How Judaism Almost Destroyed Itself - Voluntarily

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Shais Taub’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

That is the definition of evil. They understood exactly what it was and they chose to oppose it. The spiritual victory is there was an incredibly powerful popular movement that was so embraced by the entire world at that time that Jewish people almost voluntarily spiritually destroyed themselves. Sounds pretty scary, huh? Might even sound familiar. There was a threat to eradicate Judaism by taking over the eradicate Judaism by taking over the Jewish mind in a very subtle, very gentlemanly way where the Jewish people themselves would invite it and feel that they were still Jewish while it was happening. In other words, from a military strategy point of view, there was absolutely nothing advantageous, perhaps you would even call it a waste of time to ritually defile the oil. It's not like stealing the enemy's fuel or even to destroy the enemy's fuel. This even to destroy the enemy's fuel. This is ritually defiling it, which practically doesn't really accomplish anything. The only damage is spiritual damage. And the deba says in the name of his father-in-law, yes, that was precisely the point. They were trying to inflict spiritual damage. They were fighting a spiritual war. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were not just fighting a material war. They were fighting also a spiritual war. The helanizers originally had no desire, I say originally because eventually things did come to um eventually things did come to um military conflict, but originally the helanizers had no desire to physically harm the Jews. that was not part of their agenda. They were helenizing. They were making the entire world culturally Greek, which was a pretty liberal approach. Um, meaning to say the Hellenists didn't really eradicate local cultures as long as you could sort of integrate your local culture with theirs. They weren't very particular

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1. 0:00That is the definition of evil. They understood exactly what it was and they chose to…
2. 1:02even to destroy the enemy's fuel. This is ritually defiling it, which practically doesn't really accomplish…
3. 2:34it when we pray every day in Kaneka. We say it when we eat a meal.…
4. 4:09something. Okay, I get it. That's that's what you're doing. Um you know, hook him is…
5. 5:44would be sympathetic to their approach to secularize Judaism because you're such smart people should you…
6. 7:17and has its thinkers and legal philosophers that try to come up with good rules, but…
7. 8:51Helenists you know they they they enjoyed having different types of cultures under their banner and…
8. 10:23that the other two categories of mitzvah other than hookim what I called before the mishbotim…
9. 11:56rather because that is what God Almighty has deemed to be the truth in his infinite…
10. 13:31crazy agenda to somehow accomplish that there would be a Torah observant Jewish community under their…

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