Chanuka - Western Mind, Torah Mind

Let's take a look at the subject of Chanukah, being that it's a kiss label ready, see if we can get a little deeper underneath the skin of the idea, the central idea of Chanukah this time of year, what it means, place it in context historically and spiritually, if we can. Perhaps we can start like this. You know, when the Rambam talks about Mamanadi's talks about what the Greeks did, the battle that the Greeks fought against the Jewish people, using expression, he says that they came to negate our religion. Bitluas Dossam, right? Bitluas.tum, that they came to negate the Jewish religion against, it's very hard to translate the word "dut", but something like that, they came against our religion, Judaism. That's what they did. And the question really is, what does it mean to negate the religion? It already says that they prevented or prohibited the practice of Mitzvahs, they forbade Torah learning. They did that clearly. What additional element? Again, stay with me carefully, not a simple thing this. What is the notion of negating your religion if not to stop you doing Mitzvahs and learning Torah? What additional spiritual element is there that's not contained in those terms? To put it another way, during al-Anisim, you know, what we say on Hanukkah, in the dynasties, in the prayers, we say that they came to make us forget your Torah. How do you make somebody forget something that he knows? What do you do to make somebody forget something that he knows? What does that mean exactly? Again, apart from taking us away from the observance, Jewish observance, they came to make us forget. What does that mean? Let's try to analyze this deeply as we can. I hope we'll learn something new. I hope we'll learn something new here. Let's try to place it in context like this. And also learn if we can, a methodology of analyzing a Torah subject, at least from one particular perspective, or a tool I hope we'll be able to take further news. The issue is this. Historically, first of all, you know, Hanukkah fits at an amazing juncture in Jewish history, perhaps one of the most important and most dramatic transitions in the history of the world. Hanukkah took place just after the beginning, close to the beginning of the second temple period. Right, the second temple, if you want to place it in historical terms, in terms of dating, the second temple lasted for over 400 years, and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 of the common era. So you're talking about 300 odd years, nearly 400 years, 350 years before the beginning of the common era. You're talking about 2,350 odd years ago, something like that. The beginning of the second temple period was remarkable time in Jewish history. The reason that it was remarkable, and again, we've discussed this from various perspectives before, is because at that time prophecy ended. In fact, right around there, the event of prophecy ending when the light of the world went dark as it were, when there's no longer a spiritual message that was clearly heard, was a watershed time in Jewish history. From that time on, there were many Jewish communities that dated history from that moment. Right, there are two ways to date history. One is from the creation of the world as is our common practice. There's another way to date historical events, to date years, from the year that prophecy ended. What's called in the sources, Mishnath-Pisuk-Navua, from the year that prophecy ended. In the Yemenite communities, until very recently, maybe even now, legal documents were dated like that. Legal documents were dated. How many years it was after prophecy ended? Why is that? What does it mean? Essentially, when prophecy ended, the world changed radically. Until then, in spiritual terms, the world was alive with a spiritual message. That means it was the time of the written law. The prophet existed, he says, that there were more than 1,200,000 prophets. More than a million prophets existed over a thousand years. Jewish people and the world in general were steeped in an awareness. People's ordeal then wasn't atheism like it is now. There was no option then not to believe, if you want to use that English word, in that which is higher. That wasn't the problem. People had other problems. For example, the central problem was an incredible pull to idolatry, an almost irresistible craving to transcend in consciousness and attach to something beyond in our idolatry sense. In fact, so much so that the Gomorrah says that the way prophecy ended, again we'll have to discuss this in much more detail, but the way prophecy ended was that the men of the Great Assembly then shake necessary, that convocation of sages who lived around that time. If you lived at the beginning of the second verse, the second temple, they were the ones who ended prophecy. And the reason they did it was because the pull to idolatry was so powerful and so attractive that people were succumbing to a degree that made it no longer worth having. Any time you have a pull to something negative, that's your greatness because you know of becoming it, right? Is where you grow. You want to pick up weights in the gymnasium if that's your idea of life. Then you want to pick up weights as heavy as possible because they're heavy of the weight that you pick up the more you build muscle. On the other hand, if you overdo it, you won't build muscle, your damage is off. So when the proportion, when the weights get to be as heavy as you can, productively pick up, that's what you want. But when the weights get to a point that they become so heavy that you only get damaged, then it's not worth exercising anymore, right? If you're into a much more sensible and refined sport like heavyweight boxing, for example, then you want to fight people who are more or less on your level as challenging as possible, but not so good that they break your jaw every time you fight because then the damage is going to be worse than it's worth it. The point I presume is clear. And therefore, when the spiritual adversary, namely the attempt to worship idols, became so strong, there was no longer worth the benefit. The men of the great assembly said, "Please keep it and keep its reward," and they exorcised from the human spirit. They surgically extracted from the human psyche their ability to attach to prophecy, their ability to attach to idolatry, the desire to transcend in that sense, and they can run as a detailed description of how they did it, without laboring the point what they did was, they said, they first of all called up this desire for idolatry, and it came flaming out of the Holy of Holies, the Kurdish-Kurdoshim. Obviously, it lives in the holiest place on earth because the desire to transcend is the holiest and most elevated and refined part of the human psyche. Of course, it can transcend correctly or wrongly, but it's the same ecstasy, right? The human being can transcend and meet and connect with Hashem in a correct form of attachment, or it can transcend in an invalid direction, namely the correct direction, but stop halfway at the intermediaries, which is called idolatry, and that is the temptation. So they brought up this element of the human psyche, which is cabalistically denoted as being somewhere here, where it's filling our own, where a child's skull is open, we'll have to talk about a child's consciousness, very relevant to the subject. Where a baby's skull is open, the fontanel, you can feel the brain of a child pulsating there, right? This is incidentally why we wear a fill-in. Fill-in, the deep cabalistic reason is a reopening of that connection, but fill-in and cabalistic writing is called Bikir Samochen, which means the brain is bursting out there, or the light is bursting in. That's what it is. But this is the source. The source is this organ or faculty in the human soul that can transcend and connect with that which is beyond. It's there's no ecstasy greater than that, you can imagine. Talking about a person expanding into that which is infinite, going beyond the self, from expanding beyond the limited and finite notion of self into that which is larger, there's no ecstasy or no attraction like that, and that's why it was the most powerful drive in the human experience, the spiritual