The Maccabees were victorious in
their battle against the Greeks. Not
only did they manage to drive out the oppressive regime, but they were able to
awaken a Jewish cultural revival. Their
brethren rededicated themselves to traditional practice and there was a general
feeling of both physical and spiritual tranquillity in the Land of Israel.
But, alas, it was not to last. The patriarch of the Chanukah story,
Matisyahu, had a grandson by the name of Yochanan, who inherited the High
Priesthood. A devout Jew and a dedicated
leader of our people, he was one of the longest-serving High Priests. Sadly, however, towards the end of his life,
his religious observance took a nosedive.
What began with a little curious exploration ended with our beloved
leader becoming lax in attitude and behaviour towards traditional Torah Judaism
(Imrei Noam).
Do not believe in yourself until
the day you die. For the High Priest
Yochanan served as Kohen Gadol (High Priest) for eighty years, and in the end,
he became a Sadducee (heretic).
The Ohr Yechezkel explains how it
is possible to stray after years of righteousness. Most people believe that once a person has
habituated themselves to a life of Torah and mitzvos and is secure in their
observance, they can sit back and take things easy. Now that their course is set, they can switch
on cruise control for the rest of their lives.
That’s not the case. As long as
an individual is on this Earth, there are two paths before him. The freedom to choose is a lifelong gift from
Above.
In many ways, the path of tradition
becomes the more natural, obvious choice.
After all, for an individual who has established himself and his
household in a certain way of life, it would be disruptive to the entire family
to reconsider the options. Nevertheless,
the options are always there. And free
choice must always exist in equilibrium, which means that as easy as it may
feel to continue along a certain path, the temptation to experiment with the alternatives
must be equally viable.
The simpler it might feel to avoid
rocking the boat and to sail smoothly down the river you chose decades earlier,
the more on guard you must be for dangerous undercurrents lurking beneath the
surface. The yetzer hara (inner tempter)
is always looking for ways to keep those two paths equal. Sometimes he tries convincing you that, at
this stage of your life, the children have all grown up and are leading the
lifestyle you chose for them. What harm then could there be in you doing your
own thing?
Or he tries to boredom
approach. If you’re wondering why you’re
feeling uninspired and tired of religious practice, it’s the power of the
tempter endeavouring to dampen your lifelong love of Judaism. It’s perfectly normal to feel bored with your
Judaism after doing the same thing for years and years. The challenge is to find ways to constantly
reinspire yourself, by discovering new Jewish texts to explore, and by never
resting on your laurels with regards to Jewish knowledge and practice.
Judaism is like walking up a
mountain on skis. If you stop climbing
for a moment, you will start to slide backwards. There’s no stopping to rest. If you’re not moving forwards, you’ll quickly
start reversing.
A simple demonstration of the truth
of this idea is the concept of Torah knowledge.
Think about something you learned last week. Hopefully, it’s still pretty clear in your
mind. Now, think about something you
learned ten years ago. Not very clear,
right? With each passing day, you’re
gradually forgetting what you learned in the past. And so every day you fail to advance your
Jewish knowledge, it’s regressing. If
you haven’t learned a new pearl of Torah wisdom today, you haven’t remained static
in your Judaism, you’ve inevitably slipped backwards down the spiritual
mountain.
That might not hurt so much when it
happens for a day or two, or even a week or two, but if you continue in that
mode for weeks, months, and years on end, the consequences can be
devastating. When you think about it
like that, it’s no wonder you’re starting to feel distant from, and uninspired
by, your Judaism. It will inevitably
begin to dry up and feel stale when we don’t engage with it in any serious way
for a considerable period of time.
Yochanan wasn’t a bad person. He merely fell into the trap of doing Judaism
by rote. That’s what happens after years
of doing the same ‘old’ Temple service day-in day-out. After a while, even the most righteous
individual is guaranteed to get tired and grow bored of what they’re
doing. It doesn’t take any effort to
become a heretic, it just eventually happens, when you allow your Judaism to
slide backwards for a long enough period of time.
It takes a lot of effort to constantly
seek new, fresh and exciting aspects of Judaism to discover. But as long as you’re here on Earth, it means
that the Almighty is challenging you and wants you to challenge yourself. May you never stop growing in your
Judaism!
No comments:
Post a Comment