Chanukah - You Can Change The World (Ep. 264)

Hi, this is David Eliav-Sklair, and welcome to the David Eliav-Sklair show. Whether you're watching with our friends over at Turning Time, or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts, as always, it's wonderful to have you along. And don't forget, wherever you are watching, to like, subscribe, and comment, and share. share. I'm never going to get this down. And we have a sponsor. Do you ever wish you could enjoy food more without feeling controlled by it? Yeah, all the time. Are you curious why your body's full signals don't always seem to register? No, I don't think about that. I'm too busy eating. Are you looking for a way to stop emotional eating without guilt or shame, without feeling deprived? Yeah, that would work. The Satisfied Self can help. Shoshana Schwartz is an addiction and codependency specialist who's helped over 150 women break free from emotional eating and other self-sabotaging habits. Wow, that is impressive. The Satisfied Self program is Shoshana's signature 12-week journey designed to help women understand the unconscious patterns and beliefs driving your cravings and behavior, so you can reclaim control and feel empowered in your choices. This is not a diet program, and there's no magic to it. It's grounded in solid, research-based EFT tapping techniques, and proven tools from the world of addiction recovery. The Satisfied Self will help you create meaningful, lasting changes, so you can feel in control, more confident, and able to focus on what truly matters to you. The course starts January 6th, so it's right around the corner, and spaces are limited. Obviously, if you're going to do something like this where you're actually going to work on somebody to make serious changes, you can't do this like uh en masse. You have to actually work with people. You can check out the details online. Just look for the satisfiedself.com. The satisfied self is one word, the satisfiedself.com. You'll see it on your screen. If you're looking for a better relationship with food and yourself, the satisfied self is the program you've been waiting for. Um I can personally testify that I know for sure Shoshana for uh I would say close to 40 years, and uh she is good at what she does. And I have to tell you, this is an epidemic. You can Don't believe me? Listen to RFK Jr. Yeah, he'll tell you. There's an epidemic of eating disorders and um and diabetes, later-onset diabetes from being overweight, and all of the health problems that come along with it. And so um if you know, you need help. Um I would urge you to please get in contact with uh Shoshana and see if you can make some serious changes in your life. If not for you, then for your family. If not for your family, then so that you can get married and have a family of your own. So, whatever the case happens to be. Okay. Um this is our Hanukkah show. I put on uh the closest thing I have to a a tie. I know there are novelty Hanukkah ties, but I only have a novelty Pesach tie. I never got a novelty Hanukkah tie. But but it sort of looks like fire, I hope. Anyway, that's the idea. So we're getting ready for Hanukkah and we've talked about it in the past and um I uh I hope I don't repeat myself. I might though cuz I have that way. But I thought what a good way to start by singing some Hanukkah songs. Now, at last time I mentioned that I went to the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County. And we used to have a music class with Seymour Silbermins who was a uh a cantor who used to teach uh and Hank used to teach music to the kids. And I still have his book which I guess they gave out um by Seymour Silbermins with different songs that they would sing. I'm wrong. He didn't write this. This is by uh Harry Coopersmith. Anyway, um so uh so some of these I'm sure you know. Oh Hanukkah oh Hanukkah light the menorah. Let's have a party. We'll all dance the hora. And while we are playing, the candles are burning so low. One that we light for each night of the might of the Maccabees so long ago. So uh this is this is a treasure, let me tell you. It's still good to have that. And um uh I mean, everyone knows dreidel dreidel dreidel, but I don't think that you know all of the words. I have a little dreidel. I made it out of clay, and when it's dry and ready, then dreidel I shall play. Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay, and when it's dry and ready, then dreidel I shall play. It has a lovely body with legs so short and thin, and when it gets all tired, it drops and then I win. Chorus. My dreidel is always playful. It loves to dance and spin. A happy game of dreidel, come play and now let's begin. Uh, if that's not Judaism, I don't know what is. And I guess if you need a symbol of Hanukkah, it is the dreidel. Uh, could be a Hanukkiah. A Hanukkiah, for those of you who are Americans, is uh is of course a menorah. But uh because menorah in modern Hebrew is a light bulb, so we need to differentiate that between that and what we light on Hanukkah, so they call it a Hanukkiah. And um you know, comes with nine little holes there. There is the menorah, and then of course there's the dreidel. The biggest dreidel, you find it all over the place. They have giant inflatable dreidels that people hang up as decorations. They have long strings of dreidels. They have little dreidel um uh um cutouts, I guess, that you would drop on the table at a Hanukkah mesiba as a celebration. They have the good old-fashioned little plastic dreidels. They have wooden dreidels. They have giant dreidels. Now they have electric dreidels that spin and play music as they spin around. S'vivon sov sov sov Hanukkah hag same Hanukkah hag same hag. And they light up and just really amazing things, you know. And of course there are the clever people who know how to spin a dreidel upside down and have a go on its neck. And that's certainly dramatic, but um but the concept of the dreidel