The Rebbe's Encouragement to Australia on Chanukah 35 Years Ago - Still Strengthening Today

00:00 We are all stunned, shaken by what happened in Australia in recent days. On the first day of Chanukah—Australia is one of the first places in the world where Chanukah begins—to the shock of the entire world, what happened happened. Everyone is shaken, broken. This is how we begin Chanukah, precisely Chanukah, a time of light, a time of victory: the victory of light over darkness, of holiness over impurity, of all that is good over all that is evil. Why did we begin Chanukah with this terrible thing on this very day? Of course, I have not come here to resolve or explain the questions that every one of us is asking. I only want us to draw a little strength and encouragement from what our Sages say about Chanukah itself. From there we will draw the strength not only to keep our spirits from falling, but, on the contrary, to be stronger, to be braver, and to continue in the way the Torah teaches us: only light can drive away darkness. If a little light dispels a great deal of darkness, then certainly a great deal of light will dispel the darkness. May we merit, this very Chanukah, to see the great light we are all awaiting: the light of the Geulah, the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, the Kohen Gadol kindling its light, the lamp in the Beis Hamikdash from which light goes out to the entire world. Today we will talk about a passage from the prayer we say on Chanukah that speaks directly to us in these days. It is particularly connected with Jews throughout the world. I will also tell you a little about the Jews of Australia. I, too, was privileged to spend a period of my life in Australia on shlichus from the Rebbe, and I have a particularly interesting memory of Chanukah that can give strength and courage to the Jews of Australia in particular, and to all Jews throughout the world. In the “Ve’al Hanissim” prayer, a special prayer we add during Chanukah to Shacharis, Minchah, and Maariv—to all the prayers, including on Shabbos and holidays—we say

02:31 the special “Ve’al Hanissim” prayer. Among the things we say in this wonderful prayer are: “And You, in Your abundant mercy, stood by them in their time of distress. You fought their fight, judged their cause, avenged their wrongs. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, and the wicked into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah; and for Your people You wrought a great deliverance and salvation, as on this day.” In other words, we are telling the story of Chanukah—but it is not only the story of Chanukah. It is the story of exile throughout all its ages and periods. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in His abundant mercy—“in Your abundant mercy, You stood by them in their time of distress.” When Jews are in distress, Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands by us, helps us, assists us, and fights our battles—even miraculously, as we say here, “the many into the hands of the few,” and as the rest of the prayer goes on to say. Of course, this is a wonderful thing, because we need it today. We pray for it and ask that it happen now as well, amid the great distress the Jewish people are experiencing—particularly the distress of exile, and especially this difficult period of exile, when the enemies of the Jewish people are raising their heads: “Against Your people they plot in secret,” and all that is written in the prayers. Nevertheless, we will see openly how Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “in Your abundant mercy,” stands by us. But here we need to understand the wording of the prayer. What do these words mean: “And You, in Your abundant mercy, stood by them in their time of distress”? What does that mean? If the point is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu helped us, then it could say, “And You fought their fight,” or “And You, in Your abundant mercy, fought their fight and avenged their wrongs.” But what does “in Your abundant mercy, You stood by them in their time of distress” mean? What is the significance of this standing that we speak of here? There are really two questions.

