The Ordinary and the Sacred – Rabbi Michael Abraham – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They understood that holiness has to spread throughout all areas of life. Including—there’s no—they didn’t recognize the existence of a realm of the mundane. And therefore commerce is conducted under God’s name, and kingship is handed over to the priest. In other words, there’s some kind of Hasmonean policy here as an ideology, I’m telling you. This goes beyond the question of lust for power. It could be that there was also some ideological dimension here: they understood that everything has to be conducted in holiness. You can maybe see this somewhere else in a somewhat indirect way. The Mishnah in Berakhot says this: They instituted that a person should greet his fellow using the Name. As it says: “And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, ‘The Lord be with you,’ and they said to him, ‘May the Lord bless you.’” And it says: “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” And it says: “Do not despise your mother when she is old.” And it says: “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah”—all sorts of continuations. But there is some enactment here, to greet one’s fellow using the Name. Now who is this “they instituted”? Who instituted this enactment? It doesn’t appear in the Mishnah. Rashi writes: They instituted that a person should greet his fellow with the Name—look at your last source on the first page—in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. Not in his fellow’s name, but in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. It sounds a bit like writing God’s name on documents. And we do not say that this is a degradation of the honor of the Omnipresent. Again, ordinary life—you basically want to conduct your social life with your fellow using God’s name, everything you bless with God’s name. So again, it’s basically the same kind of policy. And Rashi says: And we do not say that this is a degradation of the honor of the Omnipresent, because for the sake of human dignity one may utter the name of Heaven over it. Meaning, it is permitted, because even though it’s a bit of a degradation of God’s name, it’s permitted in order to conduct life in holiness. And they learned it from Boaz, who said “The Lord be with you,” and from the angel who said to Gideon, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” So they learned it; they have some kind of scriptural support, that this is the proper thing to do, even though there is some basic principle that should have prevented it, but they have some supports that justify it. And it says, “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah.” Rashi says: At times one nullifies words of Torah in order to act for the Lord. This too—I mean greeting one’s fellow—is the will of the Omnipresent, as it says: “Seek peace and pursue it.” It is permitted to set aside Torah and do something that appears forbidden. Rashi’s statement here seems a little ambiguous. In other words, it’s not clear what exactly is being discussed here. If what is meant here is that this is the proper thing to do from the outset, and this is not some special enactment, then why is this “a time to act for the Lord”? This is what one ought to do. Maybe it appears forbidden, but in truth anyone who thinks it’s forbidden is mistaken. In fact this is what should be done: one should conduct life in holiness, with God’s name, in ordinary life. That’s what is supposed to be done. So what does “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah” have to do with this? Then it’s not nullifying Torah; it’s what ought to be done. It’s like what we once discussed about a transgression for its own sake, where the Talmud says that a transgression done for its own sake is greater than a commandment not done for its own sake. The commentators usually tend to explain “a transgression for its own sake” as some kind of halakhic override rule, like a positive commandment overrides a prohibition. There are certain circumstances in which you need to do the commandment even if it comes at the price of a transgression, so not only is it permitted—you must do it. But that’s not called a transgression for its own sake. The expression shows that this is not a halakhic override rule. A positive commandment overriding a prohibition is not a transgression for its own sake. A positive commandment overriding a prohibition is not a transgression. It’s what ought to be done; that’s what Jewish law says. It’s not some enactment in a specific place despite the fact that it’s a transgression because we need to achieve something or other. That would be called a transgression for its own sake. Right? Therefore I think that explanation is not plausible in that Talmudic passage, and here too it’s the same thing: when they say “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah,” what they are really telling us is that in principle it is not correct to do this. So then why did they say to do it anyway? They learned it from Gideon and from Boaz. Very nice that they learned it from Gideon and Boaz, but there is a prohibition: “You shall not do so to the Lord your God.” So is it permitted or forbidden? If they learned it from the Bible and say it is permitted, then it’s not “a time to act for the Lord.” If it really is “a time to act for the Lord,” then why did they do it? What special need was there that justified violating some halakhic problem? Torah problem, halakhic problem—it doesn’t matter. So here, in Sefer HaMikhtam on your second page, he brings in the name of the Raavad some very interesting things. They instituted that a person should greet his fellow. I do not know when this enactment was made. Some want to say that it was in the time of Boaz; Boaz is not just a support for the enactment, rather Boaz himself is the one who instituted it, the head of the court of—he was the head of the court. I do not know when this enactment was made, because this enactment existed only because they were devoted to idolatry, and they would say that one should not mention God’s name. And the pious among them would mention it even in greeting. In other words, what is HaMikhtam actually saying here? HaMikhtam is saying here that this is basically the Raavad—this whole thing is a quotation from the Raavad. I brought a bit of context here, but anyone who looks in the book sees that it’s a quotation from the Raavad. So what is HaMikhtam actually saying? That clearly there was some special reason here, because this is “a time to act for the Lord”; in principle it is not correct to do this. So what does HaMikhtam say? Apparently there was some period when people were devoted to idolatry, there was some problem, and in order to fight this, they instituted that one should greet his fellow with God’s name. But he says: in the Second Temple period there was no devotion to idolatry. The Mishnah—yes, the Mishnah is even after the Second Temple; but at the very earliest it is the Second Temple period, at the very latest—I mean, as early as possible, it is the Second Temple period. In the Second Temple period there was no idolatry, so what is the Mishnah saying here, that they instituted greeting one’s fellow with the Name? Idolatry was in the First Temple period, not in the Second. And the pious among them would mention it even in greeting. In the Second Temple period there was no devotion to idolatry, and perhaps this enactment was in the days of Boaz, and even though it appears later in the Mishnah—that is, it appears in the Mishnah—but it was not created in the Mishnah; it is a record of some earlier enactment. In other words, that could be. Exactly now I recalled: in the Talmud at the beginning of tractate Sukkah, the Talmud discusses there—the Talmud brings the rule that a sukkah higher than twenty cubits is invalid. That’s what the Talmud says. The Talmud asks: An alleyway that is higher than twenty cubits should be lowered. That’s what it says. The Talmud asks: why here does it say “invalid,” and there it says “should be lowered”? It should say: a sukkah higher than twenty cubits should be lowered. Lower it to the proper height. The Talmud answers: Sukkah… is Torah-level, so it teaches “invalid”; alleyway is rabbinic, so it teaches “should be lowered.” Rashi explains there what this means: with a Torah-level law, the Mishnah is reporting a law that already exists; it is not creating the law now. It is reporting a law that already exists; it is simply documenting it, writing it down. So it is known—this is invalid, it was already ruled invalid. I’m telling you: such a sukkah is invalid. As for the alleyway, the Mishnah is the one now establishing the law of alleyway, and it says that an alleyway above twenty cubits should be lowered—that is, it gives an instruction because now it is being established. It is not reporting some already existing state that this is invalid. Now that Rashi is odd, because why assume that a rabbinic law was established in the Mishnah itself? If it is a rabbinic law, couldn’t it be a rabbinic law from a previous generation or ten generations earlier? Why, if it is rabbinic, was it established in the Mishnah? Again there is some assumption that if something rabbinic appears in the Mishnah, apparently the Mishnah is instituting it right then. In other words, the Mishnah now—it is not a report of something that already existed, but is being done now; this Mishnah is the enacting authority. And here we basically see the same thing, the assumption of HaMikhtam and the Raavad. What does he say? This is written in the Mishnah. But the Mishnah is from the Second Temple period—even after the Second Temple—but at least from the Second Temple period. In the Second Temple period there was no devotion to idolatry, so why was there a need for “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have nullified Your Torah”? Listen, this is—and again the assumption is that this is a transgression. It is not something one is supposed to do. So why do it? What was the problem? So he says: Or perhaps it was in the days of the Greeks. He pulled it out of nowhere; nobody knows. Or perhaps it was in the days of the Greeks, when they issued decrees against Israel, and when the Hasmonean house prevailed, they instituted this. And as for what they say from the earlier authorities, “And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem”—in the Jerusalem Talmud it implies that Boaz instituted it. And in the Tosefta: The elders of earlier generations, when they saw that Torah was being forgotten from Israel, would smuggle it among them, as it says, “And behold, Boaz…” It appears that this enactment was not from the days of Boaz, but rather the pious of that generation did it on their own initiative. In other words, the claim is that apparently the pious were already doing this earlier. But as an obligatory general halakhic enactment, that came later. And they learned it from Boaz, but it is a later enactment. And from when? From the Second Temple period. But in the Second Temple period there was no devotion to idolatry, so what must one say? The only possibility—what was there in the Second Temple period that could fit? The Greek conquest. What? That the Greeks basically said: Write on the horn of the ox, “We have no share in the God of Israel.” They wanted people to forget the use of God’s name, the Greeks did. And this is the only event, says the Raavad, that I can find in the Second Temple period that would justify this kind of enactment, assuming it really was in the Second Temple period. And therefore it was probably an enactment of the Hasmonean house. In other words, since the Greeks decreed not to mention God’s name, the Hasmonean house, even though in principle it was not proper to do this, established “It is a time to act for the Lord,” and therefore one mentions it even when greeting his fellow—that he should greet him using the Name. I understand that there are two levels of God’s name. There is crying out to the Holy One, blessed be He, about everything—that one always must, constantly, within life. And there is mentioning the explicit divine name, which perhaps was the enactment, and so on. But crying out to the Holy One, blessed be He, about everything—that one must always do anyway. That is another issue; I don’t know if it’s obligatory, but it is certainly not forbidden. We are talking about using the Name. Using the Name in a way that is forbidden—a degradation of God’s name. Using the explicit divine name. Yes, the explicit name or substitute names—it depends; there are disputes. Substitute names too, and names that are not the essential name, they too are forbidden divine names that one may not use. Torah-level, rabbinic-level—these are disputes among medieval authorities (Rishonim). But never mind: names one may not use, names of the Holy One, blessed be He. So the claim is that in fact the Hasmonean house instituted this thing. Now, as strange and baseless as this sounds—and there is no source for it—where did he get the Greeks from? It actually shows that this is really how the Raavad understood the character of the Hasmonean house. Otherwise why attribute it to them? There is no basis for it. If there were some historical record hinting that this was the Hasmonean house, fine, okay, then that would be that.