drive, the animal drive down, the spiritual drive up, you know, the human being is driven in two directions. He has a yeet, says, a desire to indulge the body on the one side, and on the other, a desire to indulge the ego or the spirit. Both of those have kosher and uncosher applications. We're talking about the higher one. Usually, younger people are more, younger people are more given to concern about pleasures of the body. All the people are more given to concern about dignity and honor and respect, and so it is like that. A young man usually, his temptations usually are in the flesh, and an older man usually, his temptations are being respected, honored, at mine, usually goes like that. But that was the desire, and they decided, so they brought it up and they killed it. And when they killed the desire for idolatry, incidentally, the messenger that's also important, they thought that they were being given favour, Hashem exceeded to their request, and therefore there's a chimp principle in Jewish thinking that when things are going well, ask for more. Ask for more. On the contrary, there's a principle that when you ask for a prayer, when you dabbing, if your request is granted, the first thing you should do is ask for more. When you see, in England, you call it finding yourself on a good wicked. That's a logical terminology. terminology. When the wicket is good, you take advantage, right? It's called in Hebrew and Astrots means you see that your wishes are being granted that's the time for not that's the time when you go and ask your boss for a favor right any without a moment hesitation he says absolutely no problem then asking for a raise then asking for a day off and that's the time right this alone at least says no that take advantage and spiritually if you're asking for things correctly spiritually you should take advantage you want to give you so they decided to to adapt the human psyche in another way as well once they were already manipulating and correcting the human psyche surgically operating it according to the understanding which is in the power of the sages we talk about humanity not just Jews they decided to correct the human psyche in another way namely not on the top but down below as well the attraction of male for female that is cited could be improved a lot of world's problems are due to the male female interaction that gets beyond its borders and therefore limitations they decided to exercise that from the world as well so they exercised and extracted from the human psyche a man's desire for women it took that out of the world thinking it would be a big improvement in fact what happened was for three days after that there were no fresh eggs laid in Israel the chickens could not lay eggs that because the power of reproduction in this area and rashi of course in his commentary points out rashi asks a logical question the question is what even for three days they were no eggs chickens have eggs in their bodies a long time before they laid so eggs that were already being present in the body the chicken at least those should have been laid rashi says no because the body heat of the chickens had gone down it couldn't even incubate and develop the eggs that were already inside them that because when this desire leaves the world the whole world cools down so the sages realized if that were going to be the case there'd be no more human race and therefore they had to bring back yes this interaction or desire so that the human race could propagate but that tried to bring it back more creative more constructively and so they said like this instead of bringing back man's desire for a woman will bring back only a man's desire for his wife and may well no longer have a feeling for a woman other than his wife can you watch what the world would look like and they try but they got a note from heaven that was written means Shamayah Lawyah have a pulga from heaven they do not give halves meaning it's important message I'm bringing this out for a reason that means spiritually you either have it or you don't if there's an organ in the body right let's say the liver and you take out the organ you take out that organ you lose all functions of the liver you can't take an organ out of the body and expect half the functions to remain and therefore a person either has this drive and desire or they don't you can't you can't take out half of it and therefore they were forced to bring it back in general but they managed to modify it slightly which is remarkable thing in all our subject tonight is that from that generation on they managed to reinstall the in the human heart in the male in the male psyche an attraction for women in general but not for his close relatives and from that time on men no longer had a natural drive for his sister or mother which was a big spiritual improvement and that's why people today naturally of course you can be stimulated you can train yourself in any perversion you can cook you can create a desire for almost anything in case you hadn't noticed but but people no longer have a natural desire for a close first degree relative that was part of the work on shake this is like that I'm mentioning this for a reason as you'll see shortly so what happened was they they took out of the human mind the desire for idolatry which was and that's why people today no longer have a craving to worship fetishes or to transcend in a way that that has a focus that is other than the divine right of course you realize people don't have a craving to attach to the divine either because when they took that desire to transcend out of the world they left nothing in its place you do you lift an empty space in fact what they left us with is today the drive to nonsense wasting time and triviality you see because I left nothing there and this we need to discuss separately and it's a wonderful subject but the point I want to bring out is this listen carefully at the moment when they took out of the human heart and human mind and human consciousness the ability the desire to connect with that which is transcendent in the in the idolatry sense they at the same time were forced to extract and remove from the human psyche the ability to be a prophet and the reason is that that same faculty in the human consciousness that wants to drive beyond and connect which that which is project yourself into that which is beyond is also the sense of the receiver for that which comes from beyond if you take out a radio transmitter receiver you take out the radio you lose the ability to receive an retransmit is this clear and therefore that faculty in the human the highest most holy most intense most elevated faculty which is that which craves to connect to that which is beyond and is able to receive from that which is beyond was no longer there at the calculation was that it was worth it they took it out and from that moment on people no longer had this incredible irrational almost incontrollable desire to worship idols but they no longer had the ability to hear prophecy and from that moment on prophecy ended the government says from then on prophecy exists only and among children dogs and insane people dogs or animals in general and people who are technically insane now we have to understand what that means and why and I hope to be able to to share with you some inside into that but that's what happened and from that time on there was no experience of prophecy and that's why nobody knows the future nobody knows the future astrology does not tell the future tells certain currents of energy that can be projected into the future there is no ability to tell the future anymore because that's the function of prophecy cannot be done if you know how to access the wisdom of children or animals or insane people you can get clues because there are vestiges of prophecy there are methods of doing that which is not our subject tonight but prophecy as such in a cohesion cohesive fashion no longer exists now at that moment the world maybe said to have gone dog prophecy had left the world and we entered the zone of the oral law the wisdom of the sages where human beings must construct where their own insight and wisdom and Torah wisdom reconstruct the truth and their own path in the world you no longer