04:38 The first question is: What does “standing” mean—“You stood by them”? The word “stood” must be emphasizing something special. What is it? With regard to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, our Sages say that there is neither sitting nor standing Above. That is, neither the concept of sitting nor that of standing applies to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. These are physical things, and they do not apply to Him. Why, then, do we find the Tanach speaking of Hakadosh Boruch Hu in these terms? Obviously, they carry some meaning—a spiritual meaning, conveyed through the analogy of sitting and standing. There are verses such as “The heavens are My throne and the earth is My footstool.” So there is a throne; Hashem, so to speak, sits in heaven. There are verses where the Tanach uses the concept of sitting with regard to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, while here we speak of standing. The question is why. What is it about this word that relates especially to Chanukah? The second question: the prayer says, “You stood by them in their time of distress.” That implies that it is specifically in a time of distress that Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands. Is Hakadosh Boruch Hu not always with us? On the contrary, in the days of the Beis Hamikdash, when the Jewish people were there and the Beis Hamikdash shone, when there was the light of holiness and the Shechinah was present in the world, surely Hakadosh Boruch Hu was with us. In fact, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is always with us, in every situation. So the prayer should have said, “even in their time of distress.” But the wording here implies otherwise: that it was specifically in their time of distress that “You stood by them.” What does that mean? What is the meaning of standing, and why specifically in a time of distress? To explain this, when we speak of standing and sitting—of anything we attribute, so to speak, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—we take the approach of “From my flesh I perceive.” We can understand it by looking at a person. What do standing and sitting mean for a person? We see that when a person

06:35 sits, his body is in a lowered position. His head is not at its usual height. When a person sits on a chair, he lowers himself to a lower level, so to speak. That is the idea of sitting. When a person stands, his head is held high and his whole body is in a straight line—head, body, and feet—and he stands on the ground. What does this represent? In general, the head represents the power of intellect, the power of wisdom. So when we speak of a person standing or sitting, what does that tell us about the state of the mind, of the intellect? Is the intellect in a state of sitting or a state of standing? When the intellect is in a state of sitting, it means that the intellect descends, lowers itself to a lesser level, and sits down on a chair. Think of a king sitting on his throne. The king has a deep and wonderful intellect and wisdom; that is why he is king, and why he must lead the people. He has to sit on the throne—to lower himself, so to speak, to bring his mind and intellect down and condense them so that he can understand how to lead the people, guide them, tell them how and what to do, and give each person the attention and the things the people need. That is the idea of sitting on a throne. When we speak of a king sitting on a throne, it means that the king lowers himself, brings himself down, and condenses himself in order to relate to the people and their needs and give them what they need. But when we speak of standing, we mean the opposite: the head, the intellect, is held high, at a higher, more elevated level. So when we speak about Divine influence in the world, there are

08:38 Different periods. There is the Divine flow in ordinary times, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world. Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world and governs it with individual Divine providence at every single moment, “sustaining the entire world with His goodness, with grace, kindness, and mercy.” In ordinary times, when things are as they should be, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s influence in the world is in a manner of sitting. As it were, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sits on a throne. He “sits down,” so to speak: He lowers and limits Himself in order to relate to His creations and provide for each one. “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing,” giving every creature what it needs—the inanimate, plants, animals, and human beings. This is the Divine flow that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in His abundant mercy and individual Divine providence, provides to every creature: everything it needs, everything the world needs to live and continue to exist. But there are certain times when things are not as they should be. And that begins, as everything does. Everything in the world’s Divine governance begins with the people—with the Jewish people, with the Jew. Hakadosh Boruch Hu conducts Himself in accordance with a Jew’s conduct. As is well known, a Jew’s conduct also affects, so to speak, the way the world is governed. So when a Jew conducts himself in the ordinary way in his day-to-day service of Hashem, the Divine flow from Above is likewise bestowed as it should be, in a normal, healthy way. That is how it was when the Jewish people were in the Beis Hamikdash. “Will G-d indeed dwell on earth?”—as King Shlomo describes the Divine presence in the Beis Hamikdash. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, sits and reveals Himself through the Beis Hamikdash, and from there the light goes out to the entire world, giving life to all of creation. And this begins with the Jew’s own conduct: the intellect, the mind, rules over the heart. The mind illuminates,

