A.
As our parasha opens, Ya‘aqov has returned to Eretz Yisra’él where he knows that he must find a way to deal with his brother, ‘Ésav, if he is to live in peace. Well aware both of his brother’s enmity and his destructive capacity, Ya‘aqov prepares for the encounter: First, he splits his camp in half: ויאמר אם יבוא עשו אל המחנה האחת והכהו והי' המחנה הנשאר לפליטה (“And he said, 'If ‘Ésav comes to the one camp and strikes it, the remaining camp [ha-mahane ha-nish’ar] will become a refuge'”; XXXII, 9). He then prays G-d, begging for deliverance for his brother, and prepares a sumptuous gift to bribe him. All of this done, he brings his family across the River Yabboq.
ויותר יעקב לבדו ויאבק איש עמו עד עלות השחר: וירא כי לא יכול לו וגו' (“And Ya‘aqov remained [va-yivvathér] alone, and a man [in actuality a mal’ach] struggled with him until the crack of dawn. And [the mal’ach] saw that he could not best [Ya‘aqov]....”; ibid., 25-26). The words transliterated, the participle nish’ar and the verb va-yivvathér (participle nothar), as we see, can both be translated “remain,” though their roots are quite different, shin-alef-réysh in the first case and yud-tav-réysh in the second. Both appear in our parasha. What is the difference between them, and what can we learn from it?
B.
In a now-famous dërasha delivered to Jewish refugees in London shortly after the Second World War, the Ponovezher rosh yëshiva, Rabbi Yoséf Kahaneman זצ"ל, cried out: “We are notharim!”, going on to explain that he and they had all been slated for immolation, the same as the six million qëdoshim who had perished in the maelstrom, and were spared only bë-hasdei Ha-Shem for His holy purposes. As the qëdoshim died ‘al qiddush Ha-Shem, so must the notharim live ‘al qiddush Ha-Shem.
Rabbi Kahaneman derived this definition of notharim from Rashi’s comment on Leviticus X, 12: וידבר משה אל אהרן ואל אלעזר ואל איתמר בניו הנותרים (“And Moshe spoke to Aharon and to El‘azar and Ithamar, his remaining sons [banav ha-notharim]”), הנותרים מן המיתה מלמד שאף עליהם נקנסה מיתה כו' ותפלת משה בטלה מחצה (“who were notharim from death, teaching that death had been decreed on them, too... and Moshe’s tëfilla had nullified half [the sentence]”; מקורו ביומא פ"ז. עיי"ש). From this, we see that a nothar is a remnant of an original which still partakes of or embodies the essence of the original. Similarly, the term nothar is used of remnants of sacrifices, which are as holy as the original sacrifices had been (cf., e.g., Leviticus II, 3; VI, 9; multa inter alia.)
The distinction between nothar and nish’ar becomes clearer when we contrast the above-cited references with, e.g., Deuteronomy XIX, 20, where we read that false witnesses (‘édim zomëmim) in a capital case are to be put to death, והנשארים ישמעו ויראו ולא יוסיפו לעשות כדבר הרע הזה (“...and those remaining [ha-nish’arim] will hear and see and will not continue to act according to this evil thing”). Here, plainly, those nish’arim are not under the sentence of death; indeed, they are not ‘édim at all, but simply the rest of the crowd who had witnessed the trial and execution.
If we now return to our first verse, we see that this is precisely so: If the first camp was attacked, then ha-mahane ha-nish’ar would clearly not be in the same category, and would be able to escape and serve as a refuge.
Thence we pass to the account of Ya‘aqov’s fight with the mal’ach; we note that Scripture testifies ki lo’ yachol lo, that the mal’ach could not overcome Ya‘aqov. Applying the well known rule of Talmudic logic that מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן, that from a negative statement its positive counterpart can be deduced, we understand that, when the mal’ach began the fight, he thought that he could defeat Ya‘aqov. If so, what changed?
Va-yivvathér Ya‘aqov lë-vaddo... Ya‘aqov reached deep within himself, and drew on the strength of his grandfather Avraham, who was known as Avraham ha-‘Ivri, because he had the strength and moral courage to stand with G-d on one side [‘éver] whilst all the world stood on the other (בראשית רבה פמ"ב סי' י"ג); in short, to be alone; and also on the sanctity of his father Yitzhaq, induced at the ‘aqéda where he became a perfect sacrifice, too holy to leave the Holy Land (Genesis XXVI, 2, Rashi ad loc.). Ya‘aqov, then, was a nothar, imbued with Patriarchal strength.The resulting yitharon (“advantage, abundance” from the same root as nothar) enabled him to frustrate the mal’ach.
C.
We are now in the month of Kislev, in which Hannukka falls, the celebration of the miracle of the single remaining can of pure olive oil, found when the Holy Temple was retaken by the Hashmona’im from Israel’s Greco-Roman oppressors, and which burnt in the mënora for eight days, until such time as fresh oil could be pressed and brought to the Holy Temple. The miracle is, of course, commemorated by kindling lights all eight days.