um for me uh had a specific uh meaning because I was a kid in the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County and when I was in elementary school, so we had class during Hanukkah. We didn't have off for Hanukkah. Um so they would uh the rabbi would give us all these little plastic dreidels. And we would play with the dreidel, you know. I don't remember if they gave us pennies or we had to bring our own pennies and we would all play dreidel. And uh and it was just everything a kid could ask for. It was a free toy and we didn't have to have class and during class we were allowed to play and it was just you really couldn't ask for more than that, you know. Um we didn't get any treats cuz you have to remember almost nothing had the OU back then. If you had a birthday party in in school, you couldn't bring anything. You went to the office and bought a box of Educator Ice Box cookies and you went around the room and gave each kid one of these like chocolate graham crackers. They were hard and tasteless. It was terrible, but but it was Judaism. So we didn't get any Educator Ice Box cookies, but we did get to play with the dreidel. It was a lot of fun. And everyone knows the rules. And gimel, you get everything. Nun, you get half. I I'm sorry. Hey, you get half. Nun, you get nothing. And shin, you have to put into the pot. So, we could guess gimel was for guddle cuz you got all everything, you know. Hey was for half. Nun was for nothing cuz nun spells nothing, you know. We couldn't figure out quite the way the shin was there, but anyway, this went on for years until one time, maybe I was in fourth grade, uh the rebbe uh gave us our little dreidels. And I raised my hand and I said, "Rebbe, mine's defective. There's no shin on it." And he says, "Well, this is a new and improved dreidel." You know what I'm saying? It comes from Eretz Yisrael. And because the nun gimel shin uh uh hey shin stands for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, there was a great miracle that happened there, meaning in Eretz Yisrael, now we write Nes Gadol Hayah Po, a great miracle happened here. I said, "That's ridiculous. I want my own dreidel back. What what what what what why are we messing with tradition?" He says, "No, it makes sense cuz you never knew what to do with the shin, but you get to pay because you now you have to pay, you see? So, the hey is half and nun is none, you know, and uh and now pay, you pay. So, look how how much better that works out." Anyway, I didn't fall for it. And it bothered me. It bothers me to this day. It's not easy, but you can still find good old-fashioned dreidels with a hey on it. I buy those and I give those to my grandchildren. I'm not going to give them these pay things. Because although I could not formulate this argument when I was in fourth grade, but I do understand that um uh Hanukkah took place in Eretz So, if they had dreidels, then it already said nun gimel shin hey. If there's a source for I'm saying an old source, not a modern source, that the nun gimel shin hey stands for nes gadol haya sham, I haven't found it. If there is a classic source that says we write these letters on it. I know there's classic sources that say the four letters represent the four gullius. I know um that the Bnei Yissachar says that they actually spell out the word goshna, which is a whole discussion itself why, but uh I don't know why you feel like you had to change the shin into a pei just to make things politically correct. In my mind, these things never have legs. They don't stay. When in the 1970s, so the movement to free Soviet Jewry, um I think we worked with SSJ, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, and we would sometimes take busloads of hang kids to the Russian Consulate uh in Long Island, and we would demonstrate outside, and we would chant. So, it was the 1970s. I still remember the chant. 2 4 6 8, open up the iron gate. 2 4 6 8, let my people emigrate. What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now! Svoboda! It's one of the only uh Russian words I know. It means freedom. Um I don't know if the people who worked in the Russian consulate in Long Island were deeply moved by this and sent the memo, "We must release the Jewish Russians. They're demonstrating outside my window and spring screaming 2468, let my people immigrate. We must let them go." But, we did things. Anyway, but there was one thing that I thought was even I as a teenager thought was ridiculous. And that is they said you should add a fourth matzah at your seder for Soviet Jewry, the matzah of hope. And even I understood that this is so totally ridiculous. There's not enough references to freedom in the seder? You don't have the words let my people go already? You don't have the whole thing about the Jews being slaves and becoming free and getting out? Did you have to add something else to fit it in? Falls by the wayside. Um, when I talked about uh once upon a time uh the modern um Israeli holidays of Yom HaZikaron and you know, Yom HaShoah and Yom Ha'atzmaut and I talked about them. Um, the idea of the um moment of silence on Yom HaZikaron, I said, "What What exactly do you accomplish with that?" You know, we Jews don't usually celebrate by being quiet. We celebrate by saying Tehillim or we commemorate by saying Tehillim or or saying something or reaching out and that's by standing silent. That's a goyishe custom, you know? And I asked at the same time, why do you make a special Misheberach for the IDF? Don't we already have it in a chain though? And um And the rub that I was speaking to, who's a very knowledgeable person, he said, Yeah, it doesn't have any meaning anymore. When you do something so often, it loses meaning. You have to make something new. I said, I don't know. A chain has been around for a very, very long time. And if it's lost meaning, maybe you should figure out how to reinvigorate it instead of coming up with something new. Because