פרשת מקץ וענייני חנוכה

This week’s Parsha opens by describing to us Paroh’s dream and his extensive search for an interpretation for that dream.  The Torah continues by telling us Yosef’s satisfactory interpretation of that dream and how the seven skinny cows represented the seven years of famine that were to come.  One of the strange factors in this dream was the fact that the seven skinny cows swallowed the seven fat ones.  It is not the normal bovine behavior for one cow to swallow another and even though Yosef gave an explanation for this action, it still seems like a strange form of expression.  Similarly, it was strange that the skinny cows showed no sign of change after they swallowed the fat ones. 

The Sefas Emes makes a very fascinating observation from these anomalies.  The Sefas Emes says that the episode of the cows is supposed to teach us that in general when one witnesses evil in this world, one finds it almost impossible to see the goodness that exists in that evil and even more so, finds it challenging to see the fact that the hard and “bad” times could only exist if they ultimately had good in them.  By definition, the evil has to have good in it because God allowed it to happen.  Similarly, the bad cows which symbolized the bad years, had (swallowed) within them the “good” years even though they could not be outwardly seen.  The Sefas Emes continues to tell us that when one is successful in viewing the good which lies within, he will eventually be overtaken by that realization of goodness until he gets to the point where there is no evil left in his life because of his positive outlook.  Paroh, who was a superficial individual, and only saw things from their outward appearance was physically unable to see the “good” inside the skinny cows and therefore noticed no change in the outward appearance of the skinny cows even after they swallowed the corpulent ones.  This explains why when the Torah is telling over Paroh’s dream, it omits the detail of the skinny cows showing no outward signs of the swallowing.  The Torah is testifying that Paroh was completely incapable of noticing that there may be something beyond the surface.

The Sefas Emes concludes by explaining Yosef’s interpretation of the dream.  Yosef tells Paroh that the two dreams are really one.  The simple understanding of these words is that the two dreams are repetitive and have the same explanation.  But the Sefas Emes says that Yosef was subtly hinting to Paroh that the bad times that one goes through and the good times “Are really one” – in that the bad in life can only exist because of the fact that it was God’s will, and this fuels it to subsist and without this “goodness” present, it would cease to exist instantaneously.

Truthfully, this concept embodies one of the primary principles of Channuka.  Channuka personifies the fight between Greek wisdom and the Torah’s truth.  The Greek wisdom consists of a thorough study of nature and all of her details such as science and medicine.  But they do not go beyond this point.  Greek wisdom does not attempt to ask “why” things work the way they do, they rather focus on “how” each and every system in this universe works.  They continue to use this technology to increase mankind’s’ comfort level and pleasure.  In a certain respect, this is an extremely superficial way of looking at the world, ignoring the world’s spiritual aspects completely.  This would also explain why Greek wisdom is referred to by our sages as “External Wisdom”.

Similarly, the Maharal explains, this is why the Greeks so desired to spiritually contaminate the oil.  Oil, the Maharal explains, represents the Torah as the verse says, “נר מצוה ותורה אור” .  It seems clear to me that this is referring to the Oral Torah, as we don’t find anywhere that the Greeks had any desire to burn the Sifre Torah of the times.  Why were the Greeks so interested in destroying the oral law, yet had no desire to touch the 5 Books of Moses?  Perhaps we could answer this based on all that we have posited.  The Written Law represented no threat to the יוונים because they agreed that God gave the Jews the Torah many years ago and that the historical events recorded therein are true.  But there is no direct connection remaining between God and His people.  But the Oral Law’s very fabric is based on the premise that there is an ongoing connection between God and His people in which He remains interested in everything they do and all of the decrees that they continue to establish throughout the times in order to uphold His word in each and every generation.  Additionally, when one sees a Jewish sage, one must make the Blessing, “Blessed is the God who bestows wisdom to His people”.  This Blessing clearly implies that the Oral Wisdom can only be acquired through a direct connection between God and His people.

This poses a major threat to their way of life because it implies explicitly that there is more to life that meets the eye and there is constant spiritual activity happening under the sugar coated surface of the physical world. 

This time should be a time of spiritual growth and purification for the Jewish people in which we renew our commitment to this concept of depth and profundity.  They once asked the Kotzker why it is true that when an impure thing touches a pure thing, the pure thing becomes impure and not vice versa?  He answered that impurity is on the surface, and therefore more readily available to contaminate, whereas purity is found deep within, and therefore has no ability to affect something which touches its surface.

May we all merit utilizing the remainder of these holy days to purify ourselves!