[Speaker D] But the Raavad invents it out of thin air and attributes it to the Hasmonean house when there isn’t the slightest hint of it. Why? Because apparently it was very obvious to him that it suited them. In other words, it fits very well with what happened there. Once I mentioned this—it’s also somewhat connected to the Greeks.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud tells that when Alexander the Great came to the Land—which by the way did not happen. It didn’t happen. Shimon HaTzaddik went out to meet him.

[Speaker D] Shimon HaTzaddik went out to meet him—that didn’t really happen historically.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shimon HaTzaddik went out to meet him and received him, and Alexander got down from his horse and said—they asked him, why are you getting down? He said: The image of this man would go before me and win all my wars. What? This did not have to happen in the Land of Israel. It could have happened somewhere on the way, from Greece to India. Near Jerusalem. On the way to Jerusalem. Near Jerusalem. But how did Alexander the Great pass to Egypt if he didn’t come from the north? I have no idea, but the historians say he didn’t pass there. There are several difficulties with this whole matter. Once I was with someone who wanted to argue that there were two Shimon HaTzaddiks. One Shimon HaTzaddik in the time of Alexander, and another different Shimon HaTzaddik. There were two Jerusalems too. Maybe. Maybe one was in Babylonia, and everywhere. In the United States there are some twenty-six Jerusalems. Abroad. In the United States. In the United States they have everything; in the United States they have all the names from all over the world. So there was no United States then—it was the New World. But I think the point is that an aggadah like this is basically saying—

[Speaker G] that this is after all—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] not a difficulty; this is—

[Speaker G] after all aggadah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But an aggadah like this, which dresses up a meeting that could not have taken place—precisely that one has to interpret accurately, every detail. In other words, if the aggadah were describing—not an aggadah, but if this were a historical account—this is what happened. Okay, then that’s what happened.

[Speaker B] But if the Sages are constructing here a fictional story that in fact—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] could not have happened, then obviously when they built it, one has to—

[Speaker E] understand why they described it this way and why it is specifically—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shimon HaTzaddik with Alexander, and why it is in Jerusalem, and why it is in the Land of Israel. Every such thing should have a reason; otherwise why invent this story? In other words, ironically, fictional stories—or things without any basis—need to be interpreted

[Speaker G] with much greater commitment to every detail

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] than things that are historical description.

[Speaker G] Historical description—that’s what happened. What…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something came out of this like a

[Speaker G] halakhic ruling, that when you are called to the Torah, you

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] have to say your Jewish name.

[Speaker G] Suppose you live abroad; Alexander is a foreign name.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And because of this story between Alexander and Shimon HaTzaddik—where he also didn’t destroy Israel because of that meeting or something—so you can be called to the Torah with the name Alexander. Okay? Even with that name, which is basically a foreign name. Fine, interesting. Meaning it’s permitted to call him… also names like Antigonus. Okay. In any event, let me get back to the Raavad. So the Raavad, precisely because it seems somewhat baseless, this attribution of the enactment to the Hasmonean court—again it strengthens what I said earlier, that the Raavad apparently thought this suited the Hasmonean house very well. Why does it suit them? As we saw before. Because they enacted writing God’s name on documents. In other words, ordinary life needs to be conducted under holiness. They determined that the kings—that the priests would also be the kings; in other words, they would also run ordinary life.