things that come on that don't have actual significance ends up falling by the wayside. In 1992, I believe it was, Yitzhak Rabin was elected prime minister. And he gave them Ministry of Education, Misrad HaChinuch, to Meretz. Meretz is the left-wing anti-religious party. And before Yom HaShoah, which was a day set aside to commemorate the Holocaust, he says, I think we make a mistake remembering the Holocaust as opposed to every other um suffering of people. Therefore, I think we need to expand the Yom HaShoah to include the Armenian Holocaust and the slavery of the American blacks. And you know, instead of listing a whole bunch of other, you know, tragedies of other people. And I thought to myself, how ironic. One of the people from the parties that would push as hard as they can to move away from traditional religion and create new religious significance already admits after a number of decades has no meaning anymore. And that's always a problem when it comes to creating something. How do you get it to be able to stand? And that's why when it came to Hanukkah, the Gemara says something very interesting. It tells the whole story of Hanukkah, my Hanukkah, and then it says and the next year they established um Hanukkah. So, what's the next year? You just won this unbelievable victory. You liberated the Beit Hamikdash. You lit the menorah and it burned for eight days. Why do you wait till next year for? And the answer is definitely miracles. But is it the type of miracle that has a significance that it should be celebrated for all times? Or is it like the Purim they had in Prague? There was a number of cities in Europe where they had a particular salvation and they made their own particular Purim. None of those are celebrated anymore. At the time, it was recognized as a miracle, but it's not something that is going to stand the test of time. When we celebrate something, it's because it has cosmic consequences. They waited till the next year on the 25th of Kislev to see if they could feel the koach that was manifested by the nes that took place or if that was a one-time event. Cuz there are one-time events that don't represent a truth. E.T. making the bicycle to fly, which was the sign of the Amblin Corporation, lahavdil obviously. So, it's not that bicycles fly. He made it fly this one time, but that doesn't that doesn't become a miracle. Lahavdil, when Yehoshua um was bringing the people across the Yardain, the Jordan River, so the Kohanim walked in with their feet to the river, and it stopped flowing. Didn't split in half cuz that wouldn't really help with a It just kept going up into the air. Had to be a pretty frightening thing to see cuz it just kept flowing up. And after everybody went across, then the river went back. And now the Kohanim are on the wrong side of the river. So, the Aron picked them up and flew them across. So, the Aron doesn't necessarily fly. It was a one-time miracle. It's not something that we commemorate. So, um uh So, there are things that take place that I I I told this idea over from Ever Left. I've told it more than once, so you'll you'll indulge me. It says that if Reuven knew that the Torah had written that he saved Yosef, he would have carried him back on his shoulders. If Aaron knew that when he went to greet Moshe, it said sameach belibo, he would have come with a band. If Boaz knew that it would have been written in the Torah that he gave a seudah to Rus, he would have given her a seudah like Melech. So, what does this mean? They didn't know? They didn't know? If I knew it was going, I would have done it better? I didn't know this was being recorded. I I I've told the story, you know, I was at a bar mitzvah at the kaisel. I'm just about to say krias shma and the video guy comes right on me. I said a krias shma like a Jew throughout history said it before he died. I took away my hand, the camera man had moved on. And my first thought was wasted a perfectly good shma. You know, if you know you're playing for the camera, you know. I said so is that what we were saying over here? That Ruvein and and uh and Boaz and Aaron didn't know that the camera was running, the video was on. You know. Um I I don't usually do well on panels. I'm just not very good. I don't play well with others. It's It's hard for me. And uh and um there was a I was on a panel where each one of us was speaking. It wasn't so much a panel as much it was three speakers. I was speaking and someone snapped a picture of me. I was up on the dais pouring myself a cup of water and I looked like this. They gave me the picture. I used it later in an ad cuz someone asked me to give a share on from burnout. And I said, "Yeah, here's the picture." I didn't know that the camera was on. And you always hear this, you know, you get caught on a hot mic. You know, and uh to be able to to be able to keep up the appearance all the time now that we live where there's always cameras and there's always things recording, there's always things going on. Very difficult. Very difficult. So that's what it was. Ruvein didn't know the camera was running, yeah. True enough, gave three separate terutsam to this, but I still don't know which one that made a deep impression. I mean, I don't want to say which is right which is wrong. It's not for me to second-guess someone where they left. But I said one one I really appreciate. It says that um Abraham was when Yitzchak was born. He was 175 when he died, which means Yitzchak was 75 I would guess during those 75 years Abraham and Yitzchak had many conversations. The Torah records one. Where's the sheep? You are the sheep. Nothing else was significant enough to be recorded in the Torah cuz what's written in the Torah was of tremendous significance. Boaz didn't think he was doing anything of particular significance. He was giving a meal to a poor girl who was related to him. Yeah. Didn't think anything of it. He didn't think that would be significant enough that it