“The Secret Of The Lights” Chanukah Shiur 2025

Okay, Shalom to everyone and greetings. I'm not going to greet everybody by name if you don't mind because I live out someone except my dear sister is a pleasure to have her with me and I think an old friend. If I see him I will also. Okay, so thank you very much to Ariel in the background who is making this happen from Cape Town a woman sunny Cape Town here we're in. Cold and rainy London and thank you to my daughter Bina who is the coordinator of this website and helps me a lot. And thanks to all of you so let's begin with that I do these. I do these occasional webinars for the people who sign on to the newsletter at the website and I want to thank a lot of people because people donate. To the website and that keeps the site going and it keeps a lot of my activities going so although we don't solicit and ask people for donations but it's extremely welcome and I appreciate it very much and I hope that these. These classes are a little bit of a paying it back or paying it forward. I want to talk a little bit about Hanukkah. So let me try to discuss an aspect of Hanukkah I don't think we've spoken about before at least not in this forum and that involves understanding where Hanukkah fits into Jewish history and what that means. So let me try to place this in context you know that Hanukkah the main thing to understand about Hanukkah the starting point for this discussion is it's what we call a post biblical festival. So that is Hanukkah along with Purim the two events that were instituted by the rabbis of the time and they are when the written Torah generation comes to an end namely prophecy and miracles when those fade into darkness. Then we enter the phase of the oral law during which the rabbis of the time Esther and Mortify in their case and Matitio and the subsequent sages institute new festivals namely Purim al Hanukkah the unique because they're not mentioned explicitly in Torah they added by rabbinic. If you like which raises many fascinating questions we know we're not allowed to add festivals to the Torah we're not allowed to admit so there's a lot to talk about yet but that is the that's the context to illustrate this at least put ourselves in context let me show you a picture of Jewish history. I personally have one on my wall this is one that I keep on my wall if you can see it I've made it a chart which shows the experience of Jewish history I'll show you can't see the details on the screen I'm going to show you my. My screen I'll do a little screen share here and show you. Can you give me a wave if you could see that anyone. This is a chart you probably can't see the details at this resolution but it is a chart that my son, Gabriel Rabbi, Gabriel Tets made and it's found in the back of my book as dawn ends the night if you get a copy of this book which I highly recommend at the back of the book you'll find a pull out chart of history. Okay and this chart will do you can expand it and you'll see the generations that I'd like to talk about on the other side of the chart you will find a listing of the various leaders and personalities who live throughout those those ages in in much more detail. The main thing I want to show you on this chart let's see if I can enlarge it slightly is that this is a timeline of history. Okay so you're going here from this side of the screen you're going from the creation and you see the overlapping timelines of the various personalities and then at this point this gray bar down the middle is pretty much can I lodge that. Perhaps you can see that purim and then about 150 years later Hanukkah and this broad gray strap down the middle that is the period of the great assembly. So the the sages of the great assembly and sheckness at Tangdolah and sheckness is like door they lived we're talking about 2350 years ago. Purim and about 150 years later Hanukkah the men of the great assembly were the leaders of the Jewish people during the Purim era in fact more to high was one of that great convocation of sages and Hanukkah was just after that period. This is often called the period between the first and second temples you see the top of the chart you can see the first temple era is the second temple era and a chart like this is extremely useful if you speak to Jews. You'll find out that many people unfortunately don't even know where the purim came before Hanukkah or Hanukkah before purim and it's absolutely critical to understand that juncture in history and this broad bay and down the middle of the chart distinguishes between the first part left hand on my screen namely the prophetic biblical era during which profits were receiving direct communication from our shame and performing miracles and then Hanukkah which introduces the second stage of history where there's no revelation at all no profits no prophecy no miracles and that is a major distinction between two eras in history. So highly recommended chart like this I don't know if you can see it but I actually enlarge this chart I have a chart that I've enlarged to about 10 feet by 5 feet and I put it up in a classroom when I have to teach this in you know to live in live settings. So highly recommended to familiarize yourself with this chart by the way if anyone emails me I'm happy to download this chart to you and you can simply print it out for yourself and whatever enlargement you like you don't need to you don't get the book for that I have it in Hebrew now and Russian and French so if you want one of those languages let me know. And that is the watershed moment in Jewish history distinguishing between you see their destruction of the first temple. Purim is right after that right after Purim the Persian leaders sons or grandsons of Esther probably allowed the Jews to go back to Israel which was that that return was led by Ezra Nuhemiah and they built the second temple and Hanukkah right there was the re-dedication of the second temple after the Greeks had defiled it. So that's the that's the placing in history I'm going to stop the share at this point and use that as the context to to talk about our subject so what we want to understand is in this sweep of history what changed at that time and what does it mean. Can you hold let me ask you to hold the questions if you don't mind while I just build a little bit of a picture there too many people on this on this group for me to answer questions on the fly if you don't mind so Margaret and Kate if you don't mind just undoing those hands I'll be able to thank you very much so if this time we'll take questions otherwise please feel free to email I think it's just going to be a bit chaotic we try to answer questions live by the way you can type in questions in the chat and I'll try to look at those if I can but give me a chance first to build you a broad a broad overview of what's happening here. So the the first era of human history of world history of Jewish history was an era of revelation we call it gilwy or revelation and Hanukkah of course where we're heading in this discussion is to show that Hanukkah is a revelation of some of that original revelation in the face of darkness for those who like these these hints and clues. Hanukkah is actually according to Kabbalistic tradition according to the great Arizal it is a pink into the original light of creation. You probably all know that when the world was created there was a light called the Orha Ghanuz which means the hidden light which was created on the first day of creation later was still revealed to a certain extent when Adam and Eve Adam and Habib were created they enjoyed that light they ruined that phase of existence were their sin although the light did not disappear on that day on the Friday of their creation. It remained intact and revealed all through the Friday and the shabbos and on Saturday night when the shabbos was over the world went dark. Amazingly as a side point not our main point today is to realize that on Shabbat right on Shabbos the light shines even in a state of sin amazing thing and that's a subject for another discussion. But when Shabbos was over finally the resultant darkness manifest and the measure says Adam panicked he thought that it caused darkness upon the world. Hashem showed him how to make fire right this is why we are doing have dollar with a flame on Saturday night which is the time of the rebirth of the week if you like. And as another side point which is also very interesting and very relevant here too is that the day dawned the next day and then night and then Adam noticed that the days were getting shorter and the nights were getting longer. Let's not forget if you take his creation as Russia son up okay take it as history and now you moving into the winter well he didn't know that time was cyclical right he not yet aware of the seasons as they are now. And so he noticed that the days were getting shorter and the nights were getting longer and that proceeded over many weeks and of course that led him to a total. depression because he became convinced that his sin had caused a sequential diminution in the light so that ultimately there'd be no day and only night. And that you can imagine his response to that. And then, on the 25th of Guestlave, which would later turn out to be Hanukkah, is when the solstice, right, that time, that time of year, when the minimum day length and maximum night length was passed, gradually over the next eight days, he saw that the days were getting longer than nights were getting shorter. And that was the rejoicing that led later to a light festival of Hanukkah. In other words, the root of Hanukkah, amazingly, is not only back in the Torah, it's back in the days of creation. When the eight days of the transition from the winter solstice began so that the days slightly began to get longer, right, those eight days became a tremendous cause of celebration for him when he realized that the world was now cyclical, it was not a permanent destruction that he'd brought about. By the way, as a complete aside, this is what the Christians irrigated to themselves, right, knowing that the, is it any coincidence that they celebrate on the 25th of their month, a festival in which they hang lights and they took this to themselves. And of course, they also celebrate eight days. I know if you know this, but Xmas on the 25th and New Year's Day on the 1st or eight days apart. And of course, in Christian tradition, the 25th was the birth of their Saviour. And eight days later was his bris. Okay, and those are the eight days that Christian celebrate, which is just one more element that they've taken out of Torah. And of course, the deep connection is they celebrate a birth, a rebirth, a resurrection, an agency of, of salvation, of the world. You can see all the, all the connections. Well, that's not, that's not our subject. But nevertheless, the authentic source here is that, um, is that was the source of Hanukkah. So we're talking about a, a disappearance of the Oragonus. By the way, there's a very beautiful Rauchach. The Rauchach was one of our great authorities going back to the 1200s, lived in Germany at the time, a major, major personality. And the Rauchach writes very beautifully, a beautiful Rames or hint about Hanukkah. He points out that the Oragonus, that hidden light, survived for 36 hours. The 12 hours during which Adam was created on the Friday, and then 24 hours of Shabbos, the Oragonus was, was excellent. And beautifully, he points out, that's why we like 36 candles for Hanukkah. If you add up right, one plus two plus three plus four, etc, you know that we get to 36 candles. I'm not counting the shamans, of course, which is not a Hanukkah candle. 36 candles are symbolic or innocent of the 36 hours of the Oragonus. Now that's a beautiful hint, but the depth of it means that when you ponder the Hanukkah lights, you're actually supposed to be seeing a little bit of a hidden Kabbalistic light that is still penetrating the, the centuries and the eras of Jewish survival in the worst of times, coming from the Oragonus, which one day will have its its recrudescence or its resurrection. So that's the original hint of Hanukkah. And what it does is, introduces a history of the world that has two phases. Now this is the key thing to understand. Human history fits into two stages. The context for that is that history progresses like all realities in the world from head to feet, as the great, as the great, Ramchal points out repeatedly all structures on earth, both space and time, have the structure of head to feet. So we call, we call history a Yerida Sardares, a descent of the generations, beginning with a head, namely Adam, Adam and Eve, Adam and Hava, moving down through the great Overseanemis, fathers and mothers of the Jewish people, and further down as history progresses, until we, at the end of history, are the Iqf-Zidema Sheikh, at the foot, the bottom of the feet of the Messianic form. People conventionally translate our generation as the footsteps of the Messiah, Iqf-Zidema Sheikh, as if to say you can hear his footsteps approaching. But of course, the Kabbalists, as always, translate it literally. Iqf-Zidema Sheikh means the dead material of the heels, the lifeless part of the body, which is the heels, which is where we are in history. We are the heels of the human form. Right? I think I've pointed out to you before, that Ramosha Shapiro used to say that's why our generation has the characteristics of the thick dead skin on the bottom of the feet. Insensitive to pain, you can stick needles in, you can cut it, heels feel nothing, but the most sensitive part of the body to be tickled, used to say that's our generation. Insensitive to the worst brutality and immorality, but available for superficial stimulation that makes empty laughter. That's how he characterized us. But be that as it is, we are the furthest from human consciousness in our pre-messionic era. So that's the spread of history from head to feet. We of course are at the very very end, the Jewish year now, 5786, out of a 6,000 year span, which is predicted. So we are very close. We've seen all the prophetic predictions have come true with exquisite precision, except for the final pre-messionic shot down. So that's where we are located in history. But in this general decline of history from head to feet, there's one moment that stands out above all others. And that is not a gentle decline, but a precipitous fall. And that is the gray band on the chart between the prophetic era and the past prophetic era. And that is called the descent from the revealed set of generations to what we call Hester Pony, the hiding of the face, is that any surprise that the woman who introduces that is Esther, which means the hidden one. Esther introduces the Purim phase where the light begins to close, and then we have Hanukkah where the light is completely closed. So let's understand that transitional zone of Purim Hanukkah. Again, we're going back 2,300, 2,350 years. And what you have at that time is the tail end of the prophetic era. There are prophets around. After all, the Gamora concludes that Mordecai and Esther were prophets. Mordecai was part of the Great Assembly, which included Ezra, who was the tail end of a prophetic revelation. Daniel was alive around that time. Najemia, Zrubovel, right the last of the prophets were extended during the Great Assembly and were members of the Great Assembly. And so, when Purim occurs, it occurs at the tail end of the era of Revelation. How do we know that? Well, look at Purim. You'll see that everything about Purim is transitional. For example, there's a McGillah, which means a book of the Bible of 24 books of the Scripture or the Canon, if you like, right? We shall all buy definition, books of Revelation, books of prophecy. There is a book about Purim, but very unusually, although it's a book of the Torah, doesn't mention Hashem's name. Up to now, we have Hashem appearing on every line. Here, you have a book which talks about prophetic and miraculous events, but does not mention Hashem's name. Obviously, the name is going into hiding. It has clues to the name. We have a deep tradition that when the McGillah says, "Malach" and the "Malach" are Hashwerosh, it's talking about the Persian king. But when it says, "Malach", it's talking about the king and also the king of kings. But it doesn't say his name. Second point is, Purim means the lack of the draws. Not the divine guidance that you can see. It happens to us, you know, drawing lots. Purim is a Persian word. Esther means the hidden woman. The McGillah means McGillah means to roll up a scroll and Meghala means to reveal. It has that duality. Another example is, you see, that the Talmud debates where the Purim deserves to be included, namely the McGillah. Does it deserve to be included in the Canon of Scripture? Or is it late and belongs outside like other apocryphal works? For example, most relevant to our discussion. The book of the Macabees, right? The book of the Macabees is the apocryphal literature, which does not belong in Tanakh. Now, the very fact that there's a debate about whether the McGillah belongs in Tanakh or not shows you that it's transitional. By the way, the conclusion is that it does belong in the Torah, because there's obviously prophecy within it, namely, for example, the McGillah says, "Vayyermir Haman-Baliboy" and Haman said to himself, "Well, how would you know what a person said to himself?" An S.U.A. Prophet, "Conclusion, Bornachine, Esther must have had prophecy, but it's not a foregone conclusion. There's now in the book of the Torah where it's debatable whether it merits to be in the Torah or not, because God's speaking, God's not speaking, but with Purim it is debatable." So everything you see, there's a miracle in Purim, like all previous eras, but it's a hidden miracle. What happened? There was a king, he couldn't sleep, he had a wife, he didn't know she was Jewish, a whole sequence of intrigue in the palace of the Persian king leads from Jewish destruction to Jewish survival, but nothing obvious. In the McGillah, there's no dead people being revived, there's no manner falling from heaven, there's no ocean splitting, all the characteristic revealed miracles of the previous eras were not occurring at Purim. So everywhere you touch Purim, you see it is the light going into hiding. And what happens 150 years later, you have Hanukkah, nothing at all, no prophets, no book, no McGillah, never mind Ashem's name, not revealed, there's not even a parchment, there's nothing, not even a mission, right? Nothing about Hanukkah. The only place you find Hanukkah and the Talmud is sandwiched into the discussion of lighting Shabbos candles, but there's nothing revealed at all. The only thing that was revealed at Hanukkah was a lost wave goodbye from the world of miracles, where candle that should have burned lights, that should have burned for one day, burned for eight days. So there was a flesh and lost flickering the darkness. of a farewell from the world of miracles and then we move into the long 2,000 years that we inhabit now with no revealed miracles. So that's the transition That's the first point to understand deeply you have prophecy of miracles and then put him Hanukkah the light fades And then you have no more miracles now someone's asking me on my screen about the miracle of the battle against the Greeks So let's understand it. The answer is this The answer is this And this is critical to understand is that there are two types of miracle They're two classes of miracles that's fundamental to understand this after all the towers built on miracles Every festival introduces a new miracle the towers built on miracles They're not just sort of a denda and things that had to happen at certain times the towers based on miracle Every festival introduced a miracle put him and Hanukkah both introduced miracles So the whole towers based on miracles are fundamental to understand that now they're two kinds of miracle There's a miracle. We call hidden miracle Nice Nistar and there's a miracle. We call nice Niggler revealed miracles What's the difference? The difference is that a hidden miracle is something that is incredibly coincidental but not impossible Right, and thus we see certainly see them in our generation. You have 39 Skad missiles falling on Israel during the Gulf War 39 in the tiny compressed space of Israel, right, which you can jog across easily in the morning and Not one hit anyone except one that hit a school and it happened to be Shabasuna when was there not pretty impressive but not impossible So you see amazing coincidences a nice Niggler is a miracle that's revealed to the extent that a law of Nature has changed and that we don't see illustration a Hidden miracle is if you're going for a run you accidentally run off the edge of a cliff not good But as you fall you grab a twig growing out of the cliff face and you hang the dangling over thousands of feet of empty space And as you do you feel the twig snap But just as it snaps there happens to be somebody practicing throwing ropes over the edges of cliffs that day And you grab the rope and he pulls you back up that my friends would leave you pretty religious for two or three days I can assure you but it's not impossible That if you tell your atheistic, you know skeptical scientist They will say that such things could happen. So that we call an incredible and amazing coincidence Which is something that's very impressive. You certainly get the message, but it is not impossible However, if you're all off the edge of a cliff and you grab onto a twig and it snaps and you levitate up and float back on Which would leave you religious for at least a week That is what we call a revealed miracle and the difference is that breaks the law of Nature and That's the category of miracles that were manifest in the first phase of history and do not manifest now There's a side point here I hope we get time to talk about which is why the rabbis of the Talmud were able to perform miracles like that Deep in the second phase of history. How could they manipulate nature? Revived dead people? Okay, wonderful discussion I hope we'll have time for that but the general principle is That in the first phase of history there were miracles of the revealed kind Purim ended that because it was a miracle of a hidden kind and Then Hanukkah begins the second phase where yes, there is a revealed miracle But that's all there is and after that we see nothing to be accurate for those of you who are sticklers for accuracy There was one further revealed miracle, which is much lesser known and that was not long after the the Hanukkah miracle You know that after Hanukkah for a number of years the Kohanim the Macabees who were priestly Kohanim they took control of the Jewish people was a serious mistake as the Rambam explains They should have given it over to the tribe of of Yehudah Unfortunately, they held on to the lead held on to the leadership and had led to their Destruction and demise they were completely eradicated but after that era the Romans took over right There was a very short period during which Jewish authority was established namely when the Macabees evicted the Greeks They took over and for an amazing period of time the world was run Israel was run under Jewish authority The only time That had happened since the days of the kings and after that the Romans took over and we lost the authority And we fell under Roman rule Sometime after that When the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, there was a fortress at Mehta and The resistance at Mehta held off the whole Roman Empire for a couple of years Their Romans brought in legions from Asia Minor They were furious at this band of Jews who managed to hold them off. They were led by Bar Kochba The whole story Bar Kochba also not for now and eventually there was a mistake and Bar Kochba was was killed and they were conquered But they're held out for a long period of time and the Romans were so incensed by the resistance of the Jews They were finally conquered beta and the blood that flowed there was amazing proportions and the discussion of how many people were killed is awesome But those dead bodies of the Jews the Romans refused permission to allow them to be buried Knowing how important it is to us that Jews need to be brought to a proper Jewish burial The Romans made a rule that the Jewish bodies should lie in the fields and decompose and rot nothing could be more offensive to us And that's what they decreed and miraculously the bodies did not decompose None of them decayed and eventually if couple years later There was a change in the Roman government and they rescinded that that rule and all those bodies were brought to burial and in recognition Of that miracle of the bodies that did not decompose and were brought to burial The rabbis of the time added a brocher a blessing to the benching the blessings we say after eating bread The fourth blessing of Toeva matey of Toeva and matey if you are good and do good You're good that the bodies did not decompose you do good that they were brought to burial If you'd like a little homework from this class What is that got to do with eating bread if you want to make a blessing about dead bodies that didn't decompose What what the rabbis thinking when they added it as a fourth blessing to the eating of meals fascinating question So there was one final miracle of a revealed kind dead bodies that did not decompose and some of our later authorities Point out I think very beautifully very evocatively That the nature of that miracle is a hint to the resurrection Yes, the bodies have died. That's true, but they will one day They intact enough that they will be resurrected a lost flicker of hope in the gathering darkness That will last for two thousand years. Right. That's that By the way, it's very poignant. You know that the Rambun The Rambun says that when Jacob died in Egypt and his body was brought back for burial. That's part of Torah Right, Jacob died in Egypt while Joseph was the viceroy and Joseph and his brothers bought his body back to Israel to bury him So Rambun points out that that burial procession and bringing Jacob to bear was recorded in the Torah Which means it's part of Torah and anything that's part of Torah is part of Jewish history says the Rambun that presages That presages the end of Jewish history where The Jews will come back to Israel dead That means the Jews will come back to Israel at the end of history, but so lifeless That's like dead bodies bring board back before a resurrection and the gone puts it in exquisitely beautiful terms He says when the prophet says His naari may a far kummi shake yourself off from the dust and arise right we say that every Friday night In l'Hadrodi which is a premonition of the of the resurrection hit naari may a far kummi shake yourself off from the dust Says the gona build and something Exquisitely beautiful. He says the prophet is not saying shake yourself off from the dust where you are He's saying shake yourself off and arise from the dust that you are Not that you'll be lying in the dust. You will be dry dust at that point of history Anyway, that is a that is that's the story So we're talking about the span of history phase one revealed miracles breaking laws of nature and paradoxically breaking laws of the nature by the Exodus We water is water for us and blood for the Egyptians beyond Not just abrogation of the laws of nature, but complete blowing away of all logic of nature And then the Jewish people experience those more than a million prophets 1,000 one million two hundred thousand prophets arose among the Jewish people as the gona says getting less and less as time goes by The tale and these people like Ezra Daniel monochai ester who were divinely inspired but not quite prophecy but just Prophecy borderline prophets the Talmud debates their status and then you have The end of prophecy completely And then you have Hanukkah where we have milk for the first time Rebunic leadership with no reference to prophecy I like to point out If you ask yourself what was the first Rebunic decision ever made Think about it during those eros of prophecy and miracles you had prophets if the Jewish people wanted to go to war Or they had to annex territory or some major issue, right? That is relevant to the Jewish people no one made decisions like that The sunhedrin went to the prophet and the prophet of the time consulted asham consulted God Or they went to the temple they had read the orin vertumim Right the miraculous press parade of the coin people wouldn't move without that Without asham informing them What was the first time that Rebunic decision was made Where there was no access to that sort of information was matitio Matisio the great leader of the Jewish people of the macabeean revolt He was the leader of the time what it is He said, "My friends, I've made a decision." He said, "Rabba, what's your decision?" He said, "We declare war on the Greek Empire." "Rabba, you and whose army?" "Well, this me and my sons, you know, these five of us, I think we can do it." According to some traditions, they were 13 of them. They had some friends. 13 of us. Yeah, I think we can take on the Greeks. "Rabba, the Greek army, 10,000 war elephants, you know, like hundreds of thousands of Greek soldiers." "Yeah, I think we can do it." "Rabba, did you ask the prophet?" None of them. Did you consult the Orinvo Tumim? We don't have those anymore. "Rabba, what makes you think this is the right decision?" You know, my Torah, Wisdom, leads me to say, "And they won." Okay, there was the first time a rabbi made a decision. It wasn't whether we pled the halas a little differently or smell different spices on what Seychar was. It was declare war on the Greek Empire. Okay. That is where we moved into the potency of the Oral Law and no longer have a reference to prophecy and miracles. Okay. What have we said so far? Hanukkah is the end of the transitional zone between Purim Hanukkah where there was prophecy and miracles and now we have none. Let's take a moment to understand why we prophecy and miracles go together in the first place. Let's talk about that briefly, so many things to say here. Why did prophecy and miracles stand or fall together? And the answer is that there are two ways you to express yourself. There are only two ways you can express yourself. Your mind is not revealed in the world and is expressed in speech or action. Think about it. You have no other way. You can express yourself in the world. You can talk, which is an action but very refined, more articulate and then there are actions you can do in the world. Hashem always, God always expresses himself in both those two ways. How did he create the world? Via Yomura-Lukim and God said, via Yasa-Lukim and God did. So the descriptions of the creation are God speaking the world into being and creating the world with His hands. In the second edition of creation, where we leave Egypt, how does he express himself to us? He talks to us when we hear the Ten Commandments from his mouth or the first two. He gives them to us with His hands the form of the written tablets, speaking and action. Those are always the two ways in which you express yourself. And therefore, when Hashem wants to override nature and he wants to speak to us or reveal himself to us openly, he does it through human beings and those human beings are called prophets and they speak his word called prophecy and they do his actions called miracles. And therefore, they always go together. The greater al-Bagh, the great French medieval Comture, a levy Bengali, points out that every time you have a miracle occurring in the Torah, it occurs in the presence of a prophet. Now, why these two are necessary is because there are three components to reality always, thought, speech and action, corresponding to Nefesh Ruhachnashan. So you always have those three. Thought is not revealed in the world. So the other two are always different, two different layers of expression. So prophets are always doing both. There's a wonderful side point that I don't think we have time for now, which is why does Hashem need a human being at all. Hashem, if you want to hide behind nature, understand, but if you want to reveal yourself, let your voice boom out. Why do you need to speak to a prophet? You want to override nature and have the ocean split, split the ocean. Now you need a human being to stand there and put his staff out or his hand, fascinating question, if it's time or pass another occasion, we can go into that. But the point is, by the way, I'm doing a book on that. So if you look out for that, hopefully in a couple of months, that'll be out on the Exodus, which goes through that question. And I think I've spoken about this also for those who are interested. I've just recorded a series of podcasts with my Saniyaku, Rabbi Yakovtez. We've done a series called The World Mask Podcast. It should be posted on our site soon. I really, I presume we're going to be doing the next couple of days. If you click on that, you'll be listened to 20 minute podcasts and we discuss some of this stuff as well. But for now, let me say that Hashem never operates in the world directly, never, even at the giving of the Torah. There was a prophet standing present, namely Moishin, right? So he always operates the humans and there's no time now to go into that fully, but he always operates the humans and so even when he's overriding nature, not hiding behind nature, he speaks openly, but through a prophet, that's called prophecy. And he acts through a prophet, that's called miracles. And therefore those two modes are always occurring together and they occur together. They stand or fall together. And when they fall at the Purim Junction History, they both disappear. And therefore, here's the key from Hanukkah on after the miracle of Hanukkah, no miracles, no prophets. Or more accurately, do we have the prophecy of inspiration? What do we call Ruhah Khadash, and as there are months, there's the great rabbis. Can speak with that sort of authority, not open prophecy, but inspiration, and the rabbis are capable of miracles as well. Not the kind of miracles which means Hashem is present, but manipulations are made just like they can form Torah themselves. That's called the genius of the oral law where rabbinic opinions become definitive. The rabbis can also manipulate nature, and that's why the Talmud is full of miracles even though they occur in a non-miraculous phase. If you'd like to look this up, there's a fantastic section on this in the Bala Lesham, in a safer called the Safer Adaf, fantastic piece on that. I've actually translated it and made it available in my book as dawn ends the night for those who want to see it in English. And he explains the question, the question is, how can you have miracles in the second phase of history, namely, the Mishnah and the Kamora of full of miracles, rabbis reviving the dead and splitting rivers and baking bread and an empty oven? Women doing that, Mrs. Haninobendoses, Rabbi Haninobendoses, daughter lighting candles out of vinegar, because she didn't have oil, I mean, you name it, you know, the blaze of miracles throughout the rabbinic era. How's that possible? We just said definitively that miracles ended with poor Eman Khadrika. Since the Bala Lesham, miracles of Hashem's presence in the world ended, but now when Hashem steps back and he gives the keys of Torah control to the rabbinic personalities, holy people in the world. Now we can do miracles, not because Hashem is present like he was with prophecy, but because he's not present, he's stepped back and lobashamani is given Torah to the hands of the sages. The sages now can create Torah, they can even outvote a divine opinion under certain circumstances and they can reveal Torah in the world of their own consciousness and they can perform miracles of their own. Again, that doesn't break the rule, in fact one beautiful proof of this. If you have an ear for these things, the Rambam writes that for a prophet to establish himself as a prophet, he can either predict the future with the great precision or perform a miracle. After all, is that not the function of a prophet, prophecy and miracles? So there's a pretender to prophecy. We need to know if he's true, this is the era of prophecy. Well, give us a prediction that is very specific and it comes true or perform a miracle. Right? Now the obvious question is this, if the Rambas could perform miracles and they definitely were not prophets, what kind of proof do you have? Again, if Rambas can come along and perform miracles in the world, when they explicitly no longer living in an era of prophecy. So you see a person can do a miracle out of their own spiritual greatness. So then if a person comes along to claims to be a prophet, how can you trust him? And the answer is very clear. A person claiming prophecy and proving it by a miraculous thing is only relevant in the time when prophecy exists, in which time God is doing all the miracles in the world. It falls away completely. If a person came along now, came to be a prophet and did 150 great miracles, it wouldn't make the slightest difference. At most we would say he's a very special individual, but certainly wouldn't be proof of prophecy. And the reason is not because he's not doing the right actions, but because prophecy being closed, by the way with reference to Christianity, note that we claim that prophecy ended with a great assembly, okay? And therefore Ezra and the men of the great assembly, they closed the Bible, they closed Tanakh, okay, debatable to put them in, they put it in. And when the last book of the Bible was added, Khal guys, Zaharyah Malachi, they closed Tanakh, which means they ended prophecy and closed the Bible. And what did the Christians do, re-opened the Bible, and claimed another phase of prophecy, and that's how we know it's wrong, because that's in the face when that no longer was possible. Okay. So these are the two stages of history, where you have phase one prophecy, miracles, Torah being revealed, the written Torah, then you have Purim, a lost eb of written Torah being revealed in a transitional way, and Hanukkah, the oral Torah takes over. Rabbi Huttma famously calls Hanukkah the Yompt of Torah Shabbat, the festival of the oral law, because now we move into an age where you know more appeal to a divine voice. No more hearing messages from another world, no more proofs by miracle. Now we move into the genius of rabbinic opinion that creates Torah. We are in the tragic era of no revelation, and the amazing era where we do ourselves. This is the creativity of our generating Torah. That if you like is the point of history, to live in a phase where Hashem reveals himself while he can do anything, but to live in a phase in history where we reveal Hashem in the world. that is the secret of the of the of Hanukkah. And for the person who asked the question, what about the miracle of the victory over the Greeks? And he was a miracle. But he had a miracle. Doesn't break a rule of nature. When a small group of guerrilla fighters, you know, confound a mighty army, you know, there's no dead people being revived. There's no matter falling from heaven or oceans being split. Right? So it is something that is astoundingly miraculous, but does not break physical laws of nature. So that is the nature. In fact, that was the real miracle of Hanukkah. The lights were symbolic, so to speak, of a last ebb of the miraculous light fading into the background. And that's why when you light the Hanukkah lights, now what you're demonstrating is a small insight into that original light living in the world of a mitzvah that we created. That's the whole point of primal Hanukkah. Let's take one final step to show this greatness of the process of the oral law, the genius of the oral law that harks back to sources in the written law, and yet works with it to come up with opinions that are truly original to the extent that so to speak, even if Hashem would disagree, he would be outvoted. Let me share with you at a standing plane in the form of the Talmud section in the Talmud that talks about it. So the gama says that there was a debate going on at Yavna. Yavna was the seat of the Sanhedrin at that time in history. We're talking about after the closing of prophecy, we're talking about the Mishnaik period, and we're talking about the generation of the teachers of Rabia Kiver just around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. After that, in the era of Roman rule, the leader of the Convocation of Sages was Rabia Shurd of Assumin Hananya, and his counterpart was Rehbiliyezah. The two of them were famed a famed pair of teachers, and in fact Rehbiliyezah became the precursor or became the spokesman, so to speak, for the red hit by Shama'ilana thinking. But these were the two greats of the time. Now, the Sanhedrin was assembled and they were discussing a certain halakhic item, the details of the halakhic issue are not relevant from now, but they were debating it. And they came to a time to vote, and the majority read, led by Rabia Shurd, had a certain opinion. Now, Rehbiliyezah disagreed. Now, Rehbiliyezah was greater than the rest of them. He was known as Rehbiliyezah Godol, and he had taught most of them, and they knew that he was superior to them. And yet, they disagreed with him. And as you all know, the oral law does not go according to, you know, the fiat of a sage where the whole point of the oral law is, you're understanding, that's the point. When it's prophecy, if a prophet tells you something, whether you like it or not, you accept it because it comes from Hashem. But in the oral law, it has to be filtered through your consciousness and your halakhic wisdom. And therefore, although they knew that he was superior, they did not understand what he was saying. And they were about to vote, and he would have been outvoted. He was the lone voice in the minority, and they were the vast majority read, led by Rabia Shurd, and he was about to be outvoted. Well, he tried to explain his position and convince them, and he failed. What recourse do you have, where the debate's going on, you're in the minority, you fail to explain your position to the majority, you have only one recourse left, and that is, prove it. Well, he tried to prove it logically, they did not understand. So this is what he did. He said, if I'm right, I want that tree outside to get up and walk. And the caribbean tree, I've rooted itself in it, walked a hundred places. And be sure, looked at the caribbean, he said, "Ain Mavina, we don't bring proofs from caribbean trees." And we later said, "If I'm right, I want that stream to turn around and flow backwards. The water reversed itself and it flowed uphill. And be sure said, we don't bring proofs from streams." These were not chasidim, you understand. They were litvaks. Anyway, not chasid, there. So then when I said, "If I'm right, I want the walls of the base marriage to cave in." And the walls began falling. And if you sure got up and he yelled at them and he said, "He rebuked the walls and their remains suspended." Okay. Then they said, "We don't bring proofs from the walls of the base marriage. Look up the Maharal, by the way. Why do you need three different proofs?" And finally, maybe as I said, "If I'm right, I want a voice to be heard." And a voice boomed out from the heavens. You know whose voice? We call it a bus call. It's not prophecy, okay? This is a bus call, an echo of a voice. And the voice said, "My trim, et cetera. What do you want from Rehbiliyaz? He's writing everything that he says." Maybe you sure, Amadal Raghulav, Amad Rehbishar, Rehbishar got to his feet and he said, "Lord Basha Mami, the Torah is not in heaven." And they outvoted the voice. What is going on? And by the way, the good morgue goes on to say that subsequently one of the sages met Ali al-A'ilani, Elijah the Prophet and said, "What was Hashem doing when he took that vote?" And he said, " Hashem was smiling and saying, "It's Chunibana, and it's Chunibana. My children have defeated me. My children have defeated me." What is going on? Outvoting God? What is this? Now, first of all, first point, notice that they outvoted the voice only using Hashem's instructions. The Torah says, "Follow majorities." Again, isn't that people making up their own religion? Let's understand this. They were using what the Torah instructs us to do. Hashem has given us the Torah and he stepped back, Lord Basha Mami, that means he's no longer in charge, so to speak, of the Torah. He's given it to us. Amazing, trusted us with the Torah. And one of the instructions used majority rule. So when the rabbis had to come up with a decision, you make the decision based on majority. So they outvoted the voice, not because they were making up their own religion. They were applying the Torah, which is majority vote to the sun every. So in case you get any ideas here that you can start reforming, you know, Judaism to your own likings. We're not talking about that. But what does this mean? Now, the concept here is that the written Torah has come to an end. Lord Basha Mami means Hashem is stepped back. That's why the rabbis cannot be miracles because Hashem has given them the keys to reality. And that's why the great sages of the Jewish people, authors of the mission, can now make up laws. Of course, they have to be true to the principles. They have to do it according to the majority. They have to fulfill the Torah to come up with new solutions and new rules and new laws for every generation of history. And the authorities vested in them provided that they are using Torah principles, right? Of course, if you're going to pervert Torah principles on a copy on religion, then of course, it's valid. Now, the, of course, there's a side question, a fascinating question. Why did it really isn't not accept the majority? He also knew the rule. What about him? Surely it really isn't. There's a majority rule. You're in the minority. You get, you get, you get outverted. You have to accept it. Here was another debate. This is really not our point. I'll spend a couple of minutes on it. Here was another debate between them. The debate was, does majority rule apply always? Does it even apply when the minority's superior? You see, you can't vote on that, can you? Because the majority will vote that the majority holds sway and the minority will say no. The vote is only applicable where the two sides are equal, but I happen to know more than you. And I'd like to illustrate this point. There's a very beautiful story from the life of Ramunis and Abyssis. One of the great sages of the last two centuries who was a genius as a child. And Ramunis and Abyssis, when he was a child living in a town in Europe, there was a Catholic priest in the town who delighted in trying to convert this little boy to Catholicism. It was a genius, the child. And this priest used to always try to convince him that he should become a Christian. So one occasion, the priest said to the, to the child, he said, I will show you that you ought to become a Christian based on your own religion. On your religion, right? Because in your Bible, you Jews in your Bible, it says, Akhrerabim, not as far as the majority. That's what your Bible says. Well, we Christians are in the majority and you Jews are in the minority. And therefore, according to your own Torah, you should become a Christian. Without a moment's hesitation, little Unison said to the priest, he said, the law following majority is only plans in a case of doubt. It doesn't apply when you wrong. Now, you see, that's what Rebellious was saying. He was saying, we're not going to follow the majority here when you are wrong. And they said, well, Rebellious, we don't think we're wrong. Okay, that's what happened. Now, let me share with you an incredible insight from the great Arizal here, the great Kabbalistic master of the 1500s, something sublime. He says that, let's take a step back. Remember, we said history as two phases is the revealed phase and the non-revealed phase in Kabbalistic terminology. The first phase is called the body and the second phase is called the legs. After all, we descending from head to feet. We are now at the bottom of the legs, namely the dead skill on the bottom of the heels, which is where the opposite renaissance says death in heels in the human being. By the way, in Greek mythology talking about Greece, they also teach that death is inherent in the heel. Right? Where does that come from? It comes on this medrush. Right? have this notion that the heel is vulnerable, the part vulnerable to death, comes exactly from Torah, where the serpent puts the poison into the heel. And you'll find that in Officer Rabinossal, Perik, Lama Dalif, I think it is, Lama Dalif, Lama Dalif. So that is the, that is the decent. Now, where's the critical moment where you move from body to legs? Purim Hanukkah. Why? What are legs? Legs in Kabbalistic writing are called Netzach and Hood. You know that in the Kabbalistic system, as we often point out, you have, you look at the chart of the Serious, right? The Serious. You see the ten, ten Serious, right? The three in the head, then you've got Resed, Gworetti Ferris, Netzach, Hood, Legs, outside the body, Legs or seat forming organs. In other words, the things that carry you forward, and then delivery from male to female, and then the birth, that results. But these two, the right hand side is called Netzach, that's called Purim, and the left hand side is called Hood, that's Hanukkah. In other words, Purim Hanukkah are the legs of history. What does this mean? And this is written clearly, and explicitly in the writings of their Result, what does this mean? Well, when the body ends, the extensions of the body begin. Legs are not part of the body. Legs are called LeBarramikufa outside the body. In their Result's