[Speaker G] According to the Raavad, then apparently they also determined that social relations too would be conducted through using God’s name. In other words, it fits the Hasmonean policy very well. Why? Someone was looking for something in the Second Temple period, specifically in the Second Temple period—then the Greeks, and then it came out of the Hasmonean house. Fine, maybe. I’m just saying that it seems to me this attribution, which looks strange—why should it be in the Second Temple period? Because it’s… someone there who was closer to the Mishnah? Closer to the Mishnah, but in any case not from the time of the Mishnah. So what difference does it make if it was a hundred

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] years earlier or five hundred years earlier? Because the Mishnah had already begun to take shape. I don’t know, it sounds odd. Anyway, for our purposes, either way it doesn’t matter. So even if I see this as some kind of ordinary description on the basis of ordinary considerations, still this is what the Raavad says. And in that sense, there is in any event another layer here in this description of the ideology of the Hasmonean house—that all ordinary life has to be conducted in pure holiness. The kingship that runs the mundane has to be in the hands of a priest; greeting one another in… relations of friendship have to be conducted under God’s name; and commerce has to be conducted under God’s name. Everything has to be—everything holy. What? He means the very idea that everything should be in the service of God.

[Speaker E] The Sages did not disagree with the very fact that everything should be in the service of God; they disagreed with mentioning the explicit divine name on documents.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But as for the idea that everything should be in the service of God, everyone agrees.

[Speaker E] What does it mean, everything should be in the service of God?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does this expression mean, everything should be in the service of God? That there are no mundane domains?

[Speaker E] That there are… that even whatever one engages in, in all occupations, it should be

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] out of bringing God’s presence into everything. That’s… a question I’m not sure everyone agrees with, but in any case that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not sure at all that everyone agrees with it. I think there is a domain of the optional, but that is something we’ll get to later. The optional is something that in consciousness belongs to the optional domain, but even one’s approach to it should be out of bringing God into everything. It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be. We’ll talk about that, but that’s a subject for later discussion. So what is the meaning of this idea, actually? If we now look at the other side

[Speaker D] of the coin, yes, at the Greeks, then the Greeks… it seems to me are characterized by the opposite conception. What characterizes them is an imperialism of the mundane. And basically they try to blur the boundary between holiness and the mundane, but to turn everything into the mundane, not to turn everything into holiness. You can see this in many places.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I mentioned earlier this midrash that says that the Greeks would say: Write for yourselves on the horn

[Speaker D] of the ox: We have no share in the God of Israel. In other words, this was not merely conquest

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in the national sense, meaning some war between nations; there was also a struggle here, yes, their decrees not to observe commandments. In another midrash it says that the Greeks said: We are Israel.

[Speaker D] A bit like what the Christians later basically came to say. So the Greeks said: We are Israel. Now again, I don’t know

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] how faithful this is to the historical Greeks, and it doesn’t matter. In other words, once the Sages describe it this way, this is how they saw Greek ideology, as they understood it. Fine, as far as I’m concerned I’m talking about the rabbinic Greeks, not the historical Greeks. One always has to be a bit careful with these interpretations, but it doesn’t matter.

