Haftorah Parashat Miketz/Shabbat Chanukah
Zechariah, 2:14-4:7
Lighting the World
On the middle ground between assuming that nothing is coincidental and everything is, I thought we might this week spend a little time discussing where Hanukkah’s being a Hag Urim, a Holiday of Lights, falls on that continuum. There are many ways the story of Hanukkah could have happened, all worthy of having a holiday, without the component of the lights.
For example, had the Hashmonaim cleaned up the Beit haMikdash and found that the Syrian Greeks had defiled or blemished all available animals for sacrifice, with some miracle then providing the needed animals, there might still have been a holiday, with a slightly different character. It would have celebrated the military victory plus the miracle of the animals, in whatever way Hazal would have instituted. It is not absolutely necessary that Hanukkah be a Hag Urim, then, although it seems so woven into the warp and woof of the holiday that it might to be hard to imagine it without.
I raise the question because this week’s haftarah seems to connect to Hanukkah by its prominent featuring of a Menorah, and yet that Menorah serves a different purpose, apparently, than the menorahs we are all lighting this week. When Zecharyah has the vision of the Menorah— and its at the very end, suggesting that something led the editors of the haftarot to include the rest of the passage— it is explained to him as sending the message that the world is not conquered with strength or might, but with God’s Spirit.
That connects the parts of the haftarah to each other, since the earlier verses had all been about different examples of recognizing how essential it is to follow God. In the beginning of the haftarah, Yerushalayim is told she’ll be able to finally and fully rejoice (celebrate her redemption) when God resides in the city, and many nations are gathered to her. The marker of the complete redemption is the breadth of the world’s commitment to serving God, a commitment that will apparently come from the connection between Hashem and the Jewish people.
The next part of the haftarah tells of Yehoshua the High Priest and his “dirty” clothing, understood to refer to some flaws in his service of God, either his own or his descendants. The persistence of flaws in one’s behavior or attitude seems to stem from underlying failings in one’s absorption of the belief in God, of God’s Spirit pervading that person. Just like we don’t test gravity, or have a problematic relationship with it, those who fully know of God’s Spirit have no issue with it. The solution advanced in the haftarah makes the same point, since Yehoshua is re-garbed and then reminded that if he follows Hashem’s ways and paths, his family will all be able to continue serving God in the Beit haMikdash. Involvement with and acceptance of God’s Spirit are the key components of success.
That leaves the question of the choice of the Menorah as the symbol of God’s Spirit in the world; the question’s been asked many times, but I’d like to offer an answer that is somewhat connected to the kind of digression I’ve found to be the most risky in my writing and thinking. That is, I’m about to suggest that some scientific insight is relevant to our question, which always gets me in trouble since I only know a popularized version of science, and am always being corrected by those who know actual science. So let me preface this comment by saying that it does not purely hinge on the science, and that I believe the science is correct (I’m taking it out of a book published fairly recently by an accredited PhD in physics).
The insight, which goes back to the late 1800’s, is the absolute speed of light, a fact Einstein deduced even without knowing of the Michaelson-Morley experiments that had already shown it. In brief, most speeds are relative. If I shoot an arrow at 50 miles per hour, and it goes past a car traveling at 30 miles an hour (I know, I know, why would anyone drive only 30 miles an hour? Bear with me for the sake of the example), people in the car will see the arrow as going by at 20 miles an hour.
That is not true of light, which always goes past at—you guessed it—the speed of light, no matter how fast or slow one is going. That becomes especially interesting when we remember that it led Einstein to build his theory of special relativity, which argued that all the rest of space and time is relative. The only Absolute, in Einstein’s physical world, was light. (The book from which I’m reading about this is going to argue that the speed of light may have varied over history, but I haven’t read enough of it to know about that; I’ll keep you posted).
To bring us back to the realm of textual Torah, that nugget of scientific information melds nicely for me with the Torah’s report that creation began with Hashem saying “yehi or, let there be light.” I have not wondered often enough at the choice of light as the first piece of creation, when Heaven and Earth would have been a simpler and clearer choice. If we believe that the Torah’s reports about Creation reflect what happened, at least somewhat, light seems to be the essential “stuff” of the universe.
One last piece of information, and then the point will be made. Ancient and medieval thinkers struggled with how a completely Other God could create anything physical and came up with the idea of the creation of a Kavod Nivra, a being (an angel) extremely similar to God, but one significant step closer to the physical; that being created another, and another, and so on, until we got a world.
If, in that chain, light is the first physical substance, it would make sense that it reflects the Godly world in a way that the rest of the world does not (such as by having aspects of the absolute, and perhaps also by its being able to seem to us to act as both a particle and a wave). That would mean that the use of light as the way to demonstrate our renewed devotion to God and rededication of the Beit haMikdash on Chanukkah would be no accident, but would be the most felicitous symbol out there. The light of the Chanukkah candles, and of Zecharyah’s menorah, blaze with the light of God, the light of rededicating ourselves to absorbing and involving ourselves with God’s spirit. Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach.
[10] Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD.
[11] And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee.
[12] And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again.
[13] Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.
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Zech.3
[1] And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
[2] And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
[3] Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.
[4] And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.
[5] And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD stood by.
[6] And the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying,
[7] Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by.
[8] Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.
[9] For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
[10] In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.
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Zech.4
[1] And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep,
[2] And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:
[3] And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
[4] So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?
[5] Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
[6] Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
[7] Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.