would be written in a megillah. Reuben went to save his brother. Why? Cuz he felt he was the oldest and he was going to be held responsible and he wanted to you know His intentions were not necessarily pure, but if he knew that what he was doing was of such significance that the Torah would record it. He didn't realize it was significant. Aaron went to save his brother. He had love in his heart cuz that's how he was. He told him to shave his head and get him a haircut. It's Moshe and Aaron. Didn't think anything of it that I love my brother. Of course I do. Would he have suspected that this was significant enough that it was going to get recorded in the Torah? Well, then if Hashem thinks this is so kosher, I would have done it better. Every one of us goes through things in our day where we do things we don't appreciate the significance. But we do things that have cosmic consequences. We just don't know it. There's a story I may have told it recently, I don't remember, but Rabbi Wine went uh was in Detroit and he met with the editor of I think it's the Detroit Free Press, I think. I forgot what the name of the magazine of the newspaper was. But it was consistently pro-Israel when other people were not pro-Israel. And he went to meet with the editor to thank him on behalf of the Jewish people. And the editor said to him I will always support Israel and the Jewish people. And he says, "Why is that?" He said, "Oh, I'll tell you a story." He says, "There was a Jewish family that had this uh non-Jewish teenager who was working for them as a maid. Her family was poor. And uh the mother basically sent her out to find a job. And this family took her in took nice care of her. They went away before uh the Xmas holiday. And she suddenly realizes, "Oh my goodness, these poor people, they're going to come back Xmas Eve. They don't have any decorations." So she went out and borrowed money and bought them a tree and decorated it. And bought them a big wreath and bought lights and hung them around the house. And she was so proud of herself. Well, December 24th this Jewish couple comes home. They drove past the house three times cuz they didn't realize it was their house. And they come in and they say, "What's this?" And she's beaming and she says, "You know, I realized you wouldn't have a chance to have decorations, so I bought decorations and decorated the house for you." And he says, "This is the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for us. But you know, we're Jewish. We don't celebrate Christmas." She don't? She says, "No. But first of all, I'm going to pay you for the decorations. I'm going to pay you a bonus for putting them up and decorating them. And then I want you to take them all down. We're going to put them in the car and we're going to drive them to your mother and we're going to decorate your mother's house." He says, "This little girl was so moved that they didn't yell at her. They didn't chastise her. Just the opposite. They gave her a bonus and they and they gave her all the decorations, you know." He says, "That woman was my mother." And I think of that Jewish family when I when I look at what we're going to publish in this paper. This Jewish family, when they were taking care of this little, you know, Christian girl, never never imagined that what they were doing was going to have cosmic consequences. An entire town was going to read their newspaper and it was going to give a positive slant because of this kindness. You don't know. You don't know what you do and the significance that it can have. So, there have been many miracles throughout Jewish history. The Maharsha says, "A little oil burning for a long time, big deal. That happens to me every night." I light the oil is enough to burn for an hour, burns the whole night. I mean, that happens to me all the time. I mean, Hanina ben Dosa says uh you know, they said we don't have any oil in the house to light for the for the candles. And he says to use vinegar. He says vinegar doesn't burn. He says the same God who said oil can burn will say vinegar can burn. And they burnt. There's no holiday set up for Hanukkah and Indusa's miracle. A lot of you find a lot of miracles in the Gamara. Tremendous amount of them, but none of them turn into holidays. Cuz they don't represent a force in the universe of a absolute truth that's being revealed. Um the uh and once that happened and the next year came around and they sensed it. I don't know how they sensed it. But they sensed it. So then they uh they turn around and uh then they make Hanukkah. And then they find all the references. The 25th word in the Torah is or. You know, they start to find all kinds of Hanukkah reference. They realized that they finished building the Mishkan in the Midbar on the 25th of Kislev. So it was a day that was meant for dedication. It's just Hashem said to wait till Nissan. And so all these things fell into place. Whereas I don't know anyone who uses a fourth matzah for the matzah of hope for Soviet Jewry. That's gone. I don't know anybody who um uh I mean, you see that the Minister of Education 1992 already said that Yom Yom Hashoah is irrelevant. It's It's a problem when you try to create things and give them meaning and to be to to to build them up into something that does not represent an absolute truth. So, there was a power to Hanukkah. Right? It's it's something that is innate. So, I don't understand why they felt like they had to change the dreidel from a shin to a pay. The dreidel had been there for a very long time. And everybody was very fine with it. And like I say, the miracle took place in show. And apparently during the story they had dreidels. That's the way the story goes. And yet other than the fact that we play with dreidels, I can't think of any significance to dreidels. You don't find it in the davening. Uh you don't find Hilchos dreidel. How long you have to play for, what amount of coins you have to start with, you