[Speaker F] I’m trying to see how the Sages saw

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] this struggle between the Greeks and the Hasmoneans. Where else do we see it? We see it in “Ma’oz Tzur,” for example. So we have all the oppressors there, right? “Ma’oz Tzur” is a stronghold against the oppressor. There is a list there of the oppressors we had throughout history. What were the Greeks? How are they singled out there? “They breached the walls of my towers and defiled all the oils.” So what does that mean? Basically, they breached the walls and defiled the oils. Meaning, the holiness—they defiled it. And they breached the walls that demarcate—we’ll see this in a more explicit way in a moment—between outside and inside, or between holiness and the mundane. Where do we see this? As is well known, regarding Hanukkah there is no tractate in the Mishnah. Basically the Mishnah does not deal with Hanukkah aside from incidental mentions. The Mishnah is after Hanukkah; it could have mentioned Hanukkah, but only incidental mentions. In Bava Kamma there is the Hanukkah lamp that one lit, yes, the camel that passed by a Hanukkah lamp and ignited the load on its back. Only incidental mentions, very few. One of the—perhaps the central—one of them is a Mishnah in tractate Middot. Look at what appears here after HaMikhtam. Inside it was the soreg; there is the cheil and then the soreg there in the Temple courtyard. Ten handbreadths high, and there were thirteen breaches there that the kings of Greece had breached. They came back and repaired them—the Hasmoneans, of course—and enacted opposite them thirteen prostrations, thirteen prostrations. And inside it was the cheil. The soreg and then the cheil. In other words, the Greek kings made thirteen breaches in the soreg, and the Hasmonean house repaired them, and for that they instituted thirteen prostrations corresponding to the breaches they repaired; anyone who arrived had to bow at each such place and then enter, and then he could go in. What is the meaning of this? What is this breach that the kings of Greece made in the soreg? So the Tosafot Yom Tov there has a long discussion; this is the next source in your material. The soreg was ten handbreadths high. The Kesef Mishneh wrote in chapter 5 of the Laws of the Chosen House in the name of the Rosh that the soreg—what was the role of the soreg? It’s a mystery; it’s not entirely clear what its role was in the Temple. That the soreg was made according to the law of a Sabbath mound. It’s the eruv. A kind of eruv, yes, walls that demarcated the domain there. And that’s why it was ten handbreadths high, like every partition. Around the Temple Mount it is ineffective because it was enclosed and only afterwards inhabited; that doesn’t help. From the laws of the private domain—that doesn’t help; some kind of partition had to be made there. And I wonder, for at the end of chapter 5 of tractate Pesachim we learned: The first group went out from its Passover offering and sat on the Temple Mount, the second in the cheil. And if the enclosure of the Temple Mount is ineffective, how did they carry their Passover offerings there? If the enclosure of the Temple Mount is ineffective, how could they carry the offerings there? Therefore it seems to me that for carrying they needed nothing at all. Because according to Torah law, anything enclosed by four partitions is a full private domain, as is written at the beginning of chapter 14 of tractate Shabbat. And this is only a rabbinic rule. But by Torah law, anything enclosed is fine, even if enclosed and only afterwards inhabited—it makes no difference. Rabbinically, no. And furthermore, by Torah law, rabbinic Sabbath restrictions were not decreed in the Temple. If these are rabbinic Sabbath prohibitions—shvut restrictions—there are no such restrictions in the Temple. In the Temple it is permitted to violate rabbinic prohibitions. So he says: if that is so, then the question returns—why do we need the soreg? So it was not intended for carrying. Furthermore, since inside the Temple Mount there was a place for the Temple guards to stay, why would it not be considered enclosed for dwelling from the outset? This is a dispute; it’s not true that it was inhabited and only afterward enclosed, and all the more so inside that, the courtyard, and so on. However, regarding the reason for the soreg, one could say that it was to separate between one Passover group and another. There were different groups that were offering the Passover sacrifice; after all, all Israel offered their Passovers there, so the soreg made order there, separating between all the groups. But it does not seem to me that this structure was built for that reason. Granted, if the structure already existed, they would divide by means of these separations and divisions. Fine, but it doesn’t seem to me that they would build it for that from the outset. For what reason would they need a distinction between one group and another if there were no distinction? And if they wanted a distinction, let them do something. Why build permanent structures there for the eve of Passover? But what seems to me regarding this structure of the soreg is what I already wrote, with Heaven’s help, in my book Tzurat HaBayit, section 52: that it was to provide a place and separation between the idolaters entering to pray in the house of God and between Israel. For that which we learned in chapter 1 of Kelim, mishnah 8—that the cheil is holier than that, because idolaters and those impure through corpse impurity may not enter there. True, the soreg was before it and after that was the cheil, but by the time of the cheil they could no longer get there; they had to stop at the soreg. So between the soreg and the cheil there were already no idolaters. Idolaters here means gentiles, of course—idolaters. Because gentiles do bring offerings. Gentiles can bring offerings to the Temple. But they can enter—the gentile himself can enter only up to the soreg, and no further. Israelites could enter all the way to the Israelite courtyard. And on this Mishnah I found it difficult to question Abarbanel, who in his commentary on Ezekiel wrote as follows: The first outer courtyard outside the wall of the gentiles of the Second Temple was the women’s courtyard, and they built galleries there. And I saw in the commentaries of Christian sages that the first courtyard was designated for foreigners to pray in the house of God, as Solomon wrote in his prayer: “And also concerning the foreigner.” And their words seem correct to me, for in the future the prophets destined that many nations would go to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob to receive His Torah; therefore it was fitting that a designated outer place, more distant from the sacred area, be assigned to them. And perhaps that courtyard was surrounded by a gallery for women, as they said, and the women would see from above and the foreigners in the courtyard below. End quote. That is Abarbanel. Now Tosafot Yom Tov objects to him: Had he remembered and not forgotten the Mishnah in Kelim, he would not have written that this designated place was in the women’s courtyard, for even the cheil they were prevented from entering. In other words, even before the women’s courtyard they could not get at all. So one cannot say that the women’s courtyard was meant to stop foreigners. The foreigners were actually stopped earlier. And to say that these words were said when their power was strong—that is, when the power of the foreigners was strong, then they crossed the soreg and breached the breaches and so on, and then they were stopped elsewhere, in the women’s courtyard—then who could stop them in any other place? If their power is strong they enter wherever they want. This is impossible in any way—if their power is strong, who will stop them and who will set limits for them? Here he jumped to a verse. To assign them a hand and place and boundary and law which they may not cross. Furthermore, the meaning of the Christian sages’ own words is that they had a designated place with Israel’s consent. In other words, Israel themselves agreed; it was not that the Christians breached it. Rather the Christian sages, when they document the reality they received from earlier generations or something, this is how the Christian sages tell it: that there was a place for foreigners to enter within the Temple. But the main point is that even the Christian sages said this only regarding the Temple Mount up to the cheil—that that place was designated for them. And that which they called a courtyard is only a borrowed term. In any case, according to our Mishnah, which is the trustworthy testimony, idolaters were not permitted to enter the cheil. And therefore the soreg was made. And in the editions of the aforementioned book I added a very good reason here: that for this very reason the Greeks made breaches in it. These are the thirteen breaches the Mishnah mentions, and therefore the Tosafot Yom Tov discusses this Mishnah. Why? Because the soreg was the place that was supposed to stop the gentiles—up to here they may enter. Against that, the Greeks came and made thirteen breaches in order

