[Avodah] [Areivim] idf

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 03:50:51PM -0400, Michael Kopinsky wrote:
:> The Jews of first temple days living under Menashe or other kings who
:> worship idols were not living in galus.

: OTOH, you have the example brought by RMB about Galus Yavan, which was while
: we were in EY, and we had the BHMK.

Galus is defined by the Shechinah's exile. Since there were neviim
and nissim geluyim in Menasheh's day, it wasn't galus. But when Tzadoq
haKohein went lifnai velifnim the first YK of bayis sheini, he was in
galus. Galus Madai, to be exact. (Thanks RGD!)

IOW, galus is when there isn't a melekh, kohein gadol with working
choshen, nevu'ah, nissim geluyim, etc... When there is no tangible
presence of a nation led by G-d. Notice it's a "when", not a where.

Chazal used a different conjugation, "golah", to refer to Jewish life
in chu"l.

Since both galus and golah are to be avoided, noting that even those of
us in EY are in galus doesn't play down the importance of the rest of
us to leave the golah.

Rather, it emphasizes the gap between where we are holding -- even those
of us in EY -- and actual ge'ulah.


BTW, on the subject of galus Yavan... one source is Reish Laqish's words
(Bereishis Rabba 2:4), "Sohu" hints at galus Bavel, "vohu" is Madai,
"choshekh" is Yavan and "penei sehom -- zeh galus mamlekhes harsha'ah".

How is galus Yavan most similar to choshekh? "Shehikhshichah einehem shel
Yisrael" through their gezeiros. Thus galus Yavan's link to Chanukah, a
religious battle, rather than one that acheived autonomy, linked to light.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
micha at aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard