0590 - Was Chanukah a Time of Shmad - Kohanecha Hakedoshim

00:01 In the fabringen of Shabbos Parshas Meketz, Shabbos Chanukah Tov Shin Chavdalet, the Rebbe asked the kasha. Why do we mention in Haneres Halolu that the miracles by Chanukah happened al yedei kohenecho hagdeshim through your holy kohanim? What difference does it make through whom the miracle happened? Why do we have to mention kohenecho hagdeshim? And the Rebbe said this is to answer a kasha. According to the Rambam who holds that we know that only by the three major averes, avida, zor, gilarais, veshichez domim, idol worship, and murder, and adultery, you have to give up your life. If someone forces you to do it, you have to rather die than do it. By all other averes, it's yaver v'al yechorek. You could be aver, you could do the aver and not let yourself get killed. So other poskim hold that if you are a mahadeve mitzvah, you could allow yourself to die in order not to be aver any other avera, but the Rambam holds you're not allowed to. And therefore, the Rebbe asked the shaila, how were they in the time of Chanukah allowed to be mesanefesh according to the Rambam? Since by Chanukah we know that the gezeira was mainly on three averes, which means they wanted them to do three averes, which is the rosh teyveh, someyach, shin mem ches, which is Shabbos, milah, and chedesh. But it's not one of those three. So according to the Rambam, they were not allowed to be mesanefesh. So that's why the Rebbe said the Rambam himself

01:25 holds that an adam choshuv, a special person, that people learn from him, even the Rambam agrees that he's allowed to be mesanefesh on other averes which are not one of the three major ones. That's why we say ayidei keanecha hagdeshim, that the miracle of Chanukah which came through mesires nefesh happened through the keanim hagdeshim, because they were allowed to go mesires nefesh even though it wasn't from the three averes. After the habringen, the Rebbe was asked a question by the chezrim that l'chura, this din that by other averes the Rambam holds you're not allowed to be mesanefesh, that's not shas ashmat. That's not a time when the goyim are forcing you to do an avera bedavki because they want you to go against your religion. That's only if they want to do it for their own pleasure. The goy wants you mechala Shabbos because he wants something cooked and he wants you to cook. Then you don't have to go mesires nefesh, and according to the Rambam you're not allowed to. But if a goy does it bedavki tzulochas, means in spite he wants you to go against your religion, then you have to go mesires nefesh by any avera, even by arkes and the mesana. Even if there's, they want to force you to go against the minhag of what color shul a yid used to have, you should go like a goy, you also have to go mesires nefesh. And by Chanukah it seems it was like that. And the Rebbe answered that

02:37 by Chanukah it not necessarily falls into that category, because it seems from the loshen of the Rambam beginning of Hilchas Chanukah that when they forced the Yidden to go against their religion, it wasn't because they wanted them to go against the Emunah. It was because they wanted to hurt the Yidden. And they knew that to hurt the Yidden, the worst thing to do for them to hurt them is to make them go against the Torah. That's why they did it. But it wasn't bekvonah like going against Yidden. The Rebbe's medalik in the loshen that when the Rambam says this din in Hilchas Yesodei HaTorah, Pelek Heh Halacha Gimel, that if the guy wants, the goy wants you to go against your religion, you have to go mesires nefesh. He says the loshen that yigzer gezeira livatal dosim. They'll make a gezeira decree to nullify, to destroy your reli- their religion. But in Hilchas Chanukah it says, gozer gezeiras ubital dosim. They make gezeiras and they're mevatal their das. But it wasn't the gezeira was not in order to be mevatal das, but there's another thing. In other words, it was as part of their wanting to hurt the Yidden. Now the same sicha that's printed in Likutei Sichos is printed in Cheilik Lamed Heh Parshas Vayeshev. There the Rebbe has the same shaila, and there the Rebbe seems to be saying that for sure in the time of Chanukah it falls under the category of arkes and the mesana that's like shas ashmat, that you

03:54 have to go mesires nefesh. But the kasha is a little different. Even though you have to go mesires nefesh even by other averes, but does that mean you're allowed to go to fight and put yourself in danger? If they force you to do it, you have to do it. But how could they go ahead and fight when derech hateva they would lose the war and they would all die? And that the answer is, ki anecha hagdeshim, they're allowed to even do that. So here the Rebbe seems to be saying that in the time of Chanukah was shas hagzeira, and it was like arkes and mesana that you have to go mesires nefesh for everything. So it seems there are two ways to learn. One way to learn is by Chanukah it wasn't shas ashmat, it wasn't arkes and the mesana, and the whole reason they wanted them to go against the religion is because that's the way they felt they're gonna hurt the Yidden. That's one way to learn. And another way to learn is that it was arkes and the mesana. Now there's two ways we can learn the whole thing. So when the Rebbe by fabringen said it, he went with the svora that this was not shas hagzeira, and in Likutei Sichos he goes with the svora that it is shas hagzeira. But the answer to the kasha, why it says ayidechi anecha hagdeshim, is the same in both. Whether the kasha was how could they go mesires nefesh, or the kasha

04:59 was how could they go out to fight in a war, the answer is that since they were special people, even according to the Rambam, in all situations they were allowed to go mesires nefesh and allowed to go out to fight a war even though they're putting their life on the line.