[Speaker E] to blur or break through this boundary between the sacred and the mundane,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] since it was made to distinguish them from those entering more inward. Inward. And therefore when Israel returned and merited to repair them, they instituted at each repaired section a prostration to thank the Lord for He is good, even though this was truth and justice, as he proves further on. Fine, so that is the claim. What does this actually mean? It again joins this claim concerning the description of Greek ideology, which says that everything is mundane. In other words, the moment there is a boundary between holiness and the mundane, they break through it. In other words, they claim that everything is mundane; therefore “they breached the walls of my towers and defiled all the oils.” They defile the pure oil. They breach the sacred place so that the mundane will actually be inside. Therefore they desecrated the Temple—that is exactly what happened there. Desecrated, from the word mundane. And when they desecrated the Temple, it means they erased the holiness; in other words, they imposed the mundane upon it. The same thing is written that on the Tenth of Tevet too, also in Megillat Ta’anit, there were three days of mourning over the translation of the Torah into Greek, which the Greeks also did. They basically sat the sages there—seventy-two—and translated the Torah into Greek, the Septuagint as it is called, and they darkened the eyes of Israel. And what was the point here? Again, the conception was—it seems to me Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner writes in his book on Hanukkah—the claim was basically that they wanted to turn the Torah into just another one of the books of wisdom, so they translated it into Greek and put it in the library in a place of honor together with all the other books, and basically once again they blurred the boundary between holiness and the mundane. They said: this is wisdom, not holiness as a separate category. In the mundane too there is wisdom, but there is no holiness. Holiness is in the Torah, and they did not recognize that category. From their perspective, everything can be wisdom but not holiness; the category of holiness does not exist for them. And therefore, in a very systematic way, the Greeks conducted a policy of blurring the border or demarcation between holiness and the mundane. Basically the claim is: an imperialism of the mundane. Perhaps another place where we see this is a Mishnah in Ketubot, right? “A virgin is married on the fourth day”—never mind, the Talmud there says: They said, “A virgin is married on the fourth day in order that she first be violated by the governor.” There was some decree, not clear there in the Talmud whose it was, but there it says these were gentiles who ruled the land and they decreed that a virgin married on Wednesday should first be violated by the governor. A thing like that, some fraction of the virgins who marry have to be violated by the governor. In fact the Talmud says that on the Sabbath it is forbidden. Who was this governor or ruler? So Rashi in tractate Shabbat—it is in Ketubot—Rashi in tractate Shabbat on 23a, “they too were included in that miracle,” women who are obligated in the Hanukkah lamp because they too were included in that miracle, so Rashi says: They too were included in that miracle, for the Greeks decreed regarding all married virgins that they should first be violated by the military commander, and through a woman the miracle was done—Judith. So Rashi identifies that decree in tractate Ketubot with the Greeks. And again, what was the point? It also seems to me to be Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, who says that “she should first be violated by the governor” was intended to introduce Greek seed into the people of Israel. The goal was to impregnate her, not merely to enjoy. There was some purpose there that was part of the ideology. Basically, in a very systematic way, we see that the Greeks tried to blur the boundary between the mundane and holiness, to turn everything into the mundane. Within the world of the mundane there are things of value, there is wisdom, everything is fine, there are values—but the category of holiness is a distinct category. This is not commandment, holiness—there is such a category, and the Greeks would not agree to accept it. There is no such thing as holiness. There are good things and wise things and all that is true, but holiness as a distinct category they would not agree to accept. And in response to the claim—in fact against this Greek ideology—there arose, as Maimonides says, that in order to correct one thing you need to go to the opposite extreme in order to return it to the middle path. So if the Greeks adopted the extreme ideology that everything is mundane, then opposite them arose the Hasmoneans with the ideology that everything is holy. Therefore it is no wonder that the Hasmoneans were specifically the ones who led the struggle against the Greeks. Because in effect there was here a struggle over the whole package. These say everything is mundane, and those against them say that everything, everything is holy. So in fact, if that is so, then again, in the rabbinic view, the struggle with the Greeks was a struggle over the very existence of this category called holiness. They were not willing to accept it as wisdom, as things of value—the Greeks, everything is something—but they were not willing to accept a category of holiness. Against that came the Hasmoneans, who said that everything is holiness. The antithesis. Of course, as Maimonides says, the antithesis comes to correct the thesis and produce a synthesis, and in the end the antithesis too was flawed. Where do we see this? In a completely systematic way. From mentioning the name of Heaven, to giving pleasure to God, this is actually a forbidden thing, just as the Talmud says the Hasmonean house did—to write God’s name on documents. Again, a very problematic thing. You want to make everything holy—apparently very blessed—but it is a very problematic thing. It doesn’t work. And the fact that they found the documents in the garbage is of course the practical description, and that’s what happened, but it seems to me that behind this one can also see, when you look at all the cumulative material I described here, one can also see some critique of the ideology itself. Of its expression. We see that if you want to conduct all of life in holiness, in the end holiness is degraded. The practical description is that the documents end up in the garbage, but basically this is a general statement about holiness. If I go back to Nachmanides, with whom we opened, then Nachmanides, who says there is a problem with making the priests into kings, and because of that the Hasmoneans were wiped out—Nachmanides explicitly says that this is what seems to him, and that this opinion seems preferable to him. Again, it’s the same issue. The Hasmoneans came with good intentions, and it may even be that perhaps they did not know it was not proper—I don’t know, maybe yes, maybe no—but it doesn’t matter, because the damage of such a thing is terrible damage. And therefore in the end they received a terrible punishment; they were wiped out completely. Anyone who says, “I am from the Hasmonean house,” it is known that he is a slave. In other words, in a very systematic way we see that even though apparently, when looking at Greeks versus Hasmoneans, the obvious conclusion would seemingly have been that everything should be conducted on the basis of holiness—not true. And the rabbinic description is actually telling us what? Why do we celebrate them for all generations? Well, because we defeated the Greeks—what do you mean, why? Because there is a miracle here, there is meaning. True, that there is holiness. Yes, and for all generations. That there is holiness, right? But not that everything is holiness. Fine, it doesn’t mean that it has to rule everything. No, who said that? And this, “and against Your Torah,” and it says there “to make them forget Your Torah”—the point is that everything should be according to God. No, who said that? Why do we celebrate them for all generations? That everything should be holiness, everything according to God? I said, about that we’ll speak further on. For now let’s talk about everything being holiness. Holiness is a distinct category. All right? Everything according to God—we’ll discuss that too, and there too I’ll cast doubt on it. But right now I’m not there yet. What I basically want to say is that in the end, the lesson that seems to me to emerge from the words of the Sages in this context is not the lesson that the Hasmoneans were right. Rather the lesson is that both sides were wrong. And both sides were wrong in serious ways. Both errors are serious. In the end, what needs to be is some kind of demarcation—to return and fence in the breaches. The mundane in the place of the mundane, and holiness in the place of holiness. There has to be a boundary.

[Speaker D] And if we blur the boundary either in this direction or in that direction—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that is a very problematic thing. That is basically the message.

[Speaker D] In the end, in fact the Talmud says in Megillah 9, I think—what does it say there?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Regarding… what does it say there? That basically it is forbidden

[Speaker D] to translate the Torah into any other language, as part of that same Septuagint episode. What would we have expected—that after the Septuagint they established a holiday? They established a fast because the Torah was translated into Greek.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says the only language into which one may

[Speaker D] translate the Torah is Greek.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The only language into which it is permitted to translate the Torah is Greek. And this basically means—the Talmud says, “May the beauty of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem.” In other words, in the end we do adopt something from Greekness. Or if we look at the translation of the Torah into Greek as viewing the Torah as something that contains wisdom in addition to the holiness it contains, I am willing to accept such a thing. It also has a dimension of wisdom. It has holiness and it also has wisdom. Now what happens is that the Greeks too have a role in the structure that is ultimately built. They receive their appreciation after we fought them and defeated them and celebrated the victory. In the end, what remains for us is some kind of tradition that combines Greekness with Hasmoneanism. There has to be the mundane, and it is not true that everything is holiness. And there is holiness, and it is not true that everything is mundane. You need both, and they need to be clearly bounded, each in its own domain. But supposedly the translation of the Torah into Greek is something that blurs the distinction, isn’t it? The translation of the Torah into Greek was an initial point over which they established a fast. So why specifically Greek? Because after they truly understood that in the end we are dealing with something that has holiness, now they were also ready to open themselves to the fact that there is wisdom here too. Once that option—that it is only wisdom—had been defeated and passed from the world, I am not willing to deny that there is wisdom there too. Say, by analogy or by extension—I don’t know whether it’s an analogy, an implication—there are those who want to argue that in the Torah context a completely different logic is supposed to rule than everyday logic, the logic that rules in other fields. Okay. And from some such conception, which we’ve already discussed more than once, that scriptural decrees cannot possibly have an explanation… fine, why? Where does this come from? It comes from the idea that there cannot be something human, that there cannot be wisdom within the Torah. And the idea of the Oral Torah is exactly that. The era of the Oral Torah is basically characterized by this point—that that is not correct. We deal with Torah by means of ordinary human intellect, the same one we use in every other field. In the Torah field too we use that logic.