have an absolute point of reference namely a prophet to go and ask questions and be able to transcend up to the root that's what happened so stay carefully with me for the context immediately on that on that occasion when prophecy ended a number of things happened that first of all that generation who had lost seen prophets was Shimonat Sadik Shimonat Sadik was a remnant of the men of the great assembly and met Alexander the great Alexander marched against Israel met Shimonat Sadik and and was drew two generations later Hanukkah occurred the man the the leader of the Jewish people after Shimonat Sadik Shimonat Sadik was a lost sage leader of the Jewish people during whose time the miracle of the oil burning miraculously in the temple continued sometimes yes and sometimes not but there was still that evidence of a divine presence there was although there was no prophecy there was still a vestige of a miraculous that miraculous event why it was oil why it was a flame that burns we have to discuss it this time as well that was the miracle that occurred which Hanukkah picked up an echoed after Shimonat Sadik who was the last to have seen the prophets the men of the great assembly lived the man called Antignoise Ish so already a Greek name the leader of the Jewish people and Antignoise had students for the first time went off the path in terms of Jewish ideological deviation here's two students with Sadik and Bytes Sadik became the leader of the people called it Stukim the Sadducees who were a reforming deviationist branch away from Torah true ideology they could do that because there were no prophets nobody could ever deviate like that when they were prophets during the generation of the prophets there was no argument about anything in Torah and unresolved argument they were no halakhic disputes at all because you've always referred to the clarity of prophecy not that the prophets taught halakhic material but they simply brought it down from Sinai and there was total clarity for the first time immediately upon prophecy ending this deviation began you could say whatever you wanted because there was no point of reference in the higher world in prophecy the next generation was Yusuf and Yusuf and Yuchhanam the two great leaders one of whom was killed by the Greeks at the Hanukah period yes and in the next generation right then was the next leader was Yusuf and Prahiyat who was one of the great sages of that generation whose student was the founder of Christianity another movement that split off into an ideological path completely opposed to to Torah and again there was no point of reference in prophecy to just you see what's happening prophecy brings down Torah the Torah message clearly immediately upon that disappearing the thing branches off into any number of deviation as pause because there's no point of reference anymore Yusuf and Yusuf in fact he was the one who was killed by the by the Greeks no no no no no he was killed by the Greeks in fact the Gamots says while the Greeks were leading him to execute him why because he disobeyed the Greek decrees about learning Torah and performing mitzvahs he was accompanied by his nephew who was a Hellenist he has to understand the Greek arose into the Jewish people were enormous their attempt as we'll try to understand was not to kill Jews they just wanted to affect them philosophically they just want to Greeks to choose to think like Greeks they weren't looking to kill Jews and they were enormously successful and his nephew nephew of the great Torah sage of the generation was a Hellenist so as he was being led out to his execution the nephew was riding on a horse and all his finery and honored Jewish Greek and as he walked to his uncle who's about to be killed he said to his uncle look who's right now yeah who on whose side is the evidence in Hebrew you say me alasus who's riding the horse he was riding the horse right and he's His uncle was walking about to be executed. So his uncle said to him, his uncle said to him, can you imagine, can you imagine that me, who's about to be executed for my Torah beliefs? If this is how I shem treats those, if this is how I shem, you who claim to be in the elevated position, right? You who have it all on your side now, if I shem treats those who disobey his will with such happiness and ecstasy and on it, can you imagine how he's going to reward those who obey his will? You who go against his will, right? Are rewarded in this incredible fashion and you feel yourself so great and so mighty, can you imagine what's in store for those who obey our shem's will? So he said to his uncle, what are you talking about? You obey our shem's will and look at you, you're about to be killed. So he said to his nephew, this is what happens to those who obey our shem's will. Can you imagine the punishment for those who get against him? That's what he said to him and I changed his life radically and that's whatever. But you see, the debate here was between the sage and the Jewish people defeated by the Greeks as it were and the Jews who had become a Hellenist who had taken their part, this was the battle. That battle took place at that junction Jewish history when there was no more prophecy and that's exactly what the Greeks did. Let's understand carefully, amazing, amazing thing. The Greeks came at a time when wisdom in the world was no longer prophetic and spiritual but was empirical and scientific. That is what the Greeks did. Greek philosophy understand this deeply. It's no more important message 'cause that's our battle. That's our battle. We're not fighting, yes, to the state. We got two ideological courses that go against us. One is the Ishmael type of energy, right? The Arabic threat, yes, those who are deeply attached in religious faith, who are opposed to us and who draw the CRs dead. And then there's the West that's not attached to any faith at all would like to see us dead. It took completely different currents here. Tonight we're talking about the Greek philosophy which is what the West is built on. And it's not religious doctrine. It's a non-religious anti-religious doctrine that the only thing that is real that's which empirical, scientific, you can experience, you can explore philosophically, you can put in a lab, you can test that's what the Greeks came to teach. And the Jewish message is that there's more than that and the Greeks came to stamp out the idea that there's more than that. And the Greeks could do it 'cause they came at a point in history where there was no evidence at all that there is anything more. You could never do this in the age of prophecy. The Greeks came at that juncture where prophecy no longer was and therefore they could say look, look at the world. Look at the world, you see any evidence? Just prove it. And if you ever try to prove to a Greek, your spiritual understanding, he will always win the argument because it comes down to proof since all on his side. And you wanna prove that which the heart knows, that which is no longer evidence in prophecy, that which is no longer confirmed by the miraculous, there's no evidence like that. And therefore you will no chance. And it's in the depth, the private depth of a Jewish heart that that little flame has to burn that has to defeat the Greeks but there's evidence on all evidence on their side. You know the Battle of Gogumagog, the final premacianic showdown. Gogumagog are the grandchildren of Greece. If you trace the genealogy in Torah, you'll see there they're the Greeks. The final showdown, you know that the Roman Empire and whose domain we live now had no ideology. The Rambam says all the Romans did was Lashlit. They came to take the Greek philosophy. Lashlit, I'll call our lamb to make, to impose on the whole world Greek culture. Again, the culture of the West is not Roman, it's Greek. Anybody knows anything about history knows that the Western culture is entirely Greek and it's mathematics, it's aesthetics, it's art, it's notion of a beautiful exterior, projecting a beautiful interior, right whether it's in sport from the Olympic Games, whether it's in technology and philosophy, it's all the Greek. The Romans didn't come up with an ideology. They didn't have philosophers who originated things. The Greek were the philosophers