Musings Of A Shliach From Montana
Back when I was a kid, I used to collect many books in Yiddish, including an old orange paperback called, “Dee Neis Fun Chanukah,” the miracle of Chanukah. I believe the book was printed by Satmar many decades ago. I don’t really like the author equating Zionists with the Syrian Greeks, an inaccurate statement, but it does give a thorough overview of the Chanukah story.
In addition to our menorah at the Bozeman Airport and our annual Chanukah Bash which welcomed over 120 Jews to our shul, we had three public menorah lightings, one with Governor Greg and First Lady Susan Gianforte, Bozeman Mayor Terry Cunningham, and State Senator-Elect Cora Neumann in downtown Bozeman, one at Livingston’s Train Depot with U.S. Congressman-elect Troy Downing, and a third at the Montage Big Sky Hotel. When deliberating what message to share at this year’s menorah lightings, I thought about my book and proceeded to read it during Shabbos Chanukah.
Sometimes, the most powerful insights are also the most basic aspects of the story that seem to go unnoticed.
The story of Chanukah is so often about Yehuda the Maccabee, Yehudis, and Holofernes, and Chana and her seven sons, and Matisyahu is only mentioned in passing. Though he is mentioned in the Al Hanisim prayer, his heroism seems to get lost. So, I chose to speak about Matisyahu, a father who raised five sons, Yonasan, Yochanan, Shimon, Yehuda, and Elazar, and a daughter named Chana. Raising them to have backbone, resolve, and believe in their right to be Jewish and fight for it was not a given in those days with the severe occupation, but Matisyahu accomplished it. By the time the Syrian Greeks arrived in Modi’in, about twenty miles from Yerushalayim, they had already conquered Judea and Jerusalem, placing altars for Zeus wherever they could, placing a pig on the altar of the Beis HaMikdash, and they believed that Modi’in would be a piece of cake.
Then they met Matisyahu, a father and a leader with unshakable values. He inspired the counterattack on the Syrian Greeks and challenged the Jews who had joined with the Greeks. He killed one of the assimilated Jews in his town the same way Pinchas killed Zimri in Sefer Bamidbar because the assimilated Jew had the audacity, the utter chutzpah, to sacrifice an offering to a Greek god on an altar in Modi’in. Matisyahu trained and educated his sons and daughter well, and the results are not just the survival of Jewry, not just the idea of fighting for religious freedom, but possibly the idea that without this Maccabee victory, the entire world would have remained pagan. Christianity, Islam, and other religions wouldn’t come to be, as G-d’s word would have been eradicated from the world, chas v’shalom. So really all people of faith should be celebrating Chanukah and lighting a menorah.
My message to those gathered is to be like Matisyahu. Don’t follow the masses, don’t give up on your children because your way of life is not the norm in society. Celebrate Torah and mitzvos, educate your children to be strong Jews with a healthy Jewish identity, and don’t just light the menorah, be a menorah.
I think about that a lot. Because not a day goes by for me when I don’t think about my parents. Especially around the time of my mom’s yahrzeit. This year her fourteenth yahrzeit falls on the 7th of Teves. I think about how valuable parents can be in instilling systems of faith, ethics, and life guidance in their children. So, I often ask myself: “What would my mother say?” “Would she approve of this or that?” She passed away at the age of 54 when I was only 29, but she was an amazing mom with whom I spoke every single day from the day I left for yeshiva until the day she lost consciousness before her untimely passing.
Last Shabbos, I was telling those gathered at our Shabbos table about how much I miss my mom and cry a lot when I hear songs about mothers. I mentioned that, sadly, many of the songs are sung by women singers and I don’t listen to kol isha, so I don’t get to hear many of them. So, Ben (one of the young adults at the table) shared that a country singer he likes has a song about his mom and he sent me a link after Shabbos to this Morgan Wallen song. It’s not an emotional one for me, but there was one part of the song that hit me in a good way. He sings: “That all those prayers you thought you wasted on me must have finally made their way on through.”
My mom not only davened for me; she took such good care of me. She spoke to me, role modeled for me, educated me, believed in me, and loved me with every fiber of her pure being. When I look at all the cards she sent me, when I think back to the things she told me, when I remember her before she fell ill, she was a mother of all mothers, and everyone deserves one like her. It doesn’t mean she didn’t have flaws, every human being does, but her children were her world, and nothing, I mean nothing, could take her away from caring for her kids.
It’s always interesting that her yahrzeit falls out on either Parashas Vayigash or Vayechi, because her absence makes me think about Yosef and Yaakov being separated for twenty-two years yet never stopping to yearn for each other, hoping that one day they would be reunited. Yosef’s emotions when meeting his brothers and then discovering that his father was alive speaks volumes to me and gives me hope that one day I too will hug my mother again, not in Heaven, but here on earth, with the coming of Mashiach. n
Rabbi Chaim Bruk is co-CEO of Chabad Lubavitch of Montana and spiritual leader of The Shul of Bozeman. For comments or to partner in our holy work, e-mail rabbi@jewishmontana.com or visit JewishMontana.com/Donate.