The Béyth Yoséf asks a famous question concerning this practice: ואיכא למידק למה קבעו ח' ימים דכיון דשמן שבפך הזה בו כדי להדליק לילה א' נמצא שלא נעשה הנס אלא בז' הלילות וגו' (“And one must analyze why [the rabbis] fixed eight days, for since there was enough oil in this can to kindle the mënora for one night, it comes out that the miracle was only performed over seven nights....”; טור או"ח תר"ע ד"ה והטעם).
The Përi Hadash analyzes many proposed answers to this question, and concludes שאין סברא שיקבעו ז' ימים מכ"ו כסליו ואילך ועקר יום הנצחון שנחו מאויביהם שהוא כ"ה לכסליו שלא יקבעוהו לדורו' ואלולי נס של שמן היו קובעין לדורו' יום אחד יו"ט בהלל ובהודא' אלא שבשביל נס פך של שמן קבעו ח' ימים לדורו' (“that it is not a [tenable] theory that the [rabbis] would fix seven days from 26 Kislev onward, when they would not fix the essential day of victory on which they rested from their enemies was 25 Kislev, for [future] generations; had it not been for the miracle of the oil, they would have fixed for the generations a single day, a holiday of praise and thanksgiving, but because of the miracle of the can of oil, they fixed eight days for the generations”).
In other words, the rabbis’ first thought was that the date of the miraculous victory over the far more numerous, better trained, and better equipped Seleucid forces be established as a holiday, but when they beheld the miracle which followed immediately thereon, they were moved to include those days, too. This thesis has much to commend it, not least that the ‘Al ha-Nissim recited during Hannukka appears to focus entirely on the victory, when רבת את ריבם דנת את דינם נקמת את נקמתם מסרת גבורים ביד חלשים ורבים ביד מעטים וגו' (“You fought their fight, You judged their judgment, You avenged their vengeance, You handed over the mighty into the hand of the weak, and the many into the hand of the few”). However, if we grant this thesis, another question presents itself: We kindle lights on Hannukka in memory of the miracle of the oil (indeed, the prevailing custom is to burn olive oil); why did the rabbis decide to establish a light in commemoration of the victory?
The clue, it seems to me, is also to be found in the ‘Al ha-Nissim, which tells us that the Hashmona’im embarked on the conflict כשעמדה מלכות יון הרשעה על עמך ישראל להשכיחם תורתך ולהעבירם מחקי רצונך (“when the evil Greek kingdom stood against Your people Israel to maker them forget Your Torah and distance them from the laws of Your will”).
The Jewish people had no quarrel with the Greek government per se; there had been no similar revolt against the regime of the Medio-Persians whom the Greeks had conquered and supplanted, nor against their Babylonian predecessors; it was when the Greeks attempted to impose their culture on Israel, to wrest the Jews from their sacred heritage, that the flag of revolt was raised, and success remembered with a light, כי נר מצוה ותורה אור (“for a mitzva is a lamp, and Torah, light”; Proverbs VI, 23).
Torah is also compared to pure olive oil (עיי' למשל דברים רבה פ"ז סי' ג' ושיר השירים רבה פ"א סי' י"ט), the fuel which produces a clear, clean light; so an olive-oil lamp is the ideal remembrance of this victory in the cause of Torah.
D.
The Shla”h ha-qadosh writes (פרשת וישב שצ"ז.) that there is an organic connection between the parashoth and the seasons in which they are read. It is in this comparison of Torah and olive oil, I believe, that the link between our parasha and the season may be found.
If we examine the penultimate verse of Ma‘oz Tzur, sung after kindling the Hannukka lights, we find: הו יונים נקבצו עלי/אזי בימי חשמונאים/ופרצו את חומות מגדלי/וטמאו את כל השמנים/ומנותר קנקנים/ נעשה נס לשושנים/בני בינה ימי שמונה/ קבעו שיר ורננים (“O, Greeks gathered against me/Then, in the days of the Hashmona’im/And breached the walls of my towers/and defiled all the oil/And from the nothar of the cans/Was made a miracle for the Shoshanim/Sons of discernment fixed eight days/of song and rejoicing”).
It has been this quality of notharuth (if I may be so bold as to coin a word), of being a surviving remnant of Patriarchal strength and sanctity with which Ya‘aqov imbued his children, and they their children, until this very day, which enables Israel, through all the generations, to endure and stand tall for Torah, כשושנה בין החוחים (“Like a lily [shoshana] amongst the thorns”; Song of Songs II, 2), which Rashi explains to mean חוחים שמנקבין אותה ותמיד היא עומדת בנוי' ואדנינותה (“Thorns which pierce her, and yet she always stands in her splendor and color”).
Because we, like our father Ya‘aqov, are notharim.
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