[Speaker E] There are infrastructures, there are foundational assumptions, and those are assumptions grounded in holiness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the tools we use are tools that we use

[Speaker E] also Greek tools. The Oral Torah is the use of Greek tools.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This encounter with the Greeks in the end

[Speaker E] ultimately brought us that

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Lieberman talks about this, yes—Greek language and Hellenism in the Land of Israel. He talks about how the methods of interpretation were, in some way, drawn in through that encounter. But of course that’s only an expression of something much broader: that they actually absorbed various things from the Greeks that in the end did remain. The war against the Greeks was about dosage, not about the thing itself. Now why was this renewal necessary? Because before that there could have been a certain outlook that said this has no place at all. The period of prophecy, when everything comes from above—it has nothing to do with human reason, as in the conception of the era of the Written Torah, the period of prophecy. So everything is from above; it has nothing to do with us, and we have nothing to say about it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think I once spoke about the beginning of Pirkei Avot: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. Shimon the Righteous was among the last survivors of the Great Assembly. He would say…” And until him they didn’t say anything? He’s the first one who says something. Nobody said anything before him? No—maybe the Men of the Great Assembly said things. What? Until him they only quoted? The Great Assembly… yes, maybe there was some individual there, but it’s the Great Assembly throughout the whole beginning of the Second Temple period. Shimon the Righteous was the first sage whose name is attached to words of Torah. Before him there wasn’t. And what does that mean? That the outlook until that stage was basically that Torah comes from above. We only pass it from generation to generation; we’re a hollow pipe. Human beings have nothing to do in the context of Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Shimon the Righteous—or the beginning of the era of the Oral Torah; Shimon the Righteous is the beginning of the era of the Oral Torah as one of the survivors of the Great Assembly—he basically takes this Greek idea of human wisdom, because human wisdom in general culture too is identified to a great extent with Greece. So this idea, that human wisdom itself can be considered Torah, is a new idea. And that is the era of the Oral Torah. By the way, the encounter I described earlier between Alexander the Great and Shimon the Righteous—I think it comes to say exactly this. Alexander the Great says: “The image of this man would go before me and win all my wars.” What’s the idea here? Alexander the Great, as is known—and this is true historically too, not only from the perspective of the Sages—was an enlightened conqueror. He was an ideological conqueror, and his goal was not…

[Speaker G] only…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] power. His goal was to spread culture.

[Speaker E] That’s part of the struggles that were here…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] because here there was…

[Speaker E] some kind of struggle over culture too, not just a struggle of force.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And so in effect he tried… he himself studied under Aristotle in the court of Philip in Macedonia. He was Philip’s son, so his father brought Aristotle to teach him—Aristotle was his teacher. And he tried to spread Aristotle’s philosophy, Greek culture, throughout the world. That’s what he did, and historically that is indeed what he did. And then the Talmud brings him together—and again, an imaginary meeting—but it brings him together with Shimon the Righteous, who is basically the figure who opens the Oral Torah. I said earlier that when the encounter is imaginary, then it cries out even more for interpretation. Apparently the Sages wanted to tell us that there is some essential connection between Alexander the Great and Shimon the Righteous. And the idea is that the encounter with Hellenism created the Oral Torah.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We received something from the Greeks—that is, Greek logic, Greek philosophy, the Greek way of thinking, systematic, orderly, rational—was what helped us build what was later called the Oral Torah. And therefore, “the beauty of Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem,” and they translate the Torah into Greek, because in the end, after Greece stayed in its proper place and the imperialism of the secular did not cease—there is a place for the secular. You need to know what its place is, where yes and where no. There is the secular and there is holiness; not everything is holiness. After we understand that not everything is secular, now we are also ripe to understand that not everything is holiness. Everything has its time and its place, and so the lesson in the end from this struggle is that there is supposed to be some well-crafted combination between holiness and the secular.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now maybe you can see this reflected in the following point. People have already noted that in “Al HaNissim,” which we recite, the miracle we mention is the miracle of the cruse of oil, not the miracle of victory in war. The cruse of oil—they found a cruse of oil, and so on, and it lasted eight days, and so on—not the miracle of victory in the war. And people have already written that this was after the destruction of the Temple, and they still wanted to remind us, to preserve in memory, the spiritual dimension of the victory. But taking that victory in the national direction, or in the direction of the sacred—yes, of the Temple, Torah, and maybe even actual holiness—those are two directions that accompany us to this day.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the end, today’s Hanukkah is a national holiday in the broader public. It’s less of a religious holiday. And that’s also why the Zionist movement warmly embraced this holiday, like Tu Bishvat. Yes, there are a few holidays that the Zionist movement really likes—Tu Bishvat and Hanukkah. Why? Because they have certain dimensions, dimensions of the secular, that you can identify with in the national sense, in the sense of values not necessarily connected to holiness. And that is basically a kind of tension that has existed ever since: is it the cruse of oil, or is it the victory in war?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now when Nachmanides speaks about monarchy, Nachmanides says that the fact that the Hasmoneans appointed themselves kings—that was a terrible sin because of which they were wiped out. And people tend to say—I’ve already seen several who wrote this—that Maimonides disagrees with Nachmanides on this point, because Maimonides in the laws of Hanukkah, at the beginning of chapter 3, writes as follows: “In the Second Temple period, when the Greeks ruled, they issued decrees against Israel and abolished their religion, and did not allow them to engage in Torah and commandments, and they stretched out their hands against their property and their daughters, and entered the Sanctuary and made breaches in it and defiled the pure things.” Notice that this whole list is exactly the list I mentioned earlier. In other words, the whole Greek intrusion into the Jewish sphere, the Torah sphere, into the sacred.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And Israel suffered greatly because of them, and they oppressed them with severe pressure, until the God of our fathers had mercy on them and saved them from their hand and delivered them. And the sons of the Hasmoneans, the High Priests, overcame them and killed them and saved Israel from their hand, and they established a king from among the priests.” Here Maimonides emphasizes this point—he emphasizes “they established a king from among the priests.” “And sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years until the second destruction.” Maimonides ends with national salvation. Meaning, the troubles were religious troubles, and the salvation in the end was—or at least also included—national salvation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now some want to say that Maimonides disagrees with Nachmanides when he brings in “they crowned a king from among the priests and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years”—that this is the description of the miracle; for this we give thanks. Whereas according to Nachmanides, “they crowned a king from among the priests” was a sin. I don’t think that’s necessarily a dispute. Even Nachmanides does not say that the national miracle is not part of the miracle—that is, the return of sovereignty—he doesn’t write that. It’s just that you should have appointed a king—on the contrary, that’s what Nachmanides says—you should have appointed a secular king, not a priestly king. Secular not in the sense of non-observant, but a king who was not a priest. Okay? That’s what you should have done, and then it really would have been part of the miracle. The sin was not that they appointed a king; the sin was that they appointed a king from among the priests. So Nachmanides is not arguing against Maimonides.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More than that: even when Maimonides says that sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years and that they appointed a king from among the priests, he is not telling this as “this is the miracle for which we give thanks.” Even though they appointed a king from among the priests, which is something forbidden, because sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years—for that we give thanks on Hanukkah. And that brings me straight to today, because very often the arguments surrounding the establishment of the state, the way people look at the establishment of the state, really reflect all the nuances I’ve described until now.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are those who say, “Look what this state looks like; there’s nothing to rejoice over in its establishment”—yes, the Haredim who say there’s nothing to rejoice over in its establishment. That is a mistaken outlook in light of what Maimonides says here. Because Maimonides says that even though they appointed a king from among the priests—which really is problematic—he doesn’t say it’s problematic, but I’m saying, as Nachmanides says, I see no reason he would disagree with that; he too agrees that it should have been from the tribe of Judah. But still: sovereignty returned to Israel for more than two hundred years—that is what you have to thank God for. The fact that we did it incorrectly—that’s our problem. What, is the Holy One, blessed be He, to blame? If He helps us with something, then we should thank Him for that. The fact that we mess up and do problematic things, or carry out this process in a problematic way—okay, then we need to improve. And how we do it—fine. But what does that have to do with the question of whether to thank Him or not thank Him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s something almost self-contradictory here. You don’t thank Him because He made there be a secular government, or a king from among the priests in the Hasmonean period? He did that? Then why did He do it if it’s a sin? I mean the Holy One, blessed be He. He didn’t do it—we did it? Then why is that a reason not to thank Him? Thank Him for what He did, and correct the mistakes you make, that we make. Either way, there’s some problem here. If you think He did it, then fine. Then why did He do it if it isn’t fine? And why would He do something that is a transgression? If He did it, that means it can be done. And if it can’t be done, then He didn’t do it. I claim He didn’t do it. After all, either way—if you think He did it, then what do you want? So you don’t thank Him because He made us sin? That’s what you don’t thank Him for? It sounds strange. And if He didn’t do it, but rather you attribute those actions or those results to human beings, then what do you want from the Holy One, blessed be He? Thank Him for His help, and complain to whoever is doing it in a problematic way and tell them to fix it. That argument is a very problematic one.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Amital once wrote that he calls this “the Haredi evil of heresy,” that the Haredim remove the Holy One, blessed be He, from history. They do not thank Him for the establishment of the state. Why don’t you thank Him for the establishment of the state? After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, brings about everything that happens around us. So this is basically a kind of heresy—not to thank the Holy One, blessed be He—because they are essentially claiming that things happen here against His will, not because of Him. I claim that Rabbi Amital’s argument is not correct. There is a good argument against the Haredim, but it is not that one. That is, whether to remove the Holy One, blessed be He, from history—you can debate that. I actually think one really should remove…

