if Greek culture and wisdom are good things in themselves, they are also good for the Jews, no? Here, I would like to bring in Rav Matis Weinberg, who wrote about the connection between the Hannukah story and the two weekly Torah portions that can be read therein. Rachel and her sons, especially Yoseph, are traditionally associated with the material world, wealth, and aesthetic beauty, just like the Yavan. According to a number of commentators, this is the real reason that the brothers sell Yoseph into slavery. Simple jealousy and hatred are seen as such severe sins that they would disqualify one from founding and leading a tribe in Israel, so there are many attempts to discern other motives. According to this view, the brothers are concerned that Yoseph's concern with such worldly matters would poison the Jewish people, especially if he were put in a position of leadership as Yaakov seemed to plan. However, they were clearly mistaken. The dangers that they see in his future all fall on Yehuda, their chosen alternate, rather than on Yoseph. Promiscuity: compare Yoseph's conduct with eishet Potiphar to Yehuda's with Tamar. Intermarriage: according to the midrash, Asenat is in fact Jewish, Dina's daughter by Shechem who followed Yoseph to Egypt, whereas Yehuda clearly marries a Canaanite. Materialism: Yoseph is noted for his scrupulous honesty handling enormous wealth, whereas Yehuda's wife is only identified as the daughter of his business partner, implying that he married for business concerns. For those who were worried, have no fear, Yehuda will redeem himself next week. The parshiyot therefore serve to avoid over-learning the lessons of the holiday, just as we read Yeshayahu's denunciation of hypocritical fasting and prayer on Yom Kippur and Kohelet's denigration of celebration on Sukkot. However, this is a call for balance and moderation, not negation of the main point. Compare Yoseph to that other Jewish interpreter of dreams who rose to power over a foreign land, Daniel. Here, we see a reversal. The descendants of Yoseph have gone confirmed the brothers' fears about their materialistic, assimilating, community-destroying tendencies, breaking the bulk of the tribes off into the northern kingdom, leading them to idolatry and sin, and completely disappearing in their exile; whereas Daniel, the descendant of Yehuda, has found the balance point that eluded his ancestor in last week's paresha and mirrors Yoseph almost exactly in holding fast to his values despite integrating deeply with Babylonian society, thereby saving the Jewish people.
How does all this help us understand why Greece is darkness and Hannukah is light? Here, I turn to Rav Zadok HaKohen Rabinowitz, a chassidic rabbi from Poland whose writings I have never read and am therefore probably mischaracterizing. Greece is not inherently darkness, contrasted with Jewish light. Rather, Yavan is meant to bring light and beauty to the world, but Greece as an empire was not fulfilling its function. To function correctly, Greek aesthetics, reason, and materialism must be in service to the moral teachings that they are not equipped to provide. Yaphet must dwell in the tents of Shem, ancestor of the Jews. When balance, order, and priorities are lost, the potential for good becomes evil. Darkness is the absence of light, not a light-sucking black cloud. When the Hashmonayim revolted, they were rectifying Greece, not destroying it. The last bit of pure oil that they found was the kernel of what Greece ought to have been all along, before they corrupted the bulk of their light-giving potential and went dark. According to Rav Zadok, it was only in the aftermath of Hannukah that the oral law was able to reach its full flowering, davka (specifically/only) because of Greek influence.
This is too long to push it too much further, but if you are interested and have access, check out Rav Hirsch's analysis of the Menorah in paresha Terumah. He connects it to ruach (spirit), and if we look at Shem, Yaphet, and Ham as corresponding to neshama, ruach, and nefesh respectively, then that dovetails nicely with my reading, and provides a lot of detail about what Yavan's proper role might be. But wait! that Menorah has seven branches, we are dealing with eight (the shamesh davka doesn't count, that's why it's there). Six (not mentioned, but makes seven and eight easier to explain) represents expansion in three dimensional space, right-left-forward-backward-up-down, ie material completion. Seven adds the center point, signifying the spiritual component allowing true completion, as seen in Shabbat among other places. Eight thus represents transcendence, going beyond the bounds of nature, as seen in brit milah, shemini atzeret, and other places. When Yavan is brought into the tent of Shem, when his spiritual gifts and capacities are sanctified such that we can even write a sefer Torah in Greek, there is something of that same covenantal transcendence.

Sorry for the length and disorder, hopefully that made sense anyway. Some of it may be building on or toward something that I thought about but forgot to include or left or for space purposes, but I don't expect to have time to edit properly before Hannukah, so if it doesn't make sense, ask.