originated things, both in science and philosophy and everything. The Romans spread that into an international culture. That's what they did, they were the might behind the ideology and the philosophy of Greece. So I understand deeply, this is our battle. We got to two, two to the edge, two more than one battle, but this is one of the central issues that we faced. So the Greeks came along and that's what they said. Let's take this further. Again, it's fundamental, you know. What the Greeks came against was our religious knowledge, our spiritual knowledge. You know, the most classic illustration of the base, where Levi says a startling observation. You know that in Jewish history, there were two times in the post prophetic era, more or less, at that juncture around then, where the non-Jews try to kill us. Once was Purim and once was Hanukkah. You had two closely related events. At Purim, the idea was to kill all Jews. It was not ideological battle at all, just kill Jews. Hamun wanted to kill every Jew on earth on the same day, that all non-Jewish nation would rise up in one felt swoop at one time on one day and kill every Jew alive. No arguments, no philosophical arguments, no Persian philosophy and ideology killed Jews. And Hanukkah's idea was not to kill Jews at all, just to make them think like Greeks. The previous exiles, they tried to destroy the temple or destroy it and kill Jews. The Greeks didn't destroy the temple or kill Jews. They just wanted to defile the temple, just put a Greek statue in it and change the Jewish mind. That's all, they want to kill Jews. They killed you if you didn't listen to their decrees. But only as a way of enforcing their philosophy. That's all they wanted. What was the Jewish response, amazing thing? Hamun comes along to kill Jews, physically, violently exterminate all Jews. What are the Jews do? They sit down on the floor and pray and do chiver and fast. No one touches a weapon. No armed resistance. Physical threat, a physical extermination, spiritual response. Hanukkah, they come along with a spiritual threat, not to harm any Jews. And there's no praying or fasting. They pick up weapons and got to fight to the death. What kind of thing is this? They come against you in a military to wipe you out. You sit down and fast and pray. They come against you spiritually. You take weapons and swords and you got to fight the whole Greek army. A bunch of, you know, they were, they were kahalim. Kahalim, they never held the weapon before. Never held the weapons before. They went out to die. What is this? They attack you physically and you aren't prayer. They attack you physically and you go give your life in battle. You're the paradox. And he says a fantastic explanation, which is straxed to the heart of what we are as Jews. We have a principle in Torah. Coulbination mind, Khutsmirah shaman. Everything in the hands of heaven. Everything is in the hands of heaven. And you have no control over anything except your relationship with heaven, your spirituality, your religious, your, your free will in terms of your elevating yourself spiritually, right? Your religious identity, your religious connection. That's what you're here for. So let's get it right. And non-Jewish nations come against you to wipe you out physically. A Coulbination mind, it's in his hands. You've got no, pick up a weapon's completely useless. Again, the whole world is run by him. If they come to wipe you out physically, you have no chance. The only chance you have is trying to change his mind. You better pray. But when the Greeks come against you philosophically and ideologically, they attack your religion. That's the only thing that's in your hands. You better get out of them, fight for it. And therefore, when they attack us minutarily, if he isn't going to help, nobody can help. If he's not going to help, you know the amount of weapons are going to help you. And therefore, you better pray. But when they attack your religion, he doesn't help with that. That's you. That's the only part you have any freedom in. And therefore, when the Greeks attack you and try and change your mind and your notion, your connection to our shaman and what Torah is, that he says, this is where I give you freedom. There, you better take matters in your own hands. Paradoxical, but that's the Jewish response. That was the Greek battle. They came to change our minds. Let's take a little further. Let's track it historically. First of all, whenever we look for things and analyze them from a Torah perspective, it's a methodology. First of all, we look in our own and we look in Torah. Where does it talk about this Torah? Let me share with you two insights. One in Tanakh, in the written law where this is predicted, pressaged, if you like. And another in the oral law in the Talmud. Where is this Greek battle, the battle against Greek ideology? Where is it discussed in our sources? So again, we don't have time to go into the full details, but much as we can. In Tanakh, you know, we have a principle. First of all, I presume we all familiar. All dangers that attack the Jewish people begin with us ourselves. All enemies start with him. No non-Jewish enemy can touch us. And as we have that vulnerability that weakness within ourselves. The relevant verse is Marah Sayahu Makri Vahemi may create so. The simple interpretation is your destroyers and annihilators will go out of you. Simple translation means one day, those who destroy your annihilate you will leave you. But the deep translation is your destroyers and annihilators come out from you. They're in you, that's where they come from. From you, if you don't attack yourselves, if you Jews would only live in a harmony, peace, understanding, love of each other in complete spiritual perfection, they couldn't possibly be an external threat. Couldn't possibly be. So where's the source? The sources like this. You know, there was series of kings of Judah who were terribly idolatrous. You know that. Terribly, I'm in Asha, for example, a number of generations where the king set up idols. Very, very, very evil. And they distorted the whole of the Jewish people into idolatrous practices. There was one of them called Yehaya Kim, who came along with a novel evil twist. And he said like this. Again, these words, one is not allowed to say, except to quote the way the Talmud puts it, because they-- you'll see. But the Talmud says like this. He came when I said, he said, "In under Qadmai, means those who came before me, lo Yaddi Larguze, very hard to translate this, those who came before me did not know how to really anger him, really anger him. I'm going to show you how to really make him angry. You have to understand the mentality, talking about people of credible level of greatness back in the prophetic era. Those who came before me set up idols to anger him, to go against him, they were amateurs. I'm going to show you how professional does it. So he said this, "What do we need?" for. What do we need for in the first place? Who needs him? Who needs him? You want to tell me we need him for light? Again listen to Hanukkah coming in yet. You want to tell me we need him for light in modern English we would say energy emanation from the sun that keeps all life going. We need for light. We can manage without his light. We have our own. We need more of course some substance that he mentioned. It's not clear to us technically what it means. I imagine it means some sort of phosphorescent or luminous substance that gives us, gives us our own light. So he said since he created the world and gave us substances like this he built a world that is essentially self-contained and therefore who needs him? We don't need him. We are self-sufficient we can manage quite a well without him. That's what he said. That was his brand of anti-spiritual ideology that he foisted on the Jewish people in his generation but listen carefully what's not worthy here. This is not idolatry. Idolatry is you worship something other than Asim. This is the notion that there's nothing at all to worship. We are self-contained fully self-generating self-meantainy we don't need anybody else. That's the source of Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy is what's real is what you can measure put in a lab