Oh, Brother!

The sedras of Vayeishev, Mikeitz, and Vayigash deal with the friction between Yosef and his brothers and the terrible consequences of their actions.

Hidden beneath the surface of the Chanuka celebration of victories and miracles is a terrible friction between brothers - between the Jews who would accept Greek culture and life as their own and the Jews who remained tenaciously faithful to the Torah and its teachings.

The connection is frightening, for those sedras are the Chanuka sedras - they are read right before, during, and right after Chanuka.

And if the stories of Yosef and his brothers, on the one hand, and Chanuka on the other, weren't enough, take a look at one of the entries from Day-by-Day in Jewish for the 25th of Kislev - Kayin killed Hevel! This is one of two opinions in B'reishit Rabba, but it waves a big red flag at Chanuka and demands to be addressed.

Brothers should not kill each other. They should not hate each other or fight with each other. They shouldn't sell each other into slavery.

They shouldn't, but they do. And we cannot fail to see that besides Kayin and Hevel, the Torah tells us of Avraham and Lot (Avraham refers to them as brothers), Yitzchak and Yishmael, Yaakov and Eisav, Yosef and his brothers.

Don't, by the way, look here for answers to the questions raised. Just think about the topic.

Imagine the Jewish community at the time before Chanuka. There were Jews in favor of assimilating into the Greek society and abandoning active Judaism. There were Jews who went into hiding to teach Torah and keep mitzvot. And there were Jews who did not want to have to hide their Judaism. They are the ones who made theissues public. They are the ones who brought about the Maccabean revolt. A lot of clashes there, without even mentioning the Syrian-Greeks.