[Speaker E] Him—it’s right to remove Him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But never mind—even if…

[Speaker E] you don’t remove…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Him, what would you say?

[Speaker E] That He helped the state come into being?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. The fact that we did it in a mistaken way—that’s our mistake.

[Speaker E] We need to correct it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does that have to do with the obligation to thank Him? And that’s the claim against them—not the claim that He didn’t do it. The claim is that even if He did it, He did the positive thing, and for that you thank Him. The way you carried it out, and your screwups—that does not keep you from thanking Him and does not exempt you from thanking Him. So that’s the more precise argument that should be made there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, for our purposes, there is still room to discuss whether this return of sovereignty is itself a value, or whether there is some dimension of holiness in it. Now I’ll move one step further. That doesn’t come up here, right? I’m saying that now I’m already moving to today. Basically the very strong feeling I get—it’s hard to quantify these things, of course, but it’s something in the air—the very strong feeling I get is a kind of attitude toward the state or toward our secular life as though it belongs to the sphere of holiness. In Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda’s expression, “IDF uniforms are the garments of the High Priest,” which is a very grotesque expression of this idea. Certainly with regard to the state.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now this is a result of the fact that I spoke about in one of the previous sessions: that Religious Zionism is basically the son—and maybe not even the stepchild—of Hasidism. Hasidism that speaks of contraction not literally, what we discussed earlier—how this closes all the circles. And “contraction not literally” means that everything is holiness. So Religious Zionism basically tried to apply this, or realize it, in the context of secular life, the establishment of a state, returning to history, as people sometimes call it. This is basically a kind of holiness. And therefore people see certain dimensions—we’ve already discussed this, I think more than once—of the… I don’t know, when I see a flag in a synagogue I get a fever. My temperature goes up. Not because I have some opposition to the flag—it’s true that it doesn’t say much to me—but it bothers me that it’s in a synagogue. Independence Day is some kind of national holiday, yes, but not in the synagogue. There is something here to which people are giving some marker of holiness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Give thanks for it, everything’s fine, just as you say the blessing “Who formed man wisely” after you go to the bathroom.

[Speaker E] So what’s the problem?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does that turn the process in the bathroom into holiness? No. It’s ordinary life conducted as it ought to be conducted,

[Speaker E] but that doesn’t turn it into holiness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And again I return to the conceptual distinction—I’m now closing all the circles. You have to remember that there is a conceptual distinction: not everything connected to a commandment or to values is holiness. Those are two different things. I’m not claiming—or not necessarily claiming, at least not… and at the moment I’m claiming—that there is no proper way to conduct secular life, or to run a state properly. There are commandments and transgressions, and a right way and a wrong way. I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about pouring concepts of holiness into this area. Not whether the Torah has something to say about it. The Torah also has something to say about how I go to the bathroom, as I said earlier. That doesn’t turn going to the bathroom into holiness. He didn’t make these things for nothing. What? He didn’t make these things for nothing. I didn’t say He did them for nothing; I said that it doesn’t—this is the question. There are levels of indwelling.

[Speaker H] Right—for that very reason I made the distinction a few lessons ago between those two categories, holiness and commandment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Lichtenstein talks about “optional matters,” or a world of the secular. He speaks about optional matters, which is even more than the secular. The secular is part of Jewish law. In Jewish law there are laws that pertain to the secular—what is right and wrong to do. The slaughter of ordinary animals is secular; the slaughter of offerings is holiness. And we talked about the fact that there are halakhic differences between the sphere of holiness and the sphere of the secular. But Rabbi Lichtenstein takes it further: he says there is also the realm of optional matters, which is even outside Jewish law. And there too it does not mean everything is neutral, do whatever you want. There too there is proper and improper, what lies beyond strict law, beyond the letter of the law. And there too it does not mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t care what you do there. And still, it is a different sphere. There is the sphere of optional matters, there is the sphere of the secular, and there is the sphere of holiness.