empirically test philosophically examine and the West is built on it. Do you understand what's happening? The West is not built on idolatrous notions that you worship the sun and the moon and the stars and the zodiac that's not Western philosophy. Western philosophy now is what you call atheistic. Atheistic doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. By the way throughout all of human history nobody ever suppose that God does not exist. That he's so stupid and so untenable that no one suggested it. What they suggested was of course there's a God. How could the world have come into existence? But he's now irrelevant. He's busy doing other things. He made it wound up and it's running and now he's irrelevant. We don't need him. That was here. The notion that there's no such thing as God is the child of modern philosophy. Only now in the world's history they come to such a notion. That never was the case. The worst idolatrous. I'd always knew about God in a related team. Only they said that we can relate to intermediaries and this philosophy was he's disappeared, he's irrelevant. Yahyaqim didn't say God does not exist. He said we can do without him. That was the beginning of the notion of Greece entertaining the idea of a divorced world, a world that he's sufficient under itself. Now let's take the next source. The Talmud puts it like this. This is worth tremendous concentration because they're fundamental in a fascinating message here. And here's where you'll find the Greek in yourself. Unfortunately, here it's right here. It's not some philosophy written in an old textbook. The problem with the Greeks is this where he lives. Here and here there's a problem. And I think you think I'm exaggerating I'm trying to prove it to you. The Talmud says like this. What's the language? Lashki hamtero sefer to make them forget the Torah. So a Jew when he analyzed subjects like this he researchers where do we find that terminology? Where do we find in the Talmud the terminology of a person forgetting Torah? Where do we find it? We find it in the birth of a child. Stay carefully with the thinking here. The Talmud says that we've discussed this in other contexts. When a child is born, when a child is in the womb he's taught the Haltara. An angel teaches him the Haltara. He knows it all. He sees from one end of the world together. He has a light, listen to Hanukkah again, a light little above his head. And by that light he sees from one end of the world. This is Kodora Ghanus, the hidden light. The hidden light that illuminates the whole world by which you see through things, which incident in the Maneuro and the Mishkan, the Maneuro. In the Mishkan gave that kind of a light. During the years and the desert when that burned you didn't see things, you saw through things, right? The same light that had burned for the 36 hours that Adam had experienced it. Adam, the 12 hours that he found himself in existence on Friday and the 24 hours of the first Shabbat on earth, that Adam experienced this supernal light even after the sin. Only on Saturday night was the Shabbat when dark. That's when he discovered fire where we make up dollar with fire on Saturday night. But for 36 hours of his life he saw this light that he's supernal light, the creation light. The Ocasus, that's why we light 36 candles on Hanukkah. We light one plus two plus three plus four. And if you're a mathematical genius like me, you'll know that that's at the 36. Why do we add 36 lights on Hanukkah? Because 36 each one for an hour of the original primal creation light that man experienced. It's a rekindling of that light in a very, very, very small reflection that we do of that original light of creation. The child in the womb has this light little Barbie set. You know what it means? What does it mean to see the whole world by light little above your head? That doesn't make sense. Normally if you want to see something, you put the light on the thing, not on your head. Put the light on your head, you won't see anything. This means the light within the head. This is the spiritual, this means the inner knowledge, the spiritual knowledge is what illuminates the whole world. That's the child sees one end of the world, there's a whole Torah, he's a whole future, he's all destiny, what is he? As he's born, an angel comes, the Sotra al-Pimph, strikes him on the mouth, umashakra is color-terra and makes him forget the Torah. Same language as he's used by the Greeks making us forget the Torah is what the Talmud says, the child is forced to forget the whole Torah. And he's born as a little baby, he knows nothing. What's the purpose of this is not a nice discussion. We've discussed it before. The purpose is to give you a spiritual wisdom that's intrinsic and inherent in you and then to cause you to forget it so you spend your life recapturing and going back and re-developing that which was once inner wisdom and that's why when you learn something spiritually true you do not have a sense of learning something, you have a sense of recognizing something because it is already within and that's how you resonate and you know it's true and we've discussed this idea before. But as the child's born this angel strikes him and he loses his whole Torah knowledge is born as a child who knows nothing. The purpose being to struggle through life to regain that wisdom and get back into the wisdom that he had first for free this time having made it his own. I think I'll mention to you once that the Gon of Illness says that when you die the Gon of Illness says three angels come to greet you. One comes to Arabolio Mitzvahs, one comes to Arabolio Avaris and one comes to see where is the Torah you produced in the world? What did you produce in terms of Torah? The Gon of Illness says when that third angel comes to greet you you recognize his face. It turns out to be the angel learned Torah with you and you are unborn in the womb and at the end of your life is coming to see did you do it? That incredible wisdom that we shared together that amazing partnership that have risen that we had together. Now after a lifetime of effort have you brought that into fruition? That's what it is. But as the child's born he forgets this wisdom. What does this mean? What does it mean? How does he forget his wisdom? What does it mean? How does that process happen? Stay with me in detail. The moral puts it like this. Amazing secret here. What is the meaning of a blow on the mouth? The angel strikes him on the mouth. If you would like to make somebody forget something you hit him on the head. Hard. Here you hit him on the mouth. Why is a blow on the mouth the causing of forgetfulness? It says the moral. The blow on the mouth is the gift of speech. A blow always is invitation to grow in spiritual terms. I'm not going to go into why that is now but that's the case. A blow always means a demonstration of your deficiency and you feel the deficiency and then you motivate to expand into that area and reach your claim is reach your perfection. As soon as the child gets the rudiments of the ability to express himself in speech he loses his spiritual wisdom. And the reason is this. And here's the key. Spiritual wisdom is beyond words. Technological wisdom is only in words. Again, if you want to know if you understood something technical see if you can explain it. If you can't explain it clearly you do not understand it. A technological mathematical logical process. If you cannot express it you did not understand it. If you can't put it into a diagram into words you did not understand it. But spiritual things if you can put into words you did not understand. Because spiritual things go beyond words. Things that are meaningful things relating to the world of meaning expressly and specifically and only live beyond words. We chart the illustrator. The notion of meaning. The notion of the present. The notion of self. The things that you grasp deeply and intrinsically and intimately that are you are not amenable towards at all. Again, let's let's take a couple of examples. How do you know you exist? There's nothing more important than that. In Greek philosophy this is the most frustrating thing that there is because in Greek western philosophy there's no proof that you exist. Imagine that. You