The ideas below really resonate with me
So another Chanukah has passed, and besides an attack of post-doughnut heartburn, we are ready to move on to the next event. I would just ask that before you place your menorahs back into the cabinet, you spare a thought for what happened to the Chanukah story’s heroes.
We are told that the family of the Maccabees experienced only tragedy. Four of the five brothers were killed in battle and the last surviving son, Shimon, saw his son and successor go off the derech. A century later, when Rome took over the country, the Roman puppet leader, Herod, murdered every man, woman, and child of the Maccabee family, so that no descendants remain.
Ouch! Something seems amiss here. Obviously this all happened only because it was the Will of Hashem, but these were tzaddikim, (as we say in Al Hanissim), so what grave sin could they have committed?
The Ramban tells us they died because they transgressed a law in the Torah. Yaakov Avinu says in Parshas Vayechi: “The sceptre (Royal authority) shall not depart from the Tribe of Yehuda.” This wasn’t only a blessing , but a command. A Jewish monarch is not to come from any tribe other than Yehuda. The Maccabees were Kohanim! They were tzaddikim, and great heroes, but assuming the throne was a transgression, and they paid for this with their lives.
How could these holy men fail to follow such a direct Torah command? Rav Yisroel Miller in his sefer on Yom Tovim, explains that perhaps their fault lay in the fact that they were in fact holy. Spiritual people only want to do good. The test of righteous people is that sometimes they want so much to do good that even if their goodness is not the right thing to do, they will do it anyway.
The family of the Maccabees was motivated by an intense desire to serve Hashem and save Klal Yisroel. They wanted so much to help, and they were convinced that no one else possessed their skills and dedication. Their understanding of the situation may have been correct, but this dedication tricked them into concluding that they were faced with an emergency situation: “No one from the family of Yehuda is qualified to lead, so we must take power ourselves.”
The commentaries on the Ramban explain what they could have done, but for our purpose, suffice to say that a general rule is being articulated here: Every tzaddik faces a powerful urge to do that which is good. If the tzaddik is not careful, that urge will lead him astray!
How often do we see well-meaning people and organisations who seek to make the world a better place fall foul of just such a dynamic? They want to do so much good that they become blinded to the clarity of what the Torah wants. Communal leaders must always be mindful of the dangers of becoming carried away by idealism, to the point that they end up doing more harm than good.
In our own times we have seen this happen on many different levels. Idealistic askonim who seek to bring a tikun, end up floundering in a quagmire of political correctness and become in the process mere window dressing for those who deviate from our Torah.
Many have read recently about concerns Rabbonim have regarding a project called Limmud. This is a so called cross communal event wherein representatives of “all” strands of Judaism are given a platform to share their views. The current brouhaha is nothing new; it has been going on from the very inception of this organisation. What is new is that some rabbinical figures of the United Synagogue have chosen to now attend. This comes after years of pressure coming from the lay leadership. It is rumoured that the very positions of some are contingent on their attendance. I have been involved with this matter before, and am no stranger to what is happening. When I was the chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the Provinces and sat on the Chief Rabbi’s Cabinet, this subject was broached with uncomfortable regularity. On each occasion, the Dayonim paskened that it was wrong for orthodox Rabbonim to attend. In fact, under their guidance we created another programme called Encounter that produced a world ranking speakers who engaged a wide variety of Yidden that flocked to hear the dvar Hashem. I personally chaired a number of these events, and had the zechus of presenting shiurim to overflowing crowds. What happened to Encounter? Well, it seems the money ran out, something I never understood. However, there is nothing stopping us from rekindling that flame, instead of flying into the fires that are being stoked by Limmud’s adherents.
I believe everyone who is thinking of turning their back on a clear psak halocho from Torah leadership should think again, and contemplate the lessons learnt so bitterly from the Maccabees of old.
May we all kindle the flame of the Torah with a clear fuel of Torah-true adherence, and not fall into the trap being laid by those who seek to destroy our mesorah.
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