terms, he says when a woman gives birth, the legs are cold, she cannot longer walk. In other words, her body ends at the point where new life begins, the legs are extraneous. Why are they extraneous at birth, by the way? Because legs are not you, they're the extensions of you that carry you forward. What are your children? They're your legs, they carry you forward in time. That's where the, that's what the Talmud calls a son, a foot of his father, Karadavur. The son is the foot of the father, and the fetus is the thigh of the mother. Where did these images come from? The notion is that just like your legs take the essential you from one place to another, your children take your essential, the essential you from one generation to the next, you walk on your children, right? They carry you forward. And so history has the same pattern. History proper ends where the legs begin, and then the legs which are extraneous to history, rabbinic additions are called the legs. It's a must-excquisite hint to this in the writings of Rabbi Yusuf Hamzaunfeld, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem at the tone of the century, 1899, 1900. Fantastic book about him called Guardian of Jerusalem. He points out very beautifully that when Yankov battled the "Sar of Asaf," the angel of Issa, right? And it says that Asaf struck him in the thigh and injured him in the hip. He says, "Look, he tells us, "Kafi Yerech ya, Kafi Yerech is Gammacea Hanukkah" and the Yerech ya, and it says he injured him in the thigh. The two phrases, the one phrase equals Hanukkah and the one phrase equals Purim in Cometria astounding. Of course, it's the legs of Yankov, where he's essential being ends and we move into the post prophetic post miraculous post biblical history, where we carry Torah forward. Hashem is not so to speak writing on our shoulders. We are the legs that carry Torah forward in the world, but that's the concept. So the first phase of history is the phase of the body, the essential Torah, and then we move into the oral Torah, where we carry it forward. We give birth, so to speak, to a dimension of Torah, and so to speak, Hashem is now subject to our opinions. What's very beautiful is in the great Arizal's Cometria on the Talmud. He points this out like this, he says, "When the Gammara talks about the sages, debating Rebiliersa, if you're sure, a voice from heaven, write the tree walking up and down, and they're they're overflowing backwards." But he has a Cometria on that Gammara and he asks one question, "Exquisitely beautiful." He says, "Now, now, what question do you think you would ask? Picture the scene, the walls are caving in, the sages are debating, there's a tree walking around, there's a river flowing backwards, a lot of questions you could ask, right?" He asks only one question. He says, "Why does the Talmud say, "Aman Rabbi is sure on Raghulah." Rabbi is sure got to his feet. In English, he should say, "He stood up and said." So his question is, "Why does it say he stood up and said?" Now, you know, of all the questions, if you could ask on that Gammara, "Is that the thing that you would have noticed?" He says, "That's the key to the whole Gammara." You know why? Because now we stand on our necks. But the Talmud's telling you is, "Until now, Ashami speaking, but Aman is sure on Raghulah, he got to his feet and he said, "Lobashamami, now we stand on our feet, Ashami, right, and you ride on us and look how beautiful the next line is." The Gammara says, "One of the sages met Aliah Novi and what did he say to him? What was Ashami doing when we took the vote and what did he answer?" Ashami said, "Nitschuni Banai, Nitschuni Banai, Netsach twice." Netsach, of course, is Netsachanhod, right? The two aspects of Netsach, Netsach and its completion in hod, those are the two festivals of Purim and Hanukkah, the legs of Jewish history. And that's the greatness of Purim and Hanukkah. They are post-biblical. They're allowed to work on them. It's not like Shabbos and Yamter, right? All you've got to do is light a candle, but the cabalists look at those candles with intense focus because in those little candles, they're shine in the Jewish window, that will not cease until the sheer, under all the persecutions and traumas and and horrors and terrors, everything we've been through. That little light is still shining out into the darkness of a winter night. The temple, the menor in the temple, which was the light of Torah in the first phase is over. That didn't survive. That collapsed when the temple was destroyed, at least deep in hiding, but the menorah of the macabees of the Khashmanaim, that we light in our window, that will remain forever, as the rumbun points out in his commentary on the section about the lighting of the lights. So what we studied in this session was a little bit of a history lesson, right, which is critical to understanding Torah, Torah and history, intimately bound up. First phase, the sweep of history, is the first phase of revelation, junctional zone, Purim Khanaka, where we move into our own motivations, our own understandings where our shams so to speak steps back, not long reveals himself, but gives us the keys of control. We can now perform miracles at the human dimension. We can now create Torah amazingly, and that's the phase will take us through the darkness to measure. So for the next few days when you light your Khanaka lights, or you celebrate Roscholish in two days time, what is Roscholish? We decide when Roscholish will be. We make the months, the Torah gives us authority, Sunhedrin get together, and they decide Roscholish, now we follow the fixed calendar. But in essence, we create, and if we say that Tishray begins today, Hashem is forced to make you keep attend days led on the day that we say, "Wall," that means we create, we are in control of the world that is given us into our control, right? No less than deciding when the festivals occur, because we are in control, that falls in Khanaka too. So this has been a brief introduction to an aspect behind the scenes in history, which is the notion of transition from reveal to hidden. Now this has many applications, we'll stop at this point, but if you like to see the applications, there must be 20 fundamental applications of understanding the transition. I tried to document them in the book as dawn ends the night when I went to Ramosh Hashem here, and I said to him, "I am writing a book, and the reason I'm doing it on this is because there must be 20 subjects that you taught us that you cannot understand unless you understand this transition," he said, "20, they're 200." As Srim, Yashma time, then I realized, of course, this is a major principle in understanding Torah based on Jewish history. Anyway, thank you to Vienna, thanks to Ariel. Thanks to all of you, thank you once again for your contributions made at the website. I very much appreciate that tools that you give me to continue. Please take a look at the book and the chart. If you want the chart, don't hesitate to email me at the website. I'll download it here with the greatest pleasure, and have a great Hanukkah. Best wishes to everyone.