רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah
By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky
This week on Thursday night we begin our celebration of Hanukkah. In the
second century BCE, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks),
who tried to force the people of Israel to accept Greek culture and
beliefs instead of mitzvah observance and belief in God. Against
all odds, a small band of faithful but poorly armed Jews, led
by Judah the Maccabee, defeated one of the mightiest armies on
earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and
rededicated it to the service of God. We
then learn in Talmud, Shabbat 21b, that Hanukkah
candles are lit for eight days once the Maccabees discovered the remaining
ritual olive oil that lasted till it was resupplied after those same eight days,
hence, "Nes (נ) Gadol (ג) Haya (ה) Sham (ש)," meaning "a great miracle happened there,"
there being the Temple in Jerusalem.
Regarding miracles, how does the
Jewish, or human eyes see them today? Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev wrote
that there were two different type of miracles, למעלה מהטבע, those that are “supernatural,” and בתוך הטבע,
those that are within “the domain of nature.” Those that are “supernatural” (l’malah mahatevah),
the Berditchever Rabbi tells us, are like the miracles of Egypt when God intervened for the Hebrews freedom, whereas those that happened “within nature”
(b’toch hatevah) are like Hanukkah.
In this case the miracles of Hanukkah are of nature because the Hasmonean battle for their
liberation took place between them and the Seleucids. If it were supernatural then
the intervention between God and another would be the roots of the Hanukkah
miracle. Still the miracle for the Berditchever
Rabbi was understood as God’s design for this small band of priests to
incite a group of people to fight for the rededication of the Holy
Temple.
Miracles within “the domain of nature” are part of our daily prayers. Each morning when we rise before we even get
out of bed we say, “I give
thanks to You O living God for You have restored my soul with mercy. Great is
Your faithfulness,”
acknowledging the miracle of being able to live another day, the heavenly neshoma
(soul) is restored to us daily. During
morning prayers we recite what traditionally is called the Birkot HaShachar (lit. Blessings of the Morning), a set of blessings
thanking God that we got up, all our functions are working and we are grateful,
not taking for granted what comes to us a new each day. However, in the Reform Siddur the Birkot HaShachar
are called the Nissim B’col Yom, which means “miracles of the day.” I think the Reform got it right by looking at
our natural functions and seeing the Divine hand in them, seeing their
partnership as miracles that happen within “the domain of nature.”
In this week’s parsha is it fair to ask if there are hidden
miracles that are happening within nature that have to be looked for as opposed
to being obvious? Can we look at Joseph
being thrown into the pit by his brothers and then him being put in the pit of
prison like a day’s worth of oil that burned for eight days?
A prominent Jewish voice today, Nachum
Sarna, writes that in the episode between Joseph and Potiphar’s wife the hand (or mystery) of God is at work. A reminder,
Joseph was a valued servant who took care of all the affairs of his masters
Potiphar’s home, only to be actively pursued by Potiphar’s wife who wants him
to have sexual relations with him, surely as she wanted with other slaves before
him. While it says in Torah that this
occurred, yom yom, or daily, tradition says that this went on for twelve
months (The Abarbanel on Genesis 39:10).
In the end, Joseph withstood her pursuit and any pressure, eventually escaping
her grasp, unfortunately she claimed that Joseph attacked her which resulted in
him being unjustly thrown in the kings jail instead of being executed (seeTargum Yonatan on Genesis 39:20). Yet,
Sarna sees the bigger picture as well as the personal miracle of Joseph’s victory
of his inner conviction. Sarna makes the
claim that Joseph’s ability to rebuff Potiphar’s wife was based on a social
stigma that would come from the “violation of confidence,” placed upon him by Potiphar
as his slave, “and a sin against God.” We
read in the 10 Words (commandments),לֹא-תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת
רֵעֶךָ
(lo tachmod ay’shet ray’ehcha), “do not covet you neighbor’s wife,” or
do not comment adultery (Ex. 20:14).
Joseph seems to have understood what the 12th century Rabbi Ibn Ezra
said regarding what comes “from
that which God apportioned,” and Joseph knew Potiphar’s wife was not his. Sarna goes on to say that the moral law of
God has “universal applications,” meaning to all people alike, and marital morality was not exclusive to just Jews,
it was embedded within the moral convictions off all humanity since all people are
created in the image of God, or B’tzelem Elohim.
Sarna would further say that
Joseph’s “moral excellence” was God given, meaning that “the sanction of
morality is divine, not social, and the reason this morality is absolute and
not relative.” While it was obvious that
Potiphar’s wife was not concerned about Joseph’s moral conviction, again using
Sarna’ words, since “her tactic is to wear down his [Joseph] resistance by her
relentless importuning.” Likewise, what
might be revealed in nature must be nurtured as well, Joseph had to act on his
conviction just not believe it. As such, regarding how Joseph understood things
Sarna ultimately suggests that Joseph is “the unconscious instrument of God’s
providence and his behavior in the face of temptation demonstrated his
worthiness for that role.” The Kabbalists when they think of the war
between the Maccabees and the Greeks in the Hanukkah story think of the inner
war within a person between the good and bad, the yetzer hara and yetzer
hatov. Joseph fought and internal
war of moral conviction that flew in the face of any sexual promiscuity that
might have existed in other slaves, it was no small feet that Joseph resisted
Potiphar’s wife, itself a miracle to be celebrated.
So, I think we can look at what
Joseph did here as, neis b’toch hatevah, a miracle in the midst of the domain of
nature. But there is another way to
undetand nature here and that is human nature. Human nature for Joseph might
have recklessly sought personal gain. but his divinely fashioned nature reached for a
higher way of being. Are we fashioned with a “moral
excellence,” well Jewish tradition would think so, the ways
of rightness as taught in Torah are embedded within our spiritual DNA, the same Torah that guided Joseph’s
moral choices (Midrash Gen. R. 1:4).
This is a miracle, where "in process" rededicated human nature, aspires to fight against
life’s temptations. Hanukkah is asking
us to rededicate our lives, a rededication to the higher values we seek no
matter where each of us fall on the religious spectrum, driven by mitzvot, social justice or tikkun olam, perhaps all three, not to mention the light of those who have left us that continue to burn brightly to inspire us. Moral conviction is not
a miracle alone, the greater miracle is that it can be acted upon. That is what
Torah teaches; that is what we saw in Joseph; in the end this is what these eight days reminds us of, a Nes (נ)
Gadol (ג) Haya (ה) po (פ)," a “great miracle happened here" today and just not
with the Holy Temple many years ago. This holiday that celebrates the victory of the Hasmonean Priests led
by Judah the Maccabee is not just about the the miracle of lights and goes beyond Hanukkah.
Chag Chanukkah Sameach and Shabbat Shalom
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