The thirteenth "room" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Thursday, 2 Tevet, seventh day of Chanukah, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, parshas Mikeitz; since it is Thursday, one studies the fifth aliyah with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, on the 2nd of the month, from chapter 10 through chapter 17 inclusive.
Tanya, still in chapter 4, from the words " velachen nimshelah" until the words "hamilah umitzvoseha".
We already learned two days ago about the meaning of Chanukah, and the previous time the Rebbe spoke about the meaning of Chanukah more in the way of mussar and derush — what caused the Jews to fall into things that were not good and to connect with the Greeks, as the Rebbe detailed in the previous teaching. This time we move forward and learn the meaning of Chanukah according to Chassidus: how the teachings of Chassidus explain to us the meaning of Chanukah and the miracle of Chanukah — what the Greeks wanted, and how we merited, thank G-d, to overcome the matter.
The source from which the Rebbe takes the teaching, as he himself notes, is a maamar of the Rebbe Rayatz, dibbur-hamaschil "Mai Chanukah" (What is Chanukah) from the year 5701. The Rebbe took several lines from one place in the maamar and a passage from the end, joined them together, and incorporated them into the saying before us. Let us read the text.
What was the war of the Greeks about? The Rebbe quotes from what we say in "Al HaNissim," the addition for Chanukah, "Bimei Matisyahu": what exactly did the Greeks want? "To make them forget Your Torah and to force them to transgress the statutes of Your will." In this sentence, as we shall soon see in detail, lies the entire secret of what the war of the Greeks against the Jews truly was, and this idea was repeated by the Rebbe over the years many times with interesting emphases.
Let us first state the point of emphasis, and then the saying itself will also be understood. The Rebbe is precise — and this is ultimately alluded to as well in the maamar of the Rebbe Rayatz — that it does not say "to make them forget the Torah," but rather "to make them forget Your Torah." The precision lies in that they did not want to uproot the very study of Torah, for the study of Torah itself contains logic and intellect, and even fascinating intellect, as it is said of the Torah "for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations"; even the Greeks recognized the profound intellect within the Torah. Rather, they knew that Jews study Torah with holiness, out of a recognition that this is not human intellect but Divine intellect — "Your Torah," the Torah of the Holy One, blessed be He. Hence the emphasis: not "to make them forget Torah," but "to make them forget" that it is "Your Torah."
The same applies to the mitzvot — "ulha'aviram meichukei retzonecha" (to make them forsake the statutes of Your will). There are two points of emphasis here. First, as is known, there are mitzvot called "mishpatim" or "eidot," which are mitzvot grasped by logic and reason; and to these mitzvot, which are comprehensible to the intellect, the Greeks did not have much opposition, since intellectual matters align with them. What disturbed them primarily was the observance of the "chukim" — an observance that transcends human reason. Hence the precise wording "leha'aviram meichukei": above all they wished to uproot the chukim from us, the part that is above reason and comprehension.
And there is an addition — the word "Retzoncha" ("Your will"), which comes to emphasize two things: a) that even regarding mishpatim and eidus, the rational mitzvos to which they seemingly agreed, the truth is that a Jew's approach is that these too he fulfills because the Holy One, blessed be He, willed it so; and when they see that a Jew fulfills them because it is Hashem's will, they are no longer willing that he fulfill even the rational mitzvos, since he connects them to the Divine will. b) Moreover, even chukim they could, in a certain respect, agree that we fulfill — for it is possible to fulfill a chok even without understanding, relying on the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, has understanding in the matter; "I still do not understand, but at least someone understands, and I am not doing anything incomprehensible." But the true approach of a Jew must be: "I fulfill this not because there is some understanding of the matter in a hidden place — there is no understanding at all, neither here nor there, in any place; the only reason I fulfill it is because such is Your will, because it is Hashem's will." This is what disturbed the Greeks, and this is the emphasis in the sentence.
Let us continue reading: "as expressed," and as is known from the wording of the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah, chapter 16), that the Greeks said, "Write for yourselves on the horn of the ox that you have no portion in the God of Israel." The complete wording appears in the Rebbe's maamar, and here the Rebbe merely abbreviated it. The plain meaning of the matter: that you should write in a revealed and publicized manner everywhere, even on the horns of your oxen, that you have no portion in the God of Israel. They sought to uproot entirely the Jew's connection to holiness, to Godliness, and to the Holy One, blessed be He.
In this matter there is an interesting emphasis of the Alter Rebbe in "Torah Or": the ox is one of the four faces of the Supernal Chariot — "the face of an ox"; the souls of the gentiles also receive from the ox, but from its externality, from the "horns and hooves," which are the waste of the ox, whereas the Jews receive from its innerness. The Greeks were envious of the Jews and said: "Write for yourselves upon the horn of the ox" — you too should receive from the horn, from the externality — "and you have no portion in the God of Israel," meaning you shall not receive from the innerness. Through this they sought to uproot us from our inner connection.
And as he goes on to detail: the entire war was against Elokus and against kedushah. They did not mind that Jews would study Torah, and they did not mind that Jews would fulfill mitzvos — the mishpatim and eidus, as mentioned, are rational commandments, and they had no problem with their being observed — so long as one would not mention that this is the Torah of Hashem. If you study Torah, study, but do not mention that this is "Your Torah," and that the mitzvos are "the statutes of Your will" — that the mitzvos are decrees of Hashem's will. This may not be mentioned; not to mention the Elokus within the Torah and within the mitzvos.
Therefore the Rebbe brings in Likkutei Sichos that the miracle of Chanukah was specifically in the lights of the Menorah. Why was the miracle specifically in this, when the Greeks defiled the entire Beis HaMikdash — the Mizbe'ach and other things? Rather, light is a symbol of something Divine and spiritual; when one wishes to express a spiritual matter, one says "light," and this was also the way of the Mekubalim, who, when they wished to express a Divine revelation, called it "light." Light is the symbol of Elokus, and therefore the miracle was in light — for the entire war was against the Divine matter, and consequently the miracle too was in the Divine matter.
What was the sequence of events? In one of the notes, the Rebbe addresses this question, for it is related that they indeed prevented the fulfillment of mitzvos in the literal sense, and did not merely wage war against Godliness. There are two possibilities in this: One possibility — that they began with causing the forgetting of Godliness, and from this it evolved that they also prevented the actual fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos, since they understood that in every matter the Jews prepare the vessel for Godliness. And one could say the opposite — that they began with preventing the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos, and at first their war was against the technical fulfillment, and from there they progressed to a deeper war, to uproot entirely our connection to holiness and to Godliness. There are two possibilities to say what the point was at which they began and where they arrived.
In any case, this is the main and inner idea of Chanukah: Chanukah expresses and emphasizes the Jew's connection to the Holy One, blessed be He, to Godliness, to holiness, and to Torah and mitzvos — in an inner and true manner.