Reprinted from 2004
EVERYDAY MACCABEES
A reminder from our Spiritual Leader who will never stop teaching and inspiring us. ״לצז״
The holiday of Chanukah means different things to different people. Most of all, however, it is a celebration of the mitzvah of kiddush Ha-Shem, the sanctification of God’s name. The foremost expression of the sanctification of God’s name is the willingness to die, if necessary, to affirm the supremacy of God in the world and His everlasting covenant with the Jewish people. Thus, Judah Maccabee and his followers put their very lives on the line in order to preserve the right to teach and practice their religious tenets. Multitudes of Jews were killed in the battle against Syrian tyranny. Perhaps the most moving tale of all concerns Hannah and her seven sons all of whom endured martyrdom rather than acquiesce in the idolatrous practices of the enemy.
Most of us, thank God, are not called upon to give our lives for our faith in the manner of the ancient Maccabees. The mitzvah of kiddush Ha Shem, nevertheless, can be observed in other ways. Heroism is not restricted to those exceptional situations in which one is called upon to make the supreme sacrifice for the sake of your beliefs. There is a heroism that can be manifested in the ordinary moments of life through only one’s daily conduct, relationships with others, business dealings, way of speaking, and personal values. If total devotion to God permeates all these areas, no matter how otherwise prosaic the circumstances of your life may be, you have achieved the essence of kiddush Ha-Shem.
According to Maimonides, one of the prerequisites for the expression of kiddush Ha-Shem in our daily lives is to reach the level of avodah me-ahava, i.e., serving God out of love rather than the desire to gain a reward or to avoid punishment. If you think this is easy, just imagine how many people would go through red lights, lie, steal, and even kill if they weren’t afraid of punishment. To do the right thing, just because it’s right, without consideration of reward or punishment, represents an extraordinarily high level of virtue. Similarly, a person sanctifies God’s name when he no longer depends on reward and punishment to motivate his observance. The reward of the mitzvah becomes the mitzvah itself.
This also gives rise to simcha shel mitzvah, the joy of performing a religious act when your mind concentrates on that act and nothing but its innate religious value. An individual also sanctifies God when he performs regularly lifnim mishurat hadin, beyond the requirements of the law; that is, instead of doing only the minimum obligation, he strives to do more. That is an approach toward life which certainly runs contrary to the prevailing mores which prescribe that a person should do as little as he can get away with at work, at home, and in the domain of charity.
The most important dividend of practicing kiddush Ha-Shem is that we not only demonstrate love of God in what we do, but also make God beloved to others. There is a contagious quality to the mode of life practiced by those whose behavior bears witness to their personal religious commitment. The exemplary nature of what they do inspires others to aim for similar standards that elevate and exalt our status as human beings.
Hopefully, we will never be called upon to perform an act of martyrdom as an expression of kiddush Hashem in the manner of the generation of Judah Maccabee. It is, however, the great genius of Judaism to enable the average Jew to develop the capacity for sanctifying God’s name in everything we do each day of our lives. We honor the Maccabees for their exceptional and unusual passion for God which kept alive the Jewish people at a most trying moment in our history; but equally important, we must pay honor to the myriad of Jews, past and present, in good times as well as bad, whose daily heroism in living lives of kiddush Hashem, have made us a special people entitled to be called “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Happy Chanukah!
Dr. Rabbi Alvin Kass