Vayeshev – The Exile Within
The wisdom of Gematria – that Hebrew letters and words are also numerical codes that contain profound meaning and depth – is rather misunderstood . Many think that the the numerical equivalences between words are mere coincidence, or made up, or at best a cute way to play with Hebrew words but not a true part of our Jewish tradition.
The truth is that Gematria is a serious science with a complex set of rules that have been passed down the ages for thousands of years.
For example Rabbi Jacob Ben Asher (1269 Germany – 1343 Spain) known as the Baal Haturim after his famous Halachic treatise – the precursor to the Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Yosef Caro in the 16th Cent- wrote a commentary on the Torah specifically focussed on uncovering the hidden messages found in the Torah through Gematria. This includes acrostics, formation of letters, word patterns and so on. Sometimes entire sentences form a Gematria. It is not just that there are many hundreds of Gematria passed down to us from tradition. Once a person learns the many rules of Gematria they can start to discover new layers of meaning in the Torah text!
As we approach Chanukah I thought to share one fascinating Gematria that will help us discover the spiritual roots of the festival. Here goes!
The Gematria of Yosef יוסף(we always read the story of Yosef just before and during Chanukah) = 156
The Gematria of Tzion ציון (Zion in English) = 156
The Gematria of Antiochus = אנטיכוס = 156
(Antiochus Epiphanes was the emperor of the Syrian Greeks who led the persecution against the Jewish nation circa 165 BCE at the time of the Chanukah story)
According to the theory of Gematria words that have the same numerical value are conceptually equivalent or related in some deep essential way.
I can understand that Yosef is related to Zion. Yosef is characterised by the rabbis by righteousness. Only Yosef is known as Yosef Hatzaddik. This was due to his overcoming his baser desires to flee the seductive and manipulative advances of his master Potiphar’s wife.
Zion represents more than just another name for Jerusalem or even the entire land of Israel. Tziyon is the expression of the Jewish nation living according to the Godly ideals of righteousness, justice and loving-kindness. So Yosef = Tziyon makes sense.
But how to we connect Yosef and Zion to Antiochus who is the antithesis of Torah ideals.
Antiochus in the 2nd cent BCE led a vicious assault on the Jewish religion banning the observance of Shabbat and circumcision and many other defining Mitzvot. Worse still he attempted to break the chain of Torah transmission by banning the study of the Torah. As I wrote last week “without the Torah there can be no Jew”.
His very name Epiphanes means “the mad” so called for his unhinged psychopathic qualities. The very opposite of Yosef and Zion!
The answer lies in understanding ‘the difference between the Greek exile and other exiles the Jewish people have endured.
Exile in Jewish literature usually connotes loss of land and nationhood. The Babylonians in 586 BCE destroyed the first Temple built by Solomon and sent the Jews in chains to Babylon. In Psalm 137 Kind David captures the moment “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, we also wept when we remembered Zion”.
The Greek Exile could not be more different. It takes place inside the land of Israel. This was less a fight about the physical survival of the Jewish people and more a fight for the very soul and essence of Judasim. The Maccabees did engage the Syrian Greeks in a series of battles lasting over two decades, but this was in order to create some semblance of autonomy over Judea and the temple. The Greek Exile is the Exile Within and hence Chanukah is the redemption from this particular form of spiritual exile.
We do allude to the physical victory over the Greeks in the Al Hannisim prayer where we thank God for the victory of “the few against the many, the weak against the mighty and the pure against the impure”. However the main “battle” was between Jews themselves.
The Hellenists (according the oxford dictionary esp. Jews) were Jews who had abandoned the Torah way of life and had assimilated into the Greek Pagan culture that worshiped beauty and the body. Of course there is much to admire from Greek culture including democracy and philosophy but the pagan culture and worship of many Gods was at odds with Judaism’s conception of the unity of God.
The Jewish conception of God leads to a vision of hope, forgiveness and redemption. Greek culture without adding monotheism to the mix leads to tragic conception of life; of a world where the gods are hostile to humans and require appeasement, where glory is power and so on.
On the surface it seems that Judaism utterly rejects the Greek way and yet there is a more subtle way to understand Chanukah. The worship of aesthetics, pure materialism as end in itself Judaism does indeed reject. But that does not mean we reject the physical world God created. The way of Judaism is to uplift and elevate the world we live in. To utilise beauty in the service of Hashem.