know, it's a We have we have Hilchos on just about everything. There was this Jewish comedian who said, "You see, it's a good thing that Jews don't have Christmas cuz can you imagine all the Hilchos that'll be associated with a Christmas tree, how high it has to be, how far from the door you have to set it up, what decorations you can use, how many decorations, where it goes?" And he just goes on and on and on, you know, what hours they have to be lit for, when you turn them off, when you turn them on. And he just goes yeah, and he just keeps rattling off like all of these make-believe Hilchos of Christmas, you know. Cuz that's where we go. I don't know any Hilchos dreidel. Haven't found it anywhere. And yet it's it's ubiquitous. Which is a word that most people have no idea what it means. It means it's all over the place. I just pointed out how they have dreidel cookies and they they give out dreidels and they play dreidels and they and they have dreidel decorations and all this kind of stuff. And yet where do you find it having any significance whatsoever. These four letters that are written on the dreidel, which again people like to say is Nes Gadol Hayah Sham, but there's no particular source for that the dreidel to find. So, what's Why is this so important? Now, the Benei Yissachar says that although there is no Hilkhot Dreidel just as there's no Hilkhot Grager, but there should be. You know, gragers should be the gragers I had when I was growing up, which are those little party gragers grager grager You know, when you go to shul and you find someone with a 6-ft wooden GRAGER GOING GRAGER GRAGER GRAGER. THAT PERSON should be removed. He should not be allowed. You know, along with the cap guns. You know, I dove in the shul, you know, and uh it was uh pretty close quarters when I was in these giant places and these kids are shooting off the cap guns and after a while you're dying from the smoke from the explosion with the you know, the the balcony I had to I had to move to get away from it and you close the door cuz you couldn't breathe when he was leaning, you know. And that's besides the people with the air horns, you know, or people coming with pots and spoons and bang on them and it's like, you know. Yeah, there should be Hilkhot Grager, but so I think it's the Benei Yissachar points out that what's the difference between the grager and the dreidel? On the dreidel you spin it from the top and the grager you hold it from the bottom. Because uh Hanukkah was an obvious divine intervention. There was no way the Hasmoneans could have possibly defeated the Greek army. Um in uh the 15 decisive battles of world history from Marathon to Waterloo. That's the sub subtitle. Um written by Sir Edward Creasy in the 1850s. He describes uh the battle between Alexander the Great and Darius the Persian. And he says Alexander's entire army wasn't as big as Darius's right wing. But they won. Cuz that's how powerful a fighting force they were. And here you have the Maccabee brothers. You know? And they're going to go and fight. And they were few against many. And they were weak against strong. And they were These were people sitting in the base medrish. That doesn't That doesn't give you any particular fighting skills. No. It was an open miracle. The hand was on the top. Whereas in Purim, as you all know, the megillah doesn't have Hashem's name in it. Because everything is underneath. It can look like political intrigue. So the hand in the grager goes underneath cuz the hand of Hashem is underneath. He's hidden. Hester Panim. Right? Whereas by Hanukkah, it was like you can't miss this. You can't miss that this is a miracle. And then when you light the menorah and it burns for eight days, like, yeah, that's a wow. So uh So okay. Significance to the to the dreidel in that sense. But like I say, it's not really included in anything. Kids might play with it, but you know, there is there it's brought down that there's a mitzvah to make noise when Haman is mentioned. You know? Is to bang on the table or stamp your feet or something like that to be able to to drown out his name. Yemach shmo u'zichro. But I I can't find any halachic implications of dreidels. So, Reb Yitzchak Isaac Sher gives an interesting insight into why we don't mention the dreidels. Cuz when you read Al Hanisim, it's deceptive. It sounds like um the Greeks came and they defiled the Beit Hamikdash. And then the Hashmonaim rose up and fought fought against them and had a victory and we rededicated the Beit Hamikdash. This the dreidel's missing from the story. Cuz where's the dreidel? The Chazal say that when the Greeks took over, the Jews said, "We can't possibly defeat the Greeks. So, if we want any remnant, we're going to run up into the mountains and hide." And we'll learn Torah up there. And if they heard any of the guards coming, they closed their scrolls They didn't have any books back then. Closed their scrolls. And took out the dreidel. And pretended that they were running a illegal casino up in the mountains and okay. There's been a big fight in the Catskills to bring in gambling. So, I guess they started up in the mountains back back then earlier. And they were like, "Okay, fine." And then when they left, they would put away their dreidels and take out their megillahs. Remember it was in Chofetz Chaim where he did said The irony is today you find during Seder the boys are playing dreidels. And then the rabbi comes along, he hides they hide it and pull out their sefarim. It makes you feel like who won? But but yeah, it's ironic. So, they stayed up there for 3 years. 