Tim Hegg in Manila

Tim Hegg in the Yeshiva by Sir Levi Yu

Catch Tim Hegg in the
6th Asia Pacific Messianic Conference
"What's so New About the New Testament"
&
"My Big Fat Greek Mindset"
December 25-28, 2007

What the Hanukah Candles Teach US

The Hanukah candles should be placed in the doorway of the house leading to the street. In time of peril, however, it is sufficient to place them on a table inside the home(Sabbath, 21)

When Antiochus Epiphanes (the Illustrious, or as some called him, Epimanes (the Mad), ascended the Greek Seleucid throne in 175 B.C.E., the Jewish situation in Eretz Israel became unbearable. His government was deep in debt and he exacted every last possible measure of tribute from the small nations under his domination.

In addition, he made it his life mission to Hellenize the world; to spread Greek culture among all the nations under his sway. Everywhere he sought to implant Greek nationalism. He demanded of all that they renounce their religions, their time-honored customs, and become assimilated into the Greek people. His kingdom termed in Jewish tradition as "the wicked Greek kingdom," not only sought to conquer the land of Judea, but wanted very much to destroy the Jewish religion. To tear Jewish youth away from the will of God was the main object of his onslaught against the Jewish people.

Antiochus understood well that so long as Jews adhered to their Torah fulfilled its precept, he knew it would be impossible to Hellenize them. In his mad undertaking he was assisted by wealthy Jews and some members of the Priestly caste who had been captivated by the false glitter of Greek culture. To implement his plan he sent a strong military contingent to Judea under the command of one Appolonius.

The first thing the soldiers did upon entering Jerusalem was to carry out a pogrom against its Jewish inhabitants. It was Saturday when they slaughtered every man in sight, arrested women and children and looted their homes. The Jewish populace fled the city in panic, and the Greeks and Syrians occupied their homes.

This pogrom was was the beginning of terrible suffering for the Jewish people. Immediately Appolonius issued a proclamation declaring that the Jewish Torah no longer existed and that adherence to it was forbidden. Above all circumcision, kashrut and Shabbat observance were banned. The death penalty was decreed for the observance of any of these three.

The Jews were also ordered to observe the Greek religion in every aspect of Greek idolatry. Temples and altars were set up in every Jewish town, at which the Jews were forced to offer sacrifices to the Greek gods. Antiochus appointed special officials to see to it that his commands were scrupulously carried out. He also ordered all Torah scrolls burned.

The people bore this terrible oppression for quite some time, ever hoping that things would change. Finally their patience burst and they began organizing active resistance against the tyranny and revenge in the name of their martyrs for the desecration of all Jewish sanctities.

Particularly eager for battle were the Hasideans. The members of this party and their sympathizers left the big cities where the enemy, aided by some Jewish renegades, was strong, and hid in woods and caves in the mountains and wilderness. From time to time they left their hideaways to agitate among the Jews for revolt, to stir them to rise up in a holy war against the idolatrous assassins. Their agitation bore fruit, culminating in the great victory of Judaism over Hellenism.

With the Hanukah light we demonstrate the great victory we won over external foes who had sought to sunder us from our Torah. Therefore the true fulfillment of the precept of lighting Hanukah candles is in placing them in the front doorway of the house, to show the world that we are God's people and that we will not exchange our Torah for alien cultures. In time of peril, however, when the enemies of Judaism are within, among our own ranks, the Hanukah candles are to be placed on our own tables and we are to impart to our children the great ideals of our Torah.

Links to eternity: Jewish holidays and festivals; homiletical essays by Harris L Selig (pp 183-185)

Hanukah: The Great Victory of the Jewish Spirit

Whoever holds a Hanukah candle in his hands and merely stands there, has done nothing (Orah Hayim).

All the holidays celebrated by the Jewish people are related to great historical events which helped secure Jewish existence. In addition to the festivals mentioned in the Torah, which were appointed for all eternity, the Jews in various lands have, in the course of their history, proclaimed festivals celebrating the salvation God sent them at various times and places.

The "Scroll of Taanit" alone lists thirty five such festivals, about which it is said: It is forbidden to fast or to mourn on these days. Our sages, however, did away with all of these festivals but Hanukah and Purim. About these two festivals it is said: If all new festivals will be done away with, Hanukah and Purim will not be done away with( Yerushalmi, Taanit, II).

The chief reason our lawmakers have given for retaining Hanukah and Purim as permanent national holidays is that both followed such crises in our national existence as have repeated themselves innumerable times in our long, remarkable history.

Both the miracle of Purim, which prevented the physical annihilation of the Jewsih people, and the miracle of Hanukah, which saved it from cultural and spiritual annihilation, have been repeated many times in Jewsih History. The celebration of these holidays is crucial to the maintenance of Jewish morale. They teach Jews never to despaur in times of peril, because at the right moment their salvation is sure to come.

Purim is entirely a product of exile. The terrible crisis the Jews went through at that time could not have come upon a people living on its own soil. The terrible decree that Haman issued against the Jewish people, "to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews," has never been issued against a people living in its own land. Only a "people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples" can be placed in such a predicament as were the Jews of Persia at that time.

Defense is not even possible away from home. The Jews were saved by a Jewish girl with whom the king had fallen in love and made his queen. Queen Esther, together with her uncle, Mordecai, who had once saved the King from assassination, upset Haman's evil plans. The decree could not be annulled but another decree was issued giving the Jews the right to "gather themselves together and to stand for their life."

Our Sages did not do away with the festival of Purim, because the tragic history of that period is recalled and repeated in every generation. When we study the events of theat dark era and we compare it to our own day, we find many similarities to it in the vicissitudes of our people, except that at that time, all the provinces in which the Jews lived were under the rule of a foolish despot who permitted himself to be convinced that the Jews should be enabled to defend themselves. Today's great powers, however are ostensibly constitutional, and their rulers fervent advocates of democracy. They can not be easily swayed...

Having decided to ignore the decree of Hitler whose purpose was the same as Haman's "to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish all Jews," thereby making the world Judenrein, they did not reverse this "democratic" decision. The free, democratic nations in the United Nations decided to overlook the murderous acts committed in the lands of oil and wild savages against their Jewish inhabitants, and they have not altered this decision. There is only the shedding of crocodile tears over the plight of the Arab refugees, which these nations do not really want to improve, but to use as a means of exerting pressure on the fledgling State of Israel.

As we see, the terrible story of Purim has not changed. It keeps on repeating itself. The Talmud tells us: The story of Esther was told by the Holy Spirit, that is, by prophecy which foresaw that it would be long before the story of Purim would vanish from among the Jews and its sad memory from among their descendants. So long as Jews are dispersed among the nations, their fate remains a tragic one and Purim tragedy may be repeated at any time.

Hanukah, on the other hand, celebrated a great historical event which occurred when our people was in its own land. The story of Hanukah has as its locale Eretz Israel, and it tells of a severe spiritual crisis which our people went through at that time, one that threatened to destroy the Jewish Torah, the Jewsih religion. Were it not for the miracle of Hanukah, we would have vanished as a people in our own land.

Concerning the above-quoted passage from the Shulchan Aruch, that "Whoever holds a Hanukah candle in his hands and merely stands there, has done nothing," a renowned Hassidic Rabbi said: "He who has merely lit the Hanukah candles, and having fulfilled this precept merely stands there unmoved by the profound significance of the miracle of Hanukah, has accomplished nothing. The precept does not conssit merely in the lighting of a candle..."


Links to eternity: Jewish holidays and festivals; homiletical essays by Harris L Selig (pp 179-182)

Happy Hanukah!

Blessing the candles



Baruch ata Adonai, Elohenu melech ha-olam
asher kideshanu be-mitzvotav, ve-tzivanu le-hadlik
ner shel Hanukah.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, Who sanctified us by his commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukah.



Baruch ata Adonai, Elohenu melech ha-olam
she-asa nisim la-avotenu ba-yamim ha-hem
ba-zeman ha-zeh.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe,
Who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.