[Speaker D] And of course corresponding to them there is prohibition, and impurity, and those kinds of realms opposite this whole matter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, there is the optional, there is basically—say—holiness,

[Speaker D] there is the secular in purity toward…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] holiness, as it’s called, or the secular conducted in a holy way. There are optional matters, but things that are proper—values that are not halakhic but are still fitting: decency or morality or things like that. There are things that are completely neutral—that’s my claim, though I’ll still speak about that later—that I claim there is also such a sphere, completely neutral, where it doesn’t matter what you do there; it’s unimportant. There is a sphere of moral transgression—moral transgression, not halakhic transgression. There is a sphere of halakhic transgression. And there is a sphere of injury to holiness—that is impurity, what is called impurity. So basically there are seven categories. If we place the optional in the middle, then on each side there are three categories—three in this direction and three in that direction. There are seven categories, and it is very important to distinguish among them.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And by the way, there are a great many people who are unwilling to distinguish among them, between all these categories. There are those who say there is no sphere of the secular at all—there, you said that earlier. Later I’ll talk about it. There are those who say there is no sphere—sorry—of the optional. There are those who say there is no sphere of the secular; everything is sacred. There are those who say everything belongs to Jewish law; there is no optional realm. This boundary-drawing is under attack—attacks from the right too, not only from the left. Attacks from the right meaning that everything is sacred, or that everything is Jewish law, or really to blur the… to break through the fence from the inside outward, not the way the Greeks did from outside inward. Okay? It’s the same attack. And the Hasmoneans? Yes. And I think it is very important to preserve this boundary in both directions. We need to fence the breaches, not break them in the opposite direction. We need to fence the breaches. There are seven categories, and each such category needs to stand on its own.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that really brings me to the end of this move. Once you said things that will be? What, I didn’t understand. There are interrelations here between the categories. You’re talking about interrelations. It’s not just that they should exist—God’s unity is a very… I don’t know what God’s unity means. I know there are these seven categories. Fine, and in the end they will all be valid—you have to distinguish between the categories, but part of God’s unity is that on every side the Holy One, blessed be He, is present. Bringing in the Holy One, blessed be He—I said, we’ll still talk about that. But there are seven separate categories here, and it is not right to blur the boundaries between them. Fine, that’s enough for me for now. I’ll speak…

[Speaker G] about the continuation, as I said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The point is that very often what happens, one of the results of blurring the line between the secular and holiness, brings me back to everything I discussed earlier—that holiness is a kind of reality.

[Speaker D] Meaning it starts from some kind of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] reality. You…

[Speaker D] perceive yourself as being within…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a different sphere.

[Speaker D] It’s not that obligations are imposed on you—you’re allowed to do this, you’re forbidden to do

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that—that’s the sphere of the secular.

[Speaker D] In holiness you encounter some kind of different reality. This creates a certain ecstasy. Very often it is connected to paradoxes, to extremism,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] say Nadav and Avihu enter the sacred incorrectly and they immediately die. It’s not a matter of… there are no gray areas there; it’s black and white. And holiness is a sphere that is very sensitive, very stormy, very hard to understand, conducted in unusual ways. It is an entirely different sphere. And very often my feeling is that when there is ecstasy around something, that means that in fact people are assigning it to the sphere of holiness, not only to the sphere of values or the sphere of what is proper or even the sphere of Jewish law. There is something here that is holiness.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that is a very problematic thing in the context of what Maimonides… what he says, that the great problem in the blurring done by the Hasmoneans is, in my view, the expression of the problem in our own time: seeing holiness in secular domains is a very problematic thing. What in another language is called—but I look at it as a religious problem, not only a moral one—is basically a kind of rampant nationalism or fascism. But it is fascism not in the Italian sense or the Spanish sense of Franco, but religious fascism. That is the claim: that there is here some very powerful religious tension or storm that exists in the domains of holiness and is directed toward national values. And in that sense, the dancing around the flag always—I don’t know, again, I don’t want to make a halakhic statement that this is idolatry; it isn’t. But there is something of that here. It is some kind of storm that comes from an encounter with something else. It is not obligation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We don’t just see the flag as a symbol; there is really an attitude toward it as an entity. In a certain sense it is a kind of calf. Again, I’m saying this is a metaphor—I do not really mean to say that this is idolatry in the formal, binding halakhic sense. But there is something of that here. This ecstasy that leads to nationalism—what people call it in other contexts—stems, in my opinion, from this blurring. From viewing the state as holy, its institutions as holy, from the idea that you mustn’t touch anything because it is all some kind of “be careful with the burning coal” of the president and the prime minister and I don’t know what. Various things of that sort. The dancing around the chief of staff and the president in the center on Jerusalem Day—I get the same fever from that too as I do from… Again, I have no problem—give them credit, everything is fine. They really are good, useful, important people; everything is fine. But to bring this into the study hall, to turn it into something that is… I don’t know, it really bothers me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You really turn it into a sanctification of God’s name by dancing around it; you apply excess divinity to it. So I said I don’t know how to set the boundary, where I feel that there it crosses the line. This happens in degrees; it’s not all or nothing, obviously. But it happens in such degrees that there is too much holiness there and too little of values, too little of ordinary life conducted in purity toward holiness. Meaning, even the secular is something that can be conducted properly and can be conducted improperly, and there are guidelines for how to do it. Even optional matters—and certainly the secular—all this is true. But holiness is not that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the expressions—and again, you can tell me that maybe this ecstasy comes from commandments, or from seeing the thing as a value, maybe. My feeling is not that way. That’s why I say it’s very hard to land sharp blows on this issue—these are feelings. But my feeling is that this is an expression of that Hasmonean mistake. And it is no accident that this Hasmonean mistake connects to the Zionist movement, because Religious Zionism—the Zionist movement is a bit different; Religious Zionism—grasps reality in a very similar way. Namely, that basically everything should be conducted in the purity of holiness. And this is not only sanctifying the secular in the sense of doing the secular correctly—and everyone agrees that the secular should be done correctly—but “contraction not literally.” That even within the secular, in fact, it is the infinite light; it’s an illusion that this is secular—everything is sacred. Everything connected to Judaism, to the Jewish people, everything is sacred, holy of holies. You can hear such statements, read such statements, in very many places.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are very problematic statements, very, very problematic in terms of their implications and in terms of the theological error in them. It is simply not true that everything is sacred. To say that contraction is not literal is a logical error; it is not only theological. We’ve already discussed that. So I’m saying that these things really come to expression today as well. I’ll continue with this a bit more next time, and then we’ll move on.