3 years they stayed up there and they played dreidel. There's no fault. Right? Um If Gusman survived the Holocaust um this uh non-Jewish farmer uh had built a little room under his pig pen. That's where he he spent the war. That's where he was hiding out. As No Tiner on Wulber and others who managed to escape to Switzerland or to any other neutral country. Hey, why aren't you guys out there fighting? You know, can't they fight the Germans? People who ran away and hid and became survivors, you know. What do you What do you expect them to do? Go out and fight the Nazis? Even the partisans would kill them. They kill the Jews and invite the Jews in to join them, you know. It was It was terrible. So, survive. That was it. You read stories of people survived the Holocaust. That's what they say. Survive. Just try to lay long last long enough until liberation. No shame in that. Wait till the Americans get here. Wait till till um the the Nazis are defeated. Just hold on until then. That's what they were doing. They knew Hashem would not forgive forget us. So, eventually Antiochus would die. They would be defeated by another power. Somebody else would take over. Eventually, this will pass. You know. We Jews have learned to live our lives this way. I'll never forget when Yitzhak Shamir was on Meet the Press when he was Prime Minister. And it was during the They were pushing the Madrid Accords and to uh get people to you know, uh sign this agreement and give this away, etc. And he kept explaining why it wouldn't work. The Arabs have not changed their position. They still hate the Jews. They teach their children to hate the Jews. There's no There's no basis for um the freedom. And And the interviewer kept saying, "Yeah, but what about this? What about that? What about this?" And each thing Shamir showed why it wouldn't work. And finally, he said, "So, what are you going to do?" And he said, "We Jews are very patient people. We'll wait till something changes in the Arabs." But when they started the Oslo Accords, the attitude was better something than nothing. I don't believe that history has borne that out to be true. Just because you can't think of a good option doesn't make a bad option a good option. Sometimes, you wait. And so, the Jews were hiding up the mountains. They knew they couldn't defeat the Greeks. And uh and they would just wait up there. Then no fault. If they waited up there until uh Kadosh Baruchu made some sort of political intrigue to save them. This much is clear. We would never have the holiday of Hanukkah. Eventually, courage would come and grant them uh you know, uh uh rights of freedom, allow them to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. Eventually, the tide would change. It wouldn't be wouldn't be a Hanukkah. Hanukkah came about because a small group of fanatics said, "We're going to fight the Greeks, even though we know we don't stand a chance. But at least let the world see that there are still Jews willing to die for what they believe in." And there was a precedent. Precedent was Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Cuz three people were chosen by each nation to bow down to this giant statue. And Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah asked what should we do and their advice they were given was run away and hide until this is over. Exactly what the people did during the time of the Greeks in time of Antiochus. And they said, "Can we go and refuse to bow down and be thrown into the furnace?" Can we do that? And they said, "You're allowed to. It's not suicide. But uh but uh it says the kashrut newsletter likes to say not advised. So they went and they were thrown into the furnace and they miraculously survived. To make a kiddush Hashem. Hananiah and Mishael said, "We're not expecting a miracle. We're going to go out, we're going to fight. And we're probably going to get killed. But we're going to show people there are still Jews willing to die for what they believe in. I heard this story many years ago. I don't know if it's true. Um but I heard it repeated a number of times. The Baal Shem Tov asked the Rebbe who he was going to spend all of his life with. And he sends him to a house of this guy and he looks through the window and he sees this enormously fat person surrounded with food and he just keeps eating and eating. And he only takes a break to go to sleep, buy more food, and just keeps eating and getting larger and larger. So the Baal Shem Tov of course can't figure this out. And he says to the guy, "Why why do you do this?" He said, "Because when I was a little boy I was traveling with my father and this told told my father, 'Jew, kiss the cross." And he said, "No, I'm not going to do that." And they tied my father to a tree. And they said, "Listen, Jew, kiss the cross." And he said, "No." And they brought twigs and and straw, and they set it up all around the tree. And they said, "Jew, Jew, this is your last chance. If not, we're going to burn you alive." It was uh it was a I I I think it was a stick. I don't think it was a tree. I think it was a stick uh stick. And he says, "I'm not going to do it." And they burned him alive. And they left me alone. And I looked down there at this tiny little pile of ashes that used to be my father. And I said, "When they burn me, there's going to be a big pile of ashes. I want everyone to know that a Jew was burned here because he refused to kiss the cross." His whole life he was dedicated to one thing, to die as Kiddush Hashem. And so they go off with this in mind to be able to fight not expecting to win. And they won victory after victory after victory until they finally got to the base of Migdash and rededicated it. The dreidel reminds us of the people who are hiding up in the mountains. And that's a toy. That's to play with. But that's not Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the menorah, or the hanukkiah, that we light that reminds us of tremendous nays. We don't need a sukkah unless it's there la hoda'ah u'l'halel l'cha Kadosh Baruch Hu to sing their praises. We understand that Hanukkah is here not because of the dreidel, in spite of the dreidel. The Jews who stayed up in the mountains basically are are are not on the stage of Jewish history. It's the people who are willing to stand up and do something. And