cannot prove you exist. That will be humiliating. This is something you have to know. Electro is one teaching is philosophy students that in Greek that in technical philosophy there's no proof of your own existence. So one student got very distressed and after working on it for a week he came back to the professor in a great band against professor you have to tell me do I exist. So professor said to him who wishes to know. You see but you cannot prove it. The most important things in life are not amenable to demonstration and words. Let me give you a test of this. How do you know you're awake right now? I mean those of you who are. Those of you are awake. How do you know you're awake? How do you you cannot know or put it another way. You know because you know there's no proof. What are you going to pinch yourself? You could be dreaming that you're pinching yourself. When you dream you think you're awake. That's why dreams are so terrifying and so ecstatic. You don't know you're dreaming. You think you're awake otherwise you wouldn't be terrified. So maybe you're at home in bed sleeping dreaming that you hear listening to a lecture. You cannot disprove it. But you know it's not so. How do you know it by something that's got nothing to do with words, demonstrations or articulate expression. How do you know you're a man and not a woman? Do you think it's only because your body has an next. experience? How do you know you Jewish? Do you think it's technical knowledge only that you are told? How do you know that there is a meaning to a life? How do you know that a love relationship you have with somebody very close to is actually meaningful and not just a biological chemical? How do you know you have free will? When you come to a free will decision in life and you can go right or left and you choose and you know you made a heroic decision and the scientist tells you there was just the output of your inputs. There was biochemistry, genetics, environment and you know it's wrong. You'll never prove it on the country if there are proofs there on his side. These are things you know beyond words. That is Torah and one of the faith dimension knowing the higher world, we have to talk about much more detail. It's not an arbitrary anything. It's based on knowledge and critical thinking and logic and I can't go into it now. But the inner world, the meaningful world, the world of connection to a higher source that lives in a place beyond words and if you can put it into words you've broken it. Like Beth says, there are two kinds of knowledge, external wisdom which consists of the sensors and logic and internal wisdom which is going to do with it. The external wisdom which consists of interpretation of senses, accumulation of data, data, transduction of inputs by the senses and the logical computational faculty. That any machine can do. Animals do it, machines do it, a machine can also measure things in environments and come to conclusions. That's not human. What's human is what a machine cannot do is to the inner vision, the knowledge of self, the consciousness, the knowledge of self, knowledge that no machine can have. And Western problem that the legacy of Greece is, the only tool they admit is the external one. They complete and they get the internal tool. So even when they try and examine internal things they use the external tool. How does Greek philosophy approach the problem of knowledge of self? Let's try and prove it intellectually and of course it always breaks down. Beth says there's the external wisdom is like a camera. A camera can take a picture of anything in the world except the camera. If you want to do that you've got to use another tool. Can you understand the problem that they've given us? They tell us there's no such thing as internal things. You want to talk about it? Consciousness? All right, let's do it on our turns. Let's talk about it in mathematical sense. You've killed it, you've destroyed it. Those are the terms that kill it. This is not where it can live. Is the point clear? When the child is born and he's got the ability he leaves the womb with its spiritual light and he comes into the world of our ticket and expression, he loses spiritual wisdom because he's in a world of the finite. Moses, Mosher about it, he could not speak properly. Why? Because he was holding in a world of spiritual wisdom where those things can't be put into words. This wasn't a defect, it was his perfection. He couldn't speak because the things that he knew were divine in their amplitude, they were divine in their expansion, they were spiritual are all interconnected into the oneness of the universe. You can't say those things. After the Torah was given he spoke normally because the miracle of infinite wisdom in finite words had been done. But until then he couldn't speak. Another example. Kabbalistic wisdom, I know you're not interested in this but I'll mention it. Kabbalistic wisdom, the Torah terminology for Kabbalistic wisdom is sod. Sod means that which is secret. So the unscued, unsophisticated, dear things, that it's a secret because no one told you yet. What I'll tell you? Whatever you're a long white beard or if you're a man, a longer white beard, they will tell you some ancient sage in the ancient, you know, Old City of Jerusalem will meet you and tell you the secrets. That's not the kind of secret we mean. This not secret because nobody told you. Sod means that which nobody could ever tell you because they aren't any words for these things. It's always a secret. That's incidentally why the Master teaches his disciples only in general terms. He's not allowed to tell you in the details. Not because he's not allowed to because you can't say the details. He has to guide him so that he gets his understanding himself. The great Torah sages were very careful not to speak an idea on Torah until they were sure that it'd become part of them because they were concerned that if you bring it down into words you lose its expansion. I've seen because this one once waited 25 years before sharing a deep Torah idea with these students who are concerned that if you would speak it out you would reduce it and lose it. Incidentally many people, if you know anybody, if you haven't your family somebody who went through the European experience 60 years ago, you'll find many of those people never spoke about it again ever. It's a common phenomenon. Most people think because it's too painful they didn't speak. It's not the reason. The reason they never spoke about it is because you cannot speak about such things. They can't put those things into words. You can't even begin any words about it would just be a travesty of trivialization. If you work in therapy if you know anything about psychology or therapy you know that when somebody's carrying a pain too big to bear a very effective method of therapies get them to speak about it because if they can bring it out into a finite number of words and when it happens it often pours out then it becomes begins to become manageable. Incidentally it should be plain to you now if you've been thinking with me. Why are children, animals and insane people able to connect to prophecy because these are three areas of intelligence where logical, verbal, articulate expression is damaged and when the logical, finite, conventional limiting packages of the expression, articulate expression of words when that's damaged that you know as them can be there. Of course you can't get to it because there's no vehicle to express it. That's what animals, children to young to articulate and yeah people who are logically insane where there's no, where there's disintegration of of intelligence now they're not limited by these things which are fantastic tools in terms of articulate expression and logical logical knowledge but they are terribly damaging to the inner wisdom. You and being to be human you have to be to be a Jew you have to be a highly, listen carefully you have to have a highly developed external, technological, mathematical, critically logical, radically logical mind at the same time you have to allow to flourish an inner wisdom that is the, that is the converse of this external wisdom and what the Greeks have done to us they allow only one tool and once they've