THE BLIND HAVE DEEPER INSIGHT
Adapted from Rabbi Aaron Lopiansky’s talk
I am so grateful to the readership of TableTalk as you provide me the opportunity of ‘pirsumei nisa’ on this beautiful holiday of Chanuka. In light of the holiday I wish to dedicate this thought to Chanukah rather than to this week’s Parsha, Mikeitz.
Chanukah celebrates our survival and ultimate triumph over the threat of assimilation into the Greek culture. Although we achieved both military and political victories against the Greeks, it is the religious victory that we celebrate. The reason for this is because the criteria of being worthy of establishing a holiday on our calendar is that the event must be an historically alter-ing event. For example, the Exodus transformed us into a people. The receiving of the Torah gave definition to our mission as a people and so on.
We must therefore ask ourselves in what way did Chanukah alter the history of our people. To do that let us appreciate what challenge we faced against the Greeks and how we over-came it.
The Greeks recognized that our destiny was tied to our past, to Avraham, to Yitzchok and to Yaakov. It was built upon the undying tradition that every generation passed on to the subse-quent generation. The Greeks therefore planned to create a gap in this tradition and break one link which would bring down our people and the destiny of our people would become an unfulfilled dream. To accomplish this, they imposed decrees that were intended to create such a gap. These included the prohibition of Torah study, Shabbos, bris milah and observing our calendar. In addition to these decrees, there was widespread assimilation that was occur-ring and our Torah was quickly becoming forgotten. In fact, until this period of time there were no disagreements in our Oral Tradition. Only once the Greeks penetrated our culture did forgetfulness and lack of clarity set it.
The question is how did we survive? How did we maintain our tradition if the integrity of our unbroken tradition was compromised? Our Sages teach us that after the death of Moshe, over 1000 years earlier we also lost part of our tradition and 3000 halachos were lost. Moshe was no longer with us and there was no one left who could go back to HaShem and retrieve them. Our Sages teach us that they were brought back through ‘pilpulo shel Torah’. What is pilpul of Torah?
The Torah was written by HaShem and as such it carries infinite wisdom which can be extracted if properly dissected and analyzed. This hard and toilsome intellectual exercise is pilpul of Torah. All of that infinite wisdom is accessible through pilpul. Therefore pilpulo shel To-rah opens up doors of wisdom that actually transcend the Torah that was available before pilpulo shel Torah. This would be parallel to the distinction between the seeing man looking at a bust of the sculpture and the blind man feeling the bust. While the seeing man has perhaps a clearer picture, the blind man picks up on many nuances that the seeing man will never encounter. It may very well be that even if the seeing man would feel the bust he would not pick up on those nuances that only a blind person can.
Behold, The irony! Although the Greeks sought to break the chain from the past and they succeeded in some way, they nevertheless ushered in a new chapter in the development of our people and their relationship to HaShem and His Torah in a more enhanced way.
Now, in the post Hellenist era, the talmid chachum who acquires Torah through his pilpul, that Torah is his Torah. He is the one who discovered it. It can be attributed to him and is his. In the pre-Hellenist era, the talmid chachum who received his Torah from his Rebbe was Moshe Rabbeinu’s Torah. It was not his own discovery.
It is no wonder why Chaunuka is such an important holiday on our calendar. The military victory came and went, the political victory came and went, but the gain we achieved in our relationship to HaShem and His Torah continues to nourish us today, 2,300 years later.
Have a wonderful Shabbos and a most beautiful Chanukah.
Paysach Diskind