10:44 influences, and directs: through a Jew’s learning Torah and knowing what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants of him, the mind rules over the heart and the emotions, and the heart over all the limbs. He directs the actions of his body to accord with halachah, with the Shulchan Aruch, with Torah and mitzvos. So when a Jew conducts himself in the healthy, normal way a Jew should—when the mind engages with his character traits, his emotions, his heart, and this affects every part of his body to act according to halachah—then Above as well, so to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sits on the throne and bestows every good thing that the creatures of this world need. But when there is a time of distress—“because of our sins we were exiled from our land”—when Jews, when the Jewish people, are in a state where, instead of the mind ruling over the heart, G-d forbid, G-d forbid, the heart rules over the mind. Instead of allowing the G-dly soul, which is in the mind, as it says in Tanya, to guide the animal soul, the opposite happens: the animal soul guides the G-dly soul. The heart rules over the mind, reversing the proper order. A person lets his ego, his selfishness, guide his desires and his intellect, to the point that his intellect becomes biased, blind to all the desires, cravings, and pleasures in his heart. That is what brings about exile, the exile of the Shechinah. This is what is called a time of distress. When the Jewish people are in such a state, then Above, too, so to speak, there is a time of distress for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the nations”—this is the time of the exile of the Jewish people. “Because of our sins we were exiled from our land.” A time of darkness, a time when the darkness of kelipah, of impurity, grows stronger. And this is essentially what happened in the time of Chanukah, even though the Beis

12:47 Hamikdash was still standing. But the Greeks raised their heads—not only the Greeks, but also the Hellenized Jews. Among the Jewish people, sadly, this was a period when the Greeks elevated matter over spirit and darkness over light. They brought Greek wisdom and Greek culture into the Land of Israel, and this led to the growing dominance of the material, the growing dominance of materialism and darkness. Their aim was “to make them forget Your Torah,” as we say in the prayer, “and to turn them away from the statutes of Your will.” As is well known, the Greeks were people of wisdom. They had no problem with wisdom in itself, not even with the wisdom of Torah. But they did not want the holiness of Torah. They did not want the G-dliness in Torah, the Giver of the Torah. “To make them forget Your Torah and to turn them away from the statutes of Your will”: a Jew could learn Torah, but not because it is Hashem’s Torah; he could observe mitzvos when he understood them, but not because they are “the statutes of Your will.” That was the impurity of Greece. And so they entered the Sanctuary, took the oil, and sought to defile it. They had no problem with light in itself. Their problem was with light from pure oil, holy oil—Divine wisdom, holy wisdom. That was what bothered them. So that, essentially, is the heart of the Chanukah story. The miracle of Chanukah was that precisely in that period, precisely when the darkness was growing stronger, the power of faith and mesirus nefesh was revealed in the Jew. That is the story of the Chashmonaim, the story of the Maccabees. “Maccabee” is an acronym for “Who is like You among the mighty, Hashem?” In other words, it was precisely the darkness, precisely that period, that awakened in the Jew the power of the yechidah, the power of mesirus nefesh. That is what enabled them to overcome the darkness and go beyond reason. To defeat something like that, serving Hashem according to reason is not enough. As we said earlier, the mind rules over the heart, and from there its influence extends to all the limbs. That

14:58 is for ordinary times; that is the usual form of service. But when we are living in a time when “darkness shall cover the earth,” we will not succeed with the ordinary service of the intellect. We need to awaken the special power of the yechidah within the soul, the power of mesirus nefesh—a deep power that is revealed in a Jew specifically in a time of darkness. And this power is called standing firm: standing steadfastly, the eisan within the soul, the power of unwavering strength. Avraham Avinu is called eisan, “steadfast,” because he stood firm against the entire world. When the whole world was full of darkness, the entire world was on one side and Avraham on the other. Avraham Avinu is called eisan in the Midrash, in the Rambam, and in several places, because he was “Eisan HaEzrachi.” With his steadfastness and strength, the strength of mesirus nefesh, he stood against the entire world—the entire world on one side and Avraham on the other—and proclaimed the whole truth, the whole faith, the complete purity of the cruse of pure oil. And that is essentially what happened on Chanukah as well. At a time when “darkness shall cover the earth,” the Chashmonaim—Mattisyahu and his sons, Yochanan the Kohen Gadol, Yehudah HaMaccabee—were the ones who stood firm with the strength of mesirus nefesh. And that is precisely what brought about the great miracle of Chanukah: they found the cruse of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. What does that mean? What does the story of a cruse of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol symbolize? The power of mesirus nefesh, the pure faith within a Jew. According to Kabbalah, oil symbolizes wisdom. Oil is a liquid that floats above all other liquids. Oil is the essence extracted from something, and it rises above everything else. That is, essentially, the power of chochmah, the power of the intellect. But here it is not just a cruse of oil; it is a cruse of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. What this means within a Jew—in his inner life, in his soul—is the power of faith and mesirus nefesh found in the chochmah of the soul. The Alter Rebbe speaks about this in Tanya.