the world's made up of people who sit back and wait and those who go out and do something. On many occasions I would speak and uh I am a bit of a social critic. And I point out different problems and things. At the end, people come up to me, usually mothers and they say, "Well, why is this and why is that and why doesn't it Why doesn't somebody do something?" I said, "I am." If I have to save the world by myself, I will. If you want to help me, there'll be two of us. But I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep fighting to make the world a better place. Katon shiktanim ani. I'm nobody. Poor dumb baal teshuvah kid with learning disabilities, you know what I mean? But I'm going to keep working. Uh if I have to fix the whole world up by myself, then by goodness, I will. Not going to sit back and wait for somebody else and point to the finger and say, "Why doesn't somebody do something?" When I go to the mikvah and uh men who go to the mikvah will appreciate the scene. Women have absolutely no idea. You know, one goes to the mikvah, she gets her own little private room and then when she's ready, she and they'll knock on the door. She gets the mikvah to herself, so one thing. Men, it's a communal bonding process. You know, if you haven't seen dozens or hundreds of naked men walking around, showering, going to the mikvah, coming back, you know, it's uh Let's just say, you know how a little kid has those uh nightmares where they come to school and they're in their underwear? I don't have those nightmares anymore. That's already good. I was in the shower and this guy comes over to me and says, "You know, you never gave me the money for the shalach manos for Moshe Shapiro." Oh, we sent him a nice shalach manos. So, I said, "I've said this before, but not with as much kavana. I have nothing on me." You have me at a disadvantage, sir. I remember after I had my uh open heart surgery, I met with the uh with the surgeon and he told me, you know, there's still this big gash in your chest. It's going to take a long time for it to close. So, uh you know, don't take a bath and don't go swimming and don't go to the mikvah. So, uh So, I said, "Can I go if I don't go in the water?" He says, "Uh I guess so. Why?" I said, "No, just for the experience, you know. You pick up all the latest news, you know. They sell stuff on the outside there, you know." I always thought it was ironic that they sell dips at the mikvah. Cuz like I think that's like double dipping, you know what I'm saying? But anyway, but uh you know, there's this uh there's this uh tremendous experience that takes place, you know. Anyway, when I'm at the mikvah and if it's a crowded, I usually try to go early. Somebody told me once, "If you go to the mikvah early, it's a skula." I said, "What's the skula?" For clean water, you know. So, I like to go early when the water is still um translucent, if not actually transparent, but at least translucent, you know. And but if you come towards the end, it's downright murky. So, um uh so, I uh but when I go there when it's crowded, you know? So, I grab the squeegee and I squeegee up as much of the floor as I can. I I'm working around people, so I can't, you know, tell everybody, you know, sit down and pick up your feet so I can squeegee. But whatever I can, I squeegee around because the place is so wet, so filthy. I'm afraid someone's going to trip and get dirty and stuff. Um I I go to the Vision's mikvah and the drains all drain in. And uh sometimes the drain gets clogged. It's not hard to figure out because you see the channels are all overflowing. So, when that happens, I go There's a tile that you lift up and then you pull up this enormous basket. And it's filled with hair and little plastic bags because people sometimes bring their soap or their shampoo in a little plastic bag and then leave it and it falls in and goes down into the drain, you know? Sometimes you can find an actual like empty shampoo bottle, etc. And I take it over to the garbage. I empty it out, you know? It's filthy and it's disgusting and it's yucky, but and then I put it back in there. Water starts to flow. And every now and then someone will say to me, "That's so nice of you." Kol hakavod. And what I don't say is, "How come nobody else did that?" You know, I've never seen anybody else clean it out. You know, now I'm not there all the time, obviously, but you know, uh I've I've seen it overflowing and I find that I'm the one who does it. Um I've seen on rare occasion somebody else pick up the squeegee stick and uh and squeegee up the floor, but you don't find it too often. So uh so there are people who look at a situation and say, "I can do something." And as I always say, "Just because you can't do everything doesn't mean you can't do anything." You don't have to build uh I'm a major organization. But you can do something. Or you could hide up in the mountains and play with dreidel and wait till the Messiah takes care of things and then come back and go back to your life. And just survive. And I don't mean to minimize that. Survival is very important. You know? Until until the yeshivas were established and started to change America, the from Jews who were here just had to survive. They had to stay Jewish and and keep keep their families Jewish and keep everything going. It was not easy. But uh but that's why we don't celebrate the dreidel. We play with the dreidel because we always understand that those two symbols of Hanukkah, the dreidel and the menorah represent two approaches that one has to a difficult situation. I can run away and hide, which is legit, or I can go out and fight and light the menorah and be zocheh to that Nissan V'Niflaos. I remember during the Gulf War, there were these American bochurim asked the shach, "You know, my parents want me to go back. You know, am I allowed to go back?" Says, "Yeah, but you're going to miss great things." And they said, "Moshiach?" I didn't say