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December 19, 1954

Annual Chanukah and Installation Banquet (1954)

Chanukah Faith Yeshiva University Kehillat Kodimoh Biographical Material
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Speech

Annual Y.U. Hanukkah Dinner (1992)

I am delighted to greet the President of Israel, Chaim Herzog, an old and distinguished friend, in a triple capacity: as the President of Israel – a country in which over 10% of our undergraduate alumni have settled and now call “home,” and where we send some 300 or more students every year to spend a year or two in study – as an honorary doctoral alumnus of Y.U. – and as a role model for our students, a man who has had the finest education in two worlds – the world of the university and the world of the yeshivot, where he studied at Yeshivat Chevron as well as at the feet of his late, famed father, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog. We appreciate your friendship in making this special trip and wish you well on your return journey this evening – בואכם לשלום וצאתכם לשלום. Hanukkah, like everything else in life, is open to a variety of interpretations, and to an even greater variety of misinterpretations. The event has been taken to signify a purely secular nationalist struggle – and the celebration of a supernatural miracle; the political assertion of freedom of religion – and the revolt against Hellenism, the then-contemporary form of assimilation. But whatever one’s inclination in historical exegesis, one thing is clear: the Hasmoneans (or Maccabees) were fighting for something beyond themselves. Their success consisted not in appealing to self-interest, but in rallying people to a higher cause – which made their self-interest meaningful and tenable. There is nothing quite so unrealistic and impractical as the cynical and smug assumption that people are interested only in their status and stomachs. But what was the overall and overarching cause for which our Hasmonean ancestors were willing to sacrifice their very lives, for which they revolted against the Greek-Syrian oppressors, and which we celebrate on this night of Hanukkah? The key lies in the special addition to our regular prayers during this happy festival, the Al HaNissim prayer. The oppressors had one priority:…
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Speech at Chanukkah Banquet (1977)

Perhaps the historic act of Chanukkah itself offers the best paradigm of the relationship of our lay leadership to our educational mission. חנוכה = rededication בהמ"ק. Several sacred items foremost: מנורה, ארון, מזבח. Symbols: מנורה = beauty, esthetics, secular studies יפיפיתו של יפת, Aron = Torah scholarship – our true essence... מזבח = service... esp. "service of the heart" which = prayer, and synagogue. Indeed, the Hasmonean victory was marked by חנוכת המזבח ... Hence, the importance in our Temple of Torah and learning of the services – hard, loyal, arduous, often sacrificial – of all you who are part of our communal family, and especially of those who have been called to leadership.I should like to offer warm public welcome to those who have recently joined our various Boards as Trustees: .....
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Speech

Yeshiva University 70th Annual Hanukkah Dinner (1994)

I have often wondered: Why is there such an elaborate festival of Hanukkah to commemorate the re-dedication Temple in Jerusalem, yet nothing to celebrate its original construction? Why eight full days for rebuilding and not a single day for the original building by King Solomon? I suggest that the answer is this: re-doing is far more arduous than doing; it elicits less inspiration, there is no drama, almost no thrill, and a painful absence of applauding audiences and cheering crowds. The Rabbis of the Talmud put it succinctly: קשה עתיקא מחדתא — the old is more difficult than the new.But it is precisely because it is so much more thankless, because it appears so much less rewarding, that it is considered as or more important, and hence more praiseworthy, than the original doing. Because the Macabbean effort at rededicating the Temple was less dramatic and impressive than Solomon's initial construction that we remember Hanukkah annually to the accompaniment of candles and song, prayer and pomp.That is, at core, the message of renewal, although it is also called by a variety of other names, all of which essentially boil down to the same thing —reinventing, recreating, remaking, restoring, reprioritizing, rebuilding.Voltaire (in his Philosophical Dictionary) partially recognized the truth of this idea when he wrote:Men who are occupied with the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exercise of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.Although I thank Monsieur Voltaire on behalf of our Albert Einstein College of Medicine for his accolade for physicians, I say that he was only "partially right" because it holds true not only for medicine but, as well, for a host of other disciplines which help mankind in its quest for renewal. Moreover, it is not only "almost as noble as to create" but, I submit, more noble.That is what Hanukkah teaches us: to recognize …
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