17:09 The Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya that the Gemara says, “A person does not commit a sin unless a spirit of folly enters him.” In everything a Jew does, the mind must rule over the heart. As we said, the intellect is what leads him to conduct himself in the healthy, proper way a Jew wants to conduct himself: for the G-dly soul to prevail over the animal soul and overcome it. But when there is folly, a spirit of folly, there is the spirit of impurity, of kelipah and the sitra achra, which comes to conceal the truth, confuse us, and make us forget Your Torah. Then, the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, the chochmah of the soul awakens within a Jew. The chochmah of the soul is its innermost point. Koach mah—what is chochmah? The power of self-nullification, the power of faith, the power of self-sacrifice. We see that precisely at moments when one faces a test of sanctifying Hashem’s name, at moments of darkness, as happened at Chanukah, a Jew awakens his steadfastness within himself. This is what we say in the prayer: “And You, in Your abundant mercy, stood by them”—just as the Jew stands up. It is a firm stance, a stance of self-sacrifice. Standing, not sitting. He does not narrow his thinking. On the contrary, he stands tall, elevates himself, and elevates his intellect too, to a place beyond intellect. He raises his intellect to a place of pure faith, of genuine, steadfast self-sacrifice. He stands firm. Precisely when a Jew takes a stand in a time of trouble, in a time of exile, although his intellect presents all kinds of calculations—he says, “We are few, they are many; we are weak, they are strong. How can we possibly do it?”—when the power of faith and the steadfastness of self-sacrifice awaken within a Jew, all those calculations fall away. That is the story of the Chashmonaim. It is the story of the Maccabees, and it is our story today as well. When a Jew stands steadfast, taking a firm stand with self-sacrifice, then Above as well, so to speak, “And You,

19:17 in Your abundant mercy”—the abundant mercy of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that infinite mercy, is revealed, bringing about “You stood.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, stands up. He does not sit. Standing means that Above, too, so to speak, He rises beyond intellect, beyond calculations: Do we deserve it or not? What about us, our conduct? Hakadosh Boruch Hu rises, so to speak, above all calculations. In “You stood,” His strength is revealed, His essential love, the powerful love Hakadosh Boruch Hu has for every Jew. And then: “You stood by them precisely in their time of trouble.” That is why we say it here. It is not at all times; it is precisely in their time of trouble. Then the power of standing firm Above is aroused, the power of strength and self-sacrifice. This awakens Above that essential power of standing firm: Hakadosh Boruch Hu arouses the infinite love of “I have loved you, says Hashem,” even when “Is Esav not Yaakov’s brother?”—“Yet I have hated Esav, and I have loved Yaakov.” And Hakadosh Boruch Hu bestows every good thing upon every Jew. This is what we say: “You stood by them in their time of trouble; You fought their fight, judged their case, avenged their wrong; You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few.” This is, in fact, the great miracle we witness in every generation, and we will merit to see it this Chanukah as well. More than thirty years ago, I had the privilege of being sent by the Rebbe to Australia with a group of bochurim. This was in 5750, 1990. As yeshivah students, we were part of an arrangement in which the Rebbe would send a group of bochurim from the yeshivos where we studied near the Rebbe. We would travel for two years to strengthen Jewish life and the yeshivah in Australia. We studied in Melbourne, Australia. During those two years, our role was to learn, to teach, to give Torah classes, to strengthen the Jewish communities in Australia, and so on. I remember that it was an extremely difficult period in Australia in several respects. There was