Not too much news around here since last post. We had a wonderful wedding Thursday night, on a hill overlooking the scenic and historic town of Yericho. Among the honorees were Rav Matis Weinberg, mentioned above, and the chief rabbi of Sweden. I spent Shabbat with some Rutgers alumni, including an old daf yomi chaver. Did some experimental research into Jerusalem geography on the way back, and the results briefly had me off the derech, but I wasn't too late for D&D. There was a tiyul today to Ir David, but I woke up an hour after they left, so that gave me time to write way too much about Hannukah instead.

Happy Hannukah and Thanksgiving and any other celebrations you may or may not practice! Even if you aren't celebrating at all, happy days stam!

Bavel

Sorry for the long hiatus. It can be hard to find time to write between study and sleeping and... that's pretty much it, actually. I'll probably get something up about Hanukah soonish. Any topics of particular interest for subsequent posts?

I recently read the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, one of our earliest sources for the line of transmission of the Torah Shebaal Peh (oral law), and it has left me with a lot of questions, mostly about the Babylonian community prior to the Amoraic period (when the gemara was written).

Here is what I know about it: while there may have been some presence earlier, the bulk of the community formed through a series of exiles in the early 6th century BCE, mostly of the educated populace and political class. In exile, they prospered, and although they were allowed to return after the Persians conquered Babylon in 538 BCE, most did not. As far as I can tell from Rav Sherira Gaon, it seems that the centre of Jewish scholarship may have stayed there, despite the departure of the anshei haknesset hagedola (men of the great assembly). He claims that most of the zugot (pairs, leading scholars of the proto-Mishnaic era) were Babylonians who made aliya to lead the court in Jerusalem. It is possible that there were not great schools in Eretz Yisrael until Hillel and Shammai, last of the zugot, founded their academies. For the next two hundred years or so, the Babylonian centre is clearly secondary, but not entirely quiescent. He describes activity somewhat parallel to the compilation of the mishna and tosefta going on in Bavel, with the baraita collection of Mar Shmuel being of comparable quality to the tosefta (if you need a glossary for that sentence, skip it for now, ask me later). Philo describes it as large and wealthy, but doesn't say much.

So, basically I am frustrated by the paucity of sources. I suppose I would mainly focus on three categories of ignorance. First, we have none of the output of that time, and we don't even know what is missing (except, I suppose, the baraitot of Mar Shmuel and the mishna of Rav Nissim). Presumably, a centre of scholarship of that scale and duration produced a lot of important Torah, and it would be nice to have access to some of it. Second, I would like to know something about the cultural exchange that occurred there with non-Jews. Comparisons of Judaism to Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are pretty much in their infancy, as though the only significant point of contact with the rest of the world was the western one with Greece and Rome. Third, the political situation was quite interesting. Before Hanukah time, Mesopotamia was one of the most important provinces of the Seleucid Empire, the Syro-Greek antagonists in Judea, and right around then it passed into Arsacid hands, a local Persian dynasty that ultimately split the Seleucids with Rome. What degree of contact was there between the Jewish communities in this time of flux and revolution? Were the Jews of Bavel also oppressed by the Greeks? Did they have a role in the end of Seleucid power there?

Anyway, if anyone is interested in a career in archaeology and looking for a period to study, keep it in mind. Also interested in wild, groundless speculation, if there is any on offer.

Yeshiva life goes on. We had a shabbaton down south a couple weeks ago, which was very nice. Lovely hiking, Sephardic food. I found out that hail is surprisingly painful, and its aftermath is surreal on a warm, sunny afternoon in a desert town with piles of ice lying here and there. I also got to play a bunch of chess and go, which was enormous fun.
One of the rabbis' sons was married, so I got to see a Sephardic wedding. The dancing was very confusing. They seemed to be dancing in concentric circles more or less like Ashkenazim, albeit with different rhythm and footwork, but the circles ended up not being closed or concentric or stable in any way, and I kept finding myself on the edge of the dance floor and no longer holding hands with anyone no matter where I started or what I did. So I enjoyed the wine and called it a night.
Thursday, a few of us (mostly D&D crew) went to a medieval festival in the old city. Started off underwhelming, cheesy costumes and not much use of the fantastic medieval scenery, but there were a couple parts that really tugged at my heartstrings. There was a craft fair, and the potter there reminded me of my late teacher, Ursula Kaplowitz. In terms of midot (character traits), I can't think of anyone else outside my family who had a greater impact on me, modelling patience and kindness like a saint with every student, no matter how rambunctious or inattentive. Then there was a station with music and space for dancing, and I had a hard time with that, too, but in a good way. Basically, I have to get married. If they had played a waltz, I might have started crying.