The word for Zion ציון is actually made up of the word Yavan יון and the letter צ (Tzaddi) meaning righteous. In other words the concept of Zion is to take the beauty that is so incredibly explored by Greek culture and to elevate it!
This requires the discipline of Halacha – lit. the Jewish way- to be able to sanctify our passions and desires for holiness.
Halacha introduces the notion that if we are to truly enjoy the world God created for us we must be able to say no to destructive inner forces and desires. A relationship with holiness requires separation and protection from the unholy elements.
Yosef the transformer
This is the essence of Yosef who was known for his beauty. He is the only man in Tenach described as handsome and charming!
The Rabbis point out in the Midrash that Yosef curls his hair and overly takes note of his appearance. They seem to be criticising Yosef as immature. This was the brothers view. They felt that Yosef’s approach was not the Jewish way; that it would lead to the abandonment of Torah true values. They thought Yosef’s way of being in the world and transforming it was not the Abrahamic mission. They were shepherds living away from society where evil desires can reign freely. They lived in union with God connecting with Him through meditation and through nature.
The brothers fervently believed that to be Jewish we must play it safe and avoid the many pitfalls in society at large.
Yosef teaches the brothers (and of course is eventually vindicated ) that there is an even grander mission for the Jewish nation. That there way is holy but not the ultimate fulfilment of Gods purpose in creation. Yosef believed that we must transform society one step at a time. Yosef’s first dream is about the sheaves of grain. Sheaves represents agricultural society where people engage in exchange and commerce . That is where we must reveal Gods presence. This is where We must bring the light of morality and spirituality into the darkest places and there is no place darker than ancient Egypt. Yosef understood the Abrahamic mission to be a bold and dangerous one- to transform the whole of society each and every culture in every age until eventual in the words of the prophet Zephaniah ” For then I will make the peoples pure of speech, So that they all invoke the LORD by name And serve Him with one accord.”
The brothers were so protective of the purity of Godliness that they just could not see how a path copuld be forged to reveal God in society. And so they threw him into a pit utterly rejecting Yosef and his alternative path for Judaism.
The truth is that both Yosef and the Brothers visions of Judaism are valid and MUST work together.
The clash of the Jewish people and the Greeks hundreds of years later again brought this conflict again into focus.
The Maccabees were traditionalists, purists who in a bid to keep the soul of Judaism alive had no choice but to completely revolt against every aspect of Greek life. The Greeks had defiled every aspect of Jewish life trampling on our notion of sacredness – that transcendence can be drawn down into the physical world through the performance of a Godly Mitzvah (best understood as an opportunity for Divine intimacy in the world).
The Maccabees having defeated the Greeks could only find one flask of pure oil which they miraculously lit for 8 days. This represented the light of purity. It symbolised God’s presence still could be found even amidst the darkness of exile.
The way of Yosef is fraught with danger. To enter the cauldron of modern culture, live as a Jew, transforming the world around him yet at the same time remain unscathed by the toxic elements is extremely difficult. Yosef almost succumbed to his passions. And later in history the kings of the Northern kingdom who were descended from Joseph also fell into the trap of worship of the externals reintroducing idolatry to the nation of Israel. So maybe the brothers were right. The task of being an outward facing Jew is impossible. Yet the Gematria equivalence between these three words indicates that this ideal is not impossible to achieve.
And that is why embedded in the laws of the Menorah is the concept of beauty. To paraphrase the Talmud:
“The basic Mitzva is one candle each night, the Mehadrin (beauty) level is each member of the household lights one candle each night and the Mehadrin min hamehadrin (most beautiful level is to light one candle on the first ascending to eight on the last”
What has beauty got to do with Chanukah? The answer is it has everything to do with it!
Chanukah teaches us to utilise the beauty of this world and transform it into the light of holiness only then can we truly say that we have integrated the Greek and Jewish aspects together and made Yavan into Tziyon ! Then even the Antiochus characters of this world will be humbled to see the truth of Godliness that pervades our world.
Shabbat Shalom
Ps Earlier in the Torah we see that Noah blesses his son Yafes with a unique blessing “May God make Yefes beautiful and may he dwell in the tents of Shem” Yefes is the progenitor birth to Yavan and the Greek empire. Shem (Semitic derives from his name) is the progenitor of the Jewish nation. Noah foresaw a time when the Greek culture that explores and discovers the physical beauty of the world is sublimated to holy use by the wisdom of the Torah (dwelling in the tent of Shem)
PPS anyone interested in a fuller discussion in these great overarching themes of Judaism feel free to contact me.