Additional Blessing





Baruch ata Adonai, Elohenu melech ha-olam
she-hecheyanu, ve-kiyemanu, ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe,
Who has kept us alive, and has preserved us,
and enabled us to reach this season.

What blessing is recited over the Hanukah candle? We thank God for having sanctified us with His commandments and for having commanded us to kindle the Hanukah lights. But where has He so commanded us? Rabbi Nehemiah said: This precept is implied in the verse, "Ask your father and he will declare it to you, your elders and they will tell you"(Sabbath, 23a)

The essence of the miracle of Hanukah is that the Jewish masses were not deceived by the false glitter of Greek culture, which Antiochus sought to foist upon them. As we see in the Jewish history at that time, the Greek overlords of Judea were not so much after political and economic domination as they were intert upon sundering the Jews from their faith. They felt intuitively that, if the Jews adhered to their Torah, they would never be conquered. In their program the Greeks were aided by their Jewish assimilationists, who had been blinded by the surface glitter of Greek philosophy and wanted to Hellenize Judaism.

These assimilationists, these willful reformers, were mostly of the wealthy class, who did profitable business with Greeks and who thought that if the Jews Hellenized themselves completely, they would become part of the mighty Greek Empire and thus live in political and economic security. And so frequently happens, these plutocrats gained the leadership of the Jewish community and became the policy makers in Jewish communal life. They appointed their own (High Priests," who were no better than they, and openly urged assimilation with the Greeks. Seeing that the masses were apathetic and allowed them full control of communal affairs, they became bolder and dared to speak in the name of the entire Jewish people. The Greek rulers really thought they were the leaders of the Jews and took their views seriously.

Under the leadership of the assimilationists, the "High Priesthood" became a political job that could be bought. First Menelaus, then Lysimachus paid King Antiochus large bribes ti be appointed High Priests. Under their leadership Greek practices were introduced into the sacred service in the Holy Temple. Instead of institutions of Jewish learning, they built sports arenas for the Jewish youth, and Torah study was neglected completely. But they erred in thinking they had popular support. To be sure, the faithful Jews at first apathetically accepted their leadership, but they never supported or followed it. This was the essence of the miracle of Jewish existence then, and still is today. To the question, - What is Hanukah? On what miracle is this festival based? - Our Sages reply that, when the Hellenists backed by the Greek power, entered the Temple, they defiled all the consecrated oil used in kindling the Temple lights. Only one cruse of oil was found intact, with the seal of the former legitimate High Priest. Though this cruse contained but a little oil, enough to burn one day, a miracle occurred it burned fully eight days.

In this explanation of the Talmud, we believe, is implied the mystical force latent within the Jewish people that guards it against decline. Deep in the holy of holies of every Jewish heart is a small cruse of consecrated oil that is never used up. At times it will lie dormant for a long while - under the seal of the High Priests of yore, its flame casting but a dim light that shows only once a year, on Yom Kippur, or at the anniversary of the death of deceased parents. If anyone seeks to extinguish it completely, however it rises to a tall flame and shines again in all its glory.

After the lighting of the candles it is customary to recite the last verses of Psalm 90 and all of Psalm 91. This prayer begins - and let the graciousness of God be upon us; establish Thou also upon us the work of our hands yea, the work of our hands establish. Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines, of blessed memory, explains why this prayer was chosen for recitation at this time. Said he: "upon all other historical events in which miracles are involved, such as Passover and Purim, the miracle was of God's own doing, without any effort on the part of the Jews. The miracle of Hanukah, however came to pass partly through their own effort, through the heroic deeds of the Hasmoneans and the spirit of self-sacrifice of the Hasideans, the faithful zealots who participated in the struggle against the Greeks. Therefore we recite"..the work of our hands establish," to show that this time we did not rely entirely on miracles, but also performed outstanding deeds.

Links to eternity: Jewish holidays and festivals; homiletical essays by Harris L Selig (pp 192-194)

Abbas, Olmert Reach Peace Agreement In Annapolis

Kiddie Show in PLO

Ever wonder how it is like to be a kid in Palestinian territory?

Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008 but looks like peace would be elusive in this generation when kids are reared by a culture of hatred and death.