Moshiach. I said great things. And those of us who were here during the Gulf War, we saw nice symphony of flows. Unbelievable things. And the reason we saw it is because we were willing to put ourselves on the line. And to and to work to take a risk and to stay. Sometimes people make that decision, sometimes not. In the Six-Day War most Americans evacuated. When my parents came here Six-Day War was of course 1967, they came in 1968. And uh they were touring around and when they came to Haifa they found the Yeshiva. Right? Kfar Chabad Siddim. And uh my father was very impressed and he said I want to take the whole Yeshiva boys out for for uh pizza. Um So uh so he meets this one guy who was considered the hero of the of the uh of the Yeshiva because when all the Americans left in the Six-Day War he stayed. And I met him years later. Uh you ever hear of Yossi Abrams? I met him at an NCSY national convention. He says, "Orlawsky, was your father a florist?" And I said, "Yeah." He says, "He came in 1968 to the Yeshiva and took us all out." And uh everybody made a big deal about me because, you know, when everybody was evacuated I didn't go. So I said, "Wow, how come?" He says, "I was afraid to fly and I get nauseous on uh on boat trips, so I was afraid to leave. So I stayed and everyone thought it was cuz I was such a hero." He says, "I remember when the bombing in Haifa, they were looking for me. And uh I I wasn't I wasn't in the bomb shelter at the miklat, you know? So, they were looking for me, and they finally found me couch crouching in the showers." And they said, "What are you doing here?" He says, "They said to go to the miklahat." Miklahat is a shower. He says, "Miklat, you idiot. Not miklahat." You know, I think he meant down to the bomb shelter, you know? But um uh you know, people people have to make a choice. You stay or you don't. You know? Do you Do you There are a lot of people now who are moving to Eretz Yisrael. And um I think part of it is that they look at the war, they look at the the things that are going on, and they think to themselves, this is a chance for me to be a part of Jewish destiny. And Reb Leff had a very successful shul in Florida, and he left to become the rav of a moshav that was just starting out, moshav Matityahu. Um in terms of rabbinics, it's a step down. And uh he says, "I went to Reb Moshe Feinstein and to Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky, and I asked them, should I take this job or not? And they both told me, the future of the Jewish people is in Eretz Yisrael. And if you have a chance to get a job there, grab it. Cuz that's the future. There's no future anyplace else." Interesting. So, uh I'm not saying anybody should do or shouldn't do. I'm not here to give advice. It's not my thing. But um but uh in your own lives, you're always going to an opportunity where you can be the one who is going to act, or you're going to be the one who stands back and waits. So, you know, I have a little show in my mirror passage. And uh it's not a it's not always set up. And there are people who come, they set up the chairs, they put up the table cloths, they sweep up, they get the they get the show ready. They they are the doers. And everybody else sits back and waits. I remember when I was in Yeshiva once, they did a big sponge. It was a big base mattress. They did a big sponge. In Pressburg Yeshiva, I was learning by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky. And they had pulled pushed all of the benches up front and stuck all the standers on them. So, uh you couldn't start learning until you reset up the the base mattress. So, you had to pull all of these heavy benches and set up all of the standers. There were a few people doing it. I I joined in, even though I was much older than than the rest of the people who were there. And there was another guy there who married uh the Yeshiva's daughter. You know. And he's watching this going on, and he says, "I can help, too." And he starts to pull a bench, and the standers tumble over, and he says, "Ah, I had enough of this." And I said to him, "You know why Yehoshua took over from Moshe Rabbeinu?" It says because he used to set up the chairs in the base mattress. Not because he married Moshe's daughter. He still didn't do anything, but it was a funny line, and it was definitely worth worth the effort. So, my friends, as we come to Hanukkah, the festival of light, the time when every one of us can make the decision whether we are going to hide up in the mountains and play with our dreidels or whether we're going to go out and fight the Greeks, whether we're going to be the doers or the people who wait for everybody else to take care of it and hope for the best. And that's the decision you have to make. But remember, if you want to play dreidel up in the mountains, you're not going to have a holiday called Hanukkah. It's the doers who created Hanukkah. And that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website where you will ask me dot com and you can leave a comment. You can ask a question. I don't know what happened. The questions sort of dried up. We don't have too many questions coming in. So, I guess I answered everybody's questions already, which is good. Um you can sign up for one of my online shiurim. Somebody just joined our missile shiurim. Good to have you on board. It's not too late. Um then we have the tfila shiur. We have the ladies missile shiurim on Monday nights or Monday afternoon in America. And that's it for the show. As always, it's a pleasure to have you along. And until next time, I am Rabbi Orlofsky and this is the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to worry. No need to worry. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. On rabbiolorfsky.com. Torah anytime. YouTube and more. It's Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Till next time, till we meet again. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show.