21:32 an economic crisis at the time. There were also several other unpleasant things that happened in the community—various difficult events, the opposite of blessing. Then Chanukah arrived. In Australia, Chanukah falls in the middle of summer. That year was 5751, if I’m not mistaken—yes, something like that—5751, 1990–91. That Chanukah they held what they called the “satellite” broadcast. It was the first time Chanukah candles were lit simultaneously in several places around the world. The Rebbe was at 770, where they lit the candles at the Chabad world headquarters. At the same time, there were several other central locations around the world. One was Moscow, which was extraordinary. It was the beginning of the fall of the Communist regime, and seeing Jews in Moscow lighting Chanukah candles was revolutionary. There was France, near the Eiffel Tower, and Australia as well. We were there with the community, in the Chabad shul in Melbourne, Australia. I remember the tremendous excitement as though it were today. For us, it was before dawn because of the time difference. It was afternoon in America, which worked out to around four or five in the morning in Australia. The whole community was there, hundreds of people. Everyone had come to see this wonderful sight live: the Rebbe at 770, the candles being lit there, and the Rebbe about to speak to the children. It was primarily for Tzivos Hashem, for Jewish children. The Rebbe would give sichos, niggunim would be sung, and at the same time we would see the menorah-lighting ceremonies at all those places around the world. Of course, we also saw the Chanukah menorah being lit at the Western Wall simultaneously. It was something truly wonderful, deeply moving, immense. But I remember that when it came time to sing one of the Chanukah songs after the candle lighting, the video kept switching

24:02 from America to France, to Russia, to Australia, and to the holy city of Jerusalem. That was what we kept seeing. Every few minutes they showed a different place, and the Rebbe was also standing and watching it all. At certain moments we saw the Rebbe encouraging the singing. I remember as though it were today: suddenly, the community in Australia appeared on the screen, there in the shul, singing. The Rebbe stood watching our community on the screen. Suddenly the Rebbe began moving his hands with great vigor, with energetic movements of his whole body, encouraging the joy and dancing. For those few minutes, there was immense, overwhelming joy. That joy, those movements as the Rebbe raised his hands again and again—I remember how they lifted the entire community. Not only physically, with everyone jumping and dancing, but quite literally, as the verse says, “He raises the poor from the dust; He lifts the needy from the refuse heap.” It felt as though the Rebbe, with that joy and those movements of his hands, was lifting the whole community out of the difficult moments it had been experiencing. He raised us to a higher place, brought us to moments of uplift and joy: with Hashem’s help, everything would be all right. We had confidence and hope, and with Hashem’s help, we would yet see the light and see that it was good. Those were truly wonderful moments. A few weeks later, I also remember that the Rebbe wrote a letter to Australia’s head shliach at the time, Rabbi Groner a"h. The Rebbe wrote that he should remember the teaching of our Rebbeim: “Think good, and it will be good.” When we work on our trust in Hashem, we will also see the good openly in the community. And that is what I want to wish and bless each and every one of us, beginning with the community in Australia—in Sydney and Melbourne, everywhere—and from there

26:18 to every place in the world, every country and every people, because we all need this blessing: to stand firm, not to be shaken or despair, and not to fall, G-d forbid, into any thoughts of bitterness or sadness. On the contrary, we should learn from the story of Chanukah: just as it was in those days, so it will be in our time. Despite what our intellect tells us, we must take heart. Today we need to stand up, rise above intellect, and reveal the power of yechidah within us, the power of faith within us, the power of self-sacrifice. “And You, in Your abundant mercy, stood by them in their time of trouble.” Then we will see how You fight our fight, judge our case, and avenge the wrongs done to us by all the enemies of the Jewish people. We will see openly how Hakadosh Boruch Hu will also fulfill “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure.” Then we will merit to see “and they kindled lights in Your holy courtyards,” and the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach. Amen, may it be His will. Happy Chanukah, and joy throughout the entire year.