done that they're safe because you can think about religion and spirituality and immunity and consciousness all you like but if you only allow to think about it in the Greek terms of the finite you damage it and kill it immediately and that's what they've done and if you think you're not Greek, you're 100% Greek 99.999 and that's why you don't think you talk to yourself in words. Knowledge, spiritual knowledge does not go in words you know things as they are but they've trained us not to think like that except how do most of us think we have a conversation we've got this running pathetic idiotic infantile talk show that's going on with the question that doesn't know what he's asking and the answers it doesn't listen it's a culture we live in here if you if you have the misfortune to turn on the radio ever you'll hear some idiot asking a question that's completely relevant of some other idiot who's got knowledge about the subject and what do you think about the government's policy on this and that he doesn't the fight is clear what the government's policy is what the facts on the ground are what they and the he gives a comment and he and it's broadcast for the whole nation and people listen that one hope is there for the spirit after that nonsense but the worst thing is not on the radio it's in here the way you think about things you the way you think about things is you talk to yourself and not only it you don't even listen while you're busy talking you're ready running run thinking what you're going to answer and you've got this infantile conversation going on you never actually know anything how do you solve a human problem you got a problem with a person how do you solve it you know you solve it you talk to yourself you say well I'll say this and this and this and this and this and this and that and that and that and I'll say that you run through conversation don't actually allow yourself to know the exercise of knowing is called meditation but you know what happens to a Westerner when he tries to meditate he goes to a spiritual teacher teaches him how to meditate so the first thing the teacher says is in order to meditate you have to switch off the mind so the person since then he becomes a zombie when you switch off the mind you become comitose that's what happens it's nice and relaxing it's got that's your meditation meditation is switching on the mind what the teacher means is switch off the external mind that's what he means switch off the limiting articulate finite mind that keeps needing to put things in categories and words and that's what he means but how how do you say that yeah so how do you say switch on the mind so the advice is still the external mind still the mind that has its pathetic conversation in childish terms that is thinking in terms of words and finite concepts still that and you'll find you know when the child's born and he comes into the world of articulate expression he loses the wisdom and that's what the Greeks did Lashkech and Tehran sahah they said Jews we want you to think like Greeks we want to put you in such a rich world of experience or scientific and empirical proof where you derive things logically and philosophically we test them in the lab that's all we allow you to define is real and this thing that you call your belief your system of thing your transcendent wisdom your attachment to the higher world and today in educated society if you start speaking religion that's fairly fairly emotional stuff that's completely relevant give us the facts the scientific technological facts and the scientific technological facts divorce you from meaning of course the necessary of course the necessary the world of technology and science of course it's necessary that's where you operate but if it doesn't have the dimension of in a knowledge your machine you're a robot your your machines can do that much better they don't argue with each other they don't fight with each other they don't torture people they're much more pleasant that's the battle and the final showdown is the when Goga Magog that Greek army marches against us that's the showdown this is the battle we experience now what are the last 300 years of Jewish history think about it for a moment until 250 years ago the Jewish people was universally intense. divided to Tarantashim. There were pockets of dissension and they always have been problems, but by and large even the least knowledgeable Jew was intensely attached. In the last 250 years we've reached the stage where 90% of the Jewish people have got no attachment at all. In the last 10 years two surveys have been done in America. They show over 50% of American Jews, over 50% of American Jews. You're talking about a generation or two after Jews were tortured, burned alive, gassed just because they were Jewish. Shortly after that a few short years after you have the majority of the Jewish people who can trace no attachment to anything Jewish at all. The recent survey allowed any definition of anything Jewish. I'm not talking religion. I'm talking about a weightlifting club, a Jewish community center, a book club, anything Jewish cookery, anything. 52% of American Jews can show no attachment to anything Jewish at all. That means they would intermarry not because they go on a problem with Jews because they don't even know it's an issue. If that isn't a Greek victory, I don't know what it is. The final showdown is the showdown. It's where the West accepts a technology, a wisdom, a science of philosophy. That is entirely empirical, entirely based in expression, in proofs, in arguments, and what goes beyond that is disallowed. Look, it's disallowed. It's just not valid. That's not thinking. That's not truth. The Greek said to the Jewish people, "Kiss Fulachem on Karenachau, write for yourselves on the horn of the ox." Sheaindochem chelek bello caseau that you have no share in the God of Israel. The horn of the ox, the ox always means assertion of power. The horn means always the place of superior attachment. That means where the thing moves to the higher, to its higher expression. That's where you write that you've got no many other meanings to this horn as well. It means a golden calf and as many other meanings. But it's curved also because that's where in kabbalistic thinking, where the spiritual world attaches to the physical world straight, there's no mistake can be made. It's where it curves away. In kabbalistic thinking, where a curve or a corner takes place is where the danger occurs. That's why we wear these. No one says this means is where the garment enters a corner, no more straight line. You put on the system to continue the straight line. That's what cities are. That's why you see these. You remember the spiritual world. That's why they go on a corner. On straight places you don't need any, you're on a straight road, you never get lost. On a straight road, you turn around, you see where you came from instantaneously. There's no problem. It's on a road that's taken abend and then you carry on walking. When you turn around, you look back, you just see a bend in a road. No meaning, no point of origin. To be a Jew, you have to see round corners. To be a Greek, you just have to look straight wherever you go back to. That's where it started. It's meaningless. Who cares? You're relevant. To be a Jew, you've got to see round corners. Then let's go back and see. That's just a fork in a road. But I came from someplace out of sight. That's what it means. When I disallow that, like you can't see it, how you're going to test that. Give me a proof. As a Jew, you have to know where you came from. You have to know who you are. You have to know that you came from someplace out of sight around the corner. You can't prove that to a Greek. On the contrary, he can easily disprove you. So what's happened in the West is, not that they've taken away origin. They've taken away the means. They've taken away the road. Not just they've got you lost. They've erased the road. They've taken away the terminology. They've taken away the tools. So today, you start speaking to a Jew about Jewish identity, the terms are perverted. He thinks you mean, in a Greek way, let's discuss it and see if we can prove it. So the whole discussion's ended. It's like trying