The eleventh "chamber" in the palace of daily life.
Tuesday, the 29th of Kislev, the fifth day of Chanukah, 5703 (1942).
Lessons: Chumash, Parshat Miketz, the third portion, with Rashi's commentary.
Psalms, on the eve of Rosh Chodesh, we complete the entire book of Psalms — from chapter 140 up to and including chapter 150.
Tanya, we begin chapter 4 from the words "and furthermore there is" until the words "a negative commandment."
The passage studied today is a short excerpt from a talk that the Rebbe Rayatz delivered on Purim of the year 5701. In that Purim talk there was a lengthy and interesting discussion, in which the Rebbe Rayatz summarized and surveyed the matters of Chanukah and Purim. He described at length what caused the decline and the spiritual downfall of the Jewish people at the time of Chanukah, what punishment the Holy One, blessed be He, brought as a result of this, and what ultimately caused — thank God — the miracle of Chanukah to occur and the Jewish people to return to themselves. Afterwards he described the same thing with regard to Purim as well. At the conclusion of the long passage in which he speaks about Chanukah, the Rebbe Rayatz makes a sort of summary, and expresses in a few brief words the essence of all his statements — and this is the saying that the Rebbe inserted on this day, the 29th of Kislev.
When we examine the sayings and topics that the Rebbe brought forth during the days of Chanukah, we can discern a certain order: In the first days he brought more of the practices one should observe on Chanukah — conduct, customs, and halachos regarding the lighting of the Chanukah candle and the like; and at the conclusion, on the 29th of Kislev (whose morrow is Rosh Chodesh, followed by two more days of Chanukah), in the final portion of Chanukah, the Rebbe brings forth the lessons derived from the concept of Chanukah. First in the daily saying — a saying that presents the concept of Chanukah in the way of mussar, through the path of derush and mussar — and on the following occasion this will be the study of the matter of Chanukah in the way of Chassidus.
This is today's passage, and it is written in Yiddish. "The sins of the Jews (in the time of the Greeks) were:" — the transgressions that the Jews committed, which are what caused the entire deterioration. As a result of those transgressions, very great troubles occurred; Antiochus destroyed tens of thousands of Jews, and there were extremely difficult situations.
What is the starting point that caused all of this? The Rebbe Rayatz elaborates, and the order here is very significant. The first thing he describes, the act that caused all the deterioration that followed afterward, is: "befriending the Greeks." In the Rebbe Rayatz's description, it is brought that during the first period of the Second Temple — close to two hundred years, the first one hundred eighty or one hundred ninety years — this was a very good period for the Jewish people; they were happy and wealthy, and everything was good. And this good situation caused them to begin connecting with the surrounding nations, and especially with the Greeks.
The Rebbe Rayatz brings from the Zohar that the ministering angel of intellect, the angel of Haskalah (intellect/enlightenment), was in Greece; and the Greeks were exceedingly wise people, and the Jews who connected with them were greatly influenced by their wisdom, and this is what caused their downfall. The first thing that caused the problem was the connection with the Greeks — that is, even before one transgresses the will of Hashem and commits sins, the first station is the drawing close to them, and this already opens the door to all the falls. [One can connect to this the response the Rebbe gave to a certain young married man who asked where to live after his wedding, when he had several options, and the Rebbe writes to him there that it is worthwhile that in the first year they live in a place that has a chassidic environment, and in this way they will acquire the chassidic conduct.]
The Rebbe Rayatz then details the acts themselves: "studying their culture" — studying their culture, which subsequently led to transgressions; "desecration of Shabbat and festivals" — they began to desecrate Shabbat and to desecrate the holidays; "eating non-kosher food" — they stumbled in eating non-kosher food; "and not observing Jewish purity" — they did not observe Jewish purity, family purity. These were their deeds and their problems.
As a result of this, the Holy One, blessed be He, brought punishment upon them. What was the punishment? "The blow of punishment came in the spiritual destruction of the Beit HaMikdash." The Beit HaMikdash had not yet been destroyed in the literal sense, for this was about two hundred years while the Beit HaMikdash still stood intact, but a spiritual destruction occurred: Antiochus halted the service in the Beit HaMikdash, and for a certain period there was a spiritual destruction — they brought an idol into the Sanctuary, and there were all sorts of actions that brought about spiritual destruction, and not only spiritual but also physical.
"Killing and enslavement in exile" — Antiochus killed thousands, and the Jews became subjugated to exile. There was a certain exile — a spiritual exile as well as a physical one — as a result of that conduct.
What brought the matter to an end and nullified it, restoring the situation to its former state? The Rebbe Rayatz concludes and says: "through teshuva and mesirut nefesh" — the Jewish people repented, and not only that, but they stood in mesirut nefesh. The stories of Matityahu and his sons are well known, that they acted with complete mesirut nefesh. And as explained in Chassidut in Derech Mitzvotecha, that when one wishes to uproot the sin and its effects, it is not enough to cease the deed from now onward, but one must also uproot the entire will and desire that was in the sin, in order to nullify all the kelipot that clung to the person — and this is mesirut nefesh: "nefesh" from the expression of will, that the will which had been on the negative side must be given over entirely to Hashem.
And what did the self-sacrifice accomplish? Through teshuva and self-sacrifice "the great divine miraculous salvation came" — the Jewish people received the miraculous, divine, and immense salvation as a result of their conduct. And how was this expressed? "the miracle of Chanukah" — the great miracle of Chanukah occurred. This was already an expression of the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, loves and cherishes them, and shows them this — for although it is known that in principle it would have been permissible on Chanukah to use even impure oil, since "impurity is permitted in a communal context," the very miracle demonstrates the affection with which the Holy One, blessed be He, cherished them and accepted them anew, since they returned in teshuva and sacrificed their lives. This is the primary and inner point of the message learned from Chanukah.