to talk about your knowledge yourself. All you can do is damage it. The only way you can ever communicate with somebody on a deep level about deep things is if you don't have to speak. When two people really know each other and a glance or a gesture or a wink or a slight change of expression is enough, they are communicating. But a person that you have to speak a lot to communicate, you might as well forget about it. The more you say the worse you're going to make. All this talk is useless, obviously, because all the words, it's all Greek. It's all Greek words. Because these are the only words we have and the only words we're able to hear. They haven't won the war. They've buried the enemy. They're not trampling on us. We too deep underground to feel it. That's what Hanukkah is. Hanukkah is a reassertion of that inner dimension. It's a reassertion of that inner dimension. It's a rekindling of that original light, the light of the manera. That's what a Jew has to do. That's what it is. Why is it oil? Why is it oil? Do you know what oil means? In Kabbalistic, in deeper wisdom, oil means Khachma, wisdom, Torah wisdom. You can more ask about why people of a certain place were so deep and wise, habituated to drink a lot of olive oil. Why oil? Because Shaman in Hebrew is the same word as Shmone, which means eight. Shaman in Hebrew means that which goes beyond Shaman means expanded. Shmone is eight. The natural world consists of seven parts. Seven colors in the spectrum. Yes, seven. The whole natural world is comprised of seven. That's what the Greek world is. Six sites, three dimensions, six sites, the seventh which bonds them into an element that transcends the components but is still visibly there. And we say we go to eight. And that's why oil, Shaman Shmone goes to the eighth dimension which transcends and Hanukkah's eight days for that reason. So compositions on the eighth day because it takes the physicality of the body and it gives it the spiritual ability to transcend. The word Shmone in Hebrew which spells eight, if you rearrange the letters it spells Nesha Ma. The soul, which is that which transcends the body and if you rearrange it again it spells Mission. Which is where they're written and are all or meet, transcending one transcends the other. That's the button. And so they enter the temple and rededicate it and then find the oil that was pure. Contamination of oil you have to understand. It's not only a ritual problem. It's a spiritual problem. Contaminating the oil means the Greek came in and they contaminated the Jewish mind. That's what they want. They want the inner sanctum of Jewish holiness and say that's what they want. Monarchy less. They want to do something worse. Something that's worth going out and fighting if you've never held a weapon before. Because nothing else if they once they've extracted your mind. And the Shaman that came in and they took that, oh that's why they were Kohanim. They were priests. Those who reconnect to the high world. They are all says that the word Kohan. How beautifully can you say it? The word Kohan in Hebrew. Kohan adds up to 75. What does that mean? Exactly between seven and eight. Seven is the natural world. Eight is the transcendent world. The Kohan is the one who stands between the two. It takes off issues. It leaves the physical plane. It goes into the sanctuary of the McDash. The Holy Zodan connects us to him and him to us. So they were the ones who came in and made the reconnection with oil which is the eighth element for eight days and it burned miraculously again showing again the dimension of prophetic and miraculous in the natural which is where we are as Jews. We lift the natural to the miraculous. I hope the point is clear. That's the battle. And so Hanukkah when you like that small light in your window you have to understand what you're doing. It's not an ancient ritual of Jewish kind of you know they put you know trees so we put you have to understand you living in a world that is thoroughly a Greek world is a world in which the definition of reality is that which is Greek and the definition. I love my therefore east. The forest is definition. The forest is the terminology. The currency. The forest is spirituality. The definition that's separate from us. In the west where we live our historical destiny of interaction with the west is with a philosophy of empirical scientific wisdom that's where it is. And so when you like this thing and you are certain a reconnection you burning in your window you have to know what you're doing and that's why the myths of the manoeira is not allowed to use it not allowed to use the light. It's there as in condition like the temple like the manoeira in the temple that's all and it's not accident that women are specially attached to it women are the beings of faith of a woman they carry that within themselves women are specially related to them like a festival they would decrease against Jewish women because the Jewish woman who started the whole rebellion and the whole redemption bring birth to the world in that sense. That's what it is you like that light in the window the inner caverno if you want to know what you should feel when you're lighting that thing what you're making a statement that shines out from your window against the whole culture that's what you are making a statement run. You're making a statement of inner wisdom that is silent that can only be known in silence it's a meditation of yet training yourself to know things beyond words as they actually are which is what Tori is Tori is a vessel of immaculate impeccable logical structure that carries within it a soul that goes beyond logic and it thrives off and it's because of the logic and yet transcends it that's what Tori is as you light that light which you made a pure olive oil in a Jewish window you're shining a message out to the world that this celebrates that which is miraculous and that's the final battle the way to handle a battle is not to be Greeks better than them why does the Jewish people become but I'll Greek the Greeks so we're gonna do this what we are Jewish people have Olympic games expose the body and garden show that the body is paramount and they run with a torch from Olympus is it what we'll have what can't be games So the total run from Modi and can you imagine who is turning in his grave? Nothing on the sport. But you're going to do the Jewish version about the Greeks. You're supposed to be again. It's too hard breaking to go into anyway. The point is that that's the philosophy that might is right, intellect is right, that which is provable, that which is demonstrable, that's where it's at and Judaism says that's where it begins. That's only the substrate. That's only the training of the intelligence that's only the seven lower dimensions that have to be mastered. But then you have to go beyond that. Otherwise, you're a machine, you're a zombie, you're a cheap talk show. That's a faculty of silence. It means developing the ability to be silent and to know things. That's the first tool of spiritual development, the world of faith. The world of Imuna lives thrives only in that dimension that goes beyond. Essentially meditation. But without that meditation left, they used to pray in the old days that the Jewish people used to prepare themselves in meditation for an hour before every filler and an hour to come down afterwards. I spent nine hours a day in that exercise before connecting to the source. There's a deep meditation where the mind is completely silent next to the moment. Anyway, this is the idea. The idea of Hanukkah, it means to show that this year should be a little different instead of being engaged in this absolute flood of meaningless chatter, each word of which means less than the previous. But is the Jew has to be selective, you have to understand how to take that, which is necessary logically as a substrate of your base of your intellect. And from there, you have to learn how to connect it to that, which is meaningful, which essentially is beyond words. Not illogical, it's a different kind of logic. It's a transcendent form of logic where things are known as they are, where the meaning is felt, known, expresses